Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia Foundation/2015/Community consultation/Day 1

117.223.179.144

Response by 117.223.179.144

117.223.179.144's thoughts on question 1

Wikipedia is awesome and marvelous. However, it has flaws. Several types of Special Pages are not updated properly.

Gamer

Response by 71.192.72.22

Gamer's thoughts on question 1

GAMING is only going to grow further, so ensuring that all articles related to gaming are unbiased and honest is very important. There are many articles that I can think of right now that do not fit the bill. Science will also be a massive subject. Ensuring that Wikipedia is a top notch source for scientific and mathematical information is extremely important. From what I have seen, the articles relating to math and science are often very good.

Gamer's thoughts on question 2

One that isn't biased and one that caters to the people who will use it. I put extreme emphasis on a lack of bias. As Wikipedia has grown, veteran editors have locked down on all the articles they watch in the desire to ensure that their biases and rhetoric on the matter is displayed without anyone contesting it. Any dissent is quickly obliterated. This is making Wikipedia VERY biased. I am currently disappointed with the state of many of the articles here, as are a large population of other people. Bias MUST be cleaned up. Right now, so long as something is a "reliable source," it can go into an article. This makes it very easy to make an article biased toward a specific side. This is not good and the further it continues, the bigger the hole Wikipedia will dig itself into.

50.205.228.19

Response by 50.205.228.19

50.205.228.19's thoughts on question 2

If you make Wikitexts any good, students will save a fortune on inaccurate outdated textbooks.

If it is okay to add a relpy here, you do not seem concerned about the danger of having 'all your eggs in one basket'. For while textbooks can be "inaccurate" or become "outdated", data can also become outdated, inaccurate or corrupted. Also, think about the last people that did away with/burnt books. That did that 'Solution' led to? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.44.233.123 (talk)

Aldnonymous

Response by Contributions/Aldnonymous

Aldnonymous's thoughts on question 1

Talking as one of the Wikimedian/volunteer I would say respect to local culture, respect to local language as Wikimedia site. As a consumer, I want Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects should improve the educational content, not the trashy libel content that being edited by COI/conflict of interest Editor with certain (political) agendas. This is the problem, I think in future years there will be more people like this. Addition of COI content. (Out of context with the question by the way).--AldNonymous^Bicara? 20:53, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Aldnonymous's thoughts on question 2

A community that respect Neutrality, respect other people POV based on culture, respect to indigenous language, and most of all a community who does not segregate others based on race, culture and genders (it happened, cause some drama). And for WMF it would be WMF who also respect it's communities.--AldNonymous^Bicara? 20:53, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

86.15.108.198

Response by 86.15.108.198

86.15.108.198's thoughts on question 1

Adding to the trends I feel most internet users are not just using mobile but using consoles etc.... not just mobile devices

86.15.108.198's thoughts on question 2

Thriving and healthy wikimedia projects will strive to be more accurate and have a better way of detecting abuse as with 1 billon new users coming online soon they are undoubtedly going to damage wikimedia projects and invent new ways to get around the existing system to prevent vandalism.

72.239.208.94

Response by 72.239.208.94

72.239.208.94's thoughts on question 2

I think that maybe you should check to see if all the information is true!

200.222.1.254

Response by 200.222.1.254

200.222.1.254's thoughts on question 1

Communication in-the-small, a la Twitter, or with shortcuts (emoticons). Shallower reading. Both are favoured by mobiles, because of small screen size, and constant use with limited attention span.

200.222.1.254's thoughts on question 2

Ones that allow editing in-the-small, in the same scale as communication: in addition to page-editing, tools to allow easier changes on small things - a few data items at a time, one paragraph or two at a time, just enough to be easily handled within a mobile's small screen.

Jane023

Response by Jane023

Jane023's thoughts on question 1

I would say that because of mobile, more internet searches are being done on the run, when people are not sitting at their desk. There is a concept of "second screen effect" when page views of certain Wikipedia articles surge during TV broadcasts. This will only continue to occur, even as people start watching less and less TV, but are watching breaking news on their mobile devices. Accessing Wikipedia during a screencast could occur by opening more than one internet "tab" on a mobile device or by actually having two mobile devices accessing the same stories at the same time (phone + tablet, or maybe even 2 people waiting somewhere who start talking and sharing). In the shift towards a society that is online all of the time, I think that print media will become more expensive to make and deliver, making possible sources for Wikipedians scarce. Now the definition of encyclopedia-worthiness is already a bit haphazard and this will only become more difficult to define, especially as the concept of an "encyclopedia" becomes less and less well known by younger generations who have never seen one.

@Jane023:, thanks for the comment. One of my favorite cartoons is a librarian who asked a class of kids if they knew what an encyclopedia was, and one of the children raised his hands to say "Is that like Wikipedia?". I'm fascinated by the concept of the second-screen effect that you point out. I'm going to look around and see if we've got some more research into how Wikipedia plays into this environment. I think it's likely that we're going to see an increasing cost to "dead-tree" publication cost, you're quite right about that - luckily, our standards for references are likely to also adapt. That's the beauty of the wiki - the rules can adapt and change to meet the times.

I think your comments about social are fascinating. What can we do, in your opinion, to encourage that type of social "reading/editing" experience? I'm assuming you think that we should encourage that, in the first place. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:31, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure that we can do anything about this besides what we are already doing in terms of making it easier to edit from handheld devices. That is the bottleneck right now. The problem with editing from handhelds is not just with the difficulties of viewing on a small screen, it is also the problem of local file management. A typical workflow for me adding a painting to an article is 1) look for a suitable painting, figure out who actually owns it; 2) get the file off their website if possible (if not, another website) and save it locally; 3) trim whatever whitespace needs trimming and upload it from my local drive. This workflow doesn't work on most handhelds because you can't save the file locally and edit it before uploading to Commons. Jane023 (talk) 18:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Jane023's thoughts on question 2

Thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects are where volunteer content curation hours are valued more highly than content production hours.

That's interesting. Why do you think that curation hours should be more highly valued than content production hours? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:31, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

A multitude of reasons based on personal observations of editor processes and workflows onwiki. Even though I believe I support the concept of enabling "the sum of all knowledge", most often I am just another page hit addict who likes to see how many have read what I have written. The current barnstar, thanks, FA-GA or whatever structures lead editors to take pleasure in the kudos of adding content more than curation. Lots of editors will blank an article and paste it into a new name rather than making a page move, because they want their username to be No.1 as the first editor. There is something wrong with the model when that behavior occurs regularly. There is also something wrong with the way old editors are shunted aside when formerly start or C-class articles are labelled stubs according to some "standard", only to be fixed up and brought from stub class to some other class with kudos. No one will thank anyone for setting up a list or maintaining a category structure or creating a WikiProject. In fact, one is more likely to be insulted in a collegial sort of way with some pedantic comments. It's a rare bird that can keep on plugging away in that kind of environment on a regular basis. Jane023 (talk) 15:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a page-hit junkie as well. :-) We were just talking about that in the office (as a result of your comment here) and several of us were in agreement with you. I'd love to see this sort of feature emerge. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Artturimatias

Response by Artturimatias

Artturimatias's thoughts on question 1

3D content comes to mind. Two levels there: 3D models as documents (like scan of a sculpture) and 3D as platform ( interactive app showing how moon throws its shadow to the Earth during the solar eclipse)

Artturimatias's thoughts on question 2

Things might happen outside wikimedia projects while using the content of wikimedia projects -> need of good and easy to use APIs. This also means that metadata has crucial role (especially in Commons).

