2015 Strategy/Community consultation

[Anthonyhcole]

I just visited Wikipedia and was greeted with a banner:

We need your opinion!
How will this site thrive for the next billion internet users?

linking to a meta page that says inter alia

Your vision matters. We are working on a strategy for WMF, and we need some preliminary thoughts about the future. We are gathering information from people like you. The expertise and perspective you bring will help us broaden our thinking and generate an outcome that is truly representative of our shared goals. We will read your contributions to help formulate our strategy, which we will be sharing with the community for comments.

If you would like more information, please review Background or check out out this blog post.

(linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_St ... nsultation[/link])
Lots of things being kicked off, apparently.

[DanMurphy]

They want answers to two questions:

What major trends would you identify in addition to mobile and the next billion users?
Based on the future trends that you think are important, what would thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects look like?

And the thoughtful and loving feedback is pouring in. The first two responses on the page:

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.

71.192.72.22'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.

A cattle call to the world's IP addresses is clearly the best way to create a strategic plan (I'm assuming that the new executive director is not an idiot; therefore this should be viewed as a pure public relations exercise.).

[Anthonyhcole]

A cattle call to the world's IP addresses is clearly the best way to create a strategic plan (I'm assuming that the new executive director is not an idiot; therefore this should be viewed as a pure public relations exercise.).

I doubt that Lila sees it as a PR exercise. My impression is she's very receptive to - hungry, even, for - constructive ideas. Whether this process generates any remains to be seen. The third IP says

If you make Wikitexts any good, students will save a fortune on inaccurate outdated textbooks.

Fuck yeah IP. The fourth says

Thriving and healthy wikimedia projects will strive to be more accurate...

Fuck yeah. The fifth:

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

Thank you IP. The sixth:

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

There is a theme developing here. Something to do with trust.

I assume these are our readers speaking. Compare what they're asking for with what registered users are suggesting.

[Vigilant]

A cattle call to the world's IP addresses is clearly the best way to create a strategic plan (I'm assuming that the new executive director is not an idiot; therefore this should be viewed as a pure public relations exercise.).

I doubt that Lila sees it as a PR exercise. My impression is she's very receptive to - hungry, even, for - constructive ideas. Whether this process generates any remains to be seen.

Perhaps the Pokemon article owners or the ROADS gnomes have some good ideas?

What?! It could happen. No, it can't.

[DanMurphy]

A suggestion to subvert the educational systems of third world countries in service of raising future Wikipedians. Really:

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!

Reminds me of this recent essay/rant by an acquaintance of mine. Not about Wikipedia, but it might as well be.

The sheer shallowness of their minds is truly astonishing. They have never been forced to know the inner resources of their own nature. They do not know the conditions that allowed for the development of individual thought in history. They do not grasp the role of commerce in the development of art.

When you have spent your life diving in the shallows, doing the mental dead-man’s float, how do you develop a taste for depth? How do you learn to swim and carry yourself through the water? You can’t. There is in these eager seekers for self improvement a deficiency of personality– a lack of any depth of curiosity -- the lack of an ability to ask questions -- a lack of the ability to be deeply moved – a lack of the ability to apply themselves -- deficiencies that prevent them from learning to distinguish the true from the false.

... So beware of the self educated – they float on the surface of things and never get to the bottom of anything. They have no depth of soul. They are intellectual tourists. They are empty vessels waiting to be filled, and they are filled, filled with the novel, the popular, the current, the accepted and banal. Most of their lives have been spent amassing money. They are only mildly stirred by life. They consume, but they don’t explore. They wallow, but don’t examine or compare.

These questions deserve the attention of all of us. The decline of the critical spirit can be seen everywhere even in ourselves.­­

[Anthonyhcole]

Dan, while I think we agree Wikipedia in its present state shouldn't replace textbooks, the simple fact is, given Wikipedia Zero's place in the third world, Wikipedia is becoming the third world poor's textbook. Do you have a solution to this appalling situation? Your acquaintance is an eloquent idiot and snob, by the way, if I've understood him correctly in that out-of-context snippet . (Leaving the keyboard for a while.)

