The Economist: “CASSANDRA has decided to revisit her fellow forecasters Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys to find out what their predictions are for 2014. Once again they have produced a collection of trends for the year ahead, in their “Global Trends Report”.
The possibilities of mind control seem alarming ( point 6) as do the implications of growing income inequality (point 10). Cassandra also hopes that “unemployability” and “unemployerability”, as discussed in point 9, are contested next year (on both linguistic and social fronts).
Nevertheless, the forecasts make for intriguing reading and highlights appear below.
1. From social everything to being smart socially
Social technologies are everywhere, but these vast repositories of digital “stuff” bury the exceptional among the unimportant. It’s time to get socially smart. Users are moving to niche networks to bring back the community feel and intelligence to social interactions. Businesses need to get smarter about extracting and delivering value from big data including challenging business models. For social networks, mobile is the great leveller. Competition for attention with other apps will intensify the battle to own key assets from identity to news sharing, demanding radical reinvention.
2. Information security: The genie is out of the bottle
Thought your information was safe? Think again. The information security genie is out of the bottle as cyber-surveillance and data mining by public and private organizations increases – and don’t forget criminal networks and whistleblowers. It will be increasingly hard to tell friend from foe in cyberspace as networks build artificial intelligence to decipher your emotions and smart cities track your every move. Big brother is here: Protecting identity, information and societies will be a priority for all.
3. Who needs shops anyway?
Retailers are facing a digitally driven perfect storm. Connectivity, rising consumer influence, time scarcity, mobile payments, and the internet of things, are changing where, when and how we shop – if smart machines have not already done the job. Add the sharing economy, driven by younger generations where experience and sustainable consumption are more important than ownership, and traditional retail models break down. The future of shops will be increasingly defined by experiential spaces offering personalized service, integrated online and offline value propositions, and pop-up stores to satisfy demands for immediacy and surprise.
4. Redistributing the industrial revolution
Complex, global value chains are being redistributed by new technologies, labour market shifts and connectivity. Small-scale manufacturing, including 3D and soon 4D printing, and shifting production economics are moving production closer to markets and enabling mass customization – not just by companies but by the tech-enabled maker movement which is going mainstream. Rising labour costs in developing markets, high unemployment in developed markets, global access to online talent and knowledge, plus advances in robotics mean reshoring of production to developed markets will increase. Mobility, flexibility and networks will define the future industrial landscape.
5. Hubonomics: The new face of globalization
As production and consumption become more distributed, hubs will characterize the next wave of “globalization.” They will specialize to support the needs of growing regional trade, emerging city states, on-line communities of choice, and the next generation of flexible workers and entrepreneurs. Underpinning these hubs will be global knowledge networks and new business and governance models based on hubonomics™, that leverage global assets and hub strengths to deliver local value.
6. Sci-Fi is here: Making the impossible possible
Cross-disciplinary approaches and visionary entrepreneurs are driving scientific breakthroughs that could change not just our lives and work but our bodies and intelligence. Labs worldwide are opening up the vast possibilities of mind control and artificial intelligence, shape-shifting materials and self-organizing nanobots, cyborgs and enhanced humans, space exploration, and high-speed, intelligent transportation. Expect great debate around the ethics, financing, and distribution of public and private benefits of these advances – and the challenge of translating breakthroughs into replicable benefits.
7. Growing pains: Transforming markets and generations
The BRICS are succumbing to Newton’s law of gravitation: Brazil’s lost it, India’s losing it, China’s paying the price for growth, Russia’s failing to make a superpower come-back, and South Africa’s economy is in disarray. In other developing markets currencies have tumbled, Arab Spring governments are still in turmoil and social unrest is increasing along with the number of failing states. But the BRICS & Beyond growth engine is far from dead. Rather it is experiencing growing pains which demand significant shifts in governance, financial systems, education and economic policies to catch up. The likely transformers will be younger generations who aspire to greater freedom and quality of life than their parents.
8. Panic versus denial: The resource gap grows, the global risks rise – but who is listening?
The complex nexus of food, water, energy and climate change presents huge global economic, environmental and societal challenges – heating up the battle to access new resources from the Arctic to fracking. Risks are growing, even as multilateral action stalls. It’s a crisis of morals, governance, and above all marketing and media, pitting crisis deniers against those who recognize the threats but are communicating panic versus reasoned solutions. Expect more debate and calls for responsible capitalism – those that are listening will be taking action at multiple levels in society and business.
