English subtitles for clip: File:10 Future of Wikipedia.webm

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Thank you for staying with us the entire day. We
really appreciate it. We know that Sunday on a

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long weekend is not the most perfect time for
Wikipedia day, but shows how much you folks care

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about learning about Wikipedia and so glad to
see so many familiar and new faces. So we

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thought we for the final session today, we'd
love to have a conversation with Noam Cohen and

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some of our panelists that we've had throughout
the day. Because we've had a lot of catch up

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with folks who've heard a lot of new ideas, AI
looms large in our conscience. Now in 2024, I

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thought be really interesting to hear some of
the reflections of the speakers that we've had

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this Wikipedia day, but spoke especially
starting with Noam Cohen. And originally we're

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going to have Noam in one of the earlier
sessions, but we thought no, if you don't know

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him has been for many years, kind of like the
wiki pedia correspondence, which is not a common

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thing to hear of. But he used to come to all of
our wiki mania conferences, which is our

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international conference and cover wiki mania as
part of his job with the New York Times and as a

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tech correspondent. So we always appreciated the
care and the thoughtfulness that Nome put into

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understanding our community, and always seeming
to have his finger on the pulse of what was

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going on that particular year when we you saw us
at Wikimedia. So I thought maybe we could start

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with some of nomes reflections on being here
today, which I haven't seen know, in many years.

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And we used to talk all the time given his
coverage of our events. But in 2024 Gnome, what

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are some of your your thoughts about seeing this
community here in New York and and what you see

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as trends in the tech industry?

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I mean, thanks for inviting me, I'm really, you
know, honored to be here. And, you know, it was

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really nice introduction. The thing I would say
recording in progress, Wikimedia was in 2006,

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that I went to in Boston, and it was like, a
revelation, because basically, it was seeing all

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the people behind the articles, it's so easy to
see Wikipedia as just, you know, a bunch of text

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and people writing notes and to actually see the
people that did it was like mind blowing to me,

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and it kind of made me realize it's a vibrant
community. And it has like, you know, it has its

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various figures, you know, Jimmy Wales was
always a fascinating figure to me like, well,

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you know, sometimes they call him benevolent
dictator was he loved or feared revered was

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always like, it just seemed like a organic
community. And I was just talking to Annie, you

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know, depths of Wikipedia and how, like, in a
lot of ways she feels this role is like a

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storyteller for the community. And it's just
very organic. Community, Wikipedia is people

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that's like the story, I would say, from the
start, I always wanted to tell about Wikipedia.

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So cut to 2024, we're talking about AI. And, you
know, I think of like aI not being about people.

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So I kind of think it's missing the story. And
I'm maybe I'm gonna go down in history is like,

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you know, missing the big story of the world and
like not getting it. But what Wikipedia is

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giving what is special is that is people it is
people making decisions. And like, I know why

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people consult the chat bots and chat GBT, it's
helpful. It can help you write things quickly.

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It definitely can save time on questions. But
fundamentally, it isn't a source for truth. And

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so I think the story, I think, of Wikipedia in
2024, is that we have a like, I would say,

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almost like a new Cold War between people who
believe in truth, and people believe in

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controlling truth. And I have a story I've been
working on about Russia and how in Russia,

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right? I wrote sir, for Bloomberg in the summer
about how Russia is very, you know, Putin has

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always hated Wikipedia for many, many years. And
he, you know, recently created the basically

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government sponsored a commercial rival, it's a
fork illegal fork of Wikipedia. They hired away

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the head of Wikimedia, Russia to run it. Lots of
funding they're getting, and they've also been,

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you know, prosecuting Russian Wikipedia, and
they've been fines. And lately, the most recent

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thing that happened, which I think is worth,
like taking note of is that the person who

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replaced the Russian Wikimedia person who went
to the commercial operation, somebody Stanislav

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Kozlowski, you know, he's a professor who lost
his job over this now, he just said he was

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fearing that he's gonna become a foreign agent
being listed as a foreign agent, and Wikimedia

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Russia's closing down. Basically, it hasn't
happened yet. But they're filing the paperwork,

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because they really feel like it's jeopardizing
anyone who's involved with it. So if you count

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like Putin and you count, you know, xi in China,
where there isn't, Wikipedia is not allowed to

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publish in any language. You know, Modi, in
India, there are like lawsuits that are related

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to what Wikipedia publishes. You know, you can
throw in, you can throw on Trump and the right

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wing in America, there is a war on truth. And
like, it's kind of I don't want to like,

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overstate it, but like, wicked Wikipedia kind of
becomes the only kind of rival there are

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definitely news organizations that are committed
to the truth but their commercial operations

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and, you know, this idea of a global community
that somehow is like working in the shadows.

