The Wikipedia Crisis: Surviving AI & Political Problems

500 orders a month was manageable. 5,000 is my place. Embrace intelligent, order fulfillment with ShipStation. The only platform combined in order management, where-house workflows, inventory, returns and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Go to shipstation.com and use code Start to try ShipStation free for 60 days. Hey Kadira, hey Melissa. When we decided to talk about Wikipedia, I tried something. I asked Google's AI mode, what's happening with Wikipedia. Boom! I got an instant response detailing an exact situation. One of the top sources quoted, Wikipedia. And there was no need for me to visit Wikipedia to get what I was looking for. And that's exactly the problem. Anytime I ask a question a chat GPT or wonder something and say, Hey, to my favorite voice assistant, the answer I get might be pulling from Wikipedia. Over and over and over. Times that by millions of people in Wikipedia is suddenly overwhelmed by non-human traffic, which they never signed up for. Those some politics into the mix in Wikipedia may be about to fight for its very survival. So what's going on here is Wikipedia.org still relevant. And if it needs to adapt to stay alive, can it happen in time before the whole thing implodes? That's what we're here to fix. It's a big one, but I believe in us. Tell us more, Kadira. So spot on, Aaron. I was thinking about this myself, right? Is it just me or we go to Google or we ask chat GPT, you know, something about movie trivia or ancient history or a medical condition or sports stats or you're trying to settle a debate or you're trying to fill in a knowledge gap or maybe like me when you're watching a movie and you wonder who's that actor married to in real life or you're listening to a song and you wonder what year did that singer die, right? And exactly to your point, you type the question in Google or another search engine or chat. And most likely the information, the answer that you receive is pulled in part from Wikipedia. But the problem is we have to acknowledge Wikipedia has become a very trusted part of the internet, but a very quiet part of the internet, almost to the point where we forget it's there, right? We're not going directly to Wikipedia, a lot of us, to get our questions answered. And so behind the scenes of all of this, Wikipedia is in fact in trouble. And the stakes are bigger than what a lot of us might think. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, dramatic headline grabbing trouble at this point, but this is more of a slow structural unraveling that's raising some big uncomfortable questions, right? And Erin, you posed a few of them, but you know, just to kind of revisit, it's questions like, can Wikipedia really survive in this AI area where again, other search engines, other platforms are pulling, but not giving credit? Should it change? And if so, how much before it stops being Wikipedia? So if we rewind a little bit, right, Wikipedia launched back in 2001, long time ago. And it was kind of a radical idea, anywhere could contribute to this global encyclopedia. There was no paywall, there was no ads, just open knowledge curated by volunteers, and it worked. It scaled fast. It became one of the most visited websites in the world and set a new standard for collaborative information on the internet. But now it's facing these waves of challenges that might fundamentally shape what it is, or whether it even lasts. Traffic is down, way down. AI, like I said, AI tools like chat GPT, Google search summaries, like I said, they're pulling answers straight from Wikipedia without credit, but also without sending users back to the site. That's cute, right? Because fewer clicks means fewer donations, fewer donations, fewer contributors, fewer contributors, less visibility. And at the same time, you've got regulators, for example, in other countries like the UK and India, they're hitting Wikipedia with legal demands, some that could force anonymous volunteers to rebuild their identities or limit what kind of information can be published. That's a huge shift for a platform that was built on openness and global reach, right? And to that, many of the people who built Wikipedia's success, so you think about the editors, the translators, the fact checkers, they're burning out. Younger generations aren't joining in the same way. The mobile experience still feels stuck in 2010. And then Wikipedia has also long struggled with a diversity issue. So most editors are still male. They're still based in the West, and they represent a narrow slice of perspectives. Then, you've got misinformation and AI generated content that are starting to creep in. So that's making it harder to trust. What are we reading? Or to even know who wrote it, where did it come from? All of this puts the Wikipedia foundation, which is the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia in a really, really tough spot, right? So questions like, do they double down on openness and neutrality, even as the world becomes more litigious and polarized? Do they start licensing content to AI companies to protect their own sustainability? Should they invest in redesigns and re-granting and mobile first formats? Or is that selling out? Right? The old school internet ethos. I don't know. So that's what we want to unpack in today's episode. It's a lot, but I think we're up for the challenge, right? We have to ask ourselves a couple questions. Strategically, what moves could or should Wikipedia make to stay relevant without compromising its mission? From a brand and audience lens, how do you keep Gen Z and beyond engaged in a platform that was built for a desktop world? And then operationally, is this volunteer-based model still sustainable in the age of automation and misinformation and global legal pressure? So Aaron, Melissa, there's a lot there, but we're fearless fixers. We can do this. Let's talk about it. Where