Grants:Conference/Wikimedia Norge/Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe

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Wikimedia Norge/Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe

The Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2020 will provide a meeting place for discussions and generating processes for change concerning diversity in the Wikimedia movement. The community survey done as a preparation for this application shows a need for a shared understanding of what diversity means and what diversity, equity and inclusion mean in a regional and local context.

targetGenerating processes for change concerning diversity in the Wikimedia movement; for affiliates and in programs.

strategic priorityIncreasing participation on and off wiki

event dates13 November 2020 – 15 November 2020

amount-local604,000 NOK

amount64,534 USD

typeOrganization

nonprofitNo

creator• Astrid Carlsen (WMNO)

contact• astrid@wikimedia.no

organization• Wikimedia Norge

website• wikimedia.no

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Event overview

Purpose

Please give a brief description of the event you are planning. What do you hope to accomplish during the event? Why is this event important for your community?

The Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe 2020 in Oslo organized by Wikimedia Norge will provide a meeting place for workshops and discussions to generate processes for change concerning diversity in the Wikimedia movement.

For a Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe 2020, we would like to invite participants who are decision-makers in the movement (volunteers, board or staff members of a Wikimedia affiliate) or highly engaged in projects about knowledge equity and diversity. The conference will be an opportunity for the participants to discuss and learn about solutions for the implementation of the 2030 movement strategy. The community survey done as a preparation for this application shows a need for a shared understanding of what diversity means and what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean in a regional and local context.

Vision

By setting the stage for the Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe 2020 we want to invite regional participants to work in-depth in an action directed manner to increase the diversity in both the community and the final Wikipedia content. To do so, we will build on the results from the 2017 Wikimedia Diversity Conference in Stockholm and the 2030 strategy recommendations, whose references and talks will serve as a starting point to see where we can make changes in communication, in collective demands for UI design or policy changes, communities’ program design, among others.

We know that many of the concerns and problems preventing more diversity have been already identified but not addressed yet, and so we expect that the Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe 2020 will be important as a community-building event for a regional group of Wikimedians in Europe to take action. Improved confidence in organizing local context, a more cohesive discourse and a stronger network with others from the same region who share some of the same experiences, expertise, and partnerships can be very valuable to finally improve on making Wikimedia and Wikipedia as inclusive and therefore as diverse as possible.

The conference team consists of representatives from the Nordic countries Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden as well as several participants from the Working Group Diversity. This conference team can hopefully both contribute to building a stronger regional network in Europe as well as build on their experience from the 2030 strategy process and push for implementation.

Event key objectives
As an overall approach, we want the participants to be challenged to internalize a diversity mindset, to make diversity a priority and give them the way to do it by generating deliverables or focused actions. The key objectives of the conference will be to:

Identify possible future decision-makers with a diversity mindset interested in implementing changes and establishing a regional diversity network for Europe.
Have participants from at least 10 European countries taking part in the conference.
Have participants with diverse backgrounds: volunteers, affiliate members, mission-aligned organizations and partner organizations working in the field of diversity.
Have at least two partner institutions from Norway involved in the conference program.
Propose at least two hands-on workshops as part of the conference program that addresses topics that were mentioned in the community survey.
Do a post-conference survey to make sure that participants were given the opportunity to learn valuable skills for their context and network with participants from their region.
Deploy at least two new regional diversity collaborations across national borders established 6 months after the conference has ended.

Important details

Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.

Proposed date(s)	13–15 November 2020
Proposed location	Oslo, Norway
Number of participants	80
Event page	–
Primary contact person	astrid@wikimedia.no

Background

Community input

Use the results from the community engagement survey to fill in the table below. Since you cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important. Please rank the priority of each topic, skill, project or problem as high, medium or low. Finally, please answer the questions below the table.

All responses from the community survey are summarized in the table below. The conference team will have to further prioritize which topics the conference can cover. This work has not started yet, but in this application we wanted to include all responses.

