Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Reports/Late August & September Community Conversations Monthly Report
Feedback by Working Group areaEdit
AdvocacyEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | What policy areas do we want to prioritize on our way to becoming the essential infrastructure for free knowledge? Where do we have to align with the broader global movement?
After establishing a good juridical status in the protection of the movement, it should proceeds in the different domains of intervention be it;
Scholarly (education based)
Cultural and Arts
Environmental and forestry
Research
Water resource management and Arable farming
Mines and energy
Technology and scientific innovations etc.
This awareness process should start from bottom-top (local administration and communities to central government)
Putting in place a juridique status peculiar to the protection of the movement in every country. So, the wikimedia foundation have to support the local action near the authorities in order to render their actions visible
Uniformise the appellation of the movement groups(example :wikimedia Cameroon, wikimedia Nigeria, wikimedia Ghana) participate In big national movement (national day) to make the movement known
Interest medias to the movement through the actions carryout. Getting more closer to the network parliamentarians (deputy and senators) to make the movement know thanks to the information release by the medias
Sensibilise organisations /associations who are interested by acces to information. Meet the members of the government in order to sensitise them on the objectives of the movement to elaborate a project of laws on the free access to information.
What policy changes are necessary to achieve our strategic vision? What are areas where the movement has an opportunity to make change?
An apolitical movement as Wikimedia foundation and Wikimedia Cameroon should engaged in organizing multitudes awareness creating conferences at provincial/regional levels within the country of exercise and mobilizing at most public figures in attending events while focusing on the message of neutrality in any political party’s ambitions but rather creating a philosophy of living together as a cosmopolite citizen in a global village where everyone needs easy information accessibility and sharing at no cost.
To sensitize the institutions for a better physical and numerical availability of the data concerning them
To propose to accompany / improve the visibility of state institutions by sharing information on these institutions and coming from them
Organize targeted training within the institutions (specialized units) for the dissemination of information on these institutions (physical / digital) ie better equip the communication cells Let Wikimedia foundation write a booklet/journal after meticulous diagnosis on the various domains it which she wants to intervene and that thighs in line with government politics for development and then proceeding at various regional delegation, Non-governmental organisation and ministries for audience hearing.
Conferences should be advertise with use of flyers, banners hung in public roundabouts carrying the Wikimedia slogan "information access- sharing – is free to all"
Improve contributions within the community
Design membership cards at the international level (for better activism) Utilize effectively the tool of Focus Group Discussion within local development association, cooperatives of all sorts and assist them routinely to build their capacity to to share while learning from that which they know and know not.
Design a guide for the Cameroonian wikipedian
Design brochures that present the vision and goals of the movement or community
How will the open knowledge movement support the growing need for legal work around the globe in defense of free speech, access to information, and open knowledge? Who is part of this movement and who are the partners we need to engage with to further our mission?
Identifying possible experts will entail first of all to outline what type of information Wikimedia foundation needs in order to meet the growing trends of globalisation and development agenda while advancing in achieving its vision 2030.
Partners here will include private (civil society group, common initiative groups) and public (central government to decentralized local administration). We suggest a delegation from Wikimedia foundation from the United States of America should fortify its new juridical right to explore in the said country and pay a courtesy visit to government officials of Cameroon for strong Sub Regional visibility and concretization of its vision, mission and objectives.
How can Wikimedia use its considerable visibility and influence to work with other open internet and open knowledge allies to advocate for press freedom, free speech, universal internet access, and other policy goals that will ensure the free flow of information?
Following the same line as in Q6 above let a call for an international forum be organised where internet operators can meet to discuss on the stakes of information accessibility, sharing at free cost through the use of the internet.
Should in case it is organise, while at an international forum let Wikimedia foundation gather enough reasons to show the negative impacts of lesser information accessibility and sharing due to the cost price placed on a document to be downloaded for an eventual development of our planet earth. For example: It's twice cost consuming that is through (internet Bytes and price paid on downloaded documents ) More time is taken to produce pertinent results due to financial limitation towards especially paying for download which most at times scare or restraints research works from developing nations as Cameroon. |
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| Arabic language community | Various 1:1 interviews conducted by the Arabic Strategy Liaison | WMF should add more visibility to the encyclopedia so that it attract diverse contributors
For example add a link “learn more” about wikipedia directly from Google as Google are partners of the WMF.
Transparency recommendation:
When giving the community the right to decide the rules of contribution, there are points to consider:
The amount of experience and knowledge of the person and the movement of Wikimania and strategies
The suitability of these rules for time and space
Who do we mean by society? Are they old, new, or organization users?
Are the rules fixed or subject to change periodically? (Preferably changeable)
Single/Fixed entry points:
If a volunteer or participant wishes to initiate and advocate activities related to Wikimedia, he or she needs information and steps for a mechanism to do similar activities that he or she can rely on, such as a case study, without resorting to eliminating the idea solely from the difficulty of implementing in his or her community.
The processes needed for decision-making will not be known and understood unless they are published, discussed, shared with the community, and most importantly be doable. It would be good if the advocate is chosen by the community through elections or following a clear process, thus avoiding the case where community members feel that the advocate does not represent them or not as close to their opinions and plans as they wish.
In addition to that, there should be a clear work to restructure how the community contributes to decision-making, including the necessary awareness and the adoption of neutrality as well as ensuring long-term decisions that are in line with the desire of the majority. The idea of diversity as a whole needs additional thought in terms of respecting the cultures and habits of affiliated users.It is not easy to be brought together in one environment that will be different for all of them and may suit some but not others.
Platforms fitting different cultures should be created in order to suit, and most importantly to fit with the desires of the respective communities. Communities shall feel that they are supported and that their voice is heard and not just ink on paper. When a user or any volunteer is sure that their requests or ideas will be taken into consideration, it is easier for him/her to communicate his/her ideas to newcomers, which will receive the same attention. This will bring in more active volunteers and support for the movement. One of the most important means of development and progress is the exchange of experiences and ideas as much as possible, through a work of correspondence. This work does not necessarily have to be weekly, but shall have a specific frequency that suits everyone according to their agreement, so that everyone is fully familiar with the proceedings, ideally using social media
No matter how long the discussions will be, they will never be enough to discuss all the points intended. One idea is to have an annual meeting/conference to gather advocates from all communities.
Each community needs one or two people to facilitate the support of some advocacy activities that need to be arranged months before their implementation, taking into account the environment to which this type of activity is targeted, which individuals, etc.
Knowledge Management:
It is good to have a summary or place where successful and failed experiments are kept, to be used as much as possible by the advocates, which leads them to think differently than before, and to avoid previous mistakes and failures as much as possible. In addition, this information should be displayed in simple and accessible ways for everyone, so that they can change or correct them In proportion to their own experiences. This contributes to increase knowledge, exchange of views for the benefit of future users and advocates.
Advocacy Hub:
The existence of a unified advocacy hub where supporters of the movement meet, to exchange ideas and experiences is essential and very useful on many levels. Each advocate can share problems and mistakes faced by their community with the hub, which will somehow transfer them to the broad movement, provided that its working structure is clear and is for the benefit of communities and advocates, and in a supportive manner to the local community.
Common Positioning:
This document can play the role of a founding book for the movement, i.e., a more ad hoc knowledge board, and more widely known to different individuals. When a person is fully familiar with the fundamentals of the movement, it will be easier for them to adhere to what is appropriate and to initiate activities appropriate to them according to the space available. Movement and society are two sides that are influenced by the same factors and both depend on each other.
The document should be as clear and understandable as possible and subject to adjustment and updates when needed. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | Advocacy points make sense, but I don’t like the way they are written. “There are established entry points for those who want to be involved or want to initiate advocacy activities.” sounds like if it was already established. It doesn’t seems clear if it is a finished thing or a desire, it doesn’t seems clear. Even if I do believe that a referencial mark for Advocacy (as point 1 says) is needed, and that a good environment for Advocacy is also needed (point 2), and even if I agree with 3,4,6 and even I could accept 5, I believe that everything should be written in a more clear way. |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | 1- To us sounds as common sense. Due the fact our chapter/affiliate has a great alignment with our online community. We have legitimacy when doing public appearances and advocacy because we are not only affiliate representatives, but also editors. We recommend to other affiliates that they include more online editors in their structures, to avoid the problem of lack of legitimacy (like European blackout). This should be a step previous to the implementation of this recommendation. The European case proves the need of a structure when dealing with such cases. 2- Advocacy in some contexts may be tough. It is a good idea to be open there? The solution is doing an advocacy that doesn't contradict local governments? 'light-advocacy' is more inclusive? We don't have many answers, but we do agree with local-tailored solutions. How do we marry freedom of speech and local-tailored solutions in contexts where freedom of speech can endanger our community? 3- Based in our experience in European copyright, agree. Likes the idea of that things can be done without resources (but support is always needed). Once again, fear of overdocumentation of the processes. 4- Fear of overdocumentation 5- 'You have discovered Metawiki'. Agree: Some advocacy issues are global or regional/european and non-local hubs are needed.
Fear of over-creating intermediate infraestructures that would lead to a burocratical or gigantic WMF (See criticism to Roles, specialy in Quotiel). |
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| Maithi Wikimedians User Group stratgy salon | 19 people at in-person event | Q. We are a content focused movement, why should we spend our time and energy on advocacy efforts?
Suggestions It matters for our movement to build a policy for the community as well as for the individual members that can impact a positive change. It is important for making the decision process more inclusive. It will help to build skills and confidence of the community members that in turn helpful for them in decision-making and addressing community norms. It is crucial for making sure that policies designed to benefit the community Q. How can we ensure that the movement's advocacy efforts are not harming the neutrality of the content of Wikimedia projects? Suggestions The active Wikipedia community members plays an essential role to check and balance the content of Wikimedia Projects. We have already framework of user rights groups (ie, Steward, Global Sysop, local administrator etc) which help us to maintain the neutrality of the contents. Q. How do we engage the community at large in advocacy? Suggestions Awareness regarding Advocacy through social media promotion and in person meetup We should discuss it on community platform and in outreach activities. |
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| Igbo User Group youth strategy salon | 16 people at in-person event | Advocacy Team: In this Team, the Youths began with giving the definitions to what advocacy meant to them as it meant different things to different people. Some defined it as fighting for a course, some said it meant constant creation of awareness of a particular purpose. Question 1 What is the vision for Advocacy? Answers Ensure that our voices are heard. Feel comfortable to tell our own stories.
To break barriers that hinder free knowledge sharing.example: technical barriers to enable easy contributions. Creating more awareness to enable people know the importance of free knowledge.
Educating more people literate in Igbo Language on how to contribute to the different Wikimedia projects.
Create enabling environment. e.g develop apps that do not need internet connection to enable contribution.
Have constant communication with the community. (Create medium for constant communication where members can contribute) Educating the people in our communities more to enable more contributions.
Create more awareness of Wikipedia with special focus on Igbo Language.
Target secondary school students in contributing.
Partner with Ministry of Education/private schools to create Wiki Clubs and addWikipedia editing into their curriculums.
Donate gadgets to schools to allow students contribute.
Have a Wikipedia app for easy access. Create contests in schools to motivate students.
Consistent use of the Media (TV, Radio) to create awareness.
Display ads on websites like pay per click.
Use Social Media platforms to create awareness.
Be in constant communication with contributors/users.
Partner with Telecom companies for easy internet access. Have Focus
The volunteers should be properly educated/trained on what they should and shouldn't do (about policies). Create opportunities for capacity building.
Create job opportunities beyond volunteering Grants/funds
Collaboration with eLibraries
Personal donations from individuals/organizations.
Question 8 How do we safeguard and protect the efforts of advocates (and contributors) within "adverse" or "unaware" environments? Feedback emails should be sent after contributions.
Question 9 How do we incorporate existing and future aligned partners in our advocacy efforts? Wikimedia should partner traditional institutions to get more updates. |
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| Igbo user group strategy salon | 17 people at in-person event | It is a way to tackle social injustice, the act of soliciting, influencing change.
Advocacy in Wikimedia cuts across these areas: Political Issues Economic issues Education Social barriers, etc. Question 1: How do we ensure that our community's various context are represented through advocacy? Sugestions: Through the use of social media to create awareness for our projects and promote our initiatives. Organize workshops and programs to engage schools and institutions. Question 2: What is needed to encourage and inspire advocates for the Wikimedia movement? Suggestions: 1. Ensure that they are equipped with the resources needed for work. 2. Establish a reward system; this can be intrinsic or extrinsic that is transparent. Question 3: What kind of legal, public policy and activist capacities do we need within the movement, organisations and communities, and how can we build them. Suggestions: We need decision-makers, legislators and influencers in the media, education, etc. Lobbying can help turn our advocacy into action. For example, people in key positions like the Minister of culture and education can help champion policies that will ensure knowledge sharing in schools and museums in Nigeria. Also, lobby legislators in Basic Education committees can cause action. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | There are technology tools to support graasroots advocacy and we should use them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | The idea of a central advocacy "playbook" is essential to maintaining consistency of Wikimedia's voice and scope in the area of advocacy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | Each person who joins the "Advocacy hub" acknowledges its special ToU. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | All chapters should have a way to send out an alert to all chapter members an if an important matter requires grass roots advocacy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Difficult to comprehend - maybe that's why there's little feedback. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Good idea, but no specific recommendation to comment. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Advocacy isn't purely Western idea - for example, it happened in China. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | Unsure if the assumption that advocacy requires little resources is true. Advocacy does take a lot of time and planning. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | In the recommendation, there should be information on a form, a process or a structure related to the hub, instead of/with a description of the hub. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4 | There are useful resources already. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4 | Unclear due to lack of a comma. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5 | Decisions on what positions to take should be made by the community outside the hub by a broader section of the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5 | We use many online platforms and yet another might be troublesome and time-consuming. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | Many donors believe that their funds are being used to build and improve an encyclopedia and not for "social justice" advocacy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | Advocacy should be narrowly confined to those issues that pose an existential threat to our mission of spreading knowledge and providing free content. The "barrier to participate in Wikipedia" argument is too elastic. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | The more advocacy positions we take, the more the credibility/neutrality of information we provide gets challenged. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | Set a high threshold for adopting a policy. Below that, no affiliate would be entitled to claim to speak in an official capacity, and there would be no blackouts, protests, or banners. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | The document would start at a high level with broad topics and then would go into more detail in areas were advocacy requires important nuance. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | Advocacy should be limited to copyright law, internet censorship, intermediary liability laws, online privacy law and general blocks on internet access. Anything outside these areas do not relate to the projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | Wikimedia as a community wouldn't survive the internal wars derived from broad advocacy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6 | The "barrier to participate in Wikipedia" argument is too elastic. |
Capacity BuildingEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire Strategy Salon | 25 people at in-person event | Sur la première question, pour que Wikimedia devienne l’infrastructure principale de l’écosystème de la connaissance libre, il ressort que les wikimédiens devraient développer les capacités suivantes :
Recherche de l’information (la vraie) et citer davantage de sources ;
Sensibilité aux contextes ;
Developpement de partenariats avec les autorités ;
Mobilisation pour inciter à l’engagement au sein des communautés locales ;
Communication professionnelle sur les activités du mouvement pour une plus grande visibilité et une crédibilité ;
Contributions aux projets Wikimedia ;
Proactivité et disponibilité ;
Partage des connaissances et expériences avec les autres. la création d’antennes régionales et locales de la fondation Wikimedia, afin de rapprocher et accentuer davantage l’accompagnement des affiliés ;
la création de davantages de clubs wiki au niveau local (pôles nucléaires dépendants de l’organisation nationale) qui sensibiliseront les populations qui n’ont pas un accès direct aux ressources Wikimédia via les TIC et Internet.
la création de conventions nationales (rassemblement de grande envergure) auxquelles participeront toutes les entités nationales, régionales…
la création d'espaces virtuels Moodle pour centraliser et faciliter la gestion des ressources wiki ;
des visites annuelles de représentants de la fondation pour un meilleur encadrement des communautés locales.
l'animation régulière de plateformes de communication ;
un minimum de personnel salarié au sein des communautés locales.
