Wiki Women Camp 2017/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Conference Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Wiki Women Camp 2017.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email conferencegrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Wiki Women Camp 2017 was an event arranged by Wikimedia Mexico, Wikimedia Argentina and Wikimedia Foundation, from July 6 to 9, 2017 in Centro Horizontal, Mexico City. The event gathered women from 17 countries for discuss about wikimedia project’s gender gap.

Compliance and completion

Did you comply with the requirements specified by de Wikimedia Foundation in the grant agreement? Yes
Is your project complete? Yes
Did you use any of the grant funds? Yes

Activities and lessons learned

This section describes what the grantee did, and what the grantee learned from implementing the project. This section should be useful to others implementing similar projects and is an opportunity for the grantee to reflect on the project's performance.

Activities

Provide a detailed list of activities performed to complete this project, descriptions of these activities, and the amount of time spent on each activity. This section should also include a list of participants, or a link to pictures, blog posts, or videos from the project or event.

The main activities focused on “breaking ice”, presentations of the participants project’s, groups discussions, workshops and one talk with mexican non-wikipedian feminists.

“Breaking Ice Activities”

Responsible: Mariel García and Katy Love In this activity, the participants presented themselves, their projects and their expectations, interests and ideas. Likewise, they played several games in order to generate a friendly space.

Gender gap projects

During WikiWomenCamp the attendees talked and discussed about women participation -like editors or leaders- in Wikimedia projects, gender gap in Wikipedia articles, different ways of balance it, harassment, and gender diversity inclusion.

In the talks about gender gap in Wikipedia articles, we discussed how women are described in a different way and with different words that those used to describe men. Furthermore, we have detected that the family and sexuality history are more documented in women articles than men. For that reason, the community needs to discuss how to include no traditional references in order that marginalized groups’ history can be a part of Wikipedia.

During the event, the participants presented their different projects whose objectives are improve or change the way the articles are written, increase the female biographies and the number of female wikipedians. Some of them are “Wikiesfera” organized by Patricia Horrillo and Wikimujeres, Spain User Group; “WikiDonne”, presented by Camelia Boboan who said that they have collaborate with Art and Feminism and “The Woman You Never Met” successfully, despite participation problems; “Editatona”, project created by Carmen Alcázar in Mexico City and which has been expanded along Mexico and several countries; Montserrat Boix and Esther Monet presented the proposal to identify 25 essential women of every country in the world and write her biography. Moreover, Rosie Stephenson showed the firsts results of Gender Diversity Mapping project, which identify the different gender diversity Wikimedia initiatives. She said that is necessary to be aware of diversity and to understand it in its context, due to, sometimes, we do not see it or we do not have experience working with it. Besides, we had the opportunity of sharing knowledge about tools that we use daily, as Wikidata, in order that the information and data that are generated can be useful for our projects.

Harassment

One of the most discussed topics in Wiki Women Camp 2017 was online harassment. We need safer platforms, friendly and free of harassment, due to most of us are activists. At the same time, we highlighted the importance of warranting safe spaces in wikimedia events and activities. On the other hand, and due to the freedom of expression is limited when there are public exposition about us and our activities, we defend the anonymity in the wikimedia projects. In this sense, Ericka Smith and Sidney Pore imparted a workshop about tools and skills to fight online harassment. Besides, Moriel Schottlender pointed that there are female engineers that have developed software and tools in wikimedia platforms to detect, report and fight online harassment. However, she emphasized that the harassment problems won’t change only with technologies or tools if the culture remains, and the society has to recognize that harassment is not an individual problem; and she pointed in the support that Foundation Wikimedia has given to fight online harassment.

Wikimedia Movement Strategy

One of the main questions of the event was which has been the role of women in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy, what challenges that we have faced, either as wikipedians or project leaders and which are the next steps. We thought it Is important to reflect upon the participation, voice and decision making about women in the projects. In this sense, we have to take into account the diversity and the circumstances of every female volunteer in order to create a more inclusive movement.

Conversation “Internet and Feminism”. Discussion with non wikipedian feminist.

The conversation was in “La Gozadera”, a feminist cultural restaurant in which the Wiki Women Camp assistants met and talk with mexican feminist that are not involved with wikimedia movement. After a brief personal presentation, we talked about the importance of technology to retrieve women’s history and to continue working together to get this objective.