do we start? Melissa, should we talk about this? Let's start with the operations part. Can we sustain a volunteer nonprofit enterprise on the web that is this for many, not all, but many are this source of truth and now this data-mind resource? Can we keep it going with just a volunteer mentality? Is that viable right now? I think there's a lot of components to this, and Gideira, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that was excellent. That was an excellent summary. And that was like a Wikipedia summary there. I think just take a step back there, Aaron, before we get into diving into how to look at the operations, I really start looking at the customer base, the audience, right? So I think that Gideira, you hit on it. One of the things that I was actually thinking about as I was prepping for this call was, is it even worth fighting for in this new age, right? As I was looking at it, I was really looking at where do we go for our information? Gideira, you mentioned that, and right now, it's over 80% of all searches start with Google. That's just business operational topic, right? And so when you think about that, they're the undisputed king. They have over 90% of global search market share, over 8.5 billion searches per day. It's consistently the number one visit at site. Chat GBT is this new disruptive newcomer. It's at its peak. It's hitting about 1.5 billion visits per month, and that was a while ago. So I'm sure that actually it's way higher than that now on 2023. So can you imagine right now, 2025, what it is? But it's still your query tool. You browse it. It's not really the website that you're looking for when you go to Google. And then Wikipedia is this established institution. It consistently ranks in the top 10 most visited websites globally. So that's really great for the 5 billion total monthly visits. It's but it's been declining. And so that kind of led me to that idea of like, is it really worth fighting for? But I think that even though Wikipedia's audience is declining and shrinking, it's still enormous. Right? So it is worth fighting for. And I think it's because of the type of customers, Aaron, the type of people that actually go to Wikipedia. So you have what you would call with Wikipedia more of a, it's knowledge seeking mission. Like I go there when I'm like, it's actually kind of funny. When I Google something first, and if I don't necessarily believe it or trust it, I go to Wikipedia. Now it's weird me because when I kind of was doing this prep, one of the things they said is that typically people going to Wikipedia are on a knowledge seeking mission. You're not looking for the quick fact. You know that Wikipedia is going to be like forever, right? And so you are there to read it, really kind of figure out who, who, you know, look at the footnotes who actually inspired this comment or this paragraph, right? That they have all of it footnoted. And so it's a lot different than just putting in to chat, GBT's a question or even into Google. So that to me is why it's worth fighting for. It's an audience that's built a foundational understanding of what it is and what it's about. These are for students, researchers, curious minds, professionals, doing the deep work, right? So losing them isn't just about a traffic loss, you know, about the amount of traffic going into their website, but it's a loss of informed public. Now operationally though, how do you stay relevant in today's world? I think that we do have to think again about the customers. And so, you know, embracing maybe this Gen Z culture, culture and format mismatch with, yeah, right? Because they consume things like I talked about my children. They don't like this a lot on this podcast. And they're in that generation where texting is everything X is everything. So I always tease them. I'm like, if it's not in 30 characters, then they're not going to answer me, right? They're not that. And so really, that's the kind of, you know, tick tock, tock,ification of knowledge. You know, we have to understand. We have to be careful of that. But maybe instead of the wall of text that Wikipedia gives us, it's giving us the thing that I used to love at work, getting a TLDR summary at the top, right? I was one of those people that I did certain leaders that reported to me, sorry, about this Benjamin, that would write me three pages in an email, right? A summary. And so I told him, I said, look, I am the preview paying queen of Outlook. So if it doesn't, then the preview paying, I'm not reading it. And started to understand I wasn't serious about this. And he would put all the call to actions, either in the summary, or you need to read paragraph six, because this is important to your decision, right? Great. Thank you. And so what about doing something like that that is marked, it's community verified, you know, integrating maybe short videos, explaining from trusted educational creators, linking to an article, right? You know, so kind of trying to take that, you know, I need to have that information in a flash versus, and I want to have it all there, right, validated, but helping, you know, to gain users who might not look at Wikipedia as that first stop. I, I, I, I'm saying I agree with it. And I would argue we have that. We have that. Give me the, the snapshot summary. It's called chat GPT, right? So give me, tell me I need to know, pull from Wikipedia. If it's not in Wikipedia, give me other sources, give me, give me videos of rich media content, and give me the, the, the, expression, well, that's too long. Give me the one sentence version. That's you know, give me the one word, you know, and I mean, like, we can tailor the knowledge to our need. We don't necessarily need to read a long, you know, a, a, a, a, a, format curated page from top to bottom to digest information. So I just wonder like you're talking about the viability is should, should still be around. Is it should around as an