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Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Sources/Cycle 3/Summary July 1 to 9

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This is a short summary overview of the Source pages on Meta from 1st to 9th July of Cycle 3 discussion. Shortcuts used here rely on the established language and project code and languages are grouped alphabetically. For example, the Arabic language Wikipedia is Ar. To provide a rough sense of activities on the projects and platforms the Source pages summarize, the full summary by community text indicates how many source statements were available and therefore taken into account at the time of writing. (3s), for example, means 3 statements were available on the referenced source page at the time the summary was drafted.

Week 1 Challenge: How do our communities and content stay relevant in a changing world?

Key insights

The Western encyclopedia model is not serving the evolving needs of all people who want to learn.

Knowledge sharing has become highly social across the globe.

  • English Wikipedians (13s) discussed that we should work with partners (§En1.1) while balancing the needs of different audiences (§En1.4) and ensuring the quality (§En1.3) and survival of Wikipedia. (§En1.2) The community also discussed about having more videos, (§En1.9) using social media for the promotion of Wikipedia (§En1.10) and creating a new project targeted at youth. (§En1.8)
  • On French Wikipedia discussion (10s) questions were raised about the experts (§Fr1.1) and the research was deemed biased. (§Fr1.5) They stressed on not changing the five pillars of Wikipedia (§Fr1.3) and it was also mentioned that projects like Vikidia and Wikiversity are already helping readers depending on their needs. (§Fr1.2)
  • German Wikipedians (20s) said they are here to make an encyclopedia (§De1.1) and that it does not matter whether it is of interest for a large group or a smaller one. (§De1.2) It was discussed that we can start a new project but we should not change our current model for Wikipedia (§De1.14) and we should support sister projects of Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects as well. (§De1.5) Some people said that the result of this strategy discussion has already been determined. (§De1.16) (§De1.17)
  • During Hindi Wikipedia WhatsApp discussion (6s) community stressed that we should not change our encyclopedic model (§Hi1.1) and audio-visual should complement the text. (§Hi1.4) We should collaborate with social media instead of trying to become a social media platform. (§Hi1.5) One person suggested the creation of an encyclopedia for children. (§Hi1.6) While in Hindi community one-on-one discussions (13s) community members said that we should not change our current encyclopedia model (§Hi2.1) while we should make sure to include more audio-visual content and that content should also be made available in multiple languages.(§Hi2.2) We should start a new project to answer questions. (§Hi2.7) It was discussed that we should not compete with social media (§Hi2.3) although we should integrate social media with Wikipedia. (§Hi2.13) A concern was also raised that most of our community members won't be able to make videos and it won't be possible to make revisions in them. (§Hi2.12)
  • On Italian Wikipedia (9s), the community discussed that we should lay more stress on visuals, (§It1.1) and better communication among wikimedians. (§It1.9) While Wikipedia is not a social network (§It1.4) but we should use social networks. (§It1.8) The community also talked about introducing an article rating system along with comments (§It1.10) and we should also archive online references. (§It1.17)
  • Meta-Wiki (29s) contributors have contrary views on first week's insights. Some people suggested that we should consider that youngsters seek knowledge in different ways (§Meta1.1) do what the customers want (§Meta1.17) and stress on other projects as well (§Meta1.6) and other the other hand, some people said that encyclopedias should be known for quality (§Meta1.18) and don't have to be interesting (§Meta1.2) and another contributor talked about leaving the movement if the current model is not followed. (§Meta1.7) Many contributors talked about going beyond encyclopedia (§Meta1.10) such as video versions of articles (§Meta1.12) and becoming more modular. (§Meta1.25) It was also discussed that the current encyclopedic model is not bringing different language communities together (§Meta1.4) and we should recognize our failures. (§Meta1.22)
  • Polish Wikipedia (12s) community believes that traditional encyclopedic format is good enough (§Pl1.2) but we should make it more attractive by adding more multimedia (§Pl1.5) and we need external experts to produce such content. (§Pl1.7) People also discussed that popularity in Google results will ensure low risk of readership decline (§Pl1.9) but we should also be prepared that Google can become our competitor one day. (§Pl1.10)
  • Punjabi community (12s) discussed during a meetup that we should lay more stress on audio-visual (§Pa1.5) while the quality of the content should remain a priority. (§Pa1.9) They talked about collaborations with like-minded organizations to include other model of learning (§Pa1.6) and it was also discussed that a new project for question-answers should be started. (§Pa1.7) Regarding 2nd insight some community members felt that Wikipedia should become more social (§Pa1.1), appealing and interactive (§Pa1.3) while some other felt that our goal is to build an encyclopedia and not to become a social media media platform.(§Pa1.10)
  • Urdu community (10s) discussed that there should be new projects for videos (§Ur1.1) and question answers (§Ur1.2) but we should keep focusing on developing Wikipedia as well. (§Ur1.3) It was also said that people use social media for entertainment and they come to Wikipedia when they need knowledge (§Ur1.6) but we should still make some changes such as having an on-wiki chatting platform. (§Ur1.5) Another user said that Wikipedia will always remain relevant (§Ur1.8) while he also talked about the doing extensive outreach to reach more people. (§Ur1.9)
  • On Vietnamese Wikipedia, it was discussed that Wikipedia is used as a reference on social media. (§Vi1.1) It was also said that Wikipedia is not a place for self-learning nowadays. (§Vi1.2)
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