Arabic Wikimedians User Group/Projects/25thinitiative

Summary

Wikipedia, which celebrated its 20th anniversary, is an encyclopedia that is recognized as the world's leading knowledge platform. In it, the Arabic Wikipedia project has surpassed one million article barrier. communities have grown to more than 220 million single accounts created, a continuously expanding traffic, every day new communities established and recognized by the WMF, exceeding this year 178 affiliated group.This exponential expansion of knowledge, communities, projects, means allocated, makes the current structure fragile, hence the strategy and its implementation priorities which is well aware of the stakes and the urgency to find new solutions to strengthen the entire structure of the movement. In the context of investigating regional hubs planning, The Arabic Wikimedians

User Group (AWUG) takes the initiative to launch a project for a possible proposal of a model for a regional community support structure. In accordance with the global movement's efforts in line with the Wikimedia 2030 strategy, the user group by this action intends to understand how the Arabic-speaking communities can be supported in their geographic, thematic and linguistic scope through a series of live meetings and surveys to discuss and collect information, to analyze it, to allow for a proposal of an integrated structure having roles, responsibilities in defined thematic areas supporting a geographical area recognized as the Arab world. The Arab Wikimedians User Group will have a volunteer steering team driving this implementation work, while paid specialists will perform the necessary efforts to take the project tasks and activities to completion.

Target

• Date : TBD

Project Goal

What will be the outputs of your project and how will those outputs contribute to advancing a specific Movement Strategy Initiative?

What specific Movement Strategy Initiative does your project focus on and why?

Please select one of the initiatives described here

25. Regional & Thematic Hubs:

A detailed report including the results of analyzing the information shared by the Arabic-speaking community:

1. The form and type of the proposed structure, its roles and the way of its internal and external governance, as well as its organizational structure.
2. The most important elements and areas of activity, as well as the relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation, the affiliates and the movement
3. A high-level action plan with estimated dates, timelines and an initial budget evaluation of how this organization will be established.

Project Background

When do you intend to begin this project and when will it be completed?

Start date: 15 03 2022 End date: 15 08 2022

Where will your project activities be happening?

The Arabic-speaking region is our main focus. Closely related communities will also be considered in the research to identify whether they are interested in participating.

What specific challenge will your project be aiming to solve?

And what opportunities do you plan to take advantage of to solve the problem?

The challenges that this project aims to address:

• Community agreement and action: While a research project about the region was completed in a previous grant, there remains a lack of sufficient agreement and support from the community for proceeding with the tangible steps to create a hub.

The opportunities that this project aspires to seize:

• Informed process: Now that an initial research work was conducted, we know what are the needs that we need to address and we also know what are the expected disagreements and difficulties. This will help us to engage in informed conversations with the community.

Does this project aim to apply one of the examples shared in the call for grants and if so which one?

N/A: This, itself, is an example.

Project Activities

What specific activities will be carried out during this project?

Please describe the specific activities that will be carried out during this project.

The planning project will be carried out according to the following plan:

1. Project Steering Committee: The User Group meets to form a volunteer Project Steering Committee of two to three members (preferably including at least one woman)
2. Defining conversation agendas: Using the previous research results, we will prepare the conversation agendas beforehand. We intend to focus:
   1. On resolving the major points of disagreement that we have defined during the research phase, and
   2. Defining a clear process for setting up the hub (including its composition, functions, timeline and similar), which we will refer to as the "draft implementation plan".
3. Seeking project facilitators/researchers: The project steering committee will lead the process of employing either: 1 full-time or two part-time consultants (1 FTE) to be facilitators of the conversation and research.
4. Onboarding facilitators: The consultants will meet with the Project Steering Committee to begin work according to the predetermined schedule and program.
5. Opening conversations and seeking agreement: Conversations with the communities are not predictable and cannot be put into a rigid process, which is why we think this will be the longest step in the process. While conversations can be long, we will provide facilitation support and will summarize and document each stage to help reach solutions and ways to move forward.
6. Drafting a Hub implementation plan: We will use the data that we have collected from the conversations to put together a proposed draft implementation plan for the regional hub, which will be shared with the community. There will be at least one round of open feedback with the community, which may also not stick to a predictable timeline.
7. Finalizing the work: At the end of the specified project period, the Project Steering Committee will ensure that:
   1. The final project report is widely shared with the community, the movement, and with WMF.
   2. Meta project page is created, overseen by the Project Steering Committee, which includes all the relevant information about the project and its results.

How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project?

Please add the names or usernames of these individuals responsible for updating the community.

Grant’s request:

• We will announce the grant request to our community on wiki, in its planning stage, as well as if and when it is approved.

Discussion:

• The main discussion will be openly held on the wiki village pump, on Meta, or on live meetings, depending on the community's preference.
• Announcements of the discussion and its progress will be made through different mailing lists, Telegram groups and other social media.
• Online meetings may be held during the process, with professional facilitators, to help reach agreement on difficult points.
• Target outreach and interviews with affiliate leaders and.

Who will be responsible for delivering on this project and what are their roles and responsibilities?

The project will be led by AWUG, with the following role distribution:

• A: (Project Steering Committee X3)Oversee financial and logistical matters, including the grant processing.
• B: (consultants X2) Facilitation, including setting up conversations, scheduling meetings, running the discussions and wrapping them up, documentation, including summarizing the conversations, seeking agreement points and putting together the Hub launching plan based on conversations,the design, plan and execution of the planning project will be shared, distribution and reporting, as well as the support of meetings and documentation.

Additional information

If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive?

Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions.

• We plan to hire a facilitator with experience in supporting collaborative brainstorming and decision-making, And a freelance specialist who has neutral expertise about the topic project.

• The Wikimedia Foundation’s friendly space policy will be applied.

If your activities include in-person events or activities, you will need to complete the steps outlined in the Risk Assessment protocol.

Please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool. (N/A) If your activities include the use of paid online tools, please describe what tools these are and how you intend to use them.

• Google/Zoom one solution (cloud shares, etc.)

Do your activities include the translation of materials, and if so, in what languages will the translation be done?

Please include details of those responsible for making the translations.

We will translate the document into the following languages:

Arabic/English and vice versa

Are there any other details you would like to share? Consider providing rationale, research or community discussion outputs, and any other similar information, that will give more context on your proposed project.

Resources

(TBD)