Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia Foundation/2015/Community consultation/2015-03-01

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Romaine

Response by Romaine

Romaine's thoughts on question 1

The trend will be that more and more people want to look up on site more information about something that is situated there. So if someone visits a building or a park, (s)he looks up that subject on Wikipedia.

The android app has an "around me" feature. Are you thinking of something similar? LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 01:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar w:Special:Nearby, but it is yet too limited to full articles on Wikipedia only. Not all information we have is available in a full article, we also have lists, like this one for monuments: nl:Lijst van rijksmonumenten in Vaals (plaats) (list of national monuments in the town Vaals), and such of many many many thousands of places around the world. This is useful information for people but is not available in the nearby-function. Also switching language should be possible, this list is only in Dutch, while the town is occupied with Germans and the French language border is directly near the town. This does not only apply to this town, but also for many regions in Europe, and even whole countries. Belgium for example has multiple official languages and a large expat community thanks to NATO, EU institutions, and many international organisations. Too often language is limiting people instead of giving it richness.

Also Commons and Wikidata should be made available in the Nearby function (with having the opportunity to switch it on and off).

 

Personally I had interpreted the question as a general question: where should WMF in general focus on. Noticing the huge growth of mobile traffic in many countries, the focus should definitely on the mobile (but not excluding the desktop development).

 

Also I think we need more and easy tools. Tools for desktop users but also for mobile users. A great tool is Wikidata Game. In general we have a shortage of Wikidata tools to be able to update pages.

 

Also a multilingual dictionary look up service (app) would be handy, of all Wiktionaries, so that it is easy to take your smart phone and look up a word.

 

So our focus should how we get our information to the public, especially mobile. Romaine (talk) 13:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Romaine's thoughts on question 2

What we already miss in projects is an easy way to form groups on the wiki with all kinds of tools for group members to follow the progress in the group, to see which new articles have been written by group members, seeing what recent changes have been performed by group members, to be able to define tasks that need to be done in the group, and other fields/areas where group members can define based on their needs. Group members can see what others members do and help each other with problems. The knowledge of users can directly help others in a social friendly way.

This is also a Gendergap issue. Women want a social environment to be happy. The current situation is not that social, but more techno-social.

Also in daily life many people are part of a group, like for work or study. A lot of those groups in daily life are interested in working together on Wikipedia, like the staff of a museum, the staff of a university, and more. But it all goes very clumsy and not really practical. And it is focussed at itself on continuous activity and keeping new and existing users motivated. Being part of a group is optional.

See also https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/02/11/wikimedia-at-fosdem-2015/

Hi @Romaine:, we have been talking about what "groups around knowledge" might look like. That idea is the inverse of a social network, it is an idea network where people who may not know each other may connect around the topic of their interest and form a group. Is that what you have in mind and if so -- what kind of tools would you envision would be needed for this? Thanks, LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think we are talking about the same. I think there are two perspectives possible: forming a group around a topic, and forming on the wiki a group based on being in the outside world a group (like the employees of a museum or another organisation). Both can be possible.
• Tools for a group would be the possibility to follow the group activity (a recent changes list of changes done by group members). Also a way to mark a page as "attention requested", a "attention please, can you have a look with me at this because ..." to get the attention of other group members on an issue, with the request having together a look at it. Also a way to describe open tasks a group wants to do. And more. (All tools as special page in the wiki, just as the recent changes page, all inside the wiki environment.)
• For (relative) short time activities (edit-a-thons, courses, etc) we have now the education extension which is a good step forward for these activities to make it easier to have inexperienced users new to the wiki having an easy start. The education extension is focussed on a short term, is a bit clumsy, is focussed on courses and edit-a-thons, but can be a good starting point to work from and to write extra modules for it.
• On the Wikipedias I am active on most general subjects have been written about, and we now have a need for more articles that are in depth and are about subjects that have a specific location (like a monument, etc). In the Netherlands we have a project group (outside the wiki, supported by Wikimedia Netherlands) about the subject of Nature, and this project group is the follow up of the successful project of Wiki Loves Earth. We organise activities with external partners about nature topics. These projects with partners include image donations, text donations, but also trying to establish a long term activity on Wikipedia with project groups in those organisations, but that is with the current MediaWiki software not easy. How to organise a long term relationship with continous activity? I expect that it is for future years more and more important to have external groups of people involved in Wikipedia, having them forming a group on wiki and sharing their knowledge in Wikipedia. Having them start together, and are interested to come back to see what other group members do and being inspired by such.
• Also a magazine for females has heard about the Gendergap issue and wants to start activity to close the gap. But Wikipedia is with the software not ready to host such.
• Wikipedia not as a social network, but Wikipedia getting social in a way that it is more attractive for people on their own and in groups, males and females, etc. This certainly can improve a culture of kindness. So I think, let us make Wikipedia a more social place so that also the female gender eels more comfortable on Wikipedia. Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Re: Gender Gap, you're probably already familiar with it, but the Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire Grants – Gender gap campaign will hopefully help raise some new ideas for investigation and progress. (See wikimedia-l announcement for concise details). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I just saw it, but it is not entirely clear to me how it works. I have written an e-mail to the idea creator. Thank you for mentioning. Romaine (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear Romain, WikiProjects are exactly what you are saying, am I right? --NaBUru38 (talk) 09:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

In theory yes, practically no. WikiProjects we currently have on Wikipedia are a version 1.0, which is working pretty well for experienced users, but is not so good working for new users. I give a lot of edit-a-thons, workshops and courses, and with those activities I notice that new users experience working on a wiki as complicated and clumsy, especially concerning project pages. So if I would compare it with existing WikiProjects, this thought is at least version 3.0 with a lot of extra functions to make working as a group possible. Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You're probably already familiar with it, but just in case (and for others), the IEG-funded Wikipedia:WikiProject X aims to investigate what makes successful WikiProjects work (and the opposite), and what aspects editors would like to see improved (or created), so that best-practices/recommendations/tips can be spread throughout all our wikis. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

(Participating at Quiddity's invitation) Romaine and NaBUru38, I very much agree that while WikiProjects should provide this function, in their current state they are inadequate. I also plan edit-a-thons and I agree that it's really difficult to point to anything on Wikipedia and tell people to go there after the event; the Teahouse is okay but only goes so far. I would be interested in any thoughts you have on how WikiProjects might be useful as a "post edit-a-thon" destination for newcomers. harej (talk) 19:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Romaine, I agree it is techno-social. As I recall you have elsewhere mentioned that the Education Program extension could be adapted for other community use. Also, what i see is that you are going beyond Wikiprojects, more towards study circles. For a more in depth study of these, particularly in the Swedish context see Study Circles in Sweden: An Overview with a Bibliography of International Literature (the bibliography is very useful). Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 10:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, The current set-up of Wikipedia is primarily thought from the male perspective, what is rationally needed to write a Wikipedia. And yes we need all that, we need all the techno. But we also need more from the female perspective. It is time we evolve to a techo-social environment. Currently the techno has a stronger presence than the social, which can be seen in the software, but also in the Gendergap of female contributors, and in the relative lower amount of articles about female topics. It is all connected.

I personally think that the sooner we get it, the sooner this can bring Wikipedia to a better balanced situation, and starting from existing software that could be used, further developed and maybe forked, the better it is. Currently this is a bottleneck. WikiProjects as we currently know are very primitive ways of organising, and yes, study circles matches my thought more closely. Thanks! Romaine (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

More thoughts on question 2 (Wikidata)

Besides the previous thoughts, another thought I would like to share is concerning Wikidata. Technical experienced users do a lot of work with bots. Individual edits can be done with the Wikidata interface. But it is for non-technical users difficult to do a serial of edits. For most users it is not practical nor easy to do a serial of edits, and for such we need more tools/extensions/etc.

A tool/extension/etc in what (1) you can easily create a list of items + being able to remove some out of this list. (2) Easy to set a skip like "if contains P123 then skip", "if does not contain P456: Q789 then do not skip", etc. (3) Being able to set "Replace P1234: Q3456 by P7934: Q765". (4) To be able to run this automatically or by suggesting changes and by checking the suggested change and/or the page itself. (5) More.

The functionality AutoWikiBrowser is providing for Wikipedia, we need as well for Wikidata. Romaine (talk) 15:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Korrektor123

Response by Korrektor123

Korrektor123s Gedanken zu Frage 1 (with an english try)

DE:  Es gibt in unterschiedlichen Sprachen viele gemeinsame Vorlagen und Artikel. Vorlagen und Listen, z. B. Kader der Fußballklubs und irgendwelche Siegerlisten eines Turniers, könnten über Wikidata zusammengelegt werden, so dass sie nur noch Zentral an einem Ort gepflegt werden müssen. So wäre es möglich, dass Wikipedianer aus unterschiedlichen Sprachen zusammenarbeiten und gemeinsam mehr schaffen als wenn alle an ihrem Wikipedia-Projekt arbeiten. Für mich geht der Trend zu einem globalen Wikiknotenpunkt namens Wikidata.

EN:  A try to translate my thoughts on question 1 into the english language. In the different wikipedia-projects are many equal templates and articles. Templates and lists for example squads of footballclubs or any lists of champions could be combined in Wikidata. So it's possible that many wikipedians of different languages work together at one central point. I think the trend moves to one central crosspoint called wikidata.

@Korrektor123: Yes, definitely! I see you're pretty active on Wikidata already, have you checked out Wikidata:Development plan? I'm sure Lydia and the team would appreciate your input, if you have thoughts on which features to prioritize that would make Wikidata more useful for Wikipedians :-). WMF is looking into the best ways to provide support for the project, starting with the development of a standard query service. Thanks for writing in German and English, by the way!--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Korrektor123s Gedanken zu Frage 2 (with an english try)

DE:  Egal ob Facebook oder YouTube, es ist doch der Trend der jungen Generation alles zu "liken". Wie wär's, wenn die Wikiartikel nicht von den Wiki-Autoren, sondern von den Lesern in lesenswerte oder exzellente Artikel eingeordnet werden. Beispielsweise nach den Kriterien Verständlichkeit, Aussehen, Sprache etc. Das würde den Wiki-Autoren bestimmt mehr helfen, woran sie noch arbeiten müssen und was schon gut ist.

