Queering Wikipedia 2020/notes 2019-11-21

https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/QW2020

21 November 2019

Queering Wikipedia planning meeting

attendees

Lane Rasberry / bluerasberry (taking notes with others)
Fae
Filip/dungodung
Pharos
Houssem
Art Feminism/Kira Wisniewski
Michal Lester
Rachel
TJMSmith
Z. Blace

notes

Conference announcement
1. Rachel: Here is the conference announcement
2. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wUn3pbyyiAiyhm3XVjkXFOwC2v6Rpr5Jl302RzgY-rI/edit
3. there have been lots of views to this and lots of comments
4. what I and the program team would appreciate is when the deadline for this is
5. I would like to close the window for comments, because we need to have a resolution and publish this
6. Michal: Are we expecting more comments? Why not close the comment period today?
7. Rachel: people want to know up front how long something is going to be and what materials they need.
8. Fae: I think it is too much to work out all details for this press release. For now people just need to know if this is the sort of conference they might want to attend. Details about the program, like whether the unconference will be a whole day or half day, can change later. By January we should have a better idea for the program.
9. Houssem: The first page looks great. The second page may need some more work because we are still in discussion about that. Can we share the first page without sharing the second page?
10. Rachel: I think the rationale is complete. For the press release need, I want to clarify if we want a very condensed version of this for social media along with a link.
11. Houssem: I am expecting that the first page of this announcement can go to the main page of the conference on meta.
12. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Queering_Wikipedia
13. Lane: Yes, it seems fine to post this to meta.
14. Rachel: Okay, if people are comfortable with me posting to meta, then I can post this text there. Other details, like scholarship information and program calls, can come later.
15. various - Yes, yes yes
16. Rachel: Thanks to everyone who contributed to this document.
17. Houssem: yes and we should be ready to translate this
About scholarship applications:
1. Filip: protocol for giving scholarships
  1. will be sharing this form in about 10 days
  2. this is early considering the April scholarship but now is time to start circulating
2. Fae:
  1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Queering_Wikipedia/Travel_and_logistics/Scholarships#Questions_for_the_scholarship_application_form
  2. we will be collecting all sorts of applications
  3. somehow we review these applications, and the plan is for us to pass on the selected ones to WM Austria, and we discard the non-selected ones
  4. We have not set diversity targets for selection. For example, what if our LGBT+ conference is mostly cis men. We have no process for either asking about this or for the ratios we wish to target.
  5. Anyone can post to the meta talk page about this.
3. Kira: For Art+Feminism, we send out our forms in English, but applicants can respond to the questions in any language they like. We find a way to interpret those on our side.
4. houssem: We will have this conference mostly in English. We should expect that the participants will understand English.
5. houssem: Some of the French participants for Wikimania asked the French chapter to translate their scholarship applications. They felt that this helped their application and the scholarship committee.
6. Fae: Offering assistance is probably a smart idea. There are people who might have questions and an option for conversation could help with this.
7. Fae: Do we have other questions about this process?
8. Michal: I think if people are going to come, we should not require them to describe their participation. For example, at this point we should not ask them to describe a presentation they might give, or whether they would like to participate in a certain language. There are various other groups which might suggest their participants to apply to us, such as Art+Feminism. it might be useful to ask about affiliations.
9. Houssem: to get back to the demographic question, we need some information. We need to know for logistical reasons such as flights. We also need to know to get good diverse participation. We need to know how representative we are and how much our reach is working.
10. Rachel: considering that we are trying to encourage LGBT+ folks to participate in the conference, what support are we giving people from vulnerable populations or countries where participation in this might not be easy? If people are working and living where they are going to school different from where they are born, then maybe we should note that.
11. Fae: We definitely need to know where scholarship recipients will be traveling from. Maybe we should also ask about heritage or languages which people feel that they represent.
12. Kira: I agree, having open text fields to let people identify as they like.
13. TJ: Is there an option for anyone to pass on answering these questions?
14. Fae: Yes, we want people to express their interests in a way that is relevant to them.
15. Richard: Some people may not want to be identified in various ways. For example, at Wikimania, attendees have the option to not be listed by name in the notes and to just be counted.
