Hi Galder, I certainly share your sentiment. The world is undoubtedly
moving at such a speed that other sites have invested millions to make the
experience better. But ours has millions as well, and those of us who edit
on a day-to-day basis still have the worst internet experience when it
comes for an example to editing and uploading photos. Not to mention the
long and tortuous road to video uploading (Commons has no decent support
for this <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Video>), in the midst
of the biggest generational shift in video consumption.
There is a phrase in my country that if civil servants were on public
transport, we would probably have faster improvements. Will it be the same
for us, if we do not have staff who do not face our daily "challenges"?
I don't know.
El mar, 23 ene 2024 a las 5:03, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga (<
galder158@hotmail.com>) escribió:
> Dear wikimedians,
> Nearly one year ago, the Graphs extension was disabled from all wikis,
> because there was a security issue that should be solved (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334940). A wide team from the WMF
> worked on a solution for some weeks, but after Northern Hemisphere spring
> ended, summer came, then the monsoon season, and now it is again summer in
> the Southern Hemisphere... and Graphs are still disabled. All the solutions
> proposed have been dismissed, but every two months there's a proposal to
> make a new roadmap to solve the issue. We have plenty of roadmaps, but no
> vehicle to reach our destination.
>
> Seven years ago, we were discussing our Strategy for 2030. We used
> thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of staff hours and millions of
> dollars to build a really well-balanced strategy. There we concluded that "*By
> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
> of free knowledge*". We also made some recommendations to improve the
> User Experience (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Improve_User_Experience)
> and claimed that we wanted to Innovate in Free Knowledge (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Innovate_in_Free_Knowledge).
> Well, the situation is now worse than it was seven years ago, let me give
> some examples:
>
>
> - Graph extension is used in thousands of pages, some of them highly
> relevant, as COVID or Climate Change information. There are thousands of
> graphs broken now, and the only partial solution give is loading these
> graphs as images, instead of promoting an interactive solution.
> - Meanwhile, a place like Our World in Data has been publishing data
> and interactive content with a compatible license for years. (Remember, "*By
> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
> of free knowledge*"). Trying to add this data and graphs to Wikimedia
> projects has been done by WikiMed, and it is technically possible, but
> still blocked to deploy (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T303853).
> - Wolfram Alpha is like a light year ahead us on giving interactive
> solutions to knowledge questions, even the silliest ones (
> https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+many+oranges+fit+in+the+Earth%3F).
> We have good technical articles about a lot of things, but sometimes "*becoming
> the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge*"
> needs to provide solutions to exact problems, like the answer to an
> equation, and how to solve it. That's also "free knowledge".
> - Brilliant (https://brilliant.org/) is brilliant if you want to learn
> lots of things, like geometry or programming. Way better than Wikipedia.
> But... you need to pay for it. How could we even try if we can't add
> anything interactive to our platforms?
> - We can build interactive timelines using Wikidata, but we can't
> embed them at Wikipedia. Weird, because I can do it in any external page.
> Hopefully, Histropedia will do it better. http://histropedia.com/
> <http://histropedia.com/>
> - We could have something very special: inline links in video and
> audio subtitles. We used to have them, but the new video infrastructure
> doesn't allow it. Imagine a world where you can watch a video and link a
> link in the subtitles just to know more about that.
> - ...
>
>
> The list can go on an on ("which phase the moon is today?"), but I think
> that the idea is clear. We could have interactive content, but we are going
> in the opposite direction, and every year we are further from our goal,
> because other platforms are doing it better, way better. And this seems
> like some wild ideas, but then I read the 2023-2024 annual plan section
> called "Wiki Experiences" (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Goals/Infrastructure#Bucket:_Wiki_Experiences)
> and it looks like we should be going there. But we aren't.
>
> I'm sorry if this e-mail feels bitter. My experience in the last years is
> that we are now further of what we need that we were before, even if many
> chapters and volunteers are trying to overturn it.
>
> Thank to everyone who have been trying.
>
> Galder
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/T3TDXNOYBO2OUJVSKBOEFLY4I34YEA5B/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
--
*Iván Martínez*
*Voluntario - Wikimedia México A.C.User:ProtoplasmaKid *
// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una
moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado.
// Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org
moving at such a speed that other sites have invested millions to make the
experience better. But ours has millions as well, and those of us who edit
on a day-to-day basis still have the worst internet experience when it
comes for an example to editing and uploading photos. Not to mention the
long and tortuous road to video uploading (Commons has no decent support
for this <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Video>), in the midst
of the biggest generational shift in video consumption.
There is a phrase in my country that if civil servants were on public
transport, we would probably have faster improvements. Will it be the same
for us, if we do not have staff who do not face our daily "challenges"?
I don't know.
El mar, 23 ene 2024 a las 5:03, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga (<
galder158@hotmail.com>) escribió:
> Dear wikimedians,
> Nearly one year ago, the Graphs extension was disabled from all wikis,
> because there was a security issue that should be solved (
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T334940). A wide team from the WMF
> worked on a solution for some weeks, but after Northern Hemisphere spring
> ended, summer came, then the monsoon season, and now it is again summer in
> the Southern Hemisphere... and Graphs are still disabled. All the solutions
> proposed have been dismissed, but every two months there's a proposal to
> make a new roadmap to solve the issue. We have plenty of roadmaps, but no
> vehicle to reach our destination.
>
> Seven years ago, we were discussing our Strategy for 2030. We used
> thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of staff hours and millions of
> dollars to build a really well-balanced strategy. There we concluded that "*By
> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
> of free knowledge*". We also made some recommendations to improve the
> User Experience (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Improve_User_Experience)
> and claimed that we wanted to Innovate in Free Knowledge (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Innovate_in_Free_Knowledge).
> Well, the situation is now worse than it was seven years ago, let me give
> some examples:
>
>
> - Graph extension is used in thousands of pages, some of them highly
> relevant, as COVID or Climate Change information. There are thousands of
> graphs broken now, and the only partial solution give is loading these
> graphs as images, instead of promoting an interactive solution.
> - Meanwhile, a place like Our World in Data has been publishing data
> and interactive content with a compatible license for years. (Remember, "*By
> 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
> of free knowledge*"). Trying to add this data and graphs to Wikimedia
> projects has been done by WikiMed, and it is technically possible, but
> still blocked to deploy (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T303853).
> - Wolfram Alpha is like a light year ahead us on giving interactive
> solutions to knowledge questions, even the silliest ones (
> https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+many+oranges+fit+in+the+Earth%3F).
> We have good technical articles about a lot of things, but sometimes "*becoming
> the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge*"
> needs to provide solutions to exact problems, like the answer to an
> equation, and how to solve it. That's also "free knowledge".
> - Brilliant (https://brilliant.org/) is brilliant if you want to learn
> lots of things, like geometry or programming. Way better than Wikipedia.
> But... you need to pay for it. How could we even try if we can't add
> anything interactive to our platforms?
> - We can build interactive timelines using Wikidata, but we can't
> embed them at Wikipedia. Weird, because I can do it in any external page.
> Hopefully, Histropedia will do it better. http://histropedia.com/
> <http://histropedia.com/>
> - We could have something very special: inline links in video and
> audio subtitles. We used to have them, but the new video infrastructure
> doesn't allow it. Imagine a world where you can watch a video and link a
> link in the subtitles just to know more about that.
> - ...
>
>
> The list can go on an on ("which phase the moon is today?"), but I think
> that the idea is clear. We could have interactive content, but we are going
> in the opposite direction, and every year we are further from our goal,
> because other platforms are doing it better, way better. And this seems
> like some wild ideas, but then I read the 2023-2024 annual plan section
> called "Wiki Experiences" (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Goals/Infrastructure#Bucket:_Wiki_Experiences)
> and it looks like we should be going there. But we aren't.
>
> I'm sorry if this e-mail feels bitter. My experience in the last years is
> that we are now further of what we need that we were before, even if many
> chapters and volunteers are trying to overturn it.
>
> Thank to everyone who have been trying.
>
> Galder
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/T3TDXNOYBO2OUJVSKBOEFLY4I34YEA5B/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
--
*Iván Martínez*
*Voluntario - Wikimedia México A.C.User:ProtoplasmaKid *
// Mis comunicaciones respecto a Wikipedia/Wikimedia pueden tener una
moratoria en su atención debido a que es un voluntariado.
// Ayuda a proteger a Wikipedia, dona ahora: https://donate.wikimedia.org