interface? Or is this one of those things that it's like, you know, if it went away and became a behind the scenes resource and they could figure out that the, the, the will keep it, we'll call it monetized, even though it's a nonprofit, but keep it afloat. Is it one of those things that we're just kind of nostalgic for? Because it's the, from the early days of the web, just like Craigslist has been around since 1995. And now we have offer up and that hit with Gen Z and millennials and, and Craigslist still, still there, still old school text interface type of things. So, you know, it would we cry if Wikipedia.org was no longer a go to resource and it just powered the, the tools that we use now. I would cry. Yeah. Because again, you heard me talk about like, I will go down a rabbit hole. But I do think this is about evolution. And I'll get to that in a second. But I love question of like, should it still be around? Is it still relevant, right? I think answer is yes. And whenever I'm thinking about relevancy or should we continue to do this or should, you know, accompany or brand continue, I think the question is like, what sets it apart? Well, that's one of the questions. And so, yeah, I do think, you know, with Wikipedia, you know, again, that their sweet spot was all about like open knowledge and open, open information in this collaboration. And that's not necessarily the case with short and chat GPT. Like, it's my friend, cat or, you know, Google, right? And so, I think, you know, yes, again, it's run by this nonprofit. And it's, it was really about people being able to build something together. And we've talked about this on other episodes with other different topics. But I think especially now, people are hungry for this sense of togetherness and community, even spanning across the globe. But again, it's about how can that brand, that company, that platform, that business, whatever it may be, evolve so that the culture actually resonates today. So I, I would advocate, and I would definitely say that it is still relevant. It still makes sense. There is still a need because it's a very unique platform. This, again, this is in cyclopedia. And there are other platforms out there that we might be searching information for. But it is not Wikipedia in the sense of this community and collaboration. Yeah, I think you bring up a really good point too. I love what you said about partnership and collaboration and things like that. And maybe it's time for Wikipedia to take a different strategy in terms of AI and chat GPT and Google. And they're what you would maybe call their competitors and information. Is maybe they need to stop thinking of themselves as a destination and start embracing its role as that infrastructure for trusted knowledge because that's what we're talking about. Because of the validation component of it, we've always liked that they've had these editors in the background, making sure that things were as correct as possible. And also footnoting to their sources. That's a problem I have with a lot of these other things is that you're not sure. Like who they're talking about and then you can them and they can give you a slew of ideas. But it's like kind of not really connected to maybe the question that you really wanted answered. So maybe they need a reposition themselves as kind of the trust layer of the internet or some market themselves as something like that. And instead of fighting AI, they license their data. Okay. And that it citations and all the work that they've done to AI companies as a premium verified source. Right. So then when you think of it, it's like kind of like they have the inside track of Intel. Right. They're kind of like, you know, because you know who Wikipedia is in their brand. So Kadir, if you talk to your friend, chat. And they pull something, gives you an answer. It would cite Wikipedia verified fact. And then also maybe even have like a cute little icon or a link so that you could click into it if you wanted to do the thing that you do, which is go down that rabbit hole and see more about it. Or do you feel really good about that as a foundation and that you're like, okay, I can trust that this paragraph that was provided to me by my friend chat is actually it's as close to relevant as possible to what I was looking for. Right. And this would also maybe create a new revenue stream. I don't know where it really if that's something that they could, they could, but I think it's about looking about how do you collaborate with the future versus be left behind. And maybe that's what I, what are more about like whether we should have Wikipedia. Of course, we should have Wikipedia, but my fear is that no one's going to be using it because it's too good or anything like that. Yeah. Well, Melissa, I do wonder, I think part of the appeal of being a Wikipedia contributor editor is the, you know, you're maybe publicly recognized by name, but there's like, there's a swagger to it in the community of, you know, I'm a contributor. I've done this many articles or I've, you know, this is my my footprint on the page. If Wikipedia became more of that behind the scenes, extracting the data extraction tool, would there still be, can you, I would ask the mayor's own question, can you run a volunteer based initiative on a behind scenes resource where you lose the public visibility and you don't, you don't have any type of claim or platform to, you know, that has been behind it, external recognition for what you're doing to support the cause. Does that, does the way the, the poll to bring in a volunteer led workforce? Well, this might be something for Gideira to, to talk. Yeah, Gideira. I do think that it is important to understand the depth of motivation for being a participant and being an editor. That is definitely something there and don't get me wrong. I think all of us want to be appreciated. We all want, you know, our flowers at some point. But maybe there's