1.
1
Free for All:
Wikipedia,
Wikimedia, and
the Future of
History
Andrew Lih
July 2022

2.
Who here
has used
Wikipedia?

3.
“
3
According to Wikipedia...
Wikipedia everywhere

4.
"The free
encyclopedia
anyone can edit"
4

5.
The "free"
encyclopedia
Free as in beer.
(No cost)
Free as in freedom.

6.
Top site
Wikipedia is
consistently in the
top 10 most visited
websites in the world.
Only nonprofit in the
top 50+ 6
semrush.com
similarweb.com

7.
Who has met
someone
who edits
Wikipedia?

8.
“ Anyone can
edit Wikipedia,
but not just
anyone does.
8

9.
9
Wikimedia movement:
Knowledge in the public
interest
Recording history
continuously and
collaboratively.

10.
The problem with Wikipedia
10
It works in
practice, but
not in theory

11.
11

12.
Jimmy Wales
12
by Joi Ito, licensed under Creative
Commons Attribution 2.0 License

13.
Larry Sanger
13
by SimSullen, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License

14.
1 year = 12 articles
14

15.
Ward Cunningham
15
by Andrew Lih
Licensed under CC-BY-SA

16.
Ward Cunningham
16
by Andrew Lih
Licensed under CC-BY-SA

17.
“
17
Imagine a world in which
every single person on the
planet is given free access
to the sum of all human
knowledge. That's what
we're doing.
-Jimmy Wales

18.
18
Wikipedia
Today

19.
21 billion
pageviews/mth
Across all properties June 2022
200+
Language editions of Wikipedia
6.5 million
English Wikipedia articles
19
Since
2001

20.
20
Wikipedia
Language
Editions

21.
21

22.
22

23.
23
Wikipedia
as the collaborative,
continuously edited
encyclopedia in more
than 200 languages

24.
Wikimedia
movement
Beyond Wikipedia
1

25.
CHQ.org: About
...many new
Chautauquas were
created, known as
“Daughter
Chautauquas,”
giving rise to what
was called the
“Chautauqua
Movement.”
Wikimedia
movement
Wikimedia
... people, activities,
and values which
revolve around
Wikipedia's sister
projects make up
the greater
"Wikimedia
movement"
25

26.
Wikimedia
Commons
Multimedia repository
Community of
photographers, artists,
image editors,
metadata specialists
26

27.
First place,
Picture of the
Year 2020,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Luca
Casale,
licensed under
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Alcedo atthis
(Common
Kingfisher) hunting
in water. Natural
reserves and
contiguous areas
of the Po River belt,
Provincia di
Vercelli, Piedmont,
Italy

28.
Second place,
Picture of the
Year 2020,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Alberto
Giuliani,
licensed under
CC-BY-SA-4.0
"Doctors and
nurses of the San
Salvatore Hospital
in Pesaro, Italy...
which from day one
has sadly been at
the top of the
COVID-19
contagion and
death charts."

29.
First place,
Picture of the
Year 2019,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Rodney Ee,
licensed under
CC-BY-SA-2.0
Two bulls running
while the jockey
holds on to them in
pacu jawi (from
Minangkabau, "bull
race"), a traditional
bull race in Tanah
Datar, West
Sumatra,
Indonesia, 2015

30.
Third place,
Picture of the
Year 2018,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Gefrorene
Seifenblase,
licensed under
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Frozen soap bubble

31.
Third place,
Picture of the
Year 2012,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Stefan
Krause,
licensed under
CC-BY-SA-4.0
High-speed
photography: light
bulb shot with an
airsoft pistol

32.
Second place,
Picture of the
Year 2011,
Wikimedia
Commons
By
NASA/Tracy
Caldwell
Dyson, public
domain.
Self portrait of
Tracy Caldwell
Dyson in the
Cupola module of
the International
Space Station
observing the Earth
below during
Expedition 24.
(September 11,
2010)

33.
Wikidata
Structuring the knowledge of
Wikipedia into a powerful linked open
database.
33

34.
Wikidata: structuring knowledge
34
United States Congress instance of bicameral legislature
United States Congress in country United States
Lexical/
Unstructured
Semantic/
Structured
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature
of the Federal government of the United States.

35.
Wikimedia movement
35
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia in
more than 120
languages, written
by more than
100,000 volunteers
WikiCommons
Images, audio,
video, multimedia
content and source
material
Wikidata
Structured and
linked open data
connections to the
world's cultural and
scientific data

36.
How and
why it
works
Keys to Wikipedia
2

37.
37
NPOV
NOR
RS
V

38.
38
NPOV
Neutral point
of view

39.
39
NOR
No original
research

40.
40
RS
Reliable
sources

41.
41
V
Verifiability

42.
42
V
Verifiability,
not truth
Truth must
come first.

43.
“
Wikipedia is where facts
go to live.
- Craig Newmark,
Founder of craigslist
43

44.
GLAM
Memory institutions and the Wikimedia
movement
3

45.
Galleries Libraries
Archives Museums
Cultural and heritage
institutions and more...
centers for performing
arts, botanical
gardens, et al.
45

46.
GLAM-Wiki
2010 British Museum -
Wikipedian in Residence
2013 US National Archives -
Wikimedian in Residence
2020 Smithsonian Open
Access program -
Wikimedian at Large
46

47.
Open Access
Museums, libraries, and
archives releasing digital
collections for download.
Typical free licenses:
public domain, Creative
Commons
Furthering mission of
access and impact.

