This is the March-April summary report of Community Conversations. We're glad you're here! ;)
This report was made primarily for Working Groups members to review the results of Community Conversations from March and April. It was published on Meta-Wiki due to transparency. "You" means Working Group members, and "I" means Community Engagement Specialist, Kelsi Stine-Rowe.
The format is a pilot - let's talk about what you like and what you don't like, and our May version can adapt.
Each of the tables below has the community feedback organized by Working Group theme. The content from the affiliates is presented to you in the raw form of the notes that have been submitted. The content from our language communities is presented in summary form with efforts not to use any analysis or interpretive lens.
We encourage you to write back to the communities- either in this document, or on your own. More context about the data, this report, and next steps are in the FAQ section. Enjoy!
This report is a pilot. It is our first experiment in what it looks like to take our diverse community and share it with the Working Groups in a way that is useful, somewhat structured, and unaltered. The intention is for summaries like this- or in a differently evolved format- to be put together at the end of every month and presented to Working Groups for their consideration when drafting recommendations.
What's with all these tables?
Each table in the document lists the feedback from affiliate groups and from within our project and language communities for the period of March-April, organized by Working Group. On the left most column, you can view the source of the information (affiliate/community), followed by information to contextualize the source and then the actual content.
What have you done with the raw data?
There has been no analysis or interpretation of the content other than correcting spelling errors- it is arriving to you in the original context in which it was delivered to the Core Team. More specifically, there are two types of feedback here.
Feedback from affiliates: volunteer Strategy Liaisons from affiliates take their own summary notes of their conversations. These notes are sent to the Core Team, cleaned for spelling, and otherwise copied directly into this document underneath the thematic category identified by the Strategy Liaison.
Feedback from language communities: our contracted Strategy Liaisons from language communities facilitate conversations across multiple channels and using interviews. They summarize the main points of these discussions and sent reports to the Core Team, which are copied directly into this document by theme. These reports are also being translated and shared with their communities of origin, so that there is transparency and accountability regarding their accuracy. More information about this, and links to these reports direct, is available in the last tab of this document.
Whose views are represented here?
Affiliates who have sent in notes:
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group
Igbo Wikimedians User Group
WREN (Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network)
Odia Wikimedians User Group
Aragonese wiki (not affiliate; Spanish Strategy Liaison attended event)
+ conversations in multiple language channels: Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi
But what about everyone else?
From the affiliates, these are the groups who have sent in notes from conversations they have held. For language communities, the notes here are from all Wikimedians who have chosen to participate. We are hopeful that the number will be even greater next month as this April summary report gains traction.
Overall, our reach is far from perfect- if you know groups of people who haven't had a chance to be involved yet, please reach out to us and help make the connection happen!
How do we respond to the communities?
Each thematic tab sheet contains a yellow highlighted column called "Working Group response." This column is for you, if you find it useful, as a way to ask follow up questions or to offer a response to the comments from the community.
If you prefer to reach out to the community with responses directly, please do so. It would be helpful for me to know when you do so by also writing in this column, so that I may know that an affiliate or community is not left with unanswered input. If you don't like this system at all- kindly let me know and we can adapt next month.
Why do some thematic groups have more feedback than others?
All Strategy Liaisons were encouraged to choose thematic areas that were of greatest interest or resonance with their community.
For our volunteer Strategy Liaisons from affiliates, some of them made the selections themselves and led discussions from there, others let their affiliate members vote or choose by consensus.
For our hired community Strategy Liaisons who lead discussions among our project-based language communities, there were broadly two approaches.
Creating a calendar of conversation topics, with one topic as the focus of their work for a 1-2 week period. In these cases, community members always have the opportunity to comment on previous topics either on Meta-Wiki, established discussion pages, or by reaching out to the liaison directly to share their opinion.
Creating active discussion groups and pages for all topics and to see where the community organically decides to spend its time and energy. This broadly self-selected approach is intended to continue for the duration of commuity conversations.
What if I don't know what to do with a piece of feedback or don't find it useful?
It would be great if the communities could hear from you about what type of feedback is most useful. One way to do that is to use the "Working Group response" column to ask for more context or background information. When you have received programmatic feedback that is important but not useful, it might be appreciated to write that group a small note thanking them for their efforts and ideas and either asking clearer strategy questions or indicating the best way to address that programmatic concern.
I (Kelsi) would also love to learn more about how to guide communities in giving the type of feedback that is most useful to you - please reach out! ;)
Overall, how are community conversations going?
Community conversations are going moderately well, though we need to continue to increase our reach and level of engagement.
Compared to the effort in 2017, we have more specific questions for the community to engage around, and our liaisons who were active in both processes feel that there is a modest but noticeable improvement in community enthusiasm and participation. The months of March - April, while designed to be time for soliciting feedback to the scoping documents, have in practice functioned as time to spread awareness of strategy discussions and helping community members to feel involved. We are also having our own learning curve - communities are asking for more concrete and granular discussion tools, which we are working to create, and community Strategy Liaisons are experimenting with the right balance between on-wiki and off-wiki engagement.
We are hopeful that with new tools and increased support, May will show a steady uptick on conversation feedback to share with working groups. We also encourage you to engage with communities directly on Meta-Wiki, on social media, and in any other channels where discussions are active. Community Strategy Liaisons will be posting summaries of their March-April reports, which were used to create this document, on wiki in their relevant languages.
I love this!
Thank you! Strategy Liaisons (and I) worked hard to get us here. It wasn't always easy, but it is definitely worth it.
I hate this!
This is a pilot- let's figure out together how to make something that is useful to you. I'd welcome a constructive email, chat, or 1:1 conversation. We are not at all tied to this format.
This was a lot to read, and I haven't even seen the feedback for my group yet. Can I take a break and watch a video?
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 3 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia project can actually actively include some open access preprint websites. This may help the usage of Wikiversity.
Different regions in the world may have different advocacy work due to each of their own social-political circumstances. It should be taken into consideration as WMF is monitoring advocacy globally, such as to set up regional task force.
As an open knowledge ecosystem infrastructure, it may be worth to build a process to rescue the open licensed content that may be soon deleted by technology companies. Now this is scattered by volunteer efforts, but this may be more systematic. Just like the Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team (HOT) has established a process for after disaster mapping, Wikimedia movement may establish a rescue plan for closing platform that consists open licensed content.
Unsure if this is actually in our scope - it sounds more like a project than an advocacy effort
Yes, this is what we are striving to do, create good support that people in various regions can rely on in mobilising in a way that fits them; rather than creating one-size solutions for different contexts (not very useful)
see point 1 (products and technology?) - question is how advocacy efforts can assist that. Is there a joint understanding in the movement that our responsibility is to capture "orhaned" open knowledge projects? What if they do not meet our standards of accuracy/documentation/adherence to facts? What if they do not meet ethical standards? (would we salvage openly licensed white supremacy platform?) how do we assess that?
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should create a strong legal body that can protect community members everywhere.
Wikimedia should strive to have as much legal representation in as many countries as possible.
Wikimedia should strive to make their communities aware how they can get help in legal and security issues (e.g. capacity building).
These are very concrete tactical responses. But what is the question? Tell us more what needs these recommendations address (especially 1 and 2). Who is Wikimedia in this context? What does legal representation mean in this context? (lawyers? a formally established entity? something else?) What need are we adressing here specifically? What if these recommendations are contradictory to the needs of communitites that work more effectively and safely being informal (user group and alike) - how do we make sure this principle does not endanger them?
development of leadership skills to build leadership and expertise in our movement – in volunteer as well as staff roles
systematic approaches toward scouting, recruiting and retaining people with the needed skill sets (volunteer and staff) to support our work toward the Strategic Direction as a global movement
Volunteering is a hard reality to accept in Africa, Cameroon. Many become discouraged after a while when they see their energies have made up for it. Training and equipment of volunteer and staff are essential. (content also listed under Community Health)
Odia Wikimedians User Group
10 participants, 22 March 2019. No other meeting or identity information offered. The full notes are pasted here since they were short and not pre-sorted by theme.
