The Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia and nearly a dozen other wiki-based projects, announced its five-year strategic plan today. The plan is the product of a collaborative effort that began in 2009 and involved more than 1,000 participants from around the world. In it, the organization lays out a number of goals it hopes to reach by 2015, including increasing the number of editors, articles, users and more.

After more than a year in the making, Wikimedia released the final version today, saying that it is "energized and enthusiastic about where Wikimedia is heading."

According to the announcement, there are a number of metrics Wikimedia will go by to determine success.

• Increase the total number of people served to 1 billion
• Increase the amount of information we offer to 50 million Wikipedia articles
• Ensure information is high quality by increasing the percentage of material  reviewed to be of high or very high quality by 25 percent
• Encourage readers to become contributors by increasing the number of total editors per month who made >5 edits to 200,000
• Support healthy diversity in the editing community by doubling the percentage of female editors to 25 percent and increasing the number of Global South editors to 37 percent

So how far does it have to go? Currently, Wikipedia serves just over 400 million unique visitors monthly (it had 414 million in January) and contains just under 18 million articles across all languages. In December, there were nearly 80,000 "active editors," which are defined as editors who make five or more edits a month. That means that Wikipedia is looking to more than double both its traffic and its active editors over the next five years.

What will it take to reach these goals? The first step to serving a billion people monthly is creating the infrastructure to handle this sort of traffic. To do that, Wikipedia will create new data centers and deploy caching centers in a number of locations. In order to increase participation and editor retention, the organization also plans on a number of outreach initiatives, as well as developing tools like a rich-text editor to simplify the editing process.

Most importantly, Wikimedia will need money and lots of it. How much? More than 3 times the $16 million the foundation raised at the end of 2010.

Remember that banner ad featuring Jimmy Wales' pleading mug? You're likely to see that a lot more over years to come.

Well, according to the real-time statistics on its fundraising effort, Wikimedia has managed to raise in a week what took a month last year and it has a few guesses as to why.

A Groundswell of Support?

There might be a couple of things at play here. Looking at these same numbers, we can see that there have been a few big donations to get things going, but overall the average donation is within a few dollars of years past. The average number of donations, however, is well above previous years, with 10 to 15 thousand donations per day. The effect is donations reaching well beyond years past, as you can see below.

Moka Pantages, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson, says the drastic rise is a groundswell of support.

"I think more and more people everywhere are recognizing the impact Wikipedia has made on their lives-- the rapid rise in donations this year is the response," said Pantages. "It's now the go-to place for anything you need to know. These donations are thousands of people all over the world expressing gratitude and supporting the efforts of the Wikipedians who work long and hard to keep this thing alive and growing."

Look At That Purty Mug

Another reason for the huge spike in donations, Pantages tells us, is the banner atop each Wikipedia page featuring Jimmy Wales, the site's co-founder.

While some are asking if a donation is enough to stop Wales from staring, the numbers don't lie - the banner is a success.

"As you can see from the graphs, those huge spikes from years past were days we started running the Jimmy banner," said Pantages. "So, what we learned from six months of testing leading up to this fundraiser was that the Jimmy banner out performs everything, so that's what we started with, rather than waiting."

David McCandless of Information is Beautiful created a telling infographic from Wikipedia's banner testing effort that shows just how effective Wales' pleading mug really is.

Will Wikipedia Remain Ad Free?

Whether it's a groundswell of public support for the site that daily answers all your curiosities or its simply effective, tried and tested advertising, things are looking good for Wikimedia and its flagship product, Wikipedia, in 2011. At this rate, the site should hit its $16 million goal in just under a month and a half. But as they say, nothing is sure in life, but death and taxes.

To keep up with its fundraising efforts, you can watch the donations pour in in real time. And of course, you can make a donation at any time. The fundraising campaign runs through January 2011.

Keeping Wikipedia free is no small feat, however, and the foundation has released a few stats about the world's fifth most popular Web property that help illustrate the challenges it faces.

Wikipedia was the 12th most popular Web property in the U.S. in September, with comScore reporting nearlly 80 million unique visitors for the month. By comparison, Google had 180 million, while Facebook had just under 150 million. But Wikipedia's English language content accounts for only a fifth of the collaborative encyclopedia's content. Looking at global traffic to Wikipedia, the site has doubled its monthly unique visitors since 2007, with just under 400 million in September. As opposed to its 12th place ranking in the U.S., these 400 million unique visitors make it the fifth most popular Web property in the world.

