Talk:Global Majority Wikimedia Technology Priorities

Request: please edit from all bold to normal

This is a very interesting piece of work that I did find via the discussion page tot the Wikimedia Charter. Reading it however is being made more difficult than necessary by publishing all the text in bold. Could this please be changed? Thanks, VanArtevelde (talk) 08:09, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

About IP range blocks

Hi all,

A special friend of mine linked to me your interesting initiative and I discovered you mention "IP range blocks" as an issue that affects positive contributors.

Hoping to be useful, here I've somehow noted down the current situation, the problem, and a related proactive semi-technical proposal:

phabricator:T309328

This not yet an RFC, and we really need an RFC, but it's maybe already an interesting starting point. Feel free to read and share here any comment, and I will integrate there. Thanks for your work. ValerioBozz (talk) 14:19, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for furthering this issue @Valerio Bozzolan! Based on that ticket on Phabricator, I learned how the issue relates to sockpuppets. However, it seems that the ticket was closed before properly analysing the issue (threats) and its potential solutions.

I think there are significant cases where the sockpuppet concern is not relevant: for example, if you only use the blocked IP during an event with other people; if you only use the IP for a short time and normally use a "safe" IP; if you only do "safe" edits where it wouldn't matter if they were done by a sockpuppet, etc. TuukkaH (talk) 18:08, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Prioritize decentralized, diverse and inclusive software development

@EPorto (WMB): Do you know if there is background info or more context to what this means ... internet consumption and content production practices prevalent in the Global Majority. ...? (ie, how this differs in every day level compared to Global north for example) --Zache (talk) 15:49, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Zache: Although this question is rightly directed towards @EPorto (WMB), I would like to highlight a small but significant aspect of this issue. For example, the divide between mobile and desktop usage, particularly with new users starting on mobile, is disproportionately different between the Global North and the Global Majority.

According to a report published by DataReportal in January 2024, the world average for using computers to access the internet was 68.8% as of January 2024. All the countries below that average are from the Global Majority, with the only exception being Japan. India and China, the most populated countries in the world, stand at 50.5% and 61.2%, respectively. At the same time, the top 15 countries that use the internet more through desktop are from the Global North, with the only exception being South Africa. [1]

While it is true that the Global North is also seeing some increase in mobile users compared to desktop users, the Global Majority is adding more and more new users who access the internet entirely through mobile devices unlike Global North. India, in particular, is rapidly adding new internet adopters, and more than 9 out of 10 of them are "mobile-only" users. These new mobile-only users are not just dominating consumption but also production in Global Majority countries.

I recently wrote a piece on Diff titled 'A Case for Mobile Editing,' which puts the above into perspective from a Wikimedia lens: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/13/a-case-for-mobile-editing/

[1] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-deep-dive-how-the-world-goes-online Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 11:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)