English subtitles for clip: File:2014-05-10 Wikimedia Hackathon Lila Tretikov.webm

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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,

257
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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.

259
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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,

261
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to where it was hovering about 80.

262
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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,

273
00:19:07,881 --> 00:19:10,940
you can ask a question! You will have many chances to talk to

274
00:19:10,940 --> 00:19:14,239
Wikimedia Foundation employees, but do you have a question

275
00:19:14,239 --> 00:19:17,900
for volunteers, people working from other chapters, etc.?

276
00:19:17,900 --> 00:19:22,327
Yeah, I have a question for you and feel free to just raise your hand and answer.

277
00:19:22,327 --> 00:19:28,994
What do you guys see as the major, let's say number one priority for the

278
00:19:28,994 --> 00:19:31,384
Wikimedia Foundation in the next year?

279
00:19:32,704 --> 00:19:34,770
Any answer is fine!

280
00:19:34,770 --> 00:19:37,327
(laughs)

281
00:19:46,037 --> 00:19:51,951
Improving community recruitment and tools for new community members.

282
00:19:51,951 --> 00:19:58,483
So, just to clarify, are you talking about editors specifically, are you talking about

283
00:19:58,483 --> 00:20:01,170
technical community, what kind of community we're talking about?

284
00:20:01,170 --> 00:20:05,491
Both, especially, you know, editors more on the technical end as well,

285
00:20:05,491 --> 00:20:07,893
so people building templates and so on.

286
00:20:13,463 --> 00:20:17,814
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)

290
00:20:27,428 --> 00:20:34,049
I think we should have more, we should really start thinking in terms of what can we do to engage people,

291
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who are bored out of the school , at places where they don't want to be.

292
00:20:40,513 --> 00:20:43,873
Sounds good! How about turning that into a game?

293
00:20:43,873 --> 00:20:48,037
Let's have them compete for.

294
00:20:48,037 --> 00:20:54,844
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

300
00:21:16,873 --> 00:21:19,575
what Gerard was saying.

301
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And I don't see that yet with Wikidata.

302
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Some people have been building some tools and I believe

303
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it would be really, you know, as he says, a major step forward,

304
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because, as you say, that is a basic element of information,

305
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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

307
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to the whole set of Wikimedia projects without being overwhelmed

308
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having to learn how to write in the encyclopaedic way or learning a lot about the subject.

309
00:22:01,818 --> 00:22:05,092
Just to say if that is male or female or something like that,

310
00:22:05,092 --> 00:22:10,172
then we would also boost not only the content, but also the community.

311
00:22:10,172 --> 00:22:14,166
I really agree with him in that point.

312
00:22:14,166 --> 00:22:17,033
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.

314
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So, yes, we can do this.

315
00:22:22,301 --> 00:22:25,202
So, I'm going to turn the table on you guys and challenge you.

316
00:22:25,202 --> 00:22:30,634
That sounds like an awesome project for the community to take on.

317
00:22:31,674 --> 00:22:32,950
Hi, I'm Vera.

318
00:22:32,950 --> 00:22:35,913
Have you been introduced to Stroopwaffels?

319
00:22:35,913 --> 00:22:38,017
(applause)

320
00:22:38,017 --> 00:22:42,418
Oh, yes, yes!

321
00:22:42,418 --> 00:22:46,718
Can I have one? Thank you, I love those things.

322
00:22:46,718 --> 00:22:50,754
Thank you, thank you!

323
00:22:56,884 --> 00:22:59,121
It's hard to speak after Stroopwaffels.

324
00:22:59,121 --> 00:23:01,946
(laughs)

325
00:23:03,196 --> 00:23:08,111
I'm Simone, I'm with Wikimedia Italia, I'm the vice-president,

326
00:23:08,111 --> 00:23:11,815
but I come from the mapping sector. I'm a former

327
00:23:11,815 --> 00:23:17,271
Open Street Map Foundation member. And I like to see what you

328
00:23:17,271 --> 00:23:24,759
see about maps. I think the two projects do stay together very well

329
00:23:24,759 --> 00:23:29,619
and I would like to have your opinion on that.

330
00:23:29,619 --> 00:23:32,876
I don't want to overpromise anything, because I'm still

331
00:23:32,876 --> 00:23:34,577
on this early stage, where I'm trying to understand

332
00:23:34,577 --> 00:23:36,924
how much resources we have,

333
00:23:36,924 --> 00:23:39,001
how much focus we can put on certain things.

334
00:23:39,001 --> 00:23:46,011
Personally, I do feel that geographical data is something that's missing today.

335
00:23:46,011 --> 00:23:53,413
That said, we will see how much we can focus on that particular piece.