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That is trying to create a record of what is
happening and it is accurate is really, really

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important. And I feel like it is reaching like a
level that's beyond just sort of utility, but

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about like, are we going to be able to
democratically tell our story? Or is it really

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under threat? So that so I feel like it's so in
some ways, I feel like the AI story takes away

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from that, because AI is about just harvesting
data and making predictions and doing lots of

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things that are useful, but really not getting
at the nub of like, what is truth on the

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Internet? Who gets to tell it? Who's guarding
it? How are we going to protect it, these are

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like the real big issues there. So that's what I
sort of see the takeaway, and what's really at

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stake in 2024, and Wikipedia and the movement.
So that's why I really like to write about it.

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So the things I'm writing about are like about
the Russian story. Similarly, I think the other

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thing I was telling Andrew, when he listed his
four principles, I really feel like the fifth

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principle of assume good faith is really, really
important. And that's a community based idea. I

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remember Jimmy Wales, saying something that I
thought was really deep, which he said, you

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could be at a steak restaurant, and everyone's
given a steak knife. And he's like, Oh, my God,

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there are people with knives right next to me
what's going on? Everyone should be in a cage,

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that way, I'll be safe. Or you can take the duty
like no people use steak knives to attack each

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other. And that's cool. And so I think that that
principle that we're competing works on, I'm

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assuming good faith is huge. And it's the other
story I've been working on. It's about how, how

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Wikipedia English Wikipedia has been writing
about the Hamas, you know, the war in Israel,

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Israel Gaza war. And the fact that there is a
community there that is lot of tension, a lot of

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accusations a lot of you know, kind of people
even being disciplined, I would say over it, but

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fundamentally, is forcing everyone in this
conflict. If you support whatever, if you're

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more on the Israeli side, you were forced to
have to work on an article that's going to talk

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about all the things Israel is done violating
international law or fill in the blank.

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Likewise, you're on the other side, you have to
like, deal with the atrocities that happen. It's

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like you you cannot tunnel yourself that way.
There cannot there's there are two versions of a

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story they're not. You know, there was a quote,
I saw the Orwell where he said basically, he

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really got this illusion in the Spanish Civil
War, because he, he felt like the media and was

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was contaminated. You could never believe
anything from the other side. Like even just

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basic facts. And he felt that was like, really
dangerous. Even though he was very committed to

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the Republican movement. He felt like, we should
be able to believe that our side did things

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wrong. And like that's, to me again, that's the
the the innovation of Wikipedia, like we have a

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system in America often that's conflict based
and where two sides antagonists like our legal

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system works that way. Often, our our political
system works away to people make bold,

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outrageous claims. Oh, the truth will be in the
middle. You know, that's sort of our logic. So

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yes, both sides in a lawsuit, you just say
extreme things and be ungenerous, and interpret

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things the way they want, and then we'll get the
truth in the middle. But no, I think a better

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system is to have everyone committed to trying
to do the best. And like we all check each

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other. And we're like, in one project pulling
together. So like, I think that's the other very

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valuable thing that Wikipedia does. It's like,
it has his huge problems with bias. And that

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makes me really sad. Because this great model is
hurt by not having enough inclusivity. And like

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the story about Israel, Hamas I'm working on
it's about the Egyptian American editor, who

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feels definitely outnumbered and how and I was
in really great length about how does he deal

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with it? How does he deal with stress? What
keeps him going? How frustrated is the I mean,

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like, I want to tell those stories, too, because
it's like, we're competing needs to reflect the

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world much better to do this important job. But
I feel like the basic parameters are really

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useful. So that's why I have optimism about it.
But I feel like the stakes are very high. And I

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feel that's why I'm glad to be here.

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Thank you know that that's that's great insight.
Yes, thank you. That's a, I think you notice

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something that that STS University mentioned
this morning as well, in terms of contamination,

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he was worried about India and their media
ecosystem. And I think we're all worrying about

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how good is the source? How's business sourcing
that we have to put into Wikipedia writes

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garbage in garbage out, we need to have good
reliable sourcing. So this is a great segue

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because I asked the panelists up here before
they came up, and we put this into the Etherpad.