Quelques unes des idées susmentionnées ont fait l’objet de discussion. Notamment la question de la disponibilité. Donatien Kangah a soulevé la préoccupation de savoir « comment faire pour créer cette disponibilité au sein des wikimédiens ». Selon Placide Konan, il faudrait discuter avec les personnes qui adhèrent au mouvement pour connaitre leurs motivations personnelles. Ce qui permettra de les orienter efficacement dans leur rôle à jouer. Pour Serge Amani N’Guessan, la disponibilité d’un individu découle de sa volonté. A ce propos, Aman Ado suggère de créer de l’engouement au sein du mouvement pour susciter la volonté des wikimédiens. Quant à Colette Guebo, la disponibilité ne peut être motivée que par la mise à disposition de ressources (financières notamment) pour les bénévoles. Nikki Zeuner a indiqué que la question de la disponibilité est cruciale pour le mouvement, en tant qu’organisation à but non lucratif. Pour elle, pour la bonne avancée du mouvement, chaque chapitre devrait avoir, en plus de ses bénévoles, du personnel rémunéré. Aussi, le défi est de trouver le bon équilibre entre les activités des bénévoles et celles du personnel rémunéré. |
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| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | What is our overall goal for building capacities across the different parts of the movement?
Overall Goal : To create awareness about wikimedia and contribute to it's sustainebility
In terms of governance, capacity of collaboration, knowledge, fund raising, adaptation, innovative, the movement need to develop :
Knowledge on the movement
Knowledge on the management of team projects
Knowledge on communication
Knowledge on the rules that governs the movement (internal rules)
Knowledge on conflict management
Strategies on the mobilisation of resources
Good mastery of the principal language of the community (English) and local (official):be bilingual
How can leadership development and capacity building in the movement support our strategic priorities of knowledge as a service and knowledge equity?
Organize trainings in which everyone present gets involved
Do follow-ups after the trainings
Use a participaing approach during the training
Organization of trainings, seminars, Mooc on different capacities, conferences and conferences
Production of communication media (wikipedia guide, what Wikipedia is not, ...)
What are the capacities that we need in the movement and how do we build them?
Capacities :
Leadership, technical skills, communication skills, marketing skills, photography, project management
Training of trainers
Leadership : Team work, human resource, management, adminstration
Technical skills : Programming, graphic design, photography
Communication:Social media, radio, TV, newspaper
Project management : Finance, writing, monitoring and evaluation
What capacities do we already cover, in which regions and communities do we cover these and where are the gaps that we need to fill to succeed?
Train by organizing workshops
Subscribe to online training by wikimedia experts
Wikimedia organization should fund workshops organized in minor communities
Capacities we have already
Communication
Leadership
Region : South West Region, Buea municipality
Gaps : Project management, Technical skills 1. Goals, mission Activities How they can partner (role) 2. Have conversations with partners Sell the ROI (Return Of Inverest) Invite them to our events Engage them on all our parternship communication activities Always keep them updated on what we are doing |
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| Arabic language community | Various 1:1 interviews conducted by the Arabic Strategy Liaison | Building Capacity for Capacity Building:
It is good to highlight the aspects of capacity building of individuals which suit their context. This contributes to creativity and to the development of a final product. Each user with a specific ability can transfer it to others through the preferred methods of qualification and training- Moreover,to being an important aspect contributes to The movement offers improved capacity to shareholders, both Wikimedia and new contributors.
Matching human assets and online knowledge resources:
To emphasize the desire for homogeneity that could be feasible, a comparison can be made between two sides: the first is homogeneous while the other is heterogeneous, then the results can be monitored before adopting adopting the side that will be in the interest of movement and the convenience of users.
People are constantly changing, those always used to the same people, knowledge and means, will not have efficient results in their work.
Qualifications and capacities need to be harmonized with specific specifications and not based on age. In terms of knowledge resources, the total internal resources mobilized by the movement and coordinated with external resources is an effective resource package to address the situation and develop the competencies of users.
Capacity Building should occur in context:
In-person conferences contribute a lot to capacity building,particularly by integrating and mixing of different aspects of knowledge and interests, on the condition that the training and qualifications are appropriate for each individual context. Give time and effort to translate or transmit the ideas in ways which suit cultural and linguistic differences, also do not only solely rely on theory, but employ rather the practical aspect to apply trainings to reach the desired results.
Provide Capacity Building for Organizational Development:
Individual and collective activities contribute to the development and advancement of organizations, and then to a strong network of institutions supported by various resources and methods. The latter becomes a basic pillar on which the movement can rely to work and identify what can be developed, changed or applied in different ways.
A good idea is that these institutions collaborate with their local communities and share their needs with the movement, including activities from the individual,the local community until the group of institutions and the larger global movement. Funding and its sources are one of the most important prerequisites for the implementation of all activities in any community. There should be consistent support for diverse activities without singling out a specific area. Funds can come from multiple partnerships or individuals or groups or Institutions that support volunteer activities and projects.
Evaluating Capacity Building:
There should be an integral evaluation system, taking into account a set of points agreed upon by a committee or group of individuals having different interests and participating in different actions in the movement. The system shall be in line with future plans to ensure their sustainability as long as possible. This evaluation system should measure the failure or success of the projects, as well as it follows up the news and developements.
Online Training:
Internet is the primary platform connecting all our contributors and participants worldwide. It shall be used more to connect members to discuss a particular activity, have online workshops, or video calls, to ensure a diverse participation.
Mentoring and Leadership development:
There shall be a mentoring program which includes a conceptual plan that facilitates processes. This plan should enable the selection of the right leaders with the right skills in the right place. Qualifications should be the main determinant of this choice.
Recognizing and supporting Individuals:
There are many individuals who give great efforts in Wikimedia projects, but in return, do not get the recognition they deserve, compared to others who may be less involved but are more supported
There should be more fairness towards contributors, especially newcomers, and especially in the financial aspect. For new volunteers coming from emerging communities, receiving more support will enable them to increase their activity in the movement. Not all support shall be material, it can also be training activities or through collaborations with other (more experienced) members. The interviewee emphasizes this recommendation with a structure overseeing capacity-building activities throughout the Movement. Not only to oversee the implementation of the recommendations is needed, but also to pave the way for and advise on new capacity-building tools and technologies and to monitor the extent to which capacity-building programs contribute to changing the movement towards strategic direction, while updating this structure to meet the desired objectives. |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | Feedback listed by recommendation number 1- Tongue twister. Screech: Staff. If We can have a community with only one people of Staff, Why they can't do the same? If our experts in wikidata/outreach/advocacy/tech are volunteers, why do they need staff? Should 'volunteers' who make a workshop receive money for that? Not every capacity building in global south needs investing money. WMF should invest in research about volunteering. After all, WMF exists thanks to volunteers. 2- Metawiki with a phone call center. Do We need staff/human support for Capacity Building? A Peer system can be created, but doesn't need a 24 h. available team. Before the Basque User group was created, we shared our experiences with them. They didn't looked for a central authority. The idea of support groups for every WG needs exists, but in Capacity Building is maybe the least necessary, and their proposal is the most expensive. There is a proposal of a Hub, that should be the place to Build Capacity Building. Mentorship to volunteers/staff already exists, We can adapt existing structures. 3- Agree with descentralization and context. One-time training may not be enough, but if in one place there are affiliates, they are already assuming those roles. They can receive adapted and personalized training. Peer system could be better that top-down. If in the regional scale We are able to create a culture of sharing, We can cover wide training needs. Not every regional scale are closed. One community can be part of several regional contexts. 4- If the document was written by volunteers, it is hard to say that relying on us is complicated. Scale and avoid burnouts is needed, but that's a Community Health issue. It is possible to build capacities in a volunteer-based movement in a wider way that We have nowadays. Agree to decentralize. There is not a single way of organizing, and decentralization also means to rely on the base of the movement, volunteers. 5- Measure community engagement. Ok to avoid paternalistic grant. If We link funding to success rate, it will make unavoidable for staff to collaborate and rely on volunteers, to multiply our forces. What does 'offer grants specifically for Capacity Building' mean? 6- How do you measure the contribution to the infraestructure of the ecosystem? Metrics are needed, but demanding metrics about everything is sometimes useless. What happens if two affiliates choose different criteria about Capacity Building? (ex. number of projects vs. number of volunteers engaged). We have experience of doing reports that were considered too much long. This recomendation proposes more metrics. Who is going to read them? We have a lot of doubts. 7- Wikibook+Metawiki. Those demands are for WMF, and can be done by adapting existing tools. 8- Our experience says that leaders that have left is because of Community Health issues. Improving Health will improve our retention. If We invest in generation but not in retention, everything will fail again and again. It is great to identify the problem of the lack of renovation in leaderships, linked with the lack of renovation in the editor community. 9 - We don't dislike the idea of redistribution. But economical support already exists in Amical: We have the rule that a volunteer activity doesn't cost money to our volunteers. We are the kind of community who idealized volunteers: We give as much resources needed to a volunteer to develop a volunteer activity. But never paid editing. In flesh or in cash. Never. We support barnstars and small prices like a wikicontest. And our prizes are books. If computers are needed, local affiliates should be the receiver and keeper of the needed tool. 10 - We like the idea of independent units. All units should be elected and voted by the community to ensure that the volunteer community feels represented by them. One of the biggest problems in the Wikimedia Movement is the fact that online communities doesn't feel represented by affiliates and WMF. We don't agree with the need of a Capacity Building unit with a new infraestructure. We can work with a Hub in MetaWiki or a new website to share experiences and to provide formation when needed. We prefer a tailored response for CB rather than a big new unit. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | Feedback numbered according to recommendation 1. After reading I thought: “Ok, they have done their demands, why should I keep reading?” I’ve decided to regard it as if it was the last point. About the content, it is true that there is a need of capacities to help develop capacities. It’s like “teaching teachers” that there are in some corporations. 2. Another list of commands. Reasonable and confuse, it merges two different things. “Peer to Peer” support depends on the availability of people (peer always refers to people). While, “a curated online knowledge base” obvioulsy refers to a tool stockpile to be used in any moment. They aren’t equivalent, neither can be arranged in a similar way 3. It doesn’t says anything wrong, but: sustained, transparent funding is only needed in CB? Also, there is no need of listing every activity that are included into CB, the phrase can be written in a more accessible way. Finally, seems like the most important idea is not related to funding or specifical activities: it is about the fact that activities, whichever they are, are adapted to local situation. 4. One agains says about contextualization of activities, this time talking about support. Yes, obvious, You shouldn’t give a wheelchair to a deaf person. 5-6. Agree with the need of resources. Need to develop point 5, about “its own governing body”. 7. Complelety agree. Half of the 2. should be here 8. Good wishes, but it will be difficult/boring to curate or keep runing in long term. 9. This points needs to be written. It seems a good idea to recognize people’s effort. 10. I don’t like it. There is a need of coordination, but always keeping in mind the ensemble of the movement, and our goal (it is about free knowledge for everyone, not other things). Arranging sectorial nodes of powers has the risk of finishing like education, who made their own party and left. The proposal of 10 makes me feel afraid. |
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| Bolivian strategy salon | Bolivia strategy salon (15 people across 2 events) | There are places in the world where “support” of the WMF is needed. Those UG would have more legitimization if WMF endorsed them. | |
| French languge community | Unknown | Open Badges could be used as a way to valorize volunteers’ skills | |
| Hindi language community | Mix of feedback across 6 individuals | Recommendation 9: On “Recognizing Individuals” in Capacity Building
How do we implement this in a way that same individuals don't keep doing gatekeeping and other people don't get the opportunity to get involved in the capacity building. Rotation should keep happening and prominent people who work on CP, should give opportunities to new people by invitation and training. |
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| Benin strategy salon (Cotonu) | 22 participants at in-person event | Question 1 : What are the capacity building needs of stakehoslders and organizations? How can people and organizations be better supported in their work and for the accomplishment of their goals?
Need for awareness raising and communication around the wiki ecosystem and its governance
Need for awareness raising and communication around actions and projects
Set up a core of trainers for each Wikimedia project
Organize monthly capacity building training about at least one Wikimedia project Already existing efforts:
Wiki Loves Africa
Wiki Loves Earth
Month of Francophone contribution
Contributing workshops to Wikipedia and its sister projects at CNF (Cotonou Francophone Digital Campus), BioLab, IrokoLab and other third places
Local initiatives that we may not know about:
Training in small groups of two, three or more people (These are types of training that we organize for lack of financial resources, we use our personal offices for reduced periods of time like 1 hour, to do workshops periodically)
Online training (online workshops organized on Zoom, since it is sometimes difficult to be able to mobilize a trainer in the classroom especially the administration team) Formats and methods of capacity building that worked:
Training workshop, individual work supervision
Workshops and training with the necessary logistics (Internet connection, teaching materials, snacks)
Training workshop done by people who know the Wikimedia projects really well individual, organizational and systemic causes
In capacity building, other communes of Benin are not represented.
Some capacity building workshops were organized in the evening but the number of participants obtained was far from the objective pursued;
Other workshops were organized in the morning but the audience turned out not being really interested in contributing. Local, regional level:
Trainings to learn how to contribute on Wikimedia projects
Capacity building related to diversity and local culture
Workshops on Wikipedia and sister projects
Technical and managerial training and setting up a trainers network for other cities
Implementation of several workshops in other cities Sourcing mechanisms Creation of new projects or contribution campaigns (Wiki loves africa, etc.) Capacity building for User group leaders |
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| Georgia strategy salon | 10 participants at in-person event | Wikimedia Foundation should make more efforts to conduct trainings in educational institutions, including universities and schools, both for students and relevant staff. This will help the Wikimedia Foundation to attract more people to the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia Foundation should hold meetings, organize conferences in educational institutions to more popularize Wikimedia projects in educational institutions. The Wikimedia Foundation should prepare the appropriate personnel to work with new members of the Wikimedia movement, which will help attract more people to the movement. This can be through the organization of meetings and trainings, as well as through online projects. The Wikimedia Foundation should facilitate the retraining of existing Wikimedia movement volunteers, so that they acquire new skills, which will facilitate the development and sustainability of the movement. The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more funds to its affiliates (chapters, user groups and thematic groups) so that they can organize and conduct events for the development of the Wikimedia movement, including through the organization of trainings, regular meetings and WikiCamps. Marketing The Wikimedia Foundation should put more effort into advertising the Wikimedia projects and the Wikipedia movement on online platforms, especially on social networks where a very large audience interested in Wikimedia, this will give us the advantage to attract more volunteers to Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia Foundation should provide enough funds for its affiliation, so that they can independently finance online advertising to attract volunteers in Wikimedia movement and to promote Wikimedia projects. |
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| Open Foundation West Africa strategy salon | 24 participants at in-person event | Core Issues
Gender gap: fewer stories of women on the internet The high cost of the internet makes the work of volunteers difficult Partnerships to advance the cause of the community Being efficient in organisational process More community engagement Defining Knowledge as a service Involve old members in order to get new members Equip leaders with knowledge and skill Debunking myths and showcasing Wikipedia as a trusted source Advocacy Programs and activities should be geared towards changing the notion that Wikipedia is not a trusted source. Consider age bracket; reaching out to the older generation during advocacy. Encourage little edits from volunteers. Our retention strategy Organise more trainings with institutions Wiki tours that project the essence of editing on Wikipedia Mentorship Provide new and existing members with an enabling environment to work Sessions/training should have a different approach at all times to ensure variety |
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| Wikipedia & Education User Group youth strategy salon | 25 people at in-person event | Recommendation: Resources for Capacity Building
Capacity Building should be considered as the foundation sustainability of leadership in the Wikimedia movement, and eventually the movement itself.
Not only monetary support but also support in terms of training and mentoring are also to be considered as resources. Support from experts (such as staff from WMF or affiliates, or community leaders) should not be limited to funding, but working closely with organisers to design effective programs by keeping previous failures and institutional knowledge in consideration. We should have more volunteer-based organisations and user-generated platforms as our partners. When this happens at organisational level, sharing of capacities between different volunteer communities can be easy. For example, Toastmasters International’s clubs can help Wikimedians to improve public speaker, which contributes to leadership, and we can share our knowledge about digital literacy with them.
Depending entirely upon individual contributors makes the future of our movement uncertain. This is because contributors keep coming and going dormant in the movement, to make ourselves sustainable we should be looking for organisational partnerships to get content at mass to our projects. There should be a robust mentoring system to guide new leaders to design effective programs. Focus should not only be limited to program, but there should be procedures where we can develop the capacity of the organisers as well so that they come better movement organisers, and move up the scale.
