Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Research Goals

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Redundant clause[edit]

  1. To understand how people's stage of life may affect whether or how they interact with Wikipedia (4)
  2. To understand differences between non-contributing readers and contributors (demographics, attitudes, etc.) (4)

Is not 1 a special case of 2, and as such redundant? Erik Zachte 02:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Overall, this is ok, but heavily biased towards Wikipedia. Should we not have each research goal oriented to any WMF project, or is it absolutely necessary to explicitly mention Wikipedia? (Or should we stipulate different goals for different projects?) Also, I'm confused about the open source condition: "Promoting Open Source: To the extent that research requires the use of software running on Wikimedia Foundation controlled servers, all such software should be licensed as "open source software"". Does this mean that any project doing research must exclusively use open source software in their fulfilling of the research; or does it mean that the WMF server software used must be open source? The former seems unnecessarily strict (I'd prefer putting it as a "preferable option - as much as possible", rather than an either/or condition); and the latter seems redundant (isn't all WMF server software open source, and isn't this nothing to do with an external research project anyway?). Cormaggio @ 10:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually according to the text, research on Wiktionary would not be part of the WMF's research goals. When you look at the traffic statistics, Wiktionary is currently the clear leader in its niche. Research is being done on Wiktionary and its results are quite interesting. GerardM 01:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conflation of content and contribution in goal 4[edit]

Goal 4, "Broaden participation", is associated with research assessing topical coverage and identifying gaps in coverage. There is no explicit content-related goal that focuses on quantity (or rather, breadth) of coverage. Regarding English Wikipedia and some other projects, I realize that the semi-official focus has shifted to 'quality not quantity'. And of course, broader participation of "key demographics" is, in practice, the most likely path for improving coverage gaps. However, research on coverage gaps within a given project (especially the largest Wikipedias) is valuable even apart from efforts to broaden participation; the existing editing community could take advantage of such research. If the goals are not set in stone, I suggest adding another goal, "Increase breadth and depth".--130.132.111.72 22:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Success and failure[edit]

Not all Wikipedias are successful. For most languages we do not have proper localisation. More then 100 Wikipedias have less then 1000 articles and they are arguably on life support. When you research success and failure, it is important to appreciate that the relevance of projects in other languages is deceptive. The Bengali Wikipedia is for instance the biggest resource in that language on the Internet and I would not be surprised when this is true for several other projects.

I would also not be surprised when there are indications that a resource like Wikipedia has influence on the choice of words and their orthography by its readers. That would be one strong measure to show lasting influence. GerardM 01:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Research AND Development[edit]

Could we make this header so we are explicit about research having practical outcomes.

If we want some Values and Principleswe might steal these ones.

Developing a Global Communication Network[edit]

Many of the things Jimmy et al have been frustrated about boil down to developing an IP communications network that complements WMF's global information Network. There's a pot boiling in the telco space at the moment. Could we look to a global partner with a forward view of this development. I've spent 6 years waiting till things got to this point. So let me point to the best mind I have found. With a shared understanding, one of his initiatives could really help lots of global groups share their knowledge. http://www.robertsonfoundation.com/?page_id=4

Scope[edit]

Current description focuses on researching Wikipedia. Has it been deliberately and intentionally restricted to Wikipedia alone, or not? Could one, or more, or all Wikimedia projects be within the scope of research. My suggestion would be that in case (and only in case) that it is the intention to restrict research to the Wikipedia project alone, to explicitly mention any such restriction in the research outline.

Date[edit]

The article notes "The key goals of the Wikimedia Foundation for the year 2008." Is this article still current, in 2011 or beyond?