救救"最受欢迎的参考网站"维基百科吧

WASHINGTON — WIKIPEDIA has come a long way since it started in 2001. With around 70,000 volunteers editing in over 100 languages, it is by far the world’s most popular reference site. Its future is also uncertain.

华盛顿——自2001年创立以来，维基百科(Wikipedia)取得了很大进步。它是迄今为止全世界最受欢迎的参考网站，有大约七万名志愿者用100多种语言对其进行编辑。但它的未来也充满了不确定性。

One of the biggest threats it faces is the rise of smartphones as the dominant personal computing device. A recent Pew Research Center report found that 39 of the top 50 news sites received more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop and laptop computers, sales of which have declined for years.

维基百科面临的最大威胁之一是智能手机的崛起，它已成为占据主导地位的个人计算设备。皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)最近发布的一项报告发现，在前50家新闻网站中，39家网站接收的来自移动设备的流量，超过来自台式机和笔记本电脑的流量。而台式机和笔记本电脑的销量多年来一直呈下滑趋势。

This is a challenge for Wikipedia, which has always depended on contributors hunched over keyboards searching references, discussing changes and writing articles using a special markup code. Even before smartphones were widespread, studies consistently showed that these are daunting tasks for newcomers. “Not even our youngest and most computer-savvy participants accomplished these tasks with ease,” a 2009 user test concluded. The difficulty of bringing on new volunteers has resulted in seven straight years of declining editor participation.

对向来依靠志愿者在键盘前弓身查找参考文献、讨论变更并用一种特殊的标记代码撰写文章的维基百科来说，这是一个挑战。甚至在智能手机广泛普及之前，就有研究一致表明，这些对新人来说是艰巨的任务。“哪怕是最年轻、最精通计算机的参与者也无法轻松完成这些任务，”2009年的一次用户测试断言。难以发展新志愿者导致编辑参与程度连续七年下滑。

In 2005, during Wikipedia’s peak years, there were months when more than 60 editors were made administrator — a position with special privileges in editing the English-language edition. For the past year, it has sometimes struggled to promote even one per month.

在维基百科尚处在巅峰时期的2005年，有几个月里被升为管理员的编辑超过60人。这些管理员在编辑英文版维基百科时享有特殊权限。而过去一年里，有时候每月提升一名管理员都很难。

The pool of potential Wikipedia editors could dry up as the number of mobile users keeps growing; it’s simply too hard to manipulate complex code on a tiny screen.

随着移动用户人数持续增加，潜在的维基百科编辑群可能会消失。在一个小屏幕上操作复杂代码实在太难了。

The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia’s operations but is not directly involved in content, is investigating solutions. Some ideas include touch-screen tools that would let Wikipedia editors sift through information and share content from their phones.

非营利性的维基媒体基金会(Wikimedia Foundation)负责维基百科的运行，但不直接参与内容编制。该基金会正在研究解决办法。现在的一些想法包括设置触摸屏工具，让维基百科的编辑能在手机上仔细检查信息并分享内容。

What has not suffered is fund-raising. The foundation, based in San Francisco, has a budget of roughly $60 million. How to fairly distribute resources has long been a topic of debate. How much should go to regional chapters and affiliates, or to groups devoted to non-English languages? How much should stay in the foundation to develop software, create mobile apps and maintain infrastructure?

不过资金筹集方面尚未受到影响。总部位于旧金山的该基金会的预算大致为6000万美元（约合3.7亿元人民币）。如何公平地分配资源一直是一个争论点。应该给地区性分支和附属机构，以及致力于非英语语言版本的团体分多少？为了开发软件和移动应用，以及维护基础设施，基金会要留下多少钱？

These tensions run through the community. Last year the foundation took the unprecedented step of forcing the installation of new software on the German-language Wikipedia. The German editors had shown their independent streak by resisting an earlier update to the site’s user interface. Against the wishes of veteran editors, the foundation installed a new way to view multimedia content and then set up an Orwellian-sounding “superprotect” feature to block obstinate administrators from changing it back.

这些紧张关系存在于整个维基界中。去年，基金会史无前例地强行在德语版维基百科上安装了新软件。在那之前，德语编辑表现出了他们的独立性特质，拒绝更新网站的用户界面。基金会不顾资深编辑的意愿，安装了一种查看多媒体内容的新方式，后来又设置了一种听起来颇具奥威尔气息的“超级保护”功能，阻止那些不愿屈服的管理员改回从前版本。

The latest clash had repercussions in the election this year for seats to the Wikimedia Foundation’s board of trustees — the most influential positions that volunteers can hold. The election — a record 5,000 voters turned out, nearly three times the number from the previous election — was a rebuke to the status quo; all three incumbents up for re-election were defeated, replaced by critics of the superprotect measures. Two other members will leave the 10-member board at the end of this year. Meanwhile, the foundation’s new executive director, Lila Tretikov, has been hiring developers from the world of open-source technology, and their lack of experience with Wikipedia content has concerned some veterans.

