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Template:WQ-3.x-langs Letter from the Founder - April 2005

Jimbo Wales speaking at FOSDEM 2005 in Brussels, Belgium.
By Chrys.

Wikimedia's mission is to give the world's knowledge to every single person on the planet in their own language. As part of that mission, Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is this goal.

I don't know of any case where there is a genuine tension between these two things, either. That is to say, the central core of the community, the people who are really doing the work, are all passionate about this point: that we're creating something of extremely high quality, not just building an online community for its own sake.

The community does not come before our task, the community is organized around our task. The difference is simply that decisions should always be made, not on the grounds of social expediency or popular majority or traditional credentials, but in light of the requirements of the job we have set for ourselves.

I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any way. If anything, we are extremely elitist, but we are anti-credentialist. Attracting and retaining academic specialists is one of our goals. That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very hard work of collaborating with others to be both accurate and balanced, and we don't accept anything less than that. A PhD is valuable evidence of that willingness, but it is not a substitute for these qualities.

There may be cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit their expert articles, or who can't stand seeing their point of view challenged, and have no patience for discussion. In these cases, their expertise is of limited value; if someone is unable to work in a friendly, helpful way in a social context, and feels that their credentials entitle them to the last word on a subject, this is a problem for them and for us. We will always have to make complex judgments about how to handle such situations.

I'm 100% committed to a goal of a "traditional encylopedia or better" quality for Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that. Openness and inclusiveness are indispensible for us, but these are our radical means to our radical ends.