9. Fighting unemployability and unemployerability
Companies are desperate for talented workers – yet unemployment rates remain high. Polarization towards higher and lower skill levels is squeezing mid-level jobs, even as employers complain that education systems are not preparing students for the jobs of the future. Fighting unemployability is driving new government-business partnerships worldwide, and will remain a critical issue given massive youth unemployment. Employers must also focus on organizational unemployerability – not being able to attract and retain desired talent – as new generations demand exciting and meaningful work where they can make an impact. If they can’t find it, they will quickly move on or swell the growing ranks of young entrepreneurs.
10. Surviving in a bipolar world: From expecting consistency to embracing ambiguity
Life is not fair, nor is it predictable. Income inequality is growing. Intolerance and nationalism are rising but interdependence is the currency of a connected world. Pressure on leaders to deliver results today is intense but so too is the need for fundamental change to succeed in the long term. The contradictions of leadership and life are increasing faster than our ability to reconcile the often polarized perspectives and values each embodies. Increasingly, they are driving irrational acts of leadership (think the US debt ceiling), geopolitical, social and religious tensions, and individual acts of violence. Surviving in this world will demand stronger, responsible leadership comfortable with and capable of embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, as opposed to expecting consistency and predictability.”
We must create a culture of “open data makers”
Rufus Pollock (@rufuspollock), Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation: “Open data and open knowledge are fundamentally about empowerment, about giving people – citizens, journalists, NGOs, companies and policy-makers – access to the information they need to understand and shape the world around them.
Through openness, we can ensure that technology and data improve science, governance, and society. Without it, we may see the increasing centralisation of knowledge – and therefore power – in the hands of the few, and a huge loss in our potential, individually and collectively, to innovate, understand, and improve the world around us.
Open data is data that can be freely accessed, used, built upon and shared by anyone, for any purpose. With digital technology – from mobiles to the internet – increasingly everywhere, we’re seeing a data revolution. Its a revolution both in the amount of data available and in our ability to use, and share, that data. And it’s changing everything we do – from how we travel home from work to how scientists do research, to how government set policy….
its about people, the people who use data, and the people who use the insights from that data to drive change. We need to create a culture of “open data makers”, people able and ready to make apps and insights with open data. We need to connect open data with those who have the best questions and the biggest needs – a healthcare worker in Zambia, the London commuter travelling home – and go beyond the data geeks and the tech savvy.”
Power to the people: how open data is improving health service delivery
The Guardian: “…What’s really interesting is how this data can be utilised by citizens to enable them to make more informed choices and demand improved services in sectors such as health. A growing community of technologists and social activists is emerging across Africa, supported by a burgeoning network of technology innovation hubs. They’re beginning to explore the ways in which data can be utilised to improve health outcomes.
In Northern Uganda, the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army conflict displaced two million people, leaving the social infrastructure in tatters. In 2008, the government launched a Peace, Recovery and Development Plan, but progress has been limited. There are insufficient health centres to serve the population, a severe shortage of staff, drugs and equipment, and corruption is widespread.
Cipesa – an organisation that uses communication technologies to support poverty reduction and development – and Numec, a local media organisation, have launched the iParticipate project. A multimedia platform is being populated with baseline data outlining the current status of the health service across three districts….
In the same region, Wougnet is training women to use information technologies to tackle social challenges. Local officials and community members have formed voluntary social accountability committees and been trained in the use of an online platform to capture and store information relating to poor governance and corruption in the health sector, often via mobile phones.
The platform strengthened campaign efforts which resulted in the construction of a health centre in Aloni Parish. In Amuru district, five health workers were arrested following reports highlighting negligence.
In the village of Bagega in Nigeria, 400 children died and thousands suffered significant health problems as the result of lead poisoning caused by poor mining practices. The government pledged $5.3m (£3.23m) for remediation, but the funds never reached the affected region.
A local organisation, Follow the Money, created an infographic highlighting the government’s commitments and combined this with real life testimonies and photographs showing the actual situation on the ground. Within 48 hours of a targeted Twitter campaign, the president committed to releasing funds to the village and, in February this year, children started receiving long overdue medical attention.