Reaching to more people : Spreading awareness. We understand that our Wiki community and platform yet to reach to many people so reaching to those people is important
Possible partnership (Partners are important for growing and the more partner the more engaged we are, more content and more reach. More people are less effort need to put for big impact in work or growth.)
Promoting People and their work regularly (Some people work and don’t get proper recognition, that may impact on their passion and flow of work. We have discussed to bring this on)
Bridging Gender gap (Though we were succeeded in bridging the gap but current cenarios is different as some female users are not in the community so bridging this gap is important)
Sharing roles to people who can take specific work responsibility. (Giving responsibility is also important so that one can deliver their work with more responsibility)
added note: People are agree with all the points except the promotion. Promoting sometime attract more people but people don’t stay longer.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- 19 total participants, both on wiki and via Telegram
Lack of interested users in technical area for unknown reasons, even though technical guides were created by at least a user.
Another user refer that whenever you need to work with a new tool, you need someone to guide you, otherwise it is extremely hard to start.
Mandarin Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 3 1:1 interviews.
In Taiwan, the term is mostly translated as empowerment then capacity building.
How to improve the efficiency of communication is very difficult. After a few times of the high density discussion may lead to lost of interests to the participants. It would be crucial to make the Wikimedia movement to improve its efficiency when hosting discussions.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should build/encourage building more programs and softwares for online and offline education for using, editing and creating knowledge across all Wikimedia projects.
Wikimedia should try to make these programs available in as many languages as possible, especially underrepresented ones.
Hindi Wikimedia community-atl-large
See "Language Community Update"- this information comes from 4 participants (3 female/1 male) across multiple languages from India and across project communities.
What resources needed to do capacity building and current challenges?
Lack of structural outreach
Not enough resources (funds, infrastructure or office space) for regular meetings and training
Lack of training to new volunteers from old editors
Late receipts of grants
Lack of awareness about grants and supporting committees to people
Lack of sustainability of new editors
Partial inclination for a project of mentor may be not inclined to current audience
Lack of Recognition
Communication gap is an issue and new editor sustainability is challenges
Fear of taking responsibility for the fear of getting community backlash
Outreach should be done by people who are skilled in a particular subject or field so that new volunteers can develop trust and understanding about wiki project.
Language is also considered important, interactive sessions should be given priority
Social media should be considered an active platform for providing appreciation and recognition to users participating in different projects
How do we make capacity building inclusive and equitable?
Establishing wiki clubs in a city
Decentralization of resources
Distribution of work responsibilities, input and outputs
Transparent decision making process
Persistent offline and online training
Information sharing in all communities
Auto search formatting and edits for proofreading
Tools sharing between wikisource
Google OCR to be improved
Continuous mentoring
Use of social media to appreciate the community members
Barnstars and other certificates
Civil behavior with the users
Sorting the editors and wikipedia contributors according to their interests and skills as per their technical capacity, age, and area of interest
Decision making process should be done in a way that is inclusive
the future perspective of engaging and including newcomers in a sustainable manner;
critical roles in the communities and providing support to retain people with these roles and responsibilities.
Volunteering is a hard reality to accept in Africa, Cameroon. Many become discouraged after a while when they see their energies have made up for it.
Training and equipment of volunteer and staff are essential. (content also listed under Capacity Building)
Odia Wikimedians User Group
10 participants, 22 March 2019. No other meeting or identity information offered. The full notes are pasted here since they were short and not pre-sorted by theme.
Reaching to more people : Spreading awareness. We understand that our Wiki community and platform yet to reach to many people so reaching to those people is important
Possible partnership (Partners are important for growing and the more partner the more engaged we are, more content and more reach. More people are less effort need to put for big impact in work or growth.)
Promoting People and their work regularly (Some people work and don’t get proper recognition, that may impact on their passion and flow of work. We have discussed to bring this on)
Bridging Gender gap (Though we were succeeded in bridging the gap but current cenarios is different as some female users are not in the community so bridging this gap is important)
Sharing roles to people who can take specific work responsibility. (Giving responsibility is also important so that one can deliver their work with more responsibility)
added note: People are agree with all the points except the promotion. Promoting sometime attract more people but people don’t stay longer.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
Feedback from one user
One user would like to see more statistics that could provide information on why users leave the projects.
Also, he would like to see new tools that could identify when a new conflict is arising, which according to him is possible. For instance, admins could be notified when a reverted edit is reverted or when the tone of a discussion is becoming aggressive.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should periodically perform surveys/controls for checking the progress of the different community projects.
Hindi Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 2 users (2 male/1 female) across projects and experience levels and with interests in GLAM.
Challenges
There are many challenges that affect the community’s health and reduce the amount of volunteers contributing in the movement.Issues:
Lack of communication among active editors
Less outreach programs are done
Members are usually not aware of projects going on in community
Addressing new users is not very friendly
No involvement in education programs by members
Lack of support of community for any initiative taken by individuals
Behaviour issues
Misunderstanding of projects
Village pump: code of conduct issues, people use abusive language and argue all the time.
Miscommunication among people results in conflicts
When community health is not strong and friendly space policy is not taken into account, then community cant grow.
One of the issues that result in conflicts is language barriers and unwelcome attitude from Hindi members towards the people who also contribute in other languages.Recommendations:
Maintain equality
Make clear rules and vision for everyone.
Make friendly space policy
Workshops should be done for technical issues faced by current users
More friendly welcome should be given to new users
Better help pages should be provided to community
More involvement in outreach programs
Use Simple English or regional language
More communication should be done by social media, user talk pages, in a friendly space
6 person in-person meeting in Federal Capital Territory in Nigeria on 13 April 2019. Gender parity. No other identity information given.
What is diversity all about? The movement accommodating different aspects and characteristics, like Age, Colonized people, Differently abled-people, emerging countries and language speakers.
The current situation as to diversity.Marginalization.
Examples of marginalization that exist in the movement.
The gender gap in content creation and in communities.
Indigenous customs and practices are excluded from the outsider perspective.
Opportunity is not given for the disabled to have equal representation and equal access to knowledge.
The focus on English inserts a systemic bias into the work of the stakeholders and creates an exclusionary reality for the collaboration of people, groups, and local and non-local initiatives in learning and the sharing of knowledge.
What is expected of the diversity working group?o To determine how policies and practices could be examined.
How polices can be re-written or implemented to safeguard the inclusion of various groups
To bring participants into an environment that nurtures collaboration, and expand the stakeholder’s outreach to broader audiences.
Do those who are learning (children and youth in particular) understand the content presented in and our projects and is the knowledge available in their learning language or platforms? Is it even attractive for their learning processes and reading-terminals (i.e. generations now learning more on video)?
It was agreed that children and youth understanding the content presented is relative based on geographical location and exposure. Youth and children from privileged background understand the content in our projects.
Since English is the learning language for them in our area, it was agreed that knowledge is available in this aspect.
In the aspect of knowledge being attractive to their learning processes and reading-terminals, it was agreed that it is not attractive, because we are in an instant age where children have a short attention span and you only have 30 seconds to capture their minds. Proposed resolution: Wikimedia should have children focused on projects that can summarize knowledge and explore the use of GIFs and motion shots in providing knowledge for children and adolescents.
