Talk:Wikimedians of Kerala
All the best ..!! മലയാളീ English Wikimediannu pattumo join cheyan ? -- naveenpf (talk) 11:35, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Surely, Please add your name --Sidheeq (talk) 04:22, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
Merging the other content to here[edit]
We need only one user group. So I am merging all the content of the other proposal to here. Happy to join in the movement. And adding all the members of that page to here. --Ranjithsiji (talk) 07:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
- Hey there. Just stumbled across this post when patrolling. How is the Malayalam Wikimedians User Group set up? I don't think it is allowed to merge like that, unless the Malayalam User Group is not actually a real usergroup. Pinging Dumisani, in case he would have an official opinion. Best wishes and congrats! Rehman 14:47, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Rehman:, The initial application was for the Malayalam User Group, by Sidheeq, then it was modified to Kerala. If there is a need for a separate Malayalam Group, this would have to be a new application. But if its the same community, the merge is fine, since Malayalam User Group does not exist. Kindest regards. --DNdubane (WMF) (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Rehman: We had a plan to make a user group for Malayalam. That is why we created a page for Malayalam Wikimedians User Group. But Sidheeq was applied already independently. Now I contacted him and we are into this official group. There was some confusion in between. Now it is resolved out. And for Malayalam community we have this user group and I would like to manage it in Kerala. Because Sidheeq is stationed in New Delhi. --Ranjithsiji (talk) 10:44, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
- No worries, Ranjithsiji. It was just a passerby comment. Wishing your usergroup all the best! :) Rehman 10:47, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
Learning Quarterly: November 2018[edit]
L&E Newsletter / Volume 5 / Issue 17 / November 2018
Learning Quarterly
Frontpage:
#CEInsights18
#GenderEquity
Stay tuned
blogs, events
& more!
Leave your mark on Meta!
AffCom corner and Wikimania Poster session
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
2018 Affiliations Committee call for candidates[edit]
This is an update from the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee.
The Affiliations Committee – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members!
The main role of the Affiliations Committee is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and advise the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.
The committee can include up to fifteen members, roughly half of whom are selected every twelve months for staggered two-year terms. Those joining the committee during the current process will serve a two-year term ending in December 2020.
- Key skills
Being a part of the Affiliations Committee requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a healthy mix of different skill sets in our members, including the following key skills and experience:
- Willingness to process applications through a set, perhaps bureaucratic process.
- Readiness to participate in political discussions on the role and future of affiliates, models of affiliation, and similar topics.
- Availability of up to 5 hours per week, and the time to participate in a monthly two-hour voice/video meeting.
- International orientation.
- Fluency in English.
- Ability to work and communicate with other languages and cultures.
- Strong understanding of the structure and work of affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Knowledge of different legal systems and experience in community building and organizing are a plus.
- Skills in other languages are a major plus.
- Experience with or in an active affiliate is a major plus.
- Strong track record of effective collaboration (such as evidenced skills at facilitation, mediation, negotiation, and so forth) are a major plus.
- Willingness to use one's real name in committee activities (including contacts with current and potential affiliates) when appropriate.
We are looking for people who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee members selected will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications.
- Selection process
As a reflection of our commitment to openness, transparency, and bilateral engagement with the Wikimedia community, the 2018 member selection process will include a public review and comment period. All applications received by the committee will be posted on Meta at Affiliations Committee/Candidates/December 2018, and the community will be invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate.
At the end of the public comment period, the applications will be voted on by the members of the committee who are not seeking re-election, taking into account comments put forward by the committee's members, advisors, Wikimedia Foundation staff and board liaisons, and the community. A final decision will be made by mid-January 2019, with new members expected to join later that month.
- How to apply
If you are interested in joining the committee, please post your application on the nomination page and send an email announcing your application to affcom@lists.wikimedia.org by 31 December 2018. Your application must include the following information:
- Your full name and Wikimedia username
- A statement describing your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
- Answers to the following three questions:
- How do you think affiliates work best together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to chat or have a phone call with anyone about our work if this helps them decide to apply. Please distribute this call among your networks, and do apply if you are interested!
Best regards,
Kirill Lokshin
Chair, Affiliations Committee
Posted by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of the Affiliations Committee, 06:25, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Userbox for usergroup[edit]
Hi greetings, I created a userbox for the members of our usergroup--({{User IN-KL}}). Is it good? Can we use it for the group? Please give your valuable suggestions. Thank you.--Path slopu (talk) 13:34, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
- @Path slopu: Thank you for creating this userbox. We will popularize it on our community. --Ranjithsiji (talk) 06:23, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
New Affiliations Committee appointments[edit]
AffCom is excited to share with you the news that the Wikimedia Foundation Board has unanimously approved the changes to the Bylaws during the last Board meeting on January 30, 2019.
This change allows the participation of User Groups in the Affiliate-selected Board seats (ASBS) 2019 process.
To read the Board's announcement, please click here
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Help us make Wikipedia talk pages more accessible to more participants[edit]
Hello!
Our team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on a project to improve the ease-of-use and productivity of wiki talk pages. As an affiliate, I can imagine you’ve run into challenges explaining talk pages to first-time participants, or it is an consultation that would interest your members.
We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis – to ask questions, to resolve differences, to organize projects and to make decisions. Communication is essential for the depth and quality of our content, and the health of our communities.
We're currently leading a global consultation on how to improve talk pages, and we're looking for groups that can discuss and report on their experiences using (or helping other people to use) wiki talk pages. We'd like to invite you to participate, with the user groups that you belong to. You can learn more about the consultation at Mediawiki.org and if you're interested in hosting a group discussion (on-wiki or off-wiki), you can sign up at the participant sign-up group.
If you’d like to participate or if you have any questions, please contact us and let us know. The more people participate from many horizons, the better the outcome will be.
Thank you! Trizek (WMF) 15:29, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Call for complementary facilitators and more to get the ASBS 2019 process started![edit]
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Hi everyone, hope all is fine with you!