That's a very good suggestion... Like! --Pgallert (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

+--Guest Account 2015 (talk) 11:21, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

EN:  A try to translate my thoughts on question 2 into the english language.

If you visit Facebook or YouTube you can 'like' if you think something is great or you can 'dislike' if you mean something is bad. What about that the reader of the wikipedia-articles can rate the articles instead of the wikipedians who write them? For example they could rate the design, understandability, verbal skills, etc. This would help the wikipedians writing the articles to improve an article.

@Korrektor123: We've done a fair bit of work in this area, and generally found that the more popular articles especially tend to attract fairly low quality feedback (really more expressing a "like/dislike" of the subject, even if you ask for specific categories like understandability). Getting signal from these kinds of reader feedback systems is hard, but it may be worth re-evaluating with better algorithms. See Research:Article feedback/Final quality assessment for more background. User:Dario (WMF) is very familiar with this research and should be able to answer any questions you have about it.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF): I see, it's already a very complex program. It might be useful to replace the yes no including comments questions with a rate like schoolmarks (from 1 to 6 or from A to F). If you have categories like I have proposed already you rather don't need to evaluate comments. For example: an article is rated by a few of people and got the mark 6 or F in understandability the writer of the article knows that he should write his article easier to understand and he don't need to evaluate many comments before. --Korrektor123 (talk) 17:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

5.232.84.156

Response by 5.232.84.156

5.232.84.156's thoughts on question 2

با سلام باید بیشتر به دنبال موضوعات و اصطلاحات علمی که در نوشتن پایان نامه ها و مقالات علمی که دانشجویان و اساتید دانشگاه که قشر بزرگی از جامعه را تشکیل می دهداز آنها استفاده میکنند استفاده شود و تعاریف جامع تری از این اصطلاحات در این سایت گذاشته شود.

'Google refuses to translate. Help?

220.227.15.70

Response by 220.227.15.70 HI, Being such a heavy site to provide information to trillion of users world wide, I think it is very important for WIKIMEDIA to make their IT a very robust and scalable at the backend to hold that much data.

Regards

82.157.34.248

Response by 82.157.34.248

82.157.34.248's thoughts on question 1

A major trend that I'm excited about is that the EU is working to make all scientific papers and journals freely available. A related major trend is that the amount of papers is simply staggering. No researcher can keep up with the stream of research that's flooding the internet, not even in a specialized field. As an answer, some researchers are experimenting with machine reading: an AI that reads all these papers and combines their knowledge into a comprehensible text, much like a wikipedia page. It's ambitious, but progress is being made and the first medicines have already been found after the AI suggested "there seems to be a correlation between X and Y".

82.157.34.248's thoughts on question 2

If wikipedia would get something like this to work, it could be a golden opportunity for wikipedia to finally get the scientific recognition it deserves. Accurate as wikipedia often is today, no researcher gets away with citing wikipedia as a source. However if wikipedia could find any way to incorporate all this new knowledge and keep it up to date, it would become one of the best and most used scientific sources, because it's the only place on the web where all knowledge is integrated into a whole. I'm confident that you have a better chance of doing this with an AI than with a whole lot of professionals.

109.205.248.119

Response by 109.205.248.119

109.205.248.119's thoughts on question 1

1. Интернетом начинают пользоваться всё больше пожилых начинающих пользователей, только начинающих изучать компьютер. Р.К.И.

Machine translation; please help improve: 1. begin to use the Internet more and more elderly novice users who are just beginning to learn the computer. R.K.I.

109.205.248.119's thoughts on question 2

2. Бесплатное специализированное образование. Бесплатное профессиональное образование. Р.К.И.

Machine translation; please help improve: 2. Free special education. Free vocational training. R.K.I.

217.246.102.43

Response by 217.246.102.43

i can find everything on wikipedia and this is very good, but there is one problem, if i have to do a presentation to my class i dont can use wikipedia because my teachers say that everybody can write to wikipedia and not all in wikipedia is right, so i have to use other websites, can you do something that i can use wikipedia for a presentation? for example: if i know who write the text in wikipedia i can use wiki. thanks for help

and sorry for my bad english, i am a german student

64.88.4.2

Response by 64.88.4.2

64.88.4.2's thoughts on question 2

It does not matter if you continue to allow anyone to change anything on this website schools and other important buildings that could be using your site are taught to avoid it because of this fact.

AlessioMela

Response by AlessioMela

Considerazioni di AlessioMela sulla domanda n. 1

1. A down leveling of technical skills.
2. A decrease in the use of "normal websites" like Wikipedia is.
3. An increase use of Wikimedia contents ('pedia, 'data, etc.) from third part site, like the Google knowledge graph. So less direct visits in the place where is possibile to edit.

Considerazioni di AlessioMela sulla domanda n. 2

Wikimedia projects are prosper thanks to the licence adopted and to the level of content already reached. Wikimedia projects are solid thanks to the large community and to donations. To mantain the actual status we need a stable number of contributors and a stable income. Seeing our past and many successful kickstarter-like campaigns, I don't think will have money problem in the next future. Instead we have to focus on community. We need quality:

1. A stronger connection between WMF and community, in order to better understand which are the priorities
2. A better tool labs, that means more people hired to work on it
3. More conventions with istitutional contents, in order to collect what is in public domain and to use as references other new works. That means also a little lobbying in order to make change their license where is reasonable
4. More informations campaigns: people doesn't know that Wikipedia is editable, doesn't know that is a non-paid collaborative project, doesn't know the difference between our free (by license) contents and whatever they found on the Web.

91.241.12.29

Response by 91.241.12.29

91.241.12.29's thoughts on question 1

Тенденции мне видятся такими:

• Возрастающее доверие обывателей к сведениям Википедии, даже если эти сведения не имеют за собой четких научных обоснований, а лишь прошли некую "общественную" валидацию.
  

• Соответственно, возрастает интерес к манипуляции информацией, от довольно грубой "войны правок" до тонких изменений формулировок и избираетльной публикации только положительных или только отрицательных сведений.

• По мере роста числа пользователей будет возрастать цена каждого отдельного слова в энциклопедии, а, значит, найдутся желающие за эти слова платить, как путем собственноручных правок статей, так и путем прямого или косвенного подкупа модераторов

Translation has been improved by melodicsun, 26.02.2015 I see these trends:

• Increasing the confidence of people to Wikipedia, even if you do not have a clear scientific basis, but only have a "public" validation.

• Accordingly, a growing interest in the manipulation of information, from a fairly rough "edit war" to subtle words changes and specially published only the positive or only negative information.

• As the number of users will increase, so will the price of every single word in the encyclopedia, and it means that there will be people, willing to pay for these words, both through handwritten edits articles, and through direct or indirect bribery of moderators

91.241.12.29's thoughts on question 2

Думаю, что википедия должна развивать механизм разделения информации. Сейчас разлеление идет по языковому признаку. Думаю, что полезным будет также разделение

• по степени "научности" и соовтетсвия устоявшейся точке зрения
• по точке зрения на проблему. Особенно для статей, посвященным региональным и религиозным конфликтам. В одной статье должны присутствовать взгляды, мысли и формулировки сразу с нескольких сторон, причем это должно быть управляемо для читателя. Если ему нужен взгляд только "своих" или только "врагов", то он должен иметь возможность отключать ненужные блоки
• по степени провалидированности данных. Некие группы/сообщества или отдельные люди в википедии должны иметь возможность "подписаться" под некоторыми утверждениями. А читатель должен видить индикаторы количества/качества подписавшихся и при необходимости фильтровать информацию согласно своим требованиям. Например, просматривать только те данные, которые провалидированы Академией наук

(Machine translation - please improve) The translation has been improved by melodicsun, 26.02.2015

I think that Wikipedia should develop a mechanism for separating information. Now the separating is only regarding the language. I think that would also be useful to split the information

• According to the degree of "scientific value" and accordance to an established point of view
• to point of view to the problem. Especially for articles on regional and religious conflicts. In one article should be present the views, thoughts and sayings by multiple parties, and this should be manageable for the reader. If he needs a glimpse only "the ours" or "the enemies", he should be able to disable unnecessary blocks
• According to data validation. Some groups/communities or individuals in Wikipedia should be able to "sign" to the written statements. And the reader should see the reputation of the one who signed (in points of quantity/quality of submitted writings) and if necessary the reader can filter information according to his needs. For example, to see only the data that has been signed by National Academy of Sciences or some University

62.254.196.200

Response by 62.254.196.200

62.254.196.200's thoughts on question 2

Currently, Wikipedia is experiencing biased editing and favouritism within its editors and administration. Therefore the credibility of wikipedia is under threat at this time.

There needs to be a fundamental rethink of policy on how differing viewpoints are accomodated and policies which have allowed editing of articles to be skewed towards biased opinions through gerrymandering. The project groups (particularly Wikipedia:Feminism) are particularly guilty and they risk the future value of Wikipedia as a trustworthy repository of knowledge.