距今最近的冲突，影响到了今年维基媒体基金会董事会席位的选举。这是志愿者能担任的最有影响力的职位。此次选举是对现状的驳斥。投票人数达到了创纪录的5000人，几乎是上次选举的三倍。谋求连任的三名现任董事全部败北，被批评前述超级保护措施的人所取代。另外两名董事将在今年年底离开设有10个席位的董事会。与此同时，基金会的新任执行董事丽拉·特拉蒂科夫(Lila Tretikov)一直在从开源科技界招募研发人员，但他们与维基百科内容有关的工作经验的匮乏让一些资深人士感到担忧。

Could the pressure from mobile, and the internal tensions, tear Wikipedia apart? A world without it seems unimaginable, but consider the fate of other online communities. Founded in 1985, at the dawn of the Internet, the Well, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of the online community movement,” hosted an influential cast of dot-com luminaries on its electronic bulletin board discussion forums. By 1995, it was in steep decline, and today it is a shell of its former self. Blogging, celebrated a decade ago as pioneering an exciting new form of personal writing, has decreased significantly in the social-media age.

来自移动领域的压力，以及内部的紧张关系会最终摧毁维基百科吗？世界没了维基百科似乎无法想象，但想想其他在线社区的命运吧。自称“网络社区运动的发源地”的The Well创立于1985年，时值互联网时代的黎明。在它的电子公告论坛上，曾有一众颇具影响力的杰出网络人物出没。到了1995年，它急剧衰落。到今天，它已是空有其名了。在社交媒体时代，十年前被誉为开创了一种激动人心的个人写作新形式的博客，已大幅衰落。

These are existential challenges, but they can still be addressed. There is no other significant alternative to Wikipedia, and good will toward the project — a remarkable feat of altruism — could hardly be higher. If the foundation needed more donations, it could surely raise them.

这些是涉及生死存亡的挑战，但它们还是可以解决的。目前没有其他可以替代维基百科的重要网站。这项事业是一项非凡的利他主义壮举。对它的善意也几乎处在最高点。如果基金会需要更多捐赠，它肯定可以筹集到足够资金。

The real challenges for Wikipedia are to resolve the governance disputes — the tensions among foundation employees, longtime editors trying to protect their prerogatives, and new volunteers trying to break in — and to design a mobile-oriented editing environment. One board member, María Sefidari, warned that “some communities have become so change-resistant and innovation-averse” that they risk staying “stuck in 2006 while the rest of the Internet is thinking about 2020 and the next three billion users.”

维基百科真正的挑战是解决管理方面的争端，即基金会员工、努力保护既得权利的长期编辑和试图进入权力中心并设计一种以移动设备为导向的编辑环境的新志愿者之间的紧张局势。一位名叫玛丽亚·塞菲德里(María Sefidari)的董事会成员警告称，“一些团体变得如此抵制变革、反对创新”以至于面临着“固步自封在2006年的风险，而互联网的其他参与者正在考虑2020年和接下来的30亿用户”。

For the last few years, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives and other world-class institutions, libraries and museums have collaborated with Wikipedia’s volunteers to improve accuracy, quality of references and depth of multimedia on article pages. This movement dates from 2010, when the British Museum saw that Wikipedia’s visitor traffic to articles about its artifacts was five times greater than that of the museum’s own website. Grasping the power of Wikipedia to amplify its reach, the museum invited a Wikipedia editor to work with its curatorial staff. Since then, similar parternships have been set up with groups like the Cochrane Collaboration, a nonprofit organization that focuses on evidence-based health care, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

过去几年里，史密森尼学会(Smithsonian Institution)、美国国家档案馆(National Archives)和其他一些世界级机构、图书馆和博物馆与维基百科的志愿者展开合作，以改善准确性、参考文献的质量和文章页面上的多媒体深度。这项举措可追溯到2010年。当时，大英博物馆(British Museum)发现，维基百科上有关其藏品的文章的访问量，是它自己网站的五倍。该博物馆清楚地意识到，可以利用维基百科的力量来扩大自己的影响力，于是邀请维基百科的一名编辑和自己的策展员工合作。从那时起，维基百科还和关注循证医疗保健的非营利性组织科克伦协作网(Cochrane Collaboration)及美国疾病控制与预防中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)等组织建立起了类似的合作关系。

These are vital opportunities for Wikipedia to tap external expertise and enlarge its base of editors. It is also the most promising way to solve the considerable and often-noted gender gap among Wikipedia editors; in 2011, less than 15 percent were women.

这些是维基百科利用外部专业知识，并扩大编辑基础的重要机会，也是解决常被提到的维基百科编辑中性别差距巨大这个问题最具潜力的方法。2011年，其女性编辑所占比例不足15%。

The worst scenario is an end to Wikipedia, not with a bang but with a whimper: a long, slow decline in participation, accuracy and usefulness that is not quite dramatic enough to jolt the community into making meaningful reforms.

最糟糕的局面是维基百科不是轰然倒地，而是抽泣着爬向尽头：参与度、准确性和有用性长期缓慢下滑，剧烈程度却不足以让这个群体猛然醒悟，以进行有意义的改革。

No effort in history has gotten so much information at so little cost into the hands of so many — a feat made all the more remarkable by the absence of profit and owners. In an age of Internet giants, this most selfless of websites is worth saving.

史上没有哪项活动能以如此低的成本向这么多人提供这么多信息。不存在利润和所有者这一点，让这一壮举变得更加非凡。在互联网巨头林立的时代，这个最为大公无私的网站值得拯救。