The next weeks will be intense, as affiliates figure out their participation in the process that will soon select 2 people for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Since new Bylaws established that the user groups are for the first time going to be involved in such process, a lot more support than before is certainly going to be necessary, among other things, for big and healthy conversations on the topic. Hence, please encourage members of your group to become a complementary facilitator, or sign up yourself! You can add yourself to the list on Meta or reply to me to flag availability. One person from the facilitators group should soon be selected to liaise with the Foundation Board’s Chair, María Sefidari, on behalf of all affiliates, and it may be wise to also find a deputy for them.
Finally, if you can think of any huge obstacles that would prevent your group from participating to the process (for instance, a language barrier, or lack of good decision-making mechanisms, etc.), please reach out to me directly: it is really important that we hear about them as early as possible. Thank you! Elitre (WMF) 15:23, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Update on the Affiliate-selected Board seats 2019 process[edit]
Hi all,
The Election Facilitators met on Friday, April 5. We finalized the resolution, which is now frozen. The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will be asked to approve the resolution.
We have made two small changes to be more inclusive. We extended the date for compliance with AffCom reporting and being in good standing to May 7 to allow time for as many Affiliates as possible to be current with these requirements. The Election Facilitators adjusted the language in case a quorum is not met during the election.
On the talk page of the resolution one issue was raised. The issue looks like to be about a possible candidate. Affiliates will have ample time to discuss the merits of candidates during nomination time, screening time, and they can cast their votes on candidates. The Election Facilitators didn't see the necessity for this change, and left the resolution on this point unchanged.
The Election Facilitators will be Abhinav Srivastava, Lane Rasberry, Jeffrey Keefer, Ad Huikeshoven, Neal McBurnett and Alessandro Marchetti. We will welcome more volunteers to assist us in this process, to reach out to the diversity in language and gender in our communities, and do so in an advisory role.
The nomination period opens on April 15. We are going to prepare nomination pages on Meta. You can expect a call for nominations. There is a draft call, including a candidates' profile section with non-binding guidelines about experience and characteristics for nominees. You are welcome to add your insights, or discuss on the talk page.
Erica Litrenta (WMF staff) supports us in this process. She will reach out to all affiliates through mail and other channels to make sure we are up to date with (user)name and contact details of your primary contact.
On behalf of the Election Facilitators, Ad Huikeshoven 10:52, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Update about the Affiliate-selected Board seats process 2019[edit]
Hello everyone!
- The Resolution has been approved by the Board of Trustees;
- Nominations phase is now open, from April 15 00:00 UTC to April 30 23:59 UTC. See the Call for Candidates and Nominations pages;
- Community members may ask questions of the candidates;
- Your main representative has just received an email to confirm that they are indeed the primary contact and will perform official actions on behalf of your group (such as endorsing candidates and then voting). Some groups also need to verify their eligibility status in due time, as explained in the email;
- New content is available to spread awareness around the process - the infographic on this page has clickable links and can be translated, and a primer is available, that we hope will be particularly helpful to those new to such a process;
- Finally, you are welcome to help with translations! Pick one page from the ASBS category and, in the next couple of weeks, please consider translating profiles of the candidates in particular.
Thanks for your attention! The Facilitators for ASBS 2019, 07:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
Affiliate-selected Board seats 2019 process: your representative[edit]
Hello. The name of the only person who will vote on behalf of this group to select the next two Board members is now at m:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2019/Eligible entities. Please contact me directly as soon as possible if you need any kind of corrections there. There's only a few hours left to endorse candidates, and only the official voter can do that. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that you can make a difference with the necessary translations.
Appreciate your attention and your support so far! Thank you! Elitre (WMF) and Facilitators of ASBS 2019, 12:15, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Introducing Wikimedia Space: A platform for movement news and organizations[edit]
Hi Wikimedians of Kerala,
I’m writing to let you know that the Community Engagement department [1]at the Wikimedia Foundation is launching a new platform, Wikimedia Space. Here, you will find stories for and by contributors to the Wikimedia movement, and a space for discussions of different topics.
We know that finding information about Wikimedia activities and processes is very complicated, which makes the learning curve to enter our movement and be successful afterwards, really steep. By centralizing community stories and conversations in one shared space, we believe we are facilitating access and discoverability of topics across the movement, improving, in turn, connections among Wikimedians.
As an affiliated organization to the Wikimedia Foundation, we hope that you can share this platform with your local community, and we count on you to encourage them to add their voices. If you’d like to contribute stories, and overall, participate in the discussion section, please read our blogging guidelines and our code of conduct and join the conversation. Find more information about the project on its page on Meta.
Looking forward to seeing you at Wikimedia Space,
María Cruz, Communications and Outreach Manager, Wikimedia Foundation.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:53, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
- References
You have mail![edit]
Hello! Please check your group inbox for a message from me. Thanks! --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Introducing Wikimedia Diary: A memory book (notebook) for all[edit]
|
Wikimedia Diary
| |
| Hello Wikimedians of Kerala, I wanna share you about Wikimedia Diary, a public memory book (notebook) in which Wikimedians from all over the world are free to write any worth noting event/activities/experiences by them or community in this Wiki world. It is a more casual place to write about what one is up to.
As we all know, a diary is a book in which diarist keeps a daily record of events and experiences. Likewise, the basic idea of Wikimedia Diary is that we do many activities here in wiki world which we are proud of, but unfortunately it became only the history anytime. So, It is meant to record those activities on the happened date with a signature (~~~~) which is worth noting, and letting fellow Wikimedians know about what inspirational you've did. It would motivate users from all around the world to keep on cool activities and publish a note. I hope you share your activities with all of us on the page, and please let your friends know about Wikimedia Diary. Also, your feedback is welcome on the discussion page. Thank you! |
Notification of User Group Expiration - Renewal pending submission of reporting[edit]
Greetings @Sidheeq: & @01tonythomas:,
This is a notification to bring to your attention that your organization is currently past due on its required annual reporting. Wikimedia User Groups are required to submit an annual activity report covering the entirety of the 12-month agreement period in order to prompt review for a renewal. Reports must be written in English, posted to meta, and linked on the meta Reports page.
