Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Updates/July 2019

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Dear fellow Wikimedians,

Working groups are busy analyzing community conversations and are integrating insights from these as well as expert feedback and input into their work. From this, they have started to put ideas and concepts together and are turning these into draft recommendations for structural changes that will help us advance in our strategic direction: To become the support system for the whole free knowledge movement. These drafts will be published for movement input in August.

Affiliate communities across the globe have begun launching strategy salons to share their ideas about the future of our movement. The diverse range of perspectives being shared here is enriching the conversations that working groups are having. And we have added another opportunity to get involved in the community conversations: online surveys.

Wikimedia 2030 @ Wikimania 2019

Visit the Wikimedia 2030 space at Wikimania! The space will be a lively hub of discussions about building the future of our movement. Representatives from each working group will host public discussion sessions with the community to learn from them and review the draft recommendations for each thematic area in person. We will also host meet-ups in the main conference hotel on the Friday and Saturday evenings, where we’ve got more fun things planned. We are currently putting the finishing touches on the program and more updates on all of this will follow in the coming weeks.

Talking movement strategy around the globe

From South East Asia to Africa and beyond: Movement strategy is all about generating global engagement and discussions about our future.

Over 30 community members from across the Asia-Pacific region came together to discuss our shared future at the ESEAP Strategy Summit in Bangkok. Our call for strategy salon grant proposals resulted in 44 grants being awarded, and strategy-focused events have recently been held in Cameroon, Uganda, and Morocco. Upcoming salons will take place in Estonia, Bangladesh, Venezuela, and the Levant.

In addition, the Capacity Building (see blog post) and Roles and Responsibilities working groups have held in-person meetings in Singapore and in Utrecht to work on drafting recommendations. And there’s more to come: the Resource Allocation working group will meet this week in Madrid and Community Health will come together next week in Amman.

And you can share your thoughts and ideas at anytime and from anywhere on Meta as part of the ongoing community conversations.

Take part in movement strategy online surveys

If you prefer to participate anonymously or could not join any of your community’s or group’s conversations yet, an additional way to get involved is to take part in our online survey[1]. Here, you can share your perspectives about the structural part of our movement, particularly in relation to your local or thematic context. There are surveys for each of the nine thematic areas, and the surveys are available in a number of languages.

Following a soft launch to test the questions and quality of the translations, we now encourage the wider movement to take part and contribute to ongoing global discussions.

Community conversations report for June is now live

If you want to get a good snapshot of the ideas, opinions, and thoughts that have been put forward in all of these discussions, then we have a reading recommendation for you: the June community conversations report! The report offers a summary of all the input gathered during discussions that happened on Meta, at regional salons, and during conversations facilitated by the strategy liaisons.

If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to get in touch.

Best wishes,

Nicole

References

  1. Here and here.