While Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website in the world and the number of people using it continues to increase, recent research has discovered that its volunteer editors have been leaving in vast numbers and this trend looks set to continue. Does this mean Wikipedia has had its day?

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger created Wikipedia in 2001 with the aim of empowering people with knowledge by compiling a free encyclopedia for everyone in the world. It uses open source software and is a non-profit organisation relying on fundraising. In 2007 it had grown to 2 million articles and today it has more than 14 million articles in over 250 languages.

Many think Wikipedia’s success has been due to its simple yet radical principles; anyone can write and edit Wikipedia’s articles. However, Andrew Lih, the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia“, sees Wikipedia as merely having extended the hacker culture of a free and open cyberspace to mainstream Internet users.

Students the world over use Wikipedia as a resource whether their teachers or parents like it or not, or are aware of it or not. I’ve come across lecturers who despise it with a passion, while others accept their students’ use of it. I actively discourage my university students by focusing instead on the importance of approaching online sources with a critical head. Yet I have to admit relying on Wikipedia when I want to find out information quickly (Wikipanion is one of only a few iPhone applications I use on a daily basis). I hang my head in shame, but also wonder why people are preferring to only use Wikipedia passively.

One reason put forward for the rapid decline in volunteers is the increase in bureaucracy, which has taken the original fun out of freely contributing content. Wikipedia adopted additional rules to exercise more control and avoid entries like John Seigenthaler being wrongly accused of involvement in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy (and, my personal favourite, that David Beckham was an 18^th century Chinese goalkeeper), but in doing so could be seen as becoming more like the organisations it originally set itself apart from. Yet without good quality control, Wikipedia is an unreliable resource which can’t be taken seriously.

But how will the lack of editors affect Wikipedia? Losing 49,000 English language editors in the first three months of this year must have some impact. Are we seeing the demise of free user-generated content or is it merely a natural evolution?

In these first few posts on Crowd Around, I intend to give some background on why crowdsourcing and social media are topics worthy of your attention.

It seemed a good starting point then, to define what the term crowdsourcing encompasses. In doing this I pulled down a definition from Wikipedia. I was immediately struck by the irony, as Wikipedia is probably one of the best known examples that demonstrate the benefits and transformational power of crowdsourcing. Here it is:

Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. Problems are broadcast to group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users — also known as the crowd — typically form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd can also sort through solutions to find the best ones. These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place — the crowdsourcer — and the winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded. In some cases, this labour is well compensated, either monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization

I would expand this further to describe the role of the crowdsourcer: a facilitator and architect that designs a structure that enables and provides incentives for user participation.

I have included this definition here verbatim. It’s a succinct description that has been drafted, reviewed, enhanced and maintained by the Wikipedia editorial community. Crowdsourcing is a fairly new concept with few experts in the world – the fact Wikipedia can keep up to date with rapidly evolving ideas in a field like crowdsourcing is an incredible achievement.

So how does Wikipedia use crowdsourcing? Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has designed an open yet controlled hierarchical collaborative system that allows anyone to contribute to a topic. Several mechanisms are in place to ensure quality, with editors able to monitor pages manually and programmatically to ensure the content is in line with current expert opinion.

The incentives at work here are similar to those found in the scientific community: a desire to publish true facts about the world, to share knowledge and fundamentally: to receive recognition or credit among peers in the contributor’s community. While Wikipedia doesn’t credit authorship, authors often claim to know each other and frequently discuss and contribute to topics they are well known for within their community of expertise. For every professor and scholar denouncing the inaccuracy of a particular topic on Wikipedia, there are ten actively editing the wiki to improve the quality.

It clearly works. A crowd of 85,000 contributors, 14,000,000 articles and 65,000,000 monthly visitors are evidence of that. The currency, accessibility and breadth of content on Wikipedia has left predecessors Britannica and Microsoft Encarta in the dust. The architecture of openness, collaboration and contribution incentives is a perfectly executed example of using a crowdsourcing model to create an immeasurably valuable resource.

So what lessons can we draw from the success of Wikipedia? If we consider what characteristics make crowdsourcing such an effective model for encyclopaedic web publishing, can we identify other industries ripe for introducing a crowdsourcing solution?

by paulabowles

Many lecturers and teachers will recognise the feeling of disheartenment when confronted by an undergraduate essay containing multiple references to Wikipedia. Despite regular exhortations for students to resist its charms, its appeal seems almost overwhelming. Although the site is loved by many, its major selling point of completely open access (i.e. ‘anyone can contribute to or edit’ its entries) is precisely why academics shake their heads in frustration.

However, in a recent interview with Emma Barnett of The Telegraph, Jimmy Wales (co-founder) appears to suggest that things are about to change at Wikipedia. Most noticeable is the creation of new measures, described as “flagged revisions”. In essence, this will mean that all new submissions and edited content, which relate to a living person, will have to be authenticated by one of Wikipedia’s editors, prior to online publication. Despite criticism that the whole ethos of the Wikipedia site will be degraded by the introduction of pre-publication censorship, Wales is convinced that this is the way forward. He points to a slowing of growth amongst new articles on the English version, suggesting that contributors are now concentrating on ensuring the articles already available are accurate, rather than simply adding more and more new material.

Whether the promise of ‘an increasing focus on quality and referencing’ will be able to sway the academic community, remains to be seen. However, the sheer volume of information and the speed with which it is checked and uploaded, makes it unlikely that Wikipedia is anywhere near reaching the stringent standards required for academia and education.

Read More

Allison Cavanagh on ‘From Culture to Connection: Internet Community Studies’

Expansion into Africa and other non-English speaking areas is a top priority for Wikipedia, site founder Jimmy Wales has said.

Speaking on the BBC World Service’s Digital Planet programme, Mr Wales outlined the next step for the online encyclopaedia.