@Artturimatias: That's a good point. We have done some initial thinking about structured data on Wikimedia Commons, see Commons:Structured data, but it's a big effort. We're starting with smaller improvements like the file metadata cleanup drive and foundational work like a standard API for Wikidata queries.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld

Response by Dr. Blofeld

Dr. Blofeld's thoughts on question 1

Yes, I believe that globally we'll see a massive increase in traffic from rural areas in Asia and Africa especially and we will need to accommodate for this which I will elaborate on in part 2 below.

Dr. Blofeld's thoughts on question 2

• As I say, we'll see a massive increase in traffic from rural areas in Asia and Africa especially and we will need to accommodate for this. This may pose a significant problem, as has already been experienced with Pakistan and India, and increasingly Bangladesh and Nigeria on wikipedia. Poor command of English and the fact that many of these rural articles are off watchlists of those in the western world often sees the articles become even worse over time. We will need to find way to nurture new editors from developing world nations and to find a balance between protecting articles from degradation by poor quality editors and nurturing and encouraging new editors to edit. Frequent cleanup tasks will be needed for many nations.
• Given that translation is the key to the future spreading of knowledge, I believe that our systems need to try to bridge the gap across wikipedias and try to treat the 200+ different projects as one. I believe I had a conversation with Jimmy Wales about that a few years back and he agreed. For instance an editor searching for an article in Bengali but not finding it, out system being able to recognise the article equivalent in English and to provide onsite translation instantly using google tranlsate or whatever to bridge the knowledge gap until the article can be translated. And vice versa. Somebody searching for an Estonian chess player on English wikipedia should be able to see the Estonian wiki article translated when searching. So effectively all of the wikipedia would have 20 million + articles turning up hits combined. Over time, the small wikipedias can grow and translate articles from us and vice versa. Translation is definitely the key to the future of wikipedia. I hope my WP:Intertranswiki project on wikipedia will grow and stem the wikipedias.

@Dr. Blofeld: Thanks, this is great input. A couple of observations/questions:

• With regard to find a balance between protecting articles from degradation by poor quality editors and nurturing and encouraging new editors to edit -- do you have suggestions how we can strike that balance? For example, do we need to highlight draft spaces more obviously, or create better mechanisms for suggesting edits, or entirely new wikis focused on specific topics with more relaxed rules, where content could then be imported to Wikipedia later?

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Thanks. If you really look at the population of some of the Asian countries in particular, I can envisage massive quality problems from the rural poor as they come online. The problem is going to become increasingly apparent and at an accelerating rate and from an increasing number of countries. Some might be learning to speak English and still be very poor at writing it, and we're going to see more and more articles on rural localities getting traffic and lists of "famous locals" and "businesses". For India especially I can see it getting out of control. I've gone through some of the states and cleaned up the towns at times but looking back into them now they've mostly degraded again. Drafting I don't think will really get to the root of the problem that is going to be prevalent. I think the problem is going to become so bad that wikimedia will need to seriously think about investing in training schemes within these nations themselves in learning languages and how to write articles in English etc, and to sponsor "clean up" editathons involving schools to set them on the right track. I think we'll need to employ some coordinators to strike that balance, overlooking development in given territories. We need to plan this in advance and acknowledge that unless we really actively monitor the traffic we'll increasingly get in such areas then wikipedia is actually going to get worse in terms of quality in parts, even if coverage might greatly increase.

@Dr. Blofeld: I really admire your efforts for India-related articles! Good work. A big problem is that bad articles attract more bad articles (My article X isn't worse/is as good as article Y...). You're absolutely right about the article degradation problem. There are no easy solutions, but i think the (liberal russian-style) flagged revisions and Research:Revision scoring as a service are our best midterm options. And your suggestions above for longterm. What i find especially concerning is that Wikipedia is comparatively high estimated for quality/trusted in India even though local article quality is often bad. All in all, i'm not really an optimist about the "next billion Wikipedia users", reading the en:Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation/report (Philippines). --Atlasowa (talk) 14:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• I agree we need to improve discoverability of content in multiple languages. We've been thinking a fair bit about this already, and intend do dedicate significant resources to improved search functionality in coming years. Have you seen Reasonator by Magnus Manske? It generates information about any item in Wikidata, including free text descriptions that could be automatically generated in multiple languages. This is the kind of content that we could show in any supported language. Right now a big bottleneck for features like this is the lack of a powerful API for Wikidata -- which is something we're actively working to fix.

We're also working on mw:Content Translation (now a beta feature in a few languages), which lets humans improve upon machine translation, and are considering the integration of various commercial MTs, provided we can agree on terms that work for us. We're reluctant to have MT content show up by default in searches -- because the quality would often be atrocious -- but the combination of Wikidata-powered "stub" results and machine-augmented human translation efforts could be quite powerful. Does that make sense?--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

A "multilingual Wikipedia search" at portal www.wikipedia.org and a good translation workflow (which also saves free translation memory) are very high on my wishlist of things that we should really already have. Also: OSM mapserver (announced for years, WTF?), Citoid semi-automatic references/citation tool, HoverCards for references, integrated edit history visualisations, support for graphs (bar charts, timelines, maps, pie charts, [1][2]) etc.

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Do you know how much the (miserably bad-to-use) www.wikipedia.org Portal is actually used? Freaking 12-15% of page views from India go to the portal: Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Trends! This should tell us something. Actually it just repeats what readers have told us over and over again over years: Multilingual search needed. (Google does it. See also Research talk:Measuring mission success#How many people speak which languages?) --Atlasowa (talk) 14:27, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Atlasowa: Let me vet the report to make sure the www.wikipedia.org data is 100% accurate and not affected by artifacts like bot traffic (phab:T90835) We're actually very seriously thinking about the problem of multilingual search right now -- including how to, e.g. provide results from Wikidata in a consistent manner as part of the main search. When you say "multilingual search", what exactly do you mean, though? I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 02:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I think you've got to look at what is important right now too. As people come online in these developing world nations, they're going to want reliable information about a broad range of topics, and chances are that their national language wikipedias may lack them. We need to have a make shift article from a different wiki ready for them in an instant translate, if there is an article on another wiki and they're not aware of it this is a problem. They need to at least be given access to the translation foreign wiki articles in their search engines until an article can be created on their wiki. What we need overall is to bridge the gap across the wikipedias and try to make it function more like one project and to sort of have wiki ambassadors coordinating development between different wikipedias. Like an English ambassador to Japanese wikipedia, French ambassador to Telugu wikipedia etc, who monitors progress and gives advice etc. Again I think wikimedia will need to think about employing these ambassadors full time to overlook development and to try to make things run smoothly. That will include paid translators and language experts who can assist with translation requests. I think wikimedia needs to have a serious think about just how much traffic we're going to get by 2020, 2030 especially and plan for the growth of other wikis. We need to give anybody in the world the right to view (an accurate) translation of an article in any language and really make knowledge universal and try to give people even access to quality information. Another thing I chased in the past to no avail was a global Geograph project, giving people around the world the opportunity to try to photograph the planet as densely as possible. I think as more come online in developing world nations such a project to really organize our photograph banks geographically, allowing people to browse sort of in 3D in relation to world map, and encourage the locals in these countries to become a part of it and photograph their localities will become increasingly relevant. I'd really like to see the foundation seriously consider this again and see that such a project might greatly improve our future resources and go hand in hand with our growth projection. I also think we could hold wiki cup sort of competitions between nations seeing who can provide the most photographs and to give it a fun, competitive edge to get us the photos we badly need in many parts.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 16:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: Thanks for the follow-up! I like the idea of ambassadorship -- have you seen the existing "local embassies"? See the language links in d:Q6090776#sitelinks-wikipedia. Perhaps we could work together to strengthen this existing model? My inclination is to be wary of terms like overseeing/monitoring -- there's IMO learning that has to happen in both directions (e.g., I've found English Wikipedia sometimes has a systemic bias against non-Western reliable sources -- YMMV), and not all recipes from large projects make sense for small ones. But I think having better cross-wiki conversations about this stuff makes sense for sure.

