5.4: Innovation
Encourage Innovation Other Information:
2015 Goal: In 2015, innovation is encouraged and projects have mechanisms in place to maximize the contribution of innovation
to project success. Rationale: Innovation must respond to competition from other online services, and address challenges associated
with growth. Summary: Wikimedia has existed for nearly a decade. In that time, we've seen the proliferation of mobile devices,
content-rich websites, social networking tools, and internet access across the globe. Although the Wikimedia movement has
seen amazing growth since 2001, the fundamental platform has remained largely static. This path is not sustainable, and Wikimedia
will need to innovate to respond to changes in technology and online behavior. Key innovations could include interfaces for
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing, or a wizard that suggests appropriate activities for editors based on their
Wikipedia experience and real-world interests. But innovation must allow room for experimentation, which requires a willingness
to accept failures and learn from them -- to "fail well". The Wikimedia movement must be willing to experiment with new tools
and processes, and must learn from failures and embrace successes. Wikimedia must also organize the volunteer community to
embrace iterative change, rather than stagnation and obstruction. But it must also remain backwards-compatible with existing
technologies, including a recognition that technological changes in the USA will not be adopted rapidly, or perhaps at all,
in developing countries; and it must recognise that progress is made by expanding its user-base, not by swapping one set of
users for a different set. Measures [How will we know we have achieved the above goal?]: Wikimedia will have tried and iterated
on new ideas to meet all of the movement priorities in this document. Increase the number of third party Extensions that add
more features to the platform. Survey editors and find more overall satisfaction from Wikimedia volunteers. Reduce abandoned
edits. (An abandoned edit is when editors click the edit button without clicking the save button.) Increase the number of
editors using research and citations. Increase the number of editors who have engaged in talk page discussion.
Indicator(s):
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