“When we look at the vision I have for Wikipedia – which is a free encyclopaedia for everyone in their own language – we’re succeeding, we feel pretty good. But we still have a long way to go.” He says his challenge is to encourage thousands more to contribute in their own languages. “In the languages of India, we’re seeing 10% monthly growth, which is really exciting but they’re still quite small. “In Africa, we have very few languages that have any substantial size at all – Swahili is around 10,000 entries now. But that’s quite tiny compared to what we think of as a really successful project with 200,000 entries.”

‘Really fascinating’

Mr Wales believes that greater interaction from less-connected countries is essential to bring their voice to the world and its media. “Even the media that is more globally focused, like the BBC World Service, there’s still a certain focus. “We’re not hearing from everybody. We hear very unevenly from places around the world. I think that’s going to start to even out, and we’re going to start getting cultural influences from places we know almost nothing about today.

“I think that’s going to be really fascinating.” Recent improvements to Africa’s internet access, such as the new East Africa fibre optic cable, will aid in encouraging more Africans online and, Mr Wales hopes, onto Wikipedia. “I think it’s important for Wikipedia, but I also think it’s important for the world. I think we’re about to experience some really interesting cultural implications.”

Meanwhile, in the developed world, Wikipedia has other hurdles to jump. The site has been heavily censored in China – at times being completely unavailable. Recently, however, the Chinese authorities have loosened controls. “We were completely banned in China for three years,” recalled Mr Wales.

“Now we are available in China, with the exception of a few pages – certain sensitive topics in China. Certain questions about the status of Taiwan are quite delicate – those things tend to be filtered. “We have a very strong view that access to information is a fundamental human right. We’re about trying to provide that neutral voice.

“We’re very hopeful that in the long run that as China begins to open up more and more, they’re going to realise that having a neutral description of the debate about Taiwan doesn’t damage their interests.”

Neutral respect

Mr Wales praises the site’s neutrality when it comes to covering major issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Lots and lots of people, even around very emotional issues, really do believe in the idea of neutrality.

“That itself can be a really strong part of the healing process. Where you have a sense of humanity on both sides – I think that’s really important.”

Thrust into the public eye after Wikipedia’s success, Mr Wales has gained a degree of rock star status – particularly among students who increasingly rely on the site as a starting point to research. “I often go out and speak to college students. If I walk on a stage at a university it’s like a standing ovation and they’re screaming and cheering. I founded an encyclopaedia, right?”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8358539.stm

Sophisticates laugh at the simplicity of conspiracy theorists. But I say that aliens are among us. How do I know? They fill our musings and our movies.

Not all aliens are wicked. Some are.

Really wicked.

Take Dreadlock Alien, a star of the poetry circuit. In the BBC’s poetry week we see him providing for performing your poetry in public.

Stand-up poetry. It’s a bit like stand-up comedy, as Dreadlock Alien points out. But as he also says

Comics don’t read from a joke book
Poets don’t read from a note book.

DREADLOCK ALIEN IS NO SOUTH WALIAN

The science section of The New York Times contained an unusual article on Tuesday. The story about a huge floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean was not written by a Times reporter but by a freelance journalist whose expenses were paid by hundreds of donors in an experiment in “crowd-funded” journalism. The travel expenses for journalist Lindsey Hoshaw’s trip were raised through Spot.Us, which describes itself as a “nonprofit project to pioneer ‘community funded’ reporting.” Spot.Us, according to its website, allows the public to “commission investigations with tax deductible donations for important and perhaps overlooked stories. The website lists 6,000 dollars in donations for the Pacific garbage patch story from more than 100 people. Among the listed donors are Web luminaries such as Craig Newmark, the founder of classified site Craigslist, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and others. Spot.Us is a project of the Center for Media Change, a San Francisco-based non-profit organisation.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iSC_k8BSFHlGN6nbX0mpFbUaF1Tw

Silicon.com talks with the Wikipedia founder about what’s coming next.

“The New Media Making tomorrow” is the title given to the mid-day plenary session of The Israeli Presidential Conference 2009 – Facing Tomorrow, which took place last week in Jerusalem.  The session featured a panel of distinguished international media leaders who presented their personal viewpoints and responded to questions from the moderator.

In this post I highlight some of the themes that came up and present some thoughts on the one that generated some controversy.

Panelists:

• Dr. Yossi Vardi (moderator) – leading high-tech entrepreneur;
• Dr. Mathias Dopfner – Chairman & CEO, Axel Springer AG;
• Tom Glocer – CEO Thomson Reuters;
• Max Levchin – Chairman & CEO, Slide, and co-founder / former CTO of PayPal;
• Maurice Levy – Chairman and CEO of the Management Board, Publicis Groupe;
• Josh Silverman – President, Skype;
• Jimmy Wales – Founder, Wikipedia; and
• Dr. Ruth in a special guest appearance.

Everyone agreed:

• The growth rates in both availability and speed of distribution of digital media generated and uploaded by on-line users is just staggering!  It’s hard to understand and assimilate what’s going on with this pace of change.
• People expect content generated by other people on-line to look and feel personal.
• Context has become, in some ways, even more important than content as a factor that determines what gets consumed.
• Traditional media is not dying, but transforming to embrace change, adopt new ways, and thereby become the new media.  Those who are dying are those who are not able to make this transition.

Controversial topics:

• Who’s going to ensure content quality? Is Crowd Wisdom wise enough?
• Does the deluge of available content hurt democracy?
• Do people need commercial compensation to encourage quality content creation?
• Does electronic communication negatively affect meaningful human contact and relationships?

See below for sample panelist quotes and my 2 cents on each topic.

Pace of change – exponential growth rates in availability and speed of distribution

One of the panelists said that his 8 year-old daughter has 3 blogs, communicates via instant messaging and Facebook, and does not watch broadcast TV at all.

Dr. Mathias Dopfner: “Change is good, but what is going to remain?“

My 2 cents: There is a strong ingrained human need for stability, affecting many aspects of our life. While today’s youngsters grow up and learn to deal with constant fast-paced change, I don’t believe that this basic human need for stability is going away – at least not in anywhere near the current speed at which technology, information, communication and jobs are changing.  Isn’t this going to channel our need for stability to other aspects of our lives?  Are loved ones, family, friends, core beliefs and values (e.g. religion), hobbies and favorite places going to become even greater anchors of stability for people?