a different way that they can do that, you know, they can publish, you know, our featured editors in, in each, right, you know, and with a little bio, maybe a link, and maybe in a link, a personal article or to a podcast or to whatever you want, right? But is there a way to recognize them without like changing that aspect of it while also partnering and kind of transforming and evolving towards the future? I, I do what your point is because, yes, of course, I think it's kind of a sticky and very cool thing to be, to sort of what could be, I mean, that makes you sound extremely smart because you must be, right? To say you're a Wikipedia contributor, but at the same time, I, I would, for that to be one of the things that's holding them back from potentially really transforming what kind of platform they can be for the greater good of general public information that is out there. Because there's so much information that is out there, like we were just talking, you know, there's all these other media platforms. And how do you validate all that information? And Wikipedia is a trusted source. So that's one of the things that is really something that we don't want to give up. Right. Well, and I think that's part of the complexity too, is we live in such a charged time where, you know, factors are upward dispute. Facts and history is subjective. Can we have a single source of truth with verified sources wherever they come from and have it universally accepted? And the answer right now is no, like you see the political push back and, and we don't have to get to deep into the politics, but you see all the detractors saying Wikipedia is doesn't stand for what I stand for or where's my voice on there. And so, you know, can it be universally representative? Right now it's not for whatever reason. It's having a moment of really critical analysis. Yeah. And I think too, it's important, like, you know, just going back to again, I don't know any brand company platform, whatever that hasn't evolved and hasn't looked around at what's happening in the rest of the world and whether it's politically, whether it's identity, socially, health wise, I mean, we've lived through a pandemic, hopefully, of once in, you know, a lifetime type of thing. But, you know, we have to look at what evolution means. And I think in this case, I think all really good points that both Erin and Melissa, you've made, I think with their evolution, you know, there is a greater responsibility now to be transparent about editorial decisions and acknowledging where that bias might exist. I think that, you know, there is an opportunity and when you think about balancing, it being volunteer letter, volunteer driven with the Wikipedia foundation that kind of runs the scenes, like, you know, financials and legal and all that stuff, like, is there an opportunity to have some sort of governance in place or stronger governance in place? I'm going to use the word framework again, where we kind of talk about what's in, what's out, you know, for the volunteers that might be editors or fact checkers. So, you know, as they think about evolving, as they think about, you know, continuing to be volunteer led, absolutely, I think there's opportunity for that. But I think that, you know, when they look at, again, what is happening in the world and what's happening in each of the countries where, you know, Wikipedia is translated and has a present, they have to think about how are they designing it so that the culture of Wikipedia, that original culture and brand of Wikipedia, can still exist, but how does it resonate one with what is happening today? But then also, what does that look like within the countries that it's serving? And that also means then touching the volunteers, the editors, the fact checkers who are also within those regions. Because that's going to look different, right? What makes sense? What recognition, what leadership, all those things looks like in the US is going to look different in India? It's going to look different in the UK. It's going to look different in, you know, Ghana. And so I think that, you know, they're not the first company, obviously, to have a, but it's something they have to be really, really, really, and, and customize, be really focused on how they're going to do that in each place that they're there. I totally agree. And I, and I, I think part of what's key to Wikipedia's survival is the, the buy-in and the participation and the community involvement, because it becomes a wasteland where things just age out and, um, and updated. Like, we need dissenting opinions on there. They did a study, there was an interview with the co-founder Jimmy Wales, a video interview that recently, and I touched on a study that came out. It was a 2019, but there was published in the journal Nature, and it was called the Wisdom of Polarized Crowds. And it said that it might be counterintuitive, but said that politically contentious Wikipedia pages end up being of higher quality. So they're more evidence-based, and they have, and when having more consensus around them. So by, you know, localizing, bringing it to, you know, the other countries to involved with, and having the, I guess, the boots on the ground, you know, perspective. Even if it's really, you know, far apart, the sides that contribute to far apart, when you have enough participation, it winds up being a highly-gly source. And you reach some, I guess, consensus or some factual understanding. But if the, if it goes away, it stateside or otherwise, you know, it's just the pieces start to fall apart, and I were at the precipice of that. I don't think we're seeing it yet, but it could happen. Like we could, you'd see a headline, but when this comes out, or shortly after saying, you know, Wikipedia is in trouble, or if the donation at the top of the page starts to become three-fourths of the page, you know, the, the plea vote. So I don't know, it's, it's right