Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/2020/02

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Nomination and selection results[edit]

Final selection[edit]

Thanks everyone for your interest and nominations. Based on votes and selection criteria, we are happy to announce the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Transition Design Group.

Movement Strategy Transition Design Group

The Design Group is tasked with creating an open and inclusive transition process where the entire Wikimedia movement can take part in implementing the 2030 movement strategy recommendations. Transition will take place online from September to November and the Design Group will create these events taking into consideration different dynamics for participation, such as time zones, languages, translation requirement, and access to technology. The design group will be supported by a small support team.

The Design Group discussions will be open and on-wiki. All interested individuals are encouraged to participate in the discussions as reviewers, and later in the actual transition events. If you were nominated or have already expressed your interest, we will reach out to you regarding participation as a reviewer.

Please let us know if you would like to participate in the design discussions as a reviewer. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Working session #1 summary[edit]

In its first working session (out of a total of 5), on 9 July 2020, the selected Design Group brainstormed some of the “immediate concerns and considerations” that are to be addressed in the Transition events design throughout the next five weeks. The group clustered their initial ideas into the groupings below. Community feedback and suggested changes or additions to this list are welcome --Abbad (WMF) (talk) 12:32, 10 July 2020 (UTC).[reply]

List of considerations[edit]

Below is a list of considerations for the Transition events design, with some examples of the discussion points that came up during the working session:

Theme Concerns and considerations
Inclusivity Diversity and inclusion
  • How do we make these events as inclusive as possible?
  • How do we ensure equity in participation?
  • How do we make sure that all regions of the world can participate in the same, equal way?
Engaging online communities
  • Different stakeholders in the movement are part of the diversity: affiliates, individual contributors, WMF, editing, organizers etc.
  • We need the perspective of communities (users, editors) in the future. How to get them on board?
Language gap / diversity
  • The language barrier is significant if we want to be inclusive.
  • Suggestion: Facilitators/translators who can capture/transmit contributions from those communities.
  • Suggestion: Using written options for contribution - allow people to prepare their notes (rather than speaking “on the spot”) through google forms, surveys, questionnaires.
Bandwidth  / connectivity
  • Internet bandwidth is a big concern. Related issues include potential power outages and the bandwidth needs when using video by default.
Technology gap
  • We need to support technological capabilities.
Governance Feasibility
  • How do we ensure that people feel heard and decisions are still being made?
  • How can we resource the people and communities so that they can start the work as soon as possible?
Ownership
  • Make sure that there is ownership possible with check-ins along the way.
  • How to ensure that small affiliates will also be given responsibilities and operations, rather than just splitting them between already big and sustainable chapters?
Legitimacy
  • How do we ensure cross validation between all actors so that we are as efficient as possible when we later start implementing? How to increase the legitimacy of the distribution of initiatives?
  • How do we ensure that it is not top-down but inclusive from the start?
Accountability
  • How do we ensure that all stakeholders hold mutual accountability?
Contextualization Surveys / research
  • Do we need research that analyses the needs of stakeholders that won’t be taking part in the transition events?
Community needs assessment
  • Assess the needs of these communities to ensure they have the ability to participate in implementation.
Feedback loops
  • Feedback loops, as always, will be needed along the way of Transitioning into implementation.
Scoping and priorities for Design
  • Ideally, by the end of the process we will have a list of things which need to happen to implement all the recommendations; what can be keep running in parallel, what is the sequence, and what are the priorities within every “parallel line”.
Other Expectation management
  • Not every product might be acceptable for everybody, but the expectations must be clearly labeled.
Communication
  • Keep the conversation going with the whole movement. Official messaging. People should understand what we are doing.
Results
  • How can we turn the idealistic recommendations into concrete actions and tasks?
Create space for the Design rather than designing the plan
  • How to avoid designing the 'plan' itself by designing the events to 'design the plan'?
Start experimenting with implementation in an iterative manner
  • How can we from now start to test and try in an iterative process that ongoingly allows us to bring in more and more people that are interested in the work?
Empowering communities and stakeholders
  • How do we empower emerging communities if they can’t even participate?
  • @MPourzaki (WMF): This list already has more questions/considerations than the number of people in the Design team including support. In the Working Group phase hundreds of 'scoping questions' were formulated, and not a single specific question got an answer. I would like to hold all members on the Design team accountable for progress. Please put your name after at least one question/consideration above, for which you will take responsibility to come up with answer or a proposal how to find an answer or address this consideration. One week from now I will strike through each question or consideration without a name added to it, so everyone knows no one is working on providing an answer or a proposal. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 14:22, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hoi Ad, to be clear, I do not think anybody right now is working on any of these questions/considerations (there was an idea to look at the involvement issue, which might or might not have followed up). I do not expect much to happen until Thursday. I myself have only read these questions today, they were a result of some brainstorming, not a conclusion of any group-wide discussion. I think the question at this point is that if there is something badly missing (which can very well be the case), it should be added, preferably before Thursday.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:57, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I liked the phrase "People should understand what we are doing", that is important. And I missed some more topics related to the recommendation "Identify Topics for Impact", that is for me the most important recommendation, that is an old problem, it was always difficult to evaluate how much impact our actions made in the Wikimedia projects and on the people that read and contribute on the projects. There is a phrase from Peter Drucker that I like that says "nothing is quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all", sometimes we work hard in things that will bring none or almost no impact, that applies to everything, from the articles the editors give priority to edit to the WMF and affiliates actions to improve the community, evaluate the impact is hard but we need to ensure that we are doing everything we can to get better on that. Danilo.mac talk 23:01, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Danilo.mac. This is really useful. 'Identify Topics for Impact' was misunderstood by some. I am glad you grasp why it was proposed by communities and why it's so important for our learning and development. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Ad, great to hear from you. Ymblanter is right. Last week was a first brainstorming session and not a definitive task assignment. I'm sure a majority of these issues will be addressed in upcoming discussions and in the iterations of the online events. After all, this is why the Design Group has convened, to think of ways to make the process more inclusive and overcome various participation barriers. Some of these ideas can be further grouped as we develop further over the next 4-5 sessions. For example, outreach, assessments, surveys, feedback loops and expectation management can fall under communication, which is emerging as a key stream of work. Explicit responsibilities as you propose would come a little later when we realize the plan for the events. At this stage, if you feel anything is missing from the discussions, please let us know. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @MPourzaki (WMF) thanks for the reply, as wel as @Ymblanter. I wish the group have done an in depth round of introductions to each other, and have shared their intentions to participate in this process, and stress more want they do want to achieve positively and constructively, rather than things they want to avoid (risks), or formulate negatively, questioning the preferred outcome. And yes, I would welcome an inventory of stakeholders, their interests and their needs, which preferably include an analysis of the external environment. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 15:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on session #3 summary[edit]