One of the participants mentioned that in their organisation all newbies were alloted with a personal mentor who helps them whenever they face problems. Considering the amount of user registrations we have in a day, providing mentorship may not be practicable. There can be a pattern to identify where a user is being highly active in the initial stages (say 3 months of account registration) and then there is drastic decline in activity - if we can identify such users and provide mentorship to at least some them initially, it will help us to have consistent inflow of new contributors. There needs to be new metrics when we talk about evaluating capacity building. The regular metrics used for general edit-a-thons aren’t suitable here. Parameters of an individual’s personal traits should also be considered. A training event can also be evaluated in terms of how much of existing resources, such as learning patterns and reports, have been used in designing the event, and what is something new that happened in this event where people can learn from in the future. The overall idea is to see how much of a program, a project, or an event is contributing to the movement's collective knowledge. |
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| Wikimedia Levant strategy salon | 13 people at in-person event | To launch the discussion on Capacity Building, and due to the relative unfamiliarity of the theme to both attendees and facilitators (when compared to CH), the Scoping Questions set by the working group were used as a reference and proved moderately helpful. Two questions were explored in depth during the session, which lasted for about an hour (significantly shorter than the previous one, because of time management issues). The two questions and their results are stated below. How do we make capacity building inclusive and equitable? The question was asked in a manner intended to target both Capacity Building and Diversity, suggesting how the lack of capacity building might have a direct effect on the amount of diversity in Wikimedia Communities, and, consequently, on content gaps, neutrality and other Wikipedia principles.
Local examples, including content on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, were used to illustrate how the lack of capacity can lead to unequal representation in Wikimedia communities. Four main thematic topics of recommendations emerged from the discussion, within which there were several sets of more specific/particular ideas:
Outreach: maximizing Wikiprojects outreach by various means, including events, meetings, contributors rewards, social media and audiovisual content that creates a more appealing and easier recruitment process.
Knowledge Exchange: sharing knowledge between different people from different backgrounds to mutually improve skills as well as to promote diversity, multiple POVs and inclusivity (e. g. contributors from Arabic and English Wikipedias, or veteran contributors with newcomers).
Regional hubs: launching legally bound,regional branches of Wikimedia to support various activities, help strengthen communities and empower volunteers on new levels.
Interface/Design: re-create and consider the elements of Wikipedia’s main page very carefully to invite visitors to contribute and to lead, guide and encourage them to become active participants in the community and to build/improve their skill sets.
Particular recommendations Host edit-a-thons with different themes (as in WikiGap for women) to increase diversity in both content and community, as the events will attract people from particular backgrounds and will help train/recruit them to the community.
Effective usage of social media platforms to promote Wikipedia and recruit new contributors, as well as to increase awareness of policies and principles.
Partnering with other organizations to provide training to new, more diverse communities.
Publishing regular video content (available on the main page) with Wikipedia tutorials: as in how to add references, etc.
Building a platform for capacity building and skill training.
Organizing events in unusual communities, such as refugee camps, countryside areas and female schools.
Start a hotline/helpline to answer needs of Wikipedia contributors and users.
Provide tutorial tours to guide participants through.
Interface & Design:
Re-design Wikipedia's main page to consider those less familiar with the Wikimedia environment. The main page is a valuable platform to introduce materials that can help educate people about Wikimedia, train new participants and provide important skills.
Publish videos/banners on the main page to attract new contributors in an appealing manner. Include educational materials to help them learn editing Wikipedia.
Knowledge Exchange:
Sending volunteers abroad to attend international meetings or training to increase their capabilities.
Exchanging expertise between Wikimedians from different languages communities (e. g. Wikipedia admins from the English and Arabic versions).
Having more meetups, workshops and Wikipedia "exhibitions" for contributors to share expertise and learn from each other.
Veteran admins or volunteers to share best practices. |
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| Wikimedia Thailand strategy salon | 6 person in-person event | Capacity building should be tailor made to match the community needs. From our experience, what are taught as part of the learning days (both in Berlin and at Wikimanias) are usually what the WMF believes to be useful. Those attending the sessions, however, might not find it as beneficial as the organizers want it to be. Different regions have different needs and are subject to different challenges. The current attempt for capacity building is not addressing this at the moment. We propose that more regional conferences are held on a regular basis to provide training sessions that match the community needs. Training can be provided at individual level and affiliate level. For affiliates, training may cover but not limited to the following items: How to apply for grant? How to start a usergroup? How to run a chapter? How to run contests and edit-a-thons? How to do partnership and outreach? In order for all this to happen, we support the ongoing discussion that capacity building unit must be created. This unit has the duty to evaluate the status quo of each community. This capacity building unit will work closely with the regional hub/affiliate to make sure that trainings are adequately provided. This unit is also responsible for establishing the qualitative and quantitative guidelines to evaluate the capacity building. In addition to the offline trainings, online platforms for training can be created. The tutorials hosted on wikiedu.org are very useful and can be translated to other languages. |
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| South Africa strategy salon | 6 people at in-person event | What do participants feel needs to be improved regarding Capacity building in Wikimedia? Do we really need to write everything down? Have a mobile app that is intuitive that will encourage new users to edit on the go.
Have friendly spaces with old users that will encourage new users edit.
Instead of deleting entire articles for not meeting notability criterion, why don’t Wikimedia put those articles under user’s draft so they can improve them with time?
Revisit deletion policies and scholarship awarding policies to favour all climates/environments.
Support new users to attend Wikimedia’s conferences than have conferences dominated by experienced users. This is where newbies will be able to learn more and be capacitated.
Wikimedia and it's projects is about people not content, the content comes as a results of the people/editors. So the focus needs to be a A Movement Strategy that capacitate people on how to edit on Wikipedia and its sister projects. Maintaining the diverse lists and communication channels become an administrative nightmare Chapter volunteers do not have the time capacity to do so
Mailing lists: Signing up to a Wikimedia mailing list can be hard and confusing.
There is no function to check to which lists you are subscribed.
Email is fast becoming an antiquated form of communication.
Local Recommendation:
Create capacity by paying someone to maintain the lists and make sure that all communication channels are used to advertise events.
Add a big “Join our Whatsapp Group” button to the Wikimedia site and use Whatsapp for Business to send out one way communication, instead of email.
Global recommendations: Chapters can add lists to the page as and when new lists are created.
Create one web page where users can add themselves to WhatsApp groups. Recommendations in a Nutshell
Building Capacity for Capacity Building: "toolbox of methods to build them people trained": We like this, however, where data is expensive, people should have the option to do as much as possible offline.
Mentoring and Leadership Development Is this admin staff? People that can train trainers? Let's assume it's a paid role: Risk: Corporatising Wikipedia - This is already happening in Wikimedia Germany. Risk Mitigation: We can combat this by seperating admin roles (paid) from volunteers. The volunteers should always be the governace/descion makers/strategic visionaries. Wikipedia must remain volunteer based. There can be a growth cycle however: Maybe you start as a volunteer, then you feel strongly about editing or a specific area and you get paid to get it. Volunteers can be party incentivised to become a paid member. There must be a revolving door, never a career. However, if you are a Paid Member, you should not have a vote in your Chapter or Group. Recognizing individuals : If you want to recognise an individual, you need to recognise their context as well. Not everyone has the means or the money to contribute as much as they want, but they often have the time. These contributors need to be nutured and supported. Without support they can't deliver results ( by means of data, tech, knowledge, etc) Create a standard package either that can be paid upfront (like a Chapter simcard that is prepaid by the Chapter) or reimbursement rules for data, travel costs. Mini-fellowships can be created within each chapter. Wikimedia sim card that is paid by the Chapter. Upfront loans, with reimbursements. Paid editing: We're using barnstars and points per article to rate someone's contribution, but this is also a form of paid editing Capacity building unit : We agree that the Foundation has a disproportionate amount of power and that this can be spread across units. Having one unit to serve all the Chapters could become problematic however as there are a lot of people to serve. Rather, each chapter should have a Capacity Champion that is connected to the Unit, either directly or through a Continental Point person. Other suggestions that the Unit can implement across Chapters: Welcome Wagon: Every time a new person signs up to Wikipedia in your country, they get a personalised email from the Welcome Wagon person with their local Chapter's contact email address. This will make people feel welcome and give them recourse when there is a edit person. This can be a paid position. Training Bootcamps for new members. When there are enough people interested, you organise the bootcamp. |
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| WMDE | Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Deutchland, who met and discussed the following points during Wikimania 2019 | CAVEAT: The paragraphs below are a summarized and condensed version of comments voiced by members of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board during a meeting at Wikimania in Stockholm. They represent first thoughts, questions and reflections on the recommendations at that given point in time and do not represent an organizational position of Wikimedia Deutschland. Payment of Volunteers Board members voiced the concern that within different recommendations across working groups were hints that it might be useful or necessary to pay volunteers. One of the reasons given for this is that in certain regions there is no volunteer culture and that this is the only way to enable non-privileged people to become involved in Free Knowledge. Even though the motivation behind these proposals is understandable, board members shared concerns about ill-considered changes to the volunteer principle in the projects, as this could have an explosive effect on our movement. Before making a decision, possible applications should first be concretized (e.g. better differentiation between paid work on the projects and paid offline work) and the chances and risks of "paying volunteers" should be researched in more detail (including the experiences of other organizations). |
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| Levant strategy salon | 13 people at in-person event | Four main thematic topics of recommendations emerged from the discussion, within which there were several sets of more specific/particular ideas: Outreach: maximizing Wikiprojects outreach by various means, including events, meetings, contributors rewards, social media and audiovisual content that creates a more appealing and easier recruitment process. Knowledge Exchange: sharing knowledge between different people from different backgrounds to mutually improve skills as well as to promote diversity, multiple POVs and inclusivity (e. g. contributors from Arabic and English Wikipedias, or veteran contributors with newcomers).
Regional hubs: launching legally bound,regional branches of Wikimedia to support various activities, help strengthen communities and empower volunteers on new levels.
Interface/Design: re-create and consider the elements of Wikipedia’s main page very carefully to invite visitors to contribute and to lead, guide and encourage them to become active participants in the community and to build/improve their skill sets.
Particular recommendations Host edit-a-thons with different themes (as in WikiGap for women) to increase diversity in both content and community, as the events will attract people from particular backgrounds and will help train/recruit them to the community. Effective usage of social media platforms to promote Wikipedia and recruit new contributors, as well as to increase awareness of policies and principles. Partnering with other organizations to provide training to new, more diverse communities. Publishing regular video content (available on the main page) with Wikipedia tutorials: as in how to add references, etc. Building a platform for capacity building and skill training. Organizing events in unusual communities, such as refugee camps, countryside areas and female schools. Start a hotline/helpline to answer needs of Wikipedia contributors and users. Provide tutorial tours to guide participants through. Interface & Design: Re-design Wikipedia's main page to consider those less familiar with the Wikimedia environment. The main page is a valuable platform to introduce materials that can help educate people about Wikimedia, train new participants and provide important skills. Publish videos/banners on the main page to attract new contributors in an appealing manner. Include educational materials to help them learn editing Wikipedia. Knowledge Exchange: Sending volunteers abroad to attend international meetings or training to increase their capabilities. Exchanging expertise between Wikimedians from different languages communities (e. g. Wikipedia admins from the English and Arabic versions). Having more meetups, workshops and Wikipedia "exhibitions" for contributors to share expertise and learn from each other. Veteran admins or volunteers to share best practices. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | What is meant by "Building Capacity for Capacity Building"? Either this is poorly phrased, or a tautological statement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | Invest heavily in translation capacities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | Mapping capacities should take place in an open environment, in collaboration with communities and projects, online, and be translated and updated. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1 | Think to recognize the volunteer work, trainings for volunteers should be the occasion of receiving some king of aknowledgement that the training was completed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Sounds like the first step towards putting together an intranet for a functioning, real life organization of real life people. Needs details for determining what's public and how to handle with confidentiality. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Such a project needs to be developped on a wiki, and be made available across the movement on the projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2 | Should the three databases (3 were mentioned in the recommendations) be stored together or separately? Where should they be stored? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | What could be done about contextualizing CB is a delocalisation of WMF staff in the different contexts. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | CB by the community is a very important and crucial element which needs to be encouraged and developped. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | We need more trainers visiting each group of contributors and mapping their needs. Today this is done by chapters, but chapters are themselves very centralized. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | Make the people report in their language on their project and be transparent about the funds they receive. Currently, people tend not to share the learned knowledge in the first place, or at least not enough. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3 | We could put more emphasis on just-in-time learning. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5 | Funds for CB need to be stable (and not to be reduced) if CB is to be successful. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5 | Support for the issue of one-sided approach mentioned in Q 4-1. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5 | Since legal requirements for non-profits and community organizations are different all over the world, it will be important to help local groups find assistance from people with local knowledge. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7 | General support. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8 | The group of basic and backbone contributor leaders is totally forgoten in the recommendation. In Wikimedia, there are many who are apt positioning themselfes on leadership roles, while in fact, they don't know much about the core activity (contributing). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | Answer to Q13 seems incomplete. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | This recommendation is unclear. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | Having meals and transportation paid for at local events, a gift card for groceries, or a wiki t-shirt that fits and looks good, are good ideas. Wiki seems more and more like an activity for privileged people. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | Prioritize finding ways to support people, including providing financial support, for those who need a quieter, low-key form of participation in the movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10 | How does theory of change help here? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10 | One of the risks of separating capacity building in a unit independent of WMF can be the effort not receiving enough funding. How does the proposal attempt to mitigate this risk? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10 | Please complete the answer to Q13. |
Community HealthEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | How do we as a movement define the term “community”?
Community is a group of people from different background having different perceptions and perspectives (diversity), coming together for a common goal. How can we ensure that our communities are places that people want to be part of and participate in, and how can we make people stay? Networking and follow-up of each member of the community (taking contacts and connecting with each other). Motivating administrators financial (e.g : Giving them airtime to call and check on members) Motivating members too financially by giving them transportation and snacks, giving them meals Carrying out campaigns to bring up new members and sensitisations on the importance Partnering with other association, NGO's and organisation who are successful in maintaining and getting members Creating a social network group Organising practical training to members Give everyone task to do to keep then busy, connected and participate Having a focal person who always esures that the community remains active, committed and organising members Gamification (challenges and medals (prizes given)) Popularize and raise awareness about the community and its activities at all possible occasions by taking part in activities (fairs, forums, conferences ...) Empowering new members based on their skills and community projects How do we engage and support people that have been left out by structures of power and privilege? Trying to get to the left out people to find out why they are left behind and encouraging them financially and morally Giving them as counsellors Assign them as advisors or consultants How can we either prioritize or balance the need to bring new community members into our movement and meet the expectations of existing contributors? Gamification (recognisition of performance to members like badges, medals,... Putting in place some principles and rules for the community Fixing deadlines and define the human resources necessary for each project while watching that the old members mentor the new ones What strategies can the movement develop for their constituencies to better balance huge workloads with personal health? Division of labour Work segmentation and specialisation Decentralize tasks, responsibilities and projects to prevent a member from doing more than necessary |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | 1- Conflict prevention Sounds good. Fears: If somebody who made a mess with FRAM is going to give us lessons about how to deal with conflicts, reticence could be found. Support to health support and Trust and safety. Doubts about implementation. Community members with health issues are like sick parents. We can't abandon them. Talks about 'Wikipedia addicts'. When servers fall, some users have abstinence syndrome. Jokes but sincere worries. 1- Leadership Limits for wikipedia community functionaries but the document doesn’t talks about limits for functionaries of the WMF structures. Seems like nobody knows Meta. The knowledge wide platform could be Meta. Invest in product, improve flow, but don't abandon products. That a longtime admin could leave is good (and worked in ca.wiki) when they assume new goals and improve other projects. Because they become users with an admin point of view. (jokes about maoism). It is a good idea also for diversity. Longtime admins and patrollers make good tutors. About leadership: How can we assure the renewal of leaders? We need an environment that assures that. CH should work on what happens when long time leaders feel that the project is theirs and are afrraid that if they leave it would sunk. 1- Redefining formal and informal power Limitation of mandates: why only in positions on wiki? There are problems with minor wikis of few volunteers to be admin, but except for Arb-com, in the WMF charges, there are enough candidates, but we find that there are lengthy mandates and they are extended, creating the opposite situation to the requested one in the recommendation. In the case of the affiliates, there may also be cases where those who direct them are always the same people, creating problems of lack of representativeness due to non-renewal. It is feared that the protection of those in a situation of risk leads to accountabilty problems. Fear of an increase in the bureaucracy of the movement.
