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All right, the following session is called "Meet Lila Tretikov",
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Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation RC. Release Candidate (RC)
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because here we can't talk with position,
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because, in fact, if I understand correctly,
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it's on June 1st, when you effectively will be there.
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So we have a preview, a software preview,
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which is great in events like this, we're not going to run a demo.
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Sorry, I will stop right now.
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So, please, meet Lila.
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Hi, thank you everybody, it's really, really exciting to be here.
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This is my kind of crowd, I feel right at home here right now.
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I hope I'm not one of those RCs that has bugs in it.
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You will know better.
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So, this is the kind of environment I'm really happy to be in,
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I'm really comfortable with.
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But I just want to give a little bit of a background on me.
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Specifically, more on a technical and operational perspective.
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You do have to forgive me, because I have been up for more than 24 hours now.
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And I know, I said that I have pretty decent endurance
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I think, you guys are testing me.
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So, as some of you know,
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I'm coming from a combination of art and technology backgrounds.
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And this is really important in understanding what I care about
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personally and professionally,
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and also understanding why I'm standing in front of you
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in a role of stepping into the ED role.
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For such an important project as Wikipedia and its sister projects,
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as well as the Wikimedia Foundation.
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So, to give you a little bit of an insight
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of things I've done before.
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A Hackathon like this is something that I'm really passionate about, personally.
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I grew up in my Berkeley years and this is how
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Berkeley sort of operates.
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It's a lot of incredibly talented and creative people coming together
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and building things.
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And then showing them, and deploying them and making them happen.
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Completely a grass-roots level of effort.
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And then, when I went in and I started working
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and growing technical companies in the Silicon Valley,
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actually, brought with me this ethos of technology
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built in an open format, in an open source way,
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and built from the ground up, as opposed to from the top down.
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So, a few things that I've done in my past
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or I don't want to even say <i>I</i> have done,
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we have done as a team, because I'm a
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you know, guys, you're way better than me in technology
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as this point than I am.
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So a few things that we have done,
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is really have taken technology innovation before
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and married it
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with the hyper-focus on user experience,
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and the actual users that use our products.
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And why is this important?
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This is a huge differentiator for building software today.
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Combining those two, two of those best worlds
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and bringing the truly unique user experience,
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is something that people really love,
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really differentiates products and
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really what makes them successful often times.
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And I think like never before it's even more important today.
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Especially, with the growths and [....] of all of that different device formats,
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that are in front of all of us.
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So, what I'm looking forward to with respect of the product
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and the organisation at Wikimedia Foundation is
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bringing and continuing the focus the organization already has
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on our users and continuing to grow it.
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Not only by the way in the product and technology organization,
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but throughout the Foundation as a whole.
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Because User Experience doesn't start and end with the product,
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it's the entire experience, that an individual has with the organization as a whole.
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So, with that, that's kind of my short introduction, I wanted to make sure
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that everybody has time to actually ask me questions,
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because that's probably where you curiosity is,
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and I, just for disclosure, don't know everything yet.
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People have been coming to me, and in a really gentle and kind way saying:
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"Lila, how are you feeling that there is a lot to learn?"
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(laughs)
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And I can tell you, yes, there is an unbelievable amount of things to learn.
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Both, from with respect to our projects,
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as well as with respect to our invaluable community
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and everything what's going on there.
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Well, with that I want to open it up for questions.
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So, how we're going to do this? In order not to spend time running with the mic,
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just as we did in the openings spontaneously,
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if you have a question, just come to this side of the wall.
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And then, from here we will process questions, if you don't mind.
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So, you're next to ask a question.
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I just stand here, to mark that I'm in a queue here.
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Yes, you're in the queue.
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(laughs)
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Example A, right.
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So, hello, I'm Sumana!
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It's great to see you.
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Yeah, it's great to meet you too.
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I'm one of your new employees.
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I know your name!
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Oh! Gosh!
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(laughs)
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And, just on a very personal technical level:
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What do you like to hack on?
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When you have time to do a little bit of hobbyist programming,
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what languages do you like, what do you like to hack on?
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Oh, gosh, I've been doing JavaScript, I’ve to admit.
(laughs)
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Well, you know, a lot of purists, don't favour it that much,
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but I think it's extremely, actually, powerful language.
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And it's also very easy.
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One of those things I really love to do, when I get to code,
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which is not very often at all, though,
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is to see immediate results.
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And at some point in my life I did like back end servers,
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I coded on a Java site, on a J2EE, on a Virtual Machine things.
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But what I really, really love is being able to change a couple of things
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in a code and to see the results immediately and start tweaking in it.
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So, JavaScript is extremely forgiving with that respect
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and is really set up for that.
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So, when I do get a chance,
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which is, yeah, you have to forgive me,
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I'm not nearly as sharp on that anymore,
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but when I do get a chance, that's what I play with nowadays.
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All right, if you don't have more questions, I have one.
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But please, do have more questions.
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(laughs)
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So, there is a lot of discussion about the involvement of volunteer editors to create content.
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What is your opinion in general about working with technical volunteers, technical contributors together?
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Oh, I think it's fundamental and undividable part of what we do.
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What it means to be an Open Source foundation,
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and an Open Source project.
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Because a lot of the innovation is going to come not internally,
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first of all, from the Foundation,
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but from wonderful minds out there, like yours,
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from different regions in the world.
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But there is an even more important point:
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as a Foundation we try to be as diverse,
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geographically and culturally as possible.
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That said, we are a fairly small group of people,
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when you look at as today.
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Without having the reach of our technical community,
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we cannot be,
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as I was talking about,
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being close to our users.
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We can't be close to our users without all of yours help.
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So, it's absolutely critical for us to engage with both the technical
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as well as editor community, to really make Wikipedia
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and all of its sister projects successful.
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Okay, you were partying until late night yesterday,
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this way so nobody wants to queue here.
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Just raise your hand, I will be there.
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Hey, guys, if you don't start asking questions, I will start walking around
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and asking <i>you</i> questions.
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(laughs)
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So, I hack on a lot of different things, when I have time,
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and one of them is also a little bit unpopular in the Open Source community,
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and that's the iPhone platform iOS.
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So, I was going to ask about your iOS strategy, or maybe more generally,
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mobile strategy, because talking about diversity of users that is really kind of
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the next generation of computing people or accessing computational devices
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first on their mobile phones.