336
00:23:53,413 --> 00:23:57,847
Because there's just a lot for us to do in the next year.

337
00:23:57,847 --> 00:24:01,281
Eric, do you have any thoughts on that?

338
00:24:01,281 --> 00:24:05,403
Yes! So the current plan for the next fiscal year subject to change

339
00:24:05,403 --> 00:24:09,655
as everything we do is to hire at least two engineers working on

340
00:24:09,655 --> 00:24:14,130
mapping related infrastructure. That means, just the Foundation's,

341
00:24:14,130 --> 00:24:16,869
not like beautiful applications yet.

342
00:24:16,869 --> 00:24:22,884
That can be done and can started get built by like the Mobile Team and other teams and volunteers,

343
00:24:22,884 --> 00:24:26,810
but just to have a very robust production, great server infrastructure

344
00:24:26,810 --> 00:24:31,026
for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects that can handle the kind of traffic we get.

345
00:24:31,026 --> 00:24:34,599
Like within the mobile app we make it a key feature,

346
00:24:34,599 --> 00:24:37,326
we make [...] and Google Maps available in every article,

347
00:24:37,326 --> 00:24:39,874
that's a scaling challenge, it's an infrastructure challenge,

348
00:24:39,874 --> 00:24:43,820
and current intent we succeed at that level.

349
00:24:47,580 --> 00:24:50,637
I'm Charles, staff of WMCH.

350
00:24:50,637 --> 00:24:54,007
I don't believe it should be a priority of the Foundation,

351
00:24:54,007 --> 00:24:56,078
maybe it's more a wish,

352
00:24:56,078 --> 00:24:58,447
but I would like that in one year, two years,

353
00:24:58,447 --> 00:25:03,222
we never again read in a mailing list that the Foundation, the chapter or

354
00:25:03,222 --> 00:25:06,639
a user group is not part of the community.

355
00:25:06,639 --> 00:25:07,744
I think that would be good.

356
00:25:07,744 --> 00:25:10,025
(applause)

357
00:25:10,025 --> 00:25:10,877
Thank you for bringing that up.

358
00:25:10,877 --> 00:25:14,312
As I have been on ramping, it was driving me crazy.

359
00:25:14,312 --> 00:25:22,840
It's really hard as a new and as I'm coming into the WMF

360
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:26,730
I can imagine how hard it’s for the new community members

361
00:25:26,730 --> 00:25:28,703
to understand what they need to be.

362
00:25:28,703 --> 00:25:34,178
Where they need to be listening topics on.

363
00:25:34,178 --> 00:25:35,969
My name is Daniel Mietchen, I'm a researcher on the

364
00:25:35,969 --> 00:25:39,633
Natural History Museum in Berlin and I'm interested in integrating

365
00:25:39,633 --> 00:25:45,698
work flows, between the wiki community and the research community.

366
00:25:45,698 --> 00:25:50,615
I would like to have your opinion on how the Wikimedia Foundation is situated

367
00:25:50,615 --> 00:25:56,173
within those who write open things, be it knowledge, be it software, and other things,

368
00:25:56,173 --> 00:26:00,710
those who write knowledge, like the museums do e.g.,

369
00:26:00,710 --> 00:26:03,627
and also the those who are active in the multi-lingual areas,

370
00:26:03,627 --> 00:26:05,519
all those different aspects.

371
00:26:05,519 --> 00:26:10,141
How do you plan to steer the Foundation within this community of different organisations

372
00:26:10,141 --> 00:26:13,885
doing partly mission-aligned things?

373
00:26:13,885 --> 00:26:18,421
Oh, well, that's an interesting question.

374
00:26:18,421 --> 00:26:24,061
I would definitely need to give that more thought.

375
00:26:24,061 --> 00:26:27,051
One thing I want all of us to keep in mind:

376
00:26:27,051 --> 00:26:33,343
our mission is aggregation and distribution of knowledge, in simple terms.

377
00:26:33,343 --> 00:26:38,667
In so far as other organisations mission align with that,

378
00:26:38,667 --> 00:26:42,298
and the kind of knowledge that we take in is encyclopaedic knowledge,

379
00:26:42,298 --> 00:26:45,102
so it can't be opinionated knowledge,

380
00:26:45,102 --> 00:26:55,475
so, in so far as it aligns with other organisations we're going to try to elaborate that,

381
00:26:55,475 --> 00:27:00,041
try to create additional emphasis on that.

382
00:27:00,041 --> 00:27:06,004
But it needs to be sliced on to specific spaces.

