[FM Discuss] wikimania and foo report # 1

[adam hyde]

hey

i'm not too keen on fb hookups, at least from the point of view that
there are data privacy issues with these systems I am very nervous of
and I wouldnt want to expose FM accounts to this. However, the broader
idea of a widget to encourage contributions is really very nice...

adam


On Thu, 2009-09-03 at 11:51 -0700, xtine wrote:
> Hey Adam,
> 
> Thanks so much for your thorough review. I really enjoyed Mayo's list  
> - will flag this for future citations.
> 
> In regards to letting people know when and what kind of work needs  
> contributions on FM - What if when a user signs up for a log-in at FM  
> they gave the system access to their blogs or facebook pages? FM could  
> comb through material we are contributing on other platforms for  
> keywords in order to "know" what kind of information we may feel  
> comfortable with as contributors and send automatic alerts to the  
> user. If users can rate those alerts, the system gets better at  
> sending them. Just a thought. As not-a-programmer, I don't really know  
> what I'm talking about...but sometimes the dreamers can dig up  
> something that was almost there anyhow.
> 
> Best,
> x
> 
> On Aug 31, 2009, at 7:18 AM, adam hyde wrote:
> 
> > hi,
> >
> > I have just attended Wikimaia and foocamp to represent FM. Heres part
> > one of a report to say what I got up to and what i learned/thought...
> >
> > So, it took a while to get to Buenos Aires. I had booked wierd tickets
> > since I was needing to be in San Francisco for foocamp immediately
> > after. So the result was, that I flew Berlin->Washington->San
> > Francisco->Houston->Buenos Aires. It took about two days (with a 16  
> > hour
> > wait in San Francisco. A bit mad, but there was very little choice.
> > Actually I had almost decided not to come except at the last minute  
> > the
> > WIkimedia Foundation (via Erik Moeller) offered to pay for my
> > flight...cool....this meant I could go, which was fortunate as I had
> > also a presentation scheduled as part of a panel on Open Publishing.
> >
> > Finally I arrived in BA, swine flu capital of the world.I expected to
> > see everyone wearing masks, but I think the whole time I was in BA  
> > there
> > was only one person with a mask. Apparently the real risky month was
> > July, and recently the government put up posters throughout the city
> > congratulating the people of BA for helping get rid of the flu...
> >
> > I got a taxi to the Hotel Baun. If anyone has read Naomi Kleins No  
> > Logo,
> > you will know a little about the history of this hotel. Essentially  
> > the
> > hotel went bankrupt in the 90s and the workers, who needed the work,
> > just took it over and ran it. Kind of like squatting a commercial
> > organisation. Just 2 months ago the workers collective purchased the
> > hotel. Quite a story. The hotel was real 70s with light fittings that
> > would have sold for 200 euro in any Berlin second hand store...but  
> > here
> > everything was falling apart, and faded, but it all just added to the
> > atmosphere...a very cool hotel, I highly recommend it if you are  
> > ever in
> > BA.
> >
> > Since I arrived mid morning I already missed the Richard Stallman
> > presentation. He did two, the day before he did a free one for the  
> > local
> > community and apparently there was a queue lining up around the  
> > block to
> > see him. The wikimania conference was relatively expensive for locals,
> > and I would say I saw much less local attendance than in the Egypt and
> > Taiwan Wikimanias. Apparently the presentations were the same, but  
> > there
> > was some controversy with Richard Stallman yelling at some audience
> > members. I didnt see it so I dont know what happened. I do know that
> > when I arrived he was still there and so he asked for a meeting with
> > anyone that wants to discuss the Wikipedia "gnu/linux" controversy.
> > Apparently there is an issue with Wikipedia, in that there is no  
> > policy
> > on how to name the Operating System based on the Linux kernel, which
> > simultaneously has GNU tools. The FSF wants to call it "gnu/linux" in
> > recognition of the free tools developed and provided for the OS by
> > gnu.org. However...there are some that disagree and so there seems  
> > to be
> > pointless edit wars in Wikipedia changing the name. I went to the
> > discussion for about 10 minutes before deciding I needed more coffee
> > before I could cope with such a pedantic (on boith sides) debate. Our
> > policy on this, by the way, is that we dont have policies. I always  
> > say
> > to anyone from the FSF that they are welcome to edit as they like,  
> > as is
> > anyone else. Thankfully it hasnt resulted in edit wars as I think we  
> > are
> > still a little too small for this kind of thing to evolve.
> >
> > So, as a general overview I had the impression that there were fewer
> > people here than the last two events. Also, the pricing was really  
> > high
> > for locals, so the crowd seemed to me to be very much the old school
> > wikimanians that have been to the last 3-4 events.
> >
> > I first went to have a coffee, and then fronted up to the first  
> > session
> > which was a Wikipedia survey presented by Jan Philipp Schmidt. I was
> > very surprised to find that this did not throw up any information that
> > wasnt already widely known. The survey was looking to motivations for