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Great question, thank you. And what is your name?
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I'm Christine Corbett and I'm a PhD candidate in Physics and Open Source developer,
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and "Close Source" developer, depending on my mood.
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(laughs)
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Great! It's great to meet you Christine, thank you for a great question.
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So, a couple of thoughts on this:
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So, first of all, as far as I understand, and keep in mind, this may change,
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at Wikimedia, we actually have, a two pong strategy with respect to devices,
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and with respect to mobile and that includes both, mobile web
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and reach applications on the dominant mobile platforms.
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So that's important to understand.
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And the reason for that is of how complex what we do is.
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Some things actually land themselves really well,
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just mobile web application, often times, put into the shell of the reach app,
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but browser based, for what we do,
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we feel that reach application is important to have as well.
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Now, I want to abstract for a second and talk a little bit
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about the trajectory of the market, overall.
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So, what we have seen is that the mobile form fact is going to eclipse
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or is eclipsing the desktop and laptop computing.
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That is the reality, that is something that is happening and
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we have to be staying in front of it.
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So, this is why it is such a huge focus for us at the Foundation,
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to pay attention to this and to invest heavily into the mobile platforms.
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Now, when we look at mobile platforms, obviously,
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we see the dominant player today in smartphones,
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which is Android and close second, which is iOS.
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And those are the two platforms we're looking at.
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And just like, with the OS desktop market,
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just like Wikipedia is accessible from Microsoft Windows, or Mac OS X,
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we're going to make sure that is accessible from whatever the end user is
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accessing the website.
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At this moment of time, most of our data is hidden in Wikipedia.
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Wikidata is basically making it available for as many places and
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platforms as we can.
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Can you see like I do that Wikidata is going basically make us crazy
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with information in any language, for everyone and everywhere?
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Can you let us know what your name is, please?
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My name is Gerard M.
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Nice to meet you!
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So, if I understand correctly you're worried about overwhelming amount of data?
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Is that what you're trying to say?
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Quite the contrary. I'm saying that we're underwhelming at the moment
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with the amount of data that we have, but I'm saying that we're growing
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the amount of meaningful data really, really quickly.
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And I think that we can do an awfully good job by getting that data
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to people in other languages, people in Wikipedias, where we don't have
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a lot of that data yet.
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Okay, yeah, I understand.
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Yeah, I would tend to agree with you, I think.
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Understanding the data within articles is a very important component
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of what we do and there are multiple reasons for that.
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But before I go there and I want to say that it doesn't take away from the
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beauty of the textual organisation and the text that is actually on the page.
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Those two are complementary.
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But the importance of the data is, nevertheless, still there.
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Because it allows us to, like you mentioned, give as many languages
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as possible, access to quint essential information and actually encourage
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the little one to interpretation and of information as well.
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On the other side, it's also important, because it's a fundamental of just
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cataloguing of the knowledge, it is kind of the base level of it.
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So, that's how I think about it, again, take it with a grain of salt,
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that may change.
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Hi, I'm Vibha, I'm working on the Design Team, part of the WMF staff.
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My own experience and talking to other women within the last two years:
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it's really hard, sometimes it's hard to be a female editor in the community.
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There is a strong level of aggression, that is, I think, difficult for some people to deal with,
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there is a lot of toxicity in the community sometimes,
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and what's the direct testimony to that,
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like how underrepresented some of the women and [...] are,
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I want to hear you sort of thoughts about gender in general,
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like community participation-wise,
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and what kind of ideas could us help to improve that?
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Great question, thank you!
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So, I have started to dig in, to understand, what the data actually tells us.
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And since I've been only a week at this, you have to pardon my ignorance
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when you see and feel free to correct me.
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However, from the early signs, we have a lot data, but none of it is particularly conclusive.
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From early signs, it's actually, women editors haven't even get to the edit page,
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they just don't even click the button yet.
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So, there is something happening in a distinction between male and female
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that is kind of blocking and reducing that number of female editors before they
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even get to, you know, "how the community interacts with them".
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I don't want to diminish the importance of <i>what is</i> the User Experience
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once the interaction occurs, I think that it is absolutely critical and important.
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But we need to understand it holistically, from the perception
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that is set out there in the first place, how do people talk about Wikipedia,
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and how women actually participate in projects like that,
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so we need to understand the psychology, all the way down to
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how the site actually interacts, how female vs. male interact with the site,
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and, finally also, you know, how people actually collaborating on the projects.
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I want to say a few words about collaboration.
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One of the things we have done in my previous roles,
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is, as part of my job, I run Customer Success, which in commercial terms
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is a support organisation. And I was really lucky to have some incredible people
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who understand social dynamic and human conversational dynamic.
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And what happened, is, as part of the transformation that we have done,
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when the team first started, when I took it over,
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I don't know how many of you are familiar with it,
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but our scoring, usually you use what's called "Net promoter score" for measuring
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how well liked your product or your service is.
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Our Net promoter score was something in the 30s, which is fairly low by market standard.
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By the time it took us about two to three years to get that score way up,
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to where it was hovering about 80.
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We have done a lot of work to get that done, on the product side,
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but that work alone would not be enough.
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To get people to what Net promoter scores actually does it
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measures how many people are willing to recommend
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your service or product to other people.
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So, a huge portion of that score is the social dynamic that is happening
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between people. Either within a support organisation,
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or within the community organisation.
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I don't want to diminish or underestimate how important it is and
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it is definitely something we need to focus on and understand.
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Lila, I don't have questions queuing up here,
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you can ask a question! You will have many chances to talk to
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Wikimedia Foundation employees, but do you have a question
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for volunteers, people working from other chapters, etc.?
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Yeah, I have a question for you and feel free to just raise your hand and answer.
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What do you guys see as the major, let's say number one priority for the
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Wikimedia Foundation in the next year?
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Any answer is fine!
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(laughs)
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Improving community recruitment and tools for new community members.
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So, just to clarify, are you talking about editors specifically, are you talking about
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technical community, what kind of community we're talking about?
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Both, especially, you know, editors more on the technical end as well,
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so people building templates and so on.
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We're getting more and more to the state where we can have many tools,
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where people just sit in a train, being bored, doing stupid things and
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adding information to Wikidata.