[DanMurphy]

Mr. Sale is no idiot. An impressive and fascinating man. As for snob? I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. I happen to agree with him here. His broader point is about the nature of education and experience. Living the examined life. Or not.

As for "do you have a solution to this appalling situation?" Stop them. Wikipedia's misbegotten "model" is even more destructive to real education and knowledge than that IIPM guy is. Wikipedia is not just worse than a textbook - it's worse than no textbook at all. The glib techno-utopian belief that computers and things like Wikipedia will churn out well-educated people on their own is batty, and dangerous, since it does divert energy and cash from real (possible) improvements.

The problem of education in very poor and/or disorganized societies is a difficult one. A friend of mine worked with a large team on a long consulting project for The Gates Foundation about the time they were getting set up. Gates was looking for good ways to spend lots of money, and his first thought naturally enough was education in Africa. The eventual recommendation was that all his billions would make very little difference, since the political context was so particularly crucial.

Me? I don't have a good idea either.

[Vigilant]

Mr. Sale is no idiot. An impressive and fascinating man. As for snob? I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. I happen to agree with him here. His broader point is about the nature of education and experience. Living the examined life. Or not.

As for "do you have a solution to this appalling situation?" Stop them. Wikipedia's misbegotten "model" is even more destructive to real education and knowledge than that IIPM guy is. Wikipedia is not just worse than a textbook - it's worse than no textbook at all. The glib techno-utopian belief that computers and things like Wikipedia will churn out well-educated people on their own is batty, and dangerous, since it does divert energy and cash from real (possible) improvements.

The problem of education in very poor and/or disorganized societies is a difficult one. A friend of mine worked with a large team on a long consulting project for The Gates Foundation about the time they were getting set up. Gates was looking for good ways to spend lots of money, and his first thought naturally enough was education in Africa. The eventual recommendation was that all his billions would make very little difference, since the political context was so particularly crucial.

Me? I don't have a good idea either.

Using wikipedia has a large and hidden opportunity cost.

[Anthonyhcole]

...it does divert energy and cash from real (possible) improvements.

Using wikipedia has a large and hidden opportunity cost.

Absolutely. You both, however write it off as irredeemable. I think it can be fixed.

[Vigilant]

...it does divert energy and cash from real (possible) improvements.

Using wikipedia has a large and hidden opportunity cost.

Absolutely. You both, however write it off as irredeemable. I think it can be fixed.

How much has been fixed over the past N years?

[sparkzilla]

Using wikipedia has a large and hidden opportunity cost.

Contributing to Wikipedia has a large and obvious opportunity cost. Surely it must be one of the world's most inefficient way to create content.

Anyway, back to the original topic. The few people who have any insight into how to improve Wikipedia are reading this thread. They will be ignored by the WMF. Instead, the WMF will ask casual users of the site who don't know or understand the issues, and who can have no impact on policy, and then report to the world that their consultation was a success, while implementing their own pet projects anyway.

[Anthonyhcole]

...it does divert energy and cash from real (possible) improvements.

Using wikipedia has a large and hidden opportunity cost.

Absolutely. You both, however write it off as irredeemable. I think it can be fixed.

How much has been fixed over the past N years?

WP:BLP was an incremental improvement - though it didn't go anywhere near far enough in protecting our subjects. That's about the only significant improvement I can see in the last 9 years.

Radical, sufficient change is possible. No one knows the probability. Personally, I think the thirst for actual knowledge - information you can trust - is so strong that the relatively simple innovations required to satisfy that need are inevitable. In the unlikely event that rigor and reliability aren't imposed on the thing the WMF hosts, the WMF will be overtaken by something that does offer the reader actual knowledge. They will enable and host that innovation, or they will be justly swept away by it to page fifteen of Google.