I remember Geograph well -- maybe you and I even had a thread about it at some point? As a product guy, I wonder how much more we could do with Commons:Upload campaigns if we put even a little bit more effort in building a general framework for it.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:32, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I have often thought that a formal link-up with Geograph (which only covers the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland) to expand coverage to other countries would be an obvious move for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Even in areas with in-depth coverage such as the United States, access to images for use in Wikipedia articles is limited. Contrast that with Britain and Ireland, where, thanks to Geograph, there are numerous images available (often way too many), all of which can be accessed (through the Geograph project) by a geographical name or coordinates search. It may well be worth testing out whether such a collaboration to expand coverage would work in three or four territories (perhaps the United States, France, Australia and Japan?). Skinsmoke (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the coverage for UK is insane these days, even some local barn has a picture LOL. We really must have similar resources for all of the major countries, and gradually spread globally. As you say the US especially has very poor picture coverage in rural America. We really must try to launch something. Jimbo Wales and foundation folk take note on the need for this! Dr. Blofeld (talk)

Dr. Blofeld, Skinsmoke, Erik Moeller (WMF): Do you know geolocation.ws (Browse geolocated Creative Commons photos taken from Panoramio, Flickr, Geograph, Wikimedia Commons websites etc.)? A fantastic, really helpful tool to find free images, and it's linked from the WP article coordinates via geohack. I use it especially for areas with little coverage on commons, and it makes uploads to commons fairly easy. It should be much better known than it is. --Atlasowa (talk) 13:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

94.226.183.142

Response by 94.226.183.142

94.226.183.142's thoughts on question 1

When this internet-born generation starts working, it will lead to more trust in articles on the internet. This website will be even more used than before.

94.226.183.142's thoughts on question 2

A good project to do would be to sensibilise the current generation about your trustworthiness.

What would be a way for doing that? LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 01:46, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

109.157.10.148

Response by 109.157.10.148

109.157.10.148's thoughts on question 1

The English Wikipedia main page design (desktop) is not even up to date with trends of ten years ago, let alone anticipating future trends. As far as I can tell, attempts to renovate it always stall due to inertia or lack of agreement. Someone (or a team) with the right skills just needs to be given authority to go ahead and fix this unilaterally. 109.157.10.148 21:05, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Anthonyhcole

Response by Anthonyhcole

Anthonyhcole's thoughts on question 1

I see a trend toward knowledge. I see a human race that would like to have free access to knowledge, as opposed to free access to the dubious assertions we're presently offering.

Anthonyhcole's thoughts on question 2

They would be building encyclopedias and other resources that people can trust.

176.58.107.77

Response by 176.58.107.77

176.58.107.77's thoughts on question 1

Dear Friend, I am an amateur English translator. And while I do the editing Farsi Wikipedia, may be may talk not a precise answer to your question. Since Wikipedia, the languages and dialects have had development, as well as the culture of each country or region, and many have a direct impact on the development of Wikipedia. As well as the management of local administrators and local observers. I see in the Persian part of Wikipedia, many editors then try very hard to expand this encyclopedia. But some of the rules, which in our culture is not just a concept and cause delete the articles. We do this because we lost a lot Editors. Another problem is the conflict of editing by robots, which discourages and shortens articles.

• Thanks for your thoughts on this! It's always really interesting to hear from people who work on multiple wikis in different languages, given the differences in policies, guidelines, and wiki cultures. We're hearing a lot about the need to improve translation tools. That may be related to your suggestion as a way to improve the availability of information about Persian culture in English Wikipedia, and to improve the depth of content on Persian Wikipedia by translating from other Wikipedias.
• I'm not entirely sure what you mean by conflict of editing by robots. Do you mind explaining more? How does that discourage editing? Is the presence of short articles a good thing, or a bad thing, and why?
• Please feel free to respond in Persian, by the way. We can always find a colleague to help translate. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

176.58.107.77's thoughts on question 2

I think, if they manage to be graded, from three to five degrees، absorption of the active editor . And the other, a variety of deleted articles Eg: Delete or remove the timer Due to lack of cooperation from many people. In my opinion, the removal of articles, must very limited And by a group of active managers To be done Rather than torpid managers.Those whose activity is limited to the fussiness .

What do you mean by 'absorption of the active editor'? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you can translate better english to serbian language?

Response by 109.93.191.64

Please help if you can, by clicking "Translate this page" at the top, and selecting your language. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

John Carter

Response by John Carter

John Carter's thoughts on question 1

I think we will see a much greater increase in material and articles which will be perhaps sourced from material which might be inaccessible or poorly accessible in the largely English language community that currently exists, although much of it will be nominally written in English (or at least included in the English language WMF entities). I also believe that there is likely to be an unfortunate increase in the number of edits and editors engaged in what might be nationalist or ethnic POV pushing of a kind not widely known or understood in the English language community, as well as greater use of sources whose basic reliability is less well determinable by the existing English language community, and that there will be significant problems addressing these concerns.

Thank you for this thoughtful comment, John. In my own personal editing I've run across situations where English-language sources are poor (on the subject of Cuban sodas ;) and that's in a (relatively) wealthy/well-connected community and language. I know that some smaller wikis have adjusted their standards to reflect these changes, and I suspect the larger wikis might eventually have to shift as well if we want to cover all the world's knowledge. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on what guidelines we might adopt, or alternate approaches we might take? (For example, in Telugu, we've funded work to improve accessibility of library information about Telugu-language books.) Do you think WMF should do anything in particular to shift or nudge this discussion? —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

John Carter's thoughts on question 2

I hesitate to point out "future trends that I think important," because it is kind of hard to know in advance what trends the future will hold, but, in general, I think we would all be very, very much better served if the foundation entities devoted to broadly news and analysis related content, like the various iterations of wikinews and wikibooks, were to be better developed. Even with the increase in the number of encyclopedic articles I expect from the international growth, I see as even more likely an increase in the diversity of opinion of editors and of sources used by editors which will not easily be dealt with in purely encyclopedic content. That being the case, making places where such content can be easily and broadly accessible would definitely serve both the interests of the encyclopedias of the WMF and also the other, broader, entities of the WMF.

71.181.235.64

Response by 71.181.235.64

71.181.235.64's thoughts on question 2

Make the site more colorful to attract the eye if you cant afford that I'm sure you can make a fundraiser.