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(laughs)
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I think we should have more, we should really start thinking in terms of what can we do to engage people,
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who are bored out of the school , at places where they don't want to be.
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Sounds good! How about turning that into a game?
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Let's have them compete for.
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I actually agree with Gerard, before Wikidata existed, I found this interesting project
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called Freebase, I think. They had these interesting game-like tools,
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that you could use for example to say if this person is a male or female,
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if this is a country or an animal or a person or something.
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And you would collect points and you would see ...
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You know, it was basically a game. You would be doing exactly
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what Gerard was saying.
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And I don't see that yet with Wikidata.
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Some people have been building some tools and I believe
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it would be really, you know, as he says, a major step forward,
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because, as you say, that is a basic element of information,
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that element point, whatever. So if we can get
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people playing and feeling more capable of adding
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to the whole set of Wikimedia projects without being overwhelmed
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having to learn how to write in the encyclopaedic way or learning a lot about the subject.
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Just to say if that is male or female or something like that,
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then we would also boost not only the content, but also the community.
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I really agree with him in that point.
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We have 500.000 humans and we don't know if they are
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male or female, for many of them we have pictures.
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So, yes, we can do this.
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So, I'm going to turn the table on you guys and challenge you.
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That sounds like an awesome project for the community to take on.
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Hi, I'm Vera.
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Have you been introduced to Stroopwaffels?
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(applause)
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Oh, yes, yes!
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Can I have one? Thank you, I love those things.
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Thank you, thank you!
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It's hard to speak after Stroopwaffels.
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(laughs)
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I'm Simone, I'm with Wikimedia Italia, I'm the vice-president,
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but I come from the mapping sector. I'm a former
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Open Street Map Foundation member. And I like to see what you
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see about maps. I think the two projects do stay together very well
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and I would like to have your opinion on that.
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I don't want to overpromise anything, because I'm still
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on this early stage, where I'm trying to understand
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how much resources we have,
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how much focus we can put on certain things.
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Personally, I do feel that geographical data is something that's missing today.
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That said, we will see how much we can focus on that particular piece.
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Because there's just a lot for us to do in the next year.
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Eric, do you have any thoughts on that?
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Yes! So the current plan for the next fiscal year subject to change
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as everything we do is to hire at least two engineers working on
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mapping related infrastructure. That means, just the Foundation's,
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not like beautiful applications yet.
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That can be done and can started get built by like the Mobile Team and other teams and volunteers,
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but just to have a very robust production, great server infrastructure
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for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects that can handle the kind of traffic we get.
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Like within the mobile app we make it a key feature,
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we make [...] and Google Maps available in every article,
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that's a scaling challenge, it's an infrastructure challenge,
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and current intent we succeed at that level.
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I'm Charles, staff of WMCH.
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I don't believe it should be a priority of the Foundation,
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maybe it's more a wish,
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but I would like that in one year, two years,
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we never again read in a mailing list that the Foundation, the chapter or
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a user group is not part of the community.
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I think that would be good.
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(applause)
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Thank you for bringing that up.
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As I have been on ramping, it was driving me crazy.
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It's really hard as a new and as I'm coming into the WMF
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I can imagine how hard it’s for the new community members
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to understand what they need to be.
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Where they need to be listening topics on.
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My name is Daniel Mietchen, I'm a researcher on the
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Natural History Museum in Berlin and I'm interested in integrating
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work flows, between the wiki community and the research community.
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I would like to have your opinion on how the Wikimedia Foundation is situated
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within those who write open things, be it knowledge, be it software, and other things,
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those who write knowledge, like the museums do e.g.,
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and also the those who are active in the multi-lingual areas,
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all those different aspects.
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How do you plan to steer the Foundation within this community of different organisations
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doing partly mission-aligned things?
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Oh, well, that's an interesting question.
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I would definitely need to give that more thought.
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One thing I want all of us to keep in mind:
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our mission is aggregation and distribution of knowledge, in simple terms.
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In so far as other organisations mission align with that,
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and the kind of knowledge that we take in is encyclopaedic knowledge,
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so it can't be opinionated knowledge,
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so, in so far as it aligns with other organisations we're going to try to elaborate that,
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try to create additional emphasis on that.
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But it needs to be sliced on to specific spaces.
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Today we have knowledge programs, that are in play,
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as we think where we put our emphasis,
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I think we need to look on other types or other themes within that.
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Hello, I'm Michael Riser, I work as a Wikipedian in Residence in the National Library of Switzerland.
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I'm also part of the Open Government Data team of Zurich
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and that's the question I have:
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Does the WMF understands itself as a part of the Open Data movement and
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are there any plans in that topic in the future?
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And are there steps for how to bring the Open Data community and Wikimedia community together
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so they can work on projects in the future?
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Or is that only a theoretical? Are there active plans? Thank you very much.
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00:28:18,319 --> 00:28:22,732
You asked me a question right now that I don't have a lot of depth on,
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on that particular specifics.
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From the perspective of Open Data it seems to align really well
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with our core mission, our core principals.
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But I think it is a good conversation for us to have in the next two days,
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you can help me understand better how we can align them.
400
00:28:43,489 --> 00:28:45,592
Hello, my name is Amir.
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I want to ask you for the next year something not very technical,
402
00:28:49,098 --> 00:28:52,814
I want to ask you to improve the Safer Space Policy,
403
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because of the main reasons of the Gender Gap is
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because we are not very good at the Safer Space Policy,
405
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we're not enforcing it in every Wikipedia, in every community.
406
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And does not has to be on gender, it has to be on gender identity,
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it has to be on sexual orientation, race, religion and [...] other stuff.
408
00:29:15,503 --> 00:29:22,502
I saw lots of harshest statements by people to each other,
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and people are mean to each other these days,
410
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in Facebook, in everywhere.
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But in Wikipedia we have to make something
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very, I don't know, safe for them to fill the gender gap.
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(applause)
414
00:29:38,101 --> 00:29:41,775
Thank you, I really, really appreciate that comment.
415
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To tell you the truth, I tried editing Wikipedia, gosh, like five years ago now.
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And that's the thing that dropped me away at the time.
417
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So it goes close to my heart.
418
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Hi, I'm Cristian, I'm from Wikimedia Italy.
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I wanted to asked, maybe it's too early, if you have some specific or general plans
420
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about the sister projects.