Expectation that content should look and feel personal

Panelists agreed that there is an overall expectation that content generated by individuals and distributed via social networks should at least appear to be more personal than content that is sourced from companies, news agencies etc.  This is because your friends on the network have chosen to listen to you – not to just anyone…

Maurice Levy said TV will stay with us the longest, but it become totally irrelevant in 15 years.  This is because people will find the video content they want in real-time, when they want to consume it.

My 2 cents: I think that this expectation applies not only to individuals in their personal capacity but also brands, individuals in a professional or public role, news agencies, experts and the like. The biggest difference is that what used to be a course-grained categorization of a relatively small number of information sources (e.g. Le Figaro as a conservative daily French morning newspaper) has become a very fine-grained “persona” of a humongous  selection of available sources.  Personalization is therefore not just about “pushing” information assumed to be of interest to an individual, but also about each individual electing to give a slice of his/her time to very specific information sources, selected based upon this fine-grained persona.

Context more important than content

Josh Silverman: “Video is only a little less than actually being there“. Well, I think that also depends on the context…

My 2 cents: It’s not one or the other, but the degree to which they match. To me, the content – delivered from & within the context of the source – actually has to appeal to the reader’s context.  Whether or not content is relevant really depends on what the reader is trying to do, i.e. “what they’re seeking to take away”, as put by Larry Brooks in his recent blog post Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place).

Traditional media is not dying

Dr. Mathias Dopfner: “It’s a mistake to talk about the newspaper industry as dying“.

Jimmy Wales: “Print magazines aren’t dying – just traditional magazines“.  Reportedly he had recently signed a cooperation agreement with HP’s printing on-demand service, saying that this will allow communities to “produce print magazines of higher quality, and of a more timely and customized nature than traditional print magazines can.“

Tom Glocer mentioned Reuter’s increasing use of photos and news reports originating from the general public in order to cover events in real-time that could not otherwise be covered on time.

My 2 cents: It’s the vision of the traditional media company and it’s determination to get there which will decide its future.  Lots of people will continue to like to read papers, magazines and books for a long time.  However, the companies that produce them have to become new media companies at the same time.  The underlying need to identify and use trusted sources will remain, and so will the incentive for those distributing news on-line to maintain the integrity of their brands.

Content quality – is crowd wisdom wise enough? Does the deluge of available content hurt democracy?

Tom Glocer: “The question is if you trust the source that gives you the news? We need to find the way to combine the old and new media.“

Jimmy Wales: “35% of the Internet users in Israel use Wikipedia.  Only in Norway the usage ratio is higher.“

Maurice Levy: “Having too much information hurts democracy.“

My 2 cents: No – it does not hurt democracy, but “crowd wisdom” is not enough. In democratic societies, the quality of many types of products and services we consume is safeguarded either through self-regulated professional associations or through national / state-appointed regulatory bodies.  While such quality controls certainly have their flaws, they do provide a fairly consistent and universally-understood level of protection to the consumers of such products and services, including the ability to complain, investigate and pursue legal action or other sanctions against violators when this becomes necessary.

In many cases, such safeguards either don’t exist or become totally ineffective on the Internet.  A false piece of news can travel lightning-fast through social networks – convincing millions of people that it’s true, like the recent “baloon boy” disappearance.  Anybody’s views on topics usually requiring official certification or licensing can become more influential than the opinions of acknowledged experts.  In Wikipedia this issue is resolved by a combination of the fact that the system highlights opinions lacking justification to warn readers; and the fact that errors are likely to be quickly corrected by people who care and who know about the topic – and there are enough of them on the web.

Moreover, in many cases quality is in the eyes of the beholder.  If you select information sources you know personally; sources whos associations and connections you are aware of; sources that are popular with groups of like-minded people; or sources whos “persona” matches your context and style preferences – then your finding sources that meet your own personal quality measures.  It’s up to you to decide how to find and screen them, and search engines will continue improving on their capability to match results to what each individual is actually looking for – though there’s still a long way to go.

Do people need commercial compensation to encourage quality content creation?

Tom Glocer: Reuters pays people for news-worthy pictures and information it’s unable to gather there and then.  Glocer sees this trend expanding, and more people being encouraged to contribute in exchange for micropayments.

Jimmy Wales (if I recall correctly): Says micropayments are not needed.  Millions of people contribute loads of content today because they want to share their expertise; want to express themselves; want to help others; or simply care about a certain cause.

My 2 cents: I think it depends on the type of content in question, although there’s no question that much more detailed and high-quality content is available for free today than one could have ever imagined only a few years back.

Does electronic communication negatively affect meaningful human contact and relationships?

This was Dr. Ruth’s main concern.

Max Levchin: met his wife on ICQ.

One of the other panelists asked: what sounds better – meeting your spouse physically after many electronic exchanges sharing views, likes & dislikes, experiences etc; or meeting your spouse in the campus bar?

My 2 cents: a great guest appearance that livened up the session!

Congratulations, if you read all the way to here – you’re a true warrior!

The BBC is developing a unique four part documentary series for broadcast in 2010 on BBC Two. It has a working title of ‘Digital Revolution‘, and there are a number of ways we can all get involved, including helping Stephen Fry to come up with a better name for the series, and shaping the content of the series.

Here’s some blurb from the Digital Revolution website about the project:

‘Digital Revolution’ is an experiment in collaboration. We want to hear the opinions, thoughts and experiences from the populace of the web – you. Add your comments to our blog posts. Tell us the stories you think we should be covering. Your input will help shape our documentary.