To answer the second question first, I'd like to go over two related ideas: the protection of children and curation. As far as I'm able to tell, there are no limits to things that can be searched. I don't know if any products available as third party filter Wikipedia content, but in their absence, there is far too much adult content freely available for children to see, some with entirely adult-only imagery. While I believe that if parents can raise their children the way they see fit, I also believe there should be an opt-in or opt-out option to filter adult content. Children do not have any particular need to see descriptions or pictures of sex acts or genital anatomy. Once children reach learning about reproduction in school, general graphical depictions should suffice, rather than an open-license picture. This also allows for a major opportunity for growth in the curation of articles targeted for children. With proper content controls and properly sourced materials, Wikipedia could be a really excellent source of secondary information. At some point, the students need to read for a general idea and start reading the primary material/articles. As long as companies are willing to honor Wikipedia's code of neutral and factual writing or willing to make general gifts for children's content, or possibly able to make mention of their gifts, there is a massive opportunity for soliciting funds to support the effort. The moral high ground is always defensible, and most likely very profitable. Good curation of the subjects that children generally learn in school, written to the level of specificity that is considered grade-appropriate, coupled with the interrelations of subjects that are inherent to children's learning, could be far more robust through Wikipedia than other sources. I did a very basic report on beavers in the 3rd grade. What information did I need? Basic anatomical features like teeth and tail, oiled skin, diet, range of habitat, dam-building. The inherent interactivity of Wikipedia (and all hyperlinked content) would have been far more entertaining and engaging as a learning tool than just my textbook, but it was the 80s. Sprynet and 14400 baud modems would have been the stuff of science fiction.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. There was a proposal in the past to put in place an image filter to help users filter out legal content that they nevertheless did not want to see. It was received with mixed results. I like the idea of Wikipedia for children. Some ideas that are out there include Wikipedia for Schools and Wikipedia (Simple) with SafeSearch. I greatly appreciate your taking the time to share this with us. GeoffBrigham (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

To answer the first question, multilingual translation of well-written educational articles will always benefit the next billion users, because literacy is so important in the developing world. Also, well-written articles in English will always benefit those looking to learn English. Properly calibrated grade levels would be of a great benefit to adult learners who need a quick and reliable metric for comprehension and sentence length/complexity. At the same time, this would be a really good test of the real-world applicability of tools like the Flesch-Kincaid grade level.

Basically, what I am proposing is:

• 1. Write articles somewhat redundantly with a writing level and content-specific level appropriate to K-12 learners at each grade.
• 2. Hyperlink appropriate related subjects as the grade level calls for it, and possibly add a few. Public school children will be well served to learn formal reasoning skills.
• 3. Get a worldwide effort going so that quality pages are written in a local language and a number of diplomatic-use languages, like French and English.
• 4. Offer pages written at a specific grade level to act as a real-world test of our measurement tools for people learning languages, especially English as a second language.
• 5. Implement parental controls to limit content available to child users of Wikipedia.
• 6. Allow separate funding of the effort to gain additional funding sources.

Thanks for the thoughtful ideas for our consideration. Here are some high level responses:

• 1 This is a good idea. We do have Simple English, but, as far as I know, we do not have that in other languages.
• 2 I think I need to hear a bit more to understand this, if you have time.
• 3 This does happen to some extent. We do have featured articles, and they are often translated into languages including French.
• 4 Creative. Thanks.
• 5 I understand the concern. I did provide a link to some alternatives in this area. I wonder if that addresses your concern.
• 6 There may be added administrative costs. But I see your point.

Many thanks for your input and willingness to participate. GeoffBrigham (WMF) (talk) 01:47, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

We do have Wikipedia equivalents for children in other languages, yet not as WMF projects. It was actually discussed before as a Wikimedia sister project on Wikikids. The most successful and developed are WikiKids in Dutch, Vikidia in french (one million of unique visitors a month now). Vikidia also exists in other languages as English ( http://blog.wikimedia.fr/vikidia-in-english-opens-today-lets-build-a-children-wiki-encyclopedia-6400 ) and Spanish. And more recently such a wiki was launched in German, see some English explanations. Astirmays (talk) 06:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Linuxtech

Response by Linuxtech

Linuxtech's thoughts on question 1

Privacy and Security:

1. Wikimedia's services should default on the side of privacy and security!
   
2. https everywhere. If needed offer unencrypted services through an alternate hostname, I like http://1984.wikipedia.org.
   
3. Allow Tor, and other anonymous services. Wikimedia's services could be accessible through Tor hidden services.
   
4. Given the trend towards mobile, the design requirements of any Wikimedia software and/or apps must include privacy and security!

These are excellent points, Linuxtech. Personally I think privacy and security will define how our Wikimedia sites are different from the other top websites in the next 5-10 years. While many are willing to give up their privacy on other sites who commercialize data WMF can help ensure that we engage in privacy practices and security that define us as the exception. Also privacy and security go hand in hand with free expression. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good blog on this topic. I think your ideas - some in the specific, and privacy and security in general - need to be part of our strategic thinking at WMF. Thanks for taking the time to contribute. GeoffBrigham (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

178.93.57.25

Response by 178.93.57.25

178.93.57.25's thoughts on question 1

Wikipedia has a lot of text information. As known phonescreens has not so much space that can handle whole page in it. Also shortify information wouldnt help with it. So i think wikipedia needs to wait unless some GOOD audiorecognition system would apear. Then wikipedia could start with some mobile tools that will help mobile user to get exactly information they are needs. Users catch sentences not the whole text, so i think geting what they need by sound is the best wey to do it in far future.

I completely agree. Every Wikipedia article should have a one-click text-to-voice function (using a reader built into the Wikipedia mobile app?), that reads out the article and image data. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

178.93.57.25's thoughts on question 2

Future trends in information same as inside a processor it needs to be delivered faster that its all ready exist. So users needs to have more faster feedback from this info-base. Read of minds probably would be fast enough :)

Plucas58

Response by Plucas58

Plucas58's thoughts on question 2

More needs to be done on translating articles, primarily the majority English ones, into the MAIN foreign languages (ie not Welsh) to prevent the waste of time and effort that goes on now with contributors in different countries writing articles from scratch in umpteen different languages with often conflicting information.

@Plucas58: Totally agree. Have you seen the Content Translation Beta Feature? We're hoping by creating better software workflows, we can make translation a more standard part of the contributor experience. Are there other ways you see that translation of articles into the most widely spoken languages could be increased? --Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Actually translation is already a part of contributor experience in a number of communities. However, the two main issues of translations are that: a) machine translations are often of poor quality, so it is often easier to delete them than to fix them, b) translated articles are lacking localised information (e.g. enwiki articles have systemic bias for English-speaking countries, while translation of enwiki article into Albanian would be less appreciated if it would have figures for UK and USA but not for Albania). Translations can be promoted but please promote them wisely — NickK (talk) 01:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@NickK: Thanks for chiming in! Yep, the team studied existing translation workflows in the development of the tool, and is familiar with past experiences where communities where overwhelmed by low quality machine translations. The software tracks the % of content that is unmodified from the original MT, and warns the user that publishing unmodified MT content is generally not appropriate. Agree re: localisation of content -- we look at translation only as a way to get articles started, but there's generally a lot of ways in which articles can legitimately diverge over time.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk)

Tuvalkin

Response by Tuvalkin

Tuvalkin’s thoughts on question 1

Trends are what they are. Anyone with more that a basic grasp on the history of the internet can point out hugely hyped and popular fads that died off without a trace (WebTV?, Internet II?, Flash to replace HTML?), and contrast them with technologies and resources which were built from ground up and quietly become more and more significant (Unicode, geolocation, even the web itself).