Does integrating historically marginalized groups require that the movement stakeholders rethink its Creative Commons tenets by incorporating use of “No Derivative Works (ND)“ and “No Commercial Works” (NC) licensing (as well as changes on principles of notability and definitions and usage of other sources) to facilitate “authenticity” of voices which have been historically prohibited from telling their own history? Yes! The movement stakeholders should rethink its CC tenets and incorporate the use of No Derivative works (ND) and No commercial work (NC) licensing. However, there should be efficient checks and balances to ensure that materials in these categories can be proven as lost media. There should be caveats and clauses that will give communities that are historically prohibited from telling their stories a chance to be heard in commons.
What capacities should be developed within the Movement to combat the tensions that might arise due to increased content/knowledge from more diverse communities on Wikimedia platforms? It was suggested that the Foundation should recruit trained content awareness administrators that will work with community health experts to effectively cub any tension that might arise.
How do we increase awareness in low awareness regions, in order to ensure adequate representation, both in the level of volunteer participation and amount of content? It was agreed that Wikimedia Outreach should engage in community service outreaches and programmes to recruit and equip these less privileged communities with materials and knowledge needed to join the movement and contribute to the body of knowledge. This can be achieved through partnerships with already existing community service organisations in those localities. Also, advocacy programs can also help.
As volunteering is essentially a role for the privileged, should Wikimedia Foundation start giving monetary incentives and honorarium for people who volunteer a huge amount of their time to movement activities? Yes! A scenario was cited with our User Group where people that are active are mostly privileged individuals who can afford data and are mobile.
WREN (Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network)
8 participants. The information here is from the notes summary document shared. We also have access to the meeting minutes here.
Comment that public libraries may be a great partner for collaborations.
Odia Wikimedians User Group
10 participants, 22 March 2019. No other meeting or identity information offered. The full notes are pasted here since they were short and not pre-sorted by theme.
Reaching to more people : Spreading awareness. We understand that our Wiki community and platform yet to reach to many people so reaching to those people is important
Possible partnership (Partners are important for growing and the more partner the more engaged we are, more content and more reach. More people are less effort need to put for big impact in work or growth.)
Promoting People and their work regularly (Some people work and don’t get proper recognition, that may impact on their passion and flow of work. We have discussed to bring this on)
Bridging Gender gap (Though we were succeeded in bridging the gap but current cenarios is different as some female users are not in the community so bridging this gap is important)
Sharing roles to people who can take specific work responsibility. (Giving responsibility is also important so that one can deliver their work with more responsibility)
added note: People are agree with all the points except the promotion. Promoting sometime attract more people but people don’t stay longer.
Aragonese wiki community
Spanish Strategy Liaison attended an in-person event with 3 Aragonese speakers and 2 Spanish speakers on April 20, 2019. The Aragonese speakers were between 40-50 years old.
Can we establish that every community must have a code of conduct which provides for inclusion of diversity? How does a commitment to diversity also manifest itself in the governance structures of our movement’s organizations, in our public relations, and social media representation? [at an.wiki] “We are so few that we don’t even have minorities. We’re three [active members] and all three are admins” [there are acually some other editors “over there”, but really few]. “Whatever the WMF decides, it doesn’t has an effect over us”. They would lke to have a representative from minority languages on the WMF Board. They don’t care if he/she comes from Aragonese or Breton.
How do we transform our culture and collaborating spaces, including (but not limited to) articles, general discussions, talk pages, and Commons to support diverse representation of contributors and writers, as well as our definitions of reliable sources and neutrality, to build a safe environment where everyone (minorities/unrepresented/underrepresented/mainstream groups and cultures) is included and can see their knowledge represented and talk openly about themselves? It happens that you do an article from a local point of view about an issue important for us (the Academy for their Language, for instance) and in English it is irrelevant. Sources: Aragonese Wikipedia admits blogs. [only selected ones] Sometimes those blogs are the only local source available. “Because we are so few”, they can get a consensus about a blog it they believe it is a reliable source. “The Bajo Cinca county [25.000 inhabitants, mountain region, actually Catalan-speakers] has a newspaper. Very professional. But maybe in Spanish Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source”. They are very pro-inclusion of article. Their limit is self-promotion. Also, they believe that if an aragonese-related articles is admitted in their language, it should be admitted in others. About how their culture is represented in other languages “For what it could have been, it is well represented/covered”, they appreciate that from the very beginning Aragonese was considered a language and not a Spanish dialect, and that the real name was used, instead of patois-like denomination. Everyone has seen that their most-prized writers have been deleted in other languages, they resign themselves. “If they don’t want it, worse for them, if anyone is interested, they will visit our wiki-version, so more visits for us”.
How do we avoid the pitfall of recentism, tapping in to elder networks, LGBT networks, women’s networks, indigenous communities, etc. to develop volunteers for the project as writers, developers, and document gatherers to find and preserve our hidden collective history? About recentism, they were unaware. “Unless you have a general vision, you don’t think about it...”. “To be conscious about this problem makes you to think about solving it”. They are getting aware about recentism from this discussion. About elder people: “It is difficult to access to their knowledge because there aren’t many things published. The kind of information that older people could give are primary source”. “But an oral recording is also a source”. “Exceptions can be taken into consideration” → “Which exceptions”?
What effective measures should be taken for the future so our greater community can use languages other than English in order to make decisions, eliminating the requirement for a mastery of English as part of our decision-making community? "Tools are needed." "Esperanto"
What steps should stakeholders take to ensure language diversity across various platforms (languages, technology, interfaces and organisations for research, oral and visual technologies) to provide support to ensure the broadest possible representation of various languages as well as those with physical and cognitive challenges to participate in our movement? All editors have University education. “Technology doesn’t afraid us”. For them, Sister projects are difficult due the small community (take into account that some Catalan sister porjects have more active users than their wiki)”. They would like that the WMF Board and other decision fields would include variables that supports genre and language minorities. “To introduce them would be enough”. For the Strategy Process and its consequences, they want somebody who takes into consideration which would be the impact for small languages.
Do those who are learning (children and youth in particular) understand the content presented in and our projects and is the knowledge available in their learning language or platforms? Is it even attractive for their learning processes and reading-terminals (i.e. generations now learning more on video)? In their opinion, the info isn’t adapted for young learners. The texts from Wikipedia aren’t easy to understand.
Does integrating historically marginalized groups require that the movement stakeholders rethink its Creative Commons tenets by incorporating use of “No Derivative Works (ND)“ and “No Commercial Works” (NC)licensing (as well as changes on principles of notability and definitions and usage of other sources) to facilitate “authenticity” of voices which have been historically prohibited from telling their own history? “Everything made for integration will be welcome”. If they were to record oral testimonies, the CC-NC would help. “To explain licences is difficult”. If they jump into adding audio (they got the idea thanks to this conversation), the licence change would be a good idea. “I don’t see [more licences] it as a negative thing”. They wouldn’t change notability policies, but demand that if for them X is relevant, it should be for everyone.
What capacities should be developed within the Movement to combat the tensions that might arise due to increased content/knowledge from more diverse communities on Wikimedia platforms? Linked to notability: if rules allow to include that kind of article, then the bureaucrat should accept it. Two words: Pedagogy, cohabitation. About admissibility: "If I don't want to know about X, I won't read that article."
How do we increase awareness in low awareness regions, in order to ensure adequate representation, both in level of volunteer participation and amount of content? “It happens to us”. There is people who doesn’t knows about the existence of our language. A Spanish speaker talks: “90% of Aragonese people doesn’t understands the language” [It’s false, the other two non-speakers were from outside Aragon and understood the whole conversation”. Aragonese community again: “It is not the same to have a wiki than to contribute to it”. Some years ago they did an inquiry and aragonese wikipedia was the most known online resource in their language. By twitter they receive feedback from comments like “hey, how curious: there is an aragonese wikipedia”. Friendly feedback.