16. TJ: What is the criteria for scholarships? Are these need based, academic based, or anything else?
17. Fae:We probably will not have any such criteria like this. In the past Wikimedia conferences have been neutral about need, and instead they get evaluation based on wiki activities and their request for sponsorship.
18. Richard: merit and diversity are usual criteria
19. Michal: How many scholarships will there be?
20. Z. Blace: it was 50 scholarships as projection estimate.
21. Fae: Any more comments about scholarships? If not, we can close this issue and move on to the next.
22. Kira: I wish to limit the number of questions on the application to less than 10.
23. Fae:okay We could also give an example completed application form. That might be easier to understand than creating a procedure.
24. Zeljko: Think we should maybe establish minimum geographic/language-community/profile distribution
25. Richard: We should aim for that, but it might be too difficult to pre-define, as there are a lot of types of diversity except Antarctica!
26. Rachel: Here is a suggestion: We want to encourage participation and applications from non-English speaking, non-Western countries. As a baseline, should we suggest a minimum expectation?
27. Z. Blace: 10% is a bare minimim under which I would not feal I want to finally participate even as early co-organizer. We should have at least 10% non-white, 10% non-CIS. I hope that we can do better, but maybe we can should agree and report this as absolute minimum.
28. Lane: These are low numbers and I expect that we will achieve at least this much, but yes, to start the conversation, I agree that we should not have less of these things. For difficult issues like this I think we should post discussion on the talk page. I would not want anyone to misunderstand that we alone came up with this process.
29. Richard: These numbers are low. I hope we do better than this.
30. Fae: I am not sure we have this information. We do not commonly discuss this among ourselves. I do not know who among us identifies as trans, if any.
31. Fae:who will post this to meta?
  1. Lane: I will. I also would like to move all talk pages on meta to the back of the main page. Support?
  2. (some support) - Z. Blace - I think we might need two talk pages for content and organization separate, but yes, we should condense.
inviting Samaritans to speak at this conference
1. Lane: I want to ask how everyone would feel about my inviting the Samaritans as an organization to present for 2 hours in a program slot at this conference. This organization has reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation about a longer term relationship in responding to online behavior and suicide. If they came to the conference they would do two things: talk to us about how we should respond if we see anyone posting messages that they could commit suicide, and also advise on best practices for media in presenting information about suicide, such as in Wikipedia articles. The reason why I bring this up now is because they would need to prepare, and request advance notice if they should come. The Wikimedia Foundation is considering a collaboration with this organization to manage suicide crisis support in the Wikimedia community.
2. Z. Blace - Are Samaritans LGBT focused?
3. Lane: no, not particuarly
4. Z. Blace this organization is very activist focused, Catalonian http://www.ulexproject.org This organization has special support for LGBT+ people and trans communities. They have a community base developing their process. They provide support in 5 languages. They also respond to all sorts of crisis, including activist burnout. Example of current work http://ulexproject.org/courses_events/transformative-collaboration-trans-activists/
5. Michal - it would be nice if the presentation was optional and that people could do something else. Maybe Samaritans could have a table and people could talk to them if they wanted.
6. Fae: As with any organization presenting, we should be clear that we want their presentation to match our needs. I have not talked with the Samaritans, but I have talked with other similar organizations. I expect that they make good use of online outreach materials and could teach us about support. If someone is coming from Samaritans to our conference then I would like them to know a bit about wikimedians.
7. Lane: The Samaritans is a fit in some ways and not in others. We are an extraordinarily diverse community and neither they nor anyone else is ready for international support in every language. They are a large organization known to have expertise on this topic, and they do have some network in the British Commonwealth including England, India, and Hong Kong. They are not LGBT+ focused but they do provide support to LGBT+ people.
8. Fae: There was an old UK gay helpline (now called Switchboard LGBT+). They previously supported people by phone and then transitioned to online support.
9. Rachel: I would want the organization to present to our conference and know something about us.
10. Fae: They should understand the aims/planned outcomes of our conference and be ready to present in a relevant way.
11. Lane: Right - I will tell them that we want an LGBT+ presentation and that we would like their speaker to have some advance understanding of Wikipedia.
12. Fae: I can ask more difficult questions if you like.
13. Lane: that is enough, let's stop here
Fae: Other issues?
1. adjourn