421
00:30:08,233 --> 00:30:12,519
Because we talk a lot about Wikipedia, as our main projects, that's okay.
422
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But there are people doing incredible stuff in Wikisource, in Wikidata,
423
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in the other projects. So do you have special ideas for them?
424
00:30:22,715 --> 00:30:25,689
Thank you!
425
00:30:25,689 --> 00:30:34,401
I don't have a specific opinion yet on the specifics of each individual project.
426
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There are some that are absolutely making ton of sense, like Wikidata,
427
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and are so closely aligned with Wikipedia, that they are almost one in the same anyways.
428
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They are others, they are a little bit farer removed.
429
00:30:47,967 --> 00:30:53,837
And I think we need to be looking at all of the portfolio of our services holistically,
430
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when we embark on the next strategy, which is something we need to do
431
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in the upcoming year.
432
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We need to be looking at is as a combination of all of those projects together
433
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and which ones warrant more investment vs. less.
434
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To do that, basically, we need have goals in mind
435
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what we trying to achieve in the next years.
436
00:31:26,524 --> 00:31:28,402
My name is Max Klein.
437
00:31:28,402 --> 00:31:31,693
In short my question is: What do you think of capitalism?
438
00:31:31,693 --> 00:31:35,204
And in general it's like, what do you think about, from your experience,
439
00:31:35,204 --> 00:31:38,897
like being in Silicon Valley, like really large sort of monolithic companies,
440
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sort of battling out and getting so big, bigger than governments.
441
00:31:43,090 --> 00:31:46,395
I just want to know if you have an opinion on that.
442
00:31:48,485 --> 00:31:59,549
I think that's the nature the capitalism.
443
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But no, I don't have a thought straight-out to give to you right now.
444
00:32:07,288 --> 00:32:12,555
That's sort of how, if you look economically how these companies
445
00:32:12,555 --> 00:32:16,850
are structured and how US economy specifically works, that tends
446
00:32:16,850 --> 00:32:20,101
to happen once the industry starts to mature.
447
00:32:20,101 --> 00:32:23,438
And that's what we're seeing in the tech industry now.
448
00:32:26,391 --> 00:32:31,149
Hello, my name is Silken Meyer, I work for the German chapter.
449
00:32:31,149 --> 00:32:35,798
I coordinate a community project called "Toolserver",
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that is migrating to the Foundation right now.
451
00:32:40,286 --> 00:32:47,113
And I often heart that the community criticises centralisation of infrastructure.
452
00:32:47,113 --> 00:32:57,466
I don't want you to say something about this right now, but just comment about [it].
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00:32:57,466 --> 00:33:05,553
I think, for every single project it can be really valuated by the community to think about
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when does it make sense to have central infrastructure or decisions
455
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and when doesn't it make sense.
456
00:33:16,356 --> 00:33:23,199
I think this is something we're going talk about in the next little while.
457
00:33:23,199 --> 00:33:29,057
That said, there are some things that are just critical to our mission.
458
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We need to make sure that Wikipedia is up and running, 24/7
459
00:33:34,214 --> 00:33:38,474
and has a guaranteed up time. That is just fundamental.
460
00:33:38,474 --> 00:33:43,380
As the fifth largest website in the world it is something we must do,
461
00:33:43,380 --> 00:33:46,677
if we don't do that, we won't be there anymore.
462
00:33:46,677 --> 00:33:53,026
And then there are other services that would make sense to keep more distributed.
463
00:33:53,026 --> 00:33:55,361
I think at that point we need to figure out
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which ones are the ones that we need to keep up no matter what vs.
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which ones are better, actually, for keeping up in a distributed fashion.
466
00:34:05,717 --> 00:34:14,920
I think that's kind of the baseline for the thinking process around that.
467
00:34:20,095 --> 00:34:24,574
Ilario, from Wikimedia Switzerland.
468
00:34:24,574 --> 00:34:29,684
I want to report something as a long time Wikipedian and Wikimedian,
469
00:34:29,684 --> 00:34:36,115
I'm going to report some problem always present in our discussions
470
00:34:36,115 --> 00:34:39,219
is the problem of multi-lingualism.
471
00:34:39,219 --> 00:34:46,603
So it means that the English user is like a barrier for the community engagement.
472
00:34:46,603 --> 00:34:54,783
I've seen in the last year, e.g., with the Visual Editor a good approach to the community,
473
00:34:54,783 --> 00:34:59,326
to involve some community native speakers,
474
00:34:59,326 --> 00:35:02,561
and for me, personally, it is really important,
475
00:35:02,561 --> 00:35:05,663
because I live in Switzerland. We have three languages
476
00:35:05,663 --> 00:35:09,228
and we also use the English and we have understood
477
00:35:09,228 --> 00:35:11,928
a long time ago this problem.
478
00:35:11,928 --> 00:35:16,616
Let me ask you: are you specifically focussed on
479
00:35:16,616 --> 00:35:20,444
having more languages represented within Wikipedia itself
480
00:35:20,444 --> 00:35:23,483
or you're talking about the languages of the discussions?
481
00:35:23,483 --> 00:35:28,747
No, the community involvement, the community support, basically.
482
00:35:28,747 --> 00:35:31,595
Not about Wikipedia, but community support.
483
00:35:31,595 --> 00:35:37,136
E.g, the Spanish, second most spoken language,
484
00:35:37,136 --> 00:35:42,092
but if investigate how many native speakers are here, roughly anyone,
485
00:35:42,092 --> 00:35:44,429
very few people.
486
00:35:44,429 --> 00:35:47,659
Yeah, that's a good point. I think that is something we need to understand
487
00:35:47,659 --> 00:35:52,189
at a deeper level. Normally, I would say, this is an organic process,
488
00:35:52,189 --> 00:35:56,436
but I don't know if that's exactly true,
489
00:35:56,436 --> 00:35:58,450
if we're skewing it in one way or in another.
490
00:35:58,450 --> 00:36:02,392
That's something we need to dig in to deeper.
491
00:36:02,392 --> 00:36:08,006
That said, I think, it's really, really important for us have more representation
492
00:36:08,006 --> 00:36:10,838
and languages others than English, obviously.
493
00:36:10,838 --> 00:36:13,831
I would love to see that. It's really critical.
