On Saturday, the 8th of April 2017, a workshop was held at the offices of Wikimedia Deutschland in Berlin. 13 members of the German language community discussed from 10:00 am 3:30 pm about the strategy process. They had travelled to Berlin from all parts of Germany, one attendant even came to the workshop from the Netherlands. First we collected ideas with the following questions in mind:
What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?
What do we have to do to achieve our goals within the next 15 years?
Which impact should our projects have on society and politics within the next 15 years?
Dozens of ideas were collected. From these we voted for four ideas that were discussed in more detail.
What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?
What is important is legal certainty, because the internet is more commercialized than it used to be, as we can see from waves of cease-and-desist letters, cease-and-desist letters because of missing legal notices of websites. There should still be freedom of panorama in 15 years, in the whole of Europe and beyond. We should do more lobbying, for example in parliaments.
We have to think about what Wikipedians can do that would like to stay out of the Wikimedia institutions and what those can do that want to get involved with the Wikimedia institutions.
In 15 years: we can achieve more if we still have volunteers, active members that don't necessarily have to have a Wiki background, that transport our indeas into society. Without this our core of active participants stays small and limited.
The Fellow program should have been organized differently. The community got informed too late. There was no way to participate before the cooperation started. In my opinion we should have more open acess, but done together (chapter and community).
The Culture of Failure. Failing should be allowed. Some people are reluctant because they are afraid of criticism. The projects of volunteers should be allowed to fail, as well as the projects of chapters.
Chapter and user groups only have a small amount of members. But what about the parts of the community that are not members? How are they represented? We need a culture that take this into account.
As of now we almost have a monopoly by many. Wikipedia should be seen as port of call, but they should have awareness that they have to look further for information.
It would be great if Wikipedia would still extist in 2030 as it is today. And preferrably with a focus on text, not as multimedia or structured data. Past examples of multimedia in encyclopaedias have shown not to be successfull. Our strength is text.
Obstacles: generally a lack of knowledge about Wikimedia projects and their possibilities, lack of technology and access to the internet, traditional knowledge transfer is yet not taken into account sufficiently, no sufficient technical support by WMF in entering non latin script.
Steps: PR campaigns about the sense of free knowledge, workshops such as Train the Trainer to ensure quality for example through deman-oriented capacity and community building. To cooperate with external global partners and affiliates for strengthen affordable access to education and the internet, not only to the Wikimedia projects, because they are only starting points, but to Wikipedia Zero and beyond. Technical support by software development by WMF and affiliates on-site.
PR campaigns, free knowledge, workshops, cooperation, software development
By 2030, the Wikimedia Foundation and its affiliates and the Wikimedia communities, together with local partners, simplify the access to education and internet, and spread the advantages of free knowledge around the globe. They support in particular the needs of emerging communities to share content on a high quality level, based on the available sources, e.g. through technical support, capacity or community building.
emerging communities, simplifiying access
37 Community and Chapter, more transparency, culture of communication, gender-sensitive language, diversity
Because the donations are generated by the work of the community the community should have a say in how this money is spent. That is important for the motivation of the community.
Obstacles: The community is made up of many people with diverse opinions; working for the chapters and user groups is time consuming; members of the community are not always interested in the chapter or user groups, being part of a user group (Verein) costs money; (allegedly) no tradition of community participation. One may pose the question, if the "Community" exists at all in a sense, that it can be asked questions.
Meinungsbilder (opinions asked, a formal procedure for rule making or changing in de.wp) within the community (direct democracy); community elects members as representatives for the chapters and user groups (representative democracy); opinons are asked ad hoc. Asking for opinion through a Meinungsbild about a change in the distribution of grants.
Wikimedia-Wikis should be sustainable partners in a multipolar landscape of knowledge. This conviction hast to be translated into concrete action on all working-levels (operative, tactical and strategic)