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So I encourage you folks to participate as well.
I know it's a bit tough in Etherpad to do this,

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but we actually have left some space in there.
So I pretty much gave three prompts. The first

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prompt is what excites you about the future of
wiki pedia or Wikimedia. What concerns you about

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the future of Wikipedia Wikimedia, and then fill
in the blank in 20 years Wikipedia will be dot

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dot dot. Right. Pretty open ended, but I think
we got a really interesting range of things. I'd

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love to start with Sherry because it hits
exactly on what you said about bias and how

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contaminated or how good quality are the sources
that we have and sharing, maybe you could

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explain a little bit what we talked about
before. It's something that concerns us a lot,

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because you have worked with Afro crowd and
trying to make sure that there is a good

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representation of history that has been
forgotten in many ways. What was the, what

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concerns you about the future of Wikipedia in
terms of, you know, how AI is being used these

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days? And that we are training our AI systems on
Reddit on Wikipedia. But if we don't have a good

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Wikipedia, what, what good is training it on
there? Right? Okay.

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So, I was thinking that, when we were talking
earlier that Wikipedia is such a central, okay,

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for me, Cherie speaking as myself. For me,
Wikipedia has always been the central nervous

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system of our lexicon, because of the organic
way that the material that we ingest, digest,

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reproduce, add, and grow. It really mimics the
order organic, it mimics an organism that's ever

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changing, evolving with the world. Everything
humans is flawed. But I think for the world

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understanding of itself, they go to Wikipedia,
they go to knowledge from people care about

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knowledge, even if it's a passing thing, and
you're like, you know, I want to share this. So

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what we know about the world is what AI knows
about the world, in part, in large part, because

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a lot of the information that we that that
Wikipedia and wiki projects actually produce is

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the data that the world is digesting, and now
even more so because of AI, it's even more

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important than ever before, the way that that
algorithms are trained, or that the knowledge

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that goes in and is being used, not just
obviously, from Wikipedia, but from the entire

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Internet, a large chunk of that I do believe is
Wikipedia. So at the foundation of that

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information, are a lot of people in this room.
And in the general, you know, wiki body. So

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therefore, the information that's produced from
within the community, and the hive mind of the

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community, is really at the UN, rising to an
apex of importance for going forward for

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understanding of history of ourselves of the
world, and so forth. So it's even more important

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than ever before, that more voices are heard
more more perspectives are included. So that

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that, that bias, on whatever level it is,
because there are different levels of bias, you

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know, systemic bias, and you know, there's
different kinds of ways that you can look at

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bias. But at the same time, we have a very
interesting place to that we're at because,

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number one, we're here and talking about it, and
coming up with ways of approaching it so that

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it's even better than before. So the better bit,
the information is coming from this huge chunk,

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important influential chunk of information for
for, you know, AI going forward, the more

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important everyone in this room is and what and
what this group of this global body is doing.

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But it also means that there's more impetus and
more onus on us to ensure that we don't back

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down on improving that information, but we go
full force forward ahead, and, and really work

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on it even more. So. Right.

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Thank you. Yeah, that was something that we
haven't really talked about at all. And this

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conference is there actually is a Wikimedia
movement strategy process that we are

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implementing. And one of those goals is
knowledge, equity, right? So nothing about us.

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Without us. We want to have many folks involved
more than we see today. And that Rosie, one

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thing you wrote about what excites you is
related to this as well, the ability to morph

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ourselves into the Galactic and I didn't notice
until you put collective future probably

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referring to your lightning talk today in terms
of your your point there. But tell us a little

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bit about what you're thinking about what
excites you about Wikipedia?

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Right. So there's been a question in the last
year that some people have been asking is

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Wikipedia, just the Encyclopedia of our
generation, and the next generation will have

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another encyclopedia just like there was the
Encyclopedia Britannica and no one contributes

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really to it anymore. And so I think I'm I am
the eternal out Optimus and so that may in its

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own way, you know, influenced what I'm going to
say. But I see Wikipedia as having the potential

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for becoming the encyclopedia Galactica, in
that, you know, when we move off of this planet

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and populate other planets in the in the galaxy
that, you know, really will extend ourselves

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that far away into the future. I make that point
only to say that, I think the only way that this

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can happen is if we are willing as a movement to
change, if we are not willing to change with the

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times if we are not willing to see how AI can
can be used in a thoughtful way that works for

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us. If we're, if we draw lines in the sand and
say, This is the policy and Notability. And we

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are not going to change it. And it's been the
same policy that was written in two decades ago.