48.
Tate outsources artist biographies
on its website to Wikipedia
The museum does “not have the resources to create
biographies for every individual” in its collection,
spokeswoman says (10 September 2018)
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/tate-uses-wikipedia-ent
ries-on-artists-for-its-website
A Tate spokesperson says that it is “working on a partnership with
Wikipedia to ensure the biographies for artists in our collection are as
accurate as possible”.

49.
49

50.
“
NARA records received 1.2
billion views on Wikipedia in
2013, and the numbers kept
climbing; by 2021, we received
2.1 billion views. Compare this
to our archives.gov site, which
received 29 million views in 2013
and grew to 231 million views in
2021.
David Ferriero,
Archivist of the United States,
US National Archives and Records
Administration 50

51.
“
Impressive numbers for our
website, but nothing like the
turbo power of Wikipedia for
getting views.
David Ferriero,
Archivist of the United States,
US National Archives and Records
Administration
51

52.
“
Our work with Wikipedia is
not only good enough, it’s
great for us because it takes
our goals of transparency,
public participation, and
collaboration to a new level.
David Ferriero,
Archivist of the United States,
US National Archives and Records
Administration 52

53.
“
Make sure women's history has
its place on one of the most
visited websites: Wikipedia.
Today, @Smithsonian joins
@librarycongress and
@USNatArchives to offer
training on how to edit
@Wikipedia.
Lonnie G. Bunch III,
14th Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution 53

54.
Trust
How much should we trust Wikipedia?
4

55.
Should we trust
Wikipedia?
Isn’t “maybe” the answer for
whether we should trust any
source of information?
Wikipedia: The best starting
point for research. Don’t let it
be the ending point for
research.
MAYBE

56.
Fake news and social media
Facebook tries fighting fake news with publisher info button
on links (October 5, 2017)
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/05/facebook-article-informatio
n-button/
Facebook thinks showing Wikipedia entries about publishers and
additional Related Articles will give users more context about the links
they see. So today it’s beginning a test of a new “i” button on News Feed
links that opens up an informational panel.

57.
Fake news and social
media

58.
Fake news and social media

59.
59

60.
“
Don't cite Wikipedia
because it's Wikipedia.
Don't cite Wikipedia
because it's a general
encyclopedia.
- Librarian,
Library of Congress
60

61.
Knowledge
Equity
Sum of all human knowledge?
5

62.
Wiki Gender Gap
(2011)
● Women make up
only 1 in 10 editors on
Wikipedia
● Only 15% of
biographies were
about women
62

63.
Wiki Women in Red
Project to improve gender balance
of biographical articles in
Wikipedia
Women in Red:
started by Rosie
Stephenson-Goodknight
Women scientists:
efforts of Physicist
Dr. Jess Wade
63
Percentage of English Wikipedia
biographies about women
15.53%
October 2014
19.30%
July 4, 2022

64.
Smithsonian
American Women's History
Initiative
Smithsonian AWHI images
have generated more than
25 million views on Wikipedia
December 27, 2020:
Smithsonian American
Women’s History Museum
approved 64

65.
Underrepresented
domains of knowledge
Embracing oral histories and
underrepresented domains of
knowledge.
Fostering global, multilingual
collaboration.
What systemic biases
are blockers?
65

66.
Challenges
What should we worry about
6

67.
“
Fragile open knowledge ecosystem
Revenue (2021)
Google:
$257 billion
Wikimedia Foundation:
$163 million
67
1500 x

68.
Internet Archive
Wayback Machine - preserving web
sites past and present
Book scanning and controlled digital
lending
Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage
Online
68

69.
69
Knowledge in the
public interest,
but by whom?

70.
“
A variety of related fields...
Library science
Public history
Journalism
Museum and curatorial studies
Archival science
Epistemology
Education
Information science
et al. 70
Where does
stewardship
come from?

71.
“
71
Garbage in. Garbage out.
How healthy are the "reliable
sources" Wikipedia depends
on?
"The truth is paywalled
but the lies are free."
- Nathan J. Robinson,
Current Affairs, August 2020

72.
Future
Wikimedia tomorrow
7

73.
“
The cultivated person's
first duty is to be always
prepared to rewrite the
encyclopedia.
- Umberto Eco
73

74.
74
Artificial
intelligence
•
Multilingual
Multimedia

75.
75
Interconnected
Interactive
Equitable
Free Collaborative
Inclusive
Innovative
Impactul
Future of
History

76.
Visit Wikimedia
Space
Experience the
Wikimedia movement
in person, hands-on.
(Smith Memorial
Library)
76

77.
Second place,
Picture of the
Year 2014,
Wikimedia
Commons
By Christopher
Michel,
licensed under
CC-BY
An Emperor
Penguin
(Aptenodytes
forsteri) in
Antarctica jumping
out of the water.
Because seals stay
close to these
holes, it is common
for penguins to
propel out of the
water on their
stomachs and
"toboggan" away
from the edge
quickly.

78.
78
Free for All:
Wikipedia,
Wikimedia, and
the Future of
History
Andrew Lih
July 2022