WikiConference USA: Eight Things Wikipedia Must Do

WikiConference USA
ANDREW LIH • @fuzheado • #WikiconUSA
#WikiconUSA
What Wikipedia  
Must Do
National Archives and Records Administration 
October 9, 2015

• Wikimedia DC, Wikimedia NY and volunteers
• David Ferriero, Pamela Wright, Dominic Byrd-
McDevitt and NARA
• Wiki Ed Foundation
Thank You

“If Wikipedia is good enough for the Archivist of
the United States, maybe it should be good
enough for you.” - David Ferriero, AOTUS
National Archives and Records Administration

Thanks

• Wikipedia Revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s
greatest encyclopedia
Introduction
article view sourcediscussion history
HOW A BUNCH OF NOBODIES
CREATED THE WORLD’S
GREATEST ENCYCLOPEDIA
ANDREW LIH was an academic in new media and
journalism for ten years, at Columbia University
and Hong Kong University. He has been a com-
mentator on new media, technology, and journal-
ism issues on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Lih is
based in Beijing.
Become a part of The Wikipedia Revolution yourself,
and try your hand at editing the last chapter at: http://
www.wikipediarevolution.com/wiki/Main_Page
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano
Jacket photographs: globe by Frank Whitney/Jupiterimages;
puzzle by Shutterstock
Author photograph by Mei Fong
3/09
PrintedinUSA©2009Hyperion Wikipedia Revolution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the book. For the different, similar terms related to Wikipedia, see
Wikipedia (terminology).
For Wikipedia’s non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About.
Wikipedia Revolution (pronunciation ) is the story of the free,[1]
multilingual ency-
clopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. The website’s name
is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and
encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s 10 million articles have been written collaboratively by volun-
teers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can
access the Wikipedia website.[2]
Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,[3]
it
is currently the largest and most popular[1]
general reference work on the Internet.[4][5][6]
The Wikipedia Revolution traces Wikipedia’s phenomenal success back to its roots, and
profiles the people who have contributed to its stated mission of giving every single person
free access to the sum of all human knowledge.
THEWIKIPEDIAREVOLUTIONANDREWLIH
HowaBunchofNobodies
CreatedtheWorld’s
GreatestEncyclopedia
ISBN: 978-1-4013-0371-6
A N D R E W L I H
From the Introduction to The Wikipedia Revolution
by Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales
By now, it’s hard not to use the Internet without experiencing Wikipedia in
searches and surfing. It has become an incredibly useful Internet resource in
many languages. Yet when you use Wikipedia, you may not understand the
philosophy behind it.
This book tells the story of how Wikipedia began and evolved from a traditional
encyclopedia into the intricate global community that it is today.

• Wiki Education Foundation - Summer research fellow
• Wikipedia Space - Wikimedia DC, National Archives,  
Knight Foundation
Introduction

Edit-a-thons 
and Beyond
Introduction

WikiConference USA
#WikiconUSA
Eight Things 
Wikipedia Must Do

Terms: GLAM
GLAM: galleries, libraries,
archives and museums 
collaboration with 
Wikipedia

Terms: Wikimedia
Wikimedia: a global movement
to bring free educational content
to the world, of which Wikipedia
is but one part. Prominent
Wikimedia projects in the
community include Commons
for multimedia, Wiktionary as
free dictionary and Wikidata for
structured data.

Commons Break

• Christopher Michel via Flickr / CB-BY 2.0 Generic: 
“His photojournalism work is prolific and his photographs have
been used by National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the New York
Times, the BBC...”
!
• 2nd Place, Picture of the  
Year 2014
!
• An Emperor Penguin  
(Aptenodytes forsteri) in  
Antarctica jumping out  
of the water.
Commons Break
Commons:File:Penguin_in_Antarctica_jumping_out_of_the_water.jpg

Introduction

Introduction
Where will
Wikipedia be in
another 15 years?

• Approaching 5 million articles in EN
Good news
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/09/25/wikipedia-editor-numbers/

• Very active editors stable in EN, maybe even growing
Good news
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/09/25/wikipedia-editor-numbers/

• Visual Editor hitting its stride, defaults for new users
Good news
Citoid using Zotero open-source 
reference management system

Good news
Conversation on reputation has shifted
from "should I" use Wikipedia to
"how accurate is” Wikipedia.

• Fundraising as good as ever, endowment a reality
Good news
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Fundraising_Report

Good news
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Fundraising_Report

Usability
Usability
Usability

Usability
Usability
• The inevitable mobile majority
• Buzzfeed and CNN - mobiles dominant:  
 
Monday-Friday outside of work hours 
Weekends all day
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
MOBILE MOBILE
MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE MOBILE

Usability
Usability
• 33% of Wikipedia traffic is mobile; 50% by 2025
• Will mobile editing community emerge? How might they
interact with keyboarded editors?

