User:FNavas-WMF/WikiConNA23

A week out from the start of WikiCon 2023 in Toronto, we wanted to share some thoughts and learnings.

By Francisco Navas and Chris Petrillo

a conference badge with many stickers related to Wiki Con North American 2023

This was Francisco's first Wiki gathering. [He] took some much in, putting my ear to the ground and really learning about the landscape I’m operating in. It’s a fertile plot. Billions of ideas streamed through the constant chatter that sustained the always lively coffee area. Chris had attended Wiki gatherings before, even presenting at WikidataCon in 2021, but was still surprised to learn from the community with a new lens, and responsibility, at the Foundation.

Francisco was really pleased to learn that so many of our community are journalists or retired/recovering journalists, like him, too!

We lead two sessions, highlighting Enterprise’s API’s and exploration of ways to participate closer (as a team and as a product) with the Community. See the slides for these presentations on Commons (Content integrity and Enterprise for all communities). Please reach out with questions and suggestions on our talk pages or emails!

Learnings from Sessions and Beyond

• Our editors carry us, and they are our most powerful collaborators. We found so many new teammates that we don’t “work” with yet.

• User:The Earwig’s Copyvio tool, which performs a duty directly related and useful to my Content Integrity space. I’ll keep looking for these kinds of tools, hoping to find work that we can support for both our Community and Enterprise use-cases.

• A swath of our volunteer editing Community is as keen on, and in need of, a strong and wide solution to how we handle Citations as our third-party reusers (my main stakeholder on the Enterprise project). While we don’t know what the answer is, we share the understanding that there isn’t a single silver bullet, and will require a multi-pronged approach. With Research, some foundation folks, including me, are working in that space

• Gergo told me that the last the Foundation made Credibility-specific tools was in 2012, which if totally accurate is very dismaying! I hope the products I work on fill that gap.

• Chris found that some Community members were very interested in new applications for the Enterprise APIs. He wants to investigate ways that the tooling we develop for Enterprise users can be applied to editor and reader applications. We may participate in Community Hackathons in the coming year to collaborate on new and exciting ideas in this space.

• There is a shared and clear sense of urgency across Foundation employees and Community members (Sue Gardner included) and we are looking into sustainable solutions to grow and coexist alongside AI. We are all proud that User:MPinchuk_(WMF) is leading us through that effort, incisively and collaboratively.

On Sue Gardner’s Keynote

Sue Gardner’s keynote struck me and felt urgent, particularly when she said the “hallmarks of the decline of journalism” were present in the developing relationship between Wiki and AI.

She placed the issue precisely in the fact that Wikipedia has never controlled its distribution: most readers find Wikipedia via Google. It’s no secret. While immediately, the comparison can harbor more fear over the situation, it heartened me, when I realized that Enterprise is in the right place and time to approach that issue. With our Enterprise API, we can lend a hand in controlling where our knowledge is found and how. We’re not going to become the sole delivery system, but we are going to make sure that free and open knowledge NOT found on Wikipedia.org, is disseminated with the same level of regard for responsible content curation and use.

Finally, I was pleased to hear Sue say, “Twitter is a tire fire”, partially vindicating my idea that that Wiki is (unfortunately for the Internet but surely representing an opportunity for the foundation) growing the only thing reflective of reality on the Internet.

The Lead

Most importantly — sorry for burying the lead, reader (if you are reading this) — Francisco gained a renewed commitment to the spirit of our Community. The perspective of our Community has been baked into my approach to my work, as a Researcher first during my fellowship period, and then in the just less 6 months since I started full time as a Product Manage with Enterprise. Before it was knowledge, though, now it’s a feeling, or an amalgamation of feelings that I understand.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

— Albert Einstein

The Community’s concerns are plenty and, at this critical juncture, not to be ignored.

As a still fresh face, I want to find (new?) ways to support the community, be it Enterprise’s products where I can have the most effective — I think — and efficient impact in my day to day, and beyond. Can I find an untrodden space? Is there a desired path to find that I should follow? I realize this is broad … but I’ll be working on it.