Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia Strategy 2017/Cycle 1

The big question that we seek to answer is the following:

What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?

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Potential ways to think about this question:

• What will guide our work together over the next 15 years?
• What impact or change do we want to have on the world over the next 15 years?
• What is the single most important thing we can do together over the next 15 years?
• What will unite and inspire us as a movement for the next 15 years?
• What will accelerate our progress over the next 15 years?
• What will we be known for in the next 15 years?

Examples of summary sentences:

• “Wikimedia stands for a purity of knowledge and facts, untainted by commercial interests or political agendas, and promotes a knowledge culture of balanced information and cited sources.”
• “We should explore new kinds of knowledge spaces, embracing innovation in order to survive and thrive in 2030.”

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If you have specific ideas for improving the software, please consider submitting them in Phabricator or the product's specific talkpage. To discuss the overall strategy process, see m:Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017. Other discussions throughout the movement are listed at m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Participate.

Further develop "accessibility, quality content, and collaborations"

I have grouped some thoughts around three main goals:

1. Accessible
   1. Improve offline access such that more of the world's population can get dependable access to our content. While much of the world's population has intermittent access to the Internet, it is not the continuous access those in the developed world take for granted, even when money is not an issue.
   2. Accessible language is of great importance. One of the primary reasons many medical students state they use WP rather than other sources is because we are easier to understand. Much of the world either speaks English as a second language or has lesser language skills. When it comes to ease of understanding, we can still do better.
2. Quality content
   1. People expect our content to be independent, neutral, and of high quality. We achieve this we need to put in place further measures to address undisclosed paid promotional editing as this is one of the greater threats to the neutrality of our content. It also needs to be minimized to maintain our independence and keep us free from advertising.
   2. Working to improve our ability to handle rich content. This was one of the most requested features in the last reader survey. We did have someone working on maps and graphing tools within the Discovery team (User:Yurik) but unfortunately this was put on hold.
3. Collaboration
   1. Develop and expand upon collaborations with other like minded organizations (CDC, ILAE, WHO, Cochrane, etc.) They are typically very keen to work with us.
   2. Improve relations and expand collaboration between the formal organizations within the Wikimedia Movement and the communities of editors. The community tech team has been doing amazing work in this area and should be further resourced.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:25, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Doc James: Re: Accessible language, do you mean things like: tools to help writers who are not effortlessly articulate in their phrasing and word-choice, to reframe and rephrase things? I'm thinking specifically of some of the tools that the Tech/News writers try to use, in order to make the entries more easily and precisely translatable, and understandable to non-tech audiences. (I proposed a similar thing for Simple Wikipedia, at phab:T135321, though I'm not sure how feasible it is to extend the idea for non-Simple projects.)

Alternatively, perhaps instead (or in addition) you mean more focus on translation tools? Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I mean that rather than using Greek and Latin on English Wikipedia that we use English. So rather than "etiology" we use "cause", rather than "pulmonary" we write lungs, etc.

Other useful efforts include writing in shorter sentences. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:23, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that using accessible language is important. Avoiding technical language, and making Wikipedia readable to the majority of people has been an aim from very early on. We have guides such as Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, which link to related guides and discussions. As part of general accessibility we also aim to keep articles to a readable length as suggested by Wikipedia:Article size. On the whole I feel we do quite well in explaining sometimes complex concepts in a readable and concise manner. There are, however, certain topic areas where we might not be succeeding as well as we could. Maths and Biology are areas that could see improvement as they both focus heavily on technical language. As accessibility is an important aim, perhaps we should be asking ourselves why we are failing in these areas so we can address those issues. Is it the nature of the subject matter that prevents the use of non-technical language, or is there a culture within those subject areas which prefers to use the precise terminology and is not fully aware of the accessibility issues when using that terminology? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:54, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

This is the nature of subject matter. I am a physicist, and I can not envision encyclopedic articles in my subject area, beyond the most basic ones, which use imprecise ternminology. This is actually what the whole scipop is all about: To explain to non-experts what this terminolkogy means. But sci-pop is non-fiction, not encyclopaedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I understand that some subjects are more difficult than others to explain clearly to non-experts, but that is what Wikipedia is here to do, and we should be at least making the attempt. We are a general encyclopedia, not a subject specialist text. It can be done - see Talk:Clitoris/GA1. There was initial doubt that the article could be made readable, but we found a way by rewording, rephrasing, or providing a non-technical explanation in brackets where needed. I think the article could be made even more accessible, and should, as it receives over 6,000 readers daily, many of whom might struggle with the current text, but at least an attempt was made, and it moved in the right direction. Sometimes it is not the subject specialist who is the best person to make an article readable. The subject specialist has subject knowledge, but other editors may have the writing and communication skills. The strength of Wikipedia is that we work as a team - each person doing what they can. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Writing in easy to understand language is much harder than writing in the usual technical vocabulary but it makes us more accessible and we should at least be considering it as editors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

A curmudgeon writes

1. Persuade editors in the subcontinent to write articles in their first language, first. I've lost count of the number of insoluble DAB problems I've seen in articles written in broken English about places, people and films in India or Pakistan. (I make an exception for Nepali - there is at least one excellent editor on that Wiki, whose articles about obscure places I have linked to more than once).
2. The same applies, but with lesser force, to other non-English languages also. It's a real pain to read in English Wiki that some mediaeval noble was seigneur/graf/starost of some indeterminate place or other, and to find nothing in the home-language article.
3. Stick firecrackers up the backsides of WikiData pedants who unlink links between different Wikipedias because WP:SIA and WP:DAB pages are "different things". I once solved a DAB-link problem by finding that a group of 5 or 6 pages in Western European languages had an equivalent and similar-sized group in Eastern European languages. I got the answer I needed after some creative multilingual googling. My attempt to link the two groups was reverted because "SIAs and DABs are not the same thing". My argument that the English and the Ukrainian pages were both categorised {{geodis}} in their respective languages cut no ice. I rolled my eyes, and moved on. Unhelpful for readers, but rules is rules, eh?

Enough of that; but I may have hinted at my opinion: Wiki should be global. Translation between different-language Wikis is a hugely important area; always having regard to local notability and sourcing rules, which do not need to be unified. I am a big fan of {{ill}}; you will not be able to guess how many times I've used it. Narky Blert (talk) 03:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Disorganized thoughts by MER-C

This is a copy of what I posted on meta. Please comment there.

• We've seen sockfarms of hundreds of thousands of accounts on social media sites, and a quick search reveals that one can inflate the usual spammer metrics for not much money at all. This is highly concerning given how pathetic our CAPTCHA is and how stretched volunteers can be. The only thing stopping them is that editing Wikipedia requires human effort. It's only a matter of time until the 50 Cent brigade, Putinbots, Operation Earnest Voice and other state-sponsored propaganda spewers show up en-masse, if they are not already here.

• The spam and (undisclosed paid) advocacy problems we have now are tiny compared to what they will be in 2030. Orangemoody and OfficialPankajPatidar are nothing compared to what we will be facing. Doing nothing or token efforts are both untenable.

• Aggressive outreach in the third world will lead to an Eternal September and is therefore counterproductive. The WMF's research already shows very poor understanding of what Wikipedia is in the most-populous countries and there are countless examples of said outreach efforts backfiring.

• Outreach efforts should be focused on increasing participation everywhere except the largest projects.

• There needs to be a much greater emphasis on quality, not quantity of content. The English Wikipedia already has enough shit articles as it is; a promotional "article" is worse than nothing as it only encourages the addition of more promotional "articles" at an exponential rate. The WMF needs to support the community in providing appropriate software and configuration changes to reduce the amount of crap that makes it on-wiki.

• The WMF needs to fork out serious cash to refresh MediaWiki before it becomes legacy. Get it to pay for itself by taking on enterprise support contracts and dump the surplus into community tech initiatives, GLAM outreach, anti-abuse tools and terms of use enforcement.

The aims haven't changed at all -- we are here to make available the sum of human knowledge by curating the best free-content (encyclopedia|dictionary|media repository|repository of textbooks and manuals|library|repository of open data|collection of educational resources|collection of quotations|directory of species|news service|travel guide|...) and free software that enables the same we can. They've just got harder.

(This won't be all, I suspect I will have more to say.) MER-C 03:32, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia data is at the heart of AI research, but the Wikimedia community is not

That needs to change.

AI researchers rely heavily on the Wikimedia projects' content, especially Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a corpus (body of textual knowledge) used by natural language processing programs. Its data is used and analyzed by algorithms in such a way as to make those programs smarter. The programs themselves are beginning to understand the material.

