Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

NARWHAL/June 2023

< NARWHAL

A NARWHAL (North American expansion of WALRUS) meeting this month, on Monday June 5, at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific

NARWHAL across Wiki North America!

June 5 agenda edit

RSVP edit

Attendees edit

  1. Bob Kosovsky - Wiki NYC, board of Wiki NYC, want to develop hub concept with Wiki DC
  2. Richard Knipel - Wiki NYC, first meeting for North American collaboration. We will also be discussing picnic collaboration, access to small grants, and this proposal to develop a North American hub. Wikimedia DC is doing research on this concept. Also the NYC chapter is supporting this effort. WikiConference North America is upcoming in the fall. There will be a group train trip from NYC to Toronto
  3. Peaceray - in Washington State working with Cascadia Wikimedians! Have also been involved in Wiki Conference North America in planning last year and this year. I am putting on an editathon in a couple of weeks on LGBT+ films which were screened at Seattle International Film Festival.
  4. Peter Meyer - Peter from Wikimedia DC. We in our chapter will be leading the effort to figure out a coalition across the US or North America. There will be an advisory committee representing North American affiliates at least to make sure that we cover the territory well.
  5. Alan Wu - Wide-ranging Wikipedia editor based in Boston since 1969. Recently attended 50th college reunion.
  6. Stan Adams - WMF employer. new public policy specialist for the Wikimedia Foundation. Based in DC. sadams@wikimedia.org
  7. Xeno - also Xeno (WMF), community support manager at WMF, formerly US & Canada lead at the WMF. Is in Toronto, where WCNA will be. Is invested in the topic but has less official role than before.
  8. Lane Rasberry -- at U of Virginia, in Charlottesville. Just helped run global online Queering Wikipedia conference focused on LGBT themes. It did work! https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/QW2023/Schedule
  9. Kevin Payravi (SuperHamster) - On board of Wikimedia DC. Previously in Ohio and I still support there. I live in Texas. Organizing WCNA and preparing for Wiki Loves Monuments in the US.
  10. Karen Lowe (KarenJoyce) - I am in Salt Lake City. originally from near Chicago. In Colorado we used to have a Wiknic but where I am now there is less of a group. I have met with Nihonjoe and with Rachel Helps (BYU), Wikipedian-in-Residence for the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
  11. Kunal / Legoktm, on the WMNYC board, knowledgeable about tech, tuning in
  12. Rosie Stephenson-Goodnight - edit as Rosiestep. Based in California. Trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation but on this call as an editor/organizer/volunteer. I am on the Wikimania subcommittee for poster session and also organizing the Wikimania Wiki Women's Summit.
  13. Kelly Doyle - Based in Charleston, SC and the Open Knowledge Coordinator at the Smithsonian, focused on the gender gap. (Can only listen not speak tonight)
  14. Abhishek - On the WMF's grants committee for North America.
  15. Andrew Leung (OhanaUnited) - Canadian based in Toronto. currently in Nunavut! Will be updating photos from the area
  16. SJ - notes only

