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*