More information about Wiki Women Camp

Wiki Women Camp 2017
Event web site

Attendants list
You can see the attendants list in this link

Photos

Slides
Attendants slides

Publications

Aubrie Johnson, "WikiWomenCamp kicks off to bring more inclusivity to Wikipedia"
Camelia Boban y Ginevra Sanvitale, “Wikipedia e diversita di genere: un convegno per parlare del futuro”
Lucía Lagunes, “El futuro de Wiki corre en la inteligencia femenina”
Mariel García, “Género y Wikipedia”
Reportaje Foro TV
Valeria Rios, "Las mujeres que quieren reescribir la historia"

Lessons learned

What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects? Consider the following questions and respond with 1 - 2 paragraphs.

Program lessons

What was good?

We confirm the importance of face to face meetings because they allow to approach other women and to listen their experience not only in the activities but also in informal occasions like breaks, meals or tours.
We pointed out that is needed that Wikimedia Foundation keeps supporting this meetings to discuss about gender gap in Wikimedia projects and ensure the online and offline women safety.

Logistic lessons

Communication through simultaneous translation to avoid that English becomes predominant language, because it limits the participation whose do not speak it. We need to include other languages.
Internet and equipment to carry out the activities (projector, tables, flipchart paper, blackboards, stationery).
Friendly spaces and free of harassment.
Ensure the mobility (elevators and ramps) or services that allow women to attend the event (playgroups).

Project goals and measures of success

This section should reference the project goals and measures of success described in the approved grant submission. See your grant proposal to review the goals and metrics listed in the approved submission.

Project goals

The main objective of this event was to get together women from different countries to discuss and work on the gender gap in Wikimedia projects. There general goals were:

Continue with the activities started in Wiki Women Camp 2012, Argentina.
Discuss problems about the participation of women in the Wikimedia community, challenges and possible solutions.
Learn from the experiences of others.
Build a global women-based learning network.
Online and offline contact.

Measures of success

Meet others wikipedians, their projects and the ways that they have faced to gender gap from their context.
Generate a support network among the participants and one Telegram chat, which allow us to have more and best communication to present progress in our projects, to plan another meetings or share common experiences.
Identify common problems and the different ways to face and solve it.
Make visible the gender gap problem in the wikimedia projects and get Wikimedia Foundation including it in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy 2030.

Impact

This section ties this project to Wikimedia's broader goals, and shows what the project accomplished.

After Wiki Women Camp we made a poll to know the participants opinion with the object to get conclusions about the event. 29 attendees received a scholarship, 19 answered the poll, which means 65%. This lack of answers is a challenge that is important to attend. After the meeting we estimated necessary give a considerable time to think and reflect the knowledge and learnings, but this also discourage the poll answers. Despite of not all the assistants answered we can determinate some conclusions:

89% of the participants thought that WWC was a learning space according to their interest.
78% of the participants thought that the event was an ideal space to share projects, met themselves and motivate to start new projects.
On this matter, 63.1% consider that they learned something new.
Of all this learning, the most important was:
- The problems that we faced around the world about diversity are similar.
- We need spaces and policies that ensure global support.
- Wikidata can be the big ally for gender projects.
According to next steps, the participants think that is necessary work on this way:
- Establish common goals and strategies to work.
- Improve and increase new work alliances with defined institutions and organizations.
- Promote policies that help the inclusion of new female editors.
- Teach about digital rights and harassment in Internet.
- Promote the building of working groups and thematic support.
- Warrant Internet access.
- Build new spaces that allow us integrate new profiles to the movement.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Expenses

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates.


Cost category	Description	Estimated Costs	Actual Costs	Comment
Venue	4 days room rent	0	0	Will be donated by Centro Horizontal
Equipment and services	4 day Technical (A/V, wireless access, etc.)	0	0	Will be donated by Centro Horizontal
Flights	Round trip to Mexico City	28475	Funds managed an paid by WMF	See Flights section for detail
Accomodation	Shared dorms at hotel	7943	Funds managed an paid by WMF	4 nights are considered
Catering	4 days coffee break service, daily lunch and taxes	4920	Funds managed an paid by WMF	4 days are considered
Stationery	Flipchart, markers, sheets, post-its, ID badges and prints	196	133	Including one box of board markers.
Merchandishing	Prints & t-shirts	300	444
Catering	Closing party (Dinner & drinks)	1500	500
Photos services	Visual registry of the event, honoraries for photographer	250	250
Video	Video recording, edition and postproduction of a visual documentary of 10 minutes, honoraries for producer company	500	500
Storytelling	Visual storytelling made by an artist	250	0
Management		1000	1000
Contingency	parcel service		81
Contingency	gift for each attendee		89
Contingency	Taxis		66
Contingency	Bus		606
Contingency	Accessibility		244