1- Conduct code |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | Rules, regulations…
I find it quite well, but there are some issues. The main problem is how the interpretation of norms at local level can work. There are people with a lot of time who can be at village pump doing non-editorial activities and who can win every debate by exhausting people. Community diversity… Good wishes, but no application What does self-care mean? Please, translate to human Recognizing entry bareers is an important idea, but I don’t see how it is developed. Safety Good. Agile and responsive… I don’t understand the third part. |
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| Arabic language community | Various 1:1 interviews conducted by the Arabic Strategy Liaison | A joint set of rules we all agree to live by (a.k.a. Code of Conduct) A good behavioral environment that guarantees freedom of expression without repression is particularly important for new members who cannot stand an improper approach to keep them away from contributing and makes them leave the movement. When a set of rules are compulsory for all, this will facilitate the process of achieving an effective debating and expression environment. People tend to love and appreciate working more when they feel that they are defended (by these rules in this case).
One of the things that the experienced contributors use are going to solve problems is to direct users with objections and complaints to the so-called village pump, where they can share their opinions smoothly, logically and impartially. Such a place ensuring users’ right is important. To support investment in community building, we need equitable education resources that are equitably distributed in all environments and communities, as well as the necessary guidance.
It is very important that the experienced members have a good behavior toward the new ones if they want them to remain in the movement. Some new members, if receiving a good treatment, will be leading other members in the future. This is why we have to make sure that the continuity of this process will be positive.
The idea is as follows: "If a good and clear idea about Wikipedia / Wikimedia is developed in the minds of new members, then they will in their turn transfer it to others in the future." Suppress criticism that may contribute to progress and development no matter what. The goal is to gain new recruits and train them to become the leaders of tomorrow, as well as to encourage them to contribute both on the individual and community level. It is also important to suppress constructive criticism as it may contribute to progress and development.
Privacy and security for everyone:
It is important to attach great importance for privacy and safety so that users are not endangered when participating in displaying community activities of the movement will be an obstacle in the future to continue such activities.
In many countries where governments monitor everything in Internet, and do not allow basic freedoms, it is important to engage a political discussion because it is the only way to solve the situation (may involve Advocacy WG as well). Community health is affected by support, especially if directed to individuals and communities
It is essential to have a centralized structure to support individuals, monitoring, decision-making, reviewing, adopting and transferring it to the public, and applying it to a group of individuals to ensure its long-term feasibility, as well as new and technological technologies that can support individuals with disabilities, but have a passion and passion to participate and join. |
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| Algeria strategy salon | In-person event with 17 participants | Welcome new contributors
Launch a program to welcome new contributors.
Create a hosting structure / system (New groups working on projects that just emerged from the incubator must quickly establish a structure to expand the community).
Organize online and offline meetings with new and old members to break the ice.
Maintain a constant relationship with new members by inviting them to different activities of the community. We need to run surveys to measure, listen, examine and talk about the community and how healthy it is. Through continuous training (workshop, editathon, presentations). To motivate new users, you have to offer them what they enjoy. Organize writing workshops. Suggest to the partners to collaborate with newcomers. Build a team through conflict management training. |
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| Benin strategy salon (Parakou) | 22 participants at in-person event | Question 1 : What are the things within your community or project that create barriers to involvement for you or for other people due to personal identity?
Access to the internet (internet network coverage)
Volunteer time / availability (professional commitments, quest for a better life and personal well being)
Lack of equipment and adequate context for contribution
Religion (E.g. writing articles about traditional religious cults leads you to ask questions about religion, speak with dignitaries and guides in the region. Once the information is collected, very often these people don't see us well.)
Wikimedia platforms are difficult to handle
Question 2 : What do you think would improve participation in your community?
Create permanent heaquarters for the community in BENIN
Have a program of activities within the community
Organize capacity building sessions
Internet access
Increase visibility of our community in the ecosystem of existing organizations
Create reward mechanisms within the community (follow the evolution of contributors and, through periodic activities, reward the best contributors) No one is currently responsible (No delegation of authority at this level)
A representative should be elected by the community (or a volunteer approved by all) to take care of these issues Respect of the community charter (establish internal principles) Question 5: What prevents contributors from taking action against bad behaviour? They are unaware of ways they can report or sanction bad behaviour. Question 6: Who is responsible for the individual health of contributors in your community? No one (there is currently no hierarchy), except themselves. Question 7 What do you think would improve the individual health of contributors in your community? Organize regular activities Organize contests Offer the community gadgets bearing the movement's brand (USB sticks, notepads, pens) Question 8 What else do you suggest to improve overall community health in the Wikimedia community? Follow-up of community members Provide technical and financial resources Sessions of intercommunity experience sharing A synergy of actions with well-defined objectives Set up an internal motivation strategy to reward the best contributors |
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| Black Lunch Table strategy salon | 12 person in-person event | (CROSS POST FROM DIVERSITY) After initial introductions/outlines, we quickly realized based on participants questions, that before we could deeply dive into consideration of our topics we had to discuss the entity of Wikipedia itself. While each of our partners/participants was familiar with Wikipedia, especially as users, there was some confusion about the Foundation, the variety of Wiki named products Wikimedia, Wikidata, etc. how they all interacted and the governing structures of the Wikipedia editor community as well as the affiliate/user group structure. G: What are the differences between Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wikidata [...] B: [...] different facets of the same model of like volunteers contributing information.
B: ...but like Wikipedia is like an encyclopedia model so like you write articles on there.
B: Wiktionary for example. it's like a dictionary.
B:It's a 501 3 C non-profit organization with membership only accessible through board what's a 25 million-dollar endowment and about 300 staff. The own the products Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikipedia Commons, wikidata, wikiquote, wikibooks, wikisource () wikiversity
There were questions and skepticism about the Foundation’s intentions as it relates to the 2030 Movement Strategy and the organization generally as it attempts to more directly connect to users in the future. Important Q’s users/participants are seeking re: WMF
WHO is Wikipedia? Beyond board members and 990’s, what is their narrative/origin story? What is the cost of business? Is Wikimedia trying to be THE home base for knowledge?
Who is at the table(diversity of voices) and to a greater degree who is empowered to make decisions at every level of the organization should be available and apparent.
The younger generation of users/consumers requires morality and transparency with the brands they engage. They want their consumption/use to align with their own values, otherwise, they will go elsewhere.
S: I also think they underestimate, like, what people-I think that’s why I’m also having a hard time grasping because there are so many initiatives that are now challenging the status quo of how things are done. Like, yes, it is about, oh, this is a space for public knowledge. Give it about 5, 10 years and there’ll be another space for public knowledge. I think that we’re at a space where people are starting to challenge it and so in order to remain competitive, you have to be able to say, like, “Oh, this is why you should be my friend.” This is why you should remain invested in our values and what we stand for because in order for us to be sustainable-it’s hard for people to latch onto () giving a dollar or even just wanting to edit or be a part of the conversation when, like, I can just go and create my own space with my own community of people and that validates it in the places that I want it to be validated in...Like, you know, this is one of what my goals are, this is the way I want to see it. Here’s my own creative and innovative route to doing that because nowadays, we don’t have to go the traditional route. There’s too much technology and too many ways to do it different.
How does Wikipedia communicate its brand? This includes things aesthetics and usability.These are facets of being accountable and transparent to their constituency. Users recognize that because the Wikipedia model is not traditionally transactional and ostensibly operating as a resource, WMF may feel less inclined to this expressed want, but they have to consider this earnestly if they want to engage new/different publics.
What are Wikipedia’s intentions/politics and how do they demonstrate that beyond the digital.
There was a brief discussion about the community of editors and the notability standards that exist on Wikipedia, especially as it relates to marginalized people. H: Is notability arbitrary?
B: Volunteers who decided they liked writing on Wikipedia in forums. Notability wasn’t defined by Wikimedia, but by whoever decided to participate in the forum. It has been defined by whoever wanted to talk about it.
H: Is the definition of notability static or malleable?
B: It’s a bit of both. It's written up, but people can also recommend changes in standards. Arbitration. Community built policy but who is the community?
The conversation delves a bit further into the hierarchy of editors and notability. For instance, who can edit Barack Obama’s page(those who have made a certain number of edits) and the ways that the discussion/talk pages function. Participants are interested in the fact that much of the conversation around the kinds of knowledge on any page are seemingly invisible to those who are not editors, the 99% of users. Citations and chats about what should or should not be included on any given page as objective knowledge/information/fact.
G: So, this is, like, the really important minutiae of Wikipedia, which is like, you know there is a hierarchy that exists, even though there’s like this position that is volunteer-based. Like, you have to be a special kind of volunteer. You have to have been volunteering for so long that you’re a gold star volunteer in order to, like, deal with certain things but, like, who gets to decide that? And especially if it’s not the Foundation who is doing it, then who are the players involved? …sure, revenue and diversity are like, great conversations to have but if no one knows what your, like, mechanism is for arbitrating these discussions is or like who is a gold star volunteer and who is like a regular volunteer, then we can’t really ever get into how you diversify your Wikipedia base. Um, and if Wikimedia is not () then how is Wikipedia as a community of people are, like, dealing with this? And who is this community of invisible people that none of us really have, like, a way to break into who they are. Like it’s not-if it’s a community, community is built upon knowing who each other are and being able to, like, advocate for this person.
The conversation about Wikipedia at large was critical to being able to consider the questions central to our salon. The refrain from participants was that if we are to consider how an entity as large, and to some degree opaque, as Wikipedia can be engaged on a local level, where change ultimately will take place in diversity and revenue stream arenas, those who would be expected to participate need to know the Foundations true intentions.
Importantly, we followed with the question, how do you come to trust an organization? J: There is an attempt to have an objective voice on Wikipedia. Despite the fact that we know its collective but we don’t know who is participating and how they are participating
S: How do they want us to work at a local level when I don’t even know if I trust the larger organization? The dialogue around that knowledge ownership doesn’t matter if the information is valid or accurate, but about the ownership of information.
M: People in Chicago, especially, don’t really appreciate people coming from the outside to tell them about how great their foundation is. Rightful reservations about participating in this. And on the other side, every day when your work is not in this particular discourse is another day that people don’t know about someone creating important work. Do you try to buy into Chicago in a meaningful authentic way?
J: I think it would be interesting if you guys, as a part of this conversation, thought about how Wikipedia has served the Black Lunch Table’s interests or that-this project’s interests when we’re talking about how it could serve the larger interests of our community or the people’s interest. () The mission that you all started with versus how you use Wikipedia to service that mission--it’s interesting to this larger conversation () can do, you know, in this space.
S: I was gonna ask how is Wikimedia or Wikipedia-whichever-being transparent around their limitations? Because I think-I’m coming from like a mixed media context, like a production context-and I think this conversation about, “Who’s at the table,” comes up all the time when you’re producing or doing media work and I think-and journalism work-there becomes like this understood thing where it’s like not every voice that needs to be at the table will actually be at the table and that’s just the reality because of the system and the structure of, like, the journalism industry, production industry. It just cannot do () doing that right now. There’s a lot to break down before the right voices or all the voices are actually going to be at the table in the way that why should. So () the question does fall on the other side with a more immediate concern () how do you be transparent about what you can’t do. Because there shouldn’t be this assumption that if you’re having-I’m going to throw something out there- but () like Black-ish, even though Black-ish is like, created by someone who is Black but you wouldn’t know who’s at the table. You don’t know who’s writing the stories. You don’t know any of that stuff so how are we being more transparent with the limitations while we’re in the process of making those things better. Because you have more transparency, then you have more accountability as well. So, I think it’s partially an answer to your question but also it’s () in general. Like, how does Wikipedia be transparent around their limitations and then to the point where people can now hold them accountable if they even want a platform that isn’t () because I don’t know if everybody wants that-if people want a platform that is more accurate or is more representative or whatever the case may be. How do you even know who is behind the scenes?
E: How does transparency manifest for you?
S: Yeah. I mean, I think- I think I’m talking about journalism and how sometimes newsrooms do like, “here we have so many people of colour in the space”, I think that I often challenge who actually has the power in the decision making, just because like when you’re working in film or production, like we may have like, a Black director and a Black producer or whatever the case may be but actually, the executive producer is the one who makes decisions. So, it’s cool that you had Black DPs or Black camera people, Black editors, whatever, but if the executive producer from whatever production is the one who ultimately says yes or no, it doesn’t really matter how many people of colour there are on the team because they only have but so much power. And so I think it also becomes a question of like how many people and like who has power? Who has leverage? How is that power being distributed differently because I think that people are very comfortable-I’m thinking very much media industry now-but they’re very comfortable with certain hierarchies of power because it’s convenient and that’s what you’re used to but how willing are people to disrupt those hierarchies of power and do something different which also comes from accountability. Um, I think there’s some really great community engagement journalism that’s doing () cool things right now, just about how do we disrupt-like you know, you might have a journalist who may be writing the story and they’re the one telling the narrative. How are we breaking that up and maybe having the person who you’re interviewing be the editor? Like how are we switching that up? Um, so I think that () there’s a lot of ways that people are creatively trying to decide what that might look like but it does often () like more than just who’s in the room who has the power to make decisions.
Deeply important to the participants is the feeling that for them to invest in the goals of WMF or any large organization, they want to be assured by that organization that they are valued and that the organization is not being opportunistic. That means that engagements should be long term, community lead, and responsive to community needs. It took a significant portion of the evening to get to the possibility of the diversity/ revenue streams conversation. The learning curve about the Foundation and this movement to those not already deeply enmeshed with WMF as an affiliate or Wikimedian is steep. This is not to say that there is a lack of interest rather there is a lack of information about WMF presented by WMF.
Briefly, we were able to return to our Diversity/Revenue stream questions with the following input. Re revenue streams generally: J: Or what their costs are... S: There’s also a-I mean, just not to add more fuel to this but I think () also, that when we’re talking about trust that there’s a trickle-down, right? It’s like you’re asking me in this space to be able to trust how this could be done on a localized level and how to get suggestions, but yeah, I can’t trust the original, like, head of this because I don’t know where the money is coming from. I don’t know-like, there’s an aspect there-I guess my question becomes, I guess, like what are they doing to address, I mean, with their employees and their money and their whoever is at the top-like, what are they doing to be able to address their own diversity problems up top, not like, here. The group returns to notability as an extension of trust/truthiness of Wikipedia in general and the ethics of writing pages for people you know. This is clearly a limiting factor in who engages the platform and what kind of expertise you have when you are not able to write pages on people/things in a community you may be an active participant/expert on. This extends the conversation about validating the resources of marginalized communities in a process like the 2030 movement strategy. How do they know they are not being taken advantage of when they do not have transparency with the organization and the instances they do have about defining value in resources i.e. notability, they are shaky or inapplicable. The participation of all groups and building trust and engagement with all is important to everyone on the platform. Further, there are instances, especially between generations, where one may not know that the information that another generation or group is important yet, this should not be a deterrent for those of any group/generation/etc to not include their information because it is not correctly valued at the moment. J: This is just a comment. I’m gonna go thinking about how we make sure that this work is relevant by a community of people who are being served, even if they are not of that African diaspora or identifying as Black artists that it’s important to me and my work that there be a repository of Black artists on Wikipedia in the public space and that these names are named in a public space. That it’s important to many more of us than those who identify as specific racial space that it’s not a boring conversation just because we don’t identify as and it’s something that I can talk about when we have a Wikipedia edit-a-thon with the Black Lunch Table. How do we make sure that our audience knows () all of us. The conversation must wrap up due to time constraints but ends with a stimulating conversation about the longevity and importance of articles about black artists specifically as a way to truly alter the record and perspectives of users. Further, we discuss the possible implications of the inclusion of these articles in arenas, policy specifically, that can radically shift how our world is shaped. G: Maybe one way we can think about it in a more expansive way: () we’re putting in the context of the arts and now that I see more artists as administrators and administrators as community organizers, there is a connection to policy. And I’m interested in how do we trace how people find policy. How does the community organize when I propose this change? That might also be a-speaking of artists- this may be like a () where you probably won’t put policy in your artistic resume but I will find it on Wikipedia. And I think that as I see more and more administrators coming up the pipelines of policymaking, this is crucial. At least for me where-I don’t have a resume on policymaking, right? |
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| Georgia strategy salon | 10 participants at in-person event | The Wikimedia Foundation must create the necessary friendly community within Wikimedia projects to attract new volunteers to the Wikimedia movement and for their comfortable work there. This can be through the creation of new regulation, as well as trainings and regular meetings within the community. The main regulation within Wikimedia projects should be as follows: "Do not bite newcomers!". |
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| Open Foundation West Africa strategy salon | 24 participants at in-person event | Inclusion & Participation Define a pathway for participation ( sign up, register, collect emails, do follow-ups) Make the vision of the community clear to all members Make the community lively to ensure maximum participation from members Organize trainings on digital literacy Retention of Community members Give new members a sense of belonging; make them feel part of the community by constantly checking up on them. Define a growth plan for members; members should be imparted in order from them to also impart others. They should grow from followers to leaders. Give support to members; state the opportunities available that they can tap into Structure of Power and privilege Engage people in the local settlement in order to get more content The community should provide resources and logistics to volunteers/members to make their work easy(cameras, recorders etc) Africa in context Oral information: let the WMF know and understand that Ghana and other countries have a peculiar situation where more of the content is sourced orally. As such the foundation should provide us with alternative sources for referencing. Also there should be an authentication of oral sources (elderly people being good sources of information) In authenticating oral sources comparison of information sourced should be done. Measuring growth Get feedback from members always Task members to edit or contribute to a number of article stories for a period of time Celebrate every milestone achieved Balancing Workload and personal health Make volunteering fun by including sightseeing during road trips Motivate volunteers by awarding prizes, certificates etc Provide various hubs with the needed logistics to be able to function effectively and efficiently Equip members to be economically empowered by recommending them for jobs and encouraging them to participate in contests. |
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| Hong Kong strategy salon | 10 people at in-person event | What are the things within your community or project that create barriers to involvement for you or for other people due to personal identity?