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If we are not willing to make changes in so many
different ways, then we are going to go the way

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of the dinosaur. And we will become obsolete.
And so if we become obsolete, how do we attract

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new editors? How do we get them? You heard me
talk about, you know, seven out of 10 readers

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are men, you know that in itself kind of like?
Like, really? Yeah, that's really true. So I,

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for me, it's about change, being willing to
change, being willing to accept ambiguity, and

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how we deal with change, like AI, I am not the
expert here on that. But I know that we must go,

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we must understand it better, and see how to
harness it. Because otherwise we will become

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Encyclopedia Britannica, and something else will
come out from from society and become the new

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kind of global encyclopedia. Right?

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Thank you. And, Andy, I love your comment,
because we're all focusing on the nuts and

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bolts, and you bring it back to the people. So I
think that's also what Nome appreciate is that

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you're kind of our resident ethnographer in many
ways of the community. Tell us a little bit

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about more about what excites you?

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Um, well, I wrote it up there. Every time I come
to one of these things, I meet someone, they say

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their username, and I'm shocked that they're,
like, extremely young. There are people that I

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have worked with on Wikipedia who were born
after 2010. They're half my age, and I'm not

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even that old. I feel so inspired and excited
that even today in 2024, there are a lot of

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really bright, really like socialized there are
all these fears, the kids are not okay. They I

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think that many of them are okay. And they're
still finding Wikipedia, and they still really

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like it. That's what makes me happy. Great.
Thank

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you. And please, folks keep adding stuff. I love
seeing the stuff that you're adding here. Even

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if we don't get to read them all. I love having
this as a kind of a record of what we're

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thinking in 2024. So let's go to some of the
concerns. But you also say any that you also

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recognize that we're kind of not necessarily
assuming good faith and doing the best to

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welcome new folks, right?

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Oh, yeah, well, I have met people here today,
even that have said, I have felt a little bit

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bad that some of the articles they submitted to
articles for procreation did not get accepted.

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And I hope that there is no guilt in that. Even
though it's hard to not have guilt. Yeah, when

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you meet people in person, and you see the
humanity of Wikipedia, it's easy to bounce back

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and say, Oh, I see like, I am new to the
project. We're all learning all the time. But

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when it's just the white screen in front of you,
and you see the red rejection, it can be easy to

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take things personally. And sometimes we bite
the newbies without realizing we're biting the

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newbies at all. So we're the people that go out
of their way to be really friendly, welcoming

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committees, birthday stuff, the things that
aren't high priority, I really do think that

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stuff matters.

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Right? I'm wondering, I mean, Rosie, when you
talk about the things change, I do think the

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there has been a tilt toward AI exclusion, you
know, delete humanism. And I never understood

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that. I was like, What's the big arm of having,
you know, when you don't want promotion? Or

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things that are truly not, you know, but if
something's obscure, why what's the harm of

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having an article about and as that's kind of
what you're getting at? Right? That having these

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vague, you know, barriers and having people
being so on top of it, I assume that's why, you

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know, someone will win a Nobel Prize later, you
know, and will not have an article because

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someone was, you know, on the watch, and is that
the kind of thing we're talking about?

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There's, there's a, there's an interesting joke
that, you know, my book is called the computer

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revolution, but after 1020 years, and I've
realized it's a revolution in making a very

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conventional encyclopedia, right, we actually
have very conservative, we have policies against

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too many photos, right? We say, Oh, we're taking
really serious now we're top 10 website. We

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can't do weird things anymore. Right. So we see
that sentiment in our community often, right.

