[Foundation-l] Frustration with WMF = WP

[Dominic McDevitt-Parks]

While I am impressed by everyone's ability to turn this into yet another
discussion of the image filter, how about if we don't do that just this
once? :-) This is the blog post that the WMF published regarding the
development: <
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/26/wikipedia-seeks-global-operator-partners-to-enable-free-access/>.
I don't want to single out its author, but I do think you can see the
problem many have complained about for years encapsulated in its opening
lines:

Probably the most repeated words around the Wikimedia movement are Jimmy
> Wales’ “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
> in the sum of all knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” The Wikipedia
> community are the ones creating that world, and the ubiquity of mobile
> internet is what may actually enable it.
>

In fact, the Wikimedia community are doing that, by making free texts
available for all, by writing a dictionary, maintaining a repository of
free media, by writing an encyclopedia, and so on. (I'm not cherry-picking;
anyone who reads the whole post should come away with the idea that
Wikimedia's mobile strategy is really only about Wikipedia.) Wikimedia's
mission is quite clearly not encyclopedia-specific, and its broad scope
actually seems designed to encompass the other works in the Wikimedia
family, and yet when it comes to issues of participation, usability,
MediaWiki development, and the WMF's other top initiatives, only Wikipedia
is ever really treated as mission-critical.

The Foundation expends a lot of energy worrying about stagnating
participation at Wikipedia, which is in the top 10 of all sites for most of
its respective languages, but much less time concerned with whether the
other projects get off the ground at all. A lot of work seems to have been
put into trying to make Wikipedia more user-friendly, all while projects
like Wiktionary and Wikisource hobble along, with incredible technical
barriers to participation, trying to make do with software and an interface
that was never designed with their needs at all. Note that this isn't the
same as saying that Wikipedia gets too much attention. It's perfectly
reasonable that the largest and most well-known project gets a lot of the
attention. But the Foundation often fails to act as if the other projects
are actually essential in fulfilling its mission, and is notoriously bad at
ever characterizing them as essential or trying to make them feel that way.

Dominic

On 2 November 2011 05:19, Billinghurst <billinghurst at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Technology_report
> Wikimedia proposes Wikipedia Zero
>
> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I know that it is the flagship,
> however, it becomes a
> self-fulfilling philosophy that nothing else exists at WMF when _WMF_
> cannot even seem to
> present the whole package.
>
> Think if we expanded our visions and our message
> * Quick and easy dictionary (wiktionary)
> * Read a classic, a history, from science geniuses (Wikisource),
> ** or even download the work! Well only if there were resources provided
> so we could
> explore the Epub extension
> * grab a free lecture (wikiversity)
>
> Different sites, different scopes, different experiences ... synergism of
> knowledge.
>
> Regards, Andrew <- crawling back into his hole, and pulling the rock back
> over the top
>
>
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