	Description	Priority
Strategic discussions: What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?	In general the topics the community want to tackle is the inclusion of the knowledge of underrepresented demographics. There is a need for a shared understanding of what diversity means and what diversity, equity and inclusion mean in a local context. The main topics are: Linguistic diversity: The Wikimedia projects are not as accessible to all language minorities and speakers of endangered languages as they should be and as a consequence there is knowledge missing in the different projects. How Wikimedia, the community, and contributors can work together and with key institutions to promote language diversity is of high priority. Gender diversity: The community wants to discuss the underrepresentation of women and other minorities (such as LGBTQ people) in the content, among contributors and in the governance of Wikimedia. Minorities/marginalized groups of people (cultural diversity): This topic is closely related to language diversity and the community sees the need for strategies and measures for inclusion- and representation of ethnic minorities, indigenous people and immigrant communities. There's a need to do inventory of missing knowledge and to discuss best practices for approaching these groups of people. Harassment issues/ conflicts / retention: Scepticism and hostility towards efforts around diversity topics leads to trust and safety concerns at on-ground events and online spaces which in turn may discourage new members from joining, cause members to leave and have a chilling effect on the community as a whole. Why there's a need to meet in-person: Many of the diversity topics are sensitive and sometimes controversial, therefore in-person meeting is crucial in enabling sessions and discussions where privacy, trust and safety concerns are safeguarded. It will also give the participants the chance to engage in conversations that are more efficient, creative and dynamic, in addition to find synergies and to create a collective experience.	High
Capacity development: Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?	How to approach and work with marginalized groups and/or institutions that represent them. In extension of this the community wants a better understanding of the perspective of underrepresented communities. Improvement of communication skills in terms of communicating with partners, institutions, underrepresented groups and a wider audience. In extension of this the community seeks skills for building stronger networks with key cultural institutions that work with document and heritage preservation. How to identify what areas in the technology and rules need improvements, especially in the interface usability and tutorials, to enable people with low technical skills to edit and contribute to Wikimedia. How to map knowledge gaps, how to include knowledge that is not based on written sources and how to include “hidden” knowledge while respecting the minority communities. Methods and measures on how to ensure diversity and equity in decision-making, governance, resource distribution, community facilitation, community-building, organisational hiring policy etc. Skills to deal with conflict/harassment and effective methods to intervene when the contributions by/about underrepresented communities are being questioned. Skills on how to organise events and make them inclusive and diverse, and how to recruit, motivate and follow up on contributors and volunteers.	Medium
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?	In general the community is requesting the opportunity to meet to discuss projects concerning language-, cultural- and gender diversity. Specific projects such as Women in red, les sans pagEs, LGBTQ+, Art+Feminism, WikiFranca, Lingua Libre and Sámi knowledge online are being brought up as important projects that would benefit from the community meeting in person to join forces and exchange ideas, figure out ways to support each other and ways to partner around these projects in a systematic manner. In-person meetings are a good platform for these exchanges in terms of logistics, efficiency and because it provides a safe and trusting environment.	Medium
Community building: Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?	The community is requesting project presentations and panel discussions in addition to strategic conversations to discuss the diversity issues affecting their communities. There's also a call for training sessions and/or workshops to learn skills that will help their community to achieve its goals. Some of these are ally skills, gender sensitisation, conflict resolution, how to work with marginalized groups and how to ensure diversity in governance.	High

Survey analysis:

How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?
We shared the survey on a number of mailing lists:
- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
- lgbt@lists.wikimedia.org
- gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
- wikimedia-northern-europe@lists.wikimedia.org
We also shared it in the Telegram group "Wikimedia language diversity", on the Facebook group for the 2017 Diversity Conference, in Wikimedia Norge’s members newsletter, on the Wikimedia Norge facebook page and on wikimedia.no. We also shared it on the Village pumps of the Norwegian bokmål og Norwegian nynorsk Wikipedias. We had 39 responses to the survey.
Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 goals?
The top two shared goals of the respondents revolve around gender diversity and language diversity. The need to reach a shared understanding of what diversity means and how to approach and work with marginalized groups is what stands out as what the community wants to focus on in the next 12 months.
Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?
Learning from past and on-going projects that tackle gender- and language diversity issues through project presentations and strategic conversations to get an understanding of the challenges and best practices.

Learning skills through workshops and training sessions to get better at communicating and working with partners and stakeholders from underrepresented groups, ensure diversity in governance and conflict resolution.