State-of-the-art in computing is AI. There's only one way for MediaWiki to become and remain state-of-the-art. And that is to incorporate AI into it.

If MediaWiki could understand the material it serves out to readers, it could help readers all the more. Equally importantly, it could help editors. It could help monitor and deal with the problems Mer-C mentioned above. And much much more.

The Wikimedia movement is the creation of and provision of access to content.

Technology drives the Wikimedia movement. Hardware & software.

In this advanced technological age, technology is the key.

We should not let the technology at the heart of the movement fall behind and become obsolete.

Make the heart stronger.

Turn it into a brain.

Sincerely, The Transhumanist 08:59, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

User:The Transhumanist, I'm super interested in what you're saying and I'd like to research. Will you ping me and share any starter source material you have documenting this: "AI researchers rely heavily on the Wikimedia projects' content, especially Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a corpus (body of textual knowledge) used by natural language processing programs. Its data is used and analyzed by algorithms in such a way as to make those programs smarter. The programs themselves are beginning to understand the material." Much appreciated! --RYPJack (talk) 21:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@RYPJack: For example, Wikipedia was among the corpora used by Watson to win Jeopardy. Here's a good starting point: WikiBrain: Democratizing computation on Wikipedia The Transhumanist 23:43, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: so cool as a way to think about broader implications of the wikiproject. thanks so much for sharing. -- RYPJack (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@RYPJack and The Transhumanist: The definitions (as used by everyone) are somewhat fuzzy for "machine learning" and "AI", but for what we have so far, see also: m:Research:Revision scoring as a service, and many links therein. Plus the mail:wiki-research-l and mail:AI mailing lists archives. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:10, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

@RYPJack, The Transhumanist, and Quiddity (WMF): Specifically, I'd like to see a visual editor overlay for the various Wikidata products (which can be mined by AI) that is user friendly and builds on some of the synergies coming from the GLAM community. Tech is great! But not everyone codes. One of the beautiful things about Wikipedia is that it is theoretically open to all. TeriEmbrey (talk) 17:05, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@TeriEmbrey: well said! can you talk a little about some of the specific "synergies coming out of the GLAM community"? that sounds like an interesting source of best practice. interested in exploring that as well. -- RYPJack (talk) 17:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@RYPJack: The GLAM community, including OCLC, have been discussing data partnerships and data reuse for a while. Ixchel M. Faniel, Ph.D. has a recent blog post entitled "Bringing order to the chaos of digital data" on this topic at OCLC Next.[1] TeriEmbrey (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

This is getting "solved" with Wikidata, which is a Wikipedia in a machine-readable format, rapidly growing and that probably soon will become a corpus for IA projects. emijrp (talk) 18:06, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Emijrp: Thank you for the heads up on the visual editor for Wikidata being in the works. I look forward to testing it out. TeriEmbrey (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I generally agree with the comment by @The Transhumanist:. Not to be overly pessimistic but I think that Wikipedia/Wikimedia must urgently evolve in this rapidly changing landscape of net/information/IT. Bearing in mind the recent demise of DMOZ, IMO the WM needs to embrace things like big data, AI, deep learning. In a few years time we can witness the emergence of completely different interfaces to human information/knowledge retrieval.
Absolutely Wikidata is a way to go and a great asset of the WM movement.
I'd welcome development of an innovative (AI?) information assistant a la Siri based on the Wikidata/Wikipedia information base.
I suppose it'd be quite doable to develop an automatic / semi-automatic new images classificaton system based on the current category system and a kind of deep learning techniques.
All in all, an impending information paradigm shift can render the current WP/WM model largely unatrractive to the current users/readers. And not in 15 years' time but much sooner. Kpjas (talk) 10:08, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@Kpjas, Emijrp, EpochFail, TeriEmbrey, and RYPJack:

AI researchers are in data heaven due in large part to the Wikimedia projects. Which means Wikimedia is in the same data heaven. The funny thing is, who are the greatest experts on Wikimedia data? Wikimedians. Which makes them particularly qualified for creating enhanced applications utilizing this data.

The Wikimedia foundation should support such effort within the WM community and movement.

With respect to the time frame of change, my guess is that the Internet of 5 years from now will be barely recognizable as the Internet of today. And if the WM community wanted, they could be at the heart of the new paradigm. All they have to do is embrace change, which would naturally flow into them driving it. The Transhumanist 01:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

"By 2030, Wikimedia should operate at the forefront of advanced semi-automated open knowledge technologies." This is the thematic statement that I came out of the Wikimedia Conference Strategy conference supporting. I agree that being a driver in this space will be strategic for the future of open knowledge. I see both basic AI and strong AI as a key in this goal. We should both invest in developing the advanced technologies and being a key innovator in the human-element. E.g. counter-vandalism is not just about an AI. It's a collection of humans and AI that work together with complex goals and considerations. I think we're already operating at the forefront of lots of semi-automatic social technologies. It would be strategic to invest in this and drive it. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 15:53, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@EpochFail: Would you elaborate on "advanced semi-automated open knowledge technologies", please? The Transhumanist 20:34, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

We need to build a more welcoming community

To say the least, Wikipedia has lots of complicated and confusing rules. These are certainly well-intentioned and, to some extent, necessary, but I (as well as many others) think they have the unintended side effect of undermining Wikipedia's ability to attract and retain new editors. For this reason, we need to make it much easier for good-faith new editors to edit here, perhaps by making it clear that there are lots of issues they need to be aware of if they want to edit in controversial topic areas. I also suspect that requiring that someone be autoconfirmed to create an article (like the failed WP:AACT) would be a good idea to help keep newbies from becoming discouraged because their initial attempts failed b/c they didn't know enough about how to create an article, among other reasons. Everymorning (talk) 21:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

It is a fine balance. PLOS is not easy to contribute (you have to pay thousands of dollars, your submission gets rejected multiple time, the documents for the manual of style are huge) yet they still have lots of people submitting articles to them for publication.

And than we have folks such as this claiming to be "new editors" when they are most likely experience undisclosed paid editor. One wants to assume good faith but when efforts to mislead are so common it is tough. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:31, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the title, but the blame is not on Wikipedia's policies. WP:V and WP:CONSENSUS are short and simple, and they encompass nearly all of the things an editor needs to know to positively contribute to Wikipedia. There are many editors who simply don't follow policy and try to bully other editors to relent. These non-welcoming editors often use reasons like "better before", "I don't like it", "revert to stable version", "it's been that way for a long time", "that's a guideline not a policy", "end of discussion", and other edicts to avoid WP:CONSENSUS. I honestly think that if these sort of edit-summaries were automatically flagged, and if there was an addition to WP:CONSENSUS that explained that such behavior is disruptive and destructive to Wikipedia, the community will be much more welcoming and we'd avoid this sort of entitled behavior that drives off positive contributions and cements article ownership and bad contributions. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC) People missing the point very hard. 16:35, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

During the last two years or so, more and more edits to articles on my watchlist are reverts, some days close to half. And that is because they are not improvements according to the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia. These edits are often either straightaway vandalism, or ill-conceived statements of opinion. This shows that this project has reached a certain point were improvement is becoming harder. In my opinion that fact more than justifies a firm stance on adherence to Wikipedia rules and guidelines. Debresser (talk) 20:19, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Excellent point Debresser, obviously as Wikipedia becomes better it becomes harder to improve it still further. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:36, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

In the early days of Wikipedia, almost any contribution was an improvement. As the site matured it was inevitable that poor quality additions would be increasingly unwelcome. I think we need to recognise (even encourage) the fact that the balance between attracting new editors and protecting our existing data is slowly going to change. Well developed articles that have been through numerous reviews by multiple editors, such as Featured Articles, should, on principle, be made more difficult to change than a newly created stub. SpinningSpark 09:07, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Spinningspark you say your reply is addressed to my comment but it doesn't seem to be related to what I wrote at all. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 10:22, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I am simply saying that there is nothing wrong with reverting because the edit was not an improvement. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, but more and more it will become necessary to protect the great asset we have built up here. Newbie edits to long established articles are frequently half-baked. Either they haven't read through the whole article to see that it already says better somewhere else what they are trying to insert, or they have copied a line or phrase out of their student textbook that they only half understand and have destroyed the meaning or context of the text. Now I wouldn't dispute that we have our fair share of bullying established editors, but in my experience it is far more common for edit warring to be initiated by newbies who don't appreciate either the WP:EW policy or the WP:BRD etiquette here. They want the "correct" version to be shown right now and consequently quickly get themselves into trouble. SpinningSpark 12:25, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It was a reply to you because it was a defense of reverting bad edits — But I never mentioned reverting bad edits. Anyway I moved the comment out of this section. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 14:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