　

78.101.118.36

Response by 78.101.118.36

get rid of all the ads, people hate them, they just give viruses, i already had 3 from ads

37.254.179.163

Response by 37.254.179.163

بهتر است برای دانش آموزان ودانشجویان فیلم های علمی در باره موضوع هم بگذارید

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"It is better for students, faculty and students about the topic of your movie"

106.4.203.36

Response by 106.4.203.36

106.4.203.36对问题二的想法

现在由于一些政治方面的原因，现在大家对于维基百科的认识只停留在听说过的层面。更多人宁愿使用百度百科，互动百科等在线百科全书。例如，去年大陆网络上发生了恶意抹黑PX(对二甲苯)的事件。百度百科，维基百科都有波及，也都采取了反击措施。然而，保卫百度百科上PX条目的事件成为了正面典型并且被广泛颂扬，而维基百科上面的同一条目保卫活动却无人提起。个人看过这些百科全书的部分内容，同一条目内容几乎完全一样，可见抄袭严重，并且读起来根本不像百科全书的样子，而更像一篇散文。个人十分恐惧当百度百科等服务开始走出国门之后会对百科全书服务的总体质量带来的不利影响。然而这就不是说这些国内特色百科全书服务没有一点优点。它们往往捕捉潮流的能力更高，条目更新周期比较快，这个优点可以在一定程度上弥补质量劣势。

(Machine translation, please improve)

Now, due to some political reasons, now you know to stay on Wikipedia have heard of. More people would rather use Baidu encyclopedia, interactive online encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. For example, China last year occurred on the network a malicious smear PX (paraxylene) events. Baidu encyclopedia, Wikipedia will have affected, or counter measures have been taken. However, to defend the PX on the Wikipedia entry of typical and widely celebrated incident became positive, and Wikipedia the same entry and security activity, but no one mentioned above. Read these parts of the encyclopedia, the same items are almost exactly the same, plagiarism is serious, and it reads like an encyclopedia at all, but more like an essay. Great fear when Baidu encyclopedia, encyclopedia of services began to go out of the country after the adverse impact on the overall quality of service. However this is not saying that these domestic featured encyclopedia service without any merit. They often capture the ability to trend higher, entry update cycles are faster, this can, to a certain extent make up for quality disadvantage.

在今后维基百科可以考虑：

• 维持并增加中文维基百科的条目质量，减少一些空白章节的数目，必要时可以鼓励翻译其他语言的同一条目，减少错别字数量，以质量取胜。
• 将可视化编辑器从实验室毕业，开放给匿名编辑者使用，并且提供随时切换回代码编辑视图的功能，来回应他人对维基百科不易编辑的批评。
• 开发类似于svn或者git的工具，模仿git的机制，支持离线编辑以及其他有用而且方便的功能。

(Machine translation, please improve)

Wikipedia could be considered in the future:

• Maintain and increase the quality of Chinese Wikipedia entry, reduced the number of blank sections and, if necessary, can encourage the translation of other languages of the same entries, reducing the number of typos, win by quality.
• The Visual Editor from the laboratory graduation, open to anonymous editors to use, and provide the ability to switch back to code view at any time to respond to criticisms of Wikipedia is not easy to edit others.
• Development similar to SVN or git tools, imitate git mechanism supports offline editing, as well as other useful and convenient functions

179.208.162.14

Response by 179.208.162.14 I believe the simplest keys to access contents are the better choice. I also believe images are the quickest way to get people informed, because we take less time to get information through images than reading, they're faster n effective

Prüm

Response by Prüm

Prüm's thoughts on question 1

I'll answer this in several points (in no particular order of importance):

1. Privacy and security: what Linuxtech wrote.
2. User experience (for readers mainly, and especially on mobile devices).
3. Editor retention.
4. Accuracy and verifiability of information.

Reverting with a Hammer

Encourage longterm wp-editors with a higher education background to support contributions by newbies behind the Wikipedean Haha instead of reverting with a Hammer (Friedrich Nietzsche). This may involve a change of culture which can only be realized by the Wikipedia community as a whole. --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Prüm's thoughts on question 2

1. Wikimedia should always strive to be at the forefront of information security technologically.
2. Make a contest for a better UI and let readers and editors vote about it. (You have the funds, don't you?) Do not dictate from above which user experience the users want but let them decide about it themselves.
3. Try to keep mainstay editors happy through frequent consultation on important issues before WMF decisions are implemented. Perhaps use a RFC mechanism like on en:WP. Not everyone likes to use Phabricator. This survey is a good start in this direction.
4. Encourage contributions from editors with a higher education background. This may involve a change of culture which can only be realized by the Wikipedia community as a whole. Enable the flagged revisions extension on any project that asks for it as a way to combat vandalism and dubious content.

Jaikanth v07

Response by Jaikanth v07

Jaikanth v07's thoughts on question 1

Visual representation with several modules. Each module is accessed with just a touch. On touching a particular module - the Speech technology describes the content in detail in a clear audio with its textual content given as a choice. Touch and swipe are the two most incorporated characteristics in mobile and other similar technologies today. The next billion users might just want to touch and/or swipe.

Jaikanth v07's thoughts on question 2

In my view, the thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects look like - a highly specialized and enhanced content with pictorial, audio and visual contents speaking to the users in a detailed manner with clarity and ease.

50.171.186.153

Response by 50.171.186.153

50.171.186.153's thoughts on question 1

The trajectory is from the outside to the inside, computers to mobile devices are two data points of this meta pattern. Strategize accordingly.

50.171.186.153's thoughts on question 2

Insist on all participants taking a normed quality approach to systems-based thinking. E.g., First Do No Harm. Begin with the end in mind- all outcomes should be 'measured' by their closeness to reality (so do the hard, dynamic pre-work of determining (levels of) reality.

Arcudaki

Response by Arcudaki

Arcudaki's thoughts on question 1

WMF and other commercial organisations will strive to montetarise Wikipedia even more. Contens on Wikimedias' projects will be subjected to comercial interest and it will be increasingly difficult to achieve a neutral point of view.

Arcudaki's thoughts on question 2

Successful wikimedia projects will be driven by the editing community. WMFs' aspirations for leadership and hegemony will have to be curtailed in order to democratise the process of content creation. A succesfull Wikimedia project would not try to emulated commercial projects as the monetarising approach of other big internet sites does not apply to a volunteer project. A successfull Wikimedia project will not bother about click rates or retaining users but concentrate on providing free and independent information.

2406:5600:7A:67DE:B83A:D9B0:7AC3:D377

Response by 2406:5600:7A:67DE:B83A:D9B0:7AC3:D377

In future, Inshallah, this website will proceed forward...

Ttoulerchi10*

Response by Ttoulerchi10*

The Wikipedia brand is great.....More people need to contribute....if only a small fraction of the "next billion users" contribute there may be a way to have Wikipedia around for many more decades...I hope so.

I think so too! Do you think having things like t-shirts, mugs, and other items with the Wikipedia brand would be interesting to people? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 01:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

196.210.24.251

Response by 196.210.24.251

181.29.190.140

Response by 181.29.190.140

Las ideas de 181.29.190.140 acerca de la pregunta 1

En mi explicita opinión diría que no solo la telefonía si no la facilidad que los sistemas operativos como Windows 10 se conecta con nuestro móvil nokia lumia y creo que eso se convertirá en una tendencia

Mechanical translation; please help improve: In my opinion explicitly say that not only the phone if the facility operating systems like Windows 10 is connected with our mobile nokia lumia and I think it will become a trend

Las ideas de 181.29.190.140 acerca de la pregunta 2

Wikipedia nunca dejara de crecer yo siempre quise aprender lenguaje C++ pero en mi ciudad que es un pueblo donde vivo no habia ningun lugar para aprender pero gracias a ustedes pude aprender y eso que es totalmente gratis asi tambien en muchos trabajos practicos ustedes y su equipo estan ahi siempre ayudandome en el hambito escolar le estoy agradecido y creo que wikipedia sera o ya es una de la mas grandes comunidades de imformacion.

Mechanical translation; please help improve: Wikipedia never stop growing I always wanted to learn C ++ language but in my town is a town where I live there was no place to learn but thanks to you I learned and why it is absolutely free so also in many practical you work and his team are always there helping me in school hambito I am grateful and I think wikipedia will or already one of the largest communities imformacion.

75.147.50.5

Response by 75.147.50.5

75.147.50.5's thoughts on question 1

...write here… inputting or the request for information ant the presentation of responses are going to change with the increase popularity of wearables. For example instead of typing a topic, the requestor would simply ask a question. (today in my house I have the Android Echo. I could easily imagine saying "wiki tell me about.... : I would instantly receive an audio response, with a follow up asking if visual response should be forwarded to another device that I used. (TV, tablet, glasses, watch, phone etc.)

188.113.3.237

Response by 188.113.3.237

188.113.3.237's thoughts on question 1

I think you need to increase the quality of the interface and design of Wikipedia. For example, the mobile version is terrible, padding around the edges take a lot of space, even on the screen modern smartphone with high-resolution screen. You should also make the interface easier, so it will load even with a slow Internet speed. I do not know whether there is now, but it would be great to organize API for articles in the third-party programs. For example, on smart watches, glasses augmented reality quadrocopter etc.

188.113.3.237's thoughts on question 2

Due to the changing political situation and the ability to lock the stakeholders see the sense in creating a decentralized version of Wikipedia to the site could not lock the "Great Chinese / Russian firewall" or just close, physically threatening administrators and people who technically supports Wikipedia.

24.178.252.56

Response by 24.178.252.56

You guys need to be more neutral. Wikipedia's neutrality has come into question in the past, and I see it more and more often now. If you guys decide to start letting your editors bias affect articles, people are going to leave.

200.106.98.101

Response by 200.106.98.101

Las preguntas a responder son las siguientes:

¿Qué tendencias principales identificaría además de la móvil y la de los próximos mil millones de usuarios? EL mundo bajo mi teoría desarrollada y denminada "Teoría de la ociosidad" explica algo de su pregunta, y es que hay una tendencia a la tecnología interactiva.

Dependiendo de las tendencias futuras que usted considera importantes, ¿cómo se verían los proyectos Wikimedia prósperos y exitosos? El éxito dependerá que wikipedia ingrese al mundo de las redes sociales del concocimiento e investigacion diversificado para cada segmento de usuarios. Atte. Henry Encarnación Gallardo

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"The questions to be answered are the following:

What also identify major trends in the mobile and the next billion users?

THE world under my developed and denminada "Theory of idleness" theory explains some of your question, is that there is a trend to interactive technology.

Depending on future trends that are important, how Wikimedia projects would be prosperous and successful?

Success will depend to wikipedia enter the world of social networks and research knowledge diversified for each user segment.

Atte. Henry Incarnation Gallardo"

173.16.85.205

Response by 173.16.85.205

173.16.85.205's thoughts on question 1

Tangle of unenforced fairly incomprehensible rules. Those who live under such a setup can deal with it by lying their heads off.

173.16.85.205's thoughts on question 2

Fictotainment.

