Thank you for your replies. Sue has kindly answered some questions on IRC, as well: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2010-10-14
Sue Gardner, 13/10/2010 03:58:
Below are some questions and answers re the targets that might be helpful for the discussion. (Erik wrote most of this, and I've just now added a few bits.) If you read this and there are still issues that you want addressed, please just say so :-)
Is Thomas' interpretation correct?
Thomas Dalton, 12/10/2010 13:37:
This was a concious decision and I believe it is explained in the FAQs or somewhere (Sue certainly mentioned it in at least one of the (many!) presentions I've seen her do about the plan - there are slides for those somewhere too).
The FAQ Sue posted here doesn't answer at all to my question. «The “number of Wikipedia articles” is expected to be useful as an _indicator_ of the overall amount of information we offer»: it just can't.
In summary (from memory), the reason was basically one of "bang for your buck". The vast majority of our users are using Wikipedia and not the other projects,
But this could change. For instance, I think that people spend much more time reading/studying dictionaries and other books than encyclopedias (in whatever form). You can't say what it's possible. As a dictionaries addict, I used to believe (in 2005-2006), for many reasons, that a wiki dictionary wasn't going to be very useful (and I was a Wiktionary admin, I cared about it!); now en.wikt is IMHO better than many traditional English dictionaries, and it could attract most pageviews of its competitors if only people knew it. And I don't see why en, fr and some other Wiktionaries should continue to be the only successful ones. But this is only an example.
which means even a small improvement to Wikipedia is likely to have more impact than even a large improvement to one of the other projects. Sue was very clear that prioritising Wikipedia only applies to the WMF. The community can, and should, continue to improve the other projects, the WMF just feels that its limited resources are better used where they will have more impact.
A very small improvement to Wikipedia may cost much, much more than a huge improvement to projects where we've never invested almost anything. And I could give you a list of examples (from the past) and proposals (for the future), but we would be OT.
John Vandenberg, 11/10/2010 05:20:
I am likewise disappointed. The five year plan _should_ have seen the other projects as the most likely source of new talent, contributors and innovation, and should have focused on developing them.
I want to stress this, again.
Samuel J Klein, 12/10/2010 20:52:
It is good to see discussion of the targets. There is also a final strategic plan document, which is almost finished and which the Board reviewed at our meeting over the weekend. There were small wording changes in the final plan.
This? http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Role_of_the_WMF (Or a later version of it.)
The problems with focusing only on Wikipedia articles were noted. The text of this target in the final strategic plan refers to growth in articles available 'on Wikimedia projects', not just on Wikipedia. This is still only a very rough estimate of growth in meaningfully available knowledge. [1]
The target does not say anything about the growth of Commons, though this shows up elsewhere in strategy discussions. I hope the Commons community will develop its own targets and priorities for growth, of both its collections and its community.
I don't think it's enough.
On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 11:20 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
I am likewise disappointed. The five year plan _should_ have seen the other projects as the most likely source of new talent, contributors and innovation, and should have focused on developing them.
That is how I see the focus on innovation, by the way, including "other users of MediaWiki" along with "the other projects".
Yes, we often overlook the other users of MediaWiki, as well (at least, I do); and actually, it's quite surprising that the long-term proposal of setting up a "MediaWiki Foundation", which has been discussed several times (if I remember correctly), didn't come up on strategywiki. Perhaps it's something to think about for the next five-years plan. :-p
[1] It is worth noting that Wikipedia, thanks to having the preponderance of editors and traffic, is sometimes used as a casual shorthand for the effective size of Wikimedia, even within our community. This is a skewing of focus that requires effort to overcome -- but the effort is worth it, as Wikipedia alone will not fulfill our mission.
That's exactly what I want to underline. Wikipedia isn't enough. And if we focus our efforts only on Wikipedia, we could waste our energies.[1] Therefore, I think that our main measure for the second goal should include all WMF projects. For instance, the number of entries on all projects. (This doesn't include MediaWiki, though.)
Better communication about the sister projects' work and news may help.
This holds true for public discussions as well. I was speaking at a library conference last week, and mentioned Wikisource. A librarian interrupted with enthusiasm, "there's also a Wikisource?" and later had ideas about how to contribute digitizations. Many potential partners in disseminating knowledge may be able to contribute directly to one of our projects, but not the others.
This is a good example. And there are many.
Michael Peel, 10/10/2010 19:54:
In any case, I think one of the major benefits of the strategy exercise was to get Wikimedians considering where Wikimedia should be in 5 years and setting their individual aims accordingly. Getting the WMF Board to recognise those aims is only a secondary consideration, really, as it's the community that drives Wikimedia's success and breadth/depth/etc. of content.
Yes, but I'm also interested in WMF's priorities. :-) And you forgot chapters. ;-)
Nemo
[1] We could reverse Thomas's argument and be even more harsh than he is: Wikipedia is our most developed project (and our main source of income); it can't grow much. Let's use the income from our core product to conquer other (big) markets.