As volunteering is essentially a role for the privileged, should Wikimedia Foundation start giving monetary incentives and honorarium for people who volunteer a huge amount of their time to movement activities? “If I edit a lot I would say yes”… “In emerging economies where editing is difficult, it could work, but under which criteria”? “I don’t see it very clear”.
German Wikimedia community-at-large
3 participants from German wiki community (2 male/1 female)
Writing about the area of inquiry one contributor remarked that we should start investigating how much we are influenced by colonial and postcolonial prejudices. He was led to this remark by the use of the translation “Vertretung indigener Völker” for “indigenous” representation. By dividing humanity into peoples (the German word “Volk” has a tinge of “tribe” as well) the scoping document simplifies humanity by dividing them ethnologically. When contributing to the Strategy discussion we should not look at where the answers come from in terms of ethnicity, because the distinctions don’t make sense.
Regarding the key questions it was not understood (question #7) how NC and ND licenses can help our problems and what those licenses have to do with diversity. It was asked how the scoping group came to that conclusion. In an answer to that NC and ND were rejected, stating that Copyleft is sufficient for Open Knowledge. At the moment though we give this up for CC0, which is not helping diversity. Talking about volunteering (question #10) it was agreed upon that volunteering is for privileged societies, but there was doubt about paid editing helping in that regard. As an answer to this there was fear that paid editing would create hierarchies. Another problem would be that when we have paid editing in underprivileged communities there are always members of the privileged communities that are not so well off and would then require this as well.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- 19 total participants, both on wiki and via Telegram
Two users consider that not being able to speak English is usually a problem when participating of certain discussions and that decisions that can possibly have a global impact should be avoided when possible, as users should have the option to participate on their native language.
A female user from Mozambique believes that the biggest barrier in her country is the lack of internet access and the little or no knowledge about how Wikipedia works. She participated in a WikiGap Event, which was productive for her, specially for receiving editing information on-site.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should support underrepresented languages across all projects with capacity building, financial aid and technical counselling.
Wikimedia should publish statistics and guidelines on the diversity of content, user and editors to guide them to unrepresented elements to focus on.
Spanish Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the Iberocoop Telegram channel
Gender parity for WMF Board and recommendations for the Affiliates’ Board. Definite and tangible equality policies. Roadmap and time horizon for implementation.
Given that barriers for the entry of female editors are common in all language editions, there is a need to generate new structures created without male coding The "REACT" model is suggested: Rights + Education + Access + Content + Targets
It is recognized a need for incorporating new profiles of knowledge, such as cultures without written language and minority languages, taking advantage of the multimedia potential of the different Wikimedia projects
Adapt to the use of TOR, VPN and editing from the mobile phone to favor participation in adverse political contexts and places with high mobile penetration but no wide use of internet in desktop computers.
"Do not make decisions without consulting the communities", adapt to the needs of different human groups As an example, the Maya community tried to boost its Wikipedia edition. They found the difficulty of editing in the Incubator, and they are asked to publish the list of 1000 articles that all Wikipedia should have, about topics that are not of their interest
Adapt to the context of young users and learners
Promote alliances with associations to collect the kind of knowledge we do not reach (oral sources, etc.)
Power structures are so solidified that Wikipedia is an unsafe place to edit. Therefore, it is necessary to generate concrete measures so that new users can learn to edit safely It is said that admins should have training A less rigid editing system
There is a talk about "creating new sources" for minority languages, relying on external partners and alliances. Bearing in mind that many of these communities may not have access to the internet.
A clear position in favor of diversity, defining which are the subjects that have been historically discriminated, without falling into false neutrality or leaving space for hatred-speech supporters to gain a foothold in the name of a supposed right to discrepancy. There is talk of a Charter of Principles, antiracist and antifascist, for Wikimedia projects, with the example of the prohibition of fascism in the Portuguese constitution.
There is a debate, inconclusive, where the need to collect oral sources to accommodate unwritten knowledge is recognized. The reluctance comes from the verifiability part, suggesting on the part of those users the use of projects other than Wikipedia where the verifiability is not central It is suggested to explicitly incorporate the use of oral sources and traditional knowledge, with clear limits, and to expand the use of sources such as papers, educational materials and clarify which blogs can be used and which ones can not be used, but without removing rigor or de-structuring the current verifiability model.
Any subtantial change to the project policies must be debated in the community, otherwise will be doomed to failure
To favor Cultural Diversity, to promote the participation of local organizations in the documentation process would be highly recommended. There is debate about the fact that issues from minority language contexts are erased in majority languages wikis under "local sources / not relevant" claims. There is no concrete solution to this problem, it is suggested that if people were less "deletionist", we would not have so many problems.
A campaign similar to the gender gap but aimed at Cultural Diversity is suggested. It is justified in that a vertical change of policies will not be welcomed among the community, but a campaign of sensitization from the base, yes. It is noted that, at least in es.wiki, the "relevance policy" is not a policy but a wikiessay
Is given the example of the Swedish archives, where disclaimers are used before reproducing old information that today would be considered racist / ethno-centric. Any kind of curatorship done by gender experts would be interesting?
Remove barriers to participation in the movement, especially the linguistic barrier that requires knowledge of English to participate in any international event (and even for participating in Meta or Commons)
There is talk of neocolonialism. It is necessary to avoid that from Europe / USA global campaigns are launched that could make invisible the work of local communities that may be carrying out similar initiatives Respect the development of local communities and their rhythm
Adapt the projects to the current internet standards to favor youth access Example, That Commons implements the "drag and drop" of Instagram or Flickr
Redesign of the Mobile APP to favor editing
Urgent measures to prevent harassment on the platform
It is valued that Wikipedia is recognized as a valuable tool when fighting against fake news
There is talk of the misuse of Wikipedia Zero and it is suggested that Kwix would be more interesting as educational material Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but the edition is not for everyone: there are people who misuse, or have no interest in contributing correctly Sensitization and Wikipedia dissemination campaigns are recommended prior to the implementation of Wikimedia Zero to avoid system abuses
opportunities and challenges related to building partnerships at the local, regional and global levels.
collaboration with other organizations and movements to promote our vision and valuesLocal or regional entities face enormous challenges in building local partnerships; they have as a lack of legitimacy.
It is difficult for the possible partners to link a User Group for example to the Wikimedia Foundation
Hard to understand what is being done as true activities of the Wikimedia Foundation
It is also difficult to establish partnerships with entities doing the same activities as the Wikimedia Movement (Linux, Firefox, Google ...)
WREN (Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network)
8 participants. The information here is from the notes summary document shared. We also have access to the meeting minutes here.
Clear, consistent communication from the Wikimedia Foundation is something that everyone feels is essential. It is not always present currently.
Having tools like Zoom available for collaboration is essential. Broadly, there could be a better interface for people to interact with information from the WMF – it is very difficult to parse. As a part of this interface, there should be better reporting on metrics for usage of Wiki projects.
While recruitment and training of new editors is important, “knowledge organizations typically care less about recruiting lots of editors, and instead are happy to have fewer highly engaged editors sharing content which huge numbers of people read. Wikipedia can do this very easily and inexpensively, and highly trained Wikipedians in Residence can pull these metrics, but they are inaccessible to casual users.
The WMF should promote the development of tools and infrastructure which align with contemporary institutional practices in communication, so that Wikimedia engagement can more easily fit into organizations’ communication workflows.
Odia Wikimedians User Group
10 participants, 22 March 2019. No other meeting or identity information offered. The full notes are pasted here since they were short and not pre-sorted by theme.
Reaching to more people : Spreading awareness. We understand that our Wiki community and platform yet to reach to many people so reaching to those people is important
Possible partnership (Partners are important for growing and the more partner the more engaged we are, more content and more reach. More people are less effort need to put for big impact in work or growth.)