I'm thinking about maybe writing a blog post on this. What's the usual practice? Do I submit something by email? Do you have a wiki or other space where others can chime in as the thing develops? ... Actually, I might as well do it on my Wikipedia user page. I'm not using it for anything else.

[Anthonyhcole]

From Azcolvin429 linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:20 ... zcolvin429[/link]:

...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?

From an IP linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:20 ... 49.192.134[/link]:

getting summerised information will be only valuable if that information is unbiased, if it is true and accurate.

Chiswick Chap linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:20 ... swick_Chap[/link]:

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.

Writie99 linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:20 ... Wrightie99[/link]:

There are many 'poor' articles requiring work, people see these and then say Wikipedia can't be trusted...

Another IP linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:20 ... .95.254.91[/link]:

People want correct information. They want to be able to say "I read on wikipedia that..." with confidence.

[Notvelty]

They want answers to two questions:

What major trends would you identify in addition to mobile and the next billion users?
Based on the future trends that you think are important, what would thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects look like?

And the thoughtful and loving feedback is pouring in. The first two responses on the page:

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.

71.192.72.22'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.

A cattle call to the world's IP addresses is clearly the best way to create a strategic plan (I'm assuming that the new executive director is not an idiot; therefore this should be viewed as a pure public relations exercise.).

Thanks, Dan. That's the only defence of expertise in the arts I've ever read that didn't devolve into inconsequential ranting about how the government didn't hand out enough money. An excellent response to part-time experts of all shapes.

[Poetlister]

Radical, sufficient change is possible.

Sufficient change would have to be extremely radical. There is plenty of good stuff on Wikipedia. If you could get people to sift through, removing the junk and polishing the rough diamonds, you'd have something quite useful. It would be a Herculean undertaking though, and of course you'd have to find ways of preserving it once you'd finished.

[Lukeno94]

Radical, sufficient change is possible.

Sufficient change would have to be extremely radical. There is plenty of good stuff on Wikipedia. If you could get people to sift through, removing the junk and polishing the rough diamonds, you'd have something quite useful. It would be a Herculean undertaking though, and of course you'd have to find ways of preserving it once you'd finished.

It's definitely possible, and I think Wikipedia is genuinely at a crossroads now; either the new people at the WMF will steer the project away from the abyss, and help clean out some of the mess, or they'll just push it over the edge. I see more signs of the former than the latter at the moment; although I'm still waiting for the idiots at Commons to revolt and try to break away (which would be no bad thing, of course). I don't think it'll be a quick change though - it won't work if it is rushed through.

[thekohser]

I'm thinking about maybe writing a blog post on this. What's the usual practice? Do I submit something by email? Do you have a wiki or other space where others can chime in as the thing develops? ... Actually, I might as well do it on my Wikipedia user page. I'm not using it for anything else.

Our editor's preference is that you compose your blog draft in a Working Group here, so that the formatting stays in the forum code. If you want assistance from other key people here, that's the way to go. If you want to keep it a surprise, I'd compose it in a private message to Hersch.

[Anthonyhcole]

I'm thinking about maybe writing a blog post on this. What's the usual practice? Do I submit something by email? Do you have a wiki or other space where others can chime in as the thing develops? ... Actually, I might as well do it on my Wikipedia user page. I'm not using it for anything else.

Our editor's preference is that you compose your blog draft in a Working Group here, so that the formatting stays in the forum code. If you want assistance from other key people here, that's the way to go. If you want to keep it a surprise, I'd compose it in a private message to Hersch.

Thanks Greg.

[Puebla]

Radical, sufficient change is possible.

Sufficient change would have to be extremely radical. There is plenty of good stuff on Wikipedia. If you could get people to sift through, removing the junk and polishing the rough diamonds, you'd have something quite useful. It would be a Herculean undertaking though, and of course you'd have to find ways of preserving it once you'd finished.

