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NARWHAL/July 2025

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NARWHAL across Wiki North America!

A NARWHAL meeting is planned for July 21, 2025 at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific. If you have a preference about the date, please say so on the discussion page.

  • NARWHAL = North American Regional Wiki Hub and Lab - It's an informal coalition of North America Wikimedians, mostly organizers, including Mexico, Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean. It's analogous to WALRUS for the U.S.

Attendees

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  1. Stephen Brown / Buaidh
  2. William Bothe
  3. Kevin Payravi - WikiPortraits joined the Essence Festival in New Orleans with AfroCROWD, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence_Festival_of_Culture WikiPortraits is collaborating with Wikimedia Benin to join the Festival of Masks
  4. Joe Mabel - a University of Washington grad student joined the last Seattle meeting to discuss the nature of Wikimedia talk pages, which is their topic for research
  5. Alan Wu
  6. Peaceray - Joe, SounderBruce, and Peaceray organized a photo walk https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cascadia_Wikimedians_July_2025_Seattle_photo_walk and are soon to present the Seattle Wiknic. Also those on the WikiConference Program committee are now grading the submissions
  7. Peter Meyer - Wikimedia DC is inviting applications for wiki culture sector professionals and aspirants to join a GLAM bookcamp September 18-21 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfc95tK372Zp_-_gR9-V_kT0bjB8uT9TMOWfXrQsvY4TcjfGg/viewform
  8. Richard / Pharos - recently organized the New York City Wiknic and collaborated with the Women Make News project
  9. Lane Rasberry
  10. Lodewijk
  11. Jackie Koerner
  12. Kelly / user:Luiysia - organized Chicago Wiknic last week, 20 attendees
  13. Bob Kosovsky

Notes

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  1. WCNA 2025 news (Pharos and others)
    1. Great North American Wiknic - summer picnic/centralnotice season
    2. Wiknic season is closing soon - a few left
    3. Richard is seeking any additional reports to include in year's results
  2. Other events? SWAN meetings? Wiknics? Editathons? Parties? Meetups? Salons? Please add here to announce or describe them.
  3. Wikimedia Canada:
    1. Our Wiki Loves Earth campaign ended on June 30, currently starting round two of our jury evaluations
    2. Although we are not organizing a Canadian edition, the international organizers of the Wiki Science Competition asked us to share that the contest will run from November 1 to December 31, 2025 and individuals can still participate in areas without a local organizing committee by using the Other Countries upload form
    3. Some members of the WikiClub Toronto attend the Electronic Literature Organization conference (https://elo25.org/ ) in Toronto on July 12 to do a photo booth and answer questions from attendees about Wikipedia - will try to add the links to the category as photos are uploaded (thanks to Kevin from WikiPortraits for the photo booth advice!)
  4. Other Hub developments (NAhub = North American hub)
    1. We have an Monthly online newsletter as other Wiki groups have; and sources to draw from for list of events
    2. Peter invites opinions on (1) user groups having representatives, and if anyone present might be a user group representative, and (2) holding office hours for the NAhub.
    3. Invitation
    4. Ideas are offered: Hub as a zone for people who aren't in user groups already ; Hub should enable people to participate on-wiki not always in online synchronous meetings ;
    5. North American Wikimedians#Events
    6. There is now a collapsed dynamic link on the page for Events from the Collaboration list.
    7. Please update your current years/dates!
    8. user:Reading Beans requests collaborators for Wiki Loves AfroLiterature
  5. Vote in the 2025 election for Wikimedia Foundation trustees
    1. Affiliate shortlist voting in the 2025 election for Wikimedia Foundation trustees. More here: Wikimedia affiliates shortlist 12 candidates to 6
    2. Each affiliate will produce its own list of <=6 candidates. Deadline 28 July 2025.
    3. Have all the North America affiliates (a) selected their shortlist candidates and (b) their representative to email their shortlist and (c) documented their shortlisting process? Note: the shortlist process for each affiliate will be made public later in the voting process. (At a WCNA COT meeting last week, it was decided that Rosie will send the WCNA UG shortlist.)
    4. Disclosure - Lane Rasberry user:bluerasberry added this agenda item and Lane is a candidate / NARWHAL person
    5. Whatever happens, get out the vote
  6. Major proposals seeking comments
    1. Proposal to close Wikinews
    2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal_for_Closing_Wikinews
    3. How is WikiNews different from other projects?
      1. Wikinews is less known and less traffic than other projects. Also few editors
      2. Wikinews is less likely to be used as a standalone service than Wikidata and Commons
      3. Wikinews is currently most popular in Russian, Serbian, and English
      4. The state of Russian Wikinews is a major part of this current discussion
      5. Russian publications post content with CC licenses which means editors import those articles more often, but also, they import the views of those articles
      6. Naysayers say that the cost of reforming Wikinews in the Russian language community is too high right now
      7. Supporters argue that Wikinews has not had tech development in years and would improve with long-requested feature improvement
      8. Richard has a reform proposal in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_Pulse
    4. Status of WikiSpore
      1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_consultation_about_Wikispore
  7. North American Hub
    1. as previously discussed a lot in this group, the Wikimedia North American Hub group made an application to the Wikimedia Foundation for a grant to organize
    2. Wikimedia Foundation declined the application
    3. there is an opportunity to reform and reapply end of October
    4. the Wikimedia Foundation's criticisms and desires are unclear
    5. they claimed that there was not enough outreach
    6. they claimed that there was not enough representation
    7. somehow, we have to demonstrate outreach and representation
    8. where do we get organizers?
    9. Peter: I am tapped out from the last proposal
    10. Stephen: The Platt River is a mile wide and an inch deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platte_River (meaning we are committed broadly but lack the labor to organize it all)
    11. how can we get comments on the past, declined submission
      1. Bob, Stephen, and Lodewijk are interested in reviewing the declined submission
      2. Lane is interested in re-drafting a next submission
  8. Grants review committee
    1. Lodewijk is leaving this committee at the end of their 3-year term
    2. seeking applicants - Grants:Committees/Committee Open Call/US & Canada Candidates
    3. what are the incentives?
    4. small stipend from Wikimedia Foundation - pays for lunch during meeting time, and lower than minimum wage for labor