You gave as examples of problematic edit summaries "better before" and "revert to stable version". I am disputing that those kind of edit summaries are necessarily problematic. In most cases they are not. SpinningSpark 15:35, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

See, you're replying to a point I wasn't making. I was specifically addressing this sort of behavior when it's done to avoid discussion, consensus, guidelines, or policies. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 16:42, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Debresser your reply doesn't seem to be related to what I wrote at all. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 10:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

These appear to be replies to Everymorning... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:25, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

That's what I thought, which is why I moved my post out of the way, but Spinningspark insisted they're replies to me. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 13:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

My replies to you were certainly intended as replies to you, and I find your repeated attempts to disconnect my replies from your original post to be disruptive. SpinningSpark 15:37, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Even if they're not disconnected through layout, they're completely disconnected in context. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I also fully agree with the title, I have noticed that certain people are creators, some improvers and some destroyers, it is the latter category that I find most annoying, reverting entries rather than posting an improve or needs a citation note. I also find it very annoying having to defend a perfectly good article from automatic deletion. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Hear, hear to both issues. Acad Ronin (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Follow the guidelines and policies better

There are many editors who simply don't follow policy and try to bully other editors to relent. These editors often use reasons like "better before", "I don't like it", "revert to stable version", "it's been that way for a long time", "that's a guideline not a policy", "end of discussion", and other edicts to avoid WP:CONSENSUS. I honestly think that if these sort of edit-summaries were automatically flagged, and if there was an addition to WP:CONSENSUS that explained that such behavior is disruptive and destructive to Wikipedia, the community will be much more welcoming and we'd avoid this sort of entitled behavior that drives off positive contributions and cements article ownership and bad contributions. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. There are far too many bullies on Wikipedia. Many are "Edit Ninjas" WP:EDITNINJAS who rely on weight of numbers, rather than quality of argument to impose their will on other editors. Many of these ninja warriors do not actively contribute to articles, other than to revert edits made by others and to harrass and intimidate other editors by quoting policies, which very often have been blatantly misinterpreted in service of personal agendas. Sometimes these edit ninjas band together under the auspices of outfits like the Wikipedia External Links Noticeboard to give themselves an air of authority. These people are agressive, inflexible, openly hostile, vindictive and tendentious. They are also very tenacious and will never back down - they just rely on building the number of "ninjas" in their group for the purpose of garnering support for their reversion decisions. These edit ninjas are alienating scores of potentially active editors on a daily basis. If Wikipedia is really interested in learning about why the number of active editors continues to decline, look no further than the activities of some of the members who are controlling the Wikipedia External Links Noticeboard for examples of the tendentious and relentless harassment that goes on in the name of Wikipedia.

I started editing on Wikipedia in October, 2016 and within the space of four months, I had totally overhauled 16 articles in the marketing area - 9 of these involved the addition of substantial new material, more than doubling the size of the article, and bringing them up to date with high quality references. In addition, I also added substantial sections to another 12 articles. A number of editors who are totally uknown to me made unsolicited comments, praising the additions and alterations that had been made to these articles. I would probably continue to edit away, quietly and improve articles in my subject area, Marketing and Advertising, except for the actions of Wikipedia bullies.

During my four month editing career on Wikipedia, I quit for several weeks on two separate occasions due to bullying. Some editors engage in bullying in the mistaken belief that they are doing it in your best interests. But others are blatantly bullying - just because they can. I have now quit Wikipedia permanently due to the aggressive and vindictive actions of 4-5 edit ninjas who appear to taken over control of the Wikipedia External Links Noticeboard. I thought about making a formal complaint agaisnt them - and have a draft written on my computer - but decided that the best course of action was to simply quit. Even if there was an investigation into the activities of these ninja editors on WP EL Noticeboard, the sad fact of life is that on Wikipedia, there are plenty more bullies to take their place. There are very few places on the Internet where this type of bullying can survive - it may well be that Wikipedia is the last bastion for potential bullies to hang out. And, it can survive because Wikipedia's policies are so vague, spread across multiple pages, contradictory in places - so that allows bullies to find a policy or interpret a policy in a way that supports just about anything they want to say. And if the policies fail to provide the necessary support, then, they just say - "well, you lose - because there are four of us who say you should do as we say - and BTW, feel free to find a few friends to support you, if you wish." Seriously? Is that any way to run a show? Evidence-based arguments carry no weight, when all you need is half a dozen friends to back you up and a couple of hatchett men to run around, finding every page the enemy has ever worked on, and selectively deleting content just to add intimidation to the battery of bully-boy tactics used to badger editors into submission! BronHiggs (talk) 03:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Why specifically WP:ELN? External links almost always provide no encyclopedic value, and the ones that do are usually better used as sources in the body of the article. I have to say that looking at the specific external links you mention, they provide no encyclopedic value; they're landing pages for magazines and products. One of the links is to a parked domain... What possible benefit is there in that? BrightRoundCircle (talk) 13:04, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

ELs are often simply a spam magnet. It is sad to see DMOZ shut down as they had better mechanisms to manage ELs than we do. Hopefully they will be back up soon. (maybe they could join us as a sister site) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@BrightRoundCircle: The question about the link to admedia.org has been asked and answered multiple times by multiple editors, including yourself, on multiple pages. The link has been DELETED by members of the ELN and has not been reinstated, at this time. There are no reasons for any questions about it. I have asked you on another page, to refrain from badgering me with questions about this link. This type of badgering is tantamount to bullying. And, it is this type of activity is exactly why I used ELN as an example of the type of vindictive editing and bullying behaviour that occurs on Wikipedia. Sadly this type of behaviour is driving active editors away. BronHiggs (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

If editors are so opposed to external links, then perhaps they should be working towards changing the policy instead of harrassing others about it. At this time, the policy clearly states that WP policy clearly states "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links)" and that "Some external links are welcome"; "Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic" and that "Each link should be considered on its merits" and that the "External links section is one of the optional standard appendices and footers, which appear in a defined order at the bottom of the article." None of this leads me to believe that external links are inherently evil. On the contrary, the policy suggests that external links are perfectly normal and that editors should be flexible, using judgement to determine links that add to the value of an article or provide users with relevant, additional information. I agree that some external links are very spammy and/or poor quality, but I cannot agree that this should mean that all external links should be deleted. BronHiggs (talk)

The discussion considered each link on its merits; the only issue here is that you found much merit in your links, and almost everybody else didn't. For example admedia.org may be a fine article, but it would serve better as an inline reference, or better yet, since it's mentioned in scholarly sources use them instead. For example providing an external link to a website that quotes a paper by Albert Einstein is less desirable than using inline references to scholarly sources that published or mention that paper.

In general your case looks like the policies actually working as intended, even though personally you were very offended by the way your contributions were rejected.

My intention here is to outline the use of non-policies (like "better before") against policies (like consensus). BrightRoundCircle (talk) 12:06, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Your friends at ELN have deleted literally more than a hundred external links from some 35 articles (approx 3-7 links per article). Of these, just one was to an article that appeared on what you guys allege is a "re-registered" site or a "parked domain" (it is most emphatically not a re-registered site and the policies, at this time, do not expressly preclude "parked domains"). Even though that link has been deleted, you lot keep banging on about it, despite my repeated request to back off. That was just one link - the remaining links that were deleted were to peak industry associations/ professional associations and leading journals in the field. One of this pack takes unsual care to delete the links that I added, leaving behind links added by other editors (irrespective of quality of links). This type of behaviour does not suggest that links are being evaluated on their merits - instead, it suggests highly motivated vindictive action. I have asked for better explanations than "we don't like it" (non-policy) or "we all agree that you can't have these" (edit-ninja) for these deletions, but to date, there has been mostly silence, interpersed with more deletions, more bullying and more intimidation. I am not seeing the policies working well at all. Instead, all I see is a vindictive pack of bullies who are twisting policies to serve some personal agenda. Well, you can bully and intimidate to your heart's content - but you have lost me as an editor. And, if you took the time to check, you would see that my edits were substantial, and resulted in major improvements in article quality/ accuracy and have led to a number of articles being upgraded in the quality scale. Worst of all, I suspect you are losing many more editors daily with this aggressive deletion policy and practice of issuing tersely-worded cautions to anyone who has the audacity to add an external link. BronHiggs (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

You came here and replied to my comment and I'm hounding you? You asked for explanations in accordance to policy and you got them. Perhaps take this to WP:ANI if you feel ganged-up on? Bright☀ 14:19, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Better before, and that's a guideline not a policy may be simple truth, in which case they should not be objectionable. I don't like it is obvious, but irrelevant, revert to stable version is a bit obscure and may cause confusion, but is occasionally useful after a long series of unhelpful edits and incomplete fixes. it's been that way for a long time may also be true but is equally irrelevant, end of discussion is just plain uncivil. If one wishes to refrain from further discussion, just do it. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:58, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Replace this with a sentence that summarizes your opinion

Develop your opinion here based on the main question or the alternative questions.

