Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 3/Community input/Create Cultural Change for Inclusive Communities

Add links
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
Previous Create Cultural Change for Inclusive Communities

Community input

Next
Narrative of Change

Community input

Principles

Glossary

Currently, Wikimedia projects do not represent all possible communities and lack aspects of including more differences. Many communities expressed their wish to have a change in the culture in order to include more perspectives and ways of working, so that new contributors feel welcome and safe in our projects. A recurrent idea was to adopt a code of conduct and enforce it on the movement level, with a noticeable adaptability to local contexts.

Define and Implement clear rules and guidelines within the movement

  • Adopt a standardized Code of conduct (context dependant) and procedures for a safer environment.
    • Establish universal guidelines for interaction between Wikimedians (both offline and online) so that everyone can feel safe to participate.[1]
    • Adaptable to local contexts,[2] and be flexible to allow for cultural differences. Guidelines sent by the Foundation or even the community at large are mostly Western or Americanized.
  • Clarify the scope for our movement and not divert from it.[3]
  • Communication around Safety
    • Many Wikimedians pointed out that many users are uninformed about who to go to when they are harassed.[4]
    • More transparency is needed from the Trust & Safety team, particularly around investigations, sanctions, decision-making and used frameworks.[5]
  • Communication inside the Wikimedia movement (local/global, online/offline)
    • Clarify and share ways of managing conflicts and escalation paths within WMF for any Wikimedian to follow both online and offline.[6]
    • Wikimedia Foundation should clarify its role as well as the other instances' and document/record videos to spread across the whole movement.

Improve Governance within movement affiliates and Communities

  • Encourage a better internal organization inside the affiliates,[7] and be ready to support them in case of crisis.
  • Capacity building in domains such as leadership and conflict management.[8]
  • Address issues in the existing power structure online by providing additional training for administrators and continual assessment of administrator positions.[9]

Deploy Efforts to bring/sustain volunteers in the movement

  • Promote a positive and friendly atmosphere to foster inclusion and diversity in platforms through rewards, contests,[10] volunteer acknowledgement, and capacity building for administrators.[11]
  • Be proactive and reach out to new communities.[12]
    • Organize more targeted events.[13]
  • Diversity should not be a barrier to be part of the movement and even of decision-making
    • Exclusive use of English is a barrier for many to access resources and responsibility posts.[14]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ “Establish a universal code of conduct and universal friendly space expectation governing all on-wiki and off-wiki community interactions.” Hong Kong Strategy Salon - July 2019.
  2. ↑ “In some countries in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), LGBT is forbidden by the laws, so code of conducts cannot explicitly promote it, because Wikimedians would become targets.” Nigeria Youth Strategy Salon - July 2019.
  3. ↑ “Knowledge as a human right, rather than as a service” Spanish Speaking Community - May 2019.
  4. ↑ “Inform people about how they can reach out to report a problem (both on and off wiki). People are currently unaware of ways they can report or sanction bad behaviour.” Benin Strategy Salon (Parakou) - August 2019.
  5. ↑ ”T&S team poisons the atmosphere in the larger Wikimedia projects by making decisions without communication their reason, making their decisions unverifiable. Not allowing any objections to the ruling is something that cannot be in any civilized society”. German Speaking Community - June 2019.
  6. ↑ “There should be a clear guide and escalation path for any wikimedian to follow, either for online/offline work” Hindi Speaking Community - March/April 2019.
  7. ↑ “When Affcom committee approves user groups, one of their requirements could be that the user group should have by-laws and code of conduct document for their user group.” Hindi Speaking Community - June 2019.
  8. ↑ “Help/train affiliates about conflict resolution and management skills” Arabic Speaking Community - June 2019.
  9. ↑ “There should be regular check-up about admins and community should have the ability to revoke their status, the same way the vote for them being administrators.” Morocco Strategy Salon - July 2019.
  10. ↑ “To integrate diverse people (eg. LGBT, autistic people, women...), we should encourage controlled environments, such as thematic workshops or editing contests held live.” Polska Strategy Salon - September 2019.
  11. ↑ “Administrators should be schooled in social skills” German Speaking Community - June 2019.
  12. ↑ “There should be more work towards advocating the concept of open knowledge to the general public through different initiatives.” Spanish Speaking Community - May 2019.
  13. ↑ “Create more events (like WikiGap) in emerging countries, so that we can include people who don't otherwise have access to the internet.” Portuguese Speaking Community (Mozambique) - March / April 2019.
  14. ↑ “Systematic use of English creates a social barrier and discriminates non-English speakers.” French Speaking Community - July 2019.
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration_3/Community_input/Create_Cultural_Change_for_Inclusive_Communities&oldid=24035871"