Gerard, I think you may be missing the point of the NYT op-ed. The issue isn't data, it's people who will use that data (whether it comes from structured data sets like Wikidata, or from dead-tree or electronic media) to create articles, curate them, maintain them, keep the various wikipedias mostly spam-free, and develop communities around them. We're not lacking in data. We're lacking in human beings and healthy, growing communities.
On the other hand, I'm not entirely certain that Andrew's concerns about the use of smartphones as the primary mode of access is entirely justified. We've known for a long time that many of our editors in Asian countries edit using smartphones, often with a keyboard attached; we've even featured them in videos. But realistically, the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia *readers* have never considered, even for a moment, actively participating in editing - and it has been that way pretty much since at least 2005, and maybe earlier. We can do better, of course, and making it easier to edit on tablets in particular is a worthwhile enterprise (smartphones...well, I'm not even persuaded they're going to exist five years from now in the way that we know them today...)
Risker/Anne
On 22 June 2015 at 13:41, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Magnus pointed the way forward when he started MediaWiki. When you look into the whole stack of his data related tools, you will find how they make aggregating data a whole lot easier and worthwhile. He demonstrated how people on a mobile can be asked to help with "simple" tasks it works well and it continues to work in production (labs willing).
When you are talking micro contributions, every statement in Wikidata is one. It can easily be done from a mobile when the UI is given attention. It is known how to create articles from data. The Swedes, Dutch etc have done it often enough and it brought them more readers and more editors...
Study what we already know. There is nothing new here and the solutions are there to be had. We only have to accept them. I do agree that the old old way of Wikipedia is ultimately a dead end. Thanks, GerardM
On 22 June 2015 at 19:28, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
What we need to figure out is how to allow translation of articles through micro contributions via cellphones.
Maybe send out sentences one by one for translation from one language to another. Just start with the leads of articles that are deemed to be of good quality. Than when the lead is all translated join it back together and add it to that language. This would of course only apply to articles which are non existent in the target language.
Maybe Amir's "content translation" tool could do this eventually https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
Starting July 2015 I am a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation My emails; however, do not represent the official position of the WMF
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