Opening of Wikimania

Jimbo started the keynote with the Colbert’s Analysis on Wikipedia and this:

/Refering to John Seigenthaler incident: ‘Apparently, there was an error in Wikipedia’

/everybody laughed

He also mentioned what Wikipedia needs, especially when it comes to representativeness. With the Wikimedia Foundation maturing, it is easier to apply grant and start other projects. Introducing Brad Patrick, interim CEO of the Foundation, legal issues now have better ways to deal with (there was no legal advisor for Wikimedia projects for quite a few years). There is the dicussion of the future plans of Wikipedia and directions, such as bringing in people who share the Wikipedia philosophies and to support further development of MediaWiki, Wikiwyg and lower the technological entry barrier of Wikipedia.

Moreover it is imperative to note issue of quality versus quantity. With more than one million articles, it’s time to focus more on quality development. Also with this wider scale of articles, the amount of celebrity-entries (living biographies) increased substantially. Those are the articles that pose complaints and problems from their bio ‘targets’.

/..to be cont.