> > particpation etc, and it turned up very little that I could see of
> > interest. The survey seemed also to be a little limited in terms of
> > listed motivations - they had left 'having fun' (or similar) off the
> > list of motivators...seemed a bit thin to me.
> >
> > What was interesting was something that would reoccur throughout the
> > event, and this was the issue about the number of editors. Although
> > wikipedia has 300 million unique readers a month, there number of
> > editors that do extensive editing has leveled off - to about 100,000  
> > and
> > has stayed at this level for about 2-3 years. This fact came back time
> > and time again, and it seems that it is something of concern to the
> > Wikimedia Foundation.
> >
> > In the meantime, the survey highlighted a few other mildy interesting
> > facts. The first is that 54% of wikipedia non-contributors in the  
> > survey
> > believe they don't know enough about any topics to contribute to
> > wikipedia. The other (related) issue is that almost 25% of the same
> > group don't feel comfortable editing other peoples work.
> >
> > Of this group also, and this I found not surprising but still very
> > interesting - almost 41% said they would contribute if they knew there
> > was a specific topic that needed their input. I find this  
> > interesting as
> > I think this is also something FLOSS Manuals should be thinking  
> > about -
> > if you register with FM, how do you know what needs to be done? At  
> > this
> > stage, unless you post to the mailing list or find someone in the chat
> > room, you don't know what is needed. We have tried a few tools to  
> > remedy
> > this but so far we haven't really utilised them effectively. I think  
> > we
> > could do more experimentation with this, and we might also try some  
> > new
> > tools in the forthcoming Booki platform.
> >
> > Apart from these issues, the survey was relatively uninteresting.
> >
> > Next I saw Mayo Fuster Morell presenting on some research she had done
> > on the Governance of Digital Commons.
> >
> > There were a couple of interesting isues Mayo outlined, however I  
> > didnt
> > really see how she saw these issues relating to Governance or
> > 'democracy' (a term she used repeatedly in conjunction with
> > participation). Mayo sees participation as an ecosystem. I like this
> > since this is how I have been talking about FLOSS Manuals for quite  
> > some
> > time, so I'm glad to hear someone else thinking on these terms. Mayo
> > outlined the following on this topic (taken verbatim from notes she
> > handed out, remembering that this is wikipedia - specific) :
> > 1. What is important is that the system is open to participation,  
> > but it
> > is not expected that everybody participate and contribute equally.
> > 2. Participation has multiple forms and degrees which are  
> > integrated : a
> > critical mass of active developers is essential to activate the  
> > project
> > and maintain the content; weak cooperation enriches the system and
> > facilitates reaching larger fields of information resources; and  
> > lurker
> > or non-participants provide value as audience or though unintended
> > participation that improve the system.
> > 3. Participation is decentralised and asynchronous
> > 4. Participation is in public
> > 5. Participation is autonomous in the sense that each person decides  
> > on
> > which level of commitment they want to adopt and on what aspects they
> > want to contribute
> > 6. Participation is volunteering. Participation is not only  
> > deliberation
> > but implementation.
> >
> > There is nothing here apart from an outline of how participation works
> > on an open platform, however I think its good just to see plain facts
> > stated sometimes. I would add to the idea of an 'ecosystem' that there
> > must be complimentary roles. In FM, for example, there are some that
> > like to write a lot of original material, some that like to edit,  
> > others
> > who spell check etc etc. Often many of these roles are performed by  
> > the
> > one person, but they are more often shared of course.
> >
> > Alongside this Mayo discussed the role that the owners of the  
> > technology
> > plays in the participatory process. I think she was interested in
> > looking at the role that technology played in a 'democratic
> > participative' process. For me, any talk of technology and democracy,
> > with regard to participatory processes like wikipedia, gets me a  
> > little
> > mad. I think Mayo, for example, might be questioning if there is
> > egalitarian opportunities to contribute under a technical construct
> > which is owned or provided by an organisation like the Wikimedia
> > Foundation. Equal access to people who are already online and want to
> > contribute to wikipedia does not at any point seem to me to have a
> > relationship to anything I would think of as a democratic  
> > process...but
> > thats my little itch...anyways, on this point Mayo examined what role
> > the technology provider (the Wikimedia Foundation) had with the  
> > various
> > communities that use the platform. Again, verbatim from here notes,  
> > Mayo
> > believes there are 5 main states :
> > 1. The Foundation as an adult protector of the community
> > 2. Foundation as leader
> > 3. Foundation as any other project which take care of issues  
> > required to
