How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers

How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Tomer Ashur Chairman, Wikimedia Israel [email protected] 16/11/11 What is Wikipedia? ◮ A collaborative online project to write a free for use, free for redistribution, multilingual encyclopedia. ◮ The English Wikipedia was founded in 2011. ◮ In 6 months Wikipedia already included a dozen of languages. ◮ To date, Wikipedia include over 280 languages. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers How does this work? ◮ How can a decent source of information be written solely by volunteers? ◮ How can we trust something that everyone can alter? ◮ We’re used to be able to trust the books we read as they were written by experts. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers How does this work? ◮ How can a decent source of information be written solely by volunteers? ◮ How can we trust something that everyone can alter? ◮ We’re used to be able to trust the books we read as they were written by experts. ◮ The zeroth law of Wikipedia – ”The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work”{{citation needed}} Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers How does this work? ◮ How can a decent source of information be written solely by volunteers? ◮ How can we trust something that everyone can alter? ◮ We’re used to be able to trust the books we read as they were written by experts. ◮ The zeroth law of Wikipedia – ”The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work”{{citation needed}} ◮ I had a typo on the first slide, Wikipedia was founded in 2001. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Constant Improvement ◮ Articles have a single point in time where they are born. ◮ But there is no point of time where they reaches their final version. ◮ All previous edits are available to view. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Verifiability ◮ Information must be verifiable with external sources. ◮ The references are delivered with the information. ◮ Information that has no reference is tagged by a ”citation needed” tag and is later deleted. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers neutral point of view ◮ The articles ought to be neutral. ◮ Balancing different views. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Monitoring ◮ All edits are monitored. ◮ Monitoring is done by the same people who does everything else. ◮ Information is tagged, deleted or approved. ◮ Vandal’s edits are restored and blocked. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Talk Pages ◮ Talk pages are where all the action happens. ◮ Tens of gigabytes of discussions. ◮ Seriosly, tens of gigabytes. ◮ I’m not kidding. ◮ That’s how decisions are made. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers When I was Young Like You I also had Time for Stuff Like This ◮ There are people from all ages. ◮ From different backrounds. ◮ With different education. ◮ They are all volunteers. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Who Pays for All This? ◮ The Wikimedia foundation was founded as a non-profit organization on June 2003. ◮ The foundation is responsible for operating Wikipedia and all other related projects. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Wikimedia Chapters ◮ The Wikimedia chapters are local non-profit organizations promoting the goal spreading and promoting free knowledge. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Wikimedia Chapters ◮ The Wikimedia chapters are local non-profit organizations promoting the goal spreading and promoting free knowledge. ◮ There are 38 local chapters and they run beautiful projects. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers Wikimedia Chapters ◮ The Wikimedia chapters are local non-profit organizations promoting the goal spreading and promoting free knowledge. ◮ There are 38 local chapters and they run beautiful projects. ◮ Not all projects are online. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers What Types of Projects do We Run? ◮ Examples of Projects vary from improving Wikipedia through improving access to knowledge to improving other databases using Wikipedia and the editors community: ◮ Cooperation with the academia. ◮ Various GLAM projects. ◮ The OLPC project. ◮ The africa center project. ◮ Outreach projects. ◮ Elef Millim. ◮ Wikimania. ◮ And much more... Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers What Still Needs to be Done? ◮ Every person in this room represents a person. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers What Still Needs to be Done? ◮ Every person in this room represents a person. ◮ Every person in this room represents an organization. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers What Still Needs to be Done? ◮ Every person in this room represents a person. ◮ Every person in this room represents an organization. ◮ Every person in this room represents a social network. Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers What Still Needs to be Done? ◮ You don’t even really have to get out of your slippers Tomer Ashur How to Change the World While Still in Your Slippers.

Load more