Older and more-experienced Wikimedians tends to prejudice against newer Wikimedians. Some of them showed intolerance to newbies who are not yet familiar with project policies and rules. Tension among Wikimedians from different geographical regions, or holding different political stance can build up quickly in larger projects. Incivility and clashes often occurs in community discussions hindering further involvement. Many offline meetups and events are dominated by males. Female Wikimedians can find the atmosphere too hostile and would be hesitant to show up in offline events. What do you think would improve participation in your community? Establish a universal code of conduct and universal friendly space expectation governing all on-wiki and off-wiki community interactions. Provide resources to affiliates on understanding and catering various community members each having different needs. Create more opportunities for online engagement (IM channels, discussion boards, etc) rather than offline (meetups, conferences, etc). Having to show up face-to-face can be a significant barrier to participation. Who is responsible for taking action against bad behaviour now? Who should be responsible for taking action against bad behaviour? Taking action against bad behaviour is currently done by individuals such as project admins or event organisers. The current model can be sub-optimal, as these individuals are typically not trained to deal with these incidents. Affiliates should receive more resources and training on tackling bad behaviour and incidents. A possible model to this would be to establish volunteer Trust and Safety teams at affiliate level to better respond to incidents within their respective communities. What do you think would improve civility in your community? What prevents contributors from taking action against bad behaviour? Code of Conduct and Friendly Space Expectation can provide guidelines on dealing with incivility. However such policies can be inconsistent from place to place, and it can be difficult to enact in real-world situations. (Example: How can you remove a event-banned person from a event held in an open area? As the organising team does not have full control on the venue, the laws regarding trespassing can not be applied.) Who is responsible for the individual health of contributors in your community? Currently, few mechanisms are dedicated to the individual health of contributors. Individual contributors may find helpless when they encounter individual difficulties arising from Wikimedia or non-Wikimedia affairs. What do you think would improve the individual health of contributors in your community? Provide resources to affiliates on individual crisis management (one idea is to develop a "mental/emotional first aid kit" for affiliates and their members). What else do you suggest to improve overall community health in the Wikimedia community? Strengthen the cooperation and mutual trust among individual Wikimedians, various groups, and affiliates. Encourage projects to set up and maintain effective dispute resolution means. |
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| Wikimedia Levant strategy salon | 13 people at in-person event | Concept of Community Health
For some participants, the concept was not really clear. Explained the different aspects, including the importance to welcome new comers, report problems, feel the responsibility. Explained that our community doesn’t have a unique situation, but what happens in our community happens with others in different forms and levels; hence, within the strategy of the movement, we are trying to raise the awareness related to the health of any community. Agreed on that there are reporting channels that everyone should know about and use. Highlighted the idea on mental and physical health and that every contributor is responsible for his own mental and physical health that could be affected negatively because of the non-controlled participation.
Characteristics of a healthy community? Respect, freedom, welcoming behavior, capacity building, healthy environment, well-defined structure (reporting structure), absence of fear when contributing, supportive community, safety (There was a longer discussion on the point of safety and people fearing to contribute due to political repercussions), personal health (community health is sustained when each individual works on their own health as well). Administrators and the bureaucratic structure. Responsibilities and relationships are not always clear. Policies are not applied the same way Management in Wikipedia is not easy, admins are sometime not responsive of tough, lack of openness and participation in decision making Behavior issues, such as condescending behavior, lack of respect, negative behavior in general, behavior driven by personal interest that conflicts with the community goals. Some people come for one purpose and are not ready to commit to the policies, so welcoming them is not easy and changing their behavior is not easy; Awareness: lack of clarity towards individual responsibilities, absence of clarity in community goals, absence of community engagement, not easy to talk to people and convince them. This is a main issue students face at universities. Newcomers are not encouraged or supported, they don’t get sufficient training. There has to be creative ways to increase awareness, specially about some concepts like “Community Health” Also lack of awareness about WMF’s entities, such as security and safety team, etc. Diversity: Lack of diversity of individuals within the community, sometimes influenced by other barriers like geographical barriers, where activities are focused in specific areas. Lack of support: lack of governmental and institutional support (important for capacity building, promoting a positive view of the community, sponsoring equipment and events), a conservative community that doesn’t accept new ideas. Technical Issues: editing is not easy, especially for newcomers. Recommendations Awareness: Most community members in Wikimedia Levant, especially those who don't have the chance to attend conferences or international events, are unaware of the existence of a Trust & Safety Team, neither of any other guidance within the Movement to help them deal with harassment and health issues. More resources should be available to educate the community about this stuff: for example, the T&S Team should have links displayed on Wikipedia's Main Page or on other primary places for the online community. Enhance and strengthen the institutional support by WMF to emerging communities. Enhance channels of communication and reach out; encourage people to speak up especially when they need support. Open channels to communicate with WMF entities and departments. Promote Wikimedia educational initiative and generalize the most successful programs to other universities and communities, especially if there are acceptance for Wikipedia within the curriculum. This is because participants thought educational programs in our community were successful and managed to enrich the content effectively, but educational programs are not always run in a health environment due to personal interests and lack of support and awareness. Need a user-friendly environment for beginners; need many disparate tutorials on how to edit Wikipedia and how to understand the community space including talk pages and history pages but beginners are not aware of their presence and don’t know where to start. Even the welcome post on talk pages to people who create an account is not clear and not easily accessed. There are many usability problems that are obstacles to growing the community. |
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| Wikimedia Polska strategy salon | 12 participants at in-person event | It’s somebody else’s job to fix this… isn’t it?
In Poland, and perhaps globally, Wikipedia is the only major, fully decentralized initiative people are exposed to.
“We are perhaps the only global decentralized project that works.” –Aegis Explaining to people that they can make a change themselves takes a lot of time.
TOR
Why do you need to explain it?
Ankry
This guy had assumed that every page has a person in charge of it, who takes care of it.
Editor’s note (from TOR (talk)): While this was not explicitly stated in the meeting, there was IMO a strong subtext here. People seem to think that “if it’s somebody’s job, it’s not my job”. This stance is likely highly dependent on culture and may be much more visible in Central & Eastern Europe than elsewhere. A theme we returned to a number of times was how Wikipedia has changed and how this changes what level of knowledge and skill we require from new contributors.
Specifically: higher content quality norms (esp. strong citation requirements) mean writing your first article is much harder than it used to be say 10 years ago (more on this below).
“We are still looking for copies of ourselves. We, contributors who registered back in 2005, are looking for others like us. For pioneers, who will survive, even if the tools are lousy. Who will grit their teeth and continue, regardless of what MediaWiki will or will not let them do.” –PMG Many online stores and e-commerce sites have an “abandoned cart” functionality. The store automatically reminds you – via the UI or via e-mail – to complete your purchase.
Leinad proposed a similar feature for the wiki world: the abandoned edit functionality. Connected with the issue described above, we discussed a particular pain point – the moment when a page just created by a new user is deleted.
The group agreed that this appears to stem from a fundamental conflict between short-term and long-term thinking. provide communication training to administrators,
create a tool to enable communication with new content creators.
The Greeters Group
The Polish Wikipedia used to have a group of community builders and newbie mentors, called the Greeters Group. Members of this group reached out and personally greeted each new user with a friendly message. died when he became inactive.
Takeaways: immediate, personal positive feedback seems to work as a user acquisition tactic.
The Wikisource and Wiktionary: a completely different beast
We noted that while the Wikipedia community is large, and has a set of issues, our other projects have much smaller communities, with completely different sets of challenges.
It makes sense to approach the issue of community health not as a single problem, but rather a set of interconnected problems to solve. Open questions:
what can small projects learn from the early years of Wikipedia and it’s early growth phase?
Improving the Health of the Community we Have Today
Value of Live Meetings
Multiple people have pointed at the value of live, physical meetings on their personal experience as Wikimedians.
The positive results of meetings cited were: receiving positive feedback on our work on wikimedia projects (largely lacking in day-to-day editing on-line).
Currently a portion of the Polish community meets regularly twice a year. The attendees talked about a group of Wikimedians that we seem to have lost over time, which we’ve termed “The Middle Layer” for lack of a better term.
This refers to people who chose to work between wiki editors and Wikimedia Movement activists. In that middle space, they cared about more than a page at a time, but were focused on smaller pieces than the global Wikimedia community is tackling (e.g. this strategic process). how to re-create this middle layer without imposing a formal structure and “duties” onto what seemed to work well informally through volunteers?
We need more positive feedback
It is really easy to get negative feedback within the Wikimedia community. Your page can get deleted, your edit can get reverted. And this takes a click or two from the person providing negative feedback on your work.
It is much harder to receive – and to send – positive feedback. Achievements and elements of gamification (from Nostrix)
Recognition and Competition: organized content creation contests
We noted that content creation contests appear to stimulate user activity within the Polish Wikipedia community.
An interesting point made was that it is not the prizes that seem to motivate the participants, but rather a sense of recognition and competition with peers. |
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| Wikimedia Thailand strategy salon | 6 person in-person event | Conflict between editors are not uncommon especially among the newcomers. Newcomers are usually monitored or even chased by more experienced editors. Veteran editors and administrators can be very strict. As a result, most newcomers lose their motivation and eventually leave the community. While it is obvious that a universal code of conduct should be created, it should not be mandatory. We do not believe that such universal code of conduct would be applicable to all countries due to differences in laws, culture, and traditions. Instead of a “universal” code of conduct, we should rather gear towards “model” of conduct, which will only serve as guidelines. The model of conduct should be interpreted in a way that matches both the Wikimedia values and the local context. This model of conduct should also have a right balance between giving autonomy to the community while at the same time make sure that their actions align with movement values. | |
| Levant strategy salon | 13 people at in-person event | Concept of Community Health
For some participants, the concept was not really clear. Explained the different aspects, including the importance to welcome new comers, report problems, feel the responsibility. Explained that our community doesn’t have a unique situation, but what happens in our community happens with others in different forms and levels; hence, within the strategy of the movement, we are trying to raise the awareness related to the health of any community. Agreed on that there are reporting channels that everyone should know about and use. Highlighted the idea on mental and physical health and that every contributor is responsible for his own mental and physical health that could be affected negatively because of the non-controlled participation.
