Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Sources/Summary 14th to 28th

This is a short summary overview of the Source pages on Meta. Shortcuts used here rely on the established language and project code and languages are grouped alphabetically. For example, the Arabic language Wikipedia is Ar.WP. To provide a rough sense of activities on the projects and platforms the Source pages summarize, this 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.

Main points (preliminary):

• Technological improvements should be a strong focus, including stronger investment in alternative knowledge formats (like audio and maps), mobile, voice search, augmented reality, AI, and Wikidata (Ar, Bn, De, En, Es, Fr, He, Hi, It, Meta, Pl, Vi, Zh).

• Several communities emphasize the need for better multilingual software and translation support, potentially up to creating multilingual project wikis or integrating the existing wikis; and a focus on content quality, potentially including paid content creation (De, Es, He, Hi, It, Ja, Meta, Pl, Pt, Sv, Ru, Zh).

• Several communities emphasized the need to create a more welcoming and friendly environment, including expanded anti-harassment and gender gap measures (Bn, De, Es, Fr, Meta, Pt, Ru, Vi).

• Communities emphasize the need to cooperate more closely with educational institutions, potentially up to Wikimedia offices in those entities (Ar, Bn, Es, He, Hi, It, Vi).

• Asian communities and English tend to emphasize offline development and rural area outreach to bring Wikimedia into every village (Bn, En, Hi, Vi).

• Several communities reiterate well-established positions outlining the need for better technical collaboration by the WMF (De, Ru) and a concern that the movement is losing its educational focus through politicization and WMF-centralism. (De, Fr, He, Meta, Pl)

• The Arabic Wikipedia’s village pump discussion (3s) surfaced the view that the Wikipedia Education Program should be a priority, including opening permanent Wikimedia offices in educational institutions (§Ar1) while the related Facebook group (4s) emphasized focusing on improving technical aspects of Wikimedia Projects (§Ar2.1 (to 4)).

• Bengali onwiki discussions (35s) surfaced various views such as focusing on decentralizing the movement with an emphasis on rural areas, (§Bn1.2, §Bn1.31) Wikidata development, (§Bn1.6, §Bn1.25) and creating a welcoming environment (§Bn1.21). Partnering with related organizations (§Bn1.7), developing spell correction tools (§Bn1.5) and creating audiobooks on Wikisource (§Bn1.8) should be a focus. Article writing should be easier and emphasize both content quality and quantity. Frequent global contests would be helpful, including give rewards for contribution (such as mobile data), engage students and mentor newcomers (§Bn1.20, §Bn1.33). Sister projects should be promoted (§Bn1.26) and all projects integrate Wikidata with all for automatic updating §Bn1.25). Community members at Bengali community meetups (6s) suggested promoting Wikimedia projects via Wikipedia Library buses (§Bn2.1) and calendars (§Bn2.5, §Bn2.4). The gender and content gaps (§Bn2.5, §Bn2.4) should be addressed.

• The (mainly) Taiwanese Chinese Wikipedia Community on Facebook said that they would like to increase the quality of the existing articles on Wikipedia. The former chair of the defunct WMHK noted in a meeting that the lack of resources is always a problem in the community. The community wants the Foundation to support more, financially and technically, so that they can develop in a better way.

• Wikipedians on English Wikipedia (13s) said that we should focus on offline accessibility (§En1), quality of information (§En11) and features like graphs and maps (§En4). We should work together with external partners and more internal collaboration like Community Tech Team (§En5). The problems of undisclosed paid editing (§En3) and Wikidata's limited usability (§En8) should also be addressed and the potentials of artificial intelligence to help us explored (§En13).

• Contributors on French Wikipedia (66s) discussed that we should focus on smaller wikis, (§Fr1) build a global community, (§Fr2) promote local-language projects, (§Fr4) modernize Wikimedia platforms (§Fr5) (such as augmented reality and voice search (§Fr57) and creating more strict anti-harassment policy (§Fr7). We should focus on quality, (§Fr39) creating multilingual wikis for every project, (§Fr11) creating a welcoming environment for new users (§Fr6) and encouraging cross-cultural exchanges. (§Fr25) We should also think about neutrality of the project, (§Fr15) internationalization and providing knowledge in various formats (§Fr13). We should encourage the use of media/social media for promotion (§Fr41).

