Wikimedia Conference 2018/Documentation/Movement Strategy track/Annexes/Advocacy

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Introduction
of the Movement Strategy track,
 » flow of activities (and this report)
Summary
» You don't have time to read everything? Check the summary of it!
Day 1
 » The Big Picture,
» The Possibilities,
» The Challenges
Day 2
» The Way Forward,
 » Preparing to work,
 » Thematic Inputs & Conversations
Day 3
» Working groups,
 » Wrapping up
Annexes
» Input documents for the working groups,
 » Micro-inputs on possibilities

Working Group Input Document: Advocacy[edit]

Extracted May 1st from Etherpads

Advocacy[edit]

PARTICIPANTS[edit]

  • Anne Gomez (WMF)
  • Josie Fraser (Wikimedia UK)
  • Hogne Neteland (Wikimedia Norway)      

WHAT?[edit]

QUESTIONS[edit]

  • Why should we do advocacy?
  • For what benefit should we do advocacy?
  • What power do we have or could we have?
  • What are the risks of taking those actions or taking that role in the movement?
  • What is our capacity?
  • What capacity will we need?
  • How do we build our capacity?
  • How do we build the political platform?
  • How can we clarify how this is consistent with the WMF Mission and not mission creep?
  • How do we develop positions?
  • What is the process for determining what we advocate for?
  • Do those issues need to be consistent globally?
  • How do we establish 'local' (country-wide or global-regional) priorities and action plans?
  • How do we allow for dissent within the movement?
  • How do we build coalitions to advocate?
  • What tools will be needed for advocacy?
  • What impact does advocacy have on funding? Both what we will take or what may be ineligible for?
  • Are there types of advocacy we cannot do or be constrained for?
  • What are the different ways that advocacy can or should be done (its scope) within WMF?
  • What framework should we create to guide advocacy? How are defining advocacy?
  • What elements of advocacy are we already doing?
  • How do we do advocacy in a way that protects the integrity of the encyclopedia?
  • How do we engage the community at large in advocacy?
  • How much specialized knowledge, skills, or guidance will be needed for WMF advocacy?
  • How do we train and support advocates, track their work, or provide legal oversight?
  • How do we build a community of advocates?
  • How do we provide support or analysis?
  • What does successful look like and how is it measured and who is responsible for it?
  • How do we fund it?
  • What should be the topic of advocacy? WHat are our policy priorities?
  • How does advocacy support or where is it essential to the other 10 working group themes?
  • How do we understand the difference between "political" and "advocacy"?
  • Is free access to knowledge inherently political?
  • What implications does this have for our work or the safety of our volunteers and staff?
  • What implications does this have for how we support our volunteers and staff, and how is advocacy necessary for that support?
  • How do we collect internal data for what advocacy we are already doing locally?
  • What should the role of the public policy group of the WMF be?
  • How do we collect the greatest advocacy needs?
  • What advocacy wins have we already been successful with?
  • What are the stances we want to take?
  • Which policy areas? Open Education/Digital Literacy, Open Knowledge, Open Data, Internet Freedom, Copyright and IP law, Digital Inclusion?
DATA FROM STRATEGY TRACK[edit]
  • Gain a voice in politics
  • Abandon the "WMF is not political" narrative
  • Work against censorship
  • Freedom of Panorama

WHO?[edit]