This page is used to track how organizations and groups are meeting reporting requirements described in their agreements with the Wikimedia Foundation (e.g. chapter agreements, thematic organization agreements, user group agreements). It is the central place where affiliates can add reports about their activities, share their plans, and even news or social media channels with the wider movement. When new reports are available, organizations and groups should add them to this page to keep their columns up to date.
As noted on the meta Reports page, your organization’s 2018-2019 annual reporting became past due in September. Please be sure to
- Post your 2018-2019 annual reporting to the meta Reports page as soon as possible to return to compliance with your user group agreement.
- Check that your group’s page is also up to date with past report links for historical record-keeping, and
- Please send an email to Wikimedia-l in order to share with a movement-wide audience.
If you have any questions or need any further guidance, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Best regards,
DNdubane (WMF) (talk) 03:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
- @DNdubane (WMF): Thanks for this Notification. We were doing some planning and stuff in between. Also I am not aware about the central Reports Page. I will update the reports as soon as possible. --Ranjithsiji (talk) 13:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
- @DNdubane (WMF): - Annual report was created on theReport page. Also the entry at Reports page updated.--Ranjithsiji (talk) 14:39, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
2019 Affiliations Committee call for candidates[edit]
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members!
The main role of the Affiliations Committee is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.
The committee consists of fourteen members, selected every twelve months for staggered two-year terms. Those joining the committee during the current process will serve a two-year term ending in December 2021.
AffCom continues to closely monitor the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process that was initiated in 2016. While the affiliation models continue to be discussed as part of the broader strategy discussion, as no decisions have been made to change the current affiliation models yet, AffCom will continue to work in the same manner with regard to affiliate recognitions and intervention support for affiliates with issues of non-compliance in 2020. Specifically, AffCom will continue to process applications for user group and chapter/thematic organization creation, while we await the strategy next steps and begin to prepare for a smooth transition of the committee and affiliates ecosystem to any changing movement structures and systems in 2021.
Being a part of the Affiliations Committee requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a healthy mix of different skill sets in our members.
Required and Recommended Skills for Affiliations Committee Members[edit]
Across all committee members there are additional relevant skills as well as requirements which help to support the committee and its sustainability which include both required and relevant general skills
Required Skills[edit]
- Fluency in English
- Availability of up to 5 hours per week, and the time to participate in a monthly one and two-hour voice/video meetings.
- Willingness to use one's real name in committee activities (including contacts with current and potential affiliates) when appropriate.
- Strong track record of effective collaboration
- International orientation
Relevant Skills[edit]
- Skills in other languages are a major plus.
- Public Communications (English writing and speaking skills)
- Strong understanding of the structure and work of affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Documentation practices
- Interviewing experience
- Knowledge of different legal systems and experience in community building and organizing are a plus
- Experience with, or in, an active affiliate is a major plus.
- Teamwork
- Focusing on shared goals instead of disagreements
- Focusing on the conflict at hand and not past ones
- Ensuring each member of the team has a clearly defined role, which can help reduce disagreements over areas of responsibility
- Project and people management to coordinate different parties on a shared plan and seeing it through to completion.
- Problem-Solving
- Ability to evaluate various solutions
- Ability to consider multiple interests and points of view
- Willingness to revisit unresolved issues
- The capacity to recognize and respond to important matters
- The ability to seek compromise and avoid punishing
- Ability to work and communicate with other languages and cultures.
Given the expectations for maintaining course in 2020 and preparing for potential 2021 transitions, it is important that we are also clear about two different skill sets critical to committee support at this time. The first skillset is oriented to understanding affiliate dynamics and organizational development patterns to successfully process affiliate applications for recognition; the other is oriented to conflict prevention and intervention support for affiliates in conflict.
Affiliate Recognitions Relevant Skills[edit]
- Administration
- Willingness to process applications through a set, perhaps bureaucratic process.
- Attention to detail
- Monitoring & Strategic Development
- Readiness to participate in political discussions on the role and future of affiliates, models of affiliation, and similar topics.
- Organizational Awareness
- Understanding of and community building and organizational development
- Understanding of group dynamics
- Awareness of the affiliates ecosystem and models
Conflict Prevention & Intervention Relevant Skills[edit]
- Communication
- Active listening
- Reading nonverbal cues
- Knowing when to interrupt and when to stay quiet
- Being culturally sensitive at the same time remaining clear and concise when explaining a concept or opinion
- Stress Management
- Patience
- Positivity
- Ability to inject a dose of humor to dilute anger and frustration when needed
- Taking well-timed breaks that can bring calm in the midst of flared tempers
- Ability to manage stress while remaining alert and calm
- Emotional Intelligence
- Being emotionally aware,
- Ability to control emotions and behaviors,
- Ability to practice empathy,
- Impartiality,
- Don’t take anything personally,
- Being aware of and respectful of differences.
- Facilitation skills
- Meeting facilitation experience
- Peer or community mediation training
- Peer or community mediation experience
Do you have any of these skill sets and an interest to support movement affiliates?
We are looking for people who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee members selected will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications.
Selection process[edit]
As a reflection of our commitment to openness, transparency, and bilateral engagement with the Wikimedia community, the 2019 member selection process will include a public review and comment period. We invite you to share with us you applications, specifying your focus area you’re interested in. All applications received by the committee will be posted on Meta, and the community will be invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate.
At the end of the public comment period, the applications will be voted on by the members of the committee who are not seeking re-election, taking into account comments put forward by the committee's members, advisors, Wikimedia Foundation staff and board liaisons, and the community. A final decision will be made by mid-January 2020, with new members expected to join later that month.
How to apply[edit]
If you are interested in joining the committee, please post your application on the nomination page and send an email announcing your application to AffCom
lists.wikimedia.org by 10 January 2020. Your application must include the following information:
- Your full name and Wikimedia username
- A statement describing your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
- Answers to the following questions:
- How do you think affiliates work best together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you uniquely qualified?