494
00:36:13,831 --> 00:36:17,655
(applause)
495
00:36:18,301 --> 00:36:22,176
Hi, I want to connect a bit to the comment that was made little bit ago
496
00:36:22,176 --> 00:36:25,590
about the friendliness of our communities.
497
00:36:25,590 --> 00:36:29,977
I think it's not just about specific groups of people, but in general,
498
00:36:29,977 --> 00:36:35,685
like it was said, the internet makes people be mean to each other sometimes.
499
00:36:35,685 --> 00:36:41,860
And they are ways that we can work making it a better environment.
500
00:36:41,860 --> 00:36:45,555
Of course, not everything can be controlled, but some steps can be taken.
501
00:36:45,555 --> 00:36:52,545
This kind of trainer thought can be taken into two ways.
502
00:36:52,545 --> 00:37:00,905
E.g., in a technical sense, which is relevant for many people here,
503
00:37:00,905 --> 00:37:05,876
you know probably know that at the beginning it's hard for us to understand
504
00:37:05,876 --> 00:37:12,087
how to get started, who to ask questions, how to ask questions properly,
505
00:37:12,087 --> 00:37:13,388
and where, etc.
506
00:37:13,388 --> 00:37:18,902
After a while you'll kind of get a "thick skin" or whatever,
507
00:37:18,902 --> 00:37:21,390
it doesn't affect you anymore and you don't realise
508
00:37:21,390 --> 00:37:27,260
how much hostility there is for someone who is just a newcomer.
509
00:37:27,260 --> 00:37:32,618
I've been talking to some people even here in the Hackathon for example,
510
00:37:32,618 --> 00:37:38,134
the documentation, which is something ideally should be made by the community,
511
00:37:38,134 --> 00:37:43,431
and it has been ... a lot of work has been done in documentation,
512
00:37:43,431 --> 00:37:47,722
a lot of content has been produced, but sometimes there needs a little bit of
513
00:37:47,722 --> 00:37:52,009
centralisation in the organisation of all that to make it consistent.
514
00:37:52,009 --> 00:37:58,316
The ground work sometimes needs to be done and not everyone will be
515
00:37:58,316 --> 00:38:07,465
willing to do that. So, for example, recently, there's been, hired Sumana,
516
00:38:07,465 --> 00:38:12,105
as you all know, I think [she]'s the first technical writer that the Foundation has,
517
00:38:12,105 --> 00:38:15,689
I might be wrong, but this is a focus that should have been here for a long time.
518
00:38:15,689 --> 00:38:23,304
So, in a technical side we can focus on this, in the editor side we can focus on help pages,
519
00:38:23,304 --> 00:38:29,927
I remember some people have been working a while ago in making the help pages friendlier.
520
00:38:29,927 --> 00:38:35,506
I think a little bit of encouragement, centralised encouragement to the improvement
521
00:38:35,506 --> 00:38:39,896
of these resources that help people have a smoother curve towards becoming
522
00:38:39,896 --> 00:38:44,458
members of the community without getting hurt in the process and then
523
00:38:44,458 --> 00:38:49,735
hurting each other, when newcomers come.
524
00:38:49,735 --> 00:38:54,620
Thank you, completely agree with you. Unfortunately, internet makes it really easy
525
00:38:54,620 --> 00:38:59,965
in some ways to no emphasise with the person on the other side, because
526
00:38:59,965 --> 00:39:03,776
you don't see their face oftentimes, you don't hear their voice,
527
00:39:03,776 --> 00:39:07,330
you don't feel like there's another human being there with thoughts
528
00:39:07,330 --> 00:39:10,278
and feelings and emotions.
529
00:39:10,278 --> 00:39:15,854
I think it's really important for us to encourage that and there a multiple ways
530
00:39:15,854 --> 00:39:19,846
in which we can encourage that, including some of the product ways,
531
00:39:19,846 --> 00:39:24,814
but also, I think, I completely agree with you, we need to put an emphasis on it
532
00:39:24,814 --> 00:39:29,060
from the focus and messaging perspective as well.
533
00:39:29,060 --> 00:39:36,042
I do consider this as one of the fundamental and extremely important pieces of the equation.
534
00:39:37,872 --> 00:39:40,293
I'm Mikro from Wikisource.
535
00:39:40,293 --> 00:39:45,236
One of my questions was about that. You said that the problem starts before
536
00:39:45,236 --> 00:39:47,549
the person clicks <i>edit</i>.
537
00:39:47,549 --> 00:39:54,819
From my experience, I've seen that women tend to edit more when they are in presence of other people,
538
00:39:54,819 --> 00:39:58,130
in social environments, editor community.
539
00:39:58,130 --> 00:40:01,697
Do you think we should have a more active role
540
00:40:01,697 --> 00:40:06,249
in creating theses spaces for common editing?
541
00:40:06,249 --> 00:40:11,339
I don't know yet the right solution for the problem.
542
00:40:11,339 --> 00:40:19,764
But I do know that community overall needs to be inclusive and cordial.
543
00:40:19,764 --> 00:40:24,842
We want everybody, we want people to feel welcome there;
544
00:40:24,842 --> 00:40:28,533
regardless of their gender, regardless of their age,
545
00:40:28,533 --> 00:40:30,472
regardless of their nationality.
546
00:40:30,472 --> 00:40:35,946
Whether we want to focus specifically on a newcomer community vs.
547
00:40:35,946 --> 00:40:37,484
a gender specific community,
548
00:40:37,484 --> 00:40:40,576
I think, that's more the Deleth [?] Door we need to have.
549
00:40:40,576 --> 00:40:46,735
That said, we have, as you know, there are some projects we have started with,
550
00:40:46,735 --> 00:40:53,718
like the Teahouse project, with specifically that in mind.
551
00:40:53,718 --> 00:40:56,373
Erik, maybe you want to comment in terms of, I don't know,
552
00:40:56,373 --> 00:41:00,249
if there are some metrics for success there.
553
00:41:00,249 --> 00:41:03,913
So, I think you also talking about the In-Person type of engagement?
554
00:41:03,913 --> 00:41:09,188
Yeah, so, there is actually a good report now out on the Wikimedia blog,
555
00:41:09,188 --> 00:41:13,179
if you go like six posts down by heart, because it goes really fast.
556
00:41:13,179 --> 00:41:17,856
Which is an Evaluation Report on a various different programs
557
00:41:17,856 --> 00:41:21,479
that have been tried in the movement, including like In-Person-Editing sessions
558
00:41:21,479 --> 00:41:23,445
and things of that nature.