Optional: Keywords that describe your opinion Religious fundamentalism is the main curse of humanity today. In early times when men lived like animals, there was no concept of God or religion. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers have expressly said, "Word is God." Thus if we trace back the origin of alphabet and the process of creating words, we can easily explain how the different names of God have been created. It will also explain how religions originated. If Wikipedia can do it in next 15 years, it will be a permanent service to humanity. `````````````` ``````````````` ````````````` `````````````` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhanakkad Seth (talk • contribs) 11:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

User:A1 - we are not seers!

Dear organisators! Please take into account that nobody knows what will occur in the next 15 years. We could only disscuss about our desire. We could write about what do we expect will guide our work or what could possibly accelerate our progress but not what really will accelerate or unite us. --A1 (talk) 14:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata, Commons etc

Among the sister projects, we have two - Wikidata and Commons - which serve other projects in the literal sense: Other projects can directly use their data (from Wikidata) and images (from Commons). We badly need a third one - serving maps (possibly integrating with OSM).

However, both of these projects (for the full disclosure, I am admin on both) are problematic, and they are problematic because the amount of data/files is so big and the communities are so small that they can not handle this flow of data. In Wikidata, one problem is interface: One essentially needs to be a lua coder to be able to use the data on the projects. Another problem, which is still unsolved, is the reliability of the data, much of which are below Wikipedia standards, and even the vandalism problem has not yet been solved. Commons' problems are different - hostile community which establishes their own policies (users from other projects have to use them but have not say in the policies), and is extremely unwelcoming, to the point that users just stop using it and start uploading files locally. Additionally, there are just too many files, and it is very difficult to find anything. All these issues need to be solved for stability of Wikimedia projects.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:50, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Moving newer editors toward additional user rights

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and I think that while we have put together a pretty good suite of tools in order to appeal to extremely new editors, like The Teahouse, WP:Help desk, and the entire WP:AfC apparatus, we have not at all put together any kind of comparable comprehensive and deliberate strategy to take regular productive editors and move them toward becoming outright experienced editors.

I'm sure people will decry the emphasis on hat collecting, but I honestly do think that one really good way of measuring how well we are doing this is the number of people who have been granted additional user rights. Right now there are a dozen sub-sysop run-of-the-mill user permissions, including the newly minted new page reviewer, and still yet more ongoing discussion of adding to/expanding this. These are users who not only have but have measurably demonstrated comparatively advanced knowledge of policy and process, and who are therefore armed to help contribute to the project by chipping away at these more advanced tasks, and, for the most part, are moving more toward positions of leadership, and being the very people who respond at places like the help desk or review at RfC, instead of being the type of editor who asks and submits.

Now I get that we don't have a need to recruit lots of mass message senders, and auto/extended confirms are irrelevant, but we do absolutely need to be recruiting as many qualified editors as possible for many of the other groups, and doing so is vital to the project, to our longevity, and I think also toward the process of training the truly advanced users of the coming years, our future admins, crats, arbcom and the like.

But with all this, it seems like most users with these permissions more or less have them because they stumbled upon them, or were lucky enough to bump into someone who knew that they even exist, and may be appropriate either for a user to request or to take steps toward qualifying for.

I don't think it would be difficult to do better here through fairly simple means, for example:

• Expanding automated messaging to include times when editors meet certain bench marks that may make them likely to qualify for a permission, and
• Adding plugs for thing like NPP to recent changes feed, and adding plugs for other rights in conspicuous relevant places

At least, those are ones that I've been mulling around in my head. Sorry for the long post, and I guess I'll stop here to have mercy on whoever actually to the time to read it. TimothyJosephWood 19:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Improve inputting photos

I find the system/systems a nightmare for getting photos into the system. With so many people now with smart phones, it should not be too difficult to get an App that will undertake most of the work, requiring just the categories to be added. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 13:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Ânes-pur-sàng What you are looking for I think is this yes? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:48, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that, I had not been looking in the Commons area. Thanks. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 14:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Create some blank master documents for articles

Where you have a sports team, an event, a book, a ship, a film etc article, why not have a blank master document designed for that subject, so that you end up with consistent styles and help speed up creation. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 13:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I created such a template for my own use when I was working on WHO essential list of medicines. Could be useful for WikiProjects to create such things. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

This is the standard procedure for new article creation on Wikivoyage - there are a set of templates for the range of article types which are substituted when the article is created to form a structure using the MOS approved headers and order, categories, etc. Obviously Wikipedia has a far larger range of acceptable article structures, and many of these are specific to Wikiprojects, so a logical place to keep them would be as WikiProject subpages, where more people can find them. The technology is already available, it would just be a matter of doing it. I have used my own user subpages for article structure templates for fish species articles. It is an almost trivial procedure once you know what you want, and can save a lot of time when you want to create several similarly structured articles. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Cut costs

The basic Wikipedia website has not changed much in the past ten years. Although new features have been developed with the intention of making editing easier, many users shy away from these tools because it slows editing down significantly, are often buggy, and are not even what users request. Past initiatives are often misguided. We have women gather to write articles on Wikipedia before they immerse themselves into this community, only to have large numbers of low-quality biographies that fail key areas of Wikipedia guidelines, forcing seasoned editors to take on cleanup. All while the more significant and general issue of decreasing numbers of administrators is being ignored by the WMF. Revenue from reader donations have increased consistently, and so has spending. However, most editors do not see significant improvements in their editing experience, and I don't think readers find Wikipedia much more user-friendly than in previous years. What the WMF needs in the next 15 years is a competent management team that focuses on issues that actually matter: editor and user experience, and costs. The community has been very clear with what it wants from Wikimedia. Ignoring unfavorable opinions isn't going to help. feminist 14:09, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the basic wikipedia has not changed much in the past decade, and sadly, it is unlikely to change much over the next decade unless something is done to eradicate the plethora of bullies who intimidate and harrass active editors in the pursuit of personal agendas that have no foundation in policy. The number of active editors continues to decline - and if you surveyed a proportion of these, I am sure that you will find that many have quit due to the aggressive, hostile and vindictive deletions that are occuring daily on Wikipedia. These bullies are simply driving active editors away, while the bullies are primarily concerned with deleting content rather that adding to it. That is no way to grow a resource, nor to improve its quality. BronHiggs (talk) 08:59, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

External collaboration, wider usage, slow evolution, more patience, better tools and documentation

There is so much untapped and relevant knowledge that we can help collate, curate, and disperse, but we need both the information itself and the human assistance to go with it, to do so. We can't do everything ourselves, but we can work more efficiently than we are, and healthily grow bigger than we are, in so many ways. We should have better documentation, better tools, more patience, more content, more external usage, and slow growth.

We should be working with more people and organizations by 2030, both formally and informally. We need better guidance for education-professionals who want to work with us, both teaching their students using our material, and getting their students to contribute back to the site. We need better documentation for people in all contexts and languages. What we have is scattered across multiple wikis and fragmentary/duplicative locations, many of which are poorly watched and maintained or hard to find (metawiki, mediawikiwiki, outreachwiki, enwiki, and more).

Beyond the obvious Education and GLAM partners, we could forge better external collaboration with the purely education-oriented sites, like math.stackexchange, and the education-oriented subreddits, like /r/askscience/ and related - perhaps write them some quick guides for both finding good information in our sites, and assisting participation in our sites (and vice versa), so that we can hook /r/fashion/ together with WikiProject Fashion, and /r/chemicalreactiongifs/ with WikiProject Chemistry and Commons, and etc, in both directions. They're highly-active locations, filled with smart and helpful people who enjoy sharing knowledge with the world. We could be helping and mingling with each other more. Not all of us, but some of us, and more easily. More interconnected-web, less gated-community. Looser boundaries, and more informal pathways. (related notes)

We want better tools for writing, generating, organizing, and understanding content, from graphs, timelines, and dynamic illustrations, to short and long-form prose; from multilingual dictionary entries and translated books, to category-trees and historical maps. (Timelines that we help create & curate, should appear in thousands of youtube videos as footers and sidebars, to help spread an understanding of historical context; but they don't, yet). We could have better tools for collaborating on and triaging tasks; for discussing and suggesting changes; for supporting each other's problems and endeavours. We could have better and more complex tools in many areas, for the editors who want complexity; and smoother simpler lighter feature-sets for editors who want (or need) those, especially newcomers, especially mobile. We should have sites that are more accessible to the physically impaired, both editors and readers, perhaps something like phab:M17. To get there we need clearer and more consistent communication pathways in both directions, between software makers and users. We need more active brainstorming and more detailed collaboration on feature-planning and more patience with developers and more encouragement towards all of the above.