One of the things I personally find exciting about the project is that as many as possible of the video rushes† are being made available by the site for us to watch, share, download and, significantly, edit ourselves (adhering to the licensing terms, which are similar to Creative Commons but have to differ because of the way the BBC is funded and run). This ties in with a previous post about Remix. Some of the people interviewed and available in these rushes include:

• Tim Berners-Lee
• Clay Shirky
• Charles Leadbeater
• Howard Rheingold
• Stephen Fry
• Jimmy Wales

many of whom I’ve written about, used quotes or photographs of in presentations or writings, or communicated with directly.

When I have time, possibly next week, I’ll certainly be remixing this video content.

You can follow Digital Revolution on Twitter @BBCDigRev

† Rushes (or dailies) are the unedited, raw film (video) footage from a days shooting.

As an internet strategist, I am very near to Turkish Futurists. Last week, I had a meeting with them and Ufuk Tarhan told me that being good and ethical will shape the community in the future. Today I wrote an article in Harvard Biz and see that online community  are also on the same point. And I remember the presentation of the founder of wikipedia, Jimmy Wales who also metioned it on his speech…

I now, probably sure about that being good and ethical is the most important commerce rule in the new world which also shaped by internet…

Can an Online Community Shape a Strategy?

We are reaching the end of the first stage of our work supporting Wikimedia’s strategy development process (check out the progress at http://strategy.wikimedia.org) and I hit my first soul-searching moment. The catalyst? An email from Wikimedia strategy project manager Eugene Kim a couple of weeks back sharing his thoughts on how to think and act in a wiki way.

He shared three principles:

1. Act first, think later

2. Be human

3. Fail early and often

In all candor, the email was a critique of our “traditional” working style – and I’d hazard to guess the working style of most managers and strategy consultants. We weren’t getting the active partnership of the community that we wanted early on. My team was getting frustrated that no one was editing or discussing our wiki pages. Our first reaction: critique the technology (“maybe wikis don’t work for strategy”) and the community (“maybe they aren’t interested”).

However on reflection, I realized we were:

1. Thinking at the expense of acting (engaging) with the community

2. Trying to perfect the “imperfect-able”

3. Scared of having someone in the community find mistakes or disagree with our conclusions

I’ll admit- we really struggled to find our footing in this open process. As “professionals”, we see our job as delivering a high quality product that compels clients (shows we are worth the money) to action. This approach isn’t always as collaborative as we’d like it to be, really. I hadn’t really thought that though until we entered the wiki world, where collaboration isn’t something that happens after the work is done. It is part of the work and that requires the work to happen in a transparent way, so people can really engage.

Once we got over ourselves, we started to experiment with Eugene’s principles. I jumped on the Wiki on a Friday afternoon and wrote the top line summary of the strategic issues – online for all to see. No endless editing and revision. It turned out well, though not perfect. Here are two pieces of feedback from the community:

“This is exactly the planning page and also the planning talk page we will need in the coming months. I will look at it closely.” Art Unbound

“Can you imagine any business, small or large, any NGO, any University, any Government, doing strategic planning, without having “where the enabling money is coming from” as a top issue. They would be regarded as very amateurish. Have a Funding Strategy is of very high importance, and should be raised from the present ridiculous low point in the ESP list.”–Richardb

I am particularly pleased by Richardb’s comment (and I don’t mind being called an amateur!). The whole point of a strategy process is to figure out priorities for how to spend scarce resources of time and money. It is on these most difficult questions that we are most likely to follow the “traditional” way, thinking that the decisions are too important to get “wrong”. In the design of the process, even the Wikimedia Foundation board and project team struggled about whether to put the strategy synthesis role out in the community. It seemed like a pretty big trust fall. They hesitantly did so, but with strong guidance over the make up of that task force.

Is this the right direction? We need to wait and see whether the direction setting that this task force does is compelling and aligns with the sensibilities of the various stakeholders. Who is more likely to assimilate the wide range of data, values and viewpoints required to develop a good strategy: a small group of managers and strategists (with their homogeneous pedigrees) or a motley crew who can see issues from a myriad of viewpoints and aren’t afraid to speak their mind?

alla faccia del crowdsourcing!!

La lettera di Michael Snow e Jimmy Wales.

È difficile credere che meno di dieci anni fa Wikipedia non esisteva. Oggi, 330 milioni di persone ogni mese usano Wikipedia, rendendola la più usata al mondo tra le fonti di conoscenza online. Centinaia di migliaia di volontari hanno costruito e portato avanti i diversi progetti Wikimedia negli ultimi 8 anni.

Anche se finora abbiamo fatto molto, abbiamo ancora molta strada da fare per raggiungere il nostro obiettivo, la nostra visione di un mondo in cui ogni persona possa liberamente partecipare alla condivisione di tutta la conoscenza umana. Come possiamo costruire il nostro successo per vincere le sfide a cui ci troviamo di fronte? Meno di un quinto della popolazione mondiale ha accesso a Internet. Anche se centinaia di migliaia di volontari hanno contribuito ai progetti Wikimedia sino ad oggi, essi non sono pienamente rappresentativi delle diversità del mondo. Lavorando per costruire un movimento mondiale per creare e condividere la libera conoscenza ci troviamo di fronte a molte scelte.

Stiamo dando vita ad un progetto che si protrarrà per un anno e che vedrà lo sviluppo di un piano strategico per il movimento Wikimedia. In particolare stiamo cercando di capire:

• Dove ci troviamo ora?
• Dove vogliamo essere tra cinque anni?
• Quale strada per arrivarci?

Aiutaci a trovare le risposte a queste domande. Analizzale, suddividile, rifletti su cosa significano per la nostra vision e i nostri valori. Ci sono cinque modi in cui puoi aiutare:

• Entra a far parte di un gruppo di lavoro. Stiamo organizzando dei gruppi di lavoro che analizzeranno i diversi argomenti producendo una serie di indicazioni a riguardo. Proponiti o crea il tuo gruppo.