All these initiatives depend on access to critical government data and an active citizens who feel empowered to effect change in their own lives and communities. At present, it’s often hard to access data which is sufficiently granular, particularly at district or local level. For citizens to be engaged with information from government, it also needs to be accessible in ways that are simple to understand and linked to campaigns that impact their daily lives.
Tracking expenditure can also operate across borders. Donors are beginning to open up aid data by publishing to the IATI registry. This transparency by donor governments should improve the effectiveness of aid spending and contribute towards improved health outcomes.
It’s hard to draw general conclusions about how technology can contribute towards improving health outcomes, particularly when context is so critical and the field is so new. Nonetheless, some themes are emerging which can maximise the chances of an intervention’s success.
It can at times be challenging to encourage citizens to report for an array of reasons, including a lack of belief in their ability to effect change, cultural norms, a lack of time and both perceived and real risks. Still, participation seems to increase when citizens receive feedback from reports submitted and when mechanisms are in place that enable citizens to take collective action. On-the-ground testimonies and evidence can also help shift public opinion and amplify critical messages.
Interventions are dramatically strengthened when integrated into wider programmes, implemented by organisations that have established a strong relationship with the communities in which they work. They need to be backed by at least one strong civil society organisation that can follow up on any reports, queries or challenges which may arise. Where possible, engagement from government and local leaders can make a real difference. Identifying champions within government can also significantly improve responsiveness.”
6 Projects That Make Data More Accessible Win $100,000 Each From Gates
Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Six nonprofit projects that aim to combine multiple sets of data to help solve social problems have each won $100,000 grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…The winners:
• Pushpa Aman Singh, who founded GuideStar India as an effort of the Civil Society Information Services India. GuideStar India is the most comprehensive database of India’s registered charities. It has profiles of more than 4,000 organizations, and Ms. Singh plans to expand that number and the types of information included.
• Development Initiatives, an international aid organization, to support its partnership with the Ugandan nonprofit Development Research and Training. Together, they are trying to help residents of two districts in Uganda identify a key problem the communities face and use existing data sets to build both online and offline tools to help tackle that challenge…
• H.V. Jagadish, at the University of Michigan, to develop a prototype that will merge sets of incompatible geographic data to make them comparable. Mr. Jagadish, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, points to crime precincts and school districts as an example. “We want to understand the impact of education on crime, but the districts don’t quite overlap with the precincts,” he says. “This tool will address the lack of overlap.”
• Vijay Modi, at Columbia University, to work with government agencies and charities in Nigeria on a tool similar to Foursquare, the social network that allows people to share their location with friends. Mr. Modi, a mechanical-engineering professor and faculty member of the university’s Earth Institute, envisions a tool that will help people find important resources more easily…
• Gisli Olafsson and his team at NetHope, a network of aid organizations. The group is building a tool to help humanitarian charities share their data more widely and in real time—potentially saving more lives during disasters…
• Development Gateway, a nonprofit that assists international development charities with technology, and GroundTruth Initiative, a nonprofit that helps residents of communities learn mapping and media skills. The two groups want to give people living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, more detailed information about local schools…”
Citizen participation in municipal budgeting: Origins, practices, impact
Leighton Walter Kille: “Citizen participation in governance is generally limited to the ballot box in the United States: If you don’t like what the last year’s crop of politicians is up to, throw them out of office next year. Residents almost never have a say on budget decisions beyond holding protests at press conferences or picketing city hall. Appointed community boards are found in New York and other municipalities, but their roles are strictly advisory. Still, more participation can lead to greater perceptions of procedural fairness and support for government, some research has shown.
For residents of other countries, more options exist. A practice known as “participatory budgeting” (PB) allows citizens to determine how some government funds are used. As detailed in a 2010 study by political scientist Yves Sintomer of the University of Paris and others, “Learning from the South: Participatory Budgeting Worldwide,” it was first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in the late 1980s. Residents took part in local and citywide assemblies to help establish spending priorities for a select portion of the city’s spending budget. Larger issues such as taxation, debt service and pensions were specifically excluded. (A 2003 study from the Inter-American Development Bank and Harvard University goes deep into the specifics of the Brazilian experience.)