Promoting People and their work regularly (Some people work and don’t get proper recognition, that may impact on their passion and flow of work. We have discussed to bring this on)
Bridging Gender gap (Though we were succeeded in bridging the gap but current cenarios is different as some female users are not in the community so bridging this gap is important)
Sharing roles to people who can take specific work responsibility. (Giving responsibility is also important so that one can deliver their work with more responsibility)
added note: People are agree with all the points except the promotion. Promoting sometime attract more people but people don’t stay longer.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
This feeback from only one user
One user recommends prioritizing partnerships that would improve less developed articles.
Mandarin Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 3 1:1 interviews.
The openness of Wikipedia and Wikidata have really big incentive for the companies or academic in China. Such as Big Data, Knowledge Services, and data modeling… etc. In China, lots of voices asks for open data, but it is always ask other institutions to open data, not one's own data. It is really useful that Wikimedia Projects opens everything. However, the surveillance of the local government also makes it to have official partnership. There was only once the official partnership was made in China, but later the institution also was interrogated by the local authority.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should work hand in hand with open cultural organizations, NGOs, governments and Technology enterprises.
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 3 1:1 interviews.
As a programmer, the open source project of Wikimedia is too slow for development, and also facing its difficulty to iterate sustainably. We can see how Firefox is supported by Mozilla Company and the community.
Noted, sustainability / growth of the developer community is something we intend to look at. Note though that Mozilla has 5x the budget of the Wikimedia movement.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should have a Research and Development arm checking and developing new technologies that support the work of Wikimedia.
The sentence “We are still discussing this resource, as we aren’t quite clear if “staff” as a resource translates into the money to employ staff or the FTEs themselves.” did not make sense to the contributor. The problem was that the term FTE is too technical. I explained it by linking to the article about FTE.
n/a (linked)
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- 19 total participants, both on wiki and via Telegram
Grants: One user mention that the approvals and feedback in grants are taking too much time. He considers that not enough money is spent on community via grants concerning his judgement about previous WMF reports, and that may be one of the reasons
That problem also relates with the fact that an user group should comply with grant requesting in order to become a chapter. So, any problem with grants, may discourage an user group on that.
Three users strongly recommends that WMF change their way priority on spending financial resources on improving editing capacities and resources. There is an understanding that in the past recent years, the readers were the priority, which was a mistake from WMF.
Thank you for your comments. We have the opportunity to analyse and redefine our existing resource allocation model. It may be that our culture of finding consensus and seeking opinions sometimes comes at the expense of efficiency, yet at the same time it reflects our values. We are exploring the processes, the power dynamics they involve, and who we are currently serving and not serving. Some frequently mentioned complaints include slow and cumbersome decision-making and reporting, inconsistent execution, and under-representation of important stakeholders. We are investing in research to explore potential models that can be better than what we have today. As for WMF, platform evolution is a priority in the mid term (Wikimedia Foundation Medium-term plan_2019/Platform evolution). On behalf of the RA group.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from the 8 1:1 interviews.
Wikimedia should find solutions to improve the streams in some countries. WMF should have specific strategies for each country because not all countries have the same situation and challenges.
Thank you for your comments. We are aware that there will be no "one size fits all" answer for every situation and every region. We are working to be aware of different contexts, power dynamics, challenges and opportunities. We are very mindful that any new resource allocation model needs to serve also the people we are currently missing today, and for that we need to be aware of what is preventing them from participating and try to reduce the barriers as much as possible. Every region has its own characteristics, and that needs to factor in in any would-be successful model. What type of a model might work in your context? On behalf of the RA group.
Hindi Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- the content shared here is from 3 male participants across Wikimedia projects.
Issues: Not everyone can access the resources on equal level. If a user wants to do a project, they are not able to get the funds and resources for that and several community members don't have access to knowledge about the availability of resources and how they can ask for resources, such as grants and other infrastructures.
People living in remote areas and villages don't have enough opportunities to be a user or editor for wiki due to lack of technology, internet and awareness.
Recommendations: A transparent system should be created so that everyone can openly know what resources are available and identify new people who need the resources so we can grow the community. South-east Asia Emerging communities should have more investment from foundation.
New communities, even the people and language communities that are still not part of wiki, such as, the indigenous languages that have no online presence or cannot be documented in written form, resources should be allocated towards such communities, (Wikitongue). There are 300 languages in Wikipedia and over 7000 languages in the world and to capture knowledge of those languages, some strategy should be devised and perhaps investment can be made on new people (grants or staff) whose role is to make strategies to bridge this knowledge gap.
There should be a transparent system to provide access and knowledge about reasons.
Identify leaders in emerging/missing communities.
Only a few people have knowledge/access to resources.
Communities below poverty line and without access to technology have been left out.
Thank you for your comments. We are analysing and redefining the existing resource allocation model to meet the needs of a diverse movement. We recognise that currently many communities are left out because of structural barriers or contextual challenges, and we need to figure out how to reduce them so they may be able to participate and contribute. Transparency, good governance, accountability, involving the people... they are all factors that are ever present for us as we explore how a future allocation of resources could look like. We want to reach the communities we are not serving today, we want to reduce any and all access barriers, we want them to be empowered, and we want them to join us. This is not an easy task, but know that we share the same concerns and are trying to work on them. On behalf of the RA group.
The contributor very much liked the key question #4: “What are the lines that we should not cross while working towards our goal?”, writing that this is important to keep our projects independent. A possibility to achieve this would be to take money from commercial partners not earmarked, i.e. only to take money when it is uncommitted. Not as we did it with Wikidata.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- 19 total participants, both on wiki and via Telegram
Two users misunderstood the phrase “The current funding is not enough now to achieve our vision” (found at the Revenue Streams Working Group page on Meta-Wiki). They read it as if WMF wasn’t receiving enough money from donations. I had to clarify that it is something that is being forecasted with the increasing of our demands to achieve our vision.
One of the users completed that we can’t refer that the funds are not sufficient if we do not know yet our aims and that WMF should worry about spending less instead of receiving more.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- feedback from both interviews and from community as a group
1:1 Interview Input:
WMF should have a more transparent process to check how the revenues are obtained and how they are spent.
WMF needs to estimate how much resources are needed for its strategies before asking for them. The scope and a clear goal are important for the strategy.
WMF should be accountable and give reports of what is done with the resources. If the reports are already available, then WMF should communicate better about them to raise awareness.
WMF and its affiliates worldwide should have a clear and unified policy about from where resources can be accepted and where not (guidelines/manifesto).
Avoid receiving money from controversial sources (governments etc.)
All resources should go through specific metrics and conditions. We should define these metrics in agreement with community.
Clarify to donators and companies the conditions.
WMF can think about selling Wikimedia products instead of asking for “raw” donations. Manipulating data is what will be monetized, not the data itself (supposed to be free).
Develop apps made by data from Wikidata and make them lucrative.
Create daughter lucrative companies that develop apps relying on data from the encyclopedia.
Make partnerships with companies that are lucrative, and which use information from Wiki projects. WMF can then share parts with them.
Create raspberry pies or services and sell them.
WMF can sell consultancy in technological areas – either from employees or community.
WMF can sell printed books/ebooks based on the content available in the encyclopedia from selected areas. Content is free but this can be a form of encouragement instead of a donation.
Clarify the vulnerability and do risk assessment engaging the community before starting any partnership. The community does not know for example what is the current dependency of Wikimedia towards Google and the risks that are in this agreement. (is also part of Partnerships WG)
Community Input
There is no legal status for most of the User Groups (UG), so they cannot have their own bank accounts. The absence of these accounts and legal status makes the process not transparent and not traceable. (shared and agreed by all)
A solution would be to empower UGs and other parts of the community to have a local legal status, and receive guidance about how to do so (trainings from local experts hired by WMF, consultants etc.). (suggestion by a member).