According to the Wikimedia Foundation, operating costs for 2010-2011 will come in at $20.4 million. Last year, the foundation received nearly a quarter million individual donations from more than 100 countries to reach its $8 million goal. This year, in addition to monetary donations the foundation is calling for readers to join in and become editors. The fundraiser itself, which the Wikimedia fundraising team has dubbed the "Fundraiser that anyone can edit", was created in collaboration with about 1,000 volunteers.

Of course, donating is important and good, too, in order to keep Wikipedia ad-free and organizationally unbiased.

"Over the past 10 years, Wikipedia has become a vital public resource for hundreds of millions of people. We've come to depend on it being there for us - free to use, without any bias or interference, and without advertising," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation executive director, echoed Wales' statement.

"Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia: it's written by ordinary people, and it makes sense that ordinary people would pay to support it," said Gardner. "Having a broad base of many donors from everywhere around the world is important to us: it means the encyclopedia is free to evolve to meet the needs of its readers, rather than being distorted or thrown off course by special interests. I'm glad so many people appreciate Wikipedia, and I'm delighted when they choose to support it financially."

The fundraising campaign will run through January 2011. Users can donate here or by clicking on the notice on top of each page on Wikipedia.

Last week, Fox News started asking representatives at companies that have donated to the group's Wikimedia Foundation for comment on their discovery that Wikimedia Commons had a large collection of photographs that could be described as pornography, even as child pornography. On hearing this, Wales apparently began unilaterally to delete images from the group's servers. This set off a great argument among the encyclopedia's editors.

Wales said as much in this discussion thread.

"In the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I acted, I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do things from the "Founder" flag. I even removed my ability to edit semi-protected pages! (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)

I do not want to be a tyrant or dictator. I do not want us to fight about that kind of thing, as it's really a distraction from our work."

The widely quoted Fox story was inspired by Larry Sanger, a co-founder currently on the outs with the organization, who reported the hosting of child porn by the organization to the FBI.

Wikimedia Commons, the "free media repository" associated with the encyclopedia, pursues a policy of no censorship and of educational emphasis. The presence of sex and drug-related content has been a thread of debate among editors seeking to hew to these policy points. This "kerfuffle" is just the latest and one of the more dramatic expression of this.

Mr. Sanger responded to our inquiries by email.

"While I did use the term 'child pornography,' I was clear in my report to the FBI that what I was reporting were explicit drawings of child sexual abuse--the relevant statute was 18 USC 1466A, I said. I stand by this. I think a lot of people who have dismissed my concerns as being about 'mere drawings' that were 'historic' have not actually clicked on the thumbnails and looked at the pictures--they truly are disturbing, at least to me. I do think that the statute was designed to be applied to this sort of material. But, of course, that is for the FBI and the courts to decide....

"A lot of people have dismissed my motives as insincere and self-interested. As I explain in the first of the above links, I do not think that this controversy has much chance of helping Citizendium or WatchKnow, or me. It has, as I expected, made me unpopular with a lot of Internet geeks. That can't be helped, I guess."

He refered us to his response on Slashdot regarding his motivations for calling the FBI.

"I have no interest in trying to get Wikimedia shut down; that would be unnecessary, and I doubt it would happen as a result of the violation of the statute. But I think and hope it may cause pressure on Wikimedia from law enforcement, politicians, and the general public to eliminate this sort of content. I also hope that Wikimedia will be persuaded, or if necessary forced, to label its "adult" content as such in a consistent and reliable way, so that it can be easily filtered by school system filters."

Wikipedia started testing these changes and others in March, according to the Wikipedia blog.

• New look - new theme, called Vector
• Improved navigation - tabs at top of each page more clearly define whether you are viewing the page or discussion page, and whether you are reading or editing a page
• Editing toolbar improvements - simpler and more intuitive.
• Link wizard - allows you to add links to other wiki pages as well as links to external sites
• Search improvements
• Table wizard to make creating tables easier
• Find and replace feature to simplify page editing

This is part of Wikipedia's "Usability Initiative," devoted to "measurably increase the usability of Wikipedia for new contributors by improving the underlying software on the basis of user behavioral studies, thereby reducing barriers to public participation."