Wikipedia, and Wikimedia projects (or at least most of them), are this second type of thing. We are our own thing, we do what we do. The next billion users will make use and adhere to the existing structure, as it evolves by itself. If anything, Wikimedia projects, with its foundational emphasis on multilinguism and openness, are way more ready to face that looming billion (omg, brown people!) than most other big players.

As for “going mobile” — maybe what is meant is “going handheld”…? The fad for tiny screens and dumbed down interface controls to be swiped and flicked by grubby oversized fingers on said tiny tactile surfaces? A fad that asks for less content, fewer interface options, crippled functions to cope with shorter attention span…? I say ignore it and carry on as usual. ^{(e.g. Commons had to shutdown its dedicated Mobile Uploads feature: It was getting just too silly.)} The fad will pass and a few years later (when proper portability has become commonplace) it will be as giggle- or cringe-worthy as pagers, or glam rock hairdos.

Tuvalkin’s thoughts on question 2

Exactly the same as they are today — only even more reliable in its contents and methodologies (thanks to ever on-going routine improvement and fine-tuning), more inclusive in terms of multilinguism (i.e., keeping the current and long-held trend), and technically solid (more and better servers and its mantainance, less cockamamie ideas about useless gadgets, bogus outreach projects, or vanity parades).

@Tuvalkin:, You raise some great points. I agree Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects are something beyond a fad. That said, emerging technologies may still impact the way that forms of knowledge are captured, and how knowledge itself is engaged with. I'd feel more comfortable ignoring things with awareness of how they are shaping culture than without, and part of our request for input is to really ask what out there we should be paying attention to as opposed to the noise. Your second point, that we need to reinforce and be even better at what we're good at, being inclusive, and technologically sound, is foundational for the continued existence of Wikimedia projects and we're paying attention to that. GYoung (WMF) (talk) 01:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC) Repinging @Tuvalkin:

Azcolvin429

Response by Azcolvin429

Azcolvin429's thoughts on question 1

The largest trend I notice being a contributor, and frequent (if not avid) reader of Wikipedia articles is the massive existence of [citation needed] boxes. For Wikipedia to become a legitimate and highly respected educational source, everything must be cited. The academic world uses this technique as a process of verification and reputability. And, as it appears, Wikipedia and its many projects are equivalent to the standards within the accepted academic processes. I do know that the existing policy requires citations for added material, however, it appears to be a non-mandatory (or at least not followed or enforced) policy. Due to this, thousands of articles go uncited and unverified leaving those articles indistinguishable from any other non-reputable source on the internet. If it is indistinguishable, then why should it continue as an educational source for the world at large? It cannot be used as a trustworthy source and will not be welcomed by the emerging "billion users" who (out of these emerging users) follow the same standards as the academic world discussed above.

The reason this is important is because of Wikipedia's potential future as a reputable source for information. The higher the standards are set to match academic standards, the more likely it is that the website will gain more support (and possibly attract members) from other communities such as academics themselves and the educational institutions in which they reside.

Additionally, just having cited material is not enough. When I read Wikipedia articles, I attempt to check the sources of cited material. Often times, I find cited material from non-reputable sources. So, in essence, the information in question is "cited" but is still not of academic standards. I understand my anecdotes are no precedence for making changes, however, I can almost assure you that Wikipedia will drift into a less of an encyclopedia and more into a collection of internet information regardless of its quality, reputability, or varifiability.

Azcolvin429's thoughts on question 2

A thriving Wikipedia needs a system to require and verify sources. In essence, every new edit that adds content that makes a claim, expresses an opinion of an expert, describes a finding, etc. needs to be reviewed by another editor no matter what. It does not mean it should be rejected immediately, but the information needs to come under scrutiny if it cannot be verified. This must be done without exception.

How this would be implemented, I do not know. I do understand the many problems with this due to the number of editors vs the number of articles, projects, pages, etc. I also know that this already exists as part of the Wikipedia community, however, there are an innumerable amount of places within the encyclopedia where edits go unnoticed.

Azcolvin429 (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

98.225.251.247

Response by 98.225.251.247

98.225.251.247's thoughts on question 2

I think that Wikipedia should be more minimalistic looking. I also think that there should be editing available in every app for Wikipedia on every platform.

152.26.228.62

Response by 152.26.228.62

152.26.228.62's thoughts on question 2

you should have it to where people have to sign in and then they have to spend a certain amount of time up here each hour they spend on wiki how they get like 50 points and for a certain amount of points you get to redeem something like an iphone ipod or a samsung but something everyone would want

Most stupidest thing I have ever read, where are the 'prizes' going to come from? The site needs money from donations, never mind giving away expensive equipment because somebody left their phone on wikipedia overnight.

Vater.UCDavis

Response by Vater.UCDavis

Vater.UCDavis's thoughts on question 2

As Wikipedia use grows it may become more accepted in the classroom, particularly in places that can't afford traditional and expensive learning tools like text books. Perhaps we should consider (1) how we might use Wikipedia as a classroom education resource and (2) how to design assignments that teach future generations how to contribute!

@Vater.UCDavis: In the US and Canada, The Wiki Education Foundation is doing this work. In other countries, this work is being supported by the Wikipedia Education Program--GByrd (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

122.56.185.225

Response by 122.56.185.225

122.56.185.225's thoughts on question 2

MAKE BOOKS AND SELL THEM. I WOULD LOVE A WIKIPEDIA ENCYCLOPEDIA IN THE LIBRARY. BACK TO BASICS. AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE.

At an estimated 2092 volumes we are beyond turning the English Wikipedia into a printed encyclopedia that will be affordable and accessible.--GByrd (WMF) (talk) 01:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You can print your own Wikipedia books. There's books on thousands of subjects. --NaBUru38 (talk) 09:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Sargoth

Response by Sargoth

Sargoth's thoughts on question 1

Trillions of reader-users all around the galaxy use Wikipedia as primary source. Only because of the content. Make author-users happy and use the "thank you button" often.

Sargoth's thoughts on question 2

Eliminate superprotect and all other dark forces

138.51.151.197

Response by 138.51.151.197

138.51.151.197's thoughts on question 1

Better algorithms to translate content between different languages. For example there are deep learning algorithms that are already capable of translating between Chinese and English in a very prolific manner.

Ethan9988

Response by Ethan9988

Ethan9988's thoughts on question 1

Everybody who uses internet now basically searches for every other thing by "Google'ing" it , and mostly the topics of search are people , objects or maybe certain other things,which in fact do exist. So, if Wikipedia was to be more helpful and more precise to deliver the people what they are looking for in the first place would actually help them. The latest trends are only to follow the standard level set by Google and only to build up on it.

Ethan9988's thoughts on question 2

Being able to read language Hindi , I find it very difficult to read the poor translation and thus think there would have to be a lot of work done in the translation area. The expansion of internet over the Asian , African , etc. countries is taking it to a more diverse and different societies. People who can only speak/read their native language find it very hard to use the technology in any other language form, some can barely read or speak English. A poor translation of a page in Bengali , Hindi , Arabic , or any other language, is not helping people in any way that it is being intended to. So, i think a great improvement in the section of translation and reaching the people with an alternative ease of access to knowledge would be very helpful in the future. --Ethan9988 (talk) 22:30, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Volghan

Response by Volghan

Volghan's thoughts on question 1

Using a WYSIWYG editor

Some times i want to write somethings in wiki pages but its very difficult to use its editor and rules. please add better editor that can use it to create anything without using shortcodes.