2602:306:80F0:E20:D16B:BA9A:5780:633

Response by 2602:306:80F0:E20:D16B:BA9A:5780:633

i think it will be a more upgraded version. due to the acceleration of tehnology

31.61.131.233

Response by 31.61.131.233

wojciech szyszko, warsaw

W/g mojej 50-cio letniej praktyki w sporcie:skoki na trampolinie,należy zmienić fotografię i rysunek nad nią na bardziej fachowy.

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"W / g my 50-year practice in sport: jumping on the trampoline, change the photo and drawing over it more professional."

83.131.179.51

Response by 83.131.179.51

83.131.179.51's thoughts on question 2

I dont know what this means but you deffinetly need to change design of wikipedia and you guys are awesome Hello from croatia POZDRAV IZ REPUBLIKE HRVATSKE

173.54.226.72

Response by 173.54.226.72

173.54.226.72's thoughts on question 1

Make sure the servers dont crash, and keep the information accurate. that way everyone will be happy.

Learner001

Response by Learner001

Learner001's thoughts on question 1

Further consolidation of information down to snipets; takeover of WP's web space by new google app, copywriting of original WP material (and enforcement of those copyrights) by thieves. Inability of WP to protect itself.

Learner001's thoughts on question 2

Although all info on WP is free and open, the drainage and exploitation of WP contributors by non-WP commercial interests could be the undoing of WP. The new google app seeks to answer user questions. It won't be long until most info searches can be "answered" by the google app. When WP is no longer providing the majority of info for the google app, google will no longer rate WP pages above their own. WP will be marginalized unless it finds a way to protect content. WP needs to further develop its own "ask" app, and fully compete with google before it is too late.

78.164.127.185

Response by 78.164.127.185, Ali AŞKAROĞLU

Dear Wikipedia family,

For me if you do not you put the summary page of each section will get better

Yours respectfully, ALİ

83.199.231.74

Response by 83.199.231.74

83.199.231.74's thoughts on question 2

je ne sais pas si le milliard d'internautes que vous envisagez va pouvoir contrairement à moi

renseigner une année sur le theme licenciements économique en 2011

Vous ne pouviez pas faire plus simple ?

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"I do not know if the billion Internet users that you plan will be unlike me

populate a year on the theme Economic layoffs in 2011

You could not be simpler?"

78.233.27.152

Response by 78.233.27.152

78.233.27.152's thoughts on question 1

internet cannot depend on cellphones only. Too many things are hard to do with them, typing longer texts than short messages, reading books, etc... So far, I can only guess tablets will have to progress and provide the same possibilities as cellphones ((including voice calls) and laptops (meaning an easy way to type). Touch screens are probably the future and have to be perfected. The search engines have to be re-thought. A few years ago, you found everything you asked on google. Now, less and less, because the amount of information makes their ask harder. But it means you sometimes have to find other ways to find a question to get answers, and sometimes you won't no matter what you do!

78.233.27.152's thoughts on question 2

I firmly believe wiki has to organize the huge and fantastic amount of knowledge it gathers to make it more accessible. There is a problem with translations, if you read an article in different languages, you notice the differences that can be amazing. Using touchscreens to enable people to access different parts of a subject will be used. If wiki could find a way to help people find what they want even if their questions are clumsy, it would be a big plus.

Angelo Pillos

Response by 62.228.24.32

Angelos's thoughts on question 1

There is a clear trend towards personalisation of users experience derived by a more sophisticated data analysis. There is also a trend towards micro devices that are integrated i.e. tablets, phones, pc's, and smart watches. Wikipedia should be keen to adapt to new technologies and voice recognition applications.

Angelo's thoughts on question 2

A harmonisation of articles/ideas and thus content across languages. A more sophisticated content approval process along with timing on key global developments. Authorship by referencing Key publications by theme. Absolute transparency in practises but at the same time real identity protection that is untraceable (at least on sensitive subjects).

2.80.133.87

Response by 2.80.133.87

O que 2.80.133.87eu pensa sobre a pergunta 2

Penso que deviam restringir o facto de qualquer pesssoas poder escrever e editar algo na wikipedia, as informações dadas pela wikipedia deviam ser feitas por alguem que de facto fosse viável, alguém especialista no assunto e não qualquer um.

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"I think they would restrict that any angry people can write and edit something on wikipedia, the information provided by wikipedia should be made by someone who was in fact viable, someone expert on the subject and not just anyone."

201.220.215.14

Response by 201.220.215.14

Las ideas de 201.220.215.14 acerca de la pregunta 1

tambien la navegacion desde los hogares con la nueva informatizacion.

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"also navigation from homes with new computerization."

Las ideas de 201.220.215.14 acerca de la pregunta 2

se verian beneficiados al recibir, de usuarios cercanos a los temas que traten, descripciones e informaciones más precisas y detalladas de los hechos, personalidades, obras de arte y cultura en general. es lo que yo pienso.

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"would benefit by receiving, users near that address topics, descriptions and more precise and detailed the events, personalities, art and culture in general information. is what I think."

There is already a "Nearby" feature in the Mobile Apps and the Mobile Web (browser) interfaces. You can see documentation at mw:Mobile web projects#Nearby, or just try it out! There's also a version planned for desktop use, later on (a few details at mw:Beta Features/Nearby Pages). Hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

176.109.30.5

Response by 176.109.30.5

176.109.30.5's thoughts on question 1

апгрейд мобильного приложения википедии, работает оно стабильно, но отображается не лаконично

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"Upgrade Wikipedia mobile application, it works steadily, but will not display concisely"

200.8.76.156

Response by 200.8.76.156

Las ideas de 200.8.76.156 acerca de la pregunta 2

mi idea es que mejoren la calidad de como hacen la informacion hay veces que no es asi y entonces esta es mi opinion

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"My idea is to improve the quality of information as do sometimes it is not so, then this is my opinion"

2.176.41.41

Response by 2.176.41.41

فقط وضعیت کشور ارزش پول ملی حرمت واحترام ایرانی در دنیا شادی ونشاط مردم رفاه وآسایش ادب وفرهنگ ایرانی صداقت ودینشان را با الان مقایسه کنید ==

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"Just compare situation of country, its money value and respect and happiness of people and Iranian culture and their fidelity and their religion with current situation"

If someone could translate it well, the automatic translation is not understandable! Thank you.

108.243.55.89

Albert Feyen

Response by 108.243.55.89

108.243.55.89's thoughts on question 1

1. Shorter well edited answers and articles. You will need to hire staff to do this.

No, they don't need staff. Editors used to do it well internally a decade ago, nothing changed except the politics. Articles used to evolve to short pithy accurate things, by removing the fat through constant editing. The problem is that people doing all the good writing got banned by the moronic deletionist admins, for being argumentative and contrarian. The admins were simply playing a power game, and still are. This means that all the thousands of dedicated writers all disappeared by 2010, most left in 2008-2009, and the encyclopedia is now dominated by rules-loving morons who can go to hell. This is a busted project, unless they decide to get rid of every single person who is currently an admin. The answer by Likebox below (me) explains in more detail the central political problem, it happens again on other websites, and it is totally fixable, but the fixes are not immediately intuitively obvious.

108.243.55.89's thoughts on question 2

2. Do not allow the general public to submit or edit articals with out you staff editing them.

You should convert to a "For Profit" organisation and sell advertisement space on the side bar. That way you will be able to hire the staff you need and you will not have to bother people for donations.

Terrible idea, and Wikipedia has already said they will never do this. Levontaun (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2015 (UTC):

Carlos.osorio

Response by Carlos.osorio

Carlos.osorio's thoughts on question 1

A major trend is people tendency to take action for solving their problems by themselves. Thus, "Do it Yourself" (DIY) is becoming more of an issue, and people will look for someone/something to give them knowledge and methods for achieving this.

Carlos.osorio's thoughts on question 2

A "thriving and healthy" wikimedia will include definitions, history and photos (what wikipedia is today), but also access to methods, process and knowledge about "how to", and connection to people or sites who can help solve problems and achieve things.

77.20.102.1

Response by 77.20.102.1

77.20.102.1s Gedanken zu Frage 1

Interaktion mit Projektionen, wie sie aus Hollywoodfilmen wie beispielsweise Iron Man bekannt sind.

Da sich die Rechengeschwindigkeit von Prozessoren jedes Jahr verdoppelt(zugegebenermaßen muss nun auf Silizium umstiegen werden) kann der Bau von eigenen kleinen Satelliten durch beispielsweise Rasberry PI oder Aduino in den Vordergrund rücken.

Translation: Interaction with projections as they are known from Hollywood films such as Iron Man. Since the computing speed of processors doubles every year (admittedly we must change now to silicon), the construction of separate small satellites with for example Rasberry PI or Aduino come to the fore.

77.20.102.1s Gedanken zu Frage 2

Wikimedia hat einen "Wikipedia-Vorteil", den, sehr viele Menschen zu erreichen und jenes Publikum sollten diese Projekte ansprechen, es klingt absurd und trivial, aber Katzenvideos sind einer von vielen Gründen um in das Internet zu gelangen, so sollten diese Projekte auch darauf basieren Emotionen von Menschen (natürlich positiv) beeinflussen zu können.

Hier eine Idee:

• es wird ein IT-Wettbewerb veranstaltet und ein Hauptgewinn von 100'000€ ausgeschrieben, Teilnahme von dem 14 bis 40 Lebensjahr,

1. bekommt 50'000€ 2. bekommt 20'000€ 3,4 & 5 bekommen 10'000€

Jedoch handelt es sich hierbei nicht um einen direkten "Gewinn", denn alle Teilnehmer verpflichten sich dieses "gewonnene" Geld zu spenden. -> WinWinWinWin-Situation :)

Translation: Wikimedia has a "Wikipedia-advantage" to reach very many people and that the public should be addressed by these projects, it sounds absurd and trivial, but cats videos are one of many reasons to go to the Internet, these projects should also be based to influence emotions of people (of course positive). Here is an idea: organize an IT competition and announce a prize of € 100,000, the participation of 14 to 40 years of age, 1st receives 50,000 €, 2nd 20,000 € 3rd, 4th & 5th € 10,000. However these are not a direct "prizes", because all participants agree to donate this "winning" money. -> WinWinWinWin situation :)

Edward Steintain

Future: Cooperation will compete with Technology

Response by Edward Steintain

Edward Steintain's thoughts on question 1

After mankind developed free theoretical knowledge, internet users started to apply it practically and joined groups on facebook (e.g.) which occationally will lead to internet-based en:community organisation by tolerance and subsidiarity. (comp. enhanced stuctured en:cooperation)
Wikimedia Movement (WMM) which is WMF and the international communities of individual volunteers (iCIV) is not only in competition with technical developements of the future.

