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Wikipedia at a turning point

Wikipedia at a turning point
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Wikipedia really is the "first draft of history" and more than that, maybe a vital part of how our species is working together for the common good.

Tomorrow, I step up my personal involvement, hopefully to play a very minor role is creating a better immune system to protect against infection like that posed by astroturfers.

However, Barry Newstead has a lot to say about what's going on in Wikipedia's Community Is at an Inflection Point

Wikimedia is engaged in the community's first-ever strategic planningprocess. The challenge of participation in the community is a primarythrust of the work. Our animating question is: what will it take tocultivate, grow and sustain a strong community to support the nextstage of Wikimedia's development?

The community is already responding to the desire for greater depth and
accuracy by tightening policies and generally managing the site more
aggressively. The problem is that the community's response has
generated the consequence (unintended, I think) that it is harder for
new contributors to break in and a growing group of community members
are turned off by the bruising nature of engagement in some areas of
Wikimedia.

Lots more to come.

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