Interviews/Teemu Leinonen

Advisory Board interviews conducted at Wikimania: Teemu Leinonen. August 24-28, 2009

Key Themes

  • Sees cultural barriers as significant to extending reach and participation for small languages
  • Does not necessarily think that mission/vision prescribes tie to the “wiki” – could be projects that are not well suited to the wiki but that are important to mission (i.e. citizen journalism)
  • Concerned about community renewal (i.e. where is the next generation of administrators coming from?)

Background

  • Never active in community, only some edits; a professor and dean of school at the Media Lab, University of Art and Design in Helsinki
  • Focus is on internet tools for digital learning
  • Thinks that the mission and vision of Wikimedia are brilliant; fully agrees with the idea; believes there is strong consensus around this

Extending reach and participation

  • Challenge in extending reach and participation for small languages – where the idea of an encyclopedia is not familiar, where there is no history of that. Encyclopedias are not a universal concept
  • Thinks Wikimedia should focus on small languages; as a way of collecting cultural heritage
  • All the Scandinavian and North European Wikipedias have largest number of articles per speaker, but there is a strong fit with the culture
  • Language and cultural preservation and the concept of encyclopedia is embedded in culture
  • Scandinavia and Nordic people are very interested in this project]
  • Agrees with need to create different roles within the community for people to participate (beyond editing)
  • As mobile devices take over as primary mode of accessing content, Wikimedia needs to be accessible in that format
  • Research showing that people participate in open source “to learn” – after that are reasons related to getting formal training and professional advancement
  • Thinks that learning is likely motivation for editors
  • Thinks that formal education and curriculum should not be the focus for Wikipedia; there may be a role for Wikipedia in news – everyone is talking about this notion of “who will do quality journalism in the future?”
  • Wikimedia’s mission/vision does not specify that it has to happen on a wiki. Wikis are good for certain things, but not for others (i.e. news sources). But this doesn't mean that Wikimedia should not pursue
  • Thinks that the challenges with MediaWiki technology could potentially make the community stronger – people have to ask for help to learn how to do things
  • Concern that there are not systems for renewing the community – where is the next generation of administrators coming from?
  • Not concerned that others may repackage content – if there is an interface designed by others that works better, the mission is still being achieved of getting knowledge to more people. Should be more clear attribution to the community

Reference