@Volghan: You can enable the VisualEditor at w:fa:ویژه:ترجیحات#mw-prefsection-betafeatures, which should be exactly what you are looking for. It's in active-development, and feedback/bug-reports/requests are welcomed, at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Hope that helps. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

83.228.164.215

Response by 83.228.164.215

83.228.164.215's thoughts on question 1

• Major wikis: Increased mobile use coupled with increased content maturity means that so-called "super users" (admins et al.) will be increasingly older and more rare. It is simply wrong to expect the number of active accounts to remain stable or increasing;

Do you think that some of these features can be migrated to mobile, so that this new generation could develop admin skills off desktop? If wikis -- even mature wikis -- become increasingly mobile, what sorts of mobile-specific admin functions might develop? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think all admin functions should be migrated - at the end of the day, there is a question of comfort or ease of use that will never be found on a 3-4 inch screen: typing, clicking on specific links will always be somewhat tedious. For admins tasks, I'd advocate for some sort of "double-tap" function that would mark an article for review. Say, I'm reading something, see vandalism but likely won't bother going to the history to look when that happened and revert it: what if, however, I can easily mark it and have it listed somewhere -kind of like all edits are currently listed in special:recentchanges? Finally, there isn't such a thing as "admin skills" - it is a community trust issue, and I could totally imagine this being granted to anyone reaching a given number of edits (those rights could of course still be suspended). 83.228.164.215 09:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello,

yes, I agree, to have an option to mark RC and to get a list of marked RC for later reviews are a good idea.

This option is currently discussed on the french wiki (see Marquage des modifs... section).--ContributorQ (talk) 12:51, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Southern wikis: they will go straight to mobile use and never will develop a desktop user base like Northern users did. The next format is one of a mostly user/reader population -> the response should be to increase focus towards translation of existing articles.

Some Southern wikis seem to indicate rates of desktop usage on par with Northern wikis (see the WMF Research and Data Showcase, Grantmaking presentation on the Global South). What else do you think we could we do, in addition to facilitating better translation tools, to encourage creation on "southern" wikis? What about creation on mobile specifically? Do you think that it would be possible to create a culture of mobile creation that would be sufficient to meet user mobile consumption needs? One of the critiques of Wikipedia is that existing knowledge is too Northern -- do you think translation alone be sufficient to make wikis relevant enough to certain local or language audiences? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I did not see the rates you refer to (slides 12 and 16 are not really addressing this), but I should nevertheless clarify my thought: Hindi, bahasa and a couple of other languages won't be an issue because their population base is so large to start with. Even if only 0.001% of Indian citizen decided to sit in front of a computer and become editors, that'd be 10'000 people right there. In Wolof or Quechua, that could be a little trickier.

I unfortunately have no suggestion for mobile creation - as I said, I believe that editing from a mobile platform will never be as convenient as from a desktop computer (I use a mobile device on the street, lying in bed - in any case not in a real position to work, which at the end editing is). Maybe try "speech to text" editing? Another idea to encourage edition in general would be to increase the density of red links - these are a clear call to edit, and with the major wikis becoming more mature there has been a growing tendency to hide them. This may be wild dreaming, but a bot could scour larger wikis (or wikidata) and try to find links that exist in one language but not the other and insert a red link. For instance, there is an article in bahasa mentioning as some point that Frenchmen eat baguette, well if there isn't already a link then maybe our bot could figure this out and insert a link to fr:baguette (there might be a good deal of semantic research to do though so as to ensure the bot puts relevant links). Maybe someone would then be tempted to do the translation (that is also why I would advise against automated translation - you need new editors to start somewhere, and that somewhere must be easy enough).

Current WP knowledge is too Northern because the current user base is Northern and holds a cultural preeminence (think "soft power"): every kid in the world knows Beyoncé. Therefore the issue is not with WP but the world we live in. 83.228.164.215 09:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

83.228.164.215's thoughts on question 2

There are two main options:

• So as to renew the pool of editors, whole segments of WP should be regularly deleted so as to attract editors like they were attracted by missing information ten years ago (see Raph Koster's talk during Wikimania 2014);

That's a fascinating proposal. Does you think there's some sort of primacy to the *act* of editing is more central to Wikipedia than the information itself? Another way of thinking about this -- is Wikipedia more essentially about editing, or about making information available to the world? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

A followup -- Would some sort of federated solution solve for this problem -- where people could develop edits on a forked version of the article, that could then be 'pushed' into the trunk of the article itself? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Not so much "primacy to the act" that "low hanging fruit". Everyone has something to write about apples and China (and that is how everyone started and learned editing back in the early years), a lot less do once these articles reach thousands of bytes in length. Call this proposal "creative destruction".

In my experience merging content from two articles is a rather difficult and tedious task. I also do not think this would work because you do not know in advance who will come and edit - it depends on a lot of factors and you want to cast a net as large as possible, not restrict it to those who want to edit in the first place. 83.228.164.215 09:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• Focus should be on overall population literacy - rather than expect a few admin to "do the job", the aim should be to increase the pool of everyday "soccer moms editors" who can do part of the job. Pretty much what wikipedia is all about, come to think of it.

Given your earlier response about how demographics may change the nature of the admin community, do you think admin functions could be better broken down into more discrete tasks, including those on mobile? If so, what sorts of tasks? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, if only because as a "status" adminship tends to be increasingly sanctified and harder to reach. You need to figure out which admin actions are most frequently performed, in which conditions, and which are most frequently reverted or challenged. I suspect adding one or two easy-to-use buttons (not links but buttons) to the mobile display could help. As indicated above, such tools could also be distributed more indiscriminately once a certain threshold of edits has been reached. 83.228.164.215 09:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

180.149.192.134

Response by 180.149.192.134

180.149.192.134's thoughts on question 1

getting summerised information will be only valuable if that information is unbiased, if it is true and accurate. If not, then instead of bringing freedom and joy the internet will being more mistrust and anger. WP must stop being a platform for western propoganda. eg. look at the pages dealing with the Ukrainian crisis, MH17... Try putting in some information from a Russian news service such as RT or Sputnik and you will be abused and barred from WP. Sadly much of geopolitical WP is controlled by darkness, if this does not stop then the future of WP and the internet as a platform for truth is doomed.

Our process is certainly not perfect, but outside studies have found that, in general, articles that are more edited are more accurate. (Lots of background in the article on reliability of Wikipedia.) If you have suggestions about how we might improve this in the future (such as by building better tools, or encouraging different community practices) it'd be interesting to hear more. Thanks! —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

180.149.192.134's thoughts on question 2

Their enthusiasm and right to truthful information can only be served by WP if WP stops being a platform for western propoganda. eg. look at the pages dealing with the Ukrainian crisis, MH17... Try putting in some information from a Russian news service such as RT or Sputnik and you will be abused and barred from WP. Sadly much of geopolitical WP is controlled by darkness, if this does not stop then the future of WP and the internet as a platform for truth is doomed.