Local groups can create their own pages to receive donations, in accordance with WMF rules and guidelines. This requires also that the groups have a legal status already, and that WMF supports them with expertise.
global, regional, local and thematic responsibilities of movement organizations (existing and prospective)
equity within our structures and distribution of responsibilities for crucial functions needed by the movement (legal, fundraising, data protection, software development, communication)
Many believe that Africans must be integrated into positions of responsibility in order to be able to share the realities that are theirs. A note has been made about Wikipedia administrators: Sometimes even by applying the rules, administrators do not have knowledge of topics about Africa. Hence the need to choose the leaders according to the different localities.
WREN (Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network)
8 participants. The information here is from the notes summary document shared. We also have access to the meeting minutes here.
Suggesting that paying Wikimedians in Residence in developing nations/global south may be a better use of funds that the WMF paying for outreach instead of staff.
Odia Wikimedians User Group
10 participants, 22 March 2019. No other meeting or identity information offered. The full notes are pasted here since they were short and not pre-sorted by theme.
Reaching to more people : Spreading awareness. We understand that our Wiki community and platform yet to reach to many people so reaching to those people is important
Possible partnership (Partners are important for growing and the more partner the more engaged we are, more content and more reach. More people are less effort need to put for big impact in work or growth.)
Promoting People and their work regularly (Some people work and don’t get proper recognition, that may impact on their passion and flow of work. We have discussed to bring this on)
Bridging Gender gap (Though we were succeeded in bridging the gap but current cenarios is different as some female users are not in the community so bridging this gap is important)
Sharing roles to people who can take specific work responsibility. (Giving responsibility is also important so that one can deliver their work with more responsibility)
added note: People are agree with all the points except the promotion. Promoting sometime attract more people but people don’t stay longer.
Portuguese Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- 19 total participants, both on wiki and via Telegram
Broad idea is that there is no problem with editorial community with that regard, but there is a governance problem with WMF and its committees.
It is also shared by many that there should be a better review and evaluation of the actions of committees
A few users refer that there are specific problems with regards to the recognition of new user groups and chapters
One user mention that the Affiliation Committee should be completed reviewed.
Arabic Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- feedback from both interviews and from community as a group
1:1 Interviews Input:
Decentralize decision-making (and decentralize WMF). Some countries and areas have difficulty to work with USA. For example, some government start suspecting people if they have relations with USA. It can be better to have many branches of the foundation in the world. Now, there can never be a Wikimedia conference in Iran or Cuba, as community members there cannot receive grants.
WMF should engage and give more responsibilities to small and growing communities.
Suggestion: Any WMF employee living in an emerging community, should also have part of his paid hours to help the affiliate in the country.
Relation between chapters/user groups and movement are usually affected by relations between countries – For example GLAM event that was hosted in Israel meant that no Arab could participate. WMF (or deciding organisations) should make sure that events and conferences are hosted in neutral countries/places. The same applies for places where obtaining visa is difficult. Before giving the OK for organization, WMF should think about this to make sure community members (in their diversity) can attend.
Active volunteers should receive more responsibilities and get compensations if they are expected to continue at that pace. WMF should also employ people from everywhere and give them responsibilities (joins diversity WP).
Create “community liaison” department at WMF to onboard groups, users, explain governance and link between decision makers and community. It should be simpler for any member of the community to contact board of trustees to give feedback, complain, or share suggestions. This is not happening now, and the gap is huge between community members and decision makers.
Most Wikimedians are not aware about the current governance.
They should be educated and that this governance is communicated to them.
Introduce to people to what is affcom, what are the different teams in the WMF etc. The WMF is supposed to work for the community, so they should be more communicate about their governance.
Responsibility should be diversified within the WMF. Most of the key roles in the foundation are held by Americans. If the director is from one country/region, then other leaders should be from another one. This should not only be a gender question, but also geography. WMF is not working for USA, but for the whole world.
Have more WMF employees in other countries, as points of contact with the community.
This will help decentralize without needing to move the whole structure outside of the USA.
Board of trustees processes are unclear. Moreover this process is not neutral because it is only based on voting. This operation does usually involve personal relations and friendships within the movement. The process should be more transparent.
Local Governance for User Groups. Status reports that are sent yearly by UGs are not answered by WMF. UGs do not know how their work is seen and never receive feedback. There are risks of dictatorships in local organizations (UGs or even chapters). It is difficult to spot unless reported by someone from inside. WMF should control this more and be ready to intervene if noticing that.
Affiliations committee should be independent from WMF. Decisions about affiliates should be only coming from Affcom without WMF interfering.
There should be a new organism only for the community, filled by members each one of them representing a linguistic community.
WMF should clarify its position on how new chapters are chosen and why.
There should not be any discrimination between the countries.
Why do some countries have chapters while others have User Groups?
Chapters are more powerful and give more advantages (salaries, vote in Board of trustees). User Groups are splitting the community while chapters gather it.
Who decides about which country has chapter or user group? WMF should clarify the process and be transparent about it. Example of Nigeria: The community is very big, but they never had the opportunity to have a chapter.
What is the strategy/process to follow to have a chapter? Why can’t we have chapter for the Arab word? While a country as small as Israel (smaller community, smaller Wiki) has one?
Community Input:
Create an organism that has one representative from each Arab country. Arabic is specific by being cross-country language and decision-making is difficult. Such an organism will be very helpful in this regard.
Have at least one representative of Arabic countries in different parts of the foundation/decision-making (can either be chosen by the community or by the organisms)
Have regional representatives in Board of trustees. Places can be assigned to specific community members in this board (large languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Arabic).
Wikimedia should have one or more paid role to work in relation with/empower underrepresented content, languages and groups. (touches also Diversity WG).
Spanish Wikimedia community-at-large
See "Language Community Update"- most discussion from 80ish person Iberocoop Telegram channel.
High level summary: there is a consensus when demanding more support to the users from WMF. The members of small affiliates complain about how difficult is to do paperwork and consider that the way of asking of a grant is tiring. The way of how to solve this is disputed. While a couple of users advocated for local WMF presence, most participants disagreed: there is a proposal of roles for the global (WMF), regional (Iberocoop) and local (affiliates) sphere, and for WMF were reserved 3: funds distribution, support for affiliates and coordination with other global agents. There is a need for a regional structure that support affiliates, has a role in solving conflicts and regional cooperation. For the local sphere, recollecting funds, promotion of implementation of programmes, local alliances and user engagement are the roles to cover.
There is a consensus in that Aff. Committee doesn’t solves conflicts properly. Also, in the need of flexible structures and agent, despite that there is criticism to UG and their structure, they believe that it should be temporary. Also, they don’t want the WMF to assume any of the duties Affiliates have in the local sphere.
General content:
First conclusions Roles & Responsibilities
A more decentralized and less rigid movement: with clear roles and responsibilities for members. Structures have to respond to the needs of different contexts and channel and represent diversity It is noted that affiliates represent their members and/or most active agents, but not the community as a whole. The online community, although mostly passive, allows everyone to participate. People tend to be united by interests and/or affinities, which would point to the interest of associations dealing with specific issues
Diversity can be guaranteed by promoting flexible structures on cross-cutting issues. It is pointed out that there are hierarchies in the projects that impede participation. From the WMF there is an Anglocentric vision that would be imposed over the other communities.
Replace local affiliates with decentralized organizations of the Foundation in each country. Keep differentiated the role of volunteers with the staff, which would be chosen by the community. The most important decisions would be made by the community. It is justified so the WMF can assume the bureaucratic tasks that most Wikimedistas abhor. The measure would avoid conflicts between members. It is also suggested that this would simplify the process of requesting financing. It is requested as a counterpart that the governing bodies at the national level are formed partially by members elected by the community, who would elect the Central Board, and that the decisions would be made communally. It is also justified for tax reasons, donations to subsidiaries would have tax advantages for those who are not US citizens. That employees of the WMF assume the support of the community projects and a greater participation of the community in the decisions of this are broad requests. The lack of coordination of the WMF with its affiliates and community is blamed, as well as ignorance of how it works by some people who make decisions. It is pointed out that in contexts like India, having only one member (affiliate) seems impossible due to diversity. It is also thought that the direct intervention of the WMF in each country may not be viable, but it does call for empathy towards each social reality, and bottom-up feedback.
