WALRUS/February 2022

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WALRUS meeting, on Mon Feb 21, at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific:

Agenda[edit]

  • Editing campaigns
  • The idea of a "North American Hub" and how to support decentralized smaller usergroups - Barnstar Country concept
  • Developing professional support of legal/tax resources for local affiliates

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Attendees[edit]

  1. Richard / Pharos - doing editathons at the museum in New York City
  2. Lane Rasberry - At University of Virginia. Role helping faculty/staff/community participate on wiki
  3. Peter Meyer - in DC, our group is applying for a grant to develop a tool to assist Wikipedia editors and other online community managers in identifying misinformation in vaccine-related articles
  4. Peaceray - With Cascadia Wikimedians. Quiet time during pandemic. I signed up for two editathons this week, one at Oregon State University and one with AfroCROWD. I see a shift in the Agenda that WikiConference North America seems to be renamed to WikiConference Americas. I have been editing for Black History Month this month and will edit for Women's History Month next month.
  5. Colleen Hartung - from Wisconsin - part of the 1000 Women in Religion project. We are working on getting user status as an organization. One of the things that our group does is assist in the Women in Religion series with Atla (formerly the American Theological Library Association)
  6. Alan Wu (Boston) - I have been developing Wikipedia articles for various artists. Now researching en:Leo Beranek (cofounder of BBN) and German photographer Lothar Wolleh. Also, just overhauled and expanded article on RISD Museum.
  7. Rosie Stephenson-Goodnight - last October I was elected, selected, and appointed as a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees. Previously I was a board member of Wikimedia DC and an elected official of AffCom. I can tell you that there is a steep learning curve to being a trustee. In my spare time I continue to develop Wikipedia articles on women writers. I was focused on translating women writers from French to English.
  8. Kevin Li - graduate student in public policy at Stanford and editing a while in the Bay Area. We recently got a chance to chat with the new executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Maryana
  9. John P Sadowski - I am the vice president of Wikimedia DC. My current project there is the WikiScience competition, which is a program for science photography.
  10. Steve Brown / Buaidh - I am with the Colorado user group. We have our first collaboration in planning. I have been all over the place in Wikipedia!
  11. Karen Lowe / KarenJoyce - in Salt Lake City. Worked recently on articles about journalists. Connected to Colorado as I formerly lived there.
  12. Clifford Anderson - Librarian. I am working on various projects. One of our staff members published an article on our contributions to WikiCite. (See https://serials.atla.com/tcb/article/view/3039) We have been strategizing with the Women in Religion group and helping get to user group status.
  13. Lodewijk - Pron. LOD-eh-vik. I am from the Netherlands but based in California these days. I am trying to understand a bit better how to intereact with banners.
  14. SJ - pron. Sdj, from Boston


notes[edit]