94.197.120.205

Response by 94.197.120.205

94.197.120.205's thoughts on question 1

Major trends, something about happiness, Science fiction, some unimaginative science like astronomy, with any topic give some pictures and If it can be possible some videos ! mybe it is easy to understand and finally, you asked about billion people ! people every time are busy, I not sure for reading huge amount of writing by a billion people.

94.197.120.205's thoughts on question 2

As I answered first question, I said, I am not sure! maybe it was related with the type of writing! huge amount of writing without figures and videos, maybe only writing is not sufficient to easy understandable. I really like a style of writing like "StumbleUpon", it was easy understandable, unimaginative idea, it was very interesting.

Chiswick Chap

Response by Chiswick Chap

Chiswick Chap's thoughts on question 1

The major trend is simply more users, from more places. Many from Africa will be comfortable in English, though those from former French areas sometimes less so. People from some places will have English very much as a second language: we owe it to them to write clearly, accurately, and as simply as possible.

Devices will change, in the direction of fewer constraints - they'll handle more data, more comfortably than current devices - so we shouldn't worry about them.

Chiswick Chap's thoughts on question 2

Healthy projects will look like good, reliable places to find good stuff: accurately checked and cited facts, excellent photographs, diagrams, maps, graphs and data. Why should people come? Because the stuff here is good. That means it's correct, truthful, properly sourced, unbiased, and seen to be so.

Wrightie99

Response by Wrightie99

Wrightie99's thoughts on question 1

Cultures and morals are changing gaming and computing is the 'new way', so all articles need to be non bias and respect all cultures and beliefs.

Wrightie99's thoughts on question 2

As well as respecting cultures and making sure content is reliable I believe Wikipedia is going to struggle. There are many 'poor' articles requiring work, people see these and then say Wikipedia can't be trusted so I know this is probably not the correct place for his idea but. I think there should be some sort of limit to how many articles you can create dependent on the articles 'fixed'. Articles should be assigned to users depending on their interests. But getting more volunteers involved with wiki projects is essential otherwise the wiki will be too stretched.

Romaine

Response by Romaine

Romaine's thoughts on question 1

The trend will be that more and more people want to look up on site more information about something that is situated there. So if someone visits a building or a park, (s)he looks up that subject on Wikipedia.

The android app has an "around me" feature. Are you thinking of something similar? LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 01:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar w:Special:Nearby, but it is yet too limited to full articles on Wikipedia only. Not all information we have is available in a full article, we also have lists, like this one for monuments: nl:Lijst van rijksmonumenten in Vaals (plaats) (list of national monuments in the town Vaals), and such of many many many thousands of places around the world. This is useful information for people but is not available in the nearby-function. Also switching language should be possible, this list is only in Dutch, while the town is occupied with Germans and the French language border is directly near the town. This does not only apply to this town, but also for many regions in Europe, and even whole countries. Belgium for example has multiple official languages and a large expat community thanks to NATO, EU institutions, and many international organisations. Too often language is limiting people instead of giving it richness.

Also Commons and Wikidata should be made available in the Nearby function (with having the opportunity to switch it on and off).

 

Personally I had interpreted the question as a general question: where should WMF in general focus on. Noticing the huge growth of mobile traffic in many countries, the focus should definitely on the mobile (but not excluding the desktop development).

 

Also I think we need more and easy tools. Tools for desktop users but also for mobile users. A great tool is Wikidata Game. In general we have a shortage of Wikidata tools to be able to update pages.

 

Also a multilingual dictionary look up service (app) would be handy, of all Wiktionaries, so that it is easy to take your smart phone and look up a word.

 

So our focus should how we get our information to the public, especially mobile. Romaine (talk) 13:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Romaine's thoughts on question 2

What we already miss in projects is an easy way to form groups on the wiki with all kinds of tools for group members to follow the progress in the group, to see which new articles have been written by group members, seeing what recent changes have been performed by group members, to be able to define tasks that need to be done in the group, and other fields/areas where group members can define based on their needs. Group members can see what others members do and help each other with problems. The knowledge of users can directly help others in a social friendly way.

This is also a Gendergap issue. Women want a social environment to be happy. The current situation is not that social, but more techno-social.

Also in daily life many people are part of a group, like for work or study. A lot of those groups in daily life are interested in working together on Wikipedia, like the staff of a museum, the staff of a university, and more. But it all goes very clumsy and not really practical. And it is focussed at itself on continuous activity and keeping new and existing users motivated. Being part of a group is optional.

See also https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/02/11/wikimedia-at-fosdem-2015/

Hi @Romaine:, we have been talking about what "groups around knowledge" might look like. That idea is the inverse of a social network, it is an idea network where people who may not know each other may connect around the topic of their interest and form a group. Is that what you have in mind and if so -- what kind of tools would you envision would be needed for this? Thanks, LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think we are talking about the same. I think there are two perspectives possible: forming a group around a topic, and forming on the wiki a group based on being in the outside world a group (like the employees of a museum or another organisation). Both can be possible.
• Tools for a group would be the possibility to follow the group activity (a recent changes list of changes done by group members). Also a way to mark a page as "attention requested", a "attention please, can you have a look with me at this because ..." to get the attention of other group members on an issue, with the request having together a look at it. Also a way to describe open tasks a group wants to do. And more. (All tools as special page in the wiki, just as the recent changes page, all inside the wiki environment.)
• For (relative) short time activities (edit-a-thons, courses, etc) we have now the education extension which is a good step forward for these activities to make it easier to have inexperienced users new to the wiki having an easy start. The education extension is focussed on a short term, is a bit clumsy, is focussed on courses and edit-a-thons, but can be a good starting point to work from and to write extra modules for it.
• On the Wikipedias I am active on most general subjects have been written about, and we now have a need for more articles that are in depth and are about subjects that have a specific location (like a monument, etc). In the Netherlands we have a project group (outside the wiki, supported by Wikimedia Netherlands) about the subject of Nature, and this project group is the follow up of the successful project of Wiki Loves Earth. We organise activities with external partners about nature topics. These projects with partners include image donations, text donations, but also trying to establish a long term activity on Wikipedia with project groups in those organisations, but that is with the current MediaWiki software not easy. How to organise a long term relationship with continous activity? I expect that it is for future years more and more important to have external groups of people involved in Wikipedia, having them forming a group on wiki and sharing their knowledge in Wikipedia. Having them start together, and are interested to come back to see what other group members do and being inspired by such.
• Also a magazine for females has heard about the Gendergap issue and wants to start activity to close the gap. But Wikipedia is with the software not ready to host such.
• Wikipedia not as a social network, but Wikipedia getting social in a way that it is more attractive for people on their own and in groups, males and females, etc. This certainly can improve a culture of kindness. So I think, let us make Wikipedia a more social place so that also the female gender eels more comfortable on Wikipedia. Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Re: Gender Gap, you're probably already familiar with it, but the Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire Grants – Gender gap campaign will hopefully help raise some new ideas for investigation and progress. (See wikimedia-l announcement for concise details). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I just saw it, but it is not entirely clear to me how it works. I have written an e-mail to the idea creator. Thank you for mentioning. Romaine (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear Romain, WikiProjects are exactly what you are saying, am I right? --NaBUru38 (talk) 09:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