now. And I think, yeah, the decentralized model, too, is Wikipedia's superpower. So we're talking about that, right? And all of the editors, all of the countries, all of the inputs that are coming in, but it's also its biggest vulnerability in the age of AI and content, it's just getting flooded with, you know, moderate AI information. It's, it really needs to go through kind of an operational evolution, not a revolution, but evolution, right? And if they don't partner with these AI tools and understand that, they're going to have burnout of their editors, right? Because think about how, what the look herb must be for a new editor. It must be pretty steep, right? You're trying to edit a page with all this complex stuff in there, navigating what the norms are, the framework, if they even have a framework, must be very daunting. Then when combined, you'd with just the amount of low quality AI generated submissions that are probably coming in all the time, they have sift through this as a volunteer. That is really, doesn't feel like they're being used as a valuable asset that they were when they first started, right? You know, Aaron, when they're, when you're talking about how do we make our editors feel important? It's, it's dedicating that humanists that they add to it and also to, to, you know, the pride they're bringing into the information that is getting posted. So is there a way for them to deploy some sort of AI tools and use that not just for the end users, but for the editors, right? So create AI assistance that can flag potential vandalism or, you know, can flag that these in real time help them format, you know, the great thing about AI is you give them the framework and you give them the playbook and playbook, they all footnotes need to have this and they have to be validated in this way. Like let them, let do that for them. But so that they can really be working on a high level of curating those complex kind of interesting, I don't want to say they're disputes because Aaron, that's not what they are, but interesting commentary that's coming into Wikipedia that needs to be added. And those are the things that are driving what why people are selves, the curious people of the world go into Wikipedia, right? But I think that again, I think there's going to have to be some sort of partnership because I think that what you're going to end up doing is you're going to get so, you're going to have the tsunami of information and you're not going to be able to allow your editors to do the real work. Yeah, I love that Melissa. I think, I don't know, I've read somewhere that, you know, Wikipedia, I think is there's over 300 language additions of Wikipedia, right? So just going back to like the editors and, you know, the fact checkers and all those things. But guess, you know, which language dominates its English. And so, you know, how do we help other versions grow you know, when they're definitely as this uneven landscape, where some of these communities have this rich access to knowledge, and then others may have like a fraction of that. So I love, you know, what you just pointed out, because I think there is absolutely this knowledge gap that we have to close. And I think, you know, that's something that I probably would charge the Wikipedia and with, especially as investing in that local capacity exactly to your point, you know, is it AI tools? Is it, you know, how do you support those editors and their own language with training with, with funding? You know, I love you mentioned partnerships because I think it is so critical to develop your programming, your path forward, whatever with the people in that particular community, and that is not going to happen coming from the outside, you're going to have to do that with groups, organizations, you know, communities, residents in that particular region or country. So, you know, and I think the other thing is it means that, you know, the Wikipedia can't always assume that, you know, English Wikipedia or Wikipedia in, you know, the US or State side is the blueprint. And that sometimes can be tough, right, when, you know, for a lot of people, right? But like, we, I think we also have to think about like knowledge is not this one size fits all. And I always go back to like, what is notable in one place is not going to be notable in the other, what's essential in one place isn't going to be essential in the other. And so I think the way that I would think about this, if I were on that Wikipedia, you know, foundation team, is like, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to think about where does global equity and digital access really intersect? And again, I think, you know, between some of the suggestions that I just made, but Melissa, what you pointed out, like we're starting to chip away at, again, looking at this as an opportunity versus a roadblock. Right. And I do think that like, you know, I'm, I'm actually talking about this a little bit later on a different panel, but a genic AI is really a thing. And I think that the important component for Wikipedia is to partner with the current human editors, right? Ensuring that you understand what they actually need and where they might need help versus like just saying, okay, we're going to add an AI partner. Because I think that there's so many things that all of us in the workforce do that I would consider somewhat busy work tedious kind of things like that. And that's the thing that you could have an AI aid and help you with, right? Or a virtual editor or a virtual, you wouldn't call them an editor, call them an assistant, right? But then you have the real editor going in there or translator. I have a great example of that. I had some documents and I used to be in the insurance world. So very, very complex documents sent out to a translation service. And I, yeah, they sent them back to us. And it was hilarious because my trainer, this was a wonderful thing, native Spanish