- Which subcommittee are you most interested in serving on: Recognitions OR Conflict Prevention & Intervention?
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to chat or have a phone call with anyone about our work if this helps them decide to apply. Please distribute this call among your networks, and do apply if you are interested!
On behalf of the committee,
Camelia Boban, AffCom member
Wikimedia Movement Strategy: 2020 Community Conversations[edit]
Dear Wikimedians,
Greetings! Wishing you a very happy new year!
We have an update for the next steps of the Movement Strategy! We're preparing for a final round of community conversations with Wikimedia affiliates and online communities around a synthesized set of draft recommendations to start around late/mid January. In the meantime, recommendations’ writers and strategy team has been working on integrating community ideas and feedback into these recommendations. Thank you, for all of your contributions!
What's New?[edit]
The recommendations writers have been working to consolidate the 89 recommendations produced by the working groups. They met in Berlin a few weeks back for an in-person session to produce a synthesized recommendations document which will be shared for public comment around late/mid January. A number of common areas for change were reflected in the recommendations, and the writers assessed and clustered them around these areas. The goal was to outline the overall direction of the change and present one set that is clearly understood, implementable and demonstrates the reasoning behind each.
What's Next?[edit]
We will be reaching out to you to help engage your affiliate in discussing this new synthesized version. Your input in helping us refine and advance key ideas will be invaluable, and we are looking forward to engaging with you for a period of thirty days from late/mid January. Our final consultation round is to give communities a chance to "review and discuss" the draft recommendations, highlighting areas of support and concern as well as indicating how your community would be affected.
Please share ideas on how you would like to meet and discuss the final draft recommendations when they are released near Mid January whether through your strategy salons, joining us at global and regional events, joining online conversations, or sending in notes from affiliate discussions. We couldn't do this without you, and hope that you will enjoy seeing your input reflected in the next draft and final recommendations. This will be an opportunity for the movement to review and respond to the recommendations before they are finalized.
If possible, we'd love if you could feature a discussion of the draft recommendations at the next in-person meeting of your affiliate, ideally between the last week of January and the first week of February. If not, please let us know how we can help support you with online conversations and discussing how the draft recommendations fit with the ideas shared at your strategy salon (when applicable).
The input communities have shared so far has been carefully documented, analyzed, and folded into the synthesized draft recommendations. Communities will be able to see footnotes referencing community ideas. What they share again in January/February will be given the same care, seriousness, and transparency.
This final round of community feedback will be presented to the Board of Trustees alongside the final recommendations that will be shared at the Wikimedia Summit.
Warmly -- User:RSharma (WMF) 15:58, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Wikimedia 2030: Movement Strategy Community conversations are here![edit]
Dear Affiliate Representatives and community members,
The launch of our final round of community conversation is finally here! We are excited to have the opportunity to invite you to take part.
The recommendations have been published! Please take time over the next five weeks to review and help us understand how your organization and community would be impacted.
What Does This Mean?
The core recommendations document has now been published on Meta in Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, and Spanish. This is the result of more than a year of dedicated work by our working groups, and we are pleased to share the evolution of their work for your final consideration.
In addition to the recommendations text, you can read through key documents such as Principles, Process, and the Writer’s Reflections, which lend important context to this work and highlight the ways that the recommendations are conceptually interlinked.
We also have a brief Narrative of Change [5] which offers a summary introduction to the recommendations material.
How Is My Input Reflected In This Work?
Community input played an important role in the drafting of these recommendations. The core recommendations document reflects this and cites community input throughout in footnotes.
I also encourage you to take a look at our community input summaries. These texts show a further analysis of how all of the ideas you shared last year through online conversations, affiliate meetings, and strategy salons connect to recommendations. Many of the community notes and reports not footnoted in the core recommendations document are referenced here as evidence of the incredible convergence of ideas that have brought us this far.
What Happens Now?
Affiliates, online communities, and other stakeholders have the next five weeks to discuss and share feedback on these recommendations. In particular, we’re hoping to better understand how you think they would impact our movement - what benefits and opportunities do you foresee for your affiliate, and why? What challenges or barriers would they pose for you? Your input at this stage is vital, and we’d like to warmly invite you to participate in this final discussion period.
We encourage volunteer discussion co-ordinators for facilitating these discussions in your local language community on-wiki, on social media, informal or formal meet ups, on-hangouts, IRC or the village pump of your project. Please collect a report from these channels or conversations and connect with me directly so that I can be sure your input is collected and used. Alternatively, you can also post the feedback on the meta talk pages of the respective recommendations.
After this five week period, the Core Team will publish a summary report of input from across affiliates, online communities, and other stakeholders for public review before the recommendations are finalized. You can view our updated timeline here as well as an updated FAQ section that addresses topics like the goal of this current period, the various components of the draft recommendations, and what’s next in more detail.
Thank you again for taking the time to join us in community conversations, and we look forward to receiving your input. (Please help us by translating this message into your local language). Happy reading! RSharma (WMF) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Invitation to participate in Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos[edit]
Dear Wikimedia Affiliate Community,
We are inviting you to participate in Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP), a new global contest scheduled to run from July through August 2020:
Participants will choose among Wikipedia pages without photo images, then add a suitable file from among the many thousands of photos in the Wikimedia Commons, especially those uploaded from thematic contests (Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore, etc.) over the years.
WPWP offers a focused task for guiding new editors through the steps of adding content to existing pages. It can be used to organize editing workshops and edit-a-thons.
The organizing team is looking for a contact person at the Chapter, Thematic group & Wikimedia User Group level (geographically or thematically), or for a language WP, to coordinate the project locally. We’d be glad for you to sign up directly at WPWP Participating Communities
Thank you,
Deborah Schwartz Jacobs
On behalf of Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Organizing Team - 21:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The 2030 movement strategy recommendations are here![edit]
Greetings! We are pleased to inform that the 2030 movement strategy recommendations have been published on Meta-wiki. Over the last two years, our movement has worked tirelessly to produce these ideas to change our shared future. Many of you participated in the online conversations, hosted strategy salons, attended regional events, and connected with us in-person at Wikimania. These contributions were invaluable, and will help make our movement stronger for years to come.