Agenda

[edit]
  1. WCNA 2025 news (Pharos and others)
  2. Great North American Wiknic - summer picnic/centralnotice season
  3. Other events? SWAN meetings? Wiknics? Editathons? Parties? Meetups? Salons? Please add here to announce or describe them.
    1. Wikimedia Canada:
      • Our Wiki Loves Earth campaign ended on June 30, currently starting round two of our jury evaluations
      • Although we are not organizing a Canadian edition, the international organizers of the Wiki Science Competition asked us to share that the contest will run from November 1 to December 31, 2025 and individuals can still participate in areas without a local organizing committee by using the Other Countries upload form
      • Some members of the WikiClub Toronto attend the Electronic Literature Organization conference in Toronto on July 12 to do a photo booth and answer questions from attendees about Wikipedia - will try to add the links to the category as photos are uploaded (thanks to Kevin from WikiPortraits for the photo booth advice!)
  4. Other Hub developments
    1. We have an Monthly online newsletter as other Wiki groups have; and sources to draw from for list of events
    2. North AmericaThis user supports the creation of a
      North American Hub
      Please consider adding {{User NAH}} to your meta user pages to get the userbox at right.
  5. North American Wikimedians#Events
    1. There is now a collapsed dynamic link on the page for Events from the Collaboration list.
    2. Please update your current years/dates!
    3. user:Reading Beans requests collaborators for Wiki Loves AfroLiterature
  6. Affiliate shortlist voting in the 2025 election for Wikimedia Foundation trustees. More here: Wikimedia affiliates shortlist 12 candidates to 6
    1. Each affiliate will produce its own list of <=6 candidates. Deadline 28 July 2025.
    2. Have all the North America affiliates (a) selected their shortlist candidates and (b) their representative to email their shortlist and (c) documented their shortlisting process? Note: the shortlist process for each affiliate will be made public later in the voting process. (At a WCNA COT meeting last week, it was decided that Rosie will send the WCNA UG shortlist.)
    3. Disclosure - Lane Rasberry user:bluerasberry added this agenda item and Lane is a candidate / NARWHAL person
    4. Lane requests votes from NARWHAL members
    5. Actual election where all Wikimedia users vote: August 27, 2025―September 10, 2025

Background

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