The Foundation must not intervene in the content of the projects. Their main roles - now - are to maintain the servers and do the fundraising, but they can not substitute the work of the local organizations. There is talk of guaranteeing the voluntary nature of the editions as a guarantee of neutrality
The Foundation must be decentralized for two main reasons: a) decision making about the work and resources of local organizations must depend on nodes/communities that understand local contexts b) power is not only centralized but its distribution is unequal (How many people are from the USA?). We must balance the figures.
The Foundation must accompany the establishment of new groups. Support is essential so that groups can grow in each context. There are a broad choice of ways to do this: one option is to put specific staff that accompanies growth locally.
There is a need for Iberocoop or a regional node with defined structure, roles and responsibilities. Among the main roles to this body would be support the organizational work of local communities.
The current affiliates are mostly accountable as follows: a) members / associates b) foundation c) partner institutions
Although the board of the Foundation is chosen at 50% by the affiliates, the movement lacks a control board, outside the Foundation. Having a superior regulatory entity can be an option.
The roles and responsibilities could be defined as follows:
The local level (affiliates):
Collecting funds for the sustainability of projects
The dissemination and promotion of projects and programs
Improvement of contents in thematic axes within the projects
Partnerships with local actors
Link with the publishing community and welcome process of new editors
Generation of landed projects local contexts
The regional level (Iberocoop-like):
Support of emerging communities on organization, structure and generation of affiliates
Support in conflict resolution
Regional themes of possible events and programs
Strategic mentoring cooperation, updating of concepts, constant exchange of experiences
The global level (WMF):
Dissemination of funds collected through donations
Support to emerging communities regarding the support that gives the truth that a group belongs to the movement, connections and contact with global organizations at the same level
Update of global goals and objectives aimed at the interrelation with satellite and related communities (CC, Mozilla, etc.)
To grow and establish new communities as part of the movement, we need flexible and sufficiently independent local structures. Yes, we share brand and resources but the programs must be defined from the context if we want to include all of them.
We need to establish about the current structures - for example the committees like AFFCOM, FDC etc - who is responsible for what and who. The current lack of clarity not only leads to misunderstandings but also divides and generates conflicts.
Reform the AFFCOM. It does not resolve conflicts in affiliates.
There is no onboarding or support when it comes to generating new local organizations. Who should do it? There is talk of the need for a figure that carries the paperwork of the members, a task they detest.
The informality of local structures must be temporary. And clear parameters by which UGs become chapters or Thematic Associations are demanded
How do we narrow the gap between the online / offline community? Who should be able to influence the governance of online projects? Perhaps through a Board of the Movement?
The Foundation should not substitute volunteer groups (which should try to be constituted in associations when possible, to have a legal structure, accounts, and an assembly to control their accounts), since the local communities are the agent that will work and make projects there. The Foundation should be supportive. Its main functions should be:
Maintenance of projects, for which they must collect the funds.
Technological development and its maintenance.
Legal and legal support, also in cases of harassment, computer attacks, privacy, legal demands, etc.
Likewise, there is talk of an ethical commitment regarding volunteers: no chapter should be an employment agency
The Foundation could develop programs in places where the local community has not yet been organized, but always supporting it, and with a view to organizing and giving them the ways to became self-reliant.
The advantage of local associations over a foundation is that in a voluntary movement, volunteers and supporters can join an association, but not a foundation. And therefore, they can influence its operation and control it.
As for the affiliates, in certain cases, they should be able to raise funds, as some already do. The reasons can be several, from legal problems when giving / receiving funds to the US, tax advantages for donors if they donate to the local entity, ways to make donations, etc.
The current affiliate structure is confusing. There is a lot of overlap, and that causes confusion in partners, and society in general. It should be supported that in an administrative entity there were the few less overlaps better. That there is more than one affiliate in an area, implies that in case of fundraising it is no longer trivial who does it.
People talk about the little usefulness for some members of the wikimedia-l list, by language and by monopoly of certain users of it.
Decisions about content (including pillars and licenses) should fall on the community, and not on affiliates or Foundation Developing more this point, the Foundation should be limited basically to the survival of projects, Technology and legal. The Affiliate Staff and WMF depend on the respective Boards, in no case the community chooses them.
Foundation should have the power to prevent external attacks on an idiomatic version, as happened in the case of Portuguese
To adapt to changing legal or political situations, formulas are needed to sustain projects without monetary resources.
The use of multimedia content that is a primary source is incompatible with Wikipedia, but not with other sister projects
HIndi Wikimedia Community-at-Large
See "Language Community Update"- content comes from Village Pump discussions and across 24 interviews. Most of the points listed here were only shared by 1-2 interviewees, and compiled here in a list. There are also additional comments from the original report not included here because it is thought that they are more relevant to programmtic issues or internal dynamics of the South Asian community. These can still be viewed on the report link in the "Language Community Update" tab.
Right now a new Wikipedian don’t understand whom to address their requirement, who will solve their problem? Revamp Organizational Best Practices: The Present WMF Resolutions on best practices pre-dates to 2012, this needs to be updated. It does not deal with essential questions such as cooperation amongst affiliates, considering today there are both User Groups and Chapters (also Thematic Organisations). Public debates should be encouraged and then a new resolution should be adopted. Fundraising For Chapters: This a long pending overdue demand made by Chapters. However, if User Group model has to be self-sustainable even they should be encouraged to figure out a way. Maybe, they could work in tandem with some Chapter which is a registered unit. Impact Report for FDC funders: WMF has been aligning to new goals such as Awareness and a pure quantitative based assessment (say number of views on Youtube) may not be the most ideal reviewing culture. The Impact assessment needs a revamp. Resources:
Wikipedia Education and Outreach programmes need to planned more in the near future.