The finished set of 10 recommendations emphasizes many of our core values, such as equity, innovation, safety, and coordination, while tasking us jointly to turn this vision into a reality. These recommendations clarify and refine the previous version, which was published in January this year. They are at a high strategic level so that the ideas are flexible enough to be adapted to different global and local settings and will allow us to navigate future challenges. Along with the recommendations, we have outlined 10 underlying principles, a narrative of change, and a glossary of key terms for better context.
The recommendations are available in numerous languages, including Arabic, German, Hindi, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish for you to read and share widely. We encourage you to read the recommendations in your own time and at your own pace, either online or in a PDF. There are a couple of other formats for you to take a deeper dive if you wish, such as a one-page summary, slides, and office hours, all collected on Meta. If you would like to comment, you are welcome to do so on the Meta talk pages. However, please note that these are the final version of the recommendations. No further edits will be made. This final version of the recommendations embodies an aspiration for how the Wikimedia movement should continue to change in order to advance that direction and meet the Wikimedia vision in a changing world.
In terms of next steps, our focus now shifts toward implementation. In light of the cancellation of the Wikimedia Summit, the Wikimedia Foundation is determining the best steps for moving forward through a series of virtual events over the coming months. We will also be hosting live office hours in the next coming few days, where you can join us to celebrate the Strategy and ask questions! Please stay tuned, and thank you once again for helping to drive our movement forward, together. RSharma (WMF)
Call for candidates - June 2020[edit]
Hi everyone,
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing and sustaining Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is seeking new members!
The main role of the AffCom is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.
The committee consists of five to fifteen members, selected at least once every year, to serve two-year terms. As the committee must hold mid-year elections to replenish its members at this time, those joining the committee during the current process will serve a slightly extended term from July 2020 through December 2022.
AffCom continues to closely monitor the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process initiated in 2016. While the affiliation models continue to be discussed as part of the broader strategy discussion, as no decisions have been made to change the current affiliation models yet, AffCom continues to work in the same manner with regard to affiliate recognitions and intervention support for affiliates with issues of non-compliance in 2020. AffCom continues to process applications for user group and chapter/thematic organization creation, while we await the strategy next steps and begin to prepare for a smooth transition of the committee and affiliates ecosystem to any changing movement structures and systems in 2021.
Being a part of the AffCom requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a mix of different skill sets in our members.
Click here for further details.
James Heilman on behalf of AffCom
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
Affiliations Committee elections announcement June 2020[edit]
Hi everyone,
This is a friendly reminder that the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing and sustaining Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is seeking new members! The deadline to post your application on the nomination page is 30 June 2020.
- Application process: Considering the anticipated changes following the Strategy recommendations, we had a limited scope to introduce changes in the process. We have made a small but impactful addition to the application process by introducing the Self Assessment survey form which will help the committee know more about your engagement as endorsements are not consistently shared, may not be representative, and often do not speak to the specific skills needed.
- Selection process: No change; see: Membership.
If you have any questions, please contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to answer questions about our work if this helps people decide to apply. Please distribute this announcement among your networks. Good luck to all the candidates!
On behalf of the committee,
--Rosiestep (talk) 00:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging
June 21 All-Affiliates Brand Meeting[edit]
All Wikimedia affiliates are invited to join an urgent All-Affiliates Brand Meeting in two sessions on Sunday June 21, regarding the most recent developments.--Pharos (talk) 20:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Feedback on movement names[edit]
There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.
Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.
You should have received a separate affiliate survey via email. If you have not, feel free to email brandprojectwikimedia.org.
Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.
Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement --The Brand Project team, 13:37, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.
Announcing a new wiki project! Welcome, Abstract Wikipedia[edit]
Hello everyone. I am posting the announcement below, which you may have missed elsewhere, and in the hope that you can share it with your local communities. Please note that it may be available in your language at m:Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/July 2020 announcement. Thanks for your attention! m:User:Elitre (WMF)
Hi all,
It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia, a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more contributors and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.
This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May 2020 [1] after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the energy and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not make it to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and feel like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers create and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.
The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of knowledge to create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into their own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to read about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.
As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to make this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member in July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at Wikimedia Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation [2]. We are very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on this project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.
It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project, and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may offer some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less. Every language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate whether or how they would use content from this project.
We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to advance knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also invites us to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation with the communities to think through these important questions.
There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing list [3]. We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also recognize its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.
Yours,
Katherine Maher (Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation) -16:51, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Sunday August 23: Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
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The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a proposed forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
The idea is to follow up on the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting and other strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates, and you are all invited to RSVP here.--Pharos (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Sunday September 20 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
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The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the August SWAN meeting and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates, this month we are meeting on Sunday September 20, and you are all invited to RSVP here.--Pharos (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Movement Strategy - What Are Your Choices For Implementation[edit]
Hello Wikimedians of Kerala,
The time has come to put Strategy into work and everyone's invited to participate.
The Movement Strategy Design Group and Support Team are inviting you to organize virtual meetings with your community and colleagues before the end of October. The aim is for you to decide what ideas from the Movement Strategy recommendations respond to your needs and will have an impact in the movement. The recommendations are available in different formats and in many languages. There are 10 awesome recommendations and close to 50 recommended changes and actions or initiatives. Not everything will be implemented. The aim of prioritization is to create an 18-month implementation plan to take some of the initiatives forward starting in 2021.
Prioritization is at the level of your group, affiliate, and community. Think local and relevant! Regional and thematic platforms are great ways to prepare and share ideas. Afterwards, we will come together in November to co-create the implementation plan. More information about November’s global events will be shared soon. For now and until the end of October, organize locally and share your priorities with us.
You can find guidance for the events, the simple reporting template, and other supporting materials here on Meta. You can share your results directly on Meta, by email, or by filling out this survey. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or comments, strategy2030wikimedia.org
We will be hosting office hours to answer any questions you might have, Thursday October 1 at 14.00 UTC (Google Meet).
MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Wikidata Eighth Birthday merchandise[edit]
Hello affiliate contacts,
As you know, WikiProject India is celebrating the 8th birthday of Wikidata this October and CIS-A2K will be sending Wikidata special merchandise to all Indian affiliates and communities upon request.
- There is no need for community notification for affiliate requests. But, affiliate contacts or board members or executive committee members or people in similar position, who can represent the affiliate, need to do the request.
- Indian language communities having geographical affiliates are requested to discuss any need with their respective affiliates first and ask them to request them on their behalf.
- It is expected that the requests for merchandise and/or infrastructure should be practical enough to be used by community members and within the budget of maximum INR 10,000 for each affiliates. Only one request for each affiliate will be accepted.
- CIS-A2K will not design for the merchandise. If any custom design is preferred, the affiliate or the community should upload it to Wikimedia Commons as svg format and send the link to CIS-A2K, which will be taken care of, while printing it. The design should be Wikidata specific only.
- Sounds interesting? You can request for merchandise here.
Regards,
Bodhisattwa (CIS-A2K)
Sent through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
Regional Call for South Asia - Oct. 30[edit]
Hi everyone. The time has come to put Movement Strategy into work and we need your help. We are inviting South Asian communities, Indian Wikimedians, and anyone else interested to join a region-focused conversation on Movement Strategy and implementation. Please join us on Friday Oct. 30 at 19.30 / 7:30 pm IST (Google Meet).
The purpose of the meeting is to get prepared for global conversations, to identify priorities for implementation in 2021, and to plan the following steps. There are 10 recommendations and they propose multiple 45 initiatives written over two years by many Wikimedians. It is now up to communities to decide which ones we should work on together in 2021, starting with local and regional conversations. Global meetings will take place later in November when we will discuss global coordination and resources. More information about the global events will be shared soon.
- What is work you’re already doing that is aligned with Movement Strategy?
- What are priorities for you in 2021?
- What are things we should all work on globally?
We would not be able to grow and diversify as a movement if communities from South Asia are not meaningfully involved in implementing the recommendations. Join the conversation with your questions and ideas, or just come to say hi. See you on Friday October 30.
A translatable version of this message can be found on Meta.
MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Sunday October 25 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
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The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the September and August SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including the recent proposed changes to the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws, this month we are meeting on Sunday October 25, and you are all invited to RSVP here.--Pharos (talk) 17:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Join the Global Conversations on November 21 and 22[edit]
Hola, こんにちは, E kaabo, Ciao, ਸਤਿ ਸ਼੍ਰੀ, Hello, سلام, Halo, Salut, 你好, Nnọọ, হ্যালো, Hallo, สวัสดี, Dzień dobry, Gyebale ko, வணக்கம், Mi Kwabo, ନମସ୍କାର, приветствие, שלום, Mholo, नमस्ते, γεια, Ahoj, ഹലോ, 여보세요, مرحبا, Բարեւ Ձեզ, Xin chào, Hallå, ಹಲೋ, Sawubona, નમસ્તે, Здраво, Merhaba, Talofa, హలో, Olá, ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ
Wikimedians of Kerala, we would love to see you at the upcoming Movement Strategy Global Conversations. It’s been a while.
The Movement Strategy Global Conversations will take place on Saturday November 21, 11:00 to 15:00 UTC, and Sunday November 22, 17:00 to 21:00 UTC, and you are warmly invited.
The focus will be to look at priorities identified by communities and affiliates, and to begin to create a movement-wide implementation plan for 2021. The main sessions will be in English. Any group interested to support live interpretation in another language may be able to receive a rapid grant. Let us know as soon as possible.
Please register by Nov. 20 so we can share the Zoom login information with you. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Support Team via Telegram, Wikimedia Chat or by email at strategy2030wikimedia.org.
Looking forward to seeing you on November 21 or 22.
MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
Call for insights on ways to better communicate the work of the movement[edit]
The Movement Strategy recommendations published this year made clear the importance of establishing stronger communications within our movement. To this end, the Foundation wants to gather insights from communities, including affiliates, on ways we all might more consistently communicate about our collective work, and better highlight community contributions from across the movement. Over the coming months, we will be running focus groups and online discussions to collect these insights. We hope your affiliate will decide to share your thoughts by participating in a focus group or joining the discussion on Meta-Wiki.
ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Sunday November 29 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the August, September, and October SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including the recent proposed changes to the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws, this month we are meeting on Sunday November 29, and you are all invited to RSVP here.
(Note that the UTC times of 03:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC are the same as before, although a number of places have had daylight savings time changes since our last meeting).--Pharos (talk) 18:47, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Global Conversations continue on December 5 and 6[edit]
Hola, こんにちは, Ciao, Hello, سلام, Halo, Salut, 你好, Nnọọ, হ্যালো, Hallo, สวัสดี, Dzień dobry, வணக்கம், приветствие, שלום, Mholo, हैलो, γεια, Ahoj, ഹലോ, 여보세요, مرحبا, Բարեւ Ձեզ, Olá, Xin chào, Hallå, ಹಲೋ, Sawubona, Здраво, Merhaba, Talofa, హలో
Hi Wikimedians of Kerala. 250 people participated in virtual Global Conversations that took place on November 21 and 22. The conversation continues on December 5 and 6 and we warmly invite you to take part. Registration is open until December 4. Looking forward to seeing you.
Since September, many groups have shared their local, regional, and thematic priorities for implementing the Movement Strategy recommendations. During the first set of Global Conversations on Nov. 21 and 22, we focused on initiatives that should be globally prioritized and coordinated. We invite you to read the selected global priorities. What do you like about them? What is missing? And what would make you want to play an active role in implementation? Share your thoughts in advance and continue the conversation on December 5 and 6.
Looking forward to seeing you again, or for the first time, on December 5 and 6.
MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia 20th celebration "the way I & my family feels"[edit]
Greetings,
A very Happy New Year 2021. As you all know this year we are going to celebrate Wikipedia's 20th birthday on 15th January 2021, to start the celebration, I like to invite all of you to participate in the event titled "Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
The event will be conducted from 1st January 2021 till 14th February 2021 in two segments, details on the event page.
Please have a look at the event page: '"Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
Let's all be creative and celebrate Wikipedia20 birthday, "the way I and my family feels".
If you are interested to contribute please participate. Do feel free to share the news and ask others to participate.
Namaste,
Rajeeb (talk) 13:50, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Sunday January 10 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the August, September, October, and November SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including SWAN input on Interim Global Council and Movement Charter, this month we are meeting on Sunday January 10, and you are all invited to RSVP here.
| To start the exchange of ideas on the IGC early, and to help prepare before the SWAN calls, we have set up and invite everyone to participate at this etherpad. If you like a more interactive way of discussing, we have also made a jamboard. Check here for more details. |
--Pharos (talk) 18:38, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Gentle Reminder: Wikipedia 20th celebration "the way I & my family feels"[edit]
Greetings,
As you all know this year we are going to celebrate Wikipedia's 20th birthday on 15th January 2021, and it's another 5 days to go.
I like to invite all of you to participate in the event titled "Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
We have received a good number of creative works already and looking for more. To know about already submitted creative work, kindly visit here
For more information, kindly have a look at the event page: '"Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
Let's all be creative and celebrate Wikipedia20 birthday, "the way I and my family feels".
If you are interested to contribute please participate. Do feel free to share the news and ask others to participate.
Namaste,
Kind Update: Wikipedia 20th celebration "the way I & my family feels"[edit]
Greetings,
We write to thank you for your immense contribution so far to our event titled "Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
To give more time to participate we have decided to extend the contest for four additional weeks and continue the celebration.
So the new date is now 14th February 2021.
To know about already submitted creative work, kindly visit here
For more information, kindly have a look at the event page: "Wikipedia 20th celebration the way I & my family feels"
Let's all be creative and celebrate Wikipedia20 birthday, "the way I and my family feels".
If you are interested to contribute please participate. Do feel free to share the news and ask others to participate.
Namaste,
WMF bylaws amendments and upcoming call for feedback[edit]
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has discussed and approved some governance improvements in two recent meetings, on December 9 and January 8. As the governing body for the Wikimedia Foundation, the board wants to improve its capacity, performance, and representation of the movement’s diversity. The board has amended the Bylaws in support of that goal. Please check the details in the announcement published on Meta-Wiki. There will soon be a call for feedback regarding selection of new trustees. Let me know if you have any questions related to this. KCVelaga (WMF) (talk) 11:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Project Grant Open Call[edit]
This is the announcement for the Project Grants program open call that started on January 11, with the submission deadline of February 10, 2021.
This first open call will be focussed on Community Organizing proposals. A second open call focused on research and software proposals is scheduled from February 15 with a submission deadline of March 16, 2021.
For the Round 1 open call, we invite you to propose grant applications that fall under community development and organizing (offline and online) categories. Project Grant funds are available to support individuals, groups, and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, from organizing a better process on your wiki, coordinating a campaign or editathon series to providing other support for community building. We offer the following resources to help you plan your project and complete a grant proposal:
Weekly proposals clinics via Zoom during the Open Call. Join us for #Upcoming_Proposal_Clinics|real-time discussions with Program Officers and select thematic experts and get live feedback about your Project Grants proposal. We’ll answer questions and help you make your proposal better.
- Video tutorials for writing a strong application
- General planning page for Project Grants
- Program guidelines and criteria
Program officers are also available to offer individualized proposal support upon request. Contact us at projectgrants@wikimedia.org if you would like feedback or more information.
We are excited to see your grant ideas that will support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Put your idea into motion, and submit your proposal by February 10, 2021!
Please feel free to get in touch with questions about getting started with your grant application, or about serving on the Project Grants Committee. Contact us at projectgrantswikimedia.org.
RSharma (WMF)MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Call for feedback: WMF Community Board seats & Office hours tomorrow[edit]
(sorry for posting in English)
Dear Wikimedians,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is organizing a call for feedback about community selection processes between February 1 and March 14. Below you will find the problem statement and various ideas from the Board to address it. We are offering multiple channels for questions and feedback. With the help of a team of community facilitators, we are organizing multiple conversations with multiple groups in multiple languages.
During this call for feedback we publish weekly reports and we draft the final report that will be delivered to the Board. With the help of this report, the Board will approve the next steps to organize the selection of six community seats in the upcoming months. Three of these seats are due for renewal and three are new, recently approved.
Participate in this call for feedback and help us form a more diverse and better performing Board of Trustees!
Problems: While the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement have grown about five times in the past ten years, the Board’s structure and processes have remained basically the same. As the Board is designed today, we have a problem of capacity, performance, and lack of representation of the movement’s diversity. This problem was identified in the Board’s 2019 governance review, along with recommendations for how to address it.
To solve the problem of capacity, we have agreed to increase the Board size to a maximum of 16 trustees (it was 10). Regarding performance and diversity, we have approved criteria to evaluate new Board candidates. What is missing is a process to promote community candidates that represent the diversity of our movement and have the skills and experience to perform well on the Board of a complex global organization.
Our current processes to select individual volunteer and affiliate seats have some limitations. Direct elections tend to favor candidates from the leading language communities, regardless of how relevant their skills and experience might be in serving as a Board member, or contributing to the ability of the Board to perform its specific responsibilities. It is also a fact that the current processes have favored volunteers from North America and Western Europe. Meanwhile, our movement has grown larger and more complex, our technical and strategic needs have increased, and we have new and more difficult policy challenges around the globe. As well, our Movement Strategy recommendations urge us to increase our diversity and promote perspectives from other regions and other social backgrounds.
In the upcoming months, we need to renew three community seats and appoint three more community members in the new seats. What process can we all design to promote and choose candidates that represent our movement and are prepared with the experience, skills, and insight to perform as trustees?