MEMBERS[edit]
  • Representation, new voices, gender, experience, expertise, etc. Some may be "consulted" vs in working group
    • Policy experts currently in the movement
      • Josie Fraser (Wikimedia UK)
      • Jan Gerlach & Jorge Vargas (WMF)
      • Others...
    • Global community representation - people who may not think of themselves as policy experts but who understand the context of where they live and the work that they do, across national, language, gender, LGBTQ+, etc.
    • Movement activists involved in key policy areas - eg) digital inclusion, digital literacy
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS[edit]
  • Informed?
    • Management and Board of WMF
  • Consulted?
    • Juridical experts, partners
    • Creative commons
  • Partners?
    • Open Knowledge Organisations
      • Mozilla
      • Open Knowledge Foundation https://okfn.org
    • Lobbying experts
      • SPARC https://sparcopen.org/open-education/
      • Creative Commons
      • Centrum Cyfrowe https://centrumcyfrowe.pl
      • Internal juridical resources
    • Communications - ensuring campaigns and actions are widely publicised
      • Open Foundation West Africa
      • Digital inclusion
      • Alliance for the affordable internet http://a4ai.org/
      • Digital literacy efforts
      • GSMA
      • Access to information as a human right
      • Open education
  • Decision-makers? - for later. Can't engage with this level of people until we have something concrete to offer.
    • Representants from https://www.opengovpartnership.org/
    • Digital 7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_5
    • Politicians in favour of open data
    • Bureaucrats in favour of open data

HOW?[edit]

PROCESS[edit]
  • We think there should be a unified process across the different working groups to more easily engage the global community
  • Identifying our current policy lines - what have we committed to? This should frame the work.
  • Develop understanding of potential policy areas for development, with an eye towards knowledge equity and including global communities with different contexts/concerns
  • Prioritize them
WELL-INFORMED DISCUSSIONS[edit]
  • internal and external expertise - people who are working daily on these issues  
  • online discussion groups/meetups/conferences
DECISION-MAKING[edit]
  • There should be the same approach taken to make decisions as the other tracks follow. Policy isn't a sufficiently different area to warrant a completely different approach to community engagement and decision making. A similar approach to all of the tracks will make it easier for the community to engage with the process, across whatever topics they are interested in. The group should develop proposals, priorities and plans in consultation with the broader community - ie the decisions should not be made by a small group of experts.
  • Potential next step decision making would then be:
    • High level: A group of chapters designated as the policy hub leads to take the lead for gaining high level consensus, coordinating and/or disseminating resources,
    • Regional: Establish a network of regional groups who will agree their priorities at 'local' level, ie at the level of individual country or region
    • Local: some work will be country specific, so in the domain of the chapter working there

OTHER COMMENTS[edit]

  • Note on definitions - up for grabs!:
    • We are understanding advocacy in terms of lobbying, policy making/design, and influencing policy outcomes. Central to this will be building and working with governments (local and national), large national and international organisations who share our aims, and with smaller international open knowledge allies. We will leverage the policy making expertise we already have in the organisation and growing our community in this area.
  • Tactics:
    • Join other open data advocacy groups
    • Foundation/movement lacks a policy/lobbying capacity - first step should be to understand current capacity and work through the working group (map the terrain) - there will be different priorities in different global regions, so another priority should be to establishing regional hubs/partnerships.
    • Identify and grow policy expertise within the organisation  - route into the organisation/movement not dependent on editing
    • Partner with other organisations
    • Work in influencing internet regulation
    • Work in influencing legal regulations
    • Connecting to governments who already have an open commitment, identifying the key contacts, building relationships
    • Connect open government and what this means, how this is implemented
    • In relation to development programmes: Supporting governments to understand the importance of open knowledge in relation to their infrastructure, device and education programmes, working in partnership with government and other organisations in the implementation of digital programmes  - can equally apply to countries with more secure infrastructure
  • For consideration:
    • Copyright issues have roles on both sides (Consumers of data and providers of data)
    • Open data issues needs to know the current legal situation (Juridical and political)
    • Link to Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html
Introduction
of the Movement Strategy track,
 » flow of activities (and this report)
Summary
» You don't have time to read everything? Check the summary of it!
Day 1
 » The Big Picture,
» The Possibilities,
» The Challenges
Day 2
» The Way Forward,
 » Preparing to work,
 » Thematic Inputs & Conversations
Day 3
» Working groups,
 » Wrapping up
Annexes
» Input documents for the working groups,
 » Micro-inputs on possibilities