+1 to the questions Heather asked. Especially the South Africa issue. Abbas.
> Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 06:36:17 +0200 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF's New Global South Strategy > > I'm sorry I'm coming so late to this but I've been thinking about this a > lot and there are two questions that I still have that have been bugging me > that perhaps you might clarify, Asaf. > > The first is why South Africa isn't included in the strategy. The more I > think about it, the more I think that it seems like a glaring omission and > so I keep thinking that there is something I'm not considering. If the > Foundation used 'active editing community' as a benchmark, South Africa has > a really strong editing community in Afrikaans Wikipedia as well as a > strong chapter that is interested in extending this success to other local > languages and to broader editing of Wikipedia within the region - a region > that is very poorly represented on WP and would benefit from more > assistance and advice from the Foundation. > > The second is your point about research not being at your disposal at the > Foundation. I'm curious about why research isn't part of your strategy. It > seems to me that this would be the perfect opportunity to engage in more > research to understand what kinds of challenges people are facing, what > conditions make a local project successful, and also, about what kinds of > projects are useful in their symbolic effects rather than focusing only on > scale. I know that research capacity at the Foundation might be strained by > there are always opportunities for collaboration with the research > community, as well as incentives for researchers to engage in research that > the Foundation really needs. > > Hoping you can shed some light on this! > > Thanks! > > Best, > Heather. > > > On 30 August 2013 17:24, Asaf Bartov <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51 AM, Anders Wennersten < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I myself > > > have little first-hand experience > > > > > > [..] > > > > > But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a active > > > community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of > > anecdotal > > > stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been done a > > > professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different of > > > our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates > > > success or hampers/disintegrate active communities? > > > > > > > Not to my knowledge. I explicitly state that this is a tough nut to crack, > > i.e. that we don't yet know how to create that sustained core of > > self-motivated active editors. It's very much worth studying, but I don't > > have a research department at my disposal. If and when research brings us > > some proposed solutions (we must not assume in advance that there is > > precisely one way in which such cores come into existence), I'll be first > > in line to listen and learn. For now, with so much work to be done where > > we _do_ have a core of active editors, we'll focus on working with those. > > > > As stressed in the presentation, while we won't _actively_ try to make > > something happen where there is no active editing community (e.g. Namibia, > > Suriname, Botswana, Afghanistan), we remain open to experimentation with > > _community initiatives_ anywhere in the world, via our grantmaking programs > > as well as any advice, networking, etc. we can extend to support such > > initiatives. > > > > Asaf > > -- > > Asaf Bartov > > Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org> > > > > Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the > > sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! > > https://donate.wikimedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
