Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 3/Community input/Coordinate Across Stakeholders

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Community input

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Community input

Principles

Glossary

Wikimedians around the world have expressed the need to be better connected with each other. Online editors with offline organisations, Sister Projects with Wikipedia, minority cultures with the broader movement, Affiliates with the Foundation… Currently, many communities feel they are isolated, or reinventing the wheel when solutions have been developed elsewhere but cannot be found. The underlying idea is that deeper coordination would allow to improve both the quality of our online content projects and the efficiency and equity of our offline organisations by enabling knowledge sharing, peer-support and co-built decisions.

WHAT - Communities want coordination between various actors

  • WMF and the movement (more communication,[1] transparency[2] and power distribution).[3]
  • Affiliates with each other[4] (more efficient communication channels, better knowledge management for success replication, help from biggest to smallest entities).[5]
  • Between the movement and partners (deep co-building of common practices).[6]
  • Between volunteers and staff (shared workflows, fluid communication channels, information sharing, eg. for software development[7] or GLAM).
  • Between online and offline Wikimedia communities (create a common sense of belonging by sharing information, knowledge and activities).[8]
  • Between various Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia with sister projects, language versions with each other...) to allow sharing best practices, tools, etc.

HOW - Communities want means and structures to sustain coordination

Dedicated resources for coordination/cooperation/communication

  • Human resources
    • Enable affiliates to hire stable staff,[9][10] (sustainable movement).
    • Provide Liaisons for online and offline communities.[11]
    • Empower volunteer communities to self-organize.[12]
    • Tools or platforms for communication and knowledge management.
    • Financial resources.
  • New structures for power distribution
    • Ideas: a global council,[13] a multilingual platform for decision making,[14] cooperation-building based on linguistic, regional or thematic hubs.[15]
    • WMF (or any other future decision-maker) to be better informed about local realities so as to adapt its programs or processes.[16]

Footnotes

  1. “There should be more connection/communication between WMF and users.” Hispanophone Community, June 2019.
  2. “There should be transparency so community can openly know where and how they can request access to resources.” Hindi Wikimedia Community, March-April 2019.
  3. “We need to decentralize and de-westernise the movement and invest in local leaders and schemes.”, Wikimedia UK Strategy Salon, July 2019.
  4. “Affiliates and regional entities should co-build their capacities through a sharing culture”, Catalan Strategy Salon, September 2019.
  5. “Big chapters must help smaller affiliates by sending members to other countries to empower the community there”, Arabic community, May 2019.
  6. “There should be a centralized platform gathering all stakeholders of open movement where they can collaborate with each other”, Hindi Community, June 2019.
  7. “Create better technical documentation so that volunteer developers can easily step in”, French Strategy Salon, July 2019.
  8. “There should be more communication and clarification from the "offline world" (especially WMF) towards online editors so that they understand their role and place in this model”, Hindi Wikimedia Community, March-April 2019.
  9. “We need to think about remuneration, because most people here are worried about their own subsistence and cannot dedicate time to volunteer activities”, Venezuela Strategy Salon, July 2019.
  10. “if we want the movement to thrive, each affiliate should have, in addition to volunteers, professional staff”, Côte d’Ivoire Strategy Meet Up, July 2019.
  11. “Liaison work should be developed, as it is crucial to facilitate relationships between groups and foster new ideas (eg. for Wiktionnaries to communicate between language versions)”, French Wiktionary Community, October 2019.
  12. “Projects must be as self-sustainable as possible, not depending on staff”, Catalan Strategy Salon, September 2019.
  13. “Create an elected global council”, Catalan Strategy Salon, September 2019.
  14. “Create a multilingual tool to facilitate decision-making and broad participation at the scale of the movement”, WMFR, May 2019.
  15. “Regional hubs: regional branches of Wikimedia to support various activities, help strengthen communities and empower volunteers on new levels”, Levant Strategy Salon, August 2019.
  16. “WMF should be more aware of local contexts in order to propose adapted solutions”, DRC Strategy Salon, September 2019.