• Comunicaci in che modo puoi aiutare Se sei un esperto in una delle discipline che sono coinvolte in questo progetto, aggiungiti alla lista degli esperti. Questo permetterà ai gruppi di lavoro e ad altri volontari di contattarti per eventuali domande, a cui puoi rispondere compatibilmente con il tempo a tua disposizione.
• Pubblica le tue idee. Scrivi una proposta sulla Strategy wiki, aiutaci ad organizzare e migliorare le proposte già esistenti. Esprimi le tue idee su un tuo blog, sulle mailing list, su social network come Identi.ca, Twitter e Facebook. Per questi post utilizza il tag #wikimedia o inserisci un collegamento sulla wiki in modo che gli altri possano leggerli.
• Ospita dibattiti e confronti sulla strategia. Al fine di sviluppare dei buoni piani abbiamo bisogno di allargare il più possibile la partecipazione. Non c’è alcun modo con cui i gruppi di lavoro possano parlare a chiunque abbia idee per il futuro di Wikimedia. Puoi aiutare in questo: organizza dibattiti su possibili strategie, di persona o online, e pubblica i risultati sulla wiki dedicata.
• Comunica con noi. Comunica le tue impressioni al gruppo. Scrivici le tue idee, le tue speranze, le tue paure, quelli che vedi potrebbero essere obiettivi per i progetti. Scrivi commenti e reazioni sulla Strategy wiki o scrivi a strategy@wikimedia.org

Se non puoi partecipare a questo progetto, puoi sempre fare una donazione per offrire un sostegno diretto ai nostri progetti di conoscenza libera universale. Abbiamo anche bisogno di volontari che contribuiscano ai progetti, sviluppino la nostra tecnologia e sostengano il nostro lavoro in altri modi.

Questo secolo ci ha presentato una meravigliosa opportunità di trasformare la nostra civiltà e creare pari opportunità per tutti gli esseri umani. Confidiamo che tu possa unirti al nostro lavoro di condivisione della conoscenza con ogni persona del pianeta.

Michael Snow
Presidente della Wikimedia Foundation
Jimmy Wales
Fondatore di Wikipedia e della Wikimedia Foundation

Muito legal essa entrevista com o criador da Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, onde ele fala sobre o valor de compartilhar e dividir com uma perspectiva bem interessante.

“The way I talk about this is as a reemergence of folk culture. For a long time, we thought about culture being more or less divided in two parts: We had pop culture, which was commercially driven, and then we had fine art culture, which was partially commercial but we felt it needed to be paid for by wealthy patrons or governments or something like that. But we also had folk culture—people sharing songs and stories passed down from generations. Now that we have all of these tools for communicating directly peer to peer, we are seeing a real explosion and reemergence of that kind of folk culture, and a move away from broadcast culture.”

Le graphisme ci dessous est issu d’un slide d’une présentation que notre bien-aimé fondateur, Jimbo Wales, a faite pendant la toute récente Wikimania 2009. Il indique,  sur un panel limité aux 100 articles les plus visités de 7 parmi les 10 plus grosses Wikipédia, la répartition des visiteurs par catégorie d’article (histoire, actus, sexe, etc.). Attention, ça n’est pas le nombre d’articles du top100 pour chaque catégorie, mais bien le pourcentage de visites que chaque catégorie d’articles du top100 reçoit.

Bon, ça n’est pas facilement vérifiable et j’aurai préféré un éventail de 1000 articles (plus représentatif), mais je suppose que ça donne une idée pas trop mauvaise de la chose.

La colonne japonaise est impressionnante, mais pensez que les mangas/anime/etc. entrent dans la catégorie “pop culture”.

Pour notre graphe à nous, j’ai trouvé quelques points assez amusants

• Nous sommes l’un des 2 seuls wikis du lot à ne pas avoir suffisamment de visites sur les articles de cul pour qu’ils apparaissent dans la colonne. Ca m’a surpris

• Les gens viennent chez nous pour se renseigner sur l’actualité, n’en déplaise à certains

(source)

NB : le saviez vous ? Selon wikimedia Statistics, les 10 plus grosses Wikipédias représentaient 92.58% du nombre total de pages vues de l’ensemble des wikipédias pour le mois d’août 2009.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, readily admits that his site has, and probably always will have, errors, inaccuracies or worse, although the same can be said of any encyclopedia (09/01/15 CBC Interview). But, he adds, the advantage of an online reference source is that it can be amended immediately, whereas traditional encyclopedias have to wait to be reprinted. For the same reason, the information on Wikipedia tends to be more current than that contained in bound editions.

Looking up ‘Wikipedia’ on Wikipedia we find that critics complain about how the online encyclopedia favors “consensus over credentials in its editorial process.” The lowest common denominator, also known as the general public, has never had a particularly good reputation for being very bright. But, of course, the elite in society do much to establish such reputations. Doing so serves their self-interests.

Online Collaboration Works Well

It would certainly not be wise to blindly accept Wiki-wisdom with regards to, for example, what medicine to take or how to heal a troubled relationship. But there are many problems in life for which we will find there are no easy answers. What IS easy, however, is comparing what we find on Wikipedia with other internet sources, which may or may not be more reliable. And there is always the option of standing up and going to our bookshelves for, as some presume to be the case, more credentialed references.

If experts in a particular field believe that the facts posted on the internet are wrong it behooves them to start blogging and posting and telling the world what they know. This is not to say that their concerns about mob rule on the internet or collaborative online encyclopedias not justified.

On a philosophical level, it is always helpful to thoroughly criticize any new technological offspring in the evolution of collective human knowledge. Books originally met with much cynicism amongst those who distrusted the strange, linear medium so different from the sound of the voice. And, of course, it is important to prevent libel, slander and plagiarism. Thus Wikipedia has recently agreed to require their editors to sign off on postings that are biographical in nature—in response, it seems, to popular figures such as Ted Kennedy, Paul Martin and Miley Cyrus having been subject to false or defamatory statements posted on Wikipedia (see CBC video). Beyond such measures, efforts to control cyberspace can be futile or even counter-productive to the best interests of a free society.