Since this beginning, participatory budgeting has spread to hundreds of other cities around the world, Sintomer and his team state: “There are between 511 and 920 participatory budgets in Latin America: more than the half of the participatory budgets in the world, where we can count between 795 and 1,469 experiences.” The range of numbers is an indication of how widely definition of participatory budgeting varies. Interest in the United States has been growing, with a number of New York council districts using the technique, as well as Chicago and Vallejo, California.
A 2013 paper in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, “The Struggle for a Voice: Tensions between Associations and Citizens in Participatory Budgeting,” notes that “the heterogeneous nature of the existing experiments calls into question even the possibility of defining [participatory budgeting].” Similarly, in a 2012 issue of the Journal of Public Deliberation dedicated to the issue, the authors note that “there is no standardized set of ‘best practices’ that governments are adopting, but there are a broader set of principles that are adapted by local governments to meet local circumstances.” Writing in the issue, Brian Wampler of Boise State University, states that there are four main principles: active citizen participation; increased citizen authority; improved governmental transparency; and reallocation of resources to improve social justice.
A 2013 study in the American Review of Public Administration, “Citizen Input in the Budget Process: When Does It Matter Most?” examines the impact of public participation on organizational effectiveness. The researchers, Hai (David) Guo and Milena I. Neshkova of Florida International University, used survey data from state departments of transportation to examine the effectiveness of citizen input at four different stages of the budgeting process: information sharing, budget discussion, budget decision and program assessment.
The findings of the study include:
- Citizen participation is positively correlated with higher organizational performance. “In general if a state DOT adopts more citizen input strategies in the budget process, it achieves better outcomes. In other words, other things held equal, more citizen participation in the budget process is associated with fewer poor-quality roads and less fatalities on state highways.”
- In terms of road condition, citizen participation makes a difference at all but the budget discussion stage.
- Overall, citizen input matters most at the information-sharing and program-assessment stages. Consequently, “public managers should seek public input at these stages not only because it is normatively desirable but also for the very practical reasons of achieving better performance. When conveyed at the information-sharing stage, citizens’ preferences can be taken into account by decision makers and incorporated into the budget priorities.”
From Crowdsourcing to Crowdseeding: The Cutting Edge of Empowerment?
New chapter by Peter van der Windt in the book Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood: “In 2009 Columbia University launched a pilot project in the Kivus region of the Democratic Republic of Congo called Voix des Kivus. The point of the project was to examine the potential for using SMS technology to gather conflict event data in real-time. Given previous experiences in Eastern Congo, the research team expected that collecting high-quality event data in Eastern Congo in the traditional way (sending out enumerator teams) would be challenging, while using traditional approaches to collect event information in real-time would be impossible. As a result the team launched an SMS-based pilot project called Voix des Kivus. Parts of the Kivus have cellphone coverage, and cellphones are relatively inexpensive. Moreover, while enumerator teams have problems crossing bad roads or washed-away bridges, phone-signals do not. Finally, an SMS-message sent is received
instantaneously.
The Voix des Kivus project used a “crowdseeding” approach which combines the innovations of crowdsourcing with standard principles of survey research and
statistical analysis. It used a sampling frame, selected sites through systematic random sampling, and identified specific reporters in each site. Researchers then
“seeded” mobile phones to select “phoneholders” and trained them on how to use the system and what to report. Only these pre-selected reporters could contribute
into the system, rather than anyone with a mobile phone or connection of some sort, as it the case with standard crowdsourcing platforms.
This chapter draws on this experience to discuss how such ICT projects might empower populations by enabling the collection and distribution of information as an alternative mechanism of governance…”
Findings from the emerging field of Transparency Research
Tiago Peixoto: “HEC Paris has just hosted the 3rd Global Conference on Transparency Research, and they have made the list of accepted papers available. …
As one goes through the papers, it is clear that unlike most of the open government space, when it comes to research, transparency is treated less as a matter of technology and formats and more as a matter of social and political institutions. And that is a good thing.”