383
00:27:06,004 --> 00:27:09,511
Today we have knowledge programs, that are in play,

384
00:27:09,511 --> 00:27:14,016
as we think where we put our emphasis,

385
00:27:14,016 --> 00:27:18,120
I think we need to look on other types or other themes within that.

386
00:27:21,258 --> 00:27:31,398
Hello, I'm Michael Riser, I work as a Wikipedian in Residence in the National Library of Switzerland.

387
00:27:31,398 --> 00:27:37,816
I'm also part of the Open Government Data team of Zurich

388
00:27:37,816 --> 00:27:39,690
and that's the question I have:

389
00:27:39,690 --> 00:27:48,661
Does the WMF understands itself as a part of the Open Data movement and

390
00:27:48,661 --> 00:27:52,781
are there any plans in that topic in the future?

391
00:27:52,781 --> 00:28:05,392
And are there steps for how to bring the Open Data community and Wikimedia community together

392
00:28:05,392 --> 00:28:10,818
so they can work on projects in the future?

393
00:28:10,818 --> 00:28:18,319
Or is that only a theoretical? Are there active plans? Thank you very much.

394
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,

395
00:28:22,732 --> 00:28:24,539
on that particular specifics.

396
00:28:24,539 --> 00:28:30,169
From the perspective of Open Data it seems to align really well

397
00:28:30,169 --> 00:28:31,999
with our core mission, our core principals.

398
00:28:31,999 --> 00:28:34,880
But I think it is a good conversation for us to have in the next two days,

399
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:41,519
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.

401
00:28:45,592 --> 00:28:49,098
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
00:28:52,814 --> 00:28:57,679
because of the main reasons of the Gender Gap is

404
00:28:57,679 --> 00:29:01,692
because we are not very good at the Safer Space Policy,

405
00:29:01,692 --> 00:29:06,212
we're not enforcing it in every Wikipedia, in every community.

406
00:29:06,212 --> 00:29:10,824
And does not has to be on gender, it has to be on gender identity,

407
00:29:10,824 --> 00:29:15,503
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,

409
00:29:22,502 --> 00:29:24,604
and people are mean to each other these days,

410
00:29:24,604 --> 00:29:26,064
in Facebook, in everywhere.

411
00:29:26,064 --> 00:29:29,014
But in Wikipedia we have to make something

412
00:29:29,014 --> 00:29:35,041
very, I don't know, safe for them to fill the gender gap.

413
00:29:35,041 --> 00:29:38,101
(applause)

414
00:29:38,101 --> 00:29:41,775
Thank you, I really, really appreciate that comment.

415
00:29:41,775 --> 00:29:47,223
To tell you the truth, I tried editing Wikipedia, gosh, like five years ago now.

416
00:29:47,223 --> 00:29:52,552
And that's the thing that dropped me away at the time.

417
00:29:52,552 --> 00:29:53,738
So it goes close to my heart.

418
00:29:56,768 --> 00:29:58,772
Hi, I'm Cristian, I'm from Wikimedia Italy.

419
00:29:58,772 --> 00:30:06,473
I wanted to asked, maybe it's too early, if you have some specific or general plans

420
00:30:06,473 --> 00:30:08,233
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
00:30:12,519 --> 00:30:18,620
But there are people doing incredible stuff in Wikisource, in Wikidata,

423
00:30:18,620 --> 00:30:22,715
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
00:30:34,401 --> 00:30:39,238
There are some that are absolutely making ton of sense, like Wikidata,

427
00:30:39,238 --> 00:30:45,518
and are so closely aligned with Wikipedia, that they are almost one in the same anyways.

428
00:30:45,518 --> 00:30:47,967
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
00:30:53,837 --> 00:31:01,623
when we embark on the next strategy, which is something we need to do

431
00:31:01,623 --> 00:31:03,838
in the upcoming year.

432
00:31:04,602 --> 00:31:11,670
We need to be looking at is as a combination of all of those projects together

433
00:31:11,670 --> 00:31:18,828
and which ones warrant more investment vs. less.

434
00:31:18,828 --> 00:31:22,135
To do that, basically, we need have goals in mind

435
00:31:22,135 --> 00:31:24,864
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
00:31:38,897 --> 00:31:43,090
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
00:31:59,549 --> 00:32:07,099
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",

450
00:32:35,798 --> 00:32:40,286
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].

453
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

454
00:33:05,553 --> 00:33:11,332
when does it make sense to have central infrastructure or decisions

455
00:33:11,332 --> 00:33:13,924
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
00:33:29,057 --> 00:33:34,214
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

464
00:33:55,361 --> 00:34:00,410
which ones are the ones that we need to keep up no matter what vs.

465
00:34:00,410 --> 00:34:05,717
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!