The upcoming design called "Vector" has been in use over the past six months by a group of 500,000 beta testers. Included in the update are changes like simplified navigation, a relocated search box, clutter reduction and even an updated Wikipedia logo. Also, all English Wikipedia users will soon be able to create PDFs and printed books from Wikipedia articles, a service previously available only to logged-in users.

However, the most interesting change is how Wikipedia is making the page edit functions easier. A new toolbar will be provided which lets editors more easily insert links and tables, and an included cheatsheet will help users access the most commonly used functions.

These editing changes launching next month are only the beginning, notes Naoko Komura on the Wikimedia blog. Later this year, the site will see even more radical revamps to the editing process. This includes the following:

• Reducing the amount of wiki code users see in the edit system and making it possible to change data in tables and information boxes through simple forms.
• Cleaning up the edit page itself, to use more understandable language and get rid of confusing clutter.
• Providing a new outline tool to navigate a long article while you're editing it.

Wikipedia Needs More Editors

Now the question is whether or not these changes will encourage more people to actually edit the online encyclopedia because, surprisingly, few users actually do.

Wikipedia is often heralded as a shining example of how there's power in the "wisdom of the crowds," a phrase that implies how a diverse collection of individuals can be more accurate than individuals or even experts. However, the dirty little secret about the supposedly "crowd-edited" online encyclopedia is that, even though anyone and everyone can edit it, few do so. In fact, only 1% of Wikipedia users are responsible for half of the site's edits. Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, has even been quoted as saying that the site is really written by a community, "a dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers."

Given these statistics, it's no surprise that Wikipedia wants to make some changes. Recent reports point to slowed growth, a downward trend that may be partly to blame on the increasingly complex editing process, according to some experts.

Dr. Ed H Chi, a scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center in California, told the Telegraph that the site had become a "more exclusive place", where only a handful of the most experienced editors were responsible for editing and maintaining the site.

In other words, Wikipedia became a site that wasn't representing the "wisdom of the crowds" anymore, but the "wisdom of an elite group." That in, turn, may have caused the slowdown. Over the past several years, the number of new articles per day has dropped from 2,200 in July of 2007 to 1,300 today.

Is It Too Late? Or Just in Time?

By simplifying the editing process, Wikipedia could potentially reverse this trend -  at least, that's likely what they're hoping will occur. According to the Q&A on the changes, the organization is aware of these very issues:

When knowledgeable people cannot participate in editing Wikipedia because they find it too confusing or difficult to edit articles, it is a serious problem that undermines the potential quality, breadth and depth of the content that we can offer to you [...] When it was first developed, the software running Wikipedia was considered reasonably user-friendly. By today's standards, it is not as streamlined nor user-friendly as other software.

But has the organization waited too long? Have mainstream Internet users already given up on being a part of the editing process and are now happy just to read? We'll know soon enough. Rollouts begin in April, starting first with media repository Wikimedia Commons and then followed by Wikipedia itself later that month.

Wikipedia and other Wikimedia properties like Wikiquote or Wikibooks could easily find enough advertisers to finance these sites. In order to remain as independent and impartial as possible, however, the Wikimedia Foundation prefers to rely on donations from users.

It is worth noting, though, that the Wikipedia does have deals with some other companies like France Telecom's Orange. These businesses license the site's content and share advertising revenue with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The Wikimedia Foundation has fewer than 35 employees and needs roughly $10 million per year to operate. About 340 million users access Wikipedia per month. According to Wales, this represents "almost a third of the Internet-connected world."

StatusNet is the open-source microblogging platform that powers sites such as identi.ca, which impressed us from its inception as a "framework for a distributed network of federated microblogging services." Read on for more details on what Vibber will be doing there.

Vibber hard at work at the Wikimedia Foundation office.

And according to this StatusNet announcement, Vibber's job description will revolve around "architecture and development of the core StatusNet microblogging software, as well as ancillary services to support the status.net platform." And in addition to launching a first release and public signup over the next few months, it is hoped by StatusNet leadership that Vibber's "natural skills as a mentor and leader will help build our Open Source developer and user community."

