Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy/Implementation/Affiliate health criteria/Reports/2024/WikiConference North America
| Affiliate basic information | ||
|---|---|---|
| What is the affiliate name? | WikiConference North America | |
| Please list the languages supported by this affiliate | en, es, fr | |
| Please list countries where this affiliate operates | USA; Canada; Mexico; Caribbean | |
| Reporting timeline (e.g. January-December) | 2024 | |
| Reporting year (e.g. 2024 or 2024-2025) | 2024 | |
| Primary contact (user name) | Econterms | |
| Secondary contact (user name) | Pharos | |
| Goal delivery | ||
| What is the affiliate mission? | Hold annual conference for North American Wikimedians and allies | |
| What are the affiliate goals? Link to the strategic plan, if there is one. | Hold annual conference for North American Wikimedians and allies; educate and raise morale and build networks | |
| Organizational development | ||
| How does the affiliate make decisions? How are decisions communicated? | informal self-nominated conference COT (Core Organizing Team) recorded on wikiconference.org (https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2024/More/Team). COT Leads: Dominic and JamieF (local team). Other COT members: Peaceray, Lunita28mx, SuperHamster, Rosie, Econterms (representing the Fiscal Sponsor), OhanaUnited (on scholarship committee). Committees/teams: scholarship committee, program committee, and safe space. | |
| What is the current state of the affiliate finances? Link to the latest financial report, if there is one. | Successful 2024 conference completed on budget; new grant received for 2025 conference | |
Affiliate health and resilience
| ||
| How many people participate in the decision-making process in the affiliate? | 12-20 | |
| Has there been any significant changes in the level of the affiliate membership body (e.g. increase/decrease of number of dues-paying members)? | Slight increase in conference attendance from the previous year to approximately 260;. There is no ongoing 'membership' list. The Telegram group has 225 members. | |
| Are there any affiliate activities in the past year that were led by affiliate members? Please share the highlights. | The conference is the main shared activity. It is organized by people who also organize other Wikimedia events in our region. To answer literally: yes, hundreds of Wikimedia events are organized by these individuals. | |
| Leadership and inclusion | ||
Diverse, skilled, and accountable leadership
| ||
| What kind of skills does the affiliate leadership possess? | conference planning/organizing/facilitating | |
| Is there any kind of succession plan for the affiliate leadership? | Commonly, local organizers change each year and they take on the role of COT Lead. | |
| Are there any trainings that affiliate leadership undergo before they assume their leadership position? | No. | |
| Are there any requirements for affiliate leadership to disclose their conflict(s) of interests? | No. | |
Diversity balance (especially gender)
| ||
| What is the diversity level of the affiliate leadership and membership body? | 8/21 = 38% of the team listed on https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2024/More/Team were female. Other measures of active organizers one might well give a similar percentage. | |
| How is the affiliate leadership encouraging gender diversity in the decision-making process(es) of the affiliate? | Diversity was actively discussed in the context of what was on the program, who would be presenters, and in the safe space context. Again this year, there was a WikiWomenLunch; JamieF was the keynoter. | |
Universal Code of Conduct compliance
| ||
| How does the affiliate leadership ensure, enforce, and evaluate compliance with the Universal Code of Conduct obligations? | All registrants agreed to a safe space policy, which is prominently shown on the conference website, and it was described as binding in key plenary presentations. There were safe space co-chairs and 30 people with some role in implementing it, most as volunteers attending sessions. | |
| Engagement and Collaboration | ||
| Please share the publicly available records of regular meetings, activities, events, or conference in the past year where the affiliate has participated. | We report on the conference itself here, as is stated elsewhere in this report: https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2024/Final_report_on_the_conference. Meetings in preparation for the conference often had notes on etherpads or google docs which were not treated as long term records. | |
| Community connection | ||
| How many affiliate members are active contributors to the Wikimedia projects? | The user group is made up of active participants in Wikimedia, not generic background supporters of it. Perhaps 90% of organizers are active editors. Probably more than 80% of attendees were active editors. | |
| How many affiliate members are not active contributors to the Wikimedia projects? | Perhaps 10% | |
| How many affiliate members are active organizers (of projects, events, conferences, initiatives, etc) within the Wikimedia movement? | At least 25 individuals organize edithathons, Wikimedia projects, or the conference itself. | |
| How many people have participated in affiliate projects, events, conferences, and/or initiatives in the past year? | 240 | |
| Partnerships and collaboration | ||
| Please list all activities/initiatives that the affiliate has organized or co-organized in past 12 months. | The conference, called WikiConference North America | |
| What would affiliate leadership list as the top 3 (three) capacities of the affiliate? (e.g. evaluation, community governance, programs and events, organizational governance and resource policies, conflict management, partnerships, fundraising, communication and media relations, contributor development, on-wiki technical skills, policy advocacy, etc) | High morale | |
| High attendance | ||
| High attention and activity, at the conference itself | ||
| What are the 3 (three) capacities that the affiliate would like to strengthen in the next 12 months? | Preparing for the following year's conference | |
| Financial durability (because the affiliate has little in savings from year to year) | ||
| Software technical capability (We do well at this but have too few people who are experts at fixing technical problems) | ||
| What are the organizations, community projects, or groups that the affiliate had been working or seeking to work with to develop and support the 3 capacities? | Chapters, ThOrgs, and User Groups in North America; Hacks/Hackers; WikiCred; Internet Archive; Equis; OpenStreetMap (US | |