Institutional tie ups and possibly Wikipedian in residence designation for some contributors should be considered for growth of movement as one of the essential roles in the movement. A full time staff member should be available for each user group and the administration tasks and ensuring the just allocation of funds and responsibilities should be accountable on that staff member. That staff member from organized group would be responsible to inform the users about different ongoing projects and opportunities for better transparency and be responsible for organizing regular meetups, training for capacity building. The staff will also look after the requirements of the wikipedians and inform the same to the Foundation. All new and old wikipedians will go to him and address their requirements. Considering equity among different users, the structural organisation should globally provide the requirements of the users. Give roles and responsibilities equally to people and provide equal opportunities to different communities. Make different community groups relating to the Wikimedia projects and share roles by giving different positions to different people at different times for different durations. To increase participation and promote the Wikimedia foundation and its projects we should hold workshops not only for the editors and contributors but also for the audience and the local people, to get their insights and making them want to edit in wikimedia too. Promotion of the other projects to the audience who are a majority should be a side the resource allocation should look into. Sharing roles and responsibilities in making local people attend Wikimedia workshops would be great. Structure: A hierarchy of knowledgeable persons who can communicate well and include people in conversations and seek knowledge from them should be a part of the structural organisation. Processes: Holding regular training sessions for the newcomers, giving them a platform and explaining procedures to them in a way of a presentation and seeking their feedback. Feedback should also be taken from the audience about how we can improve our Wikimedia projects and share knowledge in a much better way to a larger group. Behaviour: Community building, sharing roles and responsibilities between different people. Sharing time and knowledge personally. Resource allocation should be centralised. Taking care of partnerships and diversities should be decentralised as more the no. Of people getting different donor groups on set more will be the development. Sharing roles and responsibilities, community building taking care of workshops should be decentralised. Sharing problems on the talk page, taking into consideration everyone's views and opinions, having a suggestion box where people can suggest the requirements and conflicts, taking feedbacks, etc. Global community should consist of subject expert from every country which may be elected by the country editors that he or she represents. Decision making process should be from the grassroot level. We should encourage for more Wikiclubs not only for students but also for senior citizens, women, village based for more inclusion, to decentralise power. Also, more people should be given opportunities to attend international conferences, such as Wikimania participation that would encourage outreach activities-matrics to be used to judge individual and team capacity. People should be encouraged to participate in user group activities but individual efforts for projects and outreach should also be recognized and appreciated. There should be quarterly or bi yearly feedback process for leaders for every user group, affcom, chapters etc. Volunteers should declare clearly all the details like different roles and responsibility on local and global level on their user page and the area that user is working in strategy building and progress too. Talking to common masses and active contributors for feedback like this will bring equality and equity and will assist in inclusion of all voices for good decision making process in the movement. Through talk page and social media we should highlight the groups which work towards gender gap, women participation, more inclusive and reached to more audience. More responsibilities should be given to level headed person rather than short temper subject expert and good individual contributor. Continuous mentoring to be encouraged. Friendly space policies to be implemented on priority basis to be explained even to readers. There isn't any ongoing support from WMF to ensure smooth functioning of the affiliates. There needs to be a lot of sharing among various affiliates. Buddy system can be tried here. By making different committees in the communities so that the problem of conflicts can be managed. Unless such a global institution is made, we should make local decision making possible. The power should always remain decentralized and should be changed at regular intervals. Whatever the definition, the leadership should be the same, which holds the vision, the desire and ability to move the movement in positive direction with the collective sentiment. The model of 'local to global' should be adopted because every language community has its own distinctive problems. Justice or equality (equity) should work urgently on bridging gender, linguistic and technical barriers and gaps. According to the interests and capabilities, volunteer and community decisions should have distribution of responsibilities related to the members. Access to movement should now be mandatory in the field of education. Academic curriculum will make it not only inclusive but also sustainable and participatory. By doing online and offline workshops / discussions (initiatives like WikiSchool / Wikicoaching) at regular intervals, we can employ all new old members. Usergroups need to be regulated at decentralized and regular intervals. Transparency, responsibility and accountability are essential for the struggle to not flourish. If a situation of conflict and conflict arises, then it will be managed in dignified manner. Conflicts can be managed by quick and logical answers to mutual communication and related questions. Currently WMF has Trustee Board, various Committees, affiliate Chapters, User Groups etc. Except UGs, role of volunteer editing communities are not clear from the charters and rules of procedure of such set-ups. So WMF is frequently detached from ground realities and cannot take smooth and prompt decisions appropriate for the editing communities. So a need is there for more involvement of the editing communities. Any editor who is admin or above in any Wikimedia subdomain, should automatically be included in the General Assembly. Trustee Board, Committees, Chapters should have majority of members (exact percentage to be determined by rules so framed) from this General Assembly. Geographically or linguistically bound (or bound in some other form) set-ups (e.g. Chapters) should take members accordingly from the G.A. For example, Wikimedia India Chapter should take G.A. members who have citizenship of India. G.A. members should be chosen for Board, Committees as per expertise, duration of adminship, edit counts and set-up specific requirements. Non-G.A. members may be chosen by specific expertise or requirement. The G.A. should have country-specific, language-specific and domain-specific tiers. All Committees should have G.A. members from appropriate tiers. Requirements, as discussed and approved within these tiers, will be deemed as Wikimedia requirements and acted upon by appropriate formations. Conflicts, if not resolved locally (non-resolution to be defined), may be referred to these tiers by any user (including non-admins). Any admin to be removed if found suitable for removal by these tiers. There should be a Feedback option in the Main Page of all wikis for feedback from external non-editing users. Action on these feedbacks to be devised.
80 users. Strong participation from men and women, especially given presence of gender-related affiliates in Iberocoop channels.
Primary channel is Iberocoop Telegram channel (75 users). Also some discussion on Meta-Wiki and 1to1. Strategy Liaison has also held face to face beeting with GLAM partners and agents using personal connection to GLAM community in Valencia.
Spanish Strategy Liaison has chosen to faciliate thematic discussions by week; so far Roles & Responsibilities have been completed.
Strategy Liaison continuing to look for ways to target less active users and indigenous voices. Strategy Liaison also offering initial support and outreach to Italian community without much traction yet.
3 users (2 male/1 female) participated in discussions about strategy content (pasted into this document), 10 others (male) discussed opinions about the process itself
On-wiki. responded to Kurier announcements, plus Wikidata Forum and the de.wiktionary Teestube. Discussions also were not posted as early as in other languages because of efforts taken to ensure adequate translation.
3 participants chose to discussion Revenue Sreams, Resource Allocation, and Diversity.
Conversations will move into full swing in May. Strategy Liaison has detailed plans for 1:1 targeted outreach on wiki moving forward.
Primary channels are on-wiki (6 people), Telegram (6 people), and Email 5) people. Also conversations on WhatsApp and IRC. Portuguese SL is also on Iberocoop Telegram channel where many Portuguese speakers share their ideas rather than Portuguese-only channels. This feedback has been included and labeled as Iberocoop feedback under the "Spanish" language channel.
All except Advocacy.
Strategy Liaison will begin more targeted outreach 1:1, including to female users, in May. Portuguese and Spanish Strategy Liaisons are also coordinating on managing feedback from Iberocoop.
30 users, with extensive feedback from 3 via targeted interviews, the rest on Telegram public discussions. Concern that on-wiki is too toxic to have safe and fruitful discussions there.
Telegram- 18 member group for strategy discussion including all ative editors and organizers in Mandarin Wikipedia.
Public online meetup via Blue Jeans- every 1-2 weeks. Includes structured slide presentaiton and Q&A.
Meta-Wiki and Village Pump- no engagement from public, but posts of discussion reports will be put here.
Advocacy, Capacity Building, Community Health, Diversity, Partnerships, Product & Technology
Looking to do more 1:1 interviews, targeting individual users for feedback, soliciting greater participation from women in safe spaces. Also looking to transition from explaining the process to the community to soliciting feedback on strategy.
27 users, with 6 female and the rest most likely male. Diversity of participants across Wikimedia projects, with also a range from various caste and religious groups. 75% of participants are existing movement leaders.
Village Pump, private messenger group for missing voices, one-on-one interviews with emails, telephone, messenger, whatsapp and telegram.
Community Health, Capacity Building, Resource Allocation, and Roles & Responsibilities
Will continue with interview-driven approach and also experimenting with ideas around surveys to meet high demand for anonymous participation. Will also continue to facilitate public discussions on existing channels and to solicit participation from women and relevant minorities.
Finally, a lot of feedback was shared that is more relevant to programmtic change or to issues within the Hindi and South Asian communities. These will be posted as well- untranslated- but are not included in this report. See ""Report Link"" for further details and all original content.
30 users, extensive feedback from 8 of them via interviews. Broad geographic participantion from within and outside MENA. 80% male, almost all very experienced users/admins.
Primarily 1:1 interviews but also Facebook page of active editors on Arabic Wikipedia, other specific local Facebook groups, a Whatsapp Group for individuals who self-indicated in interest in strategy, 1:1 interviews, and Meta-Wiki/Village Pump posts (almost no engagement)
All
Looking to do more 1:1 interviews, targeting individual users for feedback, soliciting greater participation from women in safe spaces. Also looking to transition from explaining the process to the community to soliciting feedback on strategy.
