WikiDonne/Conferences/Iberoconf 2019

L'user group WikiDonne ha avuto l'occasione di inviare un suo rappresentante User:alexmar983 a Iberoconf a Santiago. Dal 8 al 10 febbraio 2019.

Relazione del partecipante

The report was drafted in English. Name: Alessandro Marchetti

I took part for the first time. I found the occasion interesting. I give you here a day-by-day report and a final paragraph with general comments

Thursday, February 7th

I uploaded some pictures of the area on Wikimedia Commons, creating new categories. tweet and tweet.

I had dinner with Freddy Veloz of Wikimedistas de Ecuador, Daniele Saibene, Lorenzo Losa, Paulo Santos Perneta from WMPT. No specific issue about Wikimedia politics was actually discussed.

Friday, February 8th

I had breakfast with Monserrat of Wikimujeres, we briefly discussed about strategy for edit-a-thons.

Before the start I discussed with Dennis of WMCL and Paulo of WMPT about WSC2019 and the creation of future academic committee. I am here with the expertise of the UG to support initiative related to gender gap but always establishing a clear academic framework on the long term.

Welcome & Orientation

At the end of a session focused on general presentation I made a statement about our commitment as UG to content. The geopolitical perspective is interesting but from our perspective we need to know what we can give and obtain for activities such as global edit-a-thons, or presentation events for the media. As a member of WikiDonne, I stressed that the coverage and presence on social media is quite good and could be available for future long-term engagement and campaign in the framework of Iberocoop. However, as far I have understood, as long as Iberocoop does not create solid political long-term targets after the meeting, no on-line initiative seem to be quite relevant.

Based on the focus on diveristy of our UG, I have also stressed the concept that gender gap is intrinsically related to many other content gaps and that’s one of the reasons it should be addressed in a conference focused on regional gap.

Lunch

I have agreed with Louis from WMCL that he can help with WSC2019 if he wants.

Rest of the day

We started the cooperation of WSC2019 saw the new connection with Ana Cravo of Wikimedia Portugal. She is expert of scientific communication, I stressed my opinion that women are crucial in shaping the image of research, so WSC2019 will again prove to be a balanced event and show the “female” side of research. Last year's results were balanced in the people in science category, this year goal is to bring more balance in the jury and organization.

Saturday, February 9th

Morning

I have created the commons category about Iberconf2019, tweet

Meeting about adapting events to Global South (“El contexto como oportunidad: cómo diseñar proyectos en el contexto del Global South”, Anna Torres Adell). Wikimedia Argentina stressed the initiative about gender gaps for scientists. During the pause I spoke again with the representatives from Ecuador about the approach of WikiDonne (mostly, the role of social media campaign in engaging women)

Meeting about edit a thons: the representative of Wikimedia Mexico talks about the needs in her opinion of sex-separated event and the doubt of their Board (5 men vs 1 woman, her). “ediatona” is the name used for such eventes, but Paulo from Portugal has doubt the model could be imported in his country. The importance of service of kindergarten for mothers was an interesting aspect to discuss. I think that we should try to organize in Italy something more child-friendly one day, that would be interesting.

Winifred Olliff (WMF) would like to know how non-binary gender people can coexist in the framework of such vision.

Ana of WMPT points out how journalists should be involved in finding sources in article where they are missing, not just show newly created articles.

Afternoon

Communication strategies. The first session seems basically good sense. IMHO. Coherence of messages, realistic approach, metrics, role of possible adversaries. As a final suggestion from the talk, I have realized we probably lack precise metric for our on-line activities, we should draft something on some meta pages about their evolution over the years.

Other talk from WMES about communication. I was asked to state the key word in WikDonne’s communication strategy, I sad “links/connections”. I feel our communication looks designed to get new personal relationship or long-term commitment of new users. I feel like we should not keep the task just in the hand of Camelia based on what I have heard so far, almost all other channels are geared by more than one person. I also feel we are not fully sure about the codification of our visual identity.

Evening

Before dinner, some of male delegates were excluded from the Wikimujeres meeting. I had a report written by Camelia Boban and a list of activities of my UG I wanted to discuss to the other delegates and I couldn't in that case.

With some of the remaining men we organized a parallel meeting and as a curious result the room of the conference appeared perfectly split along gender lines. With Freddy from Ecuador. Paulo from WMPT and the representative from Colombia we had a quick pratical session where we discussed wikidata and its use for local and also gender-gap activities (e.g. Listeria). The so-called digital divide between North and global South seemed to appear and it was therefore suggested that this kind of workshop should play a bigger role in future conferences that aim to encourage activities in "weak" areas.

Sunday, February 10th

Jan Gerlach discussed “public policies about Wikipedia”. I don’t think our UG has margin on this topic but maybe for advocacy activities, although I don’t see any long-term framework. tweet

We received a copy of the Transparency report. I made a tweet about it.

We summarized our opinions with menti, a very nice platform for on line and real time events. It generates results as a cloud, I tweeted about it.

I filled the final form, I stressed the lack of sessions about content-oriented tool or goals, and wished for more presentation of real activities.

At lunch, I also discussed with Elena Sanz of WMES and Paulo of WMPT about Wiki Loves Love and Wiki Loves Fashion. WMES is in a crowded season right now, as far as I have understood. WMPT will probably help to translate the pages on meta or commons in Portuguese at some point.

In the evening, after the tour, we had a brief sessions at the hotel with Ana of WMPT and Louis of WMCL about WSC2019 before dinner, and with Paulo about the tool Montage after dinner.

Overall comments

In general I have this personal comments:

• Presentations closer to real activities were useful or at least among the most interesting ones: specifically the concept of editatona (WMMX) , the presentation of Virginia Diez (WMES) on communication, the information provided by the WMVE team about the situation in the country and how they are dealing with it;
• similarly, practical activities in which we had to face hypothetical scenarios were useful to assess the different approach and strategies of other groups (or possible gaps);
• we should invest more on content-related activities, but It is in general difficult to discuss about those in the workflow of this conference;
• the presence of people from WMF looked useful more for personal reasons but I did not fully grasp its strategic role in the framework of the conference;
• the gender-gap separation of some meetings was probably harmful to productivity and IMHO to long-term strategy. I try to have a practical and not ideological approach so I don’t question if this is useful in certain scenarios, but this should not be accepted in this specific one. My travel is paid by WMF foundation and I cannot make good use of the resource allocated thanks to donor’s money if I don't have a common workplace on the topic related to my UG. Plus, I think this is probably a violation of the “friendly space” policy when few alternatives are given. We must find a better compromise on that area (like allow a preliminary meeting, men can leave later but should not be excluded since the beginning);
• A moment where all participants express their opinions and feedbacks with similar time should be suggested at the very end, as I have seen in Swiss activities;
• I am grateful to my UG for this opportunity.