Wikipedia:オフラインミーティング/20070318Tokyo/en

Interveiw Questions in English

We asked below questions to Jimbo at 3/18.

What is the most unsuccessful experience in the projects you haveever been concerned? And are there any projects that you want tostop in the projects ongoing now?
There are striking differences in contents between WikipediaEnglish version and Japanese version. Comparing Japanese versionwith English version, for example, in the articles on“holocaust”, there is a very long and detaileddescription about the theory of holocaust denial in Japaneseversion. It is about 50% of the whole article in the number of thecharacter(18,000:9,900), except the links. And in English version,the percentage of that is 2.7%(99,000:2,700). This is a surprisingfact. (This is not my discovery, I quote this from a privatedescription in a famous SNS of Japan.) I think it shows thatneutral point of view(NPOV), one of the policy of Wikipedia,sometimes causes strange effects. Maintaining the neutrality, itmight cause the situation like an extreme relativism. Have you everbeen worried about this?
Do you think that consensus decision-making is differentdepending on the kind of the discussed problem, for examplehistorical problems, technological problems, and problems on thephilosophy thought, etc? And also, do you think that there is acommon way of forming consensus decision-making on every article inWikipedia? If there is, what kind of thing is it?
It is difficult to explain the fundamental policies of Wikipedia,like “ignore all rules” or “what Wikipedia isnot”to the Japanese users. I suppose that this difficulty isderived from the individuality of Japanese culture, or the factthat many of the users in Japan don’t know well about thepragmatism, structuralism, deconstruction or other philosophies inthe latter half of 20th century. Is there the same problem inEnglish version? Can you tell us the situation in English Wikipediathat you know very well?
Writing a wrong answer using a mistaken article of Wikipedia in aexam at Middlebury College became a big news. In using information,it is a common sense that we must check the primaryinformation ,not the secondary.Is Wikipedia aiming to become aprimary information, or a secondary information? If secondaryinformation, how is the lack of reference to the primaryinformation supplied? And if primary information, how isreliability guaranteed?
As Wikipedia is a free service site, you need some ways exceptadvertising revenue to manage the site. For example, one possibleway is to improve inefficient points of the existing organization,and to reduce costs, then you can collect the saved money(ex.consulting service). Or you can entrust someone with the physicalelements like the server and direct only the accumulation of theknowledge(ex. PC-UNIX FTP server). Is there any plan to adopt thosemodels?
The financial condition of the Wikimedia Foundation got into thenews recently, is the foundation going to keep the model thatrelies on donationd? If so, I think that it needs to be reinforced,do you have any good idea?
Will you just remain in a honory post, or will you keep holding"the founder privilege" that is clearly documented in the policies?
Are you planning to expand the business using other media, suchas books, DVDs, radio broadcasting, or videos? For example, thearticles concerning animations, comics, and PC games in JapaneseWikipedia are very substantia, and these articles are veryvaluable.I think that you can expect the earnings if you make thesecontents into CDs and sell it, but what do you think about that?Japanese users will be motivated if they understand that earningsare obtained.
The business development of Wikia is getting actively. Is Wikiagoing to construct a new portal site, and to surpass Yahoo! orother portal sites? Could you tell us about the business views ofWikia in the future? And if you have any opinion about the powerstruggle with the rival companies, could you tell us about it?
I hear that GFDL will version up to 3.0, and there are otherlicense for free contents ,for example CC. Will Wikipedia change toa new, or another license in the future? If so ,does that mean thatdescriptions written under the old license is able to turn to a newone?
In Japanese Wikipedia, GFDL is very strictly interpreted. Whenyou copy some articles in Wikipedia, to divide, unify, ortranslate, to another article, you have to show which article andwhat version you refer to. But there is no appropriate place toshow, and I use the editing summery column (shown on the recordpage) to show them. This is inconvenience, so I want you to arrangea bigger field which I can write the reference and record. Is thispossible? Or you have any better way?
In Japanese Wikipedia, there is a contention that”thesubst of MediaWiki copies without preserving the record of thetemplate, and it doesn’t fulfill the GFDLrequirements”. If this contention is admitted, the use ofsubst, or the existence of the subst itself means that it is doingharm. I think that the subst for the template is useful and shouldnot be prohibited. How do you think about the consistency with GFDL?
Wiki is now a trend all over the world. Do you think that thisis just a transient phenomenon, or will it become a necessarycollaboration tool for human being?
Before Wikipedia, you were doing a project named Nupedia,and youswitched from Nupedia to Wikipedia. When you finished Nupedia,whydid you select Wiki for a next tool? Especially, thinking aboutspam and stability for articles, you might feel anxiety for Wiki.When you made your decision,what did you think and why did youchoose Wiki?
Wikipedia is a very useful tool for sharing knowledge.5 or 10years later, when Web3.0 and Web4.0 age comes, I think that conceptlike [good and bad] should be shared. What do you think about that?And to share concepts like that, what kind of system is neededneeded？
Do you have any plan to apply the intellectual resourcesaccumulated in Wikipedia for education?
What is the goal of the future of Wikipedia? Until when, whatdo you want to accomplish, what do you want to become? And forthat, what do you expect to the users?
As there is no branch office of Wikimedia foundation in Japan,it is said that Wikipedia does not make clear where theresponsibility lies, or that it is irresponsible. If there is abranch office in Japan, you might get the tax deduction of thedonation and the management might be clearer. Don’t you havethe plan of establishing a branch office in Japan?
In Japanese Wikipedia, elementary school students and juniorhigh school students are playing an active part in the front.Please send a yell to these active and brave kids.