559
00:41:23,445 --> 00:41:27,799
They can work pretty well, like the Editathon model, but it tends to have
560
00:41:27,799 --> 00:41:32,491
very, very low retention past the event. The thing to keep in mind is:
561
00:41:32,491 --> 00:41:36,087
yeah, you can get people in a room together and they edit together,
562
00:41:36,087 --> 00:41:40,716
but they won't then edit thereafter. So, if that's the model we want to
563
00:41:40,716 --> 00:41:44,270
focus on, then those spaces really have to be really stable spaces,
564
00:41:44,270 --> 00:41:48,415
that people keep coming back to, sort of the equivalent of a hacker space type
565
00:41:48,415 --> 00:41:51,727
approach. Would be interesting to see chapters and other organisations
566
00:41:51,727 --> 00:41:55,950
like experiment with seeing if that can drive longer-term engagement in a
567
00:41:55,950 --> 00:42:02,876
shared physical space. But once every three months doesn't have really
568
00:42:02,876 --> 00:42:06,792
a significant impact. Like if you break down all the editathons, that have been done
569
00:42:06,792 --> 00:42:12,715
in the last years together, they may have only contributed less than a hundred active editors to our projects.
570
00:42:15,375 --> 00:42:21,634
Thank you. Correct me, if I'm wrong, also smaller user groups,
571
00:42:21,634 --> 00:42:26,510
specifically targeted to get people lightweight together, make it easy for people
572
00:42:26,510 --> 00:42:29,289
to come together and edit as well.
573
00:42:29,289 --> 00:42:32,240
There are multiple ways we have tried to address the problem,
574
00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:36,993
I think In-Person is interesting, but it is one of the heaviest and most difficult things to do,
575
00:42:36,993 --> 00:42:43,993
just because it is the most expensive in terms of people's commitment and money actually to get somewhere.
576
00:42:43,993 --> 00:42:49,571
Hello, my name is Jakob and I have a question about your idea of high level management in the Foundation.
577
00:42:49,571 --> 00:42:53,608
From my professional life, I know how it's working in corporates,
578
00:42:53,608 --> 00:42:59,170
but I'm curious what kind of indicators, what kind of factors you observe
579
00:42:59,170 --> 00:43:01,912
and you would like to increase in the case of the Foundation, which is
580
00:43:01,912 --> 00:43:06,161
a non-profit and focussed on other ideas.
581
00:43:06,161 --> 00:43:10,460
That's a great question! And it is actually something I put a lot of thought to.
582
00:43:10,460 --> 00:43:15,573
I'm very much an operation enduring doing person.
583
00:43:15,573 --> 00:43:21,382
When I was working for profit organisations, it's all about revenue obviously.
584
00:43:21,382 --> 00:43:26,238
I've done a ton of things within respect of that,
585
00:43:26,238 --> 00:43:29,632
of building revenues from the scratch, for new green field opportunities,
586
00:43:29,632 --> 00:43:31,177
or increasing revenues, etc.
587
00:43:31,177 --> 00:43:35,537
But in the end it's the amount of Euros or Dollars.
588
00:43:35,537 --> 00:43:43,493
What's really interesting, that Foundations' major difference is that
589
00:43:43,493 --> 00:43:47,768
the mission in a for-profit is the revenue.
590
00:43:47,768 --> 00:43:50,364
For-profit organisations always talk about missions,
591
00:43:50,364 --> 00:43:53,138
but the reality it's revenue.
592
00:43:53,138 --> 00:43:57,774
In a Foundation, the mission is the mission.
593
00:43:57,774 --> 00:44:00,846
So the challenge is, how do we quantify that mission.
594
00:44:00,846 --> 00:44:05,255
If we're talking about sharing knowledge, how do we quantify that?
595
00:44:05,255 --> 00:44:07,474
And that's one of things that is really important to us.
596
00:44:07,474 --> 00:44:10,133
So, for example, we've quantified some of our objectives
597
00:44:10,133 --> 00:44:15,553
as growing number of editors. This may or may not be the right thing,
598
00:44:15,553 --> 00:44:20,351
but that's one way we've done that.
599
00:44:20,351 --> 00:44:24,805
And we need to be very clear on what those goals are going forward.
600
00:44:24,805 --> 00:44:27,953
That is something that's also we need to be looking at
601
00:44:27,953 --> 00:44:33,540
as part of our strategic as well as operational planning process.
602
00:44:33,540 --> 00:44:39,755
It could be total number of end page views or unique visitors, it could be
603
00:44:39,755 --> 00:44:43,772
in total number of articles, it could be quality of information.
604
00:44:43,772 --> 00:44:48,401
As a community and as a Foundation we need to come together
605
00:44:48,401 --> 00:44:53,098
and decide in what those are. And then as the community and the Foundation
606
00:44:53,098 --> 00:44:57,049
we need to focus on those specifics,
607
00:44:57,049 --> 00:45:00,597
on those specific goals and then measure and monitor them.
608
00:45:00,597 --> 00:45:04,641
I mentioned a few of them that could be a possibility.
609
00:45:04,641 --> 00:45:08,392
I don't have yet an answer for you, just because it's a process
610
00:45:08,392 --> 00:45:13,314
that needs to be vetted with the community over all.
611
00:45:14,804 --> 00:45:18,982
My name is Dan and I'm curious how do you think
612
00:45:18,982 --> 00:45:24,498
the Foundation should get involved in regards the politics and laws?
613
00:45:24,498 --> 00:45:28,580
And what should be written globally, and what in the US?
614
00:45:28,580 --> 00:45:31,207
Thank you.
615
00:45:31,207 --> 00:45:35,134
I will give you my naive, probably, answer.
616
00:45:35,134 --> 00:45:40,971
From the politics specifically we try not to be an advocacy group.
617
00:45:40,971 --> 00:45:46,573
We're fundamentally an internet technology foundation that enables
618
00:45:46,573 --> 00:45:52,811
our community there to do what the community decides they need to do.
619
00:45:52,811 --> 00:45:57,034
From the law perspective, however, it's very important for us
620
00:45:57,034 --> 00:46:00,312
that we protect our community members.