  • The listed 8 events, are those country codes or language codes? SP isn't a valid code in either system. I assume CH and SP are supposed to be Chinese (zh) and Spanish (es), is that correct? PT is listed twice, so I can't tell what the missing one is.
    • Japan, the country with the second-largest Wikimedia presence, has no local affiliate, and is often completely unrepresented at these things. Assuming Japanese is not the unmentioned 8th language with an event planned, I'd recommend adding it, as it has a quite considerably larger community than Arabic, Chinese, or Portuguese.
  • On the technical barrier and levels of engagement: Keep in mind that many (most?) Wikimedians will not involve themselves at all in off-wiki communication. I would recommend keeping some open wiki pages (not just discussion pages) to develop ideas, completely open for editing and ideally in multiple languages (without pages being necessarily straight translations of each other).
  • On simultaneous translation: That would be excellent, but I don't think it's generally within our capabilities.

--Yair rand (talk) 05:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Yair rand: Thanks for the focused reading! I've fixed the languages per your notes. I'll check with the Design Group regarding Japanese: however, since these are the minutes of a discussion rather than a written document, the 8 languages could be a typo during note-taking.
  • Those are great suggestions. I have already communicated them to the Design Group (as with other feedback on Meta), hopefully for integration in the event plan draft that is to be shared soon.
  • I agree that simultaneous translation is probably beides the capacity of these events. For now, we know that translation is a major ask, meaning it needs to be accounted for in the budget as much as possible; but it's the amount of this budget (to be confirmed) that will actually determine how much translation can take place.
--Abbad (WMF) (talk) 11:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC).[reply]
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