Although Vibber's new duties will commence on October 12, he will continue to be involved in Wikimedia development and will remain in the Wikimedia office until the end of 2009 "to make sure all our tech staff has a chance to pick my brain as we smooth out the code review processes and make sure things are as well documented as I like to think they are," he wrote.

In an interesting study in open-source, free-as-in-freedom/free-as-in-beer cross-pollination, StatusNet founder Evan Prodromou is also known for his work in the wiki community, launching Wikitravel and helping with MediaWiki development.

At current spending levels, Omidyar will be contributing just over 10% of WIkipedia's full expenses. The Foundation has been concerned about the global economic climate's impact on donations and is about to enter into a major new period of its history in which the free-form editing of Wikipedia will be slowed by a new approval process that has long been expected.

Wikimedia said in its annual report that it plans to spend a total of $9.4 million over the 2009-2010 year. Just three years ago, in '06-'07, the organization spent only $3 million. Back in the old days of '04-'05, it cost just $100,000 to run everything.

Wikimedia joins a long list of organizations in the Omidyar portfolio, including well-known Web 2.0 names like Digg, Seesmic and the Sunlight Foundation.

Three days ago the organization celebrated Wikipedia's 3 millionth English article and 2 days ago it launched its official iPhone app. In a week of landmark announcements, the company has managed to charm the Hewlett Foundation and kick start its strategic planning process.

"The Hewlett Foundation's support comes at a critical time," said Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner, "We've just begun the planning that will help us identify how to maximize our impact around the world. This support will help us to execute our priorities for the current year, and enable us to plan for the future."

In true crowd sourced Wikimedia fashion, the organization launched a public wiki for community strategic planning. To add your input in how the community is shaped in the next 5 years, visit the Call for Proposals page.

The change will apply to all text and multimedia content, including video, images, and audio now licensed under GFDL 1.2 or later versions and will increase "the compatibility and availability of free content," according to the WMF site.

The change in licensing was made possible in November 2008 when the Free Software Foundation updated its most recent of the GFDL, adding language specifically to accomodate the WMF's desire to switch to Creative Commons licensing.

As we reported last month, in the event that the WMF board approves the proposal, existing content will be dual-licensed and new content will be CC-BY-SA licensed only. "This will ensure that any content shared from Wikipedia in the future can be done under the now broadly-used terms of Creative Commons licensing and without the additional restrictions required by the GFDL, which was created more for application code documentation and is slightly more stringent, for example requiring anyone using the content to include the full license code with each use," wrote RWW blogger Phil Glockner.

"When I started Wikipedia, Creative Commons did not exist," wrote Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on the site's Q&A page regarding the licensing changes. "The CC-BY-SA license is a more generic license that meets the needs of Wikipedia today, and I'm very grateful that the FSF has allowed this change to happen... It's a critically necessary change for the future of Wikimedia."

The Wikipedia licensing Questions and Answers page contains a quote from Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales which sums up the necessity of the change:

"When I started Wikipedia, Creative Commons did not exist. The Free Documentation License was the first license that demonstrated well how the principles of the free software movement could be applied to other kinds of works. However, it is designed for a specific category of works: software documentation. The CC-BY-SA license is a more generic license that meets the needs of Wikipedia today, and I'm very grateful that the FSF has allowed this change to happen. Switching to CC-BY-SA will also allow content from our projects to be freely mixed with CC-BY-SA content. It's a critically necessary change for the future of Wikimedia."

Some parts of Wikipedia are already using the Creative Commons license, like many of the images that are uploaded by contributors. However, even with Wikimedia Commons, the default is GFDL.

The voting is ongoing and eligibility to vote is extended to all users who have made at least 25 edits to any Wikimedia project before March 15, 2009. Voting ends on May 3, 2009. Instructions are on the licensing page and are fairly simple; they say to "Visit the page called Special:SecurePoll/vote/1 on a wiki for which you meet the voting conditions."

Image courtesy of the Creative Commons blog.

No Advertising

The Wikimedia Foundation has always declined to run advertising on its pages. Given that it is one of the most popular destinations on the Internet, it could surely make more than $6.2 million in revenue every year, but the organization, and Jimmy Wales in particular, have always vehemently rejected this idea in favor of direct donations from users.