Characteristics of a healthy community? Respect, freedom, welcoming behavior, capacity building, healthy environment, well-defined structure (reporting structure), absence of fear when contributing, supportive community, safety (There was a longer discussion on the point of safety and people fearing to contribute due to political repercussions), personal health (community health is sustained when each individual works on their own health as well). Administrators and the bureaucratic structure. Responsibilities and relationships are not always clear. Policies are not applied the same way Management in Wikipedia is not easy, admins are sometime not responsive of tough, lack of openness and participation in decision making Behavior issues, such as condescending behavior, lack of respect, negative behavior in general, behavior driven by personal interest that conflicts with the community goals. Some people come for one purpose and are not ready to commit to the policies, so welcoming them is not easy and changing their behavior is not easy; Awareness: lack of clarity towards individual responsibilities, absence of clarity in community goals, absence of community engagement, not easy to talk to people and convince them. This is a main issue students face at universities. Newcomers are not encouraged or supported, they don’t get sufficient training. There has to be creative ways to increase awareness, specially about some concepts like “Community Health” Also lack of awareness about WMF’s entities, such as security and safety team, etc. Diversity: Lack of diversity of individuals within the community, sometimes influenced by other barriers like geographical barriers, where activities are focused in specific areas. Lack of support: lack of governmental and institutional support (important for capacity building, promoting a positive view of the community, sponsoring equipment and events), a conservative community that doesn’t accept new ideas. Technical Issues: editing is not easy, especially for newcomers. Awareness: Most community members in Wikimedia Levant, especially those who don't have the chance to attend conferences or international events, are unaware of the existence of a Trust & Safety Team, neither of any other guidance within the Movement to help them deal with harassment and health issues. More resources should be available to educate the community about this stuff: for example, the T&S Team should have links displayed on Wikipedia's Main Page or on other primary places for the online community. Enhance and strengthen the institutional support by WMF to emerging communities. Enhance channels of communication and reach out; encourage people to speak up especially when they need support. Open channels to communicate with WMF entities and departments. Promote Wikimedia educational initiative and generalize the most successful programs to other universities and communities, especially if there are acceptance for Wikipedia within the curriculum. This is because participants thought educational programs in our community were successful and managed to enrich the content effectively, but educational programs are not always run in a health environment due to personal interests and lack of support and awareness. Need a user-friendly environment for beginners; need many disparate tutorials on how to edit Wikipedia and how to understand the community space including talk pages and history pages but beginners are not aware of their presence and don’t know where to start. Even the welcome post on talk pages to people who create an account is not clear and not easily accessed. There are many usability problems that are obstacles to growing the community. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | Recommendation Referenced |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | It might work as a set of suggestions. Not a set of mandates. Projects are self-governed, not dictated to from the WMF or Meta. Make regulations mandatory is bad. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Functionaries should not be "term limited". Experience is a good thing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | There should not be a universal code of conduct for on- and offline; interaction online is fundamentally different. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Wikis would no longer be able to self-govern and set their own rules. Let's not go through Fram's case again. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | You are proposing to cross the biggest, reddest line there is—community self-governance. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Community is poorer because some left after Superprotect, Visual Editor, WP:Fram. Every time, it has exploded and ended terribly. You must not ever do that again. The WMF exists to serve the communities, not to rule them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Any attempt to undermine self-governance will destroy the volunteer community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | WMF need to tread very carefully here. There may be a significant disconnect between the people working on this strategy stuff and the people who are producing and maintaining the content. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | This entire thing took place at the direction of the WMF, regardless of who actually did it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Members of non-organized communities are underrepresented and this is due to lack of communication with them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | 12/13 of those individuals are affiliated with the WMF, or at least affiliated with a WMF Affiliate. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | There is an internal disconnect within communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Comment | Our movement needs to build counter powers to make place for people who are not at the moment the most welcome to contribute, and this involves a way of handling harrassment when it is not dealt with properly within the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | Working Groups focus on people who go to meetings. There's a lot of talk about diversity, but the movement excludes people who can't do the off-wiki activities for various reasons. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | Term limits are probably less useful a tool than fixed-term positions with requirement for re-appointment. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | Should we be expecting any responses to requests for clarification from the workgroups? Do they have spokespersons? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | Does the recommendation use "functionary" to refer to something other than Checkuser and Oversight? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | If the "functionary" was allowed to be immediately a candidate again, that woudld be a good thing. If there was a prohibition (for a certain time), I'd strongly disagree. This wouldn't work in small wikis. Prohibiting someone to renew the term does not automatically create new ("diverse") candidates. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | The proposal is too radical and does not consider the immense differences between wikis and positions. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | On big wikis it might be beneficial, as there is significant power-concentration. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | If there were, say, 400 active admins, that doesn't prevent person 401 from being granted admin abilities. Anybody can participate in discussions, you don't need somebody to stand down from their role for you to get a say. Do the authors of this realise that the wikis aren't governed by elected committees or parliaments? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits for functionaries | Culture shift doesn't have to be responsible for the shortages of functionaries. It might be due to a "generation" shift in leaders. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | The larger communities have already had extensive experience in what does and does not work, and may very well understand the nuances of these things better than WMF staff do. This needs to be a genuinely collaborative project and not a set of divine commandments. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | Any claims that they have hired or will hire professionals should be received with skepticism. We do not need "professionals" who think they know what they are doing, with professional arrogance. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | We do not need social experiments without a control group and no ethics committee oversight, pushing questionable political agendas composed largely by outsiders. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | The optimal norms for a functional wiki may significantly vary over its development and with the composition of its members. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | The most efficient harrassers are influent people who tend to cumulate responsibilities and it is difficult to "disagree" with them. If you do, you expose yourself to many many problems. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | Let's not be naive and talk only of harrassment within the "community" as opposed to chapters and WMF. Harrassment does not limit itself to the online projects ot the "community". It is everywhere. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | By getting each project to develop their own system, with external feedback, there is a better chance that some may come up with workable systems. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | We have no way of knowing the real motivations of an editor. We must take into account the wide range of social and cultural backrounds our editors come from. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | Maybe a group of behavioural advisors could be put together for each project, who are skilled to identify when someone is being disruptive, and can be called on for an opinion, without necessarily having authority or tools to take action. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Development of expected norms | Part of the problem is with people thinking that because something seems reasonable to them, that it must be permissible, when it actually transgresses the rules. Competence is required, not only in the topic one wishes to edit and the style of editing required, but also in fitting in with the community and managing newcomers fairly. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Support for the development of a base set of conduct rules covering the entire Wikimedia ecosystem. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Who is the "we" in "we can come to consensus"? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | It is not possible to reach a real consensus unless everyone in the discussion understands what the others mean. This will require some really good, clear choice of terminology and expert translation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Support for limits of terms, better training. Quotas, e.g. that a certain percentage of admins or ArbCom members have to belong to certain subgroups, are a bad idea. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Secret voting: people should feel free to vote without being afraid of repercussions. You can still discuss about candidates on the talk page. But the voting itself should be secret, so that you cannot see who voted for whom. Your account needs eligibility to vote, and We can detect double voting. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Ttraining might not work without knowing the candidate's identity. Answer: there are online training options which could be linked to the username and remain entirely anonymous. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | When the community is large and diverse, one does not know the people who work in areas that do not interest oneself. Comments by people you trust are important. Anonymised votes and comments are dangerous as no-one knows who the voter is, and cannot judge whether they are just shy, or trolls, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, people with no obvious experience etc. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | We might end up with an even more unbalanced collection of admins. Strong oppose to any restriction to multiple terms, or even a gap requirement for admins completing a term in good standing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Disconnecting the discussion from support and opposition would make it more difficult to assess consensus. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | A recall system could be a solution. That too would (or should) be an in-community policy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Develop specific requirements for support and opposition statements at RfAs. This helps consensus assessment, and avoids muck of the bickering. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Support | Concern about a reduced accuracy in the RfA due to secret voting. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Be clear about the change in behaviour that you want | Be clear what behaviour should be avoided after a block has been terminated. This is important for the previously sanctioned editor, for people who might learn from them, and for administrators and others who need to know in future whether this person merits a block for repeating what they were blocked for Fixed term blocks for unclear reasons should be avoided. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Be clear about the change in behaviour that you want | The WMF is very close to exhausting the patience of the community - after WP:FRAM and IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Potential hazards to editors from repressive countries | Making demographics public could be a very bad thing, especially for those who could be in danger of prosecution. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | Why would term limits be something that would be globally imposed, rather than decentralized to the projects themselves? What evidence is there that the lack of functionary term limits across all projects has led to specific issues? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | To the extent hoarding power is a systemic problem across communities, then a global solution is indicated. Perhaps training in use of tools in a harm minimization way would be better. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | There is implicit bias in voting for leadership positions, term limits will not make room, rather there will have to be culture change. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | In the case of ENWP there is no hoarding of power by any single person, there is growth of influence, as people are recognised to be expert or specialist and some groups develop a lot of influence. There are camp followers who use the influence of these groups to overzealously apply their personal interpretations of policy, sometimes to the extent that they overstep the mark too often and end up indeffed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | A sudden large enough influece gap could lead to a shift in influence in unpredictable directions, with unpredictable consequences. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Term limits | A lot of these Influential People get their influence not from their user rights. They are informal power positions. So term limits would not help. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | The findings of the draft portray very well the experience of less vocal groups on English Wikipedia (presumably, other projects as well). | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | The established community processes efficiently handle trivial issues (vandalism, blatant disruption), but non-trivial issues are either ignored, or result in fruitless drama usually. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | Trained mediators are necessary to resolve conflicts between productive editors who have combative "discussions". | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | Outcome of disputes is strongly influenced by the number of supporters of an editor, and their interpretation of policies, which is far from equality. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | Preferential treatment is a recurrent issue. We mostly hear of new editors' experiences from off-wiki sources and the media. They have no supporters to question unfiendly actions on wiki. On the other hand long-time editors' breaking of rules is often overlooked, and there are so-called "unblockables". | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | It's a common occurrence for new members -- flabbergasted that they've just been railroaded out because they had inappropriate ideas and/or didn't know all the rules. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | The ineffectiveness of current dispute resolution processes is also a result of the high stakes: blocking might mean the end of one's wikipedia presence. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | MediaWiki software can ensure blocks are applied incrementally, and only to the articles/categories the editor participated in. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | Reporting misconduct is difficult, and has the risk of backfiring. A "safe" space needs to be introduced for reporting, where the reporter's behaviour only influences the outcome of the report, and there's no threat of punishment. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | A tool can be developed that helps editors collect the edits for evidence, by selecting the relevant text on pages, then selecting the relevant policy or guideline, and entering a subjective evaluation of the edit, then repeating it for other edits. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Strong support | WP:AP (on German Wikipedia) is used frequently, but many see it as unsatisfactory as sanctions against admins are extremely rare. WP:AWW (recall of admins) is the main process for de-sysops at de:wp. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | A process could draft a Model Code of Conduct that would be sent to all of the projects to consider, amend and adopt. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | Many members of the community have already said that they would view a "top down" imposition of a universal code of conduct to be an unwarranted intrusion on the internal management of their communities. A Model Code avoid this problem. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | It would be useful if each recommendation was accompnied by a reasoned explanation of the problem it was intended to solve, and why it was decided that the specific item would be likely to solve that problem and not cause other problems, or at least why it should be better than the status quo. Claims of fact should be well referenced fron reliable sources. Cases where the policy has worked in practice should be listed where available. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | The individual CoCs would not differ much. Unlike our policies, a CoC is focused, compact, and general. There's very little to win with the differences, but it comes at a high price. And the individual projects could possibly customize the CoC in a way that ignores specific issues, that's difficult to face for the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | A universal CoC would have to be acceptable to all communities. That would make it a very drawn-out process to develop and approve, and may not be possible. Top down or outside imposition is likely to be disastrous. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | The proposers of the recommendation, and the groups that they represent, have an ethical responsibility to avoid harm to the project communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | To demonstrate that the WG members have carried out their responsibilities with due diligence, they need to show that they have taken these predictions into account, have considered the risk, and have taken reasonably practicable steps to mitigate the predicted consequences. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | You can split the model into different levels of importance along the lines of "this is recommended to include in your model" to "this is more or less mandatory, if you do not include this in your model, please explain your reasoning". | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | It would be good to somehow "force" communities to have the discussion to come to a CoC for their project, rather than just make it a thing which might come up. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | CoC is more of a mission statement, than exactly outlined rules, with minute details, like our policies. As it's so general, there's not much that can differ between projects. On the other hand each project has its own "sensitivities": how incidents are weighed. Those differences are untouched by a CoC, thus each project can keep its own nuances. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | Conduct on a small project is much different than on a large project. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Question for writers | "Prevent accumulation of power by introducing term limits, a maximum to the number of offices one person can hold..." What is your definition of "offices" in this sentence? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Clarification needed | "Establish new structures which allow equitable distribution of power..." - How is it proposed to establish these structures? What "power" is referred to here? What distribution of such "power" would be considered equitable? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#More clarification needed | "Empower communities for responsible and inclusive self governance..." - what does it mean? How does this tie in with imposing a movement-wide single CoC? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Yet more clarity needed | "Facilitate and support community leadership by capacity building"... - Which community roles? Who will probide the training? Who will set the training standards and assessment criteria? Who will assess the competence of candidates? How will assessment be done? Will records be open? How will this process be made transparent and apopropriate to the specific community? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Questionable claim | "By having a balanced distribution of power within communities, we can achieve knowledge equity." - What is a balanced distribution of power in this context and how would it be measured to demonstrate whether or not it exists? How is knowledge equity defined in this context (please link to definition), and how is it to be measured to show that it has been achieved? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Conflict | Conflict at the dialectic level is an integral part of our quality assurance process. We cannot - and should not even try to - eliminate all conflict. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Conflict | The intellectual dialectical critique is rare. Conflict is not integral, there are other methods of producing consensus, by incorporating mediators in a process. and quality is typically improved by meetups, and individual effort. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Conflict | It's important to recognize, when debate escalates to disruptive conflict. We have to draw a line. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Conflict | Maybe a system by which a neutral third party who is skilled in recognising logical fallacy and other undesirable tactics could be pinged to comment on a discussion, and point out all cases of undesirable behaviour in the discussion, without prejudice. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Consensus building | What the WG members consider an appropriate process of consensus building, how they propose assessing consensus, what thay consider illegitimate process, and how they propose to deal with it? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Another request for clarification | "Actively encouraging and supporting individuals from previously underrepresented groups to move to positions of leadership" - What positions of leadership would these be, and how would the individuals be recognised as leaders? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Another request for clarification | On en.wiki, leaders are recognised in specific contexts by virtue of them being seen to be competent in that field, and by them standing up for our principles and policies. En.wiki community does not consider its functionaries to be leaders because of the permissions they hold, which are theoretically awarded because they need them and are trusted to use them appropriately. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Another request for clarification | The best way to avoid discrimination is to avoid asking or telling about your self-identified characteristics. It is simply not relevant, and there is no guarantee that the self-identification accurately reflects the real world characteristics. The Working Group needs to explain this more fully and tie it to the goal of Knowledge Equity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Election processes versus consensus selection | "and ensuring that all community election processes are designed to encourage both candidacies and voting (e.g secret ballots when voting on people)" - Is this an intention to impose secret ballot elections to replace consensus targeted discussion systems where these are the norm? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Election processes versus consensus selection | What majority will be considered necessary to carry a vote? Will there be a minimum voter turnout to legitimise a result? How will voters be encouraged to engage when they have had no personal interaction with the candidate? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Election processes versus consensus selection | When people oppose and give their reasons it is possible in that discussion to clear up misconceptions or respond to mistakes being pointed out. It is also possible to come back a few months later, look at the arguments for oppose and run when enough of them have been resolved. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Election processes versus consensus selection | Do we have evidence that using secret ballots does actually encourage candidacies and voting? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Sanctions Against Communities | More thought should be given to the concept of collective responsibility and sanctions. The notion of group or corporate culpability is very tricky and complex, and the Working Group should clarify what it has in mind. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Sanctions Against Communities | Who gets to decide which concerns are justified? Who decides which communities are failing to act? Is the community to be sanctioned for failing to have rules which forbid certain behaviour, or are members tasked with behavioural enforcement to be sanctioned for following the rules that they are appointed to enforce because they do not include rules that someone else thinks should exist? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Sanctions Against Communities | What kind of sanctions could be applied against communities of volunteers that could produce a positive result? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Partial support to the global Code of Conduct | A global CoC would be a good idea for global spaces: international mailing lists, meta-wiki, maybe IRC channels and Telegram groups too? But when it comes to specific communities, this CoC should not be a rule but a guideline or an example so that the local communities can develop and enforce their own behavioural rules. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Partial support to the global Code of Conduct | If there are items in a CoC that prove particularly controversial, perhaps there can be a core policy for all with optional add-ons that each community agrees to? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Partial support to the global Code of Conduct | The CoC could have a 3-part structure of 1) positive behaviours to strive for, 1) red-line behaviours that are unacceptable, and 3) a clear process for handling issues (in public or private as appropriate). | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Side note on representation | In bodies such as the one that would oversee a CoC, there could be: a representative of the reader/"consumer" community (not an editor), a representative of new editors, a representative of people who are not yet a contributor but might later be. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Side note on representation | There is no reason to entrust newly recruited people with the leadership of the organization. Such individuals have less of an investment in the success of the project or may have an undisclosed COI. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Feasibility issue | A draft should be composed to demonstrate feasibility. If something close enough to workable is presented, we can see if it looks reasonable to continue the effort. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Office Limits | It suggests "a maximum to the number of offices one person can hold," - but offices have a degree of needing to cluster in order to enable individuals to carry out their roles. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Office Limits | There are relatively few editors who the community has very high trust in. Senior functionaries can only be drawn from this pool - limiting roles can mean insufficient coverage. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Office Limits | (On office limits) This is something that absolutely should be project- or affiliate-determined. Different projects and affiliates have different needs. This really significantly conflicts with many of the other recommendations from several other working groups that are focused on decentralization of power from a monolithic central body, rather than increasing centralization and control. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Office Limits | We should consider the dissemintation of permissions. Why sysops (or any other groups with advanced permissions) are able to do what they are able to do? Maybe some permissions should be splitted to different groups? This of course requires research, as it's difficult for involved volunteers to assess the situation globally. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Nope to Unified CoC | Part 1 of this working paper doesn't even stop to consider why a unified code of conduct won't (or even might not) work. No consideration that communities are different to each other. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Nope to Unified CoC | No consideration that stricter behavioural rules might handicap non-harassing competence. It doesn't think how to handle the loss of non-problematic editors who don't like the new rules. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Nope to Unified CoC | The idea of sanctions against communities as a whole is downright terrifying. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Nope to Unified CoC | Are there solid data on how many users behave poorly on their 2nd (or 3rd etc) project because they weren't aware of that community's expectations (but didn't cause issues on their home project)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#What exact differences do you anticipate between individual project CoCs? | What civility rules do you think would be different (not applicable to one project, but valid for another), 1) between same-language wikis (enwiki vs. enwikt, or commons, etc.) and 2) between different language wikis? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#What exact differences do you anticipate between individual project CoCs? | A volunteer's answer to the question above: it is impracticable to predict with any useful level of confidence, which is the reason why a single CoC is unlikely to be workable. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Would the Model Code of Conduct contain a principle of equality of users without regard to race, religion, age, nationality or sex? Will there be "equal protection of the laws?" | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Staying anonymous is a valid way to prevent discrimination. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Nobody is "lesser" or marginalized in a healthy community and everyone is treated based upon merit and individual conduct. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Anonymous does not always mean not identifiable as a member of a group. Discrimination is not usually against a specific person, it is more usually against the group which the person is identified with. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | If the WMF spends money on developing training materials, how will we ensure that the materials reflect our values including the equality principle? Will WMF work from pre-existing training materials of other organizations that train a large number of customer service (e.g., call center) staff? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | The Working Group recommendations are so vague that it is difficult to discuss them. We need to articulate what values will form the basis of the training, who will develop the training materials, and how the communities can guarantee that the training materials reflect our values. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | There should be little need for personal intervention in training - a formal course could be arranged a few times a year for those who need or want it. Most learning for qualifying for functionary appointments should be possible without intervention, just someone to ask questions of in cases of ambuguity, change or doubt. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Proper conflict resolution training could never be done by multiple choice. Hell it couldn't even be assessed by case studies because there's multiple routes and can be tailored to the individuals (both participants and reviewer). | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | If the WGs think that no-one without conflict resolution skills should be admins then they are going to eliminate a large portion of people who have other essential skills. These people are useful in their own way. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Many conflicts can be avoided by education, so they would not need to be resolved. Sometimes the people in conflicts want to "win", rather than come to a resolution where the problem can be solved. Training people to prevent and avoid conflict includes ensuring that they know the rules and can apply them correctly, and there are some of our admins who do not seem to understand or apply some of those rules correctly. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | A significant amount of passive-aggressive behaviour goes by unchallenged, often apparently as an attempt to bait an opponent into more blatant misbehaviour. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Are we missing overarching principles such as "training should teach that equality should be fostered"? Don't adopt a rule to be applied to some other identity group if it can't be applied to everyone? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Equality Principle | Adopting a goal for 2030 of "knowledge equity" should never be a justification for violating the equality principle. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Prevent accumulation of power seems to be a bad idea | Wikicommunities need people who have power because they build up trust over time. Many projects would likely substantially damaged if they would need to introduce term limits for such functions | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Prevent accumulation of power seems to be a bad idea | It depends on what one means by "power". Mostly we need trusted people with advanced technical "permissions". Whether they thay have power, and how much power they have is debatable and varies between projects. Term limits on the ability to do the necessary maintenance would be counterproductive. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Engagement by the Working Group | Do the WG members do not consider it appropriate to clarify the many problems raised, or it this a policy thing that they have to stick with? They have not answered any other questions. Either way it is not doing their credibility any favours. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Rules and regulations, decision making processes and leadership#Engagement by the Working Group | It certainly would be nice to see engagement in a similar way from some other groups, especially when their proposals were widely found to be unclear or objectionable. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Compulsory training | Will training cover only conflict resolution, or also other subjects? Will they be trained in non-violent communication? Currently project communites are self governing. How will those communities 'voluntarily' adopt compulsory training for their admins and ArbCom members? What are the outcomes of your talks with the Roles and Responsibilities working group in this regard? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Compulsory training | This recommendation is assuming that CheckUser and Oversight has something to do with conflict resolution but that isn't the case. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Compulsory training | Which of the specified topics under mandatory training and certification would be required for which user rights groups? At what stage would the user be required to participate in the training? Would such training be generally available for contributors who are not members or immediately potential members of the relevant user right group/s? Who would set up the training and assessment materials for such training? How would quality assurance for such training be provided? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#OTRS | OTRS agents also have access to non-public information. They don't handle too much in the way of conflicts. Is this also supposed to be for them? This training would't be that helpful for them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#OTRS | Data protection is less about knowing what to do, but being able to always implement it, whatever your state of mind (tired, distracted etc). | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#More specificity needed | Wikipedia turns away newcomers because they do not accept the definition of the neutral encyclopedia based upon verifiable information. Many newcomers arrive thinking that Wikipedia is just another social media platform or one that can be used to spread biased publicity for the newcomer's pet activity or organization. The Working Group must give more thought to how the movement shifts out people who are a bad fit, while remaining welcoming to people who integrate into the community and accept the community's expectations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#More specificity needed | New members only really start communicating their different viewpoints after a couple of months. Editors newer than that mainly write and talk specifically about what they happen to be writing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Regional Coordinators | The regional coordinators recommendation seems to be at odds with the other recommendations to push more authority down to the local level. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Regional Coordinators | To whom would the regional coordinators answer: the WMF or the local chapters and affiliates? Is the danger of overlapping newcomer welcoming events greater than the danger in loss of chapter and/or affiliate autonomy? What lessons can be learned from the experience of Wikimedia India, and how would the regional coordinator interact with the local chapters and affililates (beyond scheduling of newcomer events)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Community diversity and growth#Regional Coordinators | There's a trove of academic literature which sheds considerable doubt on whether these digital-courses/certifications are much helpful, as to some of the categories. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#A note | What does partnering with organisations that can provide Physical security mean? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | Are you seriously considering relaxing "No Open Proxies"? How are you supposed to tell the difference between good-faith editors using VPNs and social-engineering LTAs? Did anyone bother to gather data about the positive versus abusive use of VPNs or TOR? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | "Anonymising of IP addresses in public domain to protect IP contributor privacy." - This belongs in the trash can: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation#Strong oppose | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | Why does whoever wrote this think the We Make Failures engineering department are capable of taking on state-sponsored entities with budgets bigger than the entire foundation (both in absolute dollars and purchasing power parity) when We Make Failures can't even get the basics right? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | So we should we stop ignoring meatpuppets? What about those "newbies" that the WMF so desperately wants to court to pad its statistics targeted at donors, but have zero idea of what an encyclopedia is, or actively try to undermine it in various ways (e.g. advocacy, undisclosed paid editing)? How about equal decision making power of the community versus the WMF in all aspects? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | VPNs are in much wider use today than 5 years ago. How can the organization which is currently suing the NSA seriously argue that it is inappropriate to allow users to communicate through VPNs? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | Using a VPN is generally bad for the user, the EFF is unable to recommend any. Unless the VPN is owned by you or some entity you have direct control or accountability on, there is no good reason in general to let them collect and handle your private data instead of the WMF directly. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Strong oppose | The IP tracking tools are limited in their utility. The misuse of those tools and policy is a notorious scandal, as seen in many cases. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | The point of supporting anonymizing technologies is based on an non-existant problem. Browsers nowadays have good privacy measures. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | The goal should be to educate readers just how little WMF actually tracks them. We are not trying to profile browsers or bypass icongnito mode like the Washington Post does. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | TOR can be used to access the dark web and is compleatly overkill for use on Wikipedia. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | There has been an global policy over all of the WMF wikis against these methods for thirteen years now, at No open proxies. VPNs are even worse than proxies, as they encrypt from the users computer to the VPN. Again, this method is overkill for Wikipedia. There are regular spammers that edit from proxies and VPNs. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | If this policy will be inforced, then the administrators on WMF wikis cannot enforce that editors that WMF blocked via office action won't just bypass that action alltogether. That is not becouse of an lack of intrest, but becouse of an oversight on WMF's behalf. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#anonymizing | VPN/TOR editing by IP addresses should be blocked on sight, but I do not see any good reason to not allow properly registered accounts to use TOR/VPNs to edit. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Trade offs in privacy and security | Distributing our content more robustly and more broadly usually makes updating the content more difficult; closing the loop and allowing our readers to actually edit the encyclopedia is important, as is ensuring that our readers can get updates over time as the encyclopedia grows and articles are improved. | |
| Meta-Wiki | There is a similar tension between our reputation system, used to safeguard the reliability of our edits, and the privacy and security of our editors. Most of our long time editors have over time slipped and revealed personal identifying information on wiki. That information is completely public and never goes away. This cements their reputation but puts them at risk if they are ever targeted for their work on wiki. | ||
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#Privacy | The list clearly needs some work as it's quite messy (and several points can be misunderstood, for instance about Tor). | |
| Meta-Wiki | Safety#What is WMF's position on sockpuppeting? | Does the WMF have an official position or policy on the use of alternative accounts? If so, where is it available? How does it relate to this proposal? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A network of resources and people to support and monitor community health | Please not yet another "community-run" AffCom-like structure. We already have anough problems with the malfunctionment and misuse of AffCom for power games and influence peddling. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A network of resources and people to support and monitor community health | We should work to solve the problems and disfunctionalities with the existing bodies with similar functions, namely AffCom and T&S, prior to envisage the creation of yet another body, and a possible new source of trouble. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A network of resources and people to support and monitor community health | Yes, please more resources for community health. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A network of resources and people to support and monitor community health | We need to train more leaders, and responders in addressing community health. we have community health debt, which if not maintained, dependent entirely on voluntary effort, will continue to decline. We need sociological and anthropological analysis and solutions to community problems. we need periodic monitoring of health by surveys. we need annual reports on community health using survey data. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A network of resources and people to support and monitor community health | "Responsibility of everyone involved, be it as a volunteer, reader, partner, affiliate and so on." including WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Technologies | Most of the things listed under technologies are not technologies at all, but rather social processes. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Technologies | The sentence "equalize who is exercising power on the platform as admins" sounds like a dystopian brainwashing exercise, I suggest to rewrite the concept from scratch without jargon. Same for "safe selection mechanism". | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Access to resources | Equal access to resources is a worthy goal, but caution is warranted. If volunteers are benefiting the movement by filling a role with resource support, then we should continue to support them, until we train a replacement team. resources are not a benefit, but a necessary input. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Access to resources | Training should be given to grow volunteer resource management and accountability skills; it is not sufficient to require compliance, rather you must train the volunteers to make compliance easier. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Access to resources | It should *never* be expected by the WMF that volunteers that already give their time and expertise, should also give their own resources to carry out these activities, which then in turn support the Wikimedia projects which are the basis for the donation campaigns that feed the WMF bank account. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Access to resources | Reportedly, WMF does not fund "start-up" kind of efforts, but only those which already have a degree of confidence of success. Hovewer, outreach efforts in new, prospective communities shouldn't be discarded just because there is no established community there. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#A centralized structure | When WG says "A centralized structure", it's then describing a network, which is more a community of practice than a formal reporting structure. Clarification needed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#Equitize? | Equitize? Please link to the intended meaning in this context. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Agile and responsive support of community health#What about sustainability, and the impact of global heating on communities in hot climates? | We haven't mentioned sustainability, or becoming a zero-carbon emissions organization anywhere in our recommendations. To support our editors and readers in places impacted by extreme weather, zero carbon emissions is a good first step. |
DiversityEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire youth salon | 25 people at in-person event | Q 1 : How can we increase awareness about our movement to ensure sufficient and adequate participation of younger people?
Partner with Youth institutions and organizations in order to benefit from their visibility.
Sponsor youth's activities, to make Wikimedia's name and image popular with young people.
Create competitions to encourage hard work and create emulation inside the movement.
Partner with celebrities followed by youth and associate them with Wiki activities. This would boost communication around our brand and movement towards youth.
Communicate more about "success stories" inside the Wiki movement. With a focus on women's. Indeed, our movement is full of young men and women who excel at what they do and are successful in their professional lives. So the movement should better highlight their stories and benefit from their success.
Better cover Wiki activities in the media (TV, radio), which continue to be the best channels to reach the population, to have movement's activities better known to the broader public.
Organize projects targeting (young) women in order to encourage them to appropriate the movement and engage more in its activities.
Q 2 : What efficient measures should be taken about the future so that Wikimedia as a whole can use languages other than English in its decision making processes, avoiding the obligation to master English?
Use instant translation applications during international meetings. This tool should allow participants to understand each other easily.
Document languages to facilitate translations.
Create a "language" and codes for Wikimedians, using terms that will allow Wikimedians to understand each other without needing a translator or an application.
Use interprets for big international gatherings, to break language barriers during these events.
Establish a system of "turning languages" for international events. E.g.: Wikimania 2020 in German, Wikimania 2021 in English, then Spanish, etc.
Organize capacity building programs about languages used for the events.
How to chose languages: popularity, survey/vote, number of articles on Wikipedia (minimum of 2 millions)
CENTRAL POINTS OF AGREEMENT/DISAGREEMENT
Gender promotion
To some participants, creating projects specifically targeted at young women, while they are by default included in the other projects, could constitute discrimination against men. Others believe it is necessary to focus on women to attract them to the movement and make they feel more engaged. Also, to avoid giving the impression of discriminating men, a participant suggested that such projects should not be labeled "women projects" but "projects about women's activities", so they can include male participation. One participant says she thinks creating a tool for instant translation could help with language barriers in international events. Create a specific ‘language’ and codes for Wikimedians According to the participants who made this suggestions, we could find "expressions" or "codes with images and colors". For example, in Wiki events, someone who does not want to be photographed has a specific badge color. Following this principle, we could create signs or symbols which meaning are known to all wikimedians. "Turning language for international events While one participant thinks this idea will not resolve the language barrier problem, others feel that it could avoid English's monopoly and encourage Wikimedians to get interested in other languages, making the effort to understand them. Also, this would allow some emulation between the members who want to participate in international events: indeed, because of English's dominance, people who know this language are privileged during the selection process. Yet, many Wikimedians who master other languages are eager to share their expertise, which would be valuable to the community. Stand up for national (african) languages One participant was concerned that african languages remain essentially oral, despite their undeniable cultural richness. Another responded that one solution could be intensifying production of documentary resources, with projects like Wiki Kouman (content production about local languages of Côte d'Ivoire on the Wiktionary and related projects like Lingua Libre). |
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| Arabic language community | Various 1:1 interviews conducted by the Arabic Strategy Liaison | WMF should add more visibility to the encyclopedia so that it attract diverse contributors
For example add a link “learn more” about wikipedia directly from Google as Google are partners of the WMF.
Agree on a common code of conduct:
It is important to agree on the existence of a document or contract that determines the conduct of users. Everyone should then commit to it. It is one of the easiest ways to ensure a calm environment for discussion and exchange of views, thus ensuring the right of everyone to be involved in activities.
It is not fair to exclude groups from the movement just because they have violated the Code of Conduct once or twice. More chances should be given, but with clear metrics and conditions.
There are some groups that apply very strictly and rigidly the rules and policies. They should be trained about how to be more flexible, indulgent and understanding (involves Community Health as well).
Guidelines and metrics for measuring content diversity:
It is good for communities and contributors to have a diversity of content that helps to guide views and opinions to be representative, or even debatable, because they help to appreciate and give right to areas that may be marginalized and not really cared for by all.
Digitize and prioritize resources for marginalized groups - Privacy and security for all:
Resources for increasing diversity and investing funds for it shall be prioritized. All versions of the encyclopedia shall be made more accessible to readers and editors
Digitization initiatives and campaigns contribute to supporting and identifying marginalized groups, enhancing thus their participation in the movement. Users do not agree on these percentages. It would be better to have 45% females, 45% males and 10% for people with special needs and others. For the amendment of the grant agreement, it will certainly be submitted by those who agree to its terms, but we have to make sure that the change shall be in the interest of all.
Identify barriers for Wikipedia editing - Social diversity:
Obstacles can be identified more clearly and comprehensively, by conducting surveys and questionnaires in specific geographical locations, determining their types and whether it is an economic, social, etc. policy that prevents participation in Wikimedia.
Identifying barriers contributes to the creation of specific regulations or mechanisms to tackle them in a second phase. It is good to suggest adding specific technologies to users' pages so that they can get to know each other based on diversity and interests. They can even organize joint activities if they are from the same community or location.
Organizing projects with the same purpose and interests facilitate the process of diversity and community renewal, making Wikimedia “a base for diversity”. The ombudsman is a good idea. It contributes to simplify communication between the community and the Foundation. It will also improve community health.
The person chosen for this role shall be be reliable, flexible and a clear voice for the community away from personal interests. The idea of wiki oral is extraordinary from several perspectives:
Many people do not have time to fully read articles. Having them oral will shorten the time to hear the article (and do something in parallel). It will also increase the chances to bring more editors who will participate and correct when they are free.
The possibility of providing content in more dialects, which contributes to empowering diversity of the movement.
Helping people who cannot contribute in writing by providing them an opportunity to hear articles, and to edit them by speaking. The use of inclusive language in all bylaws, guidelines and policies promotes diversity and participation of all voices, thereby strengthens the movement and the knowledge infrastructure, while moving them away from prejudices and stereotypes that are unfit for Wikimedia project structures.