> > fulfill the mission
> > 4. Foundation is a community tool with a voice
> > 5. Foundation as a 'vampire'
> >
> > Mayo didn't suggest which perception of the Foundation was dominant.  
> > In
> > essence, apart from the unclear but interesting mention of Wikipedia  
> > as
> > an ecosystem, this was not such an interesting talk either. However,
> > what I was starting to understand, is that there seemed to me to be a
> > lot more internal pondering about the state of Wikipedia in this years
> > wikimania...the theme continued as the event progressed.
> >
> > Erik Moeller was the next one I saw. Erik is the deputy chair of the
> > Wikimedia Foundation, he was the first person I met from the Wikimedia
> > Foundation Board when i went to the event in 2007. At that point Erik
> > was focused on print on demand, and we had a lot to talk about. Since
> > then Erik has been following FM a little, and it was Erik who found  
> > the
> > money from the Foundation to pay for my flight to Buenos Aires. Erik
> > seems to me to be a very clear voice of reason about the position of
> > Wikipedia (I have seen him present twice on this topic this year and  
> > he
> > has always been very clear and interesting).
> >
> > Erik started with discussing that there are 330 million visitors a  
> > month
> > to Wikipedia. Facebook by contrast has about 250 million accounts and
> > 120 million daily logins. Again Erik brought up the issue that since  
> > jan
> > 2007, the number of contributors to Wikipedia has leveled off while  
> > the
> > audience continues to grow. There seems to be a leveling off of 90,000
> > -100,000 people world wide that make more than 5 edits a month. Eriks
> > point throughout the presentation was to ask why this number has been
> > static for 2 years, and how is it possible to convert the audience  
> > into
> > contributors?
> >
> > So, it seems that in the early days of Wikipedia there were many  
> > missing
> > pages - these are the so called 'red link' pages...they are called  
> > this
> > because a link which does not yet have a page is colored red in
> > wikipedia. So 'red links' are links to pages that do not exist yet.
> > Together with the large number of red link pages, and that culturally
> > there was, in the early days, no expectation for perfection (just
> > particiption), and the initial empowerment of the "founder generation"
> > lead to a huge growth in contributors. Notably, of course, the  
> > number of
> > contributors was much smaller but it grew very fast.
> >
> > If this was the condition when growth occurred, then what has changed?
> > Well, first up, it might be that Wikipedia has actually reached
> > saturation of the potential 'contributor' market. However, Erik  
> > seems to
> > think this is unlikely since there are many things that Wikipedia  
> > could
> > improve that may convert audience into contributors. What has changed
> > since the early days Erik put down to the following :
> > 1. the markup is too complex
> > 2. there are other venues for contributing online
> > 3. there are more rules, and the rules are harder
> > 4. the content is more complete
> >
> > There was significant emphasis on Wikipedia being 'unfriendly' by Erik
> > and also by Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) in his key note the
> > next day. It seems they are very concerned with new contributors being
> > deterred when contributions do not conform to Wikipedia rules and are
> > deleted or they get unfriendly notices. Every contribution now, it
> > seems, is regulated.
> >
> > So...Erik has some strategies for moving forward, they come down to  
> > the
> > following :
> > 1. Easy fixes
> > * add a WYSIWYG editor (2 years ago the wikimedia commuity seemed to  
> > me
> > to be very much against this but now its a hot topic)
> > * ease the workflow for uploading content
> > * improve general usability (see http://usability.wikimedia.org)
> > * clean up some governance issues
> >
> > 2. Add microtransaction features
> > * allow the annotation of images
> > * enable easy paragraph editing
> > * enable article review and rating
> > * make reporting problems easy and friendly
> > * add commenting features
> >
> > 3. New collaborative opportunities
> > * check a source
> > * draw a picture
> > * add a quiz
> > * translate an article
> > * edit or transcribe a video
> > * goto an event
> > * record spoken versions
> >
> > 4. Highlight whats possible
> > * context specific social invitations
> > * content specific invitations
> > * build a social component
> >
> > 5. Physical spaces
> > * become a social movement
> > * buy or rent spaces
> >
> >
> > So...this was a very interesting presentation...I will write a little
> > more about this, but for now this is the end of the first part of my
> > report as I need to go return the rental car :)
> >
> > adam
> >
> >
> >
> > -- 
> > Adam Hyde
> > Founder FLOSS Manuals
> > German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
> > Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
> > irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals
> >
> > "Free manuals for free software"
> > http://www.flossmanuals.net/about
> >
> >
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> 
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-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

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