Usability
Usability
• Example of Wikidata

Usability
Usability

Usability
Usability
• Contributing by clicking
• No knowledge of databases, SQL, fields, ontology needed
• Why is this interesting? 
 
If Wikipedia visits become mobile-majority… 
What does this mean for participation? 
Input methods, browsing, creating?

Usability
Usability
• Wikidata Game

Usability
Usability
• Big questions 
Mobile experience and editing 
Multitasking  
Commons uploading 
Community, volunteer, foundation? 
Changing mobile demographic

• User:Arturo de Frias Marques: 
“I am a wildlife photographer. I have spent the last 15 years travelling
the world, carrying 15kg of photography gear.. I have only very
recently started to contribute to Commons, I have only a few
Featured Pictures... I hope this will change soon... :-)”
!
• Finalist in Picture of the  
Year 2014
!
• Polar Bear jumping, in  
Spitsbergen Island,  
Svalbard, Norway.
Commons Break
Commons:File:Polar Bear AdF.jpg

Usability Social
• Social
Social

Usability Social
Social
• Professor: “I tell students to go to the talk page of a
Wikipedia article order to understand it. But it’s such a bad
user experience."
Facebook
Wikimarkup

Usability Social
Social
• Problem of better discussion interfaces
LiquidThreads
Flow
Next?
Visual Editor + talk pages

Usability Social
Social
• Wikipedia was one of the original social platforms  
in the blogging era
• Our platform is dated
• WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK 
 
Blogs, Wikipedia,  
Second Life, and Beyond 
2008

Usability Social
Social
“Wikipedia is not a social networking service
like Facebook or Twitter…
!
The focus of user pages should not be social
networking, or amusement, but rather
providing a foundation for effective
collaboration.”
Wikipedia:NOTSOCIALNETWORK
Let’s not be afraid of  
being social
 
Learn from Quora, Facebook
Community “design” elusive

Usability Social Diversity
Gender and Diversity
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article2610669.html
Diversity

• [[Gender bias on Wikipedia]] 
“between 84 and 91 percent of Wikipedia editors are male” 
• Bright spots 
“women made up 61% of participants for college courses
that included editing Wikipedia as part of the curriculum” 
Helps shift towards “social sciences and the humanities” 
• GLAM helping to broaden participation
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article2610669.html

• 2011 - Breakthrough with GLAM and “invitation culture”
• Since then: 
Gender Gap list 
Art+Feminism meet ups 
Wiki Ed Foundation

I will not in good faith encourage
other women to participate unless
they are fully aware of what can come
with it.
- Wikipedia editor, September 2015
https://twitter.com/LibSkrat/status/651786423138430976
On libraries getting more involved with Wikipedia:

Commons Break© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas /  
CC-BY-SA-3.0

User:Cccefalon: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas
!
Lijiang, Yunnan, China: Nakhi people carrying the typical baskets of
the region; scene from a public perfomance in Jade Dragon Snow
Mountain Open Air Theatre.
!
First place in the Photo challenge  
Tools of the trade in July 2014
!
Finalist in Picture of the Year 2014
!
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas /  
CC-BY-SA-3.0
Commons Break
Commons:File:Lijiang Yunnan China-Naxi-people-carrying-baskets-01.jpg

Usability Social Diversity Experts
Expert Engagement
Experts

Expert Engagement
• GLAM success
• Wiki Education Foundation

Expert Engagement
Critique of [[The Greek Slave]] by Karen
Lemmey, Smithsonian American Art
Museum curator for sculpture.
WRONG

Expert Engagement
Video critique posted to talk page

Expert Engagement

Expert Engagement
Collection of letters
discovered by Dr. Lemmey
because of Wikipedia’s
external links

Expert Engagement
• David Frank, University of Oregon - Co-operative Analysis

Usability Social Diversity Experts Original
Original Content
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/
Original

Original Content
• Refactoring vision for “original reporting” in Wikimedia
• Wikinews isn’t it 
 
Time-critical deadlines 
and wikis don’t fit
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/

Original Content
Wikinews: 
Time to move on
https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikinews/EN/SummaryEN.htm

Original Content
• A new vision for original reporting
• Feature (timeless) content
• Oral Citations - oral history
• Interviews
• Event coverage
• Documentary and  
long form narratives

Original Content: Interviews
David Shankbone 
interviews Israeli 
President Shimon 
Peres in 2008
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel

Original Content
• Systemic bias - Participants need to be literate, and
verifiable sources need to already be online
Oral Citations: People are Knowledge (subtitled)
from Achal R. Prabhala
https://vimeo.com/26469276

Original Content
• Wikipedia community could help produce
more reporting in one month than what
National Geographic produces in a year
• Video and multimedia creation community

Usability Social Diversity Experts Original Multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia

Multimedia
• Video, 3D, virtual reality (VR)
• Collaborative video editing is the holy grail of multimedia
• Challenges: Lack of widely used open standards and tools

Wiki Makes Video

Video Collaboration
• Currently, video is mostly a solo act
• Collaborative video editing is the next innovation 
Consider the “stranded video” no one ever watches
1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
Graphical user
interface
World Wide Web Wikipedia Collaborative
video editing
Intuitive user
interaction with
minimal training
Multimedia
access to
networked
resources
Massive
collaboration and
community
Rich storytelling
and rapid
learning and
evolution of
visual literacy

Video Collaboration
• Problem: commercially unattractive (Kaltura, Adobe, et al)
• Solution: open source community
• Partners: Mozilla, Internet Archive, Wikimedia, MLT

Mozilla Popcorn

Multimedia
http://3d.si.edu/

Multimedia
Google Cardboard

• #freebassel
Multimedia
URL: http://freebassel.org/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/08/bassel-missing-syria/

Multimedia
• Wikipedia has dominated Britannica and Encarta… 
but Wikimedia’s multimedia weak
• Open content policy means we’re always limited in content
• Original reporting and modeling can help

Multimedia
• Lack of good open standards and tools 
Commons require a “thumbnail” preview
• Longer term problem of multimedia experimentation vs
production servers

Multimedia
• Histropedia, powered by Wikidata
http://3d.si.edu/

User:Ritchyblack
!
High-speed photography: A light bulb was shot with an airsoft pistol
(positioned right of the lamp). The camera was triggered by a
photocell, which was located in front of the pistol muzzle
!
Third place in  
Picture of the Year 2012 
 
Picture of the Year 2013 
“tungsten filament burns  
with a flame"
Commons Break
Commons:File:Lijiang Yunnan China-Naxi-people-carrying-baskets-01.jpg

Usability Social Diversity Experts Original Multimedia Partnerships
Partnerships
Partnerships

Partnerships
• Compared to GLAM…  
”Not-so-like-minded” institutions
• Detente and dialogue
• If we’re being responsible with Wikipedia’s content…  
who should we be engaging?

PR Companies
•
Donovan
House Group
A group of 12 digital PR leaders,
Wikipedians and academics met
here on February 7, 2014 to discuss
issues affecting both communities

PR Companies
Statement on
Wikipedia from
participating
communications
firms
Not the catchiest name, or the most
specific, but we’re pretty sure it’s the
right one
!
EVERY MAJOR GLOBAL FIRM
URL: http://enwp.org/WP:PRCOM

PR Companies
Participating firms pledged…
○ To seek to better understand the fundamental principles guiding Wikipedia and
other Wikimedia projects.!
○ To act in accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, particularly those
related to "conflict of interest."!
○ To abide by the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use.!
○ … investigate [potential violations] and seek corrective action.!
○ Beyond our own firms, to take steps to publicize our views and counsel our
clients and peers to conduct themselves accordingly.
Key points from the statement

PR Companies
Industry
Coverage
Plus: AdAge, Al Jazeera America,
BBC, CNET, Gawker, HBR, Inc.,
Politico, Slate, TechDirt, The Daily
Dot, The Independent, The Verge,
TIME, Wall Street Journal, Wired,
ZDNet... and many more!

PR Companies
Industry
Reaction
Agencies are very interested in this;
here’s an internal memo from a
global firm directing its team
members to follow these principles

Usability Social Diversity Experts Original Multimedia Partnerships Trust
Build Trust
Trust

Build Trust
• Community and Foundation
• Historical clashes 
 
VisualEditor 
Media Viewer 
Wikimania 
Fundraising banner messages

Build Trust
• Loudest on the mailing list does not make a majority
• Making sense of the channels, signals and “consensus” 
 
On-wiki 
Mailing lists 
Real-life meetups 
Wikimania 
Wikimedia Conference 
Chapters 
Social media channels
!
• What next?

Wikipedia Space
HASHTAG: #wikipediaspace

Wikipedia Space
URL: http://enwp.org/WP:WPSPACE

• Wikipedia Space - banners in the NARA lobby 
 
“physical learning spaces to promote the use of open
content technologies such as Wikipedia and Wikimedia" 
• Policy and help pages not enough
• 10,000 foot view of Wikipedia for new editors
• Feedback please!
Wikipedia Space
URL: http://enwp.org/WP:WPSPACE

First year college students have
never known a world without
Wikipedia
!
No guarantee Wikipedia will be
here in 15 years
Context

Vision and themes
Collaborative multimedia
Original reporting across boundaries
Mobile participation as the future
Engaging diverse peers
Civil and cooperative community

The Future
Where will
Wikipedia be in
another 15 years?

WikiConference USA: Eight Things Wikipedia Must Do

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