Bylaws and policies must be comprehensive, supportive and do not conflict with each other. |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | Recommendations per a Introducing people-centered principles within the Wikimedia movement We believe it is right to think about the user while improving the platform, but we miss recommendations aimed at improving participation, inclusion and diversity of participants in the governance structures of the movement. We have doubts about communities understanding the need to improve inclusion, as they are comfortable in the current situation and are in the phase of expanding content. It is found that WMF and some affiliates are seen as agents outside the community. No one feels the WMF as own, and the changes from top to bottom have no acceptance. The way in which brand-name change to Wikipedia is being done does not help to create trust. We doubt Ombudsman can be effective if they come 'on behalf of the WMF'. The change in culture may not be accepted by communities, conservative by nature, and where people are comfortable with the current system, even if those changes leave some people outside. The non-existence of channels to improve inclusion makes that users concerned about the lack of diversity on the platforms to have no way of articulating possible improvements. Inclusion must be done for something. We must also think if we open ourselves, for whom we do. Repeating 'diversity' as an empty word will not make them even more inclusive. We are people in permanent learning with an objective that is the sum of all the free knowledge. Until we get it, we will not stop. To sum people to the movement, we need to have this philosophy. |
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| Bolivian strategy salon | Bolivia strategy salon (15 people across 2 events) | In contexts where there have been internal decolonization processes since the 1960s, like the Bolivian case, it has been found that the most accessible bibliography is that created by the descendants of Europeans, or that reproduce their POW. Should notice that the Bolivian constitution allows the use of two different flags in official contexts (being one the wiphala, the flag of the indigenous peoples nationalism). Those changes came thanks to a change of paradigm that alowed, among many things, the arrival of Evo Morales to power. In short: they need tools to better represent their history, due to scarcely availability of sources in some areas (examples: books with less than 2.000 exemplars printed, in a mountain context). Also, Quechua speakers have a diglossia situation (parents speak quechua, not literated and if, only know to write Spanish, while the sons prefer to speak Spanish) |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | Feedback listed numerically according to recommendation. Agree with points 1 and 2. If any complaint, everything related to the Conduct Code should be inside a single point. Metric, even despite difficult to read, are necessary (but not essencial). 3. Digitalizing underrepresented groups. Agree 4. Quotes. Easier said than done. Which is the quota of speakers of suebi in WMDE? Of Sami in WMSE? Gypsies in WMES? Do We have to day our sexual orientation before being appointed to a post? Difficult 5. I don’t understand Why the list of problems should be added into Wikidata. I believe WD is for other thing. (I understant that we need a Q for homophobia or racial segregation, but for WD general purpose) 6. As said in 4, difficult. Do I need to fill something to state that I’m gay or not? Where is privacity? 7. In normal contexts, ombudsman do more things than being a transmission chain. Good idea, lacks ambition 8. Good idea that might evolve into a travel agency. We could end traveling up the “official” buddist of the Basque user group in the name of diversity. 9. WAT? I don’t understand 10. Great idea. There are recordings in Commons, and there are languages with no written expression (or scarce). We should remember that most of our elders were illiterate and their experiences have gone with the wind. 11. So-so. Ok. 12. Language diversity. The idea is not enough developed. It is worrying, because that everyone should access to free knowledge in any language is the main purpose of our project. Developing sollutions for this problem would create such content to develop a brand new project. 13. Agree. But “missing/minority/unrepresented” is not the only thing to take into consideration. |
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| French language community | 6-7 Twitter discussion threads with aprox. 5 people each, plus 2-3 online and offline conversations with 1-3 participants | Recommendation 13
very much needed in Africa
oral sources and primary sources are already accepted in many areas
oral sources should be collected systematically and uploaded on WikiSource
don't lower standards, but make them more relevant for all topics (otherwise, it will open the door to undesired content : e.g. extremists, complotists, pseudo-sciences, sects...)
a diversity of sources are already accepted about non-polemical subjects (cities, geography... versus topics related to human issues like politics, advertising, personal prestige, etc.)
focus on supporting the production of (or access to) reliable sources on minorized subjects (rather than changing admissibility criteria) ND/NC are problematic and against our principles of free knowledge
ND/NC will not solve the problem the recommendation is trying to adress Biases : make people aware of their own biases is a huge task, and goes way beyond the scope of Wikimedia projects : it is about sociology, psychology... As we cannot change people, we should focus on recruiting people from various backgrounds (targeted editathons, non-mixity...), plus working on awareness raising for the others (gaps, social biases).
Paid editing : it already exists for Wikimedians in Residence and could be replicated with GLAMs specialized in minority knowledge (e.g. Activist libraries). In other cases, further studies should be conducted about existing cases and potential modalities. |
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| Hindi language community | Mix of feedback across 6 individuals | Recommendation 10: On “Wikioral, a Project with Voice Recordings”: For Wikioral, there should be involvement of audio video documentation culture. We don't need more projects - we just need current existing platforms to be more developed. The Wikimedia Commons can be used as a platform for audio-video recordings, instead of developing a new project. And Wikisource can be used for their transcription. The current existing projects should be improved in such a way that they can be used in all different types of context and supporting different types of content in which translation and transcription also can be a part of it. We don't need many separate projects. Recommendation 12: On “Language diversity”: These are already in practice. Language diversity has many technical challenges to it. Creating a new font for a new language on wiki project takes a lot of investment. So when we talk about movement strategy for language diversity, we need to have a plan for it. We need to know the numerous resources that will be invested and we also need to think about the communities that are there. And we need to think about potential leaders. We also need to think about different categories in the language diversity. We need to think about strategizing this for 2030. Every language cannot have a wiki project. In a very small language with 50,000 speakers, there cannot be a Wikipedia project.
So we need to have a status of the language according to vulnerability and based on their categories, their immediate requirements, strategy should be created.
What's the immediate need of the language. For some language communities, preservation is not very important but documentation is. And in other languages that have institutional support, that's where we can think about running long term projects like Wikipedia. Because the creation of a new project is going to take a huge investment.
At the moment we need to think how will be its implementation, how many languages we need to support by 2030. Currently, we have wiki projects in 300 languages. Out of those 300, only 200 are really active. 100 are really not active. We need to have a plan. “Let's have 3000 languages on wiki by 2030. That should not be a plan. Let’s have other support established for those languages in some form or the other, such as, audio recordings, based on different context. So the strategy of language diversity should be in partnership with other language relational organizations such as wikitongue or some other language organization. |
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| Black Lunch Table strategy salon | 12 person in-person event | (CROSS POST FROM COMMUNITY HEALTH) After initial introductions/outlines, we quickly realized based on participants questions, that before we could deeply dive into consideration of our topics we had to discuss the entity of Wikipedia itself. While each of our partners/participants was familiar with Wikipedia, especially as users, there was some confusion about the Foundation, the variety of Wiki named products Wikimedia, Wikidata, etc. how they all interacted and the governing structures of the Wikipedia editor community as well as the affiliate/user group structure. G: What are the differences between Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wikidata [...] B: [...] different facets of the same model of like volunteers contributing information.
B: ...but like Wikipedia is like an encyclopedia model so like you write articles on there.
B: Wiktionary for example. it's like a dictionary.
B:It's a 501 3 C non-profit organization with membership only accessible through board what's a 25 million-dollar endowment and about 300 staff. The own the products Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikipedia Commons, wikidata, wikiquote, wikibooks, wikisource () wikiversity
There were questions and skepticism about the Foundation’s intentions as it relates to the 2030 Movement Strategy and the organization generally as it attempts to more directly connect to users in the future. Important Q’s users/participants are seeking re: WMF
WHO is Wikipedia? Beyond board members and 990’s, what is their narrative/origin story? What is the cost of business? Is Wikimedia trying to be THE home base for knowledge?
Who is at the table(diversity of voices) and to a greater degree who is empowered to make decisions at every level of the organization should be available and apparent.
The younger generation of users/consumers requires morality and transparency with the brands they engage. They want their consumption/use to align with their own values, otherwise, they will go elsewhere.
S: I also think they underestimate, like, what people-I think that’s why I’m also having a hard time grasping because there are so many initiatives that are now challenging the status quo of how things are done. Like, yes, it is about, oh, this is a space for public knowledge. Give it about 5, 10 years and there’ll be another space for public knowledge. I think that we’re at a space where people are starting to challenge it and so in order to remain competitive, you have to be able to say, like, “Oh, this is why you should be my friend.” This is why you should remain invested in our values and what we stand for because in order for us to be sustainable-it’s hard for people to latch onto () giving a dollar or even just wanting to edit or be a part of the conversation when, like, I can just go and create my own space with my own community of people and that validates it in the places that I want it to be validated in...Like, you know, this is one of what my goals are, this is the way I want to see it. Here’s my own creative and innovative route to doing that because nowadays, we don’t have to go the traditional route. There’s too much technology and too many ways to do it different.
How does Wikipedia communicate its brand? This includes things aesthetics and usability.These are facets of being accountable and transparent to their constituency. Users recognize that because the Wikipedia model is not traditionally transactional and ostensibly operating as a resource, WMF may feel less inclined to this expressed want, but they have to consider this earnestly if they want to engage new/different publics.
What are Wikipedia’s intentions/politics and how do they demonstrate that beyond the digital.
There was a brief discussion about the community of editors and the notability standards that exist on Wikipedia, especially as it relates to marginalized people. H: Is notability arbitrary?
B: Volunteers who decided they liked writing on Wikipedia in forums. Notability wasn’t defined by Wikimedia, but by whoever decided to participate in the forum. It has been defined by whoever wanted to talk about it.
H: Is the definition of notability static or malleable?
B: It’s a bit of both. It's written up, but people can also recommend changes in standards. Arbitration. Community built policy but who is the community?
The conversation delves a bit further into the hierarchy of editors and notability. For instance, who can edit Barack Obama’s page(those who have made a certain number of edits) and the ways that the discussion/talk pages function. Participants are interested in the fact that much of the conversation around the kinds of knowledge on any page are seemingly invisible to those who are not editors, the 99% of users. Citations and chats about what should or should not be included on any given page as objective knowledge/information/fact.
G: So, this is, like, the really important minutiae of Wikipedia, which is like, you know there is a hierarchy that exists, even though there’s like this position that is volunteer-based. Like, you have to be a special kind of volunteer. You have to have been volunteering for so long that you’re a gold star volunteer in order to, like, deal with certain things but, like, who gets to decide that? And especially if it’s not the Foundation who is doing it, then who are the players involved? …sure, revenue and diversity are like, great conversations to have but if no one knows what your, like, mechanism is for arbitrating these discussions is or like who is a gold star volunteer and who is like a regular volunteer, then we can’t really ever get into how you diversify your Wikipedia base. Um, and if Wikimedia is not () then how is Wikipedia as a community of people are, like, dealing with this? And who is this community of invisible people that none of us really have, like, a way to break into who they are. Like it’s not-if it’s a community, community is built upon knowing who each other are and being able to, like, advocate for this person.
The conversation about Wikipedia at large was critical to being able to consider the questions central to our salon. The refrain from participants was that if we are to consider how an entity as large, and to some degree opaque, as Wikipedia can be engaged on a local level, where change ultimately will take place in diversity and revenue stream arenas, those who would be expected to participate need to know the Foundations true intentions.
Importantly, we followed with the question, how do you come to trust an organization? J: There is an attempt to have an objective voice on Wikipedia. Despite the fact that we know its collective but we don’t know who is participating and how they are participating
S: How do they want us to work at a local level when I don’t even know if I trust the larger organization? The dialogue around that knowledge ownership doesn’t matter if the information is valid or accurate, but about the ownership of information.
M: People in Chicago, especially, don’t really appreciate people coming from the outside to tell them about how great their foundation is. Rightful reservations about participating in this. And on the other side, every day when your work is not in this particular discourse is another day that people don’t know about someone creating important work. Do you try to buy into Chicago in a meaningful authentic way?
J: I think it would be interesting if you guys, as a part of this conversation, thought about how Wikipedia has served the Black Lunch Table’s interests or that-this project’s interests when we’re talking about how it could serve the larger interests of our community or the people’s interest. () The mission that you all started with versus how you use Wikipedia to service that mission--it’s interesting to this larger conversation () can do, you know, in this space.
S: I was gonna ask how is Wikimedia or Wikipedia-whichever-being transparent around their limitations? Because I think-I’m coming from like a mixed media context, like a production context-and I think this conversation about, “Who’s at the table,” comes up all the time when you’re producing or doing media work and I think-and journalism work-there becomes like this understood thing where it’s like not every voice that needs to be at the table will actually be at the table and that’s just the reality because of the system and the structure of, like, the journalism industry, production industry. It just cannot do () doing that right now. There’s a lot to break down before the right voices or all the voices are actually going to be at the table in the way that why should. So () the question does fall on the other side with a more immediate concern () how do you be transparent about what you can’t do. Because there shouldn’t be this assumption that if you’re having-I’m going to throw something out there- but () like Black-ish, even though Black-ish is like, created by someone who is Black but you wouldn’t know who’s at the table. You don’t know who’s writing the stories. You don’t know any of that stuff so how are we being more transparent with the limitations while we’re in the process of making those things better. Because you have more transparency, then you have more accountability as well. So, I think it’s partially an answer to your question but also it’s () in general. Like, how does Wikipedia be transparent around their limitations and then to the point where people can now hold them accountable if they even want a platform that isn’t () because I don’t know if everybody wants that-if people want a platform that is more accurate or is more representative or whatever the case may be. How do you even know who is behind the scenes?
E: How does transparency manifest for you?
S: Yeah. I mean, I think- I think I’m talking about journalism and how sometimes newsrooms do like, “here we have so many people of colour in the space”, I think that I often challenge who actually has the power in the decision making, just because like when you’re working in film or production, like we may have like, a Black director and a Black producer or whatever the case may be but actually, the executive producer is the one who makes decisions. So, it’s cool that you had Black DPs or Black camera people, Black editors, whatever, but if the executive producer from whatever production is the one who ultimately says yes or no, it doesn’t really matter how many people of colour there are on the team because they only have but so much power. And so I think it also becomes a question of like how many people and like who has power? Who has leverage? How is that power being distributed differently because I think that people are very comfortable-I’m thinking very much media industry now-but they’re very comfortable with certain hierarchies of power because it’s convenient and that’s what you’re used to but how willing are people to disrupt those hierarchies of power and do something different which also comes from accountability. Um, I think there’s some really great community engagement journalism that’s doing () cool things right now, just about how do we disrupt-like you know, you might have a journalist who may be writing the story and they’re the one telling the narrative. How are we breaking that up and maybe having the person who you’re interviewing be the editor? Like how are we switching that up? Um, so I think that () there’s a lot of ways that people are creatively trying to decide what that might look like but it does often () like more than just who’s in the room who has the power to make decisions.
Deeply important to the participants is the feeling that for them to invest in the goals of WMF or any large organization, they want to be assured by that organization that they are valued and that the organization is not being opportunistic. That means that engagements should be long term, community lead, and responsive to community needs. It took a significant portion of the evening to get to the possibility of the diversity/ revenue streams conversation. The learning curve about the Foundation and this movement to those not already deeply enmeshed with WMF as an affiliate or Wikimedian is steep. This is not to say that there is a lack of interest rather there is a lack of information about WMF presented by WMF.
Briefly, we were able to return to our Diversity/Revenue stream questions with the following input. Re revenue streams generally: J: Or what their costs are... S: There’s also a-I mean, just not to add more fuel to this but I think () also, that when we’re talking about trust that there’s a trickle-down, right? It’s like you’re asking me in this space to be able to trust how this could be done on a localized level and how to get suggestions, but yeah, I can’t trust the original, like, head of this because I don’t know where the money is coming from. I don’t know-like, there’s an aspect there-I guess my question becomes, I guess, like what are they doing to address, I mean, with their employees and their money and their whoever is at the top-like, what are they doing to be able to address their own diversity problems up top, not like, here. The group returns to notability as an extension of trust/truthiness of Wikipedia in general and the ethics of writing pages for people you know. This is clearly a limiting factor in who engages the platform and what kind of expertise you have when you are not able to write pages on people/things in a community you may be an active participant/expert on. This extends the conversation about validating the resources of marginalized communities in a process like the 2030 movement strategy. How do they know they are not being taken advantage of when they do not have transparency with the organization and the instances they do have about defining value in resources i.e. notability, they are shaky or inapplicable. The participation of all groups and building trust and engagement with all is important to everyone on the platform. Further, there are instances, especially between generations, where one may not know that the information that another generation or group is important yet, this should not be a deterrent for those of any group/generation/etc to not include their information because it is not correctly valued at the moment. J: This is just a comment. I’m gonna go thinking about how we make sure that this work is relevant by a community of people who are being served, even if they are not of that African diaspora or identifying as Black artists that it’s important to me and my work that there be a repository of Black artists on Wikipedia in the public space and that these names are named in a public space. That it’s important to many more of us than those who identify as specific racial space that it’s not a boring conversation just because we don’t identify as and it’s something that I can talk about when we have a Wikipedia edit-a-thon with the Black Lunch Table. How do we make sure that our audience knows () all of us. The conversation must wrap up due to time constraints but ends with a stimulating conversation about the longevity and importance of articles about black artists specifically as a way to truly alter the record and perspectives of users. Further, we discuss the possible implications of the inclusion of these articles in arenas, policy specifically, that can radically shift how our world is shaped. G: Maybe one way we can think about it in a more expansive way: () we’re putting in the context of the arts and now that I see more artists as administrators and administrators as community organizers, there is a connection to policy. And I’m interested in how do we trace how people find policy. How does the community organize when I propose this change? That might also be a-speaking of artists- this may be like a () where you probably won’t put policy in your artistic resume but I will find it on Wikipedia. And I think that as I see more and more administrators coming up the pipelines of policymaking, this is crucial. At least for me where-I don’t have a resume on policymaking, right? |
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| Hong Kong strategy salon | 10 people at in-person event | Attracting more women
The group members strongly agreed that the user group needs to focus on attracting additional female and female-identifying contributors. One roadblock is that some male editors have not had strong friendships or contacts with women, so they don’t have a strong potential