speaker. And he looked at the Spanish documents and he totally was laughing. Because they used like, I think we were asking, it was something about, it was actually HR stuff. We were talking about comp time, makeup time. Like if you had to miss two hours to take, go to a doctor's appointment, could you make up time in the, you know, later of the day, right? They used the verb for makeup as in like, makeup foundation. Right. And so, like, you have time to like, put makeup on your face, you know, and he was like, you almost just published that in the employee handbook. And I was like, oh my gosh, you know, and so that's the kind of thing where you still are always going to need a human assistant, a human touch to really kind of look at the nuances of what you're trying to create. It's content creation. It is very important. But do we need editors? And maybe you want human editors, I don't know, and there are people that, but this is a volunteer job, you know, I don't know who has that time, but like who are scoping through all to figure out what's fraud and what's not fraud. Right. And if there are some signals of fraud, you know, based on where, where the information is coming from, based on the amount of submissions, maybe it's like, they're getting flooded, hundreds of submissions every five minutes on this particular topic. You could, you might be like, okay, we need to block that and we need to investigate, right. But again, I do feel like there's such an opportunity for Wikipedia because they have been for so long that verified data backbone for all of us that you don't want to lose that, but they do have to figure out how to make it work in the future. Because I think that I feel like it's against it for them. If they don't do it, all these AI companies are going to kill them with information, but it's all of them so they can't, they can't update quick enough, right. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And do you keep going? If that's the case, like we're, we're not slowing down on our consumption of AI. So and chatbots and voice assistance and all that's just going to keep escalating. We're going to find new reasons and new technologies and new capabilities for them. So I do, can Wikipedia find it some piece in being the backbone to go to a resource for those other entities? Like that's just going to happen if they, you know, they can still keep up the.org and still get whatever dwindling, diminishing traffic over time, there will be, but that's where we're headed unless something changes. And from a brand standpoint, you can say, okay, well, be more visible as a brand and I started putting together some thoughts on that. And then I looked and they've done it. Like they they've saw merch and they've done, they did a collaboration with Lil Wayne and they did like a fashion thing and they look, it's cool stuff. So you can, you know, if you want to step up your brand footprint and and make sure people take it as an, you know, build it into their identity and and I'm a Wikipedia person, you can do that. Like maybe they could do a better job of it and put it into stores or something, but I don't know. Like you have to, you have to be a certain type of mentality that to wear Wikipedia, you know, a shirt out and around, especially in this climate when some people don't believe in Wikipedia. So is it a brand plan? I don't think so. It's just really, are they comfortable being a utility? Or is that dot org? I just have to keep coming back to is that that work still viable as as a standalone resource? I don't know. Yeah, I would, you know, I, I, again, I think we think about what the platform or this global encyclopedia needs to look like, you know, a year or five years from now and hopefully they're working on their five-year roadmap and and have some good strategies in place. But, you know, I think I'll go back to, to Melissa's point when you were talking about with the other AI platforms or if they look at them as competitors, figure out a way to start partnering with them. I would just double down on, on what you said, right? And there's been other brands that have been like, wait a minute. If we don't start figuring out how to partner with what potentially could be our competition, we're going to, they're going to start eating our lunch. And so I think that's similar, you know, I would completely echo that. I think they don't have to completely go away and I hope that they don't. But I do think, you know, partnering with chat, for example, or, you know, I had mentioned kind of in the in the intro figuring out how to license some of the content. If that's an opportunity, like they're going to need to look at opportunities like that versus just saying, you know, in the next five years, we're going to still be the standalone because I don't think that will be the case. You know, I just before we talk about what the fixes might be, I saw this analogy about Wikipedia. I thought this was very interesting because it, I think it kind of tells the story more creatively. So the analogy is Google is the coffee shop. Everyone goes there to start their day. We meet there, get a quick coffee, shy latte, whatever you get, right? It's loud, it's busy, it's full of ads, Google. Chat GBT is your super hyper efficient, all-knowing personal assistant. Give it a task and it gives you an answer to answer you want, right? Because depending on your prompt, right? It's fastest convenient. You don't always know where it gets its information, but you feel confident because it's your friend, right? Kadeera Chad. And so you go with it. Wikipedia, I thought this was very interesting because it may not reach to some of our audience. It's the public library. It's not flashy. Fewer people spend their time there than they used to, but it's a civic good, right? It's information, it's meticulously curated, it's free from commercial pressure and you can trace every fact back to its source. And