Grants talk:TPS/WikiMujeres/AWID 2016 Forum/Report

Report accepted

Hi Seeeko, FloNight, Raystorm and Anasuyas,

Thank you for this thorough and engaging report. It’s exciting to review some of the thinking that happened at this event, particularly as a precursor to the further Whose Knowledge? work funded through Project Grants.

As with review of the original proposal, Alleycat80 has served as a temporary committee members to support regular committee members in reviewing this report. We are approving it now, with comments from Marti below:

• I appreciate the way you are all seeking to raise awareness in the global feminist activist community about why engaging with Wikipedia matters, not only in terms of the usual editing activities that are the mainstay of volunteer contributions, but also in terms of encouraging and supporting marginalized voices in naming the ways they see Wikipedia contributing to oppression. This dialogue enriches our projects by supporting opportunities for self-awareness, reflection and positive transformation.
• I am also appreciating the ways your report is embodying some of the positive transformation you are seeking -- in light of Seeeko’s points about invisiblizing and a call for more attribution, the care you’ve taken to clearly individuate each voice contributing to this report delighted me. And of course, all of the photos also add to the visibilizing effect, too--glad you included your own faces in the photos in this report, along with the activist photos that you helped add to Wikipedia articles.  :-)
• Thank you for sharing the story about Nadine Moawad returning to editing via support from Anasuyas. I think this story is important to share as we all grapple with supporting healthful communities around the Wikimedia projects. Outside my role at WMF, I have been training intensively in Nonviolent Communication for the last year. In that context, there is a lot of emphasis on the idea that creating diverse and inclusive spaces depends on the willingness of participants to distinguish between our intent and our actual impact, and to prioritize tending to impact before defending intent (crediting Roxy Manning for teaching me that!). This story vividly illustrates both what unintended impact looks like, and also how crucial and transformative it can be when someone (in this case Anasuyas) tends to the impact. I believe Wikipedia would be a different space if we could cultivate broad understanding and value for this skill.
• A note on your comments about how barriers around internet access played a role in this conference: Beyond your own logistical hurdles, I’m imagining that this particular issue of access is a crucial one for Whose Knowledge? to grapple with as you continue fostering a vision of global inclusivity for the internet. As WMF’s New Readers team has shared with staff about their research into how access looks in various parts of the world, there has been a lot more awareness, discussion and excitement around this issue across the organization. So, I want to I welcome your generous sharing of what you discover and learn on this front in future (Project Grant) reports so we can do our best to cross-seed opportunities.

Thank you again for all your work!

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

--Alleycat80