Edward Steintain's thoughts on question 2

After mankind developed free theoretical knowledge, internet users started to apply it practically and joined groups on facebook (e.g.) which occationally will lead to internet-based en:community organisation by tolerance and subsidiarity. (comp. enhanced stuctured en:cooperation)
Wikimedia Movement (WMM) which is WMF and the international communities of individual volunteers (iCIV) is not only in competition with technical developements of the future. -- Edward Steintain (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

68.65.62.240

Response by 68.65.62.240

I think you should have more examples of some thing.

Levontaun

Response by Levontaun

Levontaun's thoughts on question 1

I believe Wikipedia is going in the right direction in regards to mobile. Ensure all pages are mobile compatible, keep up with emerging mobile trends, and you will be fine.

The second part of this question (this would be better split into two questions by the way, as the two parts really do not have anything to do with each other), my opinion is not going to be a popular one. I expect as Wikipedia begins to be accessed by many more users from countries around the world, YOU CAN EXPECT MORE EDIT WARS. I bolded that text for a reason.. it is important that Wikipedia understand that users from other countries have very different ideas about world events; they will be drawing on non-English primary sources which sometimes do not agree with English sources. Therefore, since Wikipedia is an American enterprise, I recommend that either the edit system be changed to make it harder for these users to modify articles, or that edit war moderation be increased in some way. I really do not have the answers for this, I just feel like it's my duty to make Wikipedia understand (if you don't already) that this WILL happen; it already happens to a lesser extent on articles such as the Korean War, where people from other countries (such as North Korea) have very strong opinions regarding that conflict. Thanks for listening, if anyone has a reply or criticism of what I've written here, please reply on my Wiki page. Thanks

Levontaun's thoughts on question 2

Well, this is a complex question that requires a complex answer, which I do not have the time or inclination to address fully here. Very basically, a thriving Wikimedia project will continue to be unbiased and fairly balanced. The key to this can be found in my answer to question 1. Good luck guys, the quality of Wikipedia is important. Levontaun (talk) 19:16, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

72.94.160.105

Response by 72.94.160.105

72.94.160.105's thoughts on question 1

• video, audio even, we're well behind the times here - this isn't the near future it's the recent past. Is there any major website in the world with less video?
• Diverse publics - all those billion new users are not going to be white 20ish misogynists!
• Undercover ops, interference, or maybe just PR and gray-arts influence from governments and similar institutions. We need some protection.

72.94.160.105's thoughts on question 2

The community needs to be able to govern itself. All too often the current mechanisms allow a few actors or a few percentage of editors to delay any action for months and years. Slimmed down effective government is the key, at least when nobody can stand the anarchy anymore.

65.79.209.29

Response by John Holeman65.79.209.29

Regarding Renowned Speakers

65.79.209.29's thoughts on question 1

All preachers and public speakers should have at least 10 or 15 seconds of their most respected discussion, which they were known by others for.

65.79.209.29's thoughts on question 2

Projects should be geared for two main outpus; free internet and pay internet.

89.204.130.82

Response by 89.204.130.82

Remove your deletion policies.

@psalom

Response by @psalom

@psalom's thoughts on question 1

VR/AR wearable, ongoing integration of weak AI in everything

@psalom's thoughts on question 2

Personalization of Wikipedia (facebook like feed of "you might be interested in" articles, monthly goals in education even, personal search aid) additional integration with Siri and co. online courses consisting of articles.

116.202.34.63

Response by 116.202.34.63

116.202.34.63's thoughts on question 1

...write here…the future would look same like the past it would never what our thoughts would make it.The next billion users would be studying about the past the history the great people which would include both new and old people and our life would always be an infinite paradox and humans would evolve to be humans we would always run behind the truth but would never achieve it although my hopes dont relinquish and my thirst for knowledge is high every person would be provided with the same answer everytime he finds what he shouldnt find and the very reason we survive would be coz of infinite questions we would die with just answers ......

116.202.34.63's thoughts on question 2

...write here…wikipedia should opt for better research facilities and projects should be focussed on connecting the knowledge connecting each part and making it a full story i seriously recommend instead of having topics on one page try making those 100 stories in one .....

82.83.53.152

Response by 82.83.53.152

Bitte weiter so wie bisher. ohne Werbung und Gebührenfrei ( Spende ist o.K. ) Danke

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"Please continue business as usual. without advertising and Toll Free (donation is ok) Thanks"

134.3.226.9

Response by 134.3.226.9

134.3.226.9's thoughts on question 2

A healthy Wikimedia project reduces its already burdensome and constantly growing set of rules, customs, and guidelines. It's a nasty tendency of all aging projects with many users. Think tax code. It used to be simple and easy to understand but now you need a lawyer to help you navigate the jungle of overgrown paragraphs. Although not quite as bad yet, Wikipedia is going in a similar direction. Rules are so extensive already that they are impossible for a new user to understand and thus the reversals and removals due to rule X, Y, or Z appear random to newbies and discourage future contributions. The tone of communication is often too rough because it's impersonal written communication. A direct chat features for editors, maybe even video conversations would greatly improve the discussion. It's easy to keep adding new rules and guidelines. Wikipedia would be much better if you kept it simple. Boil it down to the essentials, remove an old rule for every new one that you think you need to put in place. Wikimedia/Wikipedia needs to be straight forward to thrive and it's not currently going in that direction.

163.6.151.173

Response by 163.6.151.173

163.6.151.173's thoughts on question 1

More Color, better fonts, ect.

164.58.13.200

Response by 164.58.13.200

well you could put up a tab that follows the screen if it goes up or down so easy topic search is more convenient.

I agree with putting a floating tab. --NaBUru38 (talk) 13:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

194.135.141.23

Response by 194.135.141.23

194.135.141.23's thoughts on question 1

В дополнение к увеличению количества мобильных устройств и новому миллиарду пользователей, определённо будет расти потребность в видеоматериале. Считаю, важным аспектом доступности информации, для всех слоёв населения, будет прикрепление всевозможного видео, к статьям энциклопедии. Это могут быть всевозможные записи лекций, видео уроки, спецификации и различное видеоролики, взятые из официальных источников и проверенные опытными пользователями и администрацией википедии.

(Machine translation, please help improve...)

"In addition to the increase in the number of mobile devices and new billion users, will definitely be a growing need in the video. I think an important aspect of accessibility of information for all segments of the population, will attach all kinds of videos to articles encyclopedia. It can be all kinds of lecture notes, video tutorials, specifications, and different videos taken from official sources and tested by experienced users and the administration of Wikipedia."

194.135.141.23's thoughts on question 2

Возможно в дополнении к статьям будут представлены видеоматериалы с Youtube. (Дабы не заниматься ресурсоемким созданием своего видеохостинга)

(Machine translation, please help improve... — revised by a human)

"Perhaps, in addition to the articles, there will be footage from Youtube. (In order not to engage in resource-demanding creation of a new video hosting)"

73.167.100.41

Response by 73.167.100.41

73.167.100.41's thoughts on question 1

I actually do not think there will really be any major changes from mobile phone prevalence - phones are becoming like computers about as fast as computers are becoming more phone-like. When a billion users are added, I anticipate the main challenge to be hostile takeover by government(s), hackers, or corporations in order to control those additional users' source of information.

• I mentioned "secret ops" by governments and others above, and was thinking that many people would think that that statement was extreme or a conspiracy theory. I'd like to emphasize that there are many degrees of influence that they can try to exert. Whether it is North Korea, China, Estonia, Georgia (both), Russia, the CIA, Israel, Iran, whomever - I don't see how they would fail to be tempted by the chance to propagandize the world through Wikipedia. 72.94.160.105 00:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

73.167.100.41's thoughts on question 2

Thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects would be nearly completely impartial and would have nearly zero bias from groups desiring to influence Wikipedia customers. Technically there would be no visible difference between corrupt Wikipedia pages and unbiased ones, but a thriving and healthy Wikipedia page would not bend the truth in order to sell products, change voter opinion, or otherwise serve someone's needs unethically. At a minimum, this behavior would be immediately flagged and would be visible to the reader.

205.213.117.243

Response by 205.213.117.243

In the next billion users, we will want things to be smaller and lighter and really flashy and neon. Make wiki like that.

75.183.68.51

Response by 75.183.68.51

75.183.68.51's thoughts on question 2

Wikipedia does all of us an invaluable service with the many facts published. Everyone should support Wikipedia. Ralph E. Becker

169.204.192.109

Response by 169.204.192.109

169.204.192.109's thoughts on question 1

Phones are scary, I had to break mine

169.204.192.109's thoughts on question 2

make a text copy

DWanai

Response by DWanai

DWanai's thoughts on question 1

3D and 3D printing are the next major waves of information exchange. Displaying things in an immersive way and giving the user the ability to reproduce license free models of worldly things will keep Wikimedia current.

Also, more contextual links, to anything that can be linked.

Verbal interactivity in natural language.

Speaking and one finger clicking on anything should get you some options of new places to go.

DWanai's thoughts on question 2

Virtual representations of things and places where the user can click on a painting in a virtual tour of a State Capital (example) and be linked to an information page about the painting as well as a painting course in Wikiversity and 3D printable models of the state Capital Building from Wikisource for instance.

On the natural language side, a person could ask "Show me how to build an inuksuk" then be given the option for something on Wikiversity or Wikipedia or another relevant source and be able to ask things like "What if I want to build it out of boulders or automobiles?" or "Why do people build these things" and be led to relevant articles and Web sites...

Wikimedia could and should sculpt itself to be one of the primary ways for how people will interact with the internet. Such projects would be interactive and easy, intuitive (language and click and choose). Like having an on-demand, intuitive teacher/assistant, always available, with nearly limitless information.