I love those kind of comparisons because like that is in everybody's life kind of that kind of thing. So really, I do believe the audience Wikipedia is worth fighting for, not because of the volume of traffic going to the library because it's not very much, but it's worth fighting for because of the quality and the critical role it plays in today's world. And especially in the noise of the media today, I think, and not just media, but like all information sources. So I, you know, it's just a question of whether or not we know how to fix that. Yeah. I think that's great. That was a great analogy. And look, they all have a place. They all have a role, right? So yeah, okay. Yeah. And if you, you know, the New York City public library, the big, state-led building, if you put on our exhibitions there and you have author signings and you come up with reasons to come back and visit our building, it's an analogy for Wikipedia, but you give reasons to make it a destination. People might do that if you decentralize it and scatter the resources everywhere and, you know, you pick up a book and say, where did you get that book? This is exactly what I'm looking for. It doesn't matter where I got it, you know. Then that's another another application where the facts or the articles or the content still getting out there. It's what do you need the building for? So I don't know. Let's go. Let's fix it. We say that we, Wikipedia should exist. We were saying, take care of the people that are volunteering their time and I'm propping it up. Maybe give them the AI, we're in the nature of AI, maybe give them the AI tools they need to make their job more efficient or catch some of the verification things that there's a human fallacy behind. We're saying pay attention to the localization and the 300 plus languages that Wikipedia has an impact or footprint in. We're saying maybe license the technology or the content to these AI. All you can eat buffet hungry bots that come in and say thank you. And maybe there's some kind of sustainable revenue play there, again, not for a nonprofit, but keep it afloat, keep it thriving if the people that are the entities or institutions that are taking the biggest bites also become contributors monetarily. So if we put those into play, our, Katie, you're all come back to you. It's your topic. But Melissa, did we fix it? I think so. I think we, one of the most important things that we fixed was just bringing to light how important Wikipedia is fundamentally and foundationally. I think one of the things that Erin you brought up, which I really want to hit on to, besides the partnerships, I think partnerships is really important and evolving with AI and having that be your partner, but is the promotion and protection of the voluntary editors. I think that is really important. I think that they are now that, you know, and to use the modern term, their content creators, their influencers, Wikipedia influencers, you get a t-shirt, you get a put it on your LinkedIn. I don't care what, you know, whatever, but like they go through that vetting process. They've gone through the training. They have their own AI assistant to help them that through fraud, fraudulent submissions. And they're still the last touch. They're still signing off. They're redlining things, right? And I think that's really important. I don't want Wikipedia to use AI to dumb down their content, which I think that sometimes you see with chat. You kind of see a very generic watered down version of something you're looking for unless you prompt it to give you like very specific something, something, something. So that's one of the things. So I really, you know, I feel like it's an institution deserving of our attention and our protection, but I think the thing that's the driving force is the community that puts it all together, the global community, as Kadeera has mentioned as well, the diversity of voices that are heard, the diversity of languages and cultures that are represented really help to make Wikipedia what it is. Thanks, Melissa. What do you say, Kadeera? Yeah, I love that. Okay, so I'm going to try and keep us on on the piece. So Melissa just said, we talked about promotion and the protection. I think Wikipedia should start or somewhere quickly start asking, who do we want? So what's our purpose in the next five, 10, 20 years? Who do we want to be? Do we want to stay the same? What do we, what do we want to do? How do we want to evolve purpose? Absolutely, I would double down on partnerships, whether it is with us, we've talked about the AI platforms, but definitely local communities. They should not be building, designing anything, whether it is editor tools, going into any community, thinking about content, governance, etc. without that local community. So partnerships on both sides, and then I would say playbook, of course. So this I think is where the Wikipedia foundation, which can provide that governance, and again, you're going to customize it based on the region. You're going to customize it based on the country and that is going to be informed by those local partnerships, but there should still be this governance based on what you're saying, who do we want to be in the next five years that will start to answer some of those questions globally, universally, of what do we stand for? What do we believe in? What does, you know, editorial decisions look like? What's in, what's out? How are we going to approach this? So I think if we go there, I think we've got a really solid fix. I'm going to throw something at you both. What if we go the other way and Wikipedia, you know, instead of we can be good neighbors and partners and citizens and say, look, work with everybody that has been coming along and making our knowledge. What if we go the other way and say, now this is ours, whatever's on Wikipedia belongs to us and you can't have it. And maybe they're a little late to the party, but they come up