In theory yes, practically no. WikiProjects we currently have on Wikipedia are a version 1.0, which is working pretty well for experienced users, but is not so good working for new users. I give a lot of edit-a-thons, workshops and courses, and with those activities I notice that new users experience working on a wiki as complicated and clumsy, especially concerning project pages. So if I would compare it with existing WikiProjects, this thought is at least version 3.0 with a lot of extra functions to make working as a group possible. Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You're probably already familiar with it, but just in case (and for others), the IEG-funded Wikipedia:WikiProject X aims to investigate what makes successful WikiProjects work (and the opposite), and what aspects editors would like to see improved (or created), so that best-practices/recommendations/tips can be spread throughout all our wikis. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

(Participating at Quiddity's invitation) Romaine and NaBUru38, I very much agree that while WikiProjects should provide this function, in their current state they are inadequate. I also plan edit-a-thons and I agree that it's really difficult to point to anything on Wikipedia and tell people to go there after the event; the Teahouse is okay but only goes so far. I would be interested in any thoughts you have on how WikiProjects might be useful as a "post edit-a-thon" destination for newcomers. harej (talk) 19:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Romaine, I agree it is techno-social. As I recall you have elsewhere mentioned that the Education Program extension could be adapted for other community use. Also, what i see is that you are going beyond Wikiprojects, more towards study circles. For a more in depth study of these, particularly in the Swedish context see Study Circles in Sweden: An Overview with a Bibliography of International Literature (the bibliography is very useful). Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 10:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, The current set-up of Wikipedia is primarily thought from the male perspective, what is rationally needed to write a Wikipedia. And yes we need all that, we need all the techno. But we also need more from the female perspective. It is time we evolve to a techo-social environment. Currently the techno has a stronger presence than the social, which can be seen in the software, but also in the Gendergap of female contributors, and in the relative lower amount of articles about female topics. It is all connected.

I personally think that the sooner we get it, the sooner this can bring Wikipedia to a better balanced situation, and starting from existing software that could be used, further developed and maybe forked, the better it is. Currently this is a bottleneck. WikiProjects as we currently know are very primitive ways of organising, and yes, study circles matches my thought more closely. Thanks! Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

More thoughts on question 2 (Wikidata)

Besides the previous thoughts, another thought I would like to share is concerning Wikidata. Technical experienced users do a lot of work with bots. Individual edits can be done with the Wikidata interface. But it is for non-technical users difficult to do a serial of edits. For most users it is not practical nor easy to do a serial of edits, and for such we need more tools/extensions/etc.

A tool/extension/etc in what (1) you can easily create a list of items + being able to remove some out of this list. (2) Easy to set a skip like "if contains P123 then skip", "if does not contain P456: Q789 then do not skip", etc. (3) Being able to set "Replace P1234: Q3456 by P7934: Q765". (4) To be able to run this automatically or by suggesting changes and by checking the suggested change and/or the page itself. (5) More.

The functionality AutoWikiBrowser is providing for Wikipedia, we need as well for Wikidata. Romaine (talk) 15:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Stupidnooblol

Response by Stupidnooblol

Stupidnooblol's thoughts on question 1

Can I use Google Translate? I know a little bit of chinse but I don't want to accidently write it wrong.

I'm not sure if you're asking about translating this feedback page, or article's within the Wikipedias and other projects? Generally, it's best to only assist with translations if you have a reasonable familiarity with the target language, as machine-translations are often quite flawed. They can serve as a great starting point, but often require a lot of work to get naturally written translations into a final form. (Tangentially, you or others might also be interested in the new mw:Content translation interface that is in development, and available in a few languages.) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

200.118.147.213

Response by 200.118.147.213

Las ideas de ALAN DAVID MILLER acerca de la pregunta 1

... Una tendencia creciente son las aplicaciones moviles y su uso practico dentro de los smartphones y tablets en el mercado, cada vez mas usuarios prefieren tener una aplicacion movil en vez de ir directo a la pagina web desde el dispositivo, obviamente recae este tema sobre el ya analisado del uso movil, pero creo importante mencionarlo para que mi sugeriencia sea mas objetiva.

... (sorry for using the google translator) A growing trend is the mobile applications and their practical use in smartphones and tablets on the market, more and more users prefer to have a mobile application instead of going directly to the website from the device, obviously rests on this topic already analyzed the mobile use, but I think important to mention that my contribution be more objective.

Las ideas de ALAN D. MILLER acerca de la pregunta 2

...Creo en mi opnion que lo primero que debemos hacer es mejorar la plataforma movil de wikipedia adaptandola para los diferente tipos de smartphones y su capacidad de procesamiento, el segundo y mas importante es la aplicacion (perdonen el mal uso ortografico) movil debemos hacerla mucho mas sostenible y practica, incluir nuevas caracteristicas como la redaccion de articulos supermultimedia, reducir el peso de la aplicacion pero hacerla independiente de la pagina web. (obviamente sin olvidar la pagina como gran referente). una idea que me parece muy buena (tal vez un poco rara) es crear dentro de la aplicacion un chat al estilo whatsapp para la interaccion de usuarios y hacer asi de las discuciones mas rapidas, mas efectivas y hacer de los articulos mucho mejores ademas de crear una super red social de conocimiento humano. y para el tema de los nuevos usuarios creo nesesario mejorar la pagina y su infraestrucutra como implementar nuevos servidores de alta tecnologia.

... (sorry for using the google translator) I think in my opinion that the first thing to do is improve the mobile platform wikipedia adapting it for different types of smartphones and its processing capacity, the second and most important is the application mobile must make it much more sustainable practices, including new features such as the drafting of supermultimedia items, reducing the weight of the application but make independent website. (obviously not forgetting the page as great reference). an idea that seems very good (maybe a bit odd) is created within the application whatsapp chat style for user interaction and do so in the quickest, most effective discuciones and make the much better items in addition to create a super social network of human knowledge. and the issue of new users think nesesario improve the product and its infrastructure will deploy new servers and high technology.

Angoratoast

Response by Angoratoast

Angoratoast's thoughts on question 2

Question 2- As a librarian/archivist I think it's important not to lose sight of creating a condensed and concise way of sharing information as formats change. Usability is going to be even more important as devices get smaller/change shape/become virtual (I think google glass etc. are going to pave the way for us to reach out and put articles up in the air like a billboard pretty soon here). There are some pages/places in wiki-land that are difficult to suss out on a computer, let alone a mobile device.

Hi Angoratoast! We agree. Structured data is the future - we're seeing that even as companies develop their own structured products (like Google's Knowedge Graph, for instance). That's why we're pleased to be working on Wikidata, which will make it easier to do exactly what you suggest - to share the knowledge in other formats. Is that what you mean, or am I missing the point? (Entirely possible, it's the end of a very long day....) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:42, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

190.206.142.95

Response by 190.206.142.95

Las ideas de 190.206.142.95 acerca de la pregunta 2

digo que crecera pero los profesores no aceptaran esta pagina para hacer tareas

(Machine translation, please improve) "say that will grow but teachers do not accept this product for homework"

Kerothen

Response by Kerothen

Kerothen's thoughts on question 1

Hm... I would say that... Well, I do not really know. Maybe laptops? Whatever is mobile!

Kerothen's thoughts on question 2

Hm... Well, Maybe video games? Comics? Racecars? Building? Um... Pretty much anything that is actually true, and trendy right now. You could probably look at what people view most, and keep those pages reliable.