[Foundation-l] More on Wikimedia strategic planning

Sun May 3 15:51:57 UTC 2009

Maybe this type of questions can be translated and discussed be some hundred 
communities in their local languages. The replay to the foundation should be 
only one paper in english. After that, a group or a sub-group will discuss 
the papers and use them to write the strategic plan.

"Sue Gardner" <sgardner at wikimedia.org> schrieb im 
Newsbeitrag 
news:52de5d0e0905020843i6bc333c4l64d8472640a4a617 at mail.gmail.com...
> Hi folks,
>
> I wrote here earlier about the process we're imagining for this
> project; I'm going to take a minute now to write about the substance
> of the work.  This isn't a direct response to any of the comments made
> here thus far, but I hope it'll indirectly speak to some of the issues
> you've brought up.
>
> As always, I would love your input. The goal here is to work towards a
> small number of sharply-focused highest-priority questions, so we can
> explore each one deeply, and come up with actionable priorities.
>
> Currently, I'm imagining three major Working Groups, each of which
> will have various Sub-Groups helping them with specific pieces of
> their scope. The three Working Groups, I am imagining right now, would
> focus on Reach, Quality and Participation.
>
> First, let me note that Lennart Guldbrandsson and others have pointed
> out to me that Participation is itself a sub-set of Quality. I agree:
> the purpose of participation is to increase quality.  (We are here to
> create good informational/educational materials: we are not here to be
> a fun club. Although it's essential for people to have some fun, so
> they will stick around and help :-)  Nonetheless, I think encouraging
> participation is important enough, and difficult enough, to warrant
> its own Working Group.
>
> 1. Reach. Currently our projects reach more than 325 million people
> around the world every month. That's pretty good, but it means there
> are still lots of people we're not yet reaching.  The goal of the
> "Reach" Working Group will be to make sure our materials are available
> to as many people as possible.  Some Sub-Group mandates might include:
>
> * How can we reach the people who currently have access to our
> projects, but don't use them? (For example, our reach among Internet
> users is lowest in Asia.)
> * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to people
> who don't yet have internet access, or who may never have internet
> access?
> * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to people
> whose governments impede access to them?
> * What should we do to ensure our materials are available to the
> growing number of people who access the internet only through mobile
> devices?
> * How do we ensure our materials are protected and preserved in usable
> form, so they continue to be available forever?
>
> 2. Quality. The quality of information provided by our projects is in
> general good, and is continually improving.  Nonetheless, we need to
> do everything we can to ensure what we're offering people is
> consistently excellent.  The goal of the "Quality" Working Group will
> be to make sure our materials are as high-quality as possible. Some
> Sub-Group mandates might include:
>
> * How can we effectively and scalably work with institutions that
> control the copyright for educational/informational materials, to
> encourage them to release those materials under a free license?
> * How can we effectively and scalably work with academic institutions
> and other organizations with subject-matter-expertise, to encourage
> them to help improve the quality of the material we provide?
> * How can we better prevent editing that hurts quality (e.g.,
> vandalism and malicious edits), and fix it when it occurs?
> * How can we encourage readers to help us identify poor quality
> material, and once it is reported, how can we best get it assessed and
> fixed?
>
> 3. Participation.  The value in the Wikimedia projects is created
> entirely by volunteers, who are typically young, educated, intelligent
> and tech-comfortable.  We need to retain those core volunteers, while
> also reaching out to new participants who can help us sustain and grow
> our social impact.  The goal of the "Participation' Working Group will
> be to maximize our ability to recruit and retain productive
> participants. Some Sub-Group mandates might include:
>
> * What can we do to retain, support and encourage the core volunteers
> who work on the projects today?
> * How can we encourage the participation of new people who share our
> values and can make a strong contribution?
> * How can we make MediaWiki transformatively easier to use, and keep
> it easy to use?
> * How can we support participation by people who don't have easy
> Internet access?
>