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Richard? Yeah,

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my concern. My concern, my concern was there
Wikipedia wouldn't be fun. I think that you

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know, we've we've heard like this from
everything says, I mean, things like, you know,

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any site, he mentioned, citation citation
needed, the the whales and the dolphins the

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purposes, that's like one of the few things that
are left, I think that's really important that

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that gets people involved, that gets younger
people involved, it gets all sorts of people

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involved. A lot of people, you know, editing pop
culture topics, a lot of them start with that

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way. At some point, we decided we shouldn't
cover pop culture in great detail that we should

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put them on some like specialists wiki. And a
lot of the the modern pop culture that's on

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social media, we don't cover that at all.
Because they don't like official standards. The

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New York Times doesn't write reviews of social
media, you know, type, like comments and things

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like that. I think we have to, like, you know,
be playful, be experimental. I think that also

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involves like using AI, like we should use AI in
like a playful way with that we were generating

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and doing interesting things with it. We
shouldn't you know, we shouldn't use AI in the

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sense that it becomes like this boring robotic
voice thing, which is, which is gonna come for

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most of the Internet. And I hope that we can be
like, uh, you know, we've been using bots since

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you know, before I was involved in Wikipedia as
an alternative media for a long time. And but we

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will use them thoughtfully and with like, the
human touch. And I hope we can be that way. When

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the rest of the Internet becomes this like
droning, boring robots, or, or at least not not

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not boring is okay. But like not fun robots, you
know, it's okay. Yeah,

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that's good point. A lot of our fun parts of our
community are actually off wiki, right? Because

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they've been forced off discord, Facebook, other
places. And that's kind of, I don't wanna say

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sad, but little bit regretful that that's the
case. Yeah, yeah.

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And I think that that's, that would, that would
be actually killed the Wikipedia community,

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there are all sorts of governments and
businesses that, you know, maybe don't like the

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Wikipedia community or doesn't like the way that
it works. I have rival approaches, which, you

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know, varying quality. But I think the thing
that would ultimately kill the Wikipedia

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community, so it's not fun anymore, if it's not
fun anymore than people wouldn't contribute.

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And, you know, I mean, obviously, people
contribute, because they, they support, they

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believe in the ideas, they find the topics
interesting. But I think fundamentally, having a

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fun and sociable community is a very important
part of sustaining this project like this.

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Great point. And there's something that that
yeah, go ahead. Sure.

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Why can't be be fun. I mean, I remember when I
when I Okay, so my, one of my first impressions

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of wiki community, when Alice brought me on,
sorry, Alice back or Africa, brought me on was,

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how open it was, the how open it was, and how
open minded at least some of the folks that we

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connected with were, and I am finding that that
is we've become we've become very in some ways,

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we've, we've filled the purpose of scaling up
for the purpose of, of what you were talking

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about the well, we've reached as a, you know,
the, this very influential platform, in some

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ways, we've lost some of that. It's not wild,
wild west nature, but kind of anything could

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happen feeling. And, and, and I feel like
sometimes we can be a little bit too caught up

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in

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like being reputable, right? I feel

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a little bit and but it's not in a negative way,
per se. But, you know, sometimes when you when

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you grow up, you know, you lost some of that
some of what you had in your younger stages when

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you're just figuring out who you were. And I'm
wondering if, if we're not losing some of that

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along the way too, because sometimes it kind of
feels almost like communities come against each

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other. And that hurts the information, rather
than working together. Even if you don't agree,

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you know, sometimes it feels like a zero sum
game. And then what happens to the knowledge in

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between that, you know, maybe that country could
have two names. Just use a trivial example.

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Maybe we could have two names, and that's okay.
You know, but, or, you know, you know, there are

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some, there's some things I feel that we lose,
because of our humanity and the desire to be

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right, versus the desire to be understood and to
or to have information included, that it is also

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right for some. So I don't know if that It is
very AI discussion topic oriented. But I do feel

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it is something that helps the community to grow
and thereby helps the information also to

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continue to develop, as it attracts more people
who want to be a part of the community. In

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general,

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I want to segue on what you were saying there,
Sherry, about communication, and how different

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groups can react to each other. And it's because
a couple of things here. It was only in the last

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day or two that I learned there was a discord
channel related to people who were doing some of

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the organizing work panelists and such for this
conference, and I was like, Okay, well, can

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someone send me a link? So they sent me a link,
and then I'm in this discord channel now. And so

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that's fine. And generally, there are all these
telegram channels that we comedians have used

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initially for conferences. But now there's just
such a plethora, it is for me impossible to keep

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up with all of them. So I don't, although I was
in a conversation with Andrew, in a Google Chat

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regarding something to do with AI. And he said,
Oh, it's in that AI chat group. And I'm like,

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okay, like which one, and there, he gives me a
link. It's an AI chat group in telegram. Great.