Notes edit

  1. Wikimania + Great North American Wiknic in August
    1. COVID has prevented picnics for the past few years but this year they are back in many places!
    2. Wiknics are part of the remote participation and discussion of Wikimania
    3. there are small grants available to regional community groups to support a picnic, such as for renting camp space
    4. Poster session is going to be on the second night of Wikimania. There will be a time for presenters to stand with their posters but also posters are connected to QR codes.
    5. This year for the first time there will be a Wikimania Wiki Women's Summit. Previously there has been a less organized lunch. This time there will be scheduled programming. There will also be a wiki women event at Google Singapore.
    6. Peter: I am going to Singapore to present on the hub concept. We hope to meet with the Central and Eastern European Hub to exchange ideas.
    7. Pharos: I am going to be MC of the Fashion Show in Singapore. Wear your wiki finest.
  2. WikiConference North America 2023 in November
    1. This timeslot on the first Monday has been about WikiConference North America. Today we are doing something a bit different with North American hub talks.
    2. Hosted by Wikimedia Canada in Toronto
    3. WM Canada is fiscal sponsor of the Wikimedia Foundation grant for the conference
    4. Previous Canadian organization has been in Montreal from Francophone Wikimedia organizers.
    5. One hope for this conference is discussing whether and how Canada and the United States can collaborate.:
    6. Some possible cultural crawl locations on Thursday (in addition to the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library):
      1. Distillery District art galleries
      2. Ontario College of Arts & Design (OCAD)
      3. Bata Shoe Museum
      4. Richmond Hill Observatory
    7. We have contacts for production of lanyards, T-shirts and name tags
  3. North American Hub Research Project
    1. We - everyone here - are inviting input at the meta page which we just posted
    2. Wikimedia DC will be interviewing other Wikimedia community organizations to ask what a hub would look like.
      1. Wiki DC has a research grant for this
      2. Grants:Project/MSIG/Researching a North American Hub
      3. Wiki DC will have focus groups interviewing more than 50 regional individuals
    3. what is the hub?
      1. There are a two local groups, Wikimedia DC and Wikimedia NYC, who do local programs.
      2. If anyone anywhere else in the United States wants support then they have limited options. They can manage without organizational support, or they could try to contact DC and NYC but that has challenges, they could contact WMF which is not a community option, or they can start a group which is not feasible for everyone either.
      3. If there were a national or North American hub organization to provide some support services to everyone, then we could grow up more community participation. https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2023/Main_Page
    4. comment - There was recently a Wiki Education conference in Belgrade. At that conference people discussed a hub. There people wanted to discuss what a hub should do and why it should do it, but they were not discussing the logistics of how. For this North America
    5. what services would the national hub offer?
      1. online training
      2. occasional in-person training
      3. support for access to grants
      4. support for the maintanence of community organizations, including how to complete annual reports, how to get playbooks to host events
      5. advice on maintaining student organizations
      6. there are a lot of people who do not know anything about the Wikimedia Foundation
    6. Xeno: how to form an affiliate; how to do its annual reports; how to apply for grants; different playbooks for events (editathons, conferences, wiknics, etc_
    7. support for small regional museums as well doing Wikimedia projects, open access releases, etc.
    8. How can people participate in the hub conversation?
      1. Anticipate that there will be a call for comments soon, but it has not started yet!
      2. There will be monthly live meetings. Richard / Pharos will be taking comments at those meetings.
      3. There will be comments invited on the meta page.
      4. Wiki DC still has some planning issue.
  4. What are options for community participation in Wikimedia Foundation policy decisions?
    1. there are different levels of policy with different programs which are appropriate to each
    2. anyone is invited to get in touch - Stan Adams sadams@wikimedia.org
    3. Highly recommend joining the publicpolicy mailing list for discussion on this topic (very high signal, low noise): https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/publicpolicy.lists.wikimedia.org/
    4. Congress is currently talking about repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230) would be a threat to Wikipedia. This is an existential threat
  5. Rapid grant changes (Kevin)
    1. posted to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Changes_to_Rapid_Fund_program_in_FY_2023-2024
    2. big changes
    3. individuals can only have one open grant, not two
    4. orgs can have two open grants, not three
    5. if anyone is in a staff or leadership position with a Wikimedia affiliate which is funded, then that person is not eligible for individual rapid grants
    6. comment - It would make a bit more sense if it was scoped to just grant requests related to that affiliate, but not for any project
  6. update on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee
    1. from Richard, one of the drafters
    2. There will be announcements before Wikimania to be discussed at Wikimania
    3. announcements will be about global council
    4. schedule for draft.
  7. Survey from the Wikimedia Foundation for affiliate organization leaders
    1. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyRTQSIMYj9ymX4S-pbjtpZSqnQ8Icr-P3quvlAeh6sAk0aw/viewform
    2. take it and share
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=NARWHAL/June_2023&oldid=25150501"