• The German Wikipedia discussions (37s) discussed the idea of democratically electing expert boards among wikipedia users to improve quality (§De1.1 to 7) A welcoming social environment (§De1.8) and keeping all the articles up to date (§De1.15) has been deemed important; while Wikidata can be helpful (§De1.18) but someone has to update Wikidata as well. (§De1.19) We should focus on quality rather than quantity. (§De1.21) Wikipedia should be a democracy and all the supervisory positions should be appointed by community; possibly downsizing the WMF with a headquarter outside US and for fundraising by organizations. (§De1.13) We should have an internal quality management, restructure policy and guideline pages, (§De1.30) and rethink the value of primary sources (§De1.25). A meeting in Austria (31s) supported a welcoming environment, (§De2.1) finding new knowledge (visualization) formats, (§De2.26) involving more diverse voices and sources of knowledge, and keeping content up to date. (§De2.21)

• Hebrew Wikipedians (17s) discussed that we should focus on facts, being politically neutral (§He2) and reaching more audiences. (§He1) We should rethink Wikimedia's design, (§He12) adapt new technologies, (§He6) collaborate with Academia and engage students, (§He17) focus on quality (§He10) and integration of Wikimedia projects. (§He8) We should also think about the problem of paid editing. (§He13)

• The Hindi Wikimedians Whatsapp Group (25s) discussed that we should decentralize the movement's formal organizations (§Hi1.2) and focus on reaching every village. (§Hi1.6) Portable devices should be our priority (§Hi1.18) and Wikipedia should be pre-installed on all devices. (§Hi1.18) We should also engage students and teachers by collaborating with educational institutions. (§Hi1.7) We should focus on growing both quantitatively (§Hi1.20) and qualitatively, (§Hi1.14) potentially making relevant content in other languages visible on any given wiki. (§Hi1.24) We should create an open and welcoming environment. (§Hi1.25) The Hindi Wikimedians Google Hangout discussion (12s) also surfaced the views that Wikipedia should be more easily accessible from mobile devices. (§Hi2.3) We should collaborate with organizations (§Hi2.6) and local governments (§Hi2.6) to take Wikipedia to the villages. (§Hi2.5) We should promote Wikipedia on social media (§Hi2.7) and also work together with educational institutions with the help of more paid staff. (§Hi2.10) We should create tutorials, ebooks and other material in regional languages. (§Hi2.8)

• Italian Wikipedians (14s) discussed that there should be a uniformity in terms of templates, (§It1.11) guidelines and Manual of Style (§It1.8) as well as increased communication among various languages and projects. (§It1.1) We should focus on educating and bringing more contributors. (§It1.5) We should find various ways to engage children (§It1.14) and students such as collaborating with youth organizations. (§It1.13) Italian Wikiquote (5s) users said that Wikiquote guidelines should be improved to make it easier for newbies. (§It2.2) There should be a collaborative library to improve quotations. (§It2.4) Wikiquote should have a presence on social media. (§It2.5) Italian Wikisource (13s) contributors suggested that Wikimedia projects should be more interconnected (§It3.1) and Wikisource should be integrated with other projects. (§It3.6) We should improve the technical aspects of Wikisource so that one can easily contribute and view texts, even on mobile devices. (§It3.8) Some users stressed including other open-access works (§It3.3) while others said that we should focus on scanned works. (§It3.15) Italian Wikiversity (6s) suggested that the movement should focus more on sister projects of Wikipedia. (§It4.1) We should also focus on schools and children by collaborating with projects such as Vikidia. (§It4.5)