76.102.104.175

Response by 76.102.104.175

76.102.104.175's thoughts on question 1

Continue to correct inaccuracies, focus on accuracy and proving accuracy so a reliable source. (BASELINE TREND) Continue to update and add pictures, infographics and videos. (MOBILE and CONTENT Trend) Present a widget to allow creation of infographics, link or insert of YouTube Video (ENHANCED GRAPHICs TOOLs and TRENDS) Consider adding a new category to template for a wikipedia page/content: Ongoing Research Related to this Subject and/or Ongoing Discussions Related to this Subject and/or Ongoing upcoming events Related to this Subject (KEEPS THE CONTENT and INVOLVEMENT MOVING FORWARD)

46.53.200.252

Response by 46.53.200.252

46.53.200.252's thoughts on question 1

На мой взгляд есть тенденция в сторону желания получать более информацию более удабными способами. В частности - текст должен быть разделён на краткие абзацы, больше картинок, больше инфографики.

(Machine translation, please help improve... revised by a human)

"In my opinion there is a tendency towards wishing to receive information in more convenient ways. In particular - the text should be divided into short paragraphs, more pictures, more infographics."

46.53.200.252's thoughts on question 2

См. выше. И главное - веб-странички для мобильных устройств должны быть как можно более "лёгкими", т.е. содержать минимум нефункциональных украшательств. В идеале предоставлять пользователю выбор - обычные страницы и "лёгкие" (преимущественно текстовые, часть картинок - в виде малоразмерных превью (десятки пикселей по вертикали и горизонтали), часть в виде текстовых ссылок.

See above. Most importantly, the web pages for mobile devices ought to be as lightweight as possible, i.e. contain only very few non-functional decorations. Ideally, one needs to give the user the choice between standard pages and lightweight ones (mostly text, some images - in the form of small previews (tens of pixels horizontally and vertically), some in the form of text links).

Alejandro Moreno Guzman

Response by Alejandro Moreno Guzman

Alejandro Moreno Guzman's thoughts on question 1

...It is important to consider how Technology has been playing a critical role in our lives. New forms of communication, many different ways of enjoying music files, and the simplicity to access information. Mobility allows a wiser use of our time, and the Network connections sometimes are not free of failures, but complete the task of exchanging data between humans in the seven continents. Many other trends will be based on alternative use of Energy, other than the fossil sources.

Alejandro Moreno Guzman's thoughts on question 2

...Intensive research is needed in terms of Longevity. The average life span has been decreasing in the last 5 decades. It seems very obvious that our environment, foods, and eating habits, alter dramatically our human performance affecting health in different levels. Ancient civilizations left behind proof of advanced knowledge, but our planet has been destroyed, and reshaped by external forces. History books must be updated to make new discoveries fit, and at the same time to explain mysteries left behind by our ancestors.

74.114.87.6

Response by 74.114.87.6

I wouldn't want to go on to wikipedia because I need more info and i wish it was easier to find it without having to read the whole thing to find one little bit of it. I think you guys should update by adding more color and not have it so plain.

74.199.102.29

Response by 74.199.102.29

74.199.102.29's thoughts on question 1

maybe check over the pages and make sure the info is correct and dont let just anyone make new pages and make them more interesting and colorful ;3

69.47.252.151

Response by 69.47.252.151

69.47.252.151's thoughts on question 1

I think that some of the new trends are healthy lifestyle tips(since alot of people misinterprate what fat is.) Also reducing waste and helping the enviorment is in this cold winter.Finally,I think that now religion is a great trend.

69.47.252.151's thoughts on question 2

Thriving and healthy pages would be more confirmed and people should site where they got their information from. Also there should be a warning screen for the inappropriate pages.There also should be more simple vocabulary with no grammer issues.

Melodicsun

Response by Melodicsun

Melodicsun's thoughts on question 1

I think that a major trend is the multiplication of information on the internet. It means that there will be more and more information available and the internet users have to make quick and often"shallow"decisions,what to read and what not. For wikipedia to be successfull and continuing being an important information source the information on wiki should be better verified,but in a way that new user know immediately that wiki brings good information. For example, often now you can only seesuch signs like "This source hasnot beenverified for 56days".It does not tell if the information is wrong, but it also does not tell that the information is good. In the end the user does not get any information at all, because he does not know if he can trust it.I dont have a proposition yet how to change the verification system on wiki, but it has to be done. Not only the verification signs. The thrustworthiness of information has to become relieble in general sence! The second trend that I see, is individualization.Earlier it was assumed that all information is true for all people. And as a normal encyclopady wiki has stated the overal view on the subject. But now it becomes visual that it is not the case. There is a lot of information that is not true for everybode, but only for a special group of people. But nevertheless this information does not stop to be important. Vision on this see answer to question 2

This verification problem has been there since 2008, and it is not resolved through looking at sources. It is resolved by actually reading the sources, and vetting them for accuracy. This requires a political process which allows active disputes, supports informed voting, and does not silence people who are contrarian. I gave a specific proposal on how to do this in likebox's answer below. This is based on experience with similar moderation and accuracy issues on Stackexchange, and now on physicsoverflow.

Melodicsun's thoughts on question 2

About individualization: It has to be taken in to account that there can be important information,but which is not supportetd but the majority of the society. For example there is a religious group, who believe special things. You want to find out about this group, who they are and what they think.And you dont want to know the opinion of the whole society on the beliefs of this group, but about the beliefs itself, maybe because you write a scientific work about it. Now in wikipedia you can often find something like "This people believe that the person they worship can do magic, but it has not been yet proven and so can not be sure or verified." The result of this statement is that only the overall opinion on this group is given. And the interested user does not get the desired information.Now the wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that for now does not feature that you can write in detail such beliefs of some people, because it is not verified by all. Wikipedia limits such information since it is informal. And in this kind of knowledge wikipedia has a major lack and figurates as a poor,just "formal"source of information with no reputation.I have often looked for some people on wikipedia who had different beliefs than the majority and always you feel that only the formal opinion on this is stated, the really important things are not there.

Also, the reputation of such information is ruined, if you would have a real description of the beliefs on some ,say, group, and in the next section the criticism that says it is all rubish. Again one returns to the overal viewing ogf the subject, the controverce to individualization. My propositionis that there should be possibility to write an article for example"The beliefs of group A from the point of view of their members". In this article there is only THEIR point of view on their beliefs and their being.And at the end there is an overview on links, what other people think about it, special article on critics or how this group is integrated in the society. Another example of such article would be "The person B and his life from the view of his followers" or "The viewing of live from person C"(person C being somebody important, that people need this information).

To put it in a nutshell, the main new thing here is that an article can be stated "from the view of...". Yes, it makes it "informal". And one could say, the is no place for this in an encyclopady. But if wikipedia will allow only formal things, it will always be a good information source only in scientific and exact matters. Other things like psychology, religion and other liberal arts will be excluded here and be only stated from the overall state of view thus not state really usefull infomation. Of course this should not be applied for physics or mathematics, since this would be absurd. And also, even if it is difficult to achieve, even this information has to be reliable.(see answer to question1) Wikipedia is already much more than only encyclopedy. It is a massive source of reliable informat.ion

Dr. Blofeld

Response by Dr. Blofeld

Dr. Blofeld's thoughts on question 1

Yes, I believe that globally we'll see a massive increase in traffic from rural areas in Asia and Africa especially and we will need to accommodate for this which I will elaborate on in part 2 below.

Dr. Blofeld's thoughts on question 2

• As I say, we'll see a massive increase in traffic from rural areas in Asia and Africa especially and we will need to accommodate for this. This may pose a significant problem, as has already been experienced with Pakistan and India, and increasingly Bangladesh and Nigeria on wikipedia. Poor command of English and the fact that many of these rural articles are off watchlists of those in the western world often sees the articles become even worse over time. We will need to find way to nurture new editors from developing world nations and to find a balance between protecting articles from degradation by poor quality editors and nurturing and encouraging new editors to edit. Frequent cleanup tasks will be needed for many nations.
• Given that translation is the key to the future spreading of knowledge, I believe that our systems need to try to bridge the gap across wikipedias and try to treat the 200+ different projects as one. I believe I had a conversation with Jimmy Wales about that a few years back and he agreed. For instance an editor searching for an article in Bengali but not finding it, out system being able to recognise the article equivalent in English and to provide onsite translation instantly using google tranlsate or whatever to bridge the knowledge gap until the article can be translated. And vice versa. Somebody searching for an Estonian chess player on English wikipedia should be able to see the Estonian wiki article translated when searching. So effectively all of the wikipedia would have 20 million + articles turning up hits combined. Over time, the small wikipedias can grow and translate articles from us and vice versa. Translation is definitely the key to the future of wikipedia. I hope my WP:Intertranswiki project on wikipedia will grow and stem the wikipedias.

@Dr. Blofeld: Thanks, this is great input. A couple of observations/questions:

• With regard to find a balance between protecting articles from degradation by poor quality editors and nurturing and encouraging new editors to edit -- do you have suggestions how we can strike that balance? For example, do we need to highlight draft spaces more obviously, or create better mechanisms for suggesting edits, or entirely new wikis focused on specific topics with more relaxed rules, where content could then be imported to Wikipedia later?

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Thanks. If you really look at the population of some of the Asian countries in particular, I can envisage massive quality problems from the rural poor as they come online. The problem is going to become increasingly apparent and at an accelerating rate and from an increasing number of countries. Some might be learning to speak English and still be very poor at writing it, and we're going to see more and more articles on rural localities getting traffic and lists of "famous locals" and "businesses". For India especially I can see it getting out of control. I've gone through some of the states and cleaned up the towns at times but looking back into them now they've mostly degraded again. Drafting I don't think will really get to the root of the problem that is going to be prevalent. I think the problem is going to become so bad that wikimedia will need to seriously think about investing in training schemes within these nations themselves in learning languages and how to write articles in English etc, and to sponsor "clean up" editathons involving schools to set them on the right track. I think we'll need to employ some coordinators to strike that balance, overlooking development in given territories. We need to plan this in advance and acknowledge that unless we really actively monitor the traffic we'll increasingly get in such areas then wikipedia is actually going to get worse in terms of quality in parts, even if coverage might greatly increase.