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+{{WQ-3-header-en}}
-''By Jimbo Wales - september 2004''
+<div style="border:1px solid #2A7E54; padding: 0.5em; padding-top:0em; background-color: #ffffff;">
+<center>{{WQ-3.x-langs|2}}</center>
+<center><font face="Palatino,Verdana,Arial" size="4">
+'''Letter from the Founder - April 2005'''</font></center>
+&nbsp;<br />
+[[Image:Jimbo-wales---fosdem-2005.jpg|thumb|300px|Jimbo Wales speaking at FOSDEM 2005 in Brussels, Belgium.<br><small>By [[w:en:User:Chrys|Chrys]].</small>]]
+<font size=6 color="#7E0000">W</font >ikimedia's mission is to give the world's knowledge to every single
-<center><font face="Palatino,Verdana,Arial" size=4>Letter from the Founder</font></center>
+person on the planet in their own language.  As part of that mission,
-&nbsp;<br>
+Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a
+free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality.  Asking whether the
+community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong
+question: the entire purpose of the community is this goal.
+I don't know of any case where there is a genuine tension between
-[[Image:Jimbo_Wales_in_France.jpg|right|150px]]
+these two things, either.  That is to say, the central core of the
+community, the people who are really doing the work, are all
+passionate about this point: that we're creating something of
+extremely high quality, not just building an online community for its
+own sake.
+The community does not come before our task, the community is
-<div align=right>'''In Focus & In Love'''</div>
+organized '''around''' our task.  The difference is simply that decisions
+should always be made, not on the grounds of social expediency or
+popular majority or traditional credentials, but in light of the
+requirements of the job we have set for ourselves.
+I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a tiny
-<font size=6 color="#7E0000">O</font>ur mission is to give freely the sum of the world's knowledge to
+minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any way.
-every single person on the planet in the language of their choice,
+If anything, we are '''extremely''' elitist, but we are
-under a free license, so that they can modify, adapt, reuse, or
+anti-credentialist.  Attracting and retaining academic specialists is
-redistribute it, at will.  And, by "every single person on the planet," I
+one of our goals.  That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people
-mean exactly that, so we have to remember that much of our target
+willing to do the very hard work of collaborating with others to be
-audience is not yet able to access the Internet reliably, if
+both accurate and balanced, and we don't accept anything less than
-at all.
+that.  A PhD is valuable evidence of that willingness, but it is not a
+substitute for these qualities.
+There may be cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit their expert
-We are an astounding global project that continues to grow at a
+articles, or who can't stand seeing their point of view challenged,
-staggering pace.  Some statistics already widely known in the
+and have no patience for discussion.  In these cases, their expertise
-community are worth repeating: we see 2,000 new wikipedians each month;
+is of limited value; if someone is unable to work in a friendly, helpful way
-,000 new articles and 40,000 article edits every day -- almost twice
+in a social context, and feels that their credentials entitle them to
-as many pages and page-edits if you include discussion and meta-pages --
+the last word on a subject, this is a problem for them and for us.  We
-and this is only counting Wikipedia.
+will always have to make complex judgments about how to handle such
+situations.
+I'm 100% committed to a goal of a "traditional encylopedia or better" quality for
-As we continue to grow at this rate, we will face some challenges of
+Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that.
-scaling.  Old ways of doing things sometimes begin to break down as
+Openness and inclusiveness are indispensible for us, but these are our
-we become a community with ever larger numbers of people.  We want to
+'''radical''' means to our radical '''ends'''.
-maintain and improve our quality standards, while at the same
-time remaining open, friendly, and welcoming as a community.  This is
-a challenge.
+==Archives==
-To meet that challenge will require a lot of analysis and  thoughtfulness.
+*[[/Founder letter Sept 2004]]
-I also always like to talk about another ingredient that is absolutely
+*[[/Founder letter January 2005]]
-essential: love.  It's not so common in technological, academic, and
-scientific circles to talk about love within a community, but for us it
-is, and has to be, common and explicit.
+[[Category:Wikimedia organisation|{{PAGENAME}}]]
-Our community already comes from a huge variety of backgrounds, and over
+[[Category:English|{{PAGENAME}}]]
-time the variety will only increase.  The only way we can coordinate our
-efforts in an efficient manner to achieve the goals we have set for
-ourselves, is to love our work and to love each other, even when we
-disagree.  Mutual respect and a reasonable approach to disagreement are
-essential, and both of those are helped along enormously when we feel
-favorably towards each other just as a natural result of being
-volunteers together on this incredible ridiculous crazy fun project to
-change the world.
-None of us is perfect in these matters; such is the human condition.
-But each of us can try each day, in our editing, in our mailing list
-posts, in our irc chats, and in our private emails, to reach for a higher
-standard than the Internet usually encourages, a standard of rational
-benevolence and love.
-We've come a long way already, and to really achieve our goals, we
-have to remain in focus and in love.
-<br clear=all>
-<center><font face="Palatino,Verdana,Arial" size=4>Letter from the Board</font></center>
-<center><small>''cf. the original [[Translation requests/NL-1/Fr:#3|French version]]''</small></center>
-[[Image:New-sunf-patch.jpg|left|150px]]
-<br/>
-<font size=6 color="#2A7E54">T</font>his newsletter arose out of a desire to share our activities and opinions with a broader audience; it is addressed to the tens of thousands of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, and to the many others who support our activities.
-The Wikimedia Foundation was created as a result of the evolution of [[w:|Wikipedia]], [[wikt:|Wiktionary]], [[b:|Wikibooks]], [[q:|Wikiquote]] and [[Wikisource:|Wikisource]]. The exponential growth of these projects has required the creation of new structures and new modes of functioning.  These structures include the legal capacity to receive donations; the creation of systems for compensation, for requesting grants, for managing domain names and server clusters, and for publishing content via print, CD and DVD; and the coordination of new communication channels between the different projects.
-Despite this evolution, the contributors continue to be the vital force and the greatest resource of the Wikimedia projects, and these new structures will continue to be decided on democratically. The Wikimedia Board has the role of organizing related debates and making decisions to ensure the best possible conditions for the development, maintenance, and wide distribution of our free content.  We are governed by a desire to protect Wikimedia's founding spirit, based on openness (everybody can edit), trust (no need to have special qualifications), collaboration (via a wiki), respect for others (in attending to the contributions of others), and a gift culture (based on volunteering).
-Over the past three months, we have built a solid base for Wikimedia's future. We have laid the groundwork for a  membership system, made numerous contacts with people and organizations that will aid our projects over the coming year, and begun applying for grants and organizing regular fundraisers in order to ensure Wikimedia a stable financial future. Official positions have been given to Daniel Mayer and Tim Starling, to ensure transparent publishing of Wikimedia's finances and to increase communication with our developers, respectively.
-In coordination with the German and French chapters, we have made contacts with publishers
-to distribute Wikipedia's content on CD and DVD, and started preparing snapshots of Wikipedia for such offline distribution.  Meanwhile, a worldwide press release was distributed in celebration of our reaching the milestone of one million articles. We are  establishing increased contacts with the press, and aim to further increase our projects' visibility with the help of a multilingual PR committee.
-Finally, we are setting up a new official website dedicated to the Foundation.  This will provide information to the public about our Foundation and its mission, our many projects and initiatives, and plans for the future.  The website will also detail our financial situation (as the current site does), and offer online membership registration.  Watch wikimediafoundation.org for updates over the coming months.
-If you have questions or comments, we would love to hear from you.  You can reach us on our talk pages (see [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board#Contact_us]), or by email to: <tt>board</tt>&nbsp;(at)&nbsp;<tt>wikimedia.org</tt>.
-</div>