Requests for comment/Improve WMF collaboration with social media sites

The following request for comments is closed. Open nearly 6 months, no discussion, and arguably out of scope of a RfC (beyond stating community interest in something, which does not appear to be present). Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 02:10, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, Wikipedia information are being displayed in generic search engines, when people search for specific terms. It is a nice way to deliver knowledge to people who desire them. However, younger people nowadays are less likely to use search engines when they try to search for something they want to know. Instead, they might be using search function in social media or multimedia apps, like Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, WeChat, to locate information they want and to hear the information from others. In doing so, these younger people could not reach mostly-objective information carried by Wikipedia or any other similar sites, but instead will only discover opinion and feeling of other people, and risk forming their own echo chamber due to social media sites/apps optimization algorithm.

To counter this digital divide, and to spread the summary of all human knowledge hosted under WMF management to as much other humans as possible, including those who primarily use apps and proprietary platforms instead of generic web browser to access the internet, in ny opinion WMF should try to discuss with owners of these platforms and try to integrate WMF content into these platforms. WMF sites have 1 billion unique visits every month, which is a vast number, yet this still mean 80%+ humans on earth are not visiting Wikipedia or any other WMF sites not even once in a month. C933103 (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Hi @C933103: With the WMF I work on the Wikimedia Enterprise team - and this kind of thing is very much the eventual goal of the project. That is - to make Wikimedia projects' content more easily, widely, speedily, and reliably integrated into 3rd party platforms. If you'd like to read more about it, please visit our documentation at the link above (including the FAQ). You can see there is also a public conversation 'office hours' scheduled on the 9th of June which you could attend if you wish. Separately, I would like to introduce you to the WMF's Partnerships team. Their role is to work with specific external groups (including, but not limited to the kinds of social media organisations you mentioned) to see how to best create projects [technical, or human] that do the kinds of things you mentioned. If you'd like to ask a specific question of them, I suggest leaving a message on that team's talkpage. Sincerely, LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. I have reviewed pages for both teams, especially the partnership team and especially the section on their talk page about past (lack of) relationship with Facebook. From there, and from the linked article, it appears that WMF is trying to collaborate with companies and organizations with shared interest and common goal. And couldn't really move forward with other platforms that have less interest in these kind of thing. This is where I think it need to be improved. As the interview article linked from the blog page mentioned, some of these platforms treat their users as product, and focus on maximum user retention by focusing on content on the platform itself. They have very limited interest in what their users are getting, but rather are interested in what they can gather from users. However, they now occupy majority amount of time of most internet users around the world, especially when it come to the time people are using the internet for themselves instead of for business purposes. To achieve the goals of covering vast majority of internet users across the globe, I think it is necessary to actively cooperate with these services even when their corporate goal and interests that do not line up with Wikimedia projects. They have the number of users that are increasingly enticed to their own platform, and when they have question or want information they will look within the platform instead of reach out to search engine, and the result is they will only see content created by other users of the network. And without cooperating with these social media platforms even without aligned interest, knowledge on Wikiproject will never be able to reach these users, and both readership and editor count will decline, especially amount the new generation of users native to the environment of smartphone and mobile apps, either those younger ones who are born in recent decade or two, or those older ones who only recently crossed the digital divide thanks to smartphones. These people simply won't use the internet search engine to look for other websites and thus must very limited chance to find out the existence of Wikipedia and to read content from it. Instead they will turn to their own favorite apps, which is also something the platforms would love and encourage in order to entice users within the platforms. Wikiprojects need to gain the users and readership of these platform as well even if the operator of these platforms are divergent from or even hostile against the goal of WMF. Their user are still significant part of the whole of humanity and cannot be left out in WMF's goal. C933103 (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@C933103: This discussion should be raised in Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Partnerships_team rather than global RFC. It is out of RFC scope. SCP-2000 06:26, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

, Suggest move this discussion. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]