Wikimedia Targets One Billion Monthly Visitors by 2015

The Wikimedia Foundation, the team currently maintaining and improving Wikipedia, has recently released their five-year strategic plan which, among other things, aims at attracting 1 billion users to its websites.

Continuing their declared intention to keep all aspects of Wikimedia as transparent as possible, Ting Chen, Chair of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, posted their expectations for 2015.

This plan is the first of its kind for this company and it was created by more than 1000 participants who engaged in a “transparent collaborative process” between 2009 and 2010.

The dedicated blog post describes long-term goals, including stabilizing Wikimedia financial and organizational status, encouraging participation and innovation, as well as increasing their reach.

As optimistic as these targets might sound, they are also somewhat vague, and this is why Ting Chen goes on to list several precise ones:

· 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

Needless to say, they are all connected to the previously mentioned goals, as supporting 1 billion visitors will require a more solid and better maintained infrastructure. More data centers will need to be built in various locations around the world.

Furthermore, the process of becoming an editor will need to be simplified while still finding the way to increase the quality of the articles.

At the end of the day, Wikimedia Foundation will essentially need more donations from its visitors, so Jimmy Wales banners will surely be integrated again within Wikipedia to encourage users to contribute to the largest free encyclopedia on the Internet.