The content itself will keep growing, and the diversity of demographics we serve will keep increasing, and we could do better at giving them the content that might best suit them, whilst allowing/encouraging them to find the rest. -- For example, The Encyclopedia of Life had an interesting "complexity slider" interface in their early versions, that let readers set how complex or scientific/formal they wanted their content [See ancient screencast at youtube (30 seconds worth) and the preferences panel that let the reader restrict the content to "Authoritative sources only" youtube (40 seconds)]. -- A 10 year old person doesn't (always/often) benefit from the same content as a PhD, and we want to help both. The books The Diamond Age and Ender's Game contained the idea of software that auto-adapted to suit the educational needs of the user. To me that's the final goal, and it's a long way off, but we can make steps and experiments towards it.

We should have Wikimedia content well-used in more places. I want to help producers of various educational youtube channels, such as are used in some classrooms, to teach the world complex ideas using well-chosen communication & content. Some people learn better this way, and that should be encouraged. We may not be able, or even want, to try to grow much of our own content like this. We can already be helpful to those producers, as information sources, and reference providers, and a media repository. But also for pull-quotes; for timelines, maps, infographics, and graphs; for infoboxes and TableofContents overviews, for audio and image assets. We can and should make this easier for them. Separately, we could potentially make use of their videos, if we can conceive of some acceptable integration or partway connection. We all share the love of collating, curating, and dispersing knowledge.

We should have better and more powerful editor-oriented tools by 2030, including tools that meet both simple and advanced use-cases. We need to more clearly distinguish the urgent tasks from the non-urgent tasks, to reduce everyone's stress about missing something serious, and help the urgent problems get resolved sooner. There are steps in existence, and more steps being worked on, but we should always be contemplating the possible steps beyond. How can we make things easier, faster, more powerful, less error-prone and less duplicative, and with more detailed help and powerful tools built-in, yet without overwhelming or demanding too much of the newcomers?

We need to balance our requisite slow pace in most areas, with a [widespread but not universal] continued desire for new kinds of evolution, both technical and social. I hope external groups continue to build on our platform, and help improve the platform itself. I hope we'll strengthen our ties with various published-data collating and preserving groups, to connect knowledge to references and the depths of further reading. I hope new interfaces will be designed to browse our category trees (and other classification systems), and compile lists of articles to read or translate or maintain, and interact with dictionary elements, and organize media collections. I hope we'll revisit many of the great old attempts at new interfaces, and make it easier to find and use the many existing tools, plus encourage more people to collaborate on the existing tools and to build more.

We need to improve our patience and friendliness solutions well before 2030. Asking grumpy people to change their fundamental character doesn't work, and we can't exclude most of the brilliant grumpy people from being participants. -- The editors who are optimistic and patient when dealing with newness and naivety (to a topic or an environment), could perhaps be more available to help the editors who are wonderfully curmudgeonly. I get along well with both, and the sites are built by both, and we need both [and everything in between; most binaries are really spectrums], because the pool of potential editors isn't infinite. Maybe it could start off with something as simple as frequently-frustrated experienced editors getting assistance more often at the teahouse (and equivalents). -- We have to stop dissuading each other from participating, by intervening more in impatient angry interactions. This probably needs social efforts as well as software tools. Maybe software could point out inflammatory word-choices that will just get a negative reaction (thus provoking another cycle of anger or immediate giving-up), but us humans have to do it more often, too. It takes a bit more effort when communicating, and more frequent mediation, but the long-term outcome of not demoralizing each other as often, is paramount. We also need better tools to distinguish the merely naive newcomers (to the sites, or the specific situation) from the harmfully manipulative ax-grinders [the unconvinced from the irrational], but we need to use those tools in a healthy way that clearly/firmly/politely redirects people who have a completely incompatible agenda. Anything from a slightly higher barrier for entry in some contexts (e.g. the Norwegian newspaper that makes people answer questions about the article, before they can comment on it.[2] or [3]), to better short-form documentation (to avoid the TLDR problem). The communities are our greatest strength, but they must be healthy, and stable or growing, to remain so.

That's some of what our movement could/should work towards, over the coming years. Not all of us, but some of us, plus more people who we'll help and be helped by. We can't do everything, even eventualismly, but we can do so much more. Quiddity (talk) 06:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

@Quiddity: thanks for your input. A similar proposal concerning auto-adaptation to user's needs has been added on Meta. I'll probably reply to your comment at least once more :) SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 09:57, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@Quiddity: this is an impressively detailed list of ideas - one that is along my line of thinking. I think that with the collaboration you suggest, the "the idea of software that auto-adapted to suit the educational needs of the user" isn't a "long way off" but closer than you think. The technology already exists, and the people willing to do it are out there. I talk about this suggestion in my own post to Meta (Sgrabarczuk linked to it above). Anyway, thank you for your comments --Nerd1a4i (talk) 11:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for adding a non-tabloid link for NRK; the module is free software too (GPLv3). --Nemo 05:19, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Oh, even better! And thank you for linking that other link in IRC. :) Quiddity (talk) 06:43, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Get students involved

Has any effort ever been made to get school teachers to get their classes involved in the creation of new wikipedia articles or the expansion of stubs ? 16-18 year olds should be a good recruitment ground for future generations of article writers. Their wikipedia work could surely be built into their school projects for marks. The only concern I have is the possible deletion of their articles if they are not considered suitable subjects (to avoid discouraging them). To solve this, one just needs to have the teacher pre-list the subject titles and for those names and their then published articles to be protected for say 1 year from deletion, but not from 'improvement comments' and removal of any sections causing 'copyright issues'. The teacher can instruct them in the correct layout, how to input pictures, tables, etc. It may well highlight subjects, not in wikipedia, that the younger generations find interesting and links computer studies with other curriculum subjects. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 11:24, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

There have been many such efforts, even formal partnerships, almost all around the world! A few days ago, during the Wikimedia Conference 2017, there was a Hebrew example presented (I'm sorry, I don't know the direct link). They noticed that students' retention was quite low (it usually is), but teachers' retention was surprising (-ly high, to be clear). So yes, of course. Have a look at Wikipedia Education Program. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Get libraries involved

Libraries in the UK and probably in countries elsewhere are looking for new subjects to bring people into libraries to use their services. Most libraries have internet facilities. To promote wikipedia classes in libraries, which generally have good research facilities on site may well bring new creative writers into the wikipedia community. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 11:24, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@Ânes-pur-sàng: GLAM institutions in the United States have been increasing. Full-time staff support from regional WMF staff would really help to move this forward beyond edit-a-thons and classes on editing Wikipedia. WMF staff should look at attending the state level library conferences to get the word out about GLAM-Wikipedia collaborations. TeriEmbrey (talk) 15:03, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Time to take legal action

As has been eluded to in earlier comments, Wikipedia has a real problem with the outside world for which is needs a legal solution. The harder we as editors work to build the reliability of the project the more we become a target of other parties. This includes not only commercially-driven sockfarms but also the long-term abusers that hurt and harass our editors, not to mention the pain in the ass these editors become as we clean up their messes. Ours is an open workplace where we have disruptive actors walking into our building and causing problems with no permanent solution in sight. I want to see Wikipedia (in far less than 15 years) build a legal strategy in jurisdictions amenable to our cause to prosecute ne'er-do-wells. No amount of coding fixes the persistent human problems and our editors, many of whom have already become disillusioned and burned-out, deserve better. Let's make a plan to sue our LTA list and make news around the world that violating our Terms of Use is a crime. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Sadly, the disruptive editors are not just "walking into our building", rather they reside here, have formed cartels and use the weight of numbers to bully, intimidate and harrass editors. They are so deeply embedded that they have assumed positions of authority and now possess the arrogance to believe that they are untouchable. Wikipedia is losing editors with every passing day - and most of it is due to the disruptive actions of certain groups of bullies who delete new contributions and harrass any editor who challenges their deletions. BronHiggs (talk) 22:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@BronHiggs: No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm actively pursuing those new users when necessary, for the good of the project. Your tilt at this bureaucracy windmill is inappropriate, at best. Before you start whinging about cartels and bullies let's deal with actual disruptive editors, whom the community has banned. After we get rid of them perhaps we can address your perceived slights. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:58, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Use blockchain for Edit history of articles for author rights management

Use blockchain for Edit history of articles for author rights management.