It's definitely possible, and I think Wikipedia is genuinely at a crossroads now; either the new people at the WMF will steer the project away from the abyss, and help clean out some of the mess, or they'll just push it over the edge. I see more signs of the former than the latter at the moment; although I'm still waiting for the idiots at Commons to revolt and try to break away (which would be no bad thing, of course). I don't think it'll be a quick change though - it won't work if it is rushed through.

I agree with the idea that WP is at a crossroads. The fact is that it has really gone as far as it can go with the Joe Schmoe volunteer model. The trustworthiness problem is that there is no real way under the current system to attract, keep and reward content creators, nor safeguard good content from vandalism and degradation. In the long run, I think that the institutions now in GLAM and the Wikipedia Education Program are the future of a free online encyclopedia, be it Wikipedia or not. WP slowly relies more and more on these institutions, which will give them more say, or the experience to create alternatives if the Foundation cannot find a way to reign in the pack of toddlers that run things now.

[DanMurphy]

The feedback keeps pouring in, in multiple languages! Thank goodness technology has overcome the need to understand Czech or anything else.

Response by 90.177.1.194 skjuz mi, better czek

1. ziji pobliz Prahy jsem 1958 ? 2. mam "pouze" gymnazium (i kdyz k VŠ jsem čuchnul, když to bylo zadarmo a na spoustu věcí bylo dost času)

Tak k věci: Spousta znam je i jmenem a datumem nar. vídáme se různé profese atd. si mysli, že je to Ruská (potaž. Sovětska hymna) a to je třeba ujasnit (objasnit) .....

A proč je Svatá Valka - Džihad a toto ...

Thank you ANN

Machine translation; please help improve: skjuz me better Czeko I live near Prague in 1958? 2. I have "only" high school (although the university I čuchnul when it was free and a lot of things was enough time) So the thing: A lot is known by name and date born. We see various professions etc. thinks it is Russia (consideration. Soviet national anthem), and it needs to be clarified (clarified) ..... And why is the holy war - jihad and this ...

[Anthonyhcole]

Lots of requests for translation of good articles into other languages.

No one mentions civility.

[Randy from Boise]

Lots of requests for translation of good articles into other languages.

No one mentions civility.

+1

RfB

[thekohser]

Lots of requests for translation of good articles into other languages.

No one mentions civility.

Screw you, Cole! Or, let me put that another way: Коул Мулаев жыныстық қатынасқа баруға тиіс.

[Jim]

Коул Мулаев жыныстық қатынасқа баруға тиіс.

Твоя мать была хомяка и ваш отец пахло Бузина!

[Anthonyhcole]

Коул Мулаев жыныстық қатынасқа баруға тиіс.

どのようなジムは言った

[EricBarbour]

どのようなジムは言った

Japanese is so inefficient.....12 syllables to say what takes only 3 in English....

[Notvelty]

どのようなジムは言った

Japanese is so inefficient.....12 syllables to say what takes only 3 in English....

No, only three and a bit.

I'm not sure why Anthony used the form Dono yo nan, rather than just Nan, but my Japanese is rudimentary at best.

I would have said "Jimu wa itta", literally "Jim said" and let context do the work, just like the short colloquial English expression does.

After all, the full English expression is

I would have said what Jim just said.

[Hex]

They're displaying a global banner which is asking the general, non-editing public to submit their opinions using this piece of shit.

ghetto.png

How fucking ghetto is that? Even if they are ideologically welded to having the replies appear on a wiki page, a user-friendly input gateway to it could have been put together by a teenager recovering from a serious head injury.

[eppur si muove]

What's the point of sinking all that money in the visual editor etc if they can't even yet show something halfway sensible?

[Jim]

What's the point of sinking all that money in the visual editor etc if they can't even yet show something halfway sensible?

HTH

[Vigilant]

What's the point of sinking all that money in the visual editor etc if they can't even yet show something halfway sensible?

