NARWHAL/July 2023

A NARWHAL (North American expansion of WALRUS) meeting this month, on Monday July 3, at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific

• Zoom link for July 3
• Etherpad notes

NARWHAL across Wiki North America!

July 3 agenda

• Follow-up from last month: NARWHAL/June 2023

• Wikimania + Great North American Wiknic in August

• Aligning continental picnics for Aug 6-7 and other weekends as satellite events leading up to Wikimania
• Can put up picnic geo banners, micro-grants also available

• WikiConference North America 2023 in November and trains

• WikiConference:Program/Submissions extended to July 15, registration + scholarships now open!
• North American Hub Research Project update
• Regional issues and questions

• upcoming edit-a-thon and photo campaigns

Attendees

1. Joe Mabel
2. Neal McBurnett (nealmcb) - (in discussion about Ward Cunningham) met Ward in Portland, as did Peaceray and Joe
3. Alan Wu
4. Julie Farman - used VisualEditor for the first time since its beta version. Reported that it generates charts with ease!
5. Peaceray - editing movie articles related to the Seattle Independent Film Festival, organized Wiki LGBT meetup in Seattle. With Joe Mabel visited Portland meetup of C-level Wikimedia Foundation staff.
6. OtterPilot
7. Richard / Pharos
8. Lane Rasberry -
9. Peter Meyer - at University of Indiana, visited the nearby Jamie and Dominic who wish to host a WikiConference in the area. Developing the North American hub research project

Notes

1. follow-up from last month: NARWHAL/June 2023
2. Wikimania: 16-19 August in Singapore (~12 hours off): https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Wikimania
3. Great North American Wiknic in August
   1. Aligning continental picnics for Aug 6-7 and other weekends as satellite events leading up to Wikimania
   2. Can put up picnic geo banners, micro-grants also available
   3. can the picnic fund sponsor alcohol?
      1. no
4. WikiConference North America 2023 in November in Toronto
   1. trains are being organized, e.g. from NY
   2. WikiConference:Program/Submissions extended to July 15,
   3. deadline extended from 30 June
   4. theme is "recent changes"
   5. registration + scholarships now open!
   6. also start thinking of hosting of WikiConference North America for the future
   7. possible sites?
      1. Indianapolis
      2. Atlanta
      3. Charlottesville
   8. commitment
      1. translators, security, support for travel
5. North American Hub Research Project update
   1. attempting to identify a vision which North American Wikipedians can share
   2. have a "strategy night" at WikiConference
   3. Regional issues and questions
   4. upcoming edit-a-thon and photo campaigns
6. Wiki99 concept, presentation by Lane
   1. see for example this list - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki99/software
   2. This is a concept to list about 100 articles for development. Lane is planning to try this at the University of Virginia by paying student researchers
   3. Wish to avoid confusions and problems with paid editing, which is a Wikipedia community taboo
   4. Lane hopes that the community sees this to be unlike paid editing, due to...
      1. no marketing/product/brand, an
      2. topics are general interest, high priority
      3. students do their own research as in Wikipedia education program model
   5. Will the students be translating? Or adding to these already-substantial articles?
      1. The intent is to offer multilingual students the opportunity to translate. Translation is encouraged but not a priority
   6. what biases will be introduced? Lane stated that this was a democracy project, and that itself introduces an ideology
      1. Needs discussion on the project page
   7. How can neutrality, bias, be better disclosed
   8. different rules on different languages - some minority languages would not have a problem with students being paid because content is scarce and problematic influence is unlikely
   9. spell out explicitly what rules will be on the students to protect neutrality
   10. Ann Matsuuchi at LaGuardia College has a "Wikipedia fellowship" which sponsors students for a period of time to do library and archival research, and to develop Wikipedia articles based on this
   11. general idea of sponsoring editing could work, but needs a of care
   12. slippery slope to unwanted behavior
   13. needs boundaries and rules
   14. Compare to the article bounty concept en:Wikipedia:Reward_board
       1. asks that articles get developed to the point of community approval milestones
       2. wiki community did not oppose, but also the project did not become too popular
       3. if the creation of the Wiki99 list goes through a community process and identifies need, then that is better than having private selection of the list
   15. be sure to make the disclosure at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid-contribution_disclosure
7. Wikimedia Foundation elections
   1. Last month, Nealmcb was appointed as an advisory member to the Wikimedia Foundation elections committee, which runs the elections for the Board, which next occur in 2024: ##https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee
   2. The voting method is STV, which helps ensure proportional representation across various viewpoints.
   3. Neal helped organize the 2019 affiliate-selected trustee election, with Lane also on that committee
   4. this time there is an on-boarding procedure and a longer timeline for the election committee to make proposals and get feedback.
   5. the Wikimedia Movement Charter is upcoming and in development, and will interface with this
   6. there will always be elections, and in the future, the election committee may oversee other elections