Is there not a way for a making a language section for Indian English? Just a thought. Inter-operability of language sections is a great question, and I personally would not rely at all on automatic translation. The problems ought to be posed in realistic terms. Human translation, from scratch, (even if usually bad or very bad, though still usually better than automatic one) is the only realistic method of translation, whether only so far or in absolute terms does not matter. Also, articles need to cite sources that are more likely available for speakers of a given language, and preferably their content flow needs to be organised per local traditions of exposition of ideas (both 1: in order to make reading more natural and easy and 2: in order to help those who happen to read many languages, as they can compare both content and organisation). As to search for content, I don't see any problem with searching many languages sections manually, if someone reads those languages; and if someone does not, there is no realistic remedy, I am afraid. - 92.100.171.195 18:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: I really admire your efforts for India-related articles! Good work. A big problem is that bad articles attract more bad articles (My article X isn't worse/is as good as article Y...). You're absolutely right about the article degradation problem. There are no easy solutions, but i think the (liberal russian-style) flagged revisions and Research:Revision scoring as a service are our best midterm options. And your suggestions above for longterm. What i find especially concerning is that Wikipedia is comparatively high estimated for quality/trusted in India even though local article quality is often bad. All in all, i'm not really an optimist about the "next billion Wikipedia users", reading the en:Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation/report (Philippines). --Atlasowa (talk) 14:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• I agree we need to improve discoverability of content in multiple languages. We've been thinking a fair bit about this already, and intend do dedicate significant resources to improved search functionality in coming years. Have you seen Reasonator by Magnus Manske? It generates information about any item in Wikidata, including free text descriptions that could be automatically generated in multiple languages. This is the kind of content that we could show in any supported language. Right now a big bottleneck for features like this is the lack of a powerful API for Wikidata -- which is something we're actively working to fix.

We're also working on mw:Content Translation (now a beta feature in a few languages), which lets humans improve upon machine translation, and are considering the integration of various commercial MTs, provided we can agree on terms that work for us. We're reluctant to have MT content show up by default in searches -- because the quality would often be atrocious -- but the combination of Wikidata-powered "stub" results and machine-augmented human translation efforts could be quite powerful. Does that make sense?--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

A "multilingual Wikipedia search" at portal www.wikipedia.org and a good translation workflow (which also saves free translation memory) are very high on my wishlist of things that we should really already have. Also: OSM mapserver (announced for years, WTF?), Citoid semi-automatic references/citation tool, HoverCards for references, integrated edit history visualisations, support for graphs (bar charts, timelines, maps, pie charts, [1][2]) etc.

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Do you know how much the (miserably bad-to-use) www.wikipedia.org Portal is actually used? Freaking 12-15% of page views from India go to the portal: Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Trends! This should tell us something. Actually it just repeats what readers have told us over and over again over years: Multilingual search needed. (Google does it. See also Research talk:Measuring mission success#How many people speak which languages?) --Atlasowa (talk) 14:27, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, many search Wikipedia through Google Search. No problem. - 92.100.171.195 18:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

@Atlasowa: Let me vet the report to make sure the www.wikipedia.org data is 100% accurate and not affected by artifacts like bot traffic (phab:T90835) We're actually very seriously thinking about the problem of multilingual search right now -- including how to, e.g. provide results from Wikidata in a consistent manner as part of the main search. When you say "multilingual search", what exactly do you mean, though? I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 02:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I think you've got to look at what is important right now too. As people come online in these developing world nations, they're going to want reliable information about a broad range of topics, and chances are that their national language wikipedias may lack them. We need to have a make shift article from a different wiki ready for them in an instant translate, if there is an article on another wiki and they're not aware of it this is a problem. They need to at least be given access to the translation foreign wiki articles in their search engines until an article can be created on their wiki. What we need overall is to bridge the gap across the wikipedias and try to make it function more like one project and to sort of have wiki ambassadors coordinating development between different wikipedias. Like an English ambassador to Japanese wikipedia, French ambassador to Telugu wikipedia etc, who monitors progress and gives advice etc. Again I think wikimedia will need to think about employing these ambassadors full time to overlook development and to try to make things run smoothly. That will include paid translators and language experts who can assist with translation requests. I think wikimedia needs to have a serious think about just how much traffic we're going to get by 2020, 2030 especially and plan for the growth of other wikis. We need to give anybody in the world the right to view (an accurate) translation of an article in any language and really make knowledge universal and try to give people even access to quality information. Another thing I chased in the past to no avail was a global Geograph project, giving people around the world the opportunity to try to photograph the planet as densely as possible. I think as more come online in developing world nations such a project to really organize our photograph banks geographically, allowing people to browse sort of in 3D in relation to world map, and encourage the locals in these countries to become a part of it and photograph their localities will become increasingly relevant. I'd really like to see the foundation seriously consider this again and see that such a project might greatly improve our future resources and go hand in hand with our growth projection. I also think we could hold wiki cup sort of competitions between nations seeing who can provide the most photographs and to give it a fun, competitive edge to get us the photos we badly need in many parts.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 16:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think that language sections are naturally separated, that is not an artificial barrier. If "rural dwellers" in developing countries massively won't grasp the concept and be able to use the technology in a useful way, worse for them, using the technology usefully is their responsibility and their option. One can only hope that they will. As to links among sections, will not they develop without anyone "upwards" thinking about it, in a down-to-top fashion? There is nothing that should be specially done for that by Wikimedia. - 92.100.171.195 18:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: Thanks for the follow-up! I like the idea of ambassadorship -- have you seen the existing "local embassies"? See the language links in d:Q6090776#sitelinks-wikipedia. Perhaps we could work together to strengthen this existing model? My inclination is to be wary of terms like overseeing/monitoring -- there's IMO learning that has to happen in both directions (e.g., I've found English Wikipedia sometimes has a systemic bias against non-Western reliable sources -- YMMV), and not all recipes from large projects make sense for small ones. But I think having better cross-wiki conversations about this stuff makes sense for sure.

I remember Geograph well -- maybe you and I even had a thread about it at some point? As a product guy, I wonder how much more we could do with Commons:Upload campaigns if we put even a little bit more effort in building a general framework for it.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:32, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I have often thought that a formal link-up with Geograph (which only covers the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland) to expand coverage to other countries would be an obvious move for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Even in areas with in-depth coverage such as the United States, access to images for use in Wikipedia articles is limited. Contrast that with Britain and Ireland, where, thanks to Geograph, there are numerous images available (often way too many), all of which can be accessed (through the Geograph project) by a geographical name or coordinates search. It may well be worth testing out whether such a collaboration to expand coverage would work in three or four territories (perhaps the United States, France, Australia and Japan?). Skinsmoke (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the coverage for UK is insane these days, even some local barn has a picture LOL. We really must have similar resources for all of the major countries, and gradually spread globally. As you say the US especially has very poor picture coverage in rural America. We really must try to launch something. Jimbo Wales and foundation folk take note on the need for this! Dr. Blofeld (talk)

Dr. Blofeld, Skinsmoke, Erik Moeller (WMF): Do you know geolocation.ws (Browse geolocated Creative Commons photos taken from Panoramio, Flickr, Geograph, Wikimedia Commons websites etc.)? A fantastic, really helpful tool to find free images, and it's linked from the WP article coordinates via geohack. I use it especially for areas with little coverage on commons, and it makes uploads to commons fairly easy. It should be much better known than it is. --Atlasowa (talk) 13:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Plucas58

Response by Plucas58

Plucas58's thoughts on question 2

More needs to be done on translating articles, primarily the majority English ones, into the MAIN foreign languages (ie not Welsh) to prevent the waste of time and effort that goes on now with contributors in different countries writing articles from scratch in umpteen different languages with often conflicting information.

Conflicting information is actually good. It's a good sign that a certain information needs to be especially untrusted. You know, if you can make a diagnosis more quickly, that makes the tool more lovely to use. As to your proposal, there is a problem: you can't translate sources. While there is a good policy to favour sources in the same language as the article, or typically accessible to users of a given language section. So, translation needs to be applied wisely and on a case-by-case basis; more intricate ways of inter-language cooperation are also useful, like merely consulting other sections for information. But that should happen by itself, there is no way to help to it administratively. For some articles, being a tranlation might be a stub-like stage of life rather than a goal; at a certain point, a translation might be indeed completely rewritten. 92.100.171.195 19:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

@Plucas58: Totally agree. Have you seen the Content Translation Beta Feature? We're hoping by creating better software workflows, we can make translation a more standard part of the contributor experience. Are there other ways you see that translation of articles into the most widely spoken languages could be increased? --Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF): Actually translation is already a part of contributor experience in a number of communities. However, the two main issues of translations are that: a) machine translations are often of poor quality, so it is often easier to delete them than to fix them, b) translated articles are lacking localised information (e.g. enwiki articles have systemic bias for English-speaking countries, while translation of enwiki article into Albanian would be less appreciated if it would have figures for UK and USA but not for Albania). Translations can be promoted but please promote them wisely — NickK (talk) 01:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@NickK: Thanks for chiming in! Yep, the team studied existing translation workflows in the development of the tool, and is familiar with past experiences where communities where overwhelmed by low quality machine translations. The software tracks the % of content that is unmodified from the original MT, and warns the user that publishing unmodified MT content is generally not appropriate. Agree re: localisation of content -- we look at translation only as a way to get articles started, but there's generally a lot of ways in which articles can legitimately diverge over time.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk)

John Carter

Response by John Carter

John Carter's thoughts on question 1

I think we will see a much greater increase in material and articles which will be perhaps sourced from material which might be inaccessible or poorly accessible in the largely English language community that currently exists, although much of it will be nominally written in English (or at least included in the English language WMF entities). I also believe that there is likely to be an unfortunate increase in the number of edits and editors engaged in what might be nationalist or ethnic POV pushing of a kind not widely known or understood in the English language community, as well as greater use of sources whose basic reliability is less well determinable by the existing English language community, and that there will be significant problems addressing these concerns.

