Task force/China/Interview (surveys) with Chinese bloggers/Underlying Causes

From Strategic Planning

问题:你觉得影响维基百科在中国发展的最主要的因素是什么?在内容、推广还是其他方面?

Problem: What are the main factors which will impact the development of Wikipedia in China?

Oliver Ding

首先是GFW的因素,因为无法访问,就等于不存在这个市场上。无法访问意味着现有高质量的内容无法成为建立品牌的基础。

First of all, it is GFW. Non-accessibility lead to non-existence in the market, and hence no base for the brand-building of Wikipedia's high quality content.

其次是,在现有访问状态下,中文条目增长过慢,这反馈出中文志愿者社区欠缺活力。

Second, in current situation of accessibility, the slowness of increase speed just reflect the lacking of activeness of the voluntary community.

在中国,要推广一个社群品牌,需要有一个具有活力的志愿者团队,通过举办线下活动来促进志愿者社区的发展。单独依靠线上的协作,很难将志愿者社群扩展到主流大众去。

In China, promoting a community brand requires a vigorous team or group of volunteers that organize off-line activities for the expansion of the community. It is very difficult to promote the volunteer community among the general public by online collaborations only.

Keso

不确定的政策环境,以及用户的“被审查”预期,这是最大的制约因素。除此之外,不认真、不负责、恶搞的中国网络文化,也影响维基百科在中国的发展。当然,我认为推广确实也存在问题,维基百科在国外,是以一种全新的模式迅速获得用户认知的,并几乎成为不可替代的最佳在线百科全书,即使是Google,也无法对其形成挑战。在中国,已经不具备这种新模式的号召力,所以,必须主动向用户推介维基百科,而不能坐等用户上门。

The environment of uncertain policies from the governments, self-censorship from the users, these are the biggest factors. Except these, the Chinese online culture of non-seriousness, non-responsibility and kuso also play a role for the development of Chinese Wikipedia.

Of cause, I think branding promotion also is a problem: Outside China, Wikipedia was quickly recognized as a new business model, and became the non-replaceable online-encyclopedia, even Google could not challenge Wikipedia's position also; But in China now, this business model are not appealing any more, so Wikipedia need to promote their brand pro-actively, and there is no way to wait for users coming automaticly.

Herock

我的理解维基百科在国内的发展至少应该包括贡献者(或贡献量)的增加,以及使用者(获取信息者)的增加,前者影响整体内容的质量,后者主要影响维基百科在国内的影响力。

What I understand for the development of Wikipedia in China include two factors: the increase of contributors and the increase of usage. The prior one impacts the quality of content, and the later one impacts the influence in China.

对于前者,要想获得更大发展,可能需要进一步提高维基百科的知名度,以广泛吸引有贡献意愿和能力的贡献者;对于后者,要提供更广阔的渠道覆盖,即让用户可以以各种方式使用到维基百科。

For the prior one, to gain more development, Wikipedia in China may improve its popularity to attract more volunteer; for the later one, Wikipedia may require more coverage on different channels, making the availability for various ways to access Chinese Wikipedia.