Many ideas

I added my loftier ideas to the meta discussion. Here I will concentrate on 1–5 year practical ideas.

• Access to quality sources is frustrating. Even my "free basic" access to Newspapers.com requires me to dish out $140 to see most content I am interested in (and so far, I haven't given in because it's $140 of my volunteer money). More work needs to be done to connect editors to sources. Wikipedia/Wikimedia needs to make better deals with sources, or outright buy access for a selected number of editors (maybe Wikimedia could get a volume discount?). We are already giving a lot of volunteer time to this project, so expecting us to effectively pay to edit here is just too much (and that includes spending money on gas to drive to a library or buying books). Also, if we don't already have a "free source directory/finder", that needs to be developed.
• As most of the major news media (in the United States at least) is controlled by conglomerates, subjects considered notable or matters deemed acceptable to cover within an article often depend on reporting by media outlets with a business-oriented/corporate point-of-view. Overall, I see this bias rear its head more often in terms of matters not covered rather than matters covered in a skewed manner. The media's sheepishness about conducting investigative reporting of politicians as well as engaging in forthright journalism of issues related to corporate bottom lines (including theirs) are major parts of this. Fortunately, we can also source from books (which tend to go more in-depth and not have as much corporate bias), but that doesn't assist well with having the most up-to-date content. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines don't do enough to counterbalance this reality, and this challenge is only likely to become more pronounced. We need to rethink WP:CITE and WP:RS through this prism. (I don't have any easy answers.)
• Figure out a way to strongly encourage editors to write an edit summary for every edit they make (basically say "Your editing isn't finished until you explain it to other editors!"). I'm tired of having to read the minds of too many editors to figure out what they heck they were doing. In my view, not writing an edit summary is disruptive.
• We need some kind of stronger mechanism for dealing with COI and brochure/resume writing. There needs to be a way to get into folks' heads what an encyclopedia is and what it is not. Communicate "If it's not acceptable for your high school research paper, why would you write it in an encyclopedia article?" or "Encyclopedia articles are not advertisement spaces!". We need to be more blunt about this.
• Wikipedia needs to be made more "fun" for editors. Give us a dashboard that ties together many aspects of editing here. Figure out ways to make the UI more current and less clunky. Make it easier to cite content (esp. with respect to source access). Gamify some aspects (except approaches that distract from article quality).
• Wikipedia content needs to become a lot more shareable and embeddable. Having readers discover our content from mostly searches alone isn't going to be good enough for the long term.
• We need some way to communicate that the English Wikipedia (and esp. other language wikipedias) is FAR from complete. Even in the English Wikipedia, I have noticed there are many local/regional subjects that would pass WP:GNG with regard to my region alone. So multiply that by all the regions on the planet. We need better mechanisms for 1) figuring out what's missing in existing articles; 2) assessing subjects not yet covered by articles (red link repository? better lists of subjects covered in hard-bound encyclopedias? easy to find red link stats?)
• Maybe the stub sorting system is too much beyond the ready comprehension of many users. Perhaps it would be much easier if we just used an "expand" tag at the top of what we call stub articles, and automatically build "expand" subcategories off of preexisting mainspace categories in which the stub article is included. So, when someone is looking at any category, they will be able to easily see which articles need expansion. Right now, the stub system seems somewhat too disconnected from regular encyclopedia use.
• Move some of the portal functionality into lead subject articles (Astronomy instead of Portal:Astronomy) and kill the "portals" that get too little reader/editor attention at this point. For the most part, we're just maintaining hulks at this juncture. Let's move their most useful features to where readers can more readily see them. Perhaps decommission the portal namespace.
• Some editors spend more than ordinary volunteer time here and deserve for their time to be covered financially. Develop a policy that green-lights editors being paid for their general efforts. Outright allow and encourage editors to seek public donations (GoFundMe, et al) for their work here. At the same time, draw a bright line that says editors cannot be paid for editing specific articles. For instance, for me, I might like to seek donations from people in my city for all the work I do related to the city. I haven't so far because I wonder if I would get into hot water. These resources could assist me in doing a lot better work (purchasing books, etc.).

And these are just some of the ideas I've been thinking about to make our site run better for all. I welcome responses, harsh criticisms, and additional ideas along these lines and beyond. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Summary 14th to 28th March

This is a short summary overview of the Source pages on Meta. Shortcuts used here rely on the established language and project code and languages are grouped alphabetically. For example, the Arabic language Wikipedia is Ar.WP. To provide a rough sense of activities on the projects and platforms the Source pages summarize, this text indicates how many source statements were available and therefore taken into account at the time of writing. (3s), for example, means 3 statements were available on the referenced source page at the time the summary was drafted.

Main points (preliminary):

• Technological improvements should be a strong focus, including stronger investment in alternative knowledge formats (like audio and maps), mobile, voice search, augmented reality, AI, and Wikidata (Ar, Bn, De, En, Es, Fr, He, Hi, It, Meta, Pl, Vi, Zh).

• Several communities emphasize the need for better multilingual software and translation support, potentially up to creating multilingual project wikis or integrating the existing wikis; and a focus on content quality, potentially including paid content creation (De, Es, He, Hi, It, Ja, Meta, Pl, Pt, Sv, Ru, Zh).

• Several communities emphasized the need to create a more welcoming and friendly environment, including expanded anti-harassment and gender gap measures (Bn, De, Es, Fr, Meta, Pt, Ru, Vi).

• Communities emphasize the need to cooperate more closely with educational institutions, potentially up to Wikimedia offices in those entities (Ar, Bn, Es, He, Hi, It, Vi).

• Asian communities and English tend to emphasize offline development and rural area outreach to bring Wikimedia into every village (Bn, En, Hi, Vi).

• Several communities reiterate well-established positions outlining the need for better technical collaboration by the WMF (De, Ru) and a concern that the movement is losing its educational focus through politicization and WMF-centralism. (De, Fr, He, Meta, Pl)

• The Arabic Wikipedia’s village pump discussion (3s) surfaced the view that the Wikipedia Education Program should be a priority, including opening permanent Wikimedia offices in educational institutions (§Ar1) while the related Facebook group (4s) emphasized focusing on improving technical aspects of Wikimedia Projects (§Ar2.1 (to 4)).

• Bengali onwiki discussions (35s) surfaced various views such as focusing on decentralizing the movement with an emphasis on rural areas, (§Bn1.2, §Bn1.31) Wikidata development, (§Bn1.6, §Bn1.25) and creating a welcoming environment (§Bn1.21). Partnering with related organizations (§Bn1.7), developing spell correction tools (§Bn1.5) and creating audiobooks on Wikisource (§Bn1.8) should be a focus. Article writing should be easier and emphasize both content quality and quantity. Frequent global contests would be helpful, including give rewards for contribution (such as mobile data), engage students and mentor newcomers (§Bn1.20, §Bn1.33). Sister projects should be promoted (§Bn1.26) and all projects integrate Wikidata with all for automatic updating §Bn1.25). Community members at Bengali community meetups (6s) suggested promoting Wikimedia projects via Wikipedia Library buses (§Bn2.1) and calendars (§Bn2.5, §Bn2.4). The gender and content gaps (§Bn2.5, §Bn2.4) should be addressed.

• The (mainly) Taiwanese Chinese Wikipedia Community on Facebook said that they would like to increase the quality of the existing articles on Wikipedia. The former chair of the defunct WMHK noted in a meeting that the lack of resources is always a problem in the community. The community wants the Foundation to support more, financially and technically, so that they can develop in a better way.

• Wikipedians on English Wikipedia (13s) said that we should focus on offline accessibility (§En1), quality of information (§En11) and features like graphs and maps (§En4). We should work together with external partners and more internal collaboration like Community Tech Team (§En5). The problems of undisclosed paid editing (§En3) and Wikidata's limited usability (§En8) should also be addressed and the potentials of artificial intelligence to help us explored (§En13).

• Contributors on French Wikipedia (66s) discussed that we should focus on smaller wikis, (§Fr1) build a global community, (§Fr2) promote local-language projects, (§Fr4) modernize Wikimedia platforms (§Fr5) (such as augmented reality and voice search (§Fr57) and creating more strict anti-harassment policy (§Fr7). We should focus on quality, (§Fr39) creating multilingual wikis for every project, (§Fr11) creating a welcoming environment for new users (§Fr6) and encouraging cross-cultural exchanges. (§Fr25) We should also think about neutrality of the project, (§Fr15) internationalization and providing knowledge in various formats (§Fr13). We should encourage the use of media/social media for promotion (§Fr41).