This year’s papers are listed below:
- Hannes Meissner: “Functioning , Effects and Perspectives of Transparency Initiatives – The Example of Azerbaijan“
- Luis Emilio Cuenca Botey & Laure Célérier: ‘Participatory Budgeting: a Bourdieusian Interpretation‘
- Tsvetelina Yordanova: ‘Transparency in Foreign Policy and International Relations‘
- Maarten Hillebrandt: ‘A Map without a Compass? Evaluating the Transparency-Democracy Fit in the Council of the EU‘
- Silvana Fumega: ‘Opening the Cities: Open Government Data in Local Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay – Buenos Aires Preliminary Report‘
- Leopold Ringel: ‘The Uneasy Relationship of Organizations and Expectations of Transparency – A Theoretical Framework‘
- Carolyn Ball: ‘Indicators of Transparency and Trustworthiness in Nonprofits – Should we trust Nonprofits?‘
- Omar E. Hawthorne: ‘Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index: “best flawed”measure on Corruption?‘
- James H. Irving & Kimberley J. Smith: ‘Off-balance Sheet Arrangements, Transparency and the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis‘
- Robert Podolnjak & Đorđe Gardašević: ‘Great Expectations: The New Croatian Freedom of Information Act‘
- Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen & Jyldyz Kasymova: ‘A tale of empowering versus informing: a qualitative comparison of environmental transparency in New Jersey and the Netherlands‘
- Albert van Zyl: “Greasing the Wheels of the Accountability System: How Civil Society Organizations close the Gap between Transparency and Accountability“
- Claudia Cappelli, Renata Mendes de Araujo & Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite: “Managing Transparency guided by a Maturity Model“
- Jenny de Fine Licht:”The Effect of Transparency in Decision Making for Public Perceptions of Legitimacy in different Policy-areas“
- Ezekiel Mbitha Mwenzwa: “Transparency and Accountability in Kenya: A Review of the Institutional Framework for Public Service Delivery“
- Michelle Gallant: “Lawyers and Money Laundering Regulation: Testing the Limits of the Secrecy in Canada“
- Mark Aspinwall: “Transparency and rule of Law: Conceptualizing the relationship“
- Albert J. Meijer: “The History of Transparency: Analysing the Long-term Socio-Political Construction of Transparency in the Netherlands“
- Oana B. Albu & Mikkel Flyverbom: “Categories and Dimensions of Organizational Transparency“
- Frankie Schram: “The relationship between the protection of privacy, the processing of personal data and the FOI-legislation in Belgium“
- Laurent Bibard: “On Transparency and the Common Good: A Temperate Approach“
- Mark Fenster: “Transparency as a Theory of Communication“
- Lars Thøger Christensen & George Cheney: “Peering into Transparency – Ideals Proxies and Organizational Practices“
- Abiola O. Makinwa: “Transparency and Corruption: Bypassing the Compromised State“
- Sandrine Baume: “Does Transparency Engender the Confidence of the Governed? A Contribution to Political Thought“
- Milena Mihaylova: “Implementation of the Concept of Transparency by EU Institutions: Access to documents“
- Prashant Sharma: “Turbid Transparency: The Making of the Right to Information Act in India“
- Rodrigo Mora Ortega: “Strategic Litigation on Access to Public Employees’ e-mails in Chile: putting things right?“
- Atina Krajewska: “In Search of the Holy Grail of Transparent and Coherent Global Health Law“
- Megan Donaldson: “Transparency and the Construction of a Global Public: Formal Transparency Policies in the Multilateral Development Banks“
- Benjamin Greer & Jeffery G. Purvis: “Human Trafficking Corporate Supply Chain Transparency: How best to legislatively approach disclosure“
- Imelda Maher: “Transparency and Networks: Accounting for Governance in the Competition Sphere“
- Benjamin Worthy: “David Cameron’s Transparency Revolution?
- Mikkel Flyverbom & Christina Garsten: “The sway of (big) data – calculations and advocacy in the name of transparency“
- Alon Peled: “Effective Openness – The Role of Open Data 2.0 in a wider Transparency Program“
- Gregory Michener and Benjamin Worthy, “From Fishing to Experimentation: Transparency as Information Gathering – A Typology and Framework for Analysis“
- Harmen H. P. Groenhart: “From Punishment to reward: Shifting perspectives on public media accountability“
Open Data Barometer
Press Release by the Open Data Research Network: “New research by World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data Institute shows that 55% of countries surveyed have open data initiatives in place, yet less than 10% of key government datasets across the world are truly open to the public…the Open Data Barometer. This 77-country study, which considers the interlinked areas of policy, implementation and impact, ranks the UK at number one. The USA, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark and Norway (tied) make up the rest of the top five. Kenya is ranked as the most advanced developing country, outperforming richer countries such as Ireland, Italy and Belgium in global comparisons.