Context

It is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.

1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?

Wikimedia Norge has over the past year focused our work on diversity issues and has since April 2019 had a diversity manager among its staff members. As a chapter we have many experiences from previous years on issues like gender diversity and language diversity, but it has also been clear to us that we lack skills and approaches needed as we continue this work. One Wikimedia Norge staff member has been part of the Diversity Working Group in the 2030 strategy process and the positive dynamics in this work inspired the idea of continuing the collaboration. 5 people from the Working group will be involved in planning the Wikimedia Diversity conference Europe.

2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?

Wikimedia Norge programs all have a diversity theme; the two main themes are the gender imbalance on the Wikimedia projects and language diversity. In a Norwegian context diversity issues are very present in public debates and in the public sphere. The Norwegian state has laws and legislations that tackles diversity issues. This affects how educational and cultural institutions work and their willingness to cooperate with organizations that have programs that center around diversity. This helps us in focusing on these issues in our programs with partners and volunteers, whether it's in our Women in Red project or in our Sámi project. Like many other Wikimedia affiliates, Wikimedia Norge has had its struggles with governance issues in its first years. In working to resolve this we have worked a lot on diversity in our own organization. Today an emphasis on gender diversity extends from our board leadership level, through to program design and implementation. We know from general feedback and from the community survey that these are issues that need to be addressed for a lot of Wikimedia affiliates.

3. Please list the priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?

This is our first conference. We are very glad to have ventosa5103, who was part of the organizing team of Wikimedia Diversity 2017 Conference in Stockholm as an advisor in the program committee. We will also like to take part at the Queering Wikipedia conference in Linz in May 2020 to learn from how they organize that conference.

4. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what key lessons were learned, and what would you like to improve on?

This is our first conference.

Plan

Venue and Logistics

1. If the venue is more than 1 hour away from a major airport or transportation hub, how will participants travel to the event venue?

The venue, in the city center of Oslo, is a twenty minute train ride from the airport. Trains leave every 10 minutes. Proposed venue is Vega Scene. Vega Scene is a venue that holds a Breeam-certifaction.

2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?

Yes. Depending on their availability we would like to use the PS:Hotel as one of the conference hotels. They are located a 10 minutes walk from the venue and all the employees at the hotel are people who are there through the Norwegian social system to get work experience.

3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?

Yes. We will also be advised by the The Norwegian Live Music Association on using their guide for accessibility.

4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?

No

Friendly space policy

Please link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event. We will follow and announce several points the Friendly Space Policy of the Wikimedia Foundation. We might come up with additional points also in the context of this being a conference on diversity.

Participation

It is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.

1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.

For a Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2020 we would like to invite participants who are decision-makers in the Movement (paid staff members for a Wikimedia affiliate or volunteers) and highly engaged in programs and projects about diversity. We expect the participants to be a mix of locals; 20 (volunteers and people from partner institutions), 50 self-funded representatives from other European chapters and communities, and 10 participants on scholarships.

2. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?

One of the outreach aspects of the conference is to build a stronger European network for diversity issues, and hence the conference team is a mix of representatives from most Nordic countries as well as other Europe countries. We will use different communication channels before, during and after the conference to engage with the participants. Documentation from the conference will be shared on the Meta. We will involve Wikimedia Norge partner institutions and organizations to contribute to the event to strengthen our partnerships with them for our future work.

3. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.

We would like to invite WMF staff contractors based in Europe to attend. In addition we would like to welcome staff members that work in the fields of GLAM and Underrepresented Knowledge, Community programs, Community development, Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Talent and Culture and Trust and Safety.

Scholarships

1. How many scholarships would you like to offer?

10. We will also encourage Wikimedia affiliates to offer scholarships.

2. What expenses will the scholarship cover?

Travel and hotel

3. How will scholarship recipients be selected?

Applications will be reviewed by the conference scholarship committee. The scholarship committee will prioritize scholarships to volunteers and affiliate members who don’t receive annual funding from Wikimedia Foundation.

Resources and risks

Describe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.

Resources

Organizing team

Gender identities: 9 women / 8 men / + paid event manager
People living in these countries are represented: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain: Catalan and Basque, Mexico.