  1. troubleshooting computer hardware and apparent interaction with Wikipedia editing commands
    1. where can a person get tech support
    2. Wikipedia:Reference desk
    3. https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  2. Welcome to the WALRUS meeting, with Wikipedians Active in Local Regions of the United States
    1. (introductions put next to names in attendance)
  3. Editing campaigns
    1. Black WikiHistory Month in February
    2. International Women's Day and WikiWomen's History Month in March
    3. There will be many events happening in various places for these.
    4. Rosie: Women in Red will be organizing various events for these next month. We are doing a women in folklore event. We are doing an event on the public domain. And we will do our annual #Wikiwomen event with Whose Knowledge?
    5. Wiki Loves Earth in May/June and nature photo contests in individual US states
    6. Richard: I have a message to share from Wiki North Carolina, who are not here tonight. The are participating in Wiki Loves Other and request that people join by sharing photos of parks and natural environments in their area.
  4. Maryana's tour
    1. The Wikimedia Foundation executive director is on a tour of the United States
    2. Peter: She is visiting DC later this week and Wikimedia DC members will meet her
    3. Richard: She will be in NYC in mid-March, also meeting wiki people
    4. Kevin: We met her in San Francisco. She wanted to learn how we organize. She had a lot of questions about how ArbCom works. I think she is interested in understanding before acting.
  5. keeping and sustaining nonprofit status in the United States
    1. many people at this meeting are affiliated with wiki organizations
    2. some of these wiki organizations are legally registered nonprofit organizations
    3. yesterday Affcom sent out an email, various people may have received them, asking for us to discuss how to keep compliance.
    4. There is the idea of developing professional support of legal/tax resources for local affiliates
    5. there is the idea of pooling resources
    6. Peter: I think we should be collaborate to work together
    7. One possibility is that there would be one "hub" for wiki united states - ONE tax-deductible nonprofit, which keeps its financial and legal situation together, so more of us can focus on-wiki.
    8. Lane: several Wikimedia community organizations are legally registered as nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations, including Wikimedia NYC, DC, Cascadia, Medicine, and ARt+ Feminism. All of these organizations have had difficulty with filing legal forms correctly, and also it has been challenging to provide the Wikimedia Foundation with annual reporting. Also, other Wikimedia chapters around the world have had difficulty with this, so it is not only a United States problem.
    9. Rosie:
      1. I was on the affiliations commitee for 6 years. I saw a lot of organizations develop in this time.
      2. The way things work for the wiki world is that wiki communities start as user groups. Some of these look like organizations, and some look like groups of people who are not so tight.
      3. The Wikimedia Foundation is promoting various initatives, and among them, the hubs concept is one
      4. I think that the WALRUS group is an example of the hubs model
      5. other examples are the wikifranca, iberocorp
      6. some of the European Wikimedia affiliate organizations are talking about becoming a hub
      7. WALRUS is the name that comes to my mind to use
      8. The Wikimedia Foundation is willing to fund hubs, and if we had such an organization, it could fund other affiliates
      9. In Russia they have one chapter based in Moscow but many affiliates throughout Russia which look to that central organization
      10. I think the opportunity is here now, and if we do not take advantage, then I think there is a lost opportunity
      11. I am speaking as Rosiestep the volunteer and not giving advice from a trustee
    10. Steve - as long as we have transfer of funds I think we need a legal organization. Preferably a 501(c)3 for organizations in the United States. Any transfer of funds needs to be under that to affiliates.
    11. Colleen - our Women in Religion group has people in many countries including Australia, Germany, and the United States. Various groups do different jobs, like one made the website, and another is seeking to partner with an organization to give administrative help.
    12. Lodewijk - I think having some kind of national coordinating organization would be great for supporting parts of the country which do not have the density for its own community. I think that we should separate the hub discussion from the discussion of organizing the United States, because there could be a hub without national boundaries.
    13. we should develop the Hubs concept on meta. If anyone has ideas they could add them there
  6. WikiConference
    1. Grants:Conference/WCNA/WikiConference Americas in Fall 2022
    2. we have considered including French, Spanish, and Portuguese even more
    3. last year we included Montreal
    4. Rosie: if we want to have such an event then I hope that we could have participation from all the affiliates
    5. There is NYC, DC, Cascadia, Argentina, Carib, Mexico, Brazil, and more
    6. Lane: we have never even had a meeting together with those other countries. I am not sure we are ready to invite them to our existing conference
    7. the discussion about hubs similarly is complicated because it is hard to get broad participation from groups who are not prepared to negotiate
    8. we also could do this more easily if we met in person but this year will be online
    9. there may be small in person regional meetings
    10. Steve
  7. SWAN call
    1. "Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network" call is this Sunday
    2. this is focused on global governance in the Wikimedia Movement charters
  8. Movement Charter
    1. Richard: I am one of the drafters and one kind of feedback that I want is what kind of actionable rules we can write into it. We have considered a establishing a community newsletter
  9. How is the Colorado group?
    1. we are organizing an event for the en:Granada War Relocation Center
    2. this is a dark part of American history but not well known
    3. so far in Colorado our activity has been very individualistic but we are trying to cooperate more
    4. Peaceray: in Washington we had violent uprisings against Chinese, Sikh, and Japanese residents.
  10. Meeting of WikiConference North America (Americas, whatever it may be called)
    1. meeting is Saturday at 11am EST
    2. if anyone wants to join then ask Richard or Peter for an invitation
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