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User:Jimbo Wales/BBC talk slides

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This is a summary of the slides to be used at the BBC talk. Several of them are from my talk and Erik's talk in Berlin. See also User:Jimbo Wales/BBC talk


  • Title slide -- "Speakers today" -- who are we?

  • What's a wiki? "ATTENTION WIKIPEDIA!" quote

  • What's a wiki? bullet points with explanation
  • How many wikis? bullet points with explanation

  • What's Wikipedia?
    • Wiki-based encyclopedia, 50+ languages
    • 750,000 articles total
      • 275,000 English
      • 100,000 German
      • 150,000 images
      • Open content (FDL)
      • Founded January 2001
    • Organized in Wikimedia Foundation

Some problem areas

       Accuracy
       Wikiquette
       Neutrality
       Trolling
       Edit wars
       Organization
       Performance

Why do we need an open encyclopedia?


Why do we need an open encyclopedia?

   "Perpetuation of ignorance 
    is the beginning of slavery"
                     --Eben Moglen

Initial goals of encyclopedists

       Collect "sum of all human knowledge"
       Only now do we have the tools to do that

(the following slides are from my talk, the ones above are from Erik's talk) Free Knowledge: The Practical Revolution

How Wikimedia is changing the world


Jimbo Wales

Founder of Wikipedia and Wikimedia

June 12, 2004


Our mission

       Free knowledge for everyone on the planet
       Empowering volunteers to build the information commons
       Atmosphere of love and respect
       Objectivity, neutrality, accuracy

Our success so far

       Largest English encyclopedia
       More popular than Britannica online
               More inclusive and more balanced
       Several successful spin-offs
       First WikiReaders

The death of a Cathedral ..

Nupedia: 1999-2001 (+)

.. and the birth of a Bazaar


Our goals for Wikipedia

       Develop systematic peer review process
       Increase stability and performance
       By late 2004
               CD-ROM or DVD edition
       By October 2005:
               Concise desk reference
       Long term
               Get Wikipedia into developing countries
               Use donated computers, print edition

Sister projects

       Wiktionary
               "Wikipedia is not a dictionary"
       Wikibooks
               "Wikipedia is not a place for HOW-TOs"
       Wikisource
               "Wikipedia is not a source repository"
       Wikiquote
               "Wikipedia is not a collection of quotations"
       Meta-Wiki
               "Wikipedia is not Wikimedia"

Our goals for Wikimedia

       Build successful fundraising campaigns
       Create chapters in every nation
       Get involved in issues which concern us 
               ... and which we can agree on

Future projects

       Wikimedia Commons and Single Sign-On
               Pictures, sounds, videos
       Wikinews
       WikiAtlas
       Open process for proposing new projects


Imagine a world where every single person is given free access to the sum of human knowledge.

We don't have to imagine it.

We're doing it.