Loving Wikipedia is a Democratic Affair

Since the advent of the written word, books have traditionally been controlled by the elite, the few who could read and write and the even fewer who could afford to pay scribes. Today the acquisition and dissemination of wisdom is a much more democratic affair.

Governments, churches and other powerful institutions still wield a great deal of influence as gate-keepers of culture, as do the vast corporations that control much of the media. Even the great Google cannot offer an unbiased search of the internet.

Editorial bias, and even outright propaganda, can never be avoided entirely. So we always need to be circumspect in our appraisal of the reliability of sources. By sharing what we find on Wikipedia with others we can find out what they think, which may in turn alter or confirm our own opinions. Ultimately, it is up to all of us to decide what is true.

Rever Pass estuvo presente en Wikimania 2009,  uno de los mayores encuentros de la cultura digital de todo el mundo. Este encuentro anual reunió durante tres días a miles de participantes con el fin de compartir inquietudes, intercambiar experiencias y realizar todo tipo de actividades relacionadas con las nuevas tecnologías.

El fundador de Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales comento como este  software gratuito  ayudo a la democratización del conocimiento y explico que la comunidad wiki rankea como uno de los diez sitios mas visitados de todo el mundo.

Rever Pass participa Wikimedia 2009

Think back to the days of the old general store. We knew our merchants in the neighborhood personally—around the corner and down the road. We knew exactly what they sold and where they stood. They were members of the community, and they earned trust through referral and association. Enter the industrial age—efficiency trumped personalization. People didn’t mind where they shopped—as long as goods were cheap and abundant. Soon, the suburbs emerged, and the impersonal, monolithic box stores were born. In many ways, we are now coming full circle. Perceived value of anonymous, depersonalized transactions is waning.

Consumers are once again seeking personalization, even intimacy, from business interactions—large and small. In terms of accountability and integrity, marketing spin is no longer enough. It can even ring hollow. The Internet has rendered a heightened expectation of veracity and transparency. Now, we are quick to question the authenticity of advertising and the sincerity of sales pitches. Once again, consumers want to know the store’s owner, the business dealings of the board’s president, and the organization’s endowment investment practices, etc. Focus has returned to key customers and core consciousness. The beauty of social media is that it allows us to accelerate cultivation of these open, honest relationships. Through social media, businesses can make themselves more accessible, more personable, more real, and almost instantly differentiate.

Integration. ROI. Relevance. These are all terms buzzing around the implementation of social media. My niche is nonprofits, but the same questions are swirling about for small businesses, as well. I hear many people say they need to be able to measure ROI and justify the expense. The concern is understandable in our strapped economic climate, but the truth is that we can’t afford to ignore social media! It is more than just the shiniest tool in the drawer or a trend relegated to eager interns. It’s becoming the new communication standard –- expected and demanded by an enlightened, savvy class of consumers and/or donors who require personal, real-time engagement, instant response, and interactive branding.

And it’s applicable to every type of business. Cafes, retail stores, professional services, and grassroots nonprofits can use social media to build online reputations, propel trust to new levels, and jettison concerns about the time required to manage the process. It’s a dance—not a speech. In fact, the magic is in the mambo! Here are 4 essential ways to get started today:

1. Think locally.
Consumers are using local social networks, such as Yelp and The Examiner to find businesses and make recreational decisons. And they also get the “social proof” they need when making choices. They use comments and reviews to determine the “best” listing and make the buying decision. Because these sites attract people ready to make a decision, small businesses can see a great return from local social networks. Many of these sites will let business owners “claim” their listings and add information, such as phone numbers, store hours, menus, etc.

2. Create on online destination and sales pipeline.
When you think about social media, you may focus on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. You may not immediately consider a dedicated presence on your own site. It makes enormous business sense to aggregate your social profiles in one place. And, remember to make your profile decisions carefully. Choose your “tent posts” strategically. Don’t pepper the world with a plethora of profiles. In fact, consider creating a blog or custom social community on your own site. Why push your consumers to connect with you on other sites, but not give them a reason to visit yours? Building and writing a blog may seem time-consuming, but it creates a way to connect with users through your own web address. Additionally, creating useful content such as how-tos or industry insights will attract and engage customers. For business owners or nonprofit execs who are daunted by the prospect of regular blog updates, build a “Connect” or “Community” page. This offers readers a way to find your business’ most active profiles and join you on those social sites. The page could also include a short bio or how you use each social site. Giving consumers a reason to visit your site is extremely important. A blog or “social hub” can pull consumers to your site and directly into the sales process.

3. Jump into Facebook and Twitter.
Everyone is talking about Twitter and Facebook, but you may be stumped about how to actually get started. With Twitter, you can cater to your customer or donor needs, requests, and complaints instantly. In a world where everything needs to be done yesterday, a quick response can create a lifelong customer and fervent brand advocate. On Facebook, a Fan Page allows a business to visualize and build a community, similar to Twitter. However, unlike Twitter, you can add and customize a great deal more.

At the very least, you should update your Fan Page “status” to keep consumers informed and engaged. A more advanced technique would be to add things like coupons or Google maps directions to the storefront.

4. Discover crowdsourcing.
Finally, consider creating a custom wiki, which harnesses the phenomenon called crowdsourcing. In other words, use your customers to give information to other consumers. Wikipedia is often cited as a successful example of crowdsourcing, despite objections by co-founder Jimmy Wales to the term.

The easiest way to do this is by creating a wiki for your FAQ or Customer Service knowledge base. Let your consumers enter the problems they’ve had via a public forum (the wiki), and provide your responses publicly as well. Although showing problems may seem backwards, it’s a very effective way to retain customers and generate new sales in the new context of social media.

Consumers know that mistakes happen, and they now expect their questions will be answered quickly. Also, with a public wiki, customers can reference response to the concern, saving time for both you and the customer. With minimal moderation, a wiki can build trust in your business and make your customer service more efficient.

The contextual shift is about engaging in dialogue, and opposed to delivering a message. How are you making the transition? Let me know.