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Now I'm in that one, too. So now I can follow
that conversation. And it makes me think like,

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Okay, are you on signal? Because there's stuff
happening there? Are you on Discord? There's

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stuff happening there? Are you on telegram?
Where are you? What are you hearing? What are

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you reading? And how about all the people who
aren't on any of those? Or are on some of those

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are just none of those are a few of those? Like,
how are we communicating? And who's outside the

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loop? And isn't part of the conversation? And
are they left behind? Or are we just chatting

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because we want fun, which is part of it. And we
want to be connected? Are we chatting so that we

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don't have two groups that are at odds with each
other? I have no answers. But I do think about

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how we communicate and where we communicate and
how much we communicate. And the overload at

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least that I sometimes feel from communications.
So yeah, and

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you touched on a pet peeve of Richard and he's,
he's interested in trying to create a kind of

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communication suite that we can rely on, not
just a smattering of WhatsApp Signal, Telegram

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and all these other things. Right, Richard?

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Yeah, I think, you know, I think that Wikimedia
movement is, you know, where the, the main

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nonprofit technology project to the world, I
mean, he started as an encyclopedia thing, but I

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think there's a lot of important nonprofit
technology needs in the world. And, you know,

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the, there's gonna be, you know, like, the
Wikipedia started, you know, it was around the

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same time as MySpace, there's, you know, now
tick tock is latest, there's probably something

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that's hotter than Tick, tock snaps, mono
Snapchats, might be a little, but there's gonna

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be something, there's something else and they're
all gonna be like commercial, and they're all

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gonna have weird motives, and they're all gonna
like, and now they're gonna have more AI stuff

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like, you know, trying to appeal to your most
extreme nature on any given topic. And I think

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that it is, there is maybe a role for nonprofit
technology in the social media space. And I kind

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of think that Wikimedia could be a part of that.
And it's a little bit of a bold thing to do. But

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I think that you know, that the world is
demanding it, having something some some

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reasonable way to talk to each other. That's not
mediated by, you know, tech companies or

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governments. And maybe we can meet, it can be a
part of that, probably just for our own

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intercultural purposes to start with, but I
think that, you know, there is some need for

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that, and maybe some of our culture could
provide some of that they're all all these weird

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technology, corporations are looking at our
like, our moderating moderating systems and

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trying to copy it and doing weird things with
it. But, you know, our community does have

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something to offer, and I hope we can be
independent of the tech stuff. And if it's

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technology companies, yeah,

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that's good point. Final thing we're gonna do,
because we're the last thing standing between

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you and I think a pretty unusual cake. That is
Wikipedia themed. So last thing we're going to

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do, and I'll give him some time to think about
this, while we marched through other people's

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answers, in 20 years, Wikipedia will be dot, dot
dot, and it's interesting. A lot of our answers

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are based around how human it's going to be, or
what roles humans will have. But any What is

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your response to this?

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I only did one word. Yeah, I just wrote human I
am i That's the only reason I like Wikipedia.

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Every reason that I like Wikipedia has to do
with it being made by real really great people.

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One of the first user pages that I stumbled upon
that made me feel really empowered, was sammies,

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because it just has this very simple line. I
don't know if she even really thought very much

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when she wrote it. She just says, Welcome to
Wikipedia. This site was made by real people

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just like you smiley face. And I thought just
like me, and, and yeah, I start started editing

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a lot more after seeing that, um, AI is great
for a lot of things. But if Wikipedia is the

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only search result on Google, that's written by
humans, which in a lot of cases that already is,

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that makes it even more valuable.

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viewpoint, and I took that, just like you. And I
took the contrarian viewpoint, and as I said,

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it's going to be as important as ever, but less
human created than ever. I know, tomato is gonna

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be thrown at me. But I think it's inevitable.
But we got to make sure we turn that into a good

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thing. Not a bad thing, right? We're not just a
victim of being used for AI. Right? We're in the

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conversation, we're actively making things
better, right? The Rosie, what did you say here?

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The same and different?