621
00:46:00,312 --> 00:46:05,456
And that's why Foundation, actually, takes on a lot of this directly
622
00:46:05,456 --> 00:46:08,608
and we have people on staff who do that on a daily basis
623
00:46:08,608 --> 00:46:11,960
and they're looking at different laws and regulations that are constantly changing
624
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,310
in the different legislations in the world.
625
00:46:26,288 --> 00:46:31,319
I also mean regards to the mission statement itself, making knowledge available.
626
00:46:31,319 --> 00:46:35,580
When laws or politics are getting away of that, what role do you think
627
00:46:35,580 --> 00:46:37,859
the Wikimedia Foundation should play there?
628
00:46:37,859 --> 00:46:41,353
Oh, you're talking about things like censorship?
629
00:46:41,353 --> 00:46:45,783
Anything at all that would stop anybody having access to information.
630
00:46:45,783 --> 00:46:48,535
Net neutrality, etc., etc.
631
00:46:50,085 --> 00:46:58,222
I think you know the answer, we're against anybody blocking access to information.
632
00:46:58,222 --> 00:47:00,462
That's the high level thing.
633
00:47:00,462 --> 00:47:05,118
With respect to specific laws of the country we try to protect people
634
00:47:05,118 --> 00:47:08,662
within those specific domains.
635
00:47:08,662 --> 00:47:11,926
[... Not understandable ... ]
636
00:47:11,926 --> 00:47:14,940
Changing the laws within countries?
637
00:47:14,940 --> 00:47:19,701
You know, I haven't dig in to that very deeply yet.
638
00:47:19,701 --> 00:47:24,548
I don't how much we've advocate specifically with different governments.
639
00:47:24,548 --> 00:47:28,805
I know, we do so for example, I believe, on net neutrality.
640
00:47:28,805 --> 00:47:31,628
We're starting actually to have the conversation with governments
641
00:47:31,628 --> 00:47:36,653
just to understand where the trend is going more so than to actually navigate it.
642
00:47:36,653 --> 00:47:39,956
Is that ... can you say something, Eric?
643
00:47:39,956 --> 00:47:42,841
Yeah, I think it's always important to position the Wikimedia Foundation
644
00:47:42,841 --> 00:47:47,023
as being part of the movement that works together towards common goals.
645
00:47:47,023 --> 00:47:51,225
I think as Lila has pointed out our core competency in the movement is to be
646
00:47:51,225 --> 00:47:56,356
an engineering technology organisation that supports the movement as a whole.
647
00:47:56,356 --> 00:48:00,314
And that movement comprises chapter organisations for example,
648
00:48:00,314 --> 00:48:06,026
many of which actually have successfully lobbied and advocated changes in law
649
00:48:06,026 --> 00:48:07,338
in their respective jurisdictions.
650
00:48:07,338 --> 00:48:12,448
Wikimedia Russia has been really successful, Wikimedia Israel has been very successful with that,
651
00:48:12,448 --> 00:48:15,814
Wikimedia Germany is trying increasing success in that.
652
00:48:15,814 --> 00:48:19,253
I think that is actually a really good example of the chapter model working,
653
00:48:19,253 --> 00:48:23,092
where jurisdictional orientation of the chapter maps directly against specific laws
654
00:48:23,092 --> 00:48:25,900
that have been proposed within that context.
655
00:48:25,900 --> 00:48:29,562
The Wikimedia Foundation as the central organisation needs to stay like one step
656
00:48:29,562 --> 00:48:34,651
distant from that, typically because getting too much into the weeds, actually
657
00:48:34,651 --> 00:48:40,148
gets us into problems with our non-profit status, our charity position, and so on and so forth.
658
00:48:40,148 --> 00:48:46,255
But when really hits the fan like in the case of SOPA for example we might would
659
00:48:46,255 --> 00:48:50,484
very well back up community action as we have done in the past.
660
00:48:50,484 --> 00:48:54,237
That has been the way it's chicken out today in any case.
661
00:48:54,237 --> 00:48:57,644
So, we have been here almost an hour.
662
00:48:57,644 --> 00:49:01,226
We have three questions queued, I already cut questions from other people.
663
00:49:01,226 --> 00:49:04,222
You had a chance half an hour ago, nobody raised the hand.
664
00:49:04,222 --> 00:49:12,914
I'll will be here tomorrow and tonight, so feel free to just come up and ask me.
665
00:49:12,914 --> 00:49:15,096
This is more a question on art and technology.
666
00:49:15,096 --> 00:49:20,120
The trend over the last year has been to create very flat websites and
667
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,726
images that take the whole background if you scroll through pages.
668
00:49:23,726 --> 00:49:27,422
I was wondering if you had a vision for the usability of Wikipedia
669
00:49:27,422 --> 00:49:33,447
and it adapting more modern, having a more modern looking feel.
670
00:49:33,447 --> 00:49:37,458
(laughs)
671
00:49:37,458 --> 00:49:44,403
Yes, the answer is yes, more modern!
672
00:49:44,403 --> 00:49:51,295
That said, honestly, I really think it may not come in a form of a giant image on the front page.
673
00:49:51,295 --> 00:50:10,643
What I mean by modern is the ease of use and the stylistic components that are used.
674
00:50:10,643 --> 00:50:15,616
And, especially, as it's starting to get optimised for mobility,
675
00:50:15,616 --> 00:50:17,165
for different types of devices.
676
00:50:17,165 --> 00:50:20,464
You just think of a really simple example:
677
00:50:20,464 --> 00:50:25,609
Your tool on a mobile device is your finger.
678
00:50:25,609 --> 00:50:27,495
So things need to be in different sizes,
679
00:50:27,495 --> 00:50:29,732
need to be in different forms,
680
00:50:29,732 --> 00:50:31,671
need to be in different colours,
681
00:50:31,671 --> 00:50:34,225
we need to think about those things.
682
00:50:34,225 --> 00:50:38,688
In the end, what's most important that the user gets
683
00:50:38,688 --> 00:50:45,667
to the point to perform their action with the least minimum number of steps.
684
00:50:45,667 --> 00:50:50,488
It needs to be as easy as possible, they also need to know what to do
685
00:50:50,488 --> 00:50:53,902
without having to go and to read the manual.
686
00:50:53,902 --> 00:50:58,822
So they need to get from where they want to get to in an easiest way
687
00:50:58,822 --> 00:51:01,059
and most pleasant way as well.