La enciclopedia online más conocida en todo el mundo!

La edición en español de la enciclopedia ‘online’ Wikipedia ha alcanzado la cifra de 500,000 artículos publicados redactados conjuntamente por voluntarios de todo el mundo, tras ocho años de funcionamiento.

Esta versión de la enciclopedia (iniciada en mayo de 2001), cuenta ya con 500,452 artículos tras superar en las últimas horas la barrera del medio millón. La herramienta, utilizada a diario por millones de personas en todo el mundo, alcanzó la cifra de 100,000 artículos el 8 de marzo de 2006, los 200,000 el 10 de febrero de 2007, los 300,000 el 18 de noviembre del mismo año y 400,000 el 20 de septiembre de 2008.

Desde el 13 de marzo de este año, es la segunda versión de Wikipedia que ha superado el millón de usuarios (cuenta con más de 1.1 millones) y la octava en número de artículos.

Iniciado en enero de 2001 por Jimmy Wales y Larry Sanger, Wikipedia es un proyecto de la organización sin fines de lucro Fundación Wikimedia. En sus diferentes versiones cuenta con más de 13 millones de artículos.

Fuente: elmundo.es

*Este artigo foi publicado originalmente no dia 15 de junho de 2008

Alguns nomes fundamentais

Richard Stallman. Não sei sem pode onde começar a falar sobre RMS. Ele deu início ao projeto GNU, parte importantíssima do sistema operacional GNU/Linux, em 1983 (isso mesmo, mil novecentos e oitenta e três!), fundando a Free Software Foundation em 1985. Ele escreveu o compilador C original do GNU — sim, o programa usado para transformar programas escritos em linguagem de programação em código executável. Ele passa a maior parte do tempo como ativista político e de software. Se você quiser saber o que é dedicação, leia o blog dele e consulte sua frenética agenda de viagens.

Pamela Jones. E por falar em dedicação, Pamela Jones é a autora do Groklaw, possivelmente o site que salvou o GNU/Linux e o software livre de modo geral das garras da SCO/Microsoft. Pamela Jones é uma figura realmente fantástica. Ela escreveu por volta de mil artigos nos últimos três anos, e muitos deles são artigos longos e de alto impacto na indústria de TI como um todo.

Linus Torvards. Ele escreveu o Linux, o kernel, sem o qual os utilitários GNU não teriam onde rodar. O kernel Linux chegou em momento oportuno, sendo lançado sob a GPL (escrita por Richard Stallman) em 1991. O Linux é uma parte muito importante do projeto GNU/Linux.

Mark Shuttleworth. Fundador da Canonical, que criou o Ubuntu Linux. Resumindo bastante a história de Shuttleworth: ele fez uma pequena fortuna vendendo a Thawte (que fazia certificados) à VeriSign. Depois passou pelo programa russo de treinamento de astronautas e foi para o espaço. Voltou e fundou a Canonical para criar o Ubuntu Linux, que se convencionou denominar como a distribuição GNU/Linux mais popular e inovadora voltada para os usuários finais.

Larry Page e Sergey Brin. Esses criaram o Google. Você já deve ter ouvido falar nele: é só digitar uma frase na página do Google e você obtém uma lista de páginas relevantes, como num passe de mágica… se você não ainda conhece, deveria dar uma espiada. Embora o Google não seja uma empresa de software livre, e de fato boa parte de seus programas são proprietários, ele lança vastas quantidades de programas livres e, o que é mais importante, contribui para a criação de padrões livres que são amigos do software livre (OpenSocial x Facebook, ou Android x iPhone/Windows Mobile).

Bob Young and Matthew Szulik. Bob Young criou a Red Hat, uma das mais bem-sucedidas empresas de software livre. Sob a sua liderança, a Red Hat se estabeleceu como a distribuição GNU/Linux líder no setor de servidores. As contribuições da Red Hat ao kernel Linux e ao software livre de modo geral são imensas. Matthew Szulik assumiu o posto de CEO da Red Hat após a saída de Young, e fortaleceu ainda mais a empresa. E o que é mais importante, Szulik teve um jantar histórico (e não confirmado) com Steve Ballmer, CEO da Microsoft, que se esforçou ao máximo para que a Red Hat assinasse um acordo de patentes com a Microsoft. Szulik disse “não”, embora o acordo provavelmente fosse render bons lucros à Red Hat. Isso teria sido uma desgraça para o mundo do software livre.

Jimmy Wales. Criador de outro site que você deve conhecer: a Wikipédia. Nem preciso colocar um link aqui: É só digitar qualquer coisa no Google (aquela página de pesquisa da qual falei aí em cima), e é provável que uma página da Wikipédia apareça na lista… o software da Wikipédia está disponível sob uma licença livre, a GPL. Sim, a mesma licença criada por Richard Stallman (falamos dele mais acima). Embora a Wikipédia em si não seja software livre, foi uma das primeiras vezes (talvez a primeira) que a filosofia do software livre foi aplicada em um campo não técnico. E a Wikipédia faz um sucesso enorme.

Lawrence Lessig. Criou as licenças Creative Commons, que permitem aos artistas lançarem seus trabalhos sob licenças que têm os mesmos princípios das licenças de software livre.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Esse inventou a internet. E lançou as especificações (HTTP e HTML) de graça, em vez de exigir que as empresas e desenvolvedores fizessem acordos inaceitáveis sob termos supostamente não discriminatórios. Sem ele, hoje a internet poderia estar dominada por protocolos proprietários e caóticos no estilo MSN e AOL. E quando eu digo “caóticos”, não estou exagerando.

Blake Ross. O cara que, ainda adolescente (em 2003), percebeu que o movimento do software livre estava deixando escapar o mundo dos navegadores web porque não havia um navegador elegante e livre disponível. Por isso ele criou um fork do Mozilla, um software do qual você já deve ter ouvido falar: o Firefox. O resto é história. E é uma história com 25% do mercado, o que é impressionante se levarmos em conta que cada cópia do Firefox precisa ser baixada e instalada, ao contrário do que acontece com o Internet Explorer, que já vem com o Windows.