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Yeah, I mean, that speaks for itself. There'll
be different, it'll be different in some ways,

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and some things will probably never change.
Richard,

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how about you? Well,

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I guess around, I think we'll be around, I don't
think that I don't think that, you know, these

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other platforms are going to be around in 20
years, just their, you know, the nature of

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commercial things. And I think we're gonna be
more Wikipedia than ever, I think we got to be,

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you know, playful and experimental, and engage,
you know, we've always had this vision of

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engaging a larger percentage of the population.
And I hope we can actually do that in the next

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20 years. Because, you know, Wikipedia is, is,
you know, read by a certain amount of people.

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And it's not even like, you know, not enough
people are able to consume it, but not enough

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people are able to contribute to it, even more
importantly, and we suffer in terms of our

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knowledge base there. And if we can really
engage communities and individuals, and maybe,

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you know, things like journalists on like a more
meaningful level now that the journalists have

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been abandoned by the technology companies,
maybe they can find some new allies, and in a

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sort of a more nonprofit space, and I hope he
can become even more Wikipedia than yesterday,

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tomorrow. Next write

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about you know.

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You know, I guess I think it will certainly I
think it'll be human and I guess the thing I

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another thought another strain I mentioned
earlier, but it relates to this is the idea of

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primary sources. Another one here, rules about
like secondary sources. And it just, you know,

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occurred to me that I like Primary sources are
gonna be very important. You know, I recently

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learned about a project in French with a
Wikimedia called link growth. lingua libre,

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which is a was designed to allow people, you
know, it was trying to sort of preserve the

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French government supporting it, because it's
designed to preserve obscure dialects, and it

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makes it very, very easy to record a word or
phrase, and upload it to the comments like me,

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it's so easy as I could do it, I could record
some New York isms that I wanted to put up

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there. And I just feel like it was an incredible
tool because it was so easy to use. And it

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preserves people's speech. And it makes it you
know, in a copyrighted right permissive license,

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it just was a brilliant thing. I can just
imagine a million uses for it of other of place

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of cultures and communities that are not easily
reached, like the point that wouldn't even be

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like a researcher. So go there, if you need
Internet access, and that's about it, and a

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computer, I guess, of some sort, or phone, but
then you can really have your story your

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pronunciation, uploaded, and I just feel like
Wikipedia, I think in the future, will have to

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be more amenable to video and audio. And I think
it will have to sort of, if it really wants to

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be more inclusive, we'll have to, again, bend on
this idea that only Secondary sources are what

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you can use to write about things or oral
histories are just there, there are things that

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are worth preserving that are whatever you want
to call knowledge that needs to be preserved and

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kept and belong on Wikipedia. And there, it will
need to change the rules. And they need to be

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some innovative technology, which I thought this
lingua libre was really very brilliant

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technology to me, and will be very simple. So I
could just see a Wikipedia that would be much

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more like more visual audio, more or less, based
on secondary sources. It might it's a hope, I

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guess. Right. Right.

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All right. Thank you so much for the panel for
your responses. Thank you. And then thank you

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for your responses here. Look forward to reading
them. I'm gonna hand it over to Richard and mark

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for the last instructions. We're going to go out
and try to take a group photo before the light

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goes out. And then the cakes right go ahead.

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So yeah, before we take our group photo and get
the fabulous protease AI to the cake is is a

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combination of AI and human design, which is
what we're aiming for. So hopefully we're not

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too robotic and, and you know, we're building
things So I wanted to welcome everybody to

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Wikimedia New York City, you're we're your
friendly local wiki neighborhood group, we have,

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you're welcome to join, join our events, we
nyc.org Check out our events. We have two events

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coming up next month. On February 8, we have a
hacking night for those who are technically

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inclined. So you can go hack and work on things
and and play with things and learn things. And

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maybe you can just hack a Wikipedia article.
That's a valid way to hack and February 21, we

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have our wiki Wednesday salon, which is sort of
a miniature of this conference, our event or

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events are often at a four to four West 54th
Street to play school prime produce, it's sort

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of an art collective, and other stuff, and
you're very welcome to join our mailing list and

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join our Discord server. And I hope you can join
and participate and if you want ideas of events

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and things you want to contribute to Wikipedia
and other Wikimedia projects. We're here where

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you know, your local volunteers were very
interested in engaging with with all the New

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York communities and stuff beyond so thanks.
Well, the next local Hackathon is February 8,

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and and the next and the next wiki Wednesday
salon, which is more of a social slash non tech

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event is February 21. And they're both on West
54th street and I hope you can join thanks

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oh,