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government wants to censor content, working with them is a practical impossibility for the
Foundation, which has a staff of 35 people. Google, a company that employs thousands of people, recently pulled its operations out of China because of the difficulties working with the government. Realistically, if it's too much for a company the size of Google to handle, what could the Foundation achieve there?
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It is a bit surprising that an independent scholar aligns so well with the stance of the
Chinese government (that concepts like freedom of speech etc. are "Western" values which do not apply to China), and in the interview it remains unclear why Chinese people should be culturally unable to write or
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I also wrote, "Because of the scope and ambition of this process, it will be a long, messy, thrilling journey." Six months into the process, it's been exactly that: long, messy, and thrilling. There are two stories to tell, and I'd like to tell both. One is about the strategy itself: emerging themes
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Because of how structures itself, a structure which for example says that it wants a neutral point of view, an NPOV, it excludes certain kinds of communities and people from writing and sharing their knowledge - it is not possible. So that in China, Knowledge is not the most popular user generated
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Other issues are complicated by the question of "we". China is a great example of this. Wikimedia's vision asks us to imagine a world where every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge in their own language. Right now, our best estimate is that 400 million people world-wide
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Suppose we were to limit our discussion to editors. There are literally millions of people who have edited
Wikimedia projects. Most of them have no awareness about the larger Wikimedia universe. They don't know about Chapters or the Foundation. They probably don't even know about Village Pump. And
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The other is about the planning process. In a way, this is the more interesting story, because the process has been a microcosm of
Wikimedia in general, and the lessons and challenges we've faced are applicable to many, if not all of the projects. Want more contributors? Same here. Concerned about
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I think the strategy participation is so miserable because it is still too difficult to contribute. I know you do a lot of efforts to make the strategy wiki accessible and simple, but maybe a wiki-style website is still not simple enouth for the majority of people. What I am personally missing is
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Some have read the
Foundation's statement as a signal that "we" shouldn't prioritize China. However, the Foundation does not equal "we". The Foundation controls the servers and the trademarks, which is a hugely critical role, but beyond that, there is only so much it can do. Because the Chinese
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There are people who are much better suited to institute change in China. It starts with the local editors, who understand the issues unique to the
Chinese language projects and who are in the best position to forge the right partnerships and build a stronger local movement.
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would seem to be at the top of the list. There are currently 300 million people in China on the
Internet, and 640 million people with mobile phones. However, less than 1 percent of these people access Knowledge, so the growth opportunity there is huge.
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Nishant Shah, Director of the Centre for
Internet Research, recently put forth an interesting explanation for the fact that Knowledge seems to have failed to mobilize a Chinese speaking user community as large as that of the government-censored
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content website - it is
Baidupedia. And it allowed for a certain Chinese sensibility, both in language and in culture, to produce certain kinds of knowledge systems which can be shared between the Chinese readers.
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Most of the strategy wiki proposals are about new tools or improved tools so we can do things better or to help us do new things that editors think would be cool and would like to do.
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doesn't mention anything past their
January 12 statement. The January 19 post at their official blog says that they are still there, and that rumours of their shutting-down are false.
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Knowledge is a do-ocracy and so are the other wikimedia projects. The direction it will go is wherever editors choose to contribute. "We" is therefore whoever happens to turn up.
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As the priorities for the Wikimedia movement start to take shape, one of the big remaining questions is, who should do what? That conversation is currently taking shape on the
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article, I want to kick off both stories by talking about "we". A five-year strategy affects everybody, and so everybody should have a say. But who is "everybody" exactly?
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blog announcing the Wikimedia strategic planning process. I wrote that we wanted to create a space where the Wikimedia community could collectively answer three questions:
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From a content perspective, some things are obvious and uncontroversial. If the sites are not up, for example, Wikimedia does not exist. So making sure the
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Eugene Eric Kim (User:Eekim) is the Program Manager for Wikimedia's Strategic Planning project, which started in July 2009 and continues through July 2010.
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to improve usage there. One recommendation called for greater promotion. Another encouraged partnerships with students and teachers at universities.
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would undertake these activities. This past month, the Foundation looked at the emerging recommendations and stated where it thought it should
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and where it should not prioritize its resources. One of those areas that it said it shouldn't prioritize was China.
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diversity? So are we. Want to create a friendlier, more constructive environment for discussion? Join the club.
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All of these recommendations were well-deliberated and researched, but they did not answer the question of
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to explore specific topics and to make a series of recommendations. One of those task forces was on
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about the WikiWars conference which he organized in India (see also
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The challenges of strategic planning in a volunteer community
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As part of the strategic planning process, we formed 14
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186:and priorities, as well as gaps and controversies.
415:Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
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178:Where do we want to be in five years?
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598:Knowledge Signpost archives 2010-02
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18:Knowledge:Knowledge Signpost
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163:Last September, I wrote a
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181:How should we get there?
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169:Wikimedia Foundation
335:Features and admins
222:If we were to pick
360:Discuss this story
340:Arbitration report
325:WikiProject report
310:Strategic planning
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206:Wikimedia universe
65:Strategic planning
42:← Back to Contents
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434:ideas.symbian.org
384:purging the cache
345:Technology report
175:Where are we now?
47:View Latest Issue
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579:Suggestions
506:filceolaire
417:(VUCA). --
367:transcluded
320:In the news
236:task forces
543:. You can
539:It's your
482:Falun Gong
458:Baidupedia
419:Wavelength
79:Share this
74:Contribute
22:2010-02-01
573:Subscribe
487:Regards,
438:IdeaStorm
371:talk page
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405:talk
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149:By
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