Dries Buytaert. O autor do Drupal, um dos maiores CMS (sistemas de gerenciamento de conteúdo) do pedaço (tá, eu sou suspeito para falar, sou um dos desenvolvedores do Drupal). Acredito que a maioria de vocês não use o Drupal, mas boa parte deve usar sites movidos pelo Drupal.

Keith Packard. A força por trás do XOrg, um fork do XFree86. É graças a ele que o GNU/Linux conta com um fantástico subsistema gráfico. Esta entrevista com Keith Packard, de 2003, explica parte do ocorrido. Observe que na época da entrevista ainda havia uma grande incerteza, e o XOrg ainda era mais ou menos uma “ideia”. Hoje, é uma forte realidade no mundo do software livre.

Bram Cohen. O gênio matemático que criou o BitTorrent. Ao contrário de quase todo mundo, ele liberou as especificações e a implementação de referência do seu protocolo de graça. O BitTorrent se mostrou crucial para o software livre, já que tornou possível o download de distribuições cada vez maiores. Mas há quem não se mostre muito impressionado (como a RIAA, a associação norte-americana de gravadoras) pelo potencial do protocolo.

Michael Tiemann. Fundou a Cygnus em 1989. A Cygnus Solutions foi uma das primeiras tentativas de se fazer dinheiro com o software livre. Tiemann também escreveu o compilador GNU C++ e trabalhou no compilador e no depurador GNU C, softwares cruciais que mudaram o mundo da TI.

O mundo sem eles

Como seria do mundo se essas pessoas tivessem optado por trabalhar como encanadoras? Alguns podem dizer que se eles não tivessem feito o que fizeram, provavelmente alguém teria feito. O problema aqui é o “provavelmente” (isso também nos leva a uma questão ainda mais teórica: a lista de pessoas que seguiram carreira como encanadoras em vez de salvar o mundo, mas isso já é outro papo).

Sem Pamela Jones, muitos (inclusive eu) acreditam que o caso da SCO contra o Linux poderia ter tomado um rumo tenebroso. Sem Stallman, o movimento do software livre estaria longe de ser tão organizado e forte como hoje. Sem Shuttleworth, uma distribuição GNU/Linux proprietária poderia ter se tornado a líder do mercado (algo que estava acontecendo lentamente com o Linspire). Sem Larry Page e Sergey Brin não existiria o Google. Nem a competição Summer of Code. Nem o Android. Nem o OpenSocial, e por aí vai. Sem Bob Young e Matthew Szulik, talvez não houvesse um líder tão evidente no mercado de servidores GNU/Linux, ou o que seria a pior, a Red Hat talvez tivesse cedido à pressão da Microsoft, firmando um desastroso acordo de patentes. Sem Jimmy Wales não haveria a Wikipédia. Sem Lawrence Lessig, toneladas de obras artísticas não estariam disponíveis na internet. Aliás, sem Sir Tim Berners-Lee não haveria internet. Sem Blake Ross, você talvez precisasse do Internet Explorer para fazer qualquer coisa online. Sem Dries Buytaert, o Drupal não existiria. Sem Keith Packard, estaríamos presos ao monolítico e livre-mas-não-tanto-assim XFree86.

Sem essas pessoas, o mundo basicamente seria um lugar muito, muito menos agradável de se viver.

Quer entrar para o clube?

A leitura deste artigo já deve ter dado uma ideia de como fazer isso: cada uma dessas pessoas é inteligente, dedicada e está disposta a sacrificar boa parte de sua vida pessoal para fazer do mundo um lugar melhor.

Uma das coisas fantásticas do software livre é que não há barreiras. Qualquer um pode participar. Seu nome pode aparecer nesta lista. Você só precisa de uma quantidade fenomenal de trabalho e de paixão pela sua área, seja ela qual for.

Eu não estou na lista, mas adoraria estar. Estou dando o meu melhor na Free Software Magazine, e sempre que estou cansado ou sem inspiração, dou uma olhada nessas pessoas que tornaram este mundo possível, e me esforço para ser como elas.

Nós, mortais, podemos não chegar tão longe quanto Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Richard Stallman ou Pamela Jones. Mas… só nos resta tentar.

Autor original: Tony Mobily
Publicado originalmente no: freesoftwaremagazine.com
Tradução: Roberto Bechtlufft

Fonte: Guia do Hardware

Padre del software libre y de la Wikipedia, respectivamente, estarán en la Wikimanía 2009 que entre los días 26 y 28 de Agosto de 2009 en el Centro Cultural General San Martín, de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Acá podés anotarte para ir al gran evento. Está abierta la inscripción para Wikimanía 2009 en Buenos Aires

El formulario de registro para participantes está disponible en línea en
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Portal

Esta conferencia será la quinta edición de Wikimanía, un evento global e itinerante, que ya se realizó anteriormente en Frankfurt (Alemania), Boston (EEUU), Taipei (Taiwan) y Alejandría (Egipto). Y por primera vez, Wikimanía será bilingüe inglés-español y la primera ocasión en que se realice en un país de habla hispana. En el año 2010, la 6ta. Edición de Wikimanía se realizará en Gdansk, Polonia.

¿Qué temas se hablarán?
-Conocimiento libre, acceso abierto a información, formas de construir y distribuir conocimiento libre, proyectos de Wikimedia para educación, periodismo, investigación y formas de mejorar la calidad y usabilidad del conocimiento libre.
-Desafios latinoamericanos, expansión de los proyectos en el continente, promoción de los idiomas nativos de la región, problemas específicos de las comunidades de habla hispana y portuguesa.
-Infraestructura técnica, incluyendo asuntos relacionados a extensiones y desarrollo de MediaWiki, infraestructura e ideas para el desarrollo.

¿Más info? http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Portal
O a través de correo@wikimedia.org.ar