Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Cycle 2/The Augmented Age

What impact would we have on the world if we follow this theme?

Huge impact! But automation is not the primary goal for human resources that create content in colaborative wikis. And since automation and knowledge required thereof is out of reach for the vast majority of users globally, wikipedia will be more and more complicated to edit. Keep in mind simplicity for editors without technical knowledges--Kalogeropoulos (talk) 07:18, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Larger impact relative to de-emphasizing the theme, as it seems clear that modes of knowledge discovery will expand from simple screens and web searches to audio, curated augmented reality experiences (eg. while wandering about a foreign city, museum or historical monument), virtual realities designed for the purpose of education and simulation, and so forth. Pratyeka (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Something tells me that the world would resemble that of w:The Machine Stops, whose setting is apocalyptic, futuristic, and bleak. The machine would be close to dying, and the knowledge to repair the machine is lost. Hmm.... the prediction is too hasty. I'll try another prediction. Leaving the work up to learning machines would make the system and computing more complicated than it should be. Also, human knowledge of computing the Wikimedia projects would be affected or nearly lost. Why not make computing more simple and easy to edit instead? --George Ho (talk) 22:53, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I rather think the theme will impact on us, since we (i.e. Wikimedia and its participants) will just be one of many groups, organisations etc. who will use this technology. It appears that we need to deal with it to maintain our impact on the world, but we should not forget that machines can fail, as can humans, hence we will always need a fallback level. --Schlosser67 (talk) 07:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that on the "augmented" side, we should greatly improve our mobile front-end. For example people who install the Common app on their smartphone should be notified when they are near a place for which we miss an illustration. We already have the "near here" functionality on the wikipedia front-end, but we could think of something more social like "meet the wikimedians near you" (at least those who opted in localization), find Wikimedian events, and so on.

On the back end side, we should augment cross-projects interaction. Wiktionaries should get automatic search result and statistics (like usage frequency along time) about lexems from Wikisource corpus for example.

More than anything else we should also augment people knowledge and skills, including communication tools for maintaining "healthy and inclusive communities". --Psychoslave (talk) 14:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

How important is this theme relative to the other 4 themes? Why?

A. Data technology is fun och attractive for many. But it is a means to help accomplishing goals. 1,3,4,5 are goals to discuss. The 'winner' will decide/determine, which technology will be the most worthy to enhance. B. My personal experience with manually cleaning up bot/program contributions is long and not especially positive. mlg Susann Schweden (talk) 12:47, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree - technology is a means to an end, and our principal goal should be to provide quality content that is accessible in both high-tech and low-tech ways. --Schlosser67 (talk) 07:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Very important if Wikipedia is to remain relevant as newer technical media with more personalization and interaction come to dominate public experience versus today's primarily publishing/consumpion-focused web. Pratyeka (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I've been thinking. If the technology must improve, then communication and relationships must also improve. If offline communication is not desirable to others, how about audio and/or video communication? There are en:webcam and computer headset. The projects need improved technological communications, especially if they would rely on AI or machine learners in the future. Maybe some video cam software or some audio communication software, compatible with the projects. If the projects can't handle such technology, at least we can use already available stand-alone video/audio communication software. --George Ho (talk) 19:11, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Focus requires tradeoffs. If we increase our effort in this area in the next 15 years, is there anything we’re doing today that we would need to stop doing?

Rigorously review and reduce all formatting related markup on all projects, since reformatting for new media will render such markup useless and anachronistic. Pratyeka (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

If we set fokus på technology - we unset fokus på us. Susann Schweden (talk) 21:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

@Susann Schweden:, could you elaborate and clarify? I need to summarize your thoughts, and the more elaborate your feedback is, the more precise my summary can be. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

with 'us' I mean the contributing people. A human beeing and its interaction with other human beeings. It is so utterst important how people communicate, put into words what they want, listen to others, come to conclusions and by this work together. I personally like or even love the way we work together in wiktionary, but the whole wiki-world is democratic in a practical sense and it's aiming at the goals to reach, which means it's seldom chewing on yesterday stuff. The wiki-way to come to results which you can actually see and read and listen to is fantastic. This should be the core-present we can offer to the world: 'look it works!' mlg Susann Schweden (talk) 17:48, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

@Susann Schweden: first, sorry for this late response. I don't know how your clarification applies to this theme and how it answers the question in the heading. Please, explain it. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

now I understand, I think. It is really the wrong header. I didn't suggest what we should do less of, and this is required here. I wanted to note that we should not reduce effort in human communication even if we are willing to increase effort in technology. Susann Schweden (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

The new technology will surely be harder on the bandwidth which is limited not so much for technological, but definitely for physical reasons. Hence we need to cut down on gimmicks and concentrate on economy and reliability. --Schlosser67 (talk) 07:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

What else is important to add to this theme to make it stronger?