with their own chatbot and it's, you know, wiki chat and they get fun, they get backing and support and they say, no, this, you know, anything that you can't, you're cut off today. Don't you think there might be a panic, right? Like all the AI tools that have been using Wikipedia as the foundation, they might go into a little bit of a tailspin and say, wait a minute, let's play ball here and that could bring everybody to the table, at least bring a lot more attention back to Wikipedia and make it viable again. So, you know, I'm playing with that idea is, yes, we can wait everybody out and say, we'll play by your rules or we could say, look, we have people to take care of, we do things a certain way, it's now it's locked down, it's ours. I think I'd be interested to see how that might play out. Yeah, it's possible. I mean, look, but using, you know, Melissa's analogy, right, you could, they could lock the content down. But, you know, if you're the trusted public library, can you compete with the coffee shop or the personal assistant versus, you know, thinking about what your new unique, you know, value prop is in that particular space. But I actually like the idea, Aaron. But, you know, I definitely think there's going to be a little bit of panic, but also just kind of scratching the head. And again, we think about like where are we headed from here? Do we need another one of those? Now, I don't think we do. I could hear that, but I think in maybe short term negotiation tactic, bring eyes back to Wikipedia of people say, oh, I forgot about you. Yeah. You know, yes, you're incredibly relevant. What do we have to do here? Yeah. Let's create a spectacle. That's my thought. I like, I like to go a little bit like Pandora's box like once it's out, it's out. So to be like being able to like say lock down their date, their information, it's too late for that. But I do love your idea of like, how do you into, you know, how do you kind of take a step back and look at what is our purpose? You know, we've talked a lot about companies now who are, feel like they're in a mission crisis, right? That they're what is their mission? And then how do they get out to the audience, right? And so the audience today is one that has everything right here on their phone. And, you know, Chad is always with you, Google's always with you, Wikipedia is always with you. But why are you choosing one over the other? Is really important. And so, you know, like I said, I think partnerships are really important. And I think there's something to be said, you know, like I think, you know, we've talked about universities and education, universities and schools are you are utilizing AI tools now because they know that it, you know, you're not going to get away from that. So what about them partnering though, because I'm old. So I remember going to the library and having to look up books, remember, like they give you a list and you'd have to look up the books in the card catalog or go to the micro beach, which I think our kids only think happens in movies. So like what about having them partner with those curious learners, right? With education, with college class, you know, like say this is a resource that you can use as your, you know, and let's talk about how you're going to cite Wikipedia and how you're going to do those things. Because I don't think that like I said, I think that because of the nature of AI, the way it is now, even if it's, even if you tell, okay, open AI, you're like, you can't use us anymore. There's all these other places that you can go. Yeah. It's now unfortunately. Yeah. You're going to go to deep seek. You're going to go somewhere else, right? So I guess my, my thought is I like that idea though, Aaron, of like integrating your mission and your purpose and figuring out new ways to bring people back to you. How do you do that to you? And, you know, and that's one of the things that I would love, like if you start young, right? It's like going library day was Wednesday at my elementary school. I remember that. Like if you start young and say, hey, you know what? We're going to have 20 minutes of Wikipedia day every Wednesday, Wikipedia Wednesdays in the elementary schools. They're going to start getting ingrained and that's a trusted source for me to go to when I want to learn about the dinosaurs in Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, Wikipedia, we've got ideas for you. So keep, keep tapping. Keep tapping on our shoulder. We've got, yeah, we're here for you. That's going to do it for this episode of We Fixed Your Welcome. Thank you so much, Melissa. Thank you so much, Kadeera. Excellent points throughout. And thank you, thanks, Kadeera, for taking us off so expertly on this multi-layered conversation. For those of you listening, how would you fix Wikipedia? We'd love to hear from you on social. You'll find us at We Fixed It Pod. And then we fixed it pod.com is our website. We're just flying through season two at this point. If you can't get enough and who can blame you, all of our archives are also at We Fixed It Pod.com. If you've listened to any of our episodes, you know that this is not just another business podcast. We do things our way. And we're not a secret anymore. The show is hit the top 10 in business management on Apple podcasts. And we're ranking consistently the top 100 in the entire business category with over 14,000 business podcasts on Apple. We know that you don't have time to listen to all of them. So that must mean you like what we're doing. And honestly, we wouldn't be here without you. So keep doing what you're doing. Keep listening. Tell at least one person today about our show. Throw some money at us. We'll take it. If you're a company that still needs fixing, don't worry. We hear you. We'll get to you. And you can thank us eventually. And we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP, and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.