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Wikimedia Conference 2012/Documentation/Day 1/Chapter-council-development

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Chapter Council Development

Brainstorming session

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Brainstorm on the role of the chapter council in furthering the development of chapters:

What does it mean for chapters to develop?

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  • How do we measure development?
  • Number of members?
  • Function of the Chapters council: Can developing a bureaucratic organisation limit chapter growth?
  • Events ?
  • Budget growth
  • Number of employees
  • In unison / cooperatively
  • Growth of Wikimedia Projects (active editors)
  • Number of edits from the territory
  • Activities from the territory
  • Level of use of Wikipedia (& other projects) from territory
  • Number of hits on Wikimedia project pages
  • Positive press hits on Wikipedia (& other projects)
  • Effective lobbying, e.g. SOPA - becoming recognized as effective lobbyists (e.g. WMUK always gets asked by goverment)
  • Quantity of materials released under free licenses
  • Perceived growth in terms of development.
  • % of people from territory who use (read and/or contribute) WM projects
  • Number of volunteers that chapter can engage
  • Statistics on growth of number of volunteers
  • Growth over time of all these metrics
  • Effective Partnerships with other NGOs and government.
  • Formal partnerships, e.g. with government advisory bodies - membership of these bodies.
  • Partnerships with and respect from educational establishment.
  • Participation in projects from educators (e.g. professors and teachers)
  • Amount of literature issued (e.g. periodicals, tutorials, etc.)
  • Amount of printed materials issued under CC by SA and other free licenses.

Do they all need to develop in the same way?

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  • Some common areas but not all: depends on scale of chapter (budgets, accountants, etc) Spending must be locally sensitive - might differ between chapters.
  • Some chapters have a lot of members, others have a lot of money :-)
  • Chapters need to know what they want - what are your key growth areas? What is short-term and what is long-term?
  • Mobile access might be more important for some chapters (e.g. South Africa has very high mobile internet penetration)
  • Outreach to rural and remote areas if in chapter territory
    • In-person events if chapter members live close enough to make this practical
    • Developing online collaboration so that remote members can participate with city members
  • Some chapters have more cultural institutions and potential for uploading free content
  • Some chapters may want to focus more on educational outreach or improving local coverage
  • Can we for example have competition between chapters in terms of measurable growth?
  • Maybe recongnizing special achievements? In the line of Wikipedia of the Year etc, real barnstars...

===Can't chapters decide for themselves?===

  • Useless question! (We are unclear what is being asked here)

What kind of resources can the council provide?

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  • Council can help chapters talk to each ther and share good practice?
  • Repository of good practice, case studies, etc.
  • Quick-start guide for chapters
  • Repository of bad practice: what has gone wrong in the past?
  • Technical support, e.g. managing memberships and money
  • Technology group inside chapter council - website, wiki, tools to handle memberships etc.: common technical resources.
  • Help on handling donor relations (client relationship management system - CiviCRM)
  • Helping chapters develop their programmes
  • Training
  • localising shop.wikimedia.org for merchandise for the chapter
  • Open-source content management system e.g. contact management (A spoke to B with this result?)
  • UK chapter setup (e.g. job descriptions) was mostly copied from other chapters (e.g. France, Germany, etc.) - Chapters council can facilitate
  • Conferences like this one on a more permanent basis, doesn't have to be WMDE! Not WMDE's core mission, and if chapters council can do it, might be better. Having a dedicated person year round who works on this event. Want to have every chapter present, but this is difficult.
  • Assembly of delegates: will this achieve the same thing?
  • Getting people from other nations, and having specialized mini-conferences around specific themes. (GLAM-camp etc. doesn't have enough publicity, maybe chap council can help with publicity?)
  • Why meet if we can meet on wiki?
    • Much conversation happens on wiki,
    • Long flights! Large time commitment for a one or two day meeting.
    • Doesn't have to be only one WikiWomen camp, for example.
    • Hackathons happen locally mostly.
    • Each different type of meeting has very different, focus, for example hackers don't often care much about politics.
  • Linguistic support - translating things from English? Would we like to try simultaneous interpreting if we have volunteers willing to try this?
  • Why don't chapters submit reports? One reason is that people don't want to translate. Not really necessary - can submit in local language! Maybe some resources from chapters council to have this done. Has to be done quickly. Setting priorities for documents that other chapters need translated quickly.
  • Exchange programs between different chapters (not using the word 'internships')
  • Brazil works a lot with partners, one of them has 5k volunteers. To increase interaction, have trips between cities (who organises this?) Brasil is very big: need to have national meetups with workshops etc. to improve communication.
  • May consider adding a chance to spend time at local offices when attending a meeting.
  • What about improved machine translation facilities? If we use Google Translate, you don't know how it will be accepted and understood. Could we translate chapter documents into major languages?
  • Translate maybe just the executive summary of each report.
  • Distribute info about events to other chapters (e.g. each event > 10 participants).
  • Attendance at non-English meetings of regional groups, e.g. Iberocoop, WikiCon by people who speak English as first language
  • Have someone to prioritise mailing list emails: flagging "must read" emails.

Reducing noise by supporting good behaviour!!!!

Which chapters need the most development, and why?

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  • Even established chapters need refreshing with new ideas!
  • Newly established chapters need special attention.
  • Resources to 3rd world countries that need basic information to local populations in their own languages on mobile devices. Possible support is from diaspora editors, additions to WikiSource as w
  • How can we address burn-out of chapter volunteers?
    • Council can help chapters decide the best model of organisation: do you have to have an NGO with all the red tape or can you just be a movement?
    • Different types of conflict: internal to chapter, between chapter board members between countries, global drama (e.g. fundraising discussion, tone of mailing lists)
    • Try to separate these forms of conflict, so
  • General scheduling information and news for chapters.
  • Well organized communications site that is quick and easy to access, prevents e-mail overload / burnout.

Annual conference

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  • Aus doesn't have an annual conference. Just an AGM (required by chapter constitution).
  • Annual conference might bring people together across large countries.
  • How can we thank people who are doing good work? This could be done at a national conference.
  • Brazil ties it to other events.
  • WM India had a good conference last year
  • WMUK builds it around the AGM. In nice venue with sandwiches and lots of wikilove - creates new volunteers and rewards the older ones wiht a nice day out.
  • WM Ukraine has national wikiconference and meeting, inviting people from academia and also wikipedia editors.
  • List and schedule of national wikiconferences

Interesting projects

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  • Brazil is developing a programme with universities, using students who need to do translations as part of their training to do it on wiki to the benefit of the projects.

Notes for presentation

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Measurement

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Many options for statistical measurement of outcomes.

  • People: Number of members, growth
  • Content: Number of hits on WM and Wikipedia pages, extent of local coverage, amount of literature issued
  • Free licensing