Team	User Names
WMF Liaison	Astrid Carlsen (WMNO)
Logistics	Paid event manager
Conference Program	Hilde Blix, Marcmiquel, Theklan, Twdk, Astrid Carlsen (WMNO), Camelia Boban
Scholarships	Helge_Høifødt, Trygve_W_Nodeland
Communications	Jon Harald Søby (WMNO), Premeditated, Jorid Martinsen, Stiansmoller, Kjetil Ree
Volunteer Coordinators	Sabinitus, Yupik / Yupik
Other team members	Advisory team: Sara Mörtsell, SusunW

Risks

Possible risks are:

Not being able to engage Norwegian volunteers in taking part at the conference: We have recruited several participants from Norway to the conference teams. They are diverse in gender identity, age, where in Norway they live and educational and professional background.
Follow-up the outcomes from the conference: Depending on which format the conference will have, we are already thinking about a possible follow-up event for the conference for a smaller group of participants.

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Event budget table

Category	Item description	Cost NOK	Cost USD	Notes
Venue costs
Venue rent	Rent of venue 2 days/weekend	80,000	8,548
2 x coffee breaks		8,000	855
2 x Lunch		24,000	2,564
1 x dinner		20,000	2,137
Scholarships cost
Travels		50,000	5,342
Hotel		12,000	1,282
Merchandise & working materials
Giveaways		10,000	1,068	May be funded by a WMNO partner
Working materials	printed programs, badges, banners, flags, pens, stationery, stickers	15,000	1,628
Worktime
Paid event manager		175,000	18,698
Facilitators at conference		90,000	9,616
WMNO administration		100,000	10,684	Accounting and administration by WMNO staff. WMNO will also cover this expense by using WMNO's Annual Plan Grant from Wikimedia Foundation.
Social events
Dinner Saturday		20,000	2,137	Can maybe be funded by partner
Guided tour Sunday		10,000	1,068	Will be funded by partner institution
10 % Unforseen costs		60,000	6,411
TOTAL		674,000	72,038

Total cost of event: 674,000 NOK / 72,038 USD

Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program: 604,000 NOK / 64,534 USD

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded: If this conference grant is approved, we can apply for funding from NIKK: Nordic Gender Equality Fund together with other affiliates in the Nordic region. That may fund part of this conference, but also a possible later workshop with interested participants from the conference. We can apply for funding between DKK 50,000 and DKK 500,000, if we have a 20 % contribution secured. Other expenses may also be funded or given as inkind donations by partners.

Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Yes

Discussion

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Support I endorse this with eyes closed. I believe that having a conference on diversity, discussing and presenting specific calls to action can be very valuable to communities, especially in the current context of the strategy implementation. --Marcmiquel (talk) 14:59, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Support I endorse this with eyes open as this conference would a place for people who are active on the gender gap and diversity-related issues get together and learn from successful peers like WMNO, WMSE, WMAT, WMDE. Mardetanha (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Support As part of the Diversity Working Group for Wikimedia 2030, I worked for one year and a half with many people in this team. And I know the sensibility and seriousness in dealing with diversity. Camelia (talk) 14:33, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Support The Board of Wikimedia Norway supports Wikimedia Diversity Conference Europe. This will be very useful for the affiliates in Europe: it will be a great opportunity to discuss possible joint projects, to decide on how we can encourage peer mentorship and capacity building fitting to regional context, and explore funding opportunities and joint advocacy approaches. These issues are challanging to process online and require in person meet ups. Hogne (talk) 11:21, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Support - Løken (talk) 14:12, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support - I strongly support events related to diversity, and I think Wikimedia Norge will host a great diversity conference. In addition to endorsing this proposal, I also express my willingness to work with the organizers in my capacity as a volunteer. Rajeeb ^(talk!) 14:38, 07 February 2020 (UTC)
Support I believe this conference will provide a much needed arena to discuss solutions for implementation of the 2030 movement strategy on knowledge equity. The conference will give the participants a great chance to dive into the work on diversity, equity and inclusion as outlined in the global strategy, together with like-minded chapters, colleagues, contributors and volunteers. --Sigrunespe (talk)
Support -Yupik (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2020 (UTC)