688
00:51:01,059 --> 00:51:03,436
So we need to start to satisfy two objectives here.
689
00:51:03,436 --> 00:51:07,262
We need to give them an experience that is easy
690
00:51:07,262 --> 00:51:10,264
and is pleasurable.
691
00:51:13,444 --> 00:51:16,954
Hi, my name is Markus, I'm of the board of Wikimedia Germany and
692
00:51:16,954 --> 00:51:20,914
on the MediaWiki release team.
693
00:51:20,914 --> 00:51:24,038
My question is short: What do you think about changing the world?
694
00:51:24,038 --> 00:51:31,666
A bit broader: Apart from sharing knowledge of Wikipedia, what we also do
695
00:51:31,666 --> 00:51:39,647
is design as a movement a way to collaborate, we provide the tools and we show that this can be done.
696
00:51:39,647 --> 00:51:46,457
I guess, we also should share our methodologies and I think,
697
00:51:46,457 --> 00:51:51,550
being on the release team, sharing the product MediaWiki
698
00:51:51,550 --> 00:52:00,421
is really important. I feel, I see a lot of focus, like narrowed focus on the product Wikipedia
699
00:52:00,421 --> 00:52:06,725
and just wanted to know your thoughts about broadening the scope a little bit.
700
00:52:13,296 --> 00:52:18,192
When we talk about changing the world everybody here is
701
00:52:18,192 --> 00:52:22,915
because we can do something so meaningful together
702
00:52:22,915 --> 00:52:27,816
that is way bigger than each our individual effort.
703
00:52:27,816 --> 00:52:33,605
And at the same time each individual effort really, really matters.
704
00:52:33,605 --> 00:52:39,842
This is what's really unique about Wikipedia and the sister projects for me.
705
00:52:39,842 --> 00:52:42,966
And that can come in different formats. It can be contributing knowledge directly,
706
00:52:42,966 --> 00:52:50,679
contributing knowledge by making software,
707
00:52:50,679 --> 00:52:55,592
and I think as we look down in the next five years,
708
00:52:55,592 --> 00:53:00,433
we need to think about where in this huge knowledge space
709
00:53:00,433 --> 00:53:02,459
we want to focus.
710
00:53:02,459 --> 00:53:07,902
We clearly have done a phenomenal job as a community over all,
711
00:53:07,902 --> 00:53:10,171
within encyclopaedic knowledge.
712
00:53:10,171 --> 00:53:13,294
And I think we need to progress, there's still plenty to do, of course,
713
00:53:13,294 --> 00:53:16,043
but what is the next moon shard?
714
00:53:16,043 --> 00:53:20,468
(laughs)
715
00:53:20,468 --> 00:53:24,006
Thank you!
716
00:53:24,006 --> 00:53:28,663
What is the next moon shard we want to go after?
717
00:53:28,663 --> 00:53:33,393
I have a more general question.
718
00:53:33,393 --> 00:53:35,459
I'm not asking you to blame your predecessors,
719
00:53:35,459 --> 00:53:38,614
(laughs)
720
00:53:38,614 --> 00:53:41,079
Oh, that's not a good start!
721
00:53:41,079 --> 00:53:48,431
Sorry. So you have been here at the Wikimedia Foundation since one or two weeks,
722
00:53:48,431 --> 00:53:51,238
Yeah, since May 1st.
723
00:53:51,238 --> 00:53:58,142
So, I wanted to ask you what you will do to change what is going on in the Wikimedia Foundation.
724
00:53:58,142 --> 00:54:04,383
I don't say it's wrong or anything, but what do you think was not completely right
725
00:54:04,383 --> 00:54:10,046
at the Foundation and what will you, what type of energy you will trigger at the Foundation?
726
00:54:10,046 --> 00:54:13,809
(laughs)
727
00:54:13,809 --> 00:54:18,333
Oh, that's a great last question that I'm getting, nice finish.
728
00:54:20,523 --> 00:54:23,150
I think I'm ready for drinks.
729
00:54:24,970 --> 00:54:28,508
I'm not ready to make changes yet.
730
00:54:28,508 --> 00:54:34,109
Let's start there. And there is a phenomenal range of things
731
00:54:34,109 --> 00:54:36,065
that have been accomplished so far.
732
00:54:36,065 --> 00:54:39,948
But I also believe that nothing is ever perfect.
733
00:54:39,948 --> 00:54:41,718
I'm not perfect.
734
00:54:41,718 --> 00:54:46,250
But there is always room for improvement.
735
00:54:46,250 --> 00:54:49,466
What I'm looking to bring in first and foremost
736
00:54:49,466 --> 00:54:54,071
is my energy and my ability to focus on our users.
737
00:54:54,071 --> 00:54:56,080
And I think at the end we need to be ...
738
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:00,254
If us as an organisation we can be laser focussed
739
00:55:00,254 --> 00:55:04,531
on our end users, both the readers and the writers,
740
00:55:04,531 --> 00:55:09,020
and the contributors as of the software projects,
741
00:55:09,020 --> 00:55:10,804
all of you.
742
00:55:10,804 --> 00:55:17,654
I think that will bring a lot of help and natural transformation.
743
00:55:19,874 --> 00:55:24,660
And with this we will do still one more thing with Lila, don't worry, actually two.
744
00:55:24,660 --> 00:55:29,381
One please. Wikimedia Switzerland, I guess, they have something for you.
745
00:55:29,381 --> 00:55:31,495
Because we're in Switzerland there is some chocolate for you.
746
00:55:31,495 --> 00:55:33,831
Oh, thank you so much!
747
00:55:33,831 --> 00:55:36,823
Because we're still in Switzerland, there is a USB stick
748
00:55:36,823 --> 00:55:42,021
you can have Wikipedia offline always with you and
749
00:55:42,021 --> 00:55:49,378
because we're welcoming you ...
750
00:55:49,378 --> 00:55:51,531
Thank you!
751
00:55:51,531 --> 00:55:53,955
(applause)
752
00:55:53,955 --> 00:56:01,628
Thank you.
(applause)
753
00:56:01,628 --> 00:56:03,642
Okay, after that my thing is boring.
754
00:56:03,642 --> 00:56:07,471
Will you come back next year?
755
00:56:07,471 --> 00:56:09,507
I would love to come back next year!