Hi folks,
I wrote here earlier about the process we're imagining for this project; I'm going to take a minute now to write about the substance of the work. This isn't a direct response to any of the comments made here thus far, but I hope it'll indirectly speak to some of the issues you've brought up.
As always, I would love your input. The goal here is to work towards a small number of sharply-focused highest-priority questions, so we can explore each one deeply, and come up with actionable priorities.
Currently, I'm imagining three major Working Groups, each of which will have various Sub-Groups helping them with specific pieces of their scope. The three Working Groups, I am imagining right now, would focus on Reach, Quality and Participation.
First, let me note that Lennart Guldbrandsson and others have pointed out to me that Participation is itself a sub-set of Quality. I agree: the purpose of participation is to increase quality. (We are here to create good informational/educational materials: we are not here to be a fun club. Although it's essential for people to have some fun, so they will stick around and help :-) Nonetheless, I think encouraging participation is important enough, and difficult enough, to warrant its own Working Group.
1. Reach. Currently our projects reach more than 325 million people around the world every month. That's pretty good, but it means there are still lots of people we're not yet reaching. The goal of the "Reach" Working Group will be to make sure our materials are available to as many people as possible. Some Sub-Group mandates might include:
* How can we reach the people who currently have access to our projects, but don't use them? (For example, our reach among Internet users is lowest in Asia.) * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to people who don't yet have internet access, or who may never have internet access? * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to people whose governments impede access to them? * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to the growing number of people who access the internet only through mobile devices? * How do we ensure our materials are protected and preserved in usable form, so they continue to be available forever?
2. Quality. The quality of information provided by our projects is in general good, and is continually improving. Nonetheless, we need to do everything we can to ensure what we're offering people is consistently excellent. The goal of the "Quality" Working Group will be to make sure our materials are as high-quality as possible. Some Sub-Group mandates might include:
* How can we effectively and scalably work with institutions that control the copyright for educational/informational materials, to encourage them to release those materials under a free license? * How can we effectively and scalably work with academic institutions and other organizations with subject-matter-expertise, to encourage them to help improve the quality of the material we provide? * How can we better prevent editing that hurts quality (e.g., vandalism and malicious edits), and fix it when it occurs? * How can we encourage readers to help us identify poor quality material, and once it is reported, how can we best get it assessed and fixed?
3. Participation. The value in the Wikimedia projects is created entirely by volunteers, who are typically young, educated, intelligent and tech-comfortable. We need to retain those core volunteers, while also reaching out to new participants who can help us sustain and grow our social impact. The goal of the "Participation' Working Group will be to maximize our ability to recruit and retain productive participants. Some Sub-Group mandates might include:
* What can we do to retain, support and encourage the core volunteers who work on the projects today? * How can we encourage the participation of new people who share our values and can make a strong contribution? * How can we make MediaWiki transformatively easier to use, and keep it easy to use? * How can we support participation by people who don't have easy Internet access?
This is a beginning framework for developing strategic priorities. It doesn't address everything, and it does nothing to address a set of subsequent necessary questions -- the ones about how we would measure progress and success, how we would structure ourselves to achieve our priorities, or how we would pay for whatever costs we'll need to incur.
But it's a start -- please jump in :-)
Thanks, Sue