Potentially the addition of technology, concept development and hardware manufacturer partners... eg. makerspaces, startup hubs, research institutions, corporate R&D labs, existing industrial and experience design houses. Pratyeka (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

"Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software." Found on https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607831/nvidia-ceo-software-is-eating-the-world-but-ai-is-going-to-eat-software/ Augmented reality will require hefty doses of Artificial Intelligence, and we need to prepare our user facing interfaces to understand their requests if we want to stay relevant. --VMasrour (WMF) (talk) 23:22, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I want to know what page you can go to in order to get an overview of the major technical tasks that are currently in progress. It is not feasible for me to keep track of every Phabricator entry. The VisualEditor came rather as a surprise to me, and just as that feature was under development for a while before, it would be nice to see which features are currently in development. Mikael Häggström (talk) 12:14, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• @Mikael Häggström: maybe Elitre could help to address the issue you raised. There are a few newsletters, Tech News, quarterly reports etc., but - if I get your point correctly - there could be a larger-scale non-techie-friendly overview. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• Tech News seems to works acceptably for the purpose, but yes it would be more nice with at least a small "non-techie-friendly overview" of what is currently in development. I would personally want the option to see directly in-line who has done the latest edit to any individual sentence [1], but there are apparently many other issues to be amended before. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:54, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Speaking of what we already have, Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures (especially when consulted from time to time on mediawiki.org) kinda does the trick. mw:Technical Collaboration Guidance/Milestone communication already recommends simple language, so that we make the work easier for ambassadors and translators. This said, with the exception of knocking on people's door, it may be fair to say that every venue for communication has been explored so far and several are in use. In our experience there will always, always be people surprised by changes, no matter how hard those were communicated in advance. My team works precisely to reduce the number of those people deployment after deployment. Feedback and suggestions are welcome at the talk for the page I linked above. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:24, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out these pages Elitre! Thus there seems to be existing tools for estimating the credibility of individual edits. Now I'd just like to be able to see it directly in-line in Wikipedia articles.

As for technical aspects, it is usually not that much of a deal to be surprised by updates, since it's always possible to suggest improvement (or removal) of them afterwards as well. Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

• What software / improvements we work needs to be determined to a greater degree in collaboration with the movement as a whole. Would be great to see the community tech team expanded to double or triple its current size. And maybe part of such a team could specifically work on issues facing the global south? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:04, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

The important thing will be to stay relevant with technology. I think that in order to do this, a Wikimedia 2030 could possibly take part in a Wikimedia "note". The searches could be temporarily saved, organized and utilized for educational purposes. A Wiki "student" could do this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Orchidrose (talk) 19:37, 1 June 2017‎

Who else will be working in this area and how might we partner with them?

• Device manufacturers and makers. Competitions may be useful, perhaps with some form of sponsorship opportunities if this is allowed under Wikimedia's funding options. Pratyeka (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

• One knowledge-based application of augmented reality is human anatomy. Software like ZygoteBody and BioDigital Human provides a way to visualize 3D knowledge. Those 3D models can also be used for more immersive experiences.

There's an existing project that hosts CC licensed anatomy content called BodyParts3D but it doesn't have user-friendly software that allows for easy browsing. I think it would be great if Wikimedia would develop a software that allows browsing this kind of data and to display it in virtual reality software.

The same software that would allow for browsing human anatomy might also be used to browse the anatomy of a tomato or a human-made item. I think it would be great if Wikimedia has such 3D browsing software in 2030 and maybe even earlier. ChristianKl (talk) 12:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Whilst editing text is easy in mediawiki, creating and editing rich media is currently not possible. Although creating an image or video editor from scratch isn't really efficient, there may be existing solutions/partners (e.g. GIMP, inkscape, fotor?) that could help implement some easier way to edit existing files within commons (or possibly outside it?). Even just cropping an image from commons is currently quite a multi-step process. Similarly, for video files, being able to type a script that is then voice synthesised over the video would allow the sound to be edited more easily if information needed to be changed. The greatest challenge for this and other rich-media-editing interface extensions will be finding partners with a compatible open-access mentality. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 08:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia should partner with other providers of on-line knowledge and cultural content and become the entry point into a linked world where various sources are accumulated and several different views of the same topic may be presented (the latter can be applied also on the content of Wikipedia only). Currently, Wikipedia articles present just one narrative, but if we use the structure of the encyclopedia (articles, categories, Commons metadata, Wikidata, maps…), we could build various interfaces that would present the same reality through various means and from various angles. -- On behalf of the Wikipedians of Brno, Blahma (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Cooperation with developers and academics in field of automated translation, data handling for improving Wikidata. Development of Wikimedia Commons App and other mobile apps communicating with Wikipedia. -- On behalf of the Wikipedians of Prague, --Petra Pejšová (WMCZ) (talk) 18:34, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

What is learning machine?

I have no idea what the learning machine is. You mean machine learning, a kind of artificial intelligence? --Ryuch (talk) 13:05, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

• @Ryuch: I don't know whom do you mean by 'you', but yes, undoubtedly this is about machine learning. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Other

Feedback from the Central Eastern European Wikimedia Community

In a Facebook poll, 6 people from the CEE group rated this theme as the third *most* important to our movement's future, after community health and engaging the knowledge ecosystem. Shani Evenstein 20:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Feedback from the Wikipedia & Medicine Community

In a Facebook poll, only 1 person chose this theme as the most important, making it the least important theme for the group. Shani Evenstein 20:13, 13 June 2017 (UTC)