• The German Wikipedia discussions (37s) discussed the idea of democratically electing expert boards among wikipedia users to improve quality (§De1.1 to 7) A welcoming social environment (§De1.8) and keeping all the articles up to date (§De1.15) has been deemed important; while Wikidata can be helpful (§De1.18) but someone has to update Wikidata as well. (§De1.19) We should focus on quality rather than quantity. (§De1.21) Wikipedia should be a democracy and all the supervisory positions should be appointed by community; possibly downsizing the WMF with a headquarter outside US and for fundraising by organizations. (§De1.13) We should have an internal quality management, restructure policy and guideline pages, (§De1.30) and rethink the value of primary sources (§De1.25). A meeting in Austria (31s) supported a welcoming environment, (§De2.1) finding new knowledge (visualization) formats, (§De2.26) involving more diverse voices and sources of knowledge, and keeping content up to date. (§De2.21)

• Hebrew Wikipedians (17s) discussed that we should focus on facts, being politically neutral (§He2) and reaching more audiences. (§He1) We should rethink Wikimedia's design, (§He12) adapt new technologies, (§He6) collaborate with Academia and engage students, (§He17) focus on quality (§He10) and integration of Wikimedia projects. (§He8) We should also think about the problem of paid editing. (§He13)

• The Hindi Wikimedians Whatsapp Group (25s) discussed that we should decentralize the movement's formal organizations (§Hi1.2) and focus on reaching every village. (§Hi1.6) Portable devices should be our priority (§Hi1.18) and Wikipedia should be pre-installed on all devices. (§Hi1.18) We should also engage students and teachers by collaborating with educational institutions. (§Hi1.7) We should focus on growing both quantitatively (§Hi1.20) and qualitatively, (§Hi1.14) potentially making relevant content in other languages visible on any given wiki. (§Hi1.24) We should create an open and welcoming environment. (§Hi1.25) The Hindi Wikimedians Google Hangout discussion (12s) also surfaced the views that Wikipedia should be more easily accessible from mobile devices. (§Hi2.3) We should collaborate with organizations (§Hi2.6) and local governments (§Hi2.6) to take Wikipedia to the villages. (§Hi2.5) We should promote Wikipedia on social media (§Hi2.7) and also work together with educational institutions with the help of more paid staff. (§Hi2.10) We should create tutorials, ebooks and other material in regional languages. (§Hi2.8)

• Italian Wikipedians (14s) discussed that there should be a uniformity in terms of templates, (§It1.11) guidelines and Manual of Style (§It1.8) as well as increased communication among various languages and projects. (§It1.1) We should focus on educating and bringing more contributors. (§It1.5) We should find various ways to engage children (§It1.14) and students such as collaborating with youth organizations. (§It1.13) Italian Wikiquote (5s) users said that Wikiquote guidelines should be improved to make it easier for newbies. (§It2.2) There should be a collaborative library to improve quotations. (§It2.4) Wikiquote should have a presence on social media. (§It2.5) Italian Wikisource (13s) contributors suggested that Wikimedia projects should be more interconnected (§It3.1) and Wikisource should be integrated with other projects. (§It3.6) We should improve the technical aspects of Wikisource so that one can easily contribute and view texts, even on mobile devices. (§It3.8) Some users stressed including other open-access works (§It3.3) while others said that we should focus on scanned works. (§It3.15) Italian Wikiversity (6s) suggested that the movement should focus more on sister projects of Wikipedia. (§It4.1) We should also focus on schools and children by collaborating with projects such as Vikidia. (§It4.5)

• A Japanese Wikidata interview (1 user, 6s) on Twitter indicates that the seasoned Wikidata user felt that the project’s mission is unclear and it is complicated to explain. (§Ja1.1 (to 6)) A group on Slack (3s) agreed that WP has poor quality content regarding certain disciplines such as Computer sciences. (§Ja2.2) Facebook Messenger Interview (9s) surfaced the views that we should focus on comprehensiveness and decentralization of the projects, (§Ja3.1) and clarification of licenses. (§Ja3.6) We should also focus on data structure, (§Ja3.4) data relationship, (§Ja3.3) data input, (§Ja3.8) data output on Wikidata. (§Ja3.9) Onwiki, freeing more content (§Ja4.2) and recruiting more quality contributors have been noted. (§Ja4.3)

• Meta (21s) discussions emphasized the quality of content and the need to contest fake news (§Meta4), fighting paid editing (§Meta18) and undisclosed advocacy. (§Meta7) While one user advocated promotion of free knowledge efforts of WMF, (§Meta3) another user said that we should look for alternatives for WMF developed softwares. (§Meta2) We should focus on improving collaborations between distributed communities, formal affiliates (§Meta20) and potential partner organizations. (§Meta21) Knowledge should be promoted globally by improving offline access and by making our content easily understandable. We should focus on improving technical aspects of Wikimedia (§Meta12) and also the ability to handle rich content such as maps and graphic tools. (§Meta19) We should focus on gender/content gap (§Meta6) and improve inter-connectivity in our projects around Wikidata. (§Meta14) We should advocate for freedom of panorama in the US (§Meta13) and respect each other despite our differences.(§Meta5)

• On the Polish Wikipedia (18s), users said that contributing to Wikipedia should be easier, (§Pl1.5) and the software should better support multilingual efforts. (§Pl1.1) Certain users suggested creation of a unified Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons and Metawiki, with tools to translate same article into various languages. (§Pl1.8) Paid editors can also be hired to keep the content up to date by getting access to professional databases. (§Pl1.7) It was discussed that WMF/Movement should be politically neutral (§Pl1.2) and also that WMF Board of Trustees should represent the community better. (§Pl1.3) WMF should be only a support organization and not the organization leading the movement. (§Pl1.14) We should focus on sister projects of Wikipedia (§Pl1.15) and editorial autonomy of Wikipedia in various languages. (§Pl1.18) A tool to convert mp3/mpeg while uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. (§Pl1.17) The Pl.WP Facebook group (3s) highlights the need for technological improvement (§Pl2.1) and discussed political bias.(§Pl2.2)

• Portuguese Wikipedians (8s) discussed about having a welcoming environment with proper mechanisms for dealing with harassment, disputes and moderation of discussions. We should lay more stress on filling content gap with local content and translation should not be a priority.

• An overview of the Russian language (7s) village pumps discuss the importance of multilingualism (§Ru1.3) and geographic user base diversity, (§Ru1.1) easier online participation, and the need for improved WMF engagement on technical changes. (§Ru1.5) The Ru.WP RfC (6s) emphasizes a focus on WP's the importance of the grassroots model of development, (§Ru2.3) problems of new users trying to join the community, (§Ru2.4) and the need for more multilingualism.(§Ru2.6)

• On the Spanish Wikipedia's (11s) strategy page, the idea of movement-wide notability criteria has been raised (§Es1.1) alongside the need for better translation and language support, (§Es1.6) accessibility of the content, (§Es1.4) preserving the movement's independence, (§Es1.6) and WP is a teaching tool. (§Es1.7) We should focus on newcomers, (§Es1.8) user retention, (§Es1.10) modernizing Wikipedia interface (§Es1.9) and analyzing its current structure (§Es1.11). The Spanish Telegram group (1s) supports validation of content by external experts. (§Es2.1)

• The Swedish Wikipedia's (6s) village pump discussion compared Sv.WP with the country's national encyclopedia (§Sv6) while noting the need for improved reliability (§Sv3) and interwiki cooperation.(§Sv5)

• During the Vietnamese Wikipedia's (24s) conversation, the focus has been content quality (§Vi2) and the technical challenges like anti-vandalism measures (§Vi5) and advertising,(§Vi6) and opportunities, like educational outreach,(§Vi9) that accompany working towards it. We should focus on training of newbies,(§Vi8) offline accessibility,(§Vi6) keeping information updated(§Vi9) and acknowledging contributors.(§Vi7)

(Sorry for posting this late, I thought it had been done already.) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Summary 29th March to 7th April

• Vandalism and competition from Wikipedia in Arabic dialects is seen as a problem by some editors of Ar.WP (§Ar4) (§Ar10). Users have supported creation of multilingual projects such as Wikipedia (§Ar5) and Wiktionary (§Ar6), hiring of paid staff to verify content (§Ar7) and to form an editorial board (§Ar13). We should focus on neutrality (§Ar14), integrating with social media (§Ar17), content gap (§Ar18) and audio content (§Ar19).