• A Japanese Wikidata interview (1 user, 6s) on Twitter indicates that the seasoned Wikidata user felt that the project’s mission is unclear and it is complicated to explain. (§Ja1.1 (to 6)) A group on Slack (3s) agreed that WP has poor quality content regarding certain disciplines such as Computer sciences. (§Ja2.2) Facebook Messenger Interview (9s) surfaced the views that we should focus on comprehensiveness and decentralization of the projects, (§Ja3.1) and clarification of licenses. (§Ja3.6) We should also focus on data structure, (§Ja3.4) data relationship, (§Ja3.3) data input, (§Ja3.8) data output on Wikidata. (§Ja3.9) Onwiki, freeing more content (§Ja4.2) and recruiting more quality contributors have been noted. (§Ja4.3)

• Meta (21s) discussions emphasized the quality of content and the need to contest fake news (§Meta4), fighting paid editing (§Meta18) and undisclosed advocacy. (§Meta7) While one user advocated promotion of free knowledge efforts of WMF, (§Meta3) another user said that we should look for alternatives for WMF developed softwares. (§Meta2) We should focus on improving collaborations between distributed communities, formal affiliates (§Meta20) and potential partner organizations. (§Meta21) Knowledge should be promoted globally by improving offline access and by making our content easily understandable. We should focus on improving technical aspects of Wikimedia (§Meta12) and also the ability to handle rich content such as maps and graphic tools. (§Meta19) We should focus on gender/content gap (§Meta6) and improve inter-connectivity in our projects around Wikidata. (§Meta14) We should advocate for freedom of panorama in the US (§Meta13) and respect each other despite our differences.(§Meta5)

• On the Polish Wikipedia (18s), users said that contributing to Wikipedia should be easier, (§Pl1.5) and the software should better support multilingual efforts. (§Pl1.1) Certain users suggested creation of a unified Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons and Metawiki, with tools to translate same article into various languages. (§Pl1.8) Paid editors can also be hired to keep the content up to date by getting access to professional databases. (§Pl1.7) It was discussed that WMF/Movement should be politically neutral (§Pl1.2) and also that WMF Board of Trustees should represent the community better. (§Pl1.3) WMF should be only a support organization and not the organization leading the movement. (§Pl1.14) We should focus on sister projects of Wikipedia (§Pl1.15) and editorial autonomy of Wikipedia in various languages. (§Pl1.18) A tool to convert mp3/mpeg while uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. (§Pl1.17) The Pl.WP Facebook group (3s) highlights the need for technological improvement (§Pl2.1) and discussed political bias.(§Pl2.2)

• Portuguese Wikipedians (8s) discussed about having a welcoming environment with proper mechanisms for dealing with harassment, disputes and moderation of discussions. We should lay more stress on filling content gap with local content and translation should not be a priority.

• An overview of the Russian language (7s) village pumps discuss the importance of multilingualism (§Ru1.3) and geographic user base diversity, (§Ru1.1) easier online participation, and the need for improved WMF engagement on technical changes. (§Ru1.5) The Ru.WP RfC (6s) emphasizes a focus on WP's the importance of the grassroots model of development, (§Ru2.3) problems of new users trying to join the community, (§Ru2.4) and the need for more multilingualism.(§Ru2.6)

• On the Spanish Wikipedia's (11s) strategy page, the idea of movement-wide notability criteria has been raised (§Es1.1) alongside the need for better translation and language support, (§Es1.6) accessibility of the content, (§Es1.4) preserving the movement's independence, (§Es1.6) and WP is a teaching tool. (§Es1.7) We should focus on newcomers, (§Es1.8) user retention, (§Es1.10) modernizing Wikipedia interface (§Es1.9) and analyzing its current structure (§Es1.11). The Spanish Telegram group (1s) supports validation of content by external experts. (§Es2.1)

• The Swedish Wikipedia's (6s) village pump discussion compared Sv.WP with the country's national encyclopedia (§Sv6) while noting the need for improved reliability (§Sv3) and interwiki cooperation.(§Sv5)

• During the Vietnamese Wikipedia's (24s) conversation, the focus has been content quality (§Vi2) and the technical challenges like anti-vandalism measures (§Vi5) and advertising,(§Vi6) and opportunities, like educational outreach,(§Vi9) that accompany working towards it. We should focus on training of newbies,(§Vi8) offline accessibility,(§Vi6) keeping information updated(§Vi9) and acknowledging contributors.(§Vi7)