HTH

I prefer to think of this picture as representative of an afternoon's dedicated panhandling in the Tenderloin.

[Jim]

What's the point of sinking all that money in the visual editor etc if they can't even yet show something halfway sensible?

HTH

I prefer to think of this picture as representative of an afternoon's dedicated panhandling in the Tenderloin.

[Anthonyhcole]

It's out. (linkhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Report.pdf[/link])

Readers want reliability (accuracy and neutrality), mobile functionality, multimedia and rich content.

[The Joy]

It's out. (linkhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Report.pdf[/link])

Readers want reliability (accuracy and neutrality), mobile functionality, multimedia and rich content.

Didn't readers want that 10 years ago?

[MMAR]

It's out. (linkhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Report.pdf[/link])

Readers want reliability (accuracy and neutrality), mobile functionality, multimedia and rich content.

Didn't readers want that 10 years ago?

The first one maybe.....

[MMAR]

Probably not even worth asking, but is there any call in it for there to be less assholes on the site? And no, I'm not talking about Commons images....

[thekohser]

My question is: Was this study developed, executed, and analyzed entirely in-house by the WMF, or was a non-competitive bid put out to a favorite vendor?

Page 28 is one of the more poorly-executed slides I've ever seen.

[sparkzilla]

You just did that so we have to scroll through the whole thing...

[The Joy]

My question is: Was this study developed, executed, and analyzed entirely in-house by the WMF, or was a non-competitive bid put out to a favorite vendor?

Page 28 is one of the more poorly-executed slides I've ever seen.

I was not the best at research statistics in college nor library school, but a straight linear increase is a very rare phenomenon. I would have expect more scatter points.

I'll admit I'm rather confused by that slide. What is it trying to say or prove? 404 respondents looks too small of a sample for the whole Wikimedia community.

[The Joy]

You just did that so we have to scroll through the whole thing...

No. There's a drop-down menu you can use to go straight to page 28. Not to Hell, though. Hell is other people.

[sparkzilla]

Anyway, I read the whole thing. People just seem to be crying out for a crowdsourced site that has better multimedia, more modern design, more accuracy, less bias and more connection to the management. I wonder where such a place can be found...

[Midsize Jake]

Probably not even worth asking, but is there any call in it for there to be less assholes on the site? And no, I'm not talking about Commons images....

On Slide 73, they claim "There was particular interest in the area of 'Community Climate' with a total of 28 responses," though the "example" response there was a bit glib to say the least. You might be more interested in this quote which they classified as being about "Deletionism," from someone in Denmark:

Dogmatists who insist uncritically on rules that were established a long time ago, in order to ensure the quality of content articles, or suggest to delete items in future increasingly scare authors at WP, frustrating and alienating.

I've often argued that "deletionism," and the whole "deletionism vs. inclusionism" thing, is a red herring - a false conflict set up for the express (if not sole) purpose of demonizing people who are called "deletionists" so as to intimidate everyone into not objecting to the creation of as many unnecessary and/or poorly-written articles as possible. This is probably one of the areas where you (i.e., Mr. MMAR) and I differ somewhat, and maybe I should look at this "consultation" thing more thoroughly before making any pronouncements, but I'd have to say their use of the term "deletionism" strongly suggests this document is just business-as-usual. Its purpose is to confirm what they think they already know, with little regard to how the system actually does what it does, and who gets hurt or ignored in the process.

[thekohser]

I was not the best at research statistics in college nor library school, but a straight linear increase is a very rare phenomenon. I would have expect more scatter points.

When you make the X-axis and the Y-axis measure the same thing, you're pretty much guaranteed a straight line when you plot the data.

