<3 <3 <3 for your answers it means a lot :)
@Risker second time in a few weeks I'm very jealous of a message you
wrote and I was like "yes exactly that".
To answer some of your questions, the discussion isn't happening
anywhere. I've been trying on Telegram, Discord, Wiki, here... very
little reactions. Of course, people pushing back doesn't help, but
also we do know what it takes to be able to have the discussion,
investment.
You were in the midst of the early Movement Strategy steps, and to be
able to get those kind of discussion to happen it needs a loooot of
intent. Those are scary discussions and they need to be fostered,
cared, nurtured. We're talking about things that are stressful and
people need a clear "place" to have those discussions in a proper
setting. That "place" isn't so much a location as an intention (not
sure this translated well).
And that can't be a volunteer driven effort at our scale, and it can't
be small either. We have a blueprint, learnings, etc... to build on.
@Pine you are right, and I may give it a try to the diff idea. But
like you, I'm a volunteer and there is so much energy and "emotion" I
can pour by myself. It would be eaiser if it was a more
vocally/visibly shared concern.
@Nada I'm suggesting a small working group that preps the work for the
community to have the discussion. It's not about making decisions but
making the discussions possible. But that's one possibility, another
could be to take 2030 recommendations and implement those that are
still relevant and rework the other in some ways. Or to decide
collectively on ways to cut through the red tape to make our movement
as a whole faster, there are many angles and a lot of them complementary.
But when statistically we will have lost 50% of our traffic in 3 to 5
years, we need to act, fast and together.
--
Christophe
On Thu, 2 Jul 2026 at 06:08, nada alfarra via Wikimedia-l
<[email protected]> wrote:
I read Christophe's essay closely. I agree with most of the
diagnosis, but I want to push back on part of the cure, and add a
point about outreach. However, I didn't read the whole the
discussion, so forgive any redundancy.
*What I think is right*
The equity gap is the real story. English Wikipedia is far ahead
of editions in languages spoken by hundreds of millions of people.
The billions who came online since 2016 mostly came from the
Global South. We were not ready for them. That is not a side
issue, it is the main reason we are falling behind.
The "process is the product" point is also right. Anyone can copy
our content. No one can copy our editing history, our talk pages,
our sourcing standards, or the trust that comes from years of open
argument and correction. That process is worth protecting and
worth building products around.
Spreading our income beyond donation banners also makes sense.
Relying on one source of money is risky, especially as fewer
people visit the site directly.
*Where I disagree*
The essay asks for a small, closed group to make big decisions
fast, without the usual community process. I understand the
impatience, but our credibility comes from being slow, open, and
argued-over in public. If we skip that to move faster, we risk
losing the very thing that makes people trust our content. Speed
and legitimacy are in tension here, and the essay doesn't really
deal with that.
I'm also cautious about selling "verified" data to AI companies.
It could help fund the movement, but it could also pull the
Foundation's incentives away from the volunteer editors who create
the value in the first place. Editors should benefit from this
too, not just supply the raw material for a new revenue line.
*On outreach*
I don't think our real problem is trust. People still see
Wikipedia as reliable. What we're losing is presence. AI tools and
influencers aren't more trustworthy than us, they're just closer
to where people already are. A student asking an AI chatbot a
question isn't rejecting Wikipedia, they just never see us in that
moment.
That changes the question. It's not "why don't people trust us,"
it's "why are we absent from the tools people actually use." It
also changes the timeline. Rebuilding readership at scale,
reversing a generational shift in how people consume knowledge,
that's slow and may not happen in two years. But changing where
and how we show up, meeting people inside their AI tools, search
results, and study apps, is faster and more within our control.
I'd also push on who we're trying to reach. Instead of asking "is
Wikipedia relevant to everyone," maybe we ask who specifically
needs it most and design for them. Students are an obvious group.
Right now, new editors, especially students learning the craft,
get reverted fast and rarely come back. If we want the next
generation of contributors, the on-ramp needs to be forgiving, not
punishing. Let people practice, get it wrong, and learn, the way
any skill is learned. A student who edits badly once and gets shut
down never comes back. A student who edits badly once and gets
guided through it becomes an editor.
*What I would prioritize*
Two separate problems, two different timelines. Fix outreach fast:
meet people where they already are. Fix the readership shift slow
and deliberately, with the community, not against it. And invest
seriously in editors and readers in underrepresented languages and
regions, because that is where our future actually is.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026, 23:41 Christophe Henner,
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hey everyone,
I struggled with the object, the most honest one would be
"Last exit before irrelevance" but that would be a bit violent.
So, Wikipedia turns 25 next week. I've been here for over
twenty of those years, including stints chairing Wikimedia
France and the Foundation Board. And honestly? I'm worried.
Scared to be honnest.
Over the last years, I've been regularly crunching data and
sharing on different channels my worries. But in the last few
weeks I decided to make a much more structured "essay" of my
findings
Since 2016, the internet nearly doubled in size.
Our page views? Down. New editor sign-ups? Down 36%.
The people keeping this thing running are working harder than
ever, but there are fewer of them every year.
I wrote it all up: the numbers, what I think went wrong, what
I think we need to do about it. Fair warning: it's long, it's
opinionated, and some of it will probably make you mad.
*Here it is:
*https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Schiste/what-now
I'm not trying to be doom and gloom for the sake of it. I
genuinely believe we have maybe two years to make some hard
calls about AI, about money, about who we're actually serving.
After that, the window closes and we become irrelevant.
Could be wrong. Hope I am. But I'd rather we have this
argument now than wish we had later. Well I'd rather we had
this argument two or four years ago, but now we will make do.
Read it, tell me where I'm off base. Let's argue and debate.
That's what talk pages are for, right?
PS: Foundation board mailing list is bcc'ed, change cannot
happen without their commitment. And fast.
--
Christophe
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