Wikimania 2012/Random observations


 * The wiki philosophy is not an add-on, it’s essential to how the community operates. The community and the platform are one. Even the software development is connected this way.
 * The vibe at Wikimania was of a meeting between colleagues, albeit ones that mostly don’t know each other or work together; it is not of a normal conference of non-colleagues. The feeling of common purpose is very strong. The intentional community.
 * Fascinating how WMF devs are struggling with usability questions, just like everyone else. It’s about engagement, lowering the barriers to entry, user-friendly tools, more images, less text, not scaring noobs, etc.
 * WMF is also struggling with falling editor numbers, now at about 85k. Readership is growing, however, up from 400M in 2011 to 490M in 2012 and probably 500M by the fall (Nielsen has different numbers).
 * Having networks and other community structure is a big advantage for corporate wikis. WMF wishes it had ways to communicate, connect, reach out, etc. They are having to retro-fit this to the community.
 * Gadgets, bots, scripts, and perhaps AutoWikiBrowser are not complicated distractions, but important tools that every large wiki needs to understand and use.
 * Jimmy Wales is amazingly community-oriented, humble, fair, and balanced.
 * Mobile is important to WMF, because phones are so widespread in the 'global south' (as they call what some would call 'the Third World'). They also talk about tablets in the context of editor tasks (reversion, tagging, etc).
 * The focus on diversity is inspiring, and very consistent, from the board to the programmers.
 * The WMF board members are all volunteers and come from: US (3), Germany (2), Netherlands, China, India, Argentina. In their day jobs they work at other nonprofits (one chap from OLPC), or are librarians, lecturers, lawyers, and so on.