[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Andreas Kolbe]

> > I agree with that. The first step is to acknowkedge
> that there is a problem.
> > But most people I have read about this topic even deny
> that.
> > So we can't go further until this is accepted.
> > BTW this is also the case on the French Wikipedia, so
> the issue is not
> > restricted
> > to the English Wikipedia.
> 
> 
> Let's assume there's a problem. What's your plan of action?
> How does
> it differ from the usual way of dealing with these issues
> (getting
> interested people together, setting up a wikiproject and
> getting to
> work)?

The problems in this area are 

(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some familiarity with the topic area to be able to contribute effectively 
(2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these areas. 

So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.

As reported in the press, there is an ongoing WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's Public Policy coverage, through collaboration with university professors and their students. It is funded by a $1.2 million Stanton Foundation grant.

http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative
http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/05/11/wikipedia-heads-to-school/

The Foundation has said that it hopes this is only the first of many such collaborations with universities. Now, how do you go about setting a project like this in motion? 

Did the Stanton Foundation offer a grant that was specifically designed to improve this topic area? Or did Wikimedia determine that this was a topic area that needed improvement? A mixture of both? 

What kind of observations or data analyses did the Wikimedia and/or Stanton Foundation use to establish that there was a need in this particular topic area? 

What kind of evidence is needed to establish that there is a similar need and public interest in another topic area?

A.