Episode 43: The Future of Wikipedia
7:37 Liam on Wikia
11:12 Valleywag on Wales
21:47 Feedback
42:11 Wii moment
52:52 wrapup wikileaks
54:51 Kaltura
55:27 Alexandria security
56:24 RfB
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Who cares about someone’s personal life? Well, we financial donors to a public non-profit get concerned when sexual relations appear to be the grease to gain favor about a biographical article about said sex partner. Jimmy got his fun in a hotel room, JzG removed a reference that exonerated one of Marsden’s earlier run-ins with a public professional, they all got caught, and now the Wikipediots ask us to “move along, nothing to see here”.
Comment by Gregory Kohs — March 27, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Fantastic podcast, guys. (The joking around at the beginning is a little off-putting. After things get started, some banter and a little silliness is good, but at the beginning it sets a tone that makes things seem even less organized and coherent than that actually are.)
I think Andrew’s main argument about future growth is dead on… the numbers don’t lie, but projecting them forward relies on the assumption of things (the social and technological context of editing) basically staying the same. To approach anywhere near “the sum of all human knowledge”, there will have to be major changes that make it more appealing to contribute, especially for professional knowledge workers.
Take a look at my new blog post, part of which is a response to the “future of Wikipedia” discussion: http://ragesossscholar.blogspot.com/2008/03/future-of-wikipedia-my-take-part-1.html
Comment by Sage (User:Ragesoss) — March 28, 2008 @ 3:57 am
When you consider the number of articles in Wikipedia, we certainly want 250*20.000.000 articles. Wikipedia happens to have articles in English .. but we want to bring information to all people of this world.
Comment by GerardM — March 28, 2008 @ 7:18 am
Just listened to you latest Show, I live in New Zealand. I have been interested in WEB1.0, 2.0 and now 3.0 with iPhone and iTouch (which is how I have found you last week March 2008). I am interested in your discussion. I have been an editor of wikipedia and have a whole pages up for a year or so. I wanted to audition lol for your show. lol because it could be come in future like wikipedia weekly idol lol.
I have lots to contribute and would have a new application on my iPod Touch (iPhone with out the phone and surf the internet by wi fi) which is wikipedia. i would like to talk about where wikipedia will go in WEB 3.0 with iPhone.
Comment by Roddy Young — March 28, 2008 @ 11:57 am
This one was a really good podcast. You raise several interesting issues.
Your point about return to basic principles like WP:DONTBITE and WP:BOLD is well-made. Wikipedia grew to be what it is because of these principles. However, as you also correctly say, what we need now is a different type of editor: experts willing to contribute from their field of knowledge, not hobbyists typing out some stuff they heard on Discovery Channel. The problem is that WP:BITE etc. attract weirdos as much as they attract experts, and weirdos tend to have a lot more free time on their hands. I think that a newbie expert editor understands the need for WP:CITE (after all, similar requirements are made for academic papers). Such an expert will not find it difficult to write a good article about, say, communism and religion in sub-Saharan Africa (to use your example). The problem will be to get the expert to put the article on his watchlist and keep fixing the inaccuracies placed by religious or communist POV-pushers. I have seen several expert users become exasperated with this and leave. We will have to find the golden path between the two parts of WP’s slogan: “the free encyclopedia” and “that anyone can edit.” That golden path may well have to change as WP grows and becomes more professional.
Comment by User:Zvika — March 29, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
Ditto Sage and Zvika, nice listening. You guys are at your best when you discuss just a few issues and give yourselves some space to riff on a topic.
But overall my feedback is still basically the same,… MOAR PLZ!
Comment by pfctdayelise — March 30, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
I second everyone’s comments about the solid podcast. However, I can’t seem to find the image files mentioned in the show. Are there show notes somewhere besides this page?
Comment by WWB — March 30, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
WWB, I think these are the images you’re looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Modelling_Wikipedia%27s_growth#Is_the_growth_in_article_count_of_Wikipedia_logistic.3F
Comment by Sage (User:Ragesoss) — March 31, 2008 @ 4:33 am
That’s it — many thanks!
Comment by WWB — April 1, 2008 @ 2:18 am
Another good one guys, (and look at the comments building!)
You know i’ve been buzzing around “getting a few things in place”. Can i just point you at this forum’s thread at Gizmo. http://forum.gizmoproject.com/viewtopic.php?t=8884
Gizmo won’t mean much to yu, but it’s a Skype look-alike which is open.i.e It can talk to other IP networks, which Skype never will. So you’ll understand why I’ve shied off talking so far.
So could I ask that you download & have a play with it, and we get together for a quiet chat below the radar soon. I’m looking at going to HP for funding to broaden the conversations outside the usual WMF world (and stuffed if I’m going to do that for nothing as well, or expect you to).
P.S. Liam, Will probably be meeting your mates at DoS on Thursday, so we’ll see what they (and the National Library) say. regards.
Comment by simonfj — April 7, 2008 @ 10:04 pm