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Sitrep
edit- "Quality (and not to be under-estimated, the perception of quality or of its lack) drives Wikimedia's reputation, which in turn drives readership and participation."
- "We want to encourage the creation and improvement of high-quality content. Our strategy on developing high-quality content centers largely around improving participation."
- "There are some signals that we are not as effective as we could be in helping new editors become active contributors to replace those who leave the projects. There are also signals that more experienced editors and administrators are becoming discouraged due to an increase in hostile behavior."
- "Today, the Global South is under-represented in the Wikimedia movement." i.e. systemic bias
- "the solution for Wikimedia is to slowly and steadily replace the current trend with a new trend that increases the number of users again and in the red point"
- I wouldn't say there's a crisis, merely that there is a thrashing suboptimal use of resources, lacking leadership. We see great efforts at bots and filters, and little effort at quality measurement, quality circles, and recruiting and mentoring new editors. for the CS major with a hammer, all problems are a nail.
The prevailing attitudes:
- patroling recent changes will fix the problem
- delete it, it's not my job to fix it.
- send a message to spammers that their work will be deleted
- oh my finger is in the dike, why won't somebody help me?
- all the notable articles have been written, let's delete the non-notable ones.
Philosophy
editLeadership is required to improve quality of wikipedia. The Principles of quality control apply to software projects such as wikipedia. Quality Circles need to be organized to address problems in a proactive way, without drama. Statistical Quality Control measures are needed to be developed and used, rather than fixing problems.
We need a new standard of professionalism. Like the librarians and archivists, we need to treat the public with respect, especially when they are wrong. When we treat people with disrespect, then we hurt the project.
Action plan
edit- Learn Quality control; learn human resource management; organize quality plan; implement quality control plan.