• On Bengali Skype and hangout discussions (14s) it was discussed that they should be both long term and short term plans (§Bn2.1), organizing at-least one regional conference every year (§Bn2.2) and promoting sister projects of Wikipedia as well. (§Bn2.3) We should focus on Wikidata (§Bn2.11), collaborating with educational institutions (§Bn2.7), neutrality of the content (§Bn2.8), reducing gender gap (§Bn2.9), building trust within the communities (§Bn2.8) organizing WikiCamps (§Bn2.13) and the promotion of Wikipedia. (§Bn2.10) In the social groups discussions stress was laid on doing more outreach (§Bn3.1), accuracy of our projects (§Bn3.2), engaging professionals to contribute in specific topics (§Bn3.3) and collaborating with other encyclopedias. (§Bn3.4)

• The English Wikipedia discussion recommended focus on documentation (§En20), educational collaborations (§En21), fighting harassment (§En19) and increasing patience of the editors (§En26). We should improve our software (§En22) and be able to handle rich content (§En16) as well.

• French supported focus on anti-vandalism mechanisms (§Fr1.67), training of Wikipedia spokespersons (§Fr1.68), partnerships (§Fr1.69), intensive outreach (§Fr1.71), conflict resolution (§Fr1.74), translations (§Fr1.75) and neutrality. (§Fr1.76) While on the French Wiktionary (16s) discussions stress was laid on making the movement more transparent (§Fr2.2) and on making the contributors feel valuable. (§Fr2.1) We should focus on mobile editing (§Fr2.4), emerging communities (§Fr2.3), multilingualism (§Fr2.5), new forms of knowledge (oral and sign language) (§Fr2.6), decentralization of the projects (§Fr2.8), inter-connectivity within projects (§Fr2.9) and diversity of readers. (§Fr2.10) We should also focus on bringing more editors to fill content gap (§Fr2.13), fostering partnerships with organizations (§Fr2.14), creating contribution guides <tvar|tl19>(§Fr2.15) and ensuring security of wikimedia projects. (§Fr2.11)

• German explored integration of tools with Wikipedia (§De2.38), usability of Categories (§De2.42), abolishing talk pages (§De2.43) and a central page for questions about article. (§De2.47)

• While one person on Hebrew Wikipedia thinks we also think about the problem of paid editing, (§He13) another says that some work should be assigned to paid editors. (§He21) We should collaborate with other organizations (§He20), creating a healthy environment (§He22), improving mobile version (§He24) and becoming a social network (§He25). Our work should support differently able people as well. (§He26) We should also focus on text-to-speech (§He27), scanning technologies (§He28), printing Wikipedia by themes (§He31), bringing in youth (§He32) and fighting vandalism. (§He34) It was also discussed that we should lay more stress on neutrality (§He38), supervising edits of paid editors (§He40) and including more areas of knowledge (§He39).

• Hindi urged the hiring of staff to empower local communities (§Hi1.27), educate about various grant programs (§Hi1.29) and give training to trainers. (§Hi1.30) During phone interviews (5s) participants discussed that we should focus on reaching villages and get people from diverse backgrounds to join the movement.(§Hi3.1) We should advocate the use of Wikipedia for education (§Hi3.2), creation of educational videos (§Hi3.3), tutorials and books (§Hi3.4), and usage of offline Wikipedia. (§Hi3.5)

• The Italian Wikipedia discussed focus on quality (§It1.18), content gaps (§It1.20), innovation (§It1.21) and verifiability. (§It1.24) We should fight censorship (§It1.22), spams (§It1.27), fake news (§It1.28) and paid editing. (§It1.39) We should also focus on education (§It1.32), mentoring new users (§It1.37) and creating guides. (§It1.36). The Italian Wikiquote explored notability (§It2.7), NPOV (§It2.9), improving guidelines (§It2.10), improving the software (§It2.13) and collaborating with schools (§It2.12) as well as IMDb. (§It2.18) Wikiquote should be promoted more (§It2.16) and digitization should be encouraged. (§It2.15). On Wikisource, improving software (§It3.18), working with external partners (§It3.16) and focusing on quality were debated. (§It3.17). Wikiversity stressed minority languages (§It4.7), inter-connectivity within projects (§It4.8), partnering with institutions (§It4.11), reducing content gap (§It4.12), promotion of Wikiversity (§It4.13) and innovation. (§It4.15) We should promote kindness in the community (§It4.14) and Kiwix as well. (§It4.9)

• Discussion on Japanese Wikipedia (6s) surfaced the views that more free resources (such as images) should be available (§Ja4.2), Mediawiki should be improved (§Ja4.4) and we should focus on content gap (§Ja4.3).

• Meta noted a focus on newbies (§Pl1.20), decentralization (§Pl1.21), improving mobile editing (§Pl1.22), outreach (§Pl1.23), cross-wiki collaboration and improving transparency. (§Pl1.25)

• The Polish Wikipedia recommended a focus on newbies (§Pl1.20), outreach (§Pl1.21), content gap (§Pl1.22), emerging communities (§Pl1.23), other Wikimedia projects (§Pl1.25) and better communication between users and organizations. (§Pl1.27) We should focus on Wikipedia rather than Wikidata (§Pl1.28) and also we should improve the software to make it more user friendly. (§Pl1.29) WMF should remain financially independent (§Pl1.34), we should think about the problem of dead links (§Pl1.37) and also about the survival of Wikipedia. (§Pl1.49) We should encourage cooperation among projects (§Pl1.39), more openness in the community (§Pl1.40), user retention ( §Pl1.43), multilingualism (§Pl1.46) and neutrality. (§Pl1.46)

• Spanish Wikipedia discussed partnering with local governments and institutions (§Es1.12), laying more stress on emerging communities (§Es1.16), not becoming endogamic and participating in other international forums as well. (§Es1.17) We should offer different versions of articles according to audiences (§Es1.18) and also engage experts to fill content gaps. (§Es1.20) The telegram group (9s) discussed about validation of articles by experts (§Es2.1), lack of flexibility of users and policies (§Es2.2). Foundation should better support affiliates (§Es2.4) and rethink the "impact" of projects (§Es2.3). We should promote diversity and fix the disconnection between the affiliates and the community (§Es2.5). Focus on Wikidata (§Es2.6), gender gap (§Es2.7) and improving edit-a-thons (§Es2.8).

• Vietnamese Wikipedia focussed on promotion of Wikimedia projects. (§Vi15) While one person suggested mingling with social networks (§Vi17) another opposed the idea. (§Vi18)

Cycle 2 now starting

@Doc James, Narky Blert, MER-C, The Transhumanist, Everymorning, RYPJack, BrightR, A1, Debresser, Spinningspark, TeriEmbrey, Emijrp, Ymblanter, Timothyjosephwood, SilkTork, Ânes-pur-sàng, Feminist, Acad Ronin, BronHiggs, Kpjas, EpochFail, Chris troutman, Nerd1a4i, Softy, and Stevietheman:

Hi, I hope you'll join in cycle 2 of the strategy process at Wikipedia:Wikimedia Strategy 2017. More background information is available at m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017. Your perspectives are appreciated. (multiperspectivism for the win, as I frequently say).

(If you could help encourage respected peers to join in, in the local discussion or elsewhere, that would also be deeply appreciated. Maybe point out a theme they'd be interested in commenting on. :-) Thank you, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:00, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I am grossly disappointed with the design of Round 2. The discussions are again smeared all over the place, which makes it likely that none of them would assemble the critical mass. The topics are trivial, and I do not see what should be discussed. For the priorities, one could just run a poll, and the rest does not make sense. Do we all want welcoming communities? Sure. Already for 17 years. What do we want to discuss about it? And more specific questions collected in Round 1 are all buried in some list which may be sometimes published, and are not even the subject of the discussion. Some themes are formulated incorrectly - for example, Wikipedia must be neutral, but for example Wikivoyage does not. I feel no incentive to participate in this round, and I feel like my efforts in Round 1 were completely wasted.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:22, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I'll second Ymblanter. When I first looked over the Round 2 materials, my overall thought was it didn't reflect what was collected in Round 1, and seemed like an elite group decided all of it in advance of Round 1. It's a bunch of trivialities when we need to look at specific concrete ideas. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: as for The discussions are again smeared all over the place - the assumption was the closer to the local communities, the better. I don't know if this should have been done in a different way, it's not my role to prejudge that. What I know is that almost no one or literally no one considers Meta to be his/her home wiki, that's why we set up the pages on numerous projects. Is my answer helpful in any way? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF):, I know you guys are doing your best. I just think that the whole process is badly designed.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:17, 14 May 2017 (UTC)