Ideas: The Board has discussed several ideas to overcome the problems mentioned above. Some of these ideas could be taken and combined, and some discarded. Other ideas coming from the call for feedback could be considered as well. The ideas are:
- Ranked voting system. Complete the move to a single transferable vote system, already used to appoint affiliate-selected seats, which is designed to best capture voters’ preferences.
- Quotas. Explore the possibility of introducing quotas to ensure certain types of diversity in the Board (details about these quotas to be discussed in this call for feedback).
- Call for types of skills and experiences. When the Board makes a new call for candidates, they would specify types of skills and experiences especially sought.
- Vetting of candidates. Potential candidates would be assessed using the Trustee Evaluation Form and would be confirmed or not as eligible candidates.
- Board-delegated selection committee. The community would nominate candidates that this committee would assess and rank using the Trustee Evaluation Form. This committee would have community elected members and Board appointed members.
- Community-elected selection committee. The community would directly elect the committee members. The committee would assess and rank candidates using the Trustee Evaluation Form.
- Election of confirmed candidates. The community would vote for community nominated candidates that have been assessed and ranked using the Trustee Evaluation Form. The Board would appoint the most voted candidates.
- Direct appointment of confirmed candidates. After the selection committee produces a ranked list of community nominated candidates, the Board would appoint the top-ranked candidates directly.
Call for feedback: The call for feedback runs from February 1 until the end of March 14. We are looking for a broad representation of opinions. We are interested in the reasoning and the feelings behind your opinions. In a conversation like this one, details are important. We want to support good conversations where everyone can share and learn from others. We want to hear from those who understand Wikimedia governance well and are already active in movement conversations. We also want to hear from people who do not usually contribute to discussions. Especially those who are active in their own roles, topics, languages or regions, but usually not in, say, a call for feedback on Meta.
You can participate by joining the Telegram chat group, and giving feedback on any of the talk pages on Meta-Wiki. We are welcoming the organisation of conversations in any language and in any channel. If you want us to organize a conversation or a meeting for your wiki project or your affiliate, please write to me. I will also reach out to communities and affiliates to soon have focused group discussions.
An office hour is also happening tomorrow at 12 pm (UTC) to discuss this topic. Access link will be available 15 minutes before the scheduled time (please watch the office hour page for the link, and I will also share on mailing lists). In case you are not able to make it, please don't worry, there will be more discussions and meetings in the next few weeks.
Regards, KCVelaga (WMF) 16:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Sunday February 21 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the August, September, October, November, and January SWAN meetings and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates, this month we are meeting on Sunday February 21, and you are all invited to RSVP here.
| To help set priorities for the SWAN agenda, and also to help manage which global conversations should be a focus in general, we have set up and invite everyone to participate at this SWAN priorities form.
Possible topics include Community Board seats, Interim Global Council, Strategy prioritization follow-up events, Branding, Universal Code of Conduct, Grant strategy, and WMF CEO search. That is a lot of things, which are most important to cover in our upcoming SWAN meeting? |
--Pharos (talk) 18:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
WMF Community Board seats: Upcoming panel discussions[edit]
As a result of the first three weeks of the call for feedback on WMF Community Board seats, three topics turned out to be the focus of the discussion. Additionally, a new idea has been introduced by a community member recently: Candidates resources. We would like to pursue these focus topics and the new idea appropriately, discussing them in depth and collecting new ideas and fresh approaches by running four panels in the next week. Every panel includes four members from the movement covering many regions, backgrounds and experiences, along with a trustee of the Board. Every panel will last 45 minutes, followed by a 45-minute open mic discussion, where everyone’s free to ask questions or to contribute to the further development of the panel's topics.
- Skills for Board work - Friday, March 12, 18:00 UTC
- Support for candidates - Saturday, March 13, 13:30 UTC
- Board - Global Council - Hubs - Saturday, March 13, 16:00 UTC
- Regional diversity - Sunday, March 14, 13:00 UTC
To counter spamming, the meeting link will be updated on the Meta-Wiki pages and also on the Telegram announcements channel, 15 minutes before the official start.
Let me know if you have any questions, KCVelaga (WMF), 08:36, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
CIS-A2K Community Needs Assessment 2021-22[edit]
Dear Wikimedians,
CIS-A2K is in a process of writing 2021–2022 work-plan. To design the programs based on the needs of the community and volunteers, we invite your valuable suggestions and thoughts. We would like to improve our working continuously taking into consideration the responses/feedback about the events conducted previously. We request you to go through the various sections in the form and respond.
Please write in detail. We would like to discuss this over the phone/email also if needed. Contact tito+2020@cis-india.org if you have a question(s) or for further details or a detailed comment.
With best wishes,
Jayanta (CIS-A2K) (talk) 07:11, 13 March 2021 (UTC) behalf -
Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K)
Sunday March 21 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting[edit]
The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.
Following up on the August, September, October, November, January, and February SWAN meetings and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including Grants relaunch and Community Board seats, this month we are meeting on Sunday March 21, and you are all invited to RSVP here.
(Note that the UTC times of 03:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC are the same as before, although some places have had daylight savings time changes since our last meeting).--Pharos (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
CIS-A2K Community Needs Assessment 2021-22[edit]
(Sorry for writing this message in English - feel free to help us translating it)
Dear User Group member,
CIS-A2K is in a process of writing the 2021–2022 work-plan. As a core member of the user group, We invite you with your project plan, ideas, and thoughts with budgetary details up to INR 50,000. We may work on this plan in the coming year 2021-22 with assured budgetary allocation.
We would like to improve our working continuously taking into consideration the basic needs of your user group and will conduct the event which you proposed. We request you to go through and submit your plan before 30 March 2021 here
We request you to go through the various sections in the form and respond.
Google form link - CIS-A2K Community Needs Assessment 2021-22
Please write in detail. We would like to discuss this over the phone/email also if needed. Contact tito+2020@cis-india.org if you have a question(s) or for further details or a detailed comment.
With best wishes,
Jayanta (CIS-A2K) (talk) 06:43, 23 March 2021 (UTC)