Hi all,
Since WMF is doing a strategy update (with which I'm not involved, but hope
that the community can influence), I'm wondering what others thoughts are
on Wikipedia's strategic opportunities and threats. I ask about this issue
with the following two pieces of info as background.
1. The *Signpost*'s User:Gamaliel
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gamaliel> posted a summary of a *Time*
magazine article about Wikipedia. An abbreviated version of the
*Signpost *summary
is: "*Time <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_%28magazine%29>* profiles
<http://time.com/wikipedia/> (April 14) Lila Tretikov
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_Tretikov>, executive director of
the Wikimedia
Foundation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation>. *Time*
paints a grim picture of the challenges faced by Tretikov and the
encyclopedia, many of which were discussed in a recent *Signpost'*s special
report
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-04-01/In_focus>:
a "meager annual budget", the gender gap
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia>, "critical gaps in
coverage" (such as the Global South
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_South>), the shrinking ranks of
active editors, and the lack of contributions from those who access
Wikipedia content through mobile devices, search engines, and personal
digital assistants
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant>. *Time*
speculates that Wikipedia could contract suddenly, with something similar
to the almost 25% dropoff in active editors on the Italian Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wikipedia> in 2013, or dwindle
gradually, a possibility that Andrew Lih
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lih> (Fuzheado
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado>) compared to "the boiling
frogs <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frogs> scenario".
2. In a "Big Think <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think>" video,
Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Zittrain> talks about "Why
Wikipedia Works Really Well in Practice, Just Not in Theory", and discusses
an idea to deal with Wikipedia's shortage of good-faith editors that a
number of of us have contemplated for a long time: significantly expanding
Wikipedia's population of student editors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxrMq-_JUZM. As a community we are familiar
with student editing gone badly wrong on a large scale (here's the IEP
report, if anyone needs a reminder
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read>),
but perhaps student editing done well on a large scale would be greatly
beneficial to us.
What do others think about how Wikipedia's community health can transform
from threatened to thriving?
Pine
*This is an Encyclopedia* <https://www.wikipedia.org/>
*One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies The deep rock of
our past, in which we must delve The well of our future,The clear water we
must leave untainted for those who come after us,The fertile earth, in
which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands,And the broad
fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not
know.*
*—Catherine Munro*