Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Cycle 2/Learn

How will we achieve that vision as the world changes?

In this section, you can find context about our world today and what it might look like in 2030: Who is accessing free knowledge on Wikimedia projects today? Who are we missing? How do they perceive and use Wikimedia projects, and how will new readers use Wikimedia in the future? How will people in general access information in 2030? What forces will impact access to knowledge?

We want to help provide context for these questions to inform our conversations about the future of Wikimedia.

Information about future trends

Cycle 1 (generate themes) reports

Cycle 2 (discuss themes) reports

Cycle 3 (discuss the challenges posed by research) reports

Draft review

Synthesis reports

Foundation research on readers and contributors

Foundation research on major trends

Conversations with experts, partners, and users

Videotaped interviews with experts

Blog posts regarding movement strategy content

Research on communities

Findings from Wikimedia user analytics

  1. 220,000 people contribute monthly: https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikimediaAllProjects.htm
  2. Representation is skewed: https://web.archive.org/web/20161024063241/https:/stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerCountryOverview.htm
  3. English Wikipedia editor retention decline: File:Monthly active editors.enwiki 2016-06.svg
  4. English Wikipedia monthly user retention: File:Enwiki.monthly user retention.survival proportion.svg

Information on Wikimedia affiliates and organized groups

  1. Wikimedia affiliates and organized groups: m:Wikimedia movement affiliates
  2. 100+ affiliates around the world: File:Wikimedia Capters and WMF Maps.svg

Past community engagement and donor research

  1. Gender gap remains: m:Community Engagement Insights
  2. Reader motivations: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.05379.pdf
  3. Editor motivations: File:Editor_Survey_2012_-_Wikipedia_editing_experience.pdf
  4. Money raised by the Foundation: File:FY1516DonationsByContinent.png
  5. Donor motivation survey: File:Wikimedia 2014 English Fundraiser Survey.pdf

Research from other sources

  1. "The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity, and Fake News Online", Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/29/the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-and-fake-news-online/
  2. "Online Harassment", Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
  3. "The Agency, The New York Times, "From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet": https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
  4. "Lithuanian Elves Combat Russian Influence Online", AP: https://apnews.com/27ce7f001bde4ccb9415ce4a0de74af1/lithuanian-elves-combat-russian-influence-online
  5. Underrepresented topics remain that way: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-22/how-woke-is-wikipedia-s-editorial-pool
  6. 84% of Wikipedia articles focus on Europe and North America: http://www.markgraham.space/blog/geographies-of-the-worlds-knowledge
  7. Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. (partial text here).

Research on technology trends

Digital age / trends

  1. "The Digital Industrial Revolution," NPR / TED: http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/522858434/the-digital-industrial-revolution?showDate=2017-04-21
  2. Vanity Fair: Elon Musk predicts it will take 4-5 years to develop “a meaningful partial-brain interface” that allows the brain to communicate directly with computers: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x

Machine learning

  1. "How Machine Learning Works", The Economist (they learn from experience!): http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/economist-explains-14
  2. "The Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence," Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/11/the-simple-economics-of-machine-intelligence

Wikimedia and machine learning

  1. ORES and recommendation systems, open, ethical, learning machines helping to fight vandals with 18,000 manually enabled users today: m:Objective Revision Evaluation Service
  2. Wikimedia: 90% reduction in hours spent reviewing RecentChanges for vandalism after ORES was enabled: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-rmxp3GNrSmqfjLoMZYlnR55S8DKoSfG-PCHObjTNAg/edit#slide=id.g1c9c9bd2c0_1_8

Research on knowledge

Open citations

  1. I4OC, Initiative for Open Citations: https://i4oc.org/
  2. Mozilla Internet Health Report, see section on open innovation and access to cited work: https://d20x8vt12bnfa2.cloudfront.net/InternetHealthReport_v01.pdf
  3. "The Enclosure of Scholarly Infrastructure," Geoffrey Bilder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWPZkZ180Ho&feature=youtu.be

Scholarly articles

  1. "Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A checklist of criteria, introductions and definitions," Cornell University Library: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/scholarlyjournals

Research on global trends

Adoption of mainstream technology globally

  1. Euro Monitor: 53% of the world’s global population will be online by 2030: http://blog.euromonitor.com/2015/04/half-the-worlds-population-will-be-online-by-2030.html
  2. Cisco: For the first time, nearly everyone in the world will have a smartphone – with internet and a camera: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/complete-white-paper-c11-481360.pdf
  3. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Beyer: Over 3 billion photos shared per day: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

Population changes

  1. United Nations: Between 2015 and 2030, the vast majority of the world’s population growth will be in Africa (42%) and Asia (12%): https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Download/Probabilistic/Population

Contribution of knowledge world-wide

  1. Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Much of the world’s digital knowledge is contributed by only part of the world. As more people come online, addressing representation will be even more urgent: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2382617
  2. Freedom House: 48 countries lack free, open internet: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2016

Building inclusive knowledge societies

  1. "Keystones to Foster Inclusive Knowledge Societies: Access to information and knowledge, freedom of expression, privacy, and ethics on a global internet," UNESCO: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/internet_draft_study.pdf
  2. "Recognizing Enablers of Inclusive Knowledge Societies," CIPESA (Promoting Effective and Inclusive ICT Policy in Africa): http://cipesa.org/2015/03/recognising-the-enablers-of-inclusive-knowledge-societies/
  3. Mozilla Internet Health Report / Section on digital inclusion: https://d20x8vt12bnfa2.cloudfront.net/InternetHealthReport_v01.pdf

Research on knowledge ecosystem & education

Education

  1. World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/topic/education
  2. United Nations Education: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education
  3. Brookings: While overall literacy will rise, global access to post-secondary education will remain out of reach for billions of people: https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-wait-100-years-bridging-the-gap-in-global-education
  4. Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies: Burns, M. and Lawrie, J. (Eds.). (2015). Where It’s Needed Most: Quality Professional Development for All Teachers. New York, NY: Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies.
  5. UNESCO: Miao, Mishra and McGreal (2016). Open Educational Resources: Policy, Costs and Transformation. Paris, UNESCO.
  6. UNESCO: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002164/216451E.pdf
  7. Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2015/09/whos-benefiting-from-moocs-and-why