The Barometer reveals that:
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55% of countries surveyed have formal open data policies in place.
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Valuable but potentially controversial datasets – such as company registers and land registers – are among the least likely to be openly released. It is unclear whether this stems from reluctance to drop lucrative access charges, or from desire to keep a lid on politically sensitive information, or both. However, the net effect is to severely limit the accountability benefits of open data.
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When they are released, government datasets are often issued in inaccessible formats. Across the nations surveyed, fewer that than 1 in 10 key datasets that could be used to hold governments to account, stimulate enterprise, and promote better social policy, are available and truly open for re-use.
The research also makes the case that:
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Efforts should be made to empower civil society, entrepreneurs and members of the public to use government data made available, rather than simply publishing data online.
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Business activity and innovation can be boosted by strong open data policies. In Denmark, for example, free of charge access to address data has had a significant economic impact. In 2010, an evaluation recorded an estimated financial benefit to society of EUR 62 million against costs of EUR 2million.”
Open Data Index provides first major assessment of state of open government data
Press Release from the Open Knowledge Foundation: “In the week of a major international summit on government transparency in London, the Open Knowledge Foundation has published its 2013 Open Data Index, showing that governments are still not providing enough information in an accessible form to their citizens and businesses.
The UK and US top the 2013 Index, which is a result of community-based surveys in 70 countries. They are followed by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Of the countries assessed, Cyprus, St Kitts & Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, Kenya and Burkina Faso ranked lowest. There are many countries where the governments are less open but that were not assessed because of lack of openness or a sufficiently engaged civil society. This includes 30 countries who are members of the Open Government Partnership.
The Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels, and reveals that whilst some good progress is being made, much remains to be done.
Rufus Pollock, Founder and CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation said:
Opening up government data drives democracy, accountability and innovation. It enables citizens to know and exercise their rights, and it brings benefits across society: from transport, to education and health. There has been a welcome increase in support for open data from governments in the last few years, but this Index reveals that too much valuable information is still unavailable.
The UK and US are leaders on open government data but even they have room for improvement: the US for example does not provide a single consolidated and open register of corporations, while the UK Electoral Commission lets down the UK’s good overall performance by not allowing open reuse of UK election data.
There is a very disappointing degree of openness of company registers across the board: only 5 out of the 20 leading countries have even basic information available via a truly open licence, and only 10 allow any form of bulk download. This information is critical for range of reasons – including tackling tax evasion and other forms of financial crime and corruption.
Less than half of the key datasets in the top 20 countries are available to re-use as open data, showing that even the leading countries do not fully understand the importance of citizens and businesses being able to legally and technically use, reuse and redistribute data. This enables them to build and share commercial and non-commercial services.
To see the full results: https://index.okfn.org. For graphs of the data: https://index.okfn.org/visualisations.”
The Decline of Wikipedia
Tom Simonite in MIT Technology Review: “The sixth most widely used website in the world is not run anything like the others in the top 10. It is not operated by a sophisticated corporation but by a leaderless collection of volunteers who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other. It rarely tries new things in the hope of luring visitors; in fact, it has changed little in a decade. And yet every month 10 billion pages are viewed on the English version of Wikipedia alone. When a major news event takes place, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, complex, widely sourced entries spring up within hours and evolve by the minute. Because there is no other free information source like it, many online services rely on Wikipedia. Look something up on Google or ask Siri a question on your iPhone, and you’ll often get back tidbits of information pulled from the encyclopedia and delivered as straight-up facts.
Yet Wikipedia and its stated ambition to “compile the sum of all human knowledge” are in trouble. The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia—and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation—has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking. Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own. Among the significant problems that aren’t getting resolved is the site’s skewed coverage: its entries on Pokemon and female porn stars are comprehensive, but its pages on female novelists or places in sub-Saharan Africa are sketchy. Authoritative entries remain elusive. Of the 1,000 articles that the project’s own volunteers have tagged as forming the core of a good encyclopedia, most don’t earn even Wikipedia’s own middle-ranking quality scores.
The main source of those problems is not mysterious….”