Thank you for this thoughtful comment, John. In my own personal editing I've run across situations where English-language sources are poor (on the subject of Cuban sodas ;) and that's in a (relatively) wealthy/well-connected community and language. I know that some smaller wikis have adjusted their standards to reflect these changes, and I suspect the larger wikis might eventually have to shift as well if we want to cover all the world's knowledge. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on what guidelines we might adopt, or alternate approaches we might take? (For example, in Telugu, we've funded work to improve accessibility of library information about Telugu-language books.) Do you think WMF should do anything in particular to shift or nudge this discussion? —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I can and have been trying to find some of the better reference works out there, in whatever language. They would be helpful, at least up to the time of their writing. And I am also aware, although I haven't had the guts to try to tackle it myself, of the Gale directory of periodicals and other such works which can at least help some people find at least acceptable sources which relate to specific local or regional topics. I know the ARBA annual listing of reference books comes out every year, and I suppose, as a baseline effort, keeping an updated list of reference works which relate to specific topics would be possible. A hell of a lot of work, unfortunately, but possible. John Carter (talk) 00:01, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

John Carter's thoughts on question 2

I hesitate to point out "future trends that I think important," because it is kind of hard to know in advance what trends the future will hold, but, in general, I think we would all be very, very much better served if the foundation entities devoted to broadly news and analysis related content, like the various iterations of wikinews and wikibooks, were to be better developed. Even with the increase in the number of encyclopedic articles I expect from the international growth, I see as even more likely an increase in the diversity of opinion of editors and of sources used by editors which will not easily be dealt with in purely encyclopedic content. That being the case, making places where such content can be easily and broadly accessible would definitely serve both the interests of the encyclopedias of the WMF and also the other, broader, entities of the WMF.

John, I would love to spend more time with more non-encyclopedia projects. However, we have limited resources, and have to be careful about our stewardship of donor money. With that in mind, do you have suggestions on what kinds of projects we should prioritize? For example, are there particular reasons you singled out wikinews and wikibooks? Are there other projects (that aren't currently part of the Wikimedia family) that you think might be useful to fund? I'd be interested to hear your suggestions. Thanks! —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 02:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikinews in particular seems to be a good place to put a lot of the "update" information which tend to be somewhat problematic in a lot of "breaking stories." Wikibooks, or perhaps Wikiversity, are good locations where a lot of content which is reasonably of a "reference" type but might be of excessive length for encyclopedia articles could reasonably be placed. I am thinking here specifically of some of the rather lengthy "History of (X) County" books I have seen, and similar books, which contain a lot of information (sometimes over a thousand pages of information) regarding their specific topic, most of which merits inclusion somewhere, but which would be difficult or impossible to add to a small number of articles. John Carter (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter: Thanks for these thoughts, John. Even if they aren't reflected in the overall WMF direction, I'm sure they'll show up in my department's work over time. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Tuvalkin

Response by Tuvalkin

Tuvalkin’s thoughts on question 1

Trends are what they are. Anyone with more that a basic grasp on the history of the internet can point out hugely hyped and popular fads that died off without a trace (WebTV?, Internet II?, Flash to replace HTML?), and contrast them with technologies and resources which were built from ground up and quietly become more and more significant (Unicode, geolocation, even the web itself).

Wikipedia, and Wikimedia projects (or at least most of them), are this second type of thing. We are our own thing, we do what we do. The next billion users will make use and adhere to the existing structure, as it evolves by itself. If anything, Wikimedia projects, with its foundational emphasis on multilinguism and openness, are way more ready to face that looming billion (omg, brown people!) than most other big players.

As for “going mobile” — maybe what is meant is “going handheld”…? The fad for tiny screens and dumbed down interface controls to be swiped and flicked by grubby oversized fingers on said tiny tactile surfaces? A fad that asks for less content, fewer interface options, crippled functions to cope with shorter attention span…? I say ignore it and carry on as usual. ^{(e.g. Commons had to shutdown its dedicated Mobile Uploads feature: It was getting just too silly.)} The fad will pass and a few years later (when proper portability has become commonplace) it will be as giggle- or cringe-worthy as pagers, or glam rock hairdos.

Tuvalkin’s thoughts on question 2

Exactly the same as they are today — only even more reliable in its contents and methodologies (thanks to ever on-going routine improvement and fine-tuning), more inclusive in terms of multilinguism (i.e., keeping the current and long-held trend), and technically solid (more and better servers and its mantainance, less cockamamie ideas about useless gadgets, bogus outreach projects, or vanity parades).

@Tuvalkin:, You raise some great points. I agree Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects are something beyond a fad. That said, emerging technologies may still impact the way that forms of knowledge are captured, and how knowledge itself is engaged with. I'd feel more comfortable ignoring things with awareness of how they are shaping culture than without, and part of our request for input is to really ask what out there we should be paying attention to as opposed to the noise. Your second point, that we need to reinforce and be even better at what we're good at, being inclusive, and technologically sound, is foundational for the continued existence of Wikimedia projects and we're paying attention to that. GYoung (WMF) (talk) 01:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC) Repinging @Tuvalkin:

With gadgets, one would wish to perform a quick search for something (on the fly, on the go…), while with netbooks & greater machines (how are netbooks called now? well, doesn't matter), one might wish to make a more nuanced research in some area (find, compare, open many tabs, …). That's I think the direction to think in. So, gadget tools should be tailored to quick searching and to listing answers quickly. Since current technology does not allow to build sophisticated answering machines, that merely includes tools for conventional searching and (text-oriented?) browsing that occupy little space. The same with editing articles: with gadgets, you might maximum like to edit a typo in an article, nothing more sophisticated. - 92.100.171.195 19:50, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Azcolvin429

Response by Azcolvin429

Azcolvin429's thoughts on question 1

The largest trend I notice being a contributor, and frequent (if not avid) reader of Wikipedia articles is the massive existence of [citation needed] boxes. For Wikipedia to become a legitimate and highly respected educational source, everything must be cited. The academic world uses this technique as a process of verification and reputability. And, as it appears, Wikipedia and its many projects are equivalent to the standards within the accepted academic processes. I do know that the existing policy requires citations for added material, however, it appears to be a non-mandatory (or at least not followed or enforced) policy. Due to this, 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? It cannot be used as a trustworthy source and will not be welcomed by the emerging "billion users" who (out of these emerging users) follow the same standards as the academic world discussed above.

The reason this is important is because of Wikipedia's potential future as a reputable source for information. The higher the standards are set to match academic standards, the more likely it is that the website will gain more support (and possibly attract members) from other communities such as academics themselves and the educational institutions in which they reside.

Additionally, just having cited material is not enough. When I read Wikipedia articles, I attempt to check the sources of cited material. Often times, I find cited material from non-reputable sources. So, in essence, the information in question is "cited" but is still not of academic standards. I understand my anecdotes are no precedence for making changes, however, I can almost assure you that Wikipedia will drift into a less of an encyclopedia and more into a collection of internet information regardless of its quality, reputability, or varifiability.

I think there is a misunderstanding. For Wikipedia, citation is not a technique of verification of reputability, as it does not research for knowledge (unlike scientific projects that may also include students). Instead, it is merely a basis of its inner essence, of what it is. A Wikipedia article is, by definition, a collection of facts, that are described somewhere else. If an article lacks such fact, this is an imperfect article. It may be perfected in the future; for example, you on your own personal discretion could delete every single uncited claim you find, if you like. The current rules, as far as I know, encourage such behaviour. Or you may search for a source and add instead a source for an uncited fact. That's encouraged as well. In reference to knowledge, Wikipedia is not a journal, it is a mirror constantly under construction; it's designed this way and ought to be used this way. So Wikipedia simply does not need to be reputable in the social-scientific sense of the word. It is a technical instrument, a tool of aggregation, not a scientific society at work. Wikipedia does not even collect taxes. ;) Only that the user notices aggregated material in an article and judges it by himself and on his own risk. Then, he may go to the library, if he finds informations interesting and wants them verified. If a source is not cited, however, then this is not a breach of reputablity, like in scientific communities based on trust, but merely an inevitable fault of construction that has no dangerous consequences (provided the user has got his own brains, which he ought to). There is no trust involved. - 92.100.171.195 20:07, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Azcolvin429's thoughts on question 2

A thriving Wikipedia needs a system to require and verify sources. In essence, every new edit that adds content that makes a claim, expresses an opinion of an expert, describes a finding, etc. needs to be reviewed by another editor no matter what. It does not mean it should be rejected immediately, but the information needs to come under scrutiny if it cannot be verified. This must be done without exception.

How this would be implemented, I do not know. I do understand the many problems with this due to the number of editors vs the number of articles, projects, pages, etc. I also know that this already exists as part of the Wikipedia community, however, there are an innumerable amount of places within the encyclopedia where edits go unnoticed.

Azcolvin429 (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

180.149.192.134

Response by 180.149.192.134

180.149.192.134's thoughts on question 1

getting summerised information will be only valuable if that information is unbiased, if it is true and accurate. If not, then instead of bringing freedom and joy the internet will being more mistrust and anger. WP must stop being a platform for western propoganda. eg. look at the pages dealing with the Ukrainian crisis, MH17... Try putting in some information from a Russian news service such as RT or Sputnik and you will be abused and barred from WP. Sadly much of geopolitical WP is controlled by darkness, if this does not stop then the future of WP and the internet as a platform for truth is doomed.

Our process is certainly not perfect, but outside studies have found that, in general, articles that are more edited are more accurate. (Lots of background in the article on reliability of Wikipedia.) If you have suggestions about how we might improve this in the future (such as by building better tools, or encouraging different community practices) it'd be interesting to hear more. Thanks! —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

180.149.192.134's thoughts on question 2

Their enthusiasm and right to truthful information can only be served by WP if WP stops being a platform for western propoganda. eg. look at the pages dealing with the Ukrainian crisis, MH17... Try putting in some information from a Russian news service such as RT or Sputnik and you will be abused and barred from WP. Sadly much of geopolitical WP is controlled by darkness, if this does not stop then the future of WP and the internet as a platform for truth is doomed.