Let me try to explain visually what the WMF did:

[sparkzilla]

I've often argued that "deletionism," and the whole "deletionism vs. inclusionism" thing, is a red herring - a false conflict set up for the express (if not sole) purpose of demonizing people who are called "deletionists" so as to intimidate everyone into not objecting to the creation of as many unnecessary and/or poorly-written articles as possible. This is probably one of the areas where you (i.e., Mr. MMAR) and I differ somewhat, and maybe I should look at this "consultation" thing more thoroughly before making any pronouncements, but I'd have to say their use of the term "deletionism" strongly suggests this document is just business-as-usual. Its purpose is to confirm what they think they already know, with little regard to how the system actually does what it does, and who gets hurt or ignored in the process.

Like any other rule, deletionism/inclusionism is designed for POV pushing by the most powerful group on the site.

[Midsize Jake]

Like any other rule, deletionism/inclusionism is designed for POV pushing by the most powerful group on the site.

Huh? It's not a rule... what I'm saying is that the notion of an overarching conflict between these two positions as if they were real ideologies is (or was) mostly a fiction, used to facilitate the removal of anyone who won't get out of the way of a WP:OWN (or WP:COATRACK, or "walled garden," or similar) attempt, or in some cases, even just a new article somewhere.

I wouldn't say it's designed for "POV pushing," though...? Some of the people using it might be "POV pushers," but their opponents might be too, just as easily. In some cases the people being removed may very well deserve it... but that doesn't make the overall notion of a conflict any less fictional. To the extent that the conflict was real in the past, it mostly just existed to help identify people for marginalization, vilification, intimidation, and ultimately removal.

These days, I don't really think any of the established users are fooled by it anymore, and frankly I'm a little surprised anyone there is still trying to maintain the pretense.

[sparkzilla]

I agree. My point -- inexpertly written due to too much alcohol -- is that wikis work on the principle of mob rule. The tools the mob uses are COI, RS, Inclusion/Deletionism, and whatever works (and whatever the majority can justify) to, as you say, marginalize, vilify, intimidate and remove their opponents.

[Midsize Jake]

I agree. My point -- inexpertly written due to too much alcohol -- is that wikis work on the principle of mob rule. The tools the mob uses are COI, RS, Inclusion/Deletionism, and whatever works (and whatever the majority can justify) to, as you say, marginalize, vilify, intimidate and remove their opponents.

Ah, okay. Sorry, I'm a teetotaler!

[Anthonyhcole]

When you make the X-axis and the Y-axis measure the same thing, you're pretty much guaranteed a straight line when you plot the data.

Let me try to explain visually what the WMF did:

(image)

Heh.

I'm intrigued by them separating accuracy/reliability and neutrality. Accuracy and neutrality are both aspects of reliability. If you add the number of comments about neutrality to the number about other aspects of reliability, then reliability is probably the main concern of readers (presumed to be the unregistered or newly-registered respondents) as opposed to community-members.

I realise simply adding neutrality comments to the other reliability comments isn't a perfect measure because some will have commented on neutrality and another aspect of reliability, so will be double counted. I'll email the authors and ask them to do the sum.

[thekohser]

Accuracy and neutrality are both aspects of reliability.

Why is neutrality an aspect of reliability?

Conservapedia is reliably non-neutral.

[Anthonyhcole]

Accuracy and neutrality are both aspects of reliability.

Why is neutrality an aspect of reliability?

Conservapedia is reliably non-neutral.

I guess you have to ask what a reader is relying on you for. If they want an unbiased encyclopedia and can't rely on a putatively unbiased encyclopedia to be unbiased, then that's not an encyclopedia they can rely on, even if every discrete fact it presents is accurate.

If Wikipedia positioned itself as a supplier of possibly biased assertions, as it rightly should (as Conservapedia honestly presents itself as writing from a Christian fundamentalist viewpoint), even then Wikipedia's neutrality would yet be an element of its unreliablity - because you can't rely on it to always be biased or, when it is biased, to have a predictable slant.

But yes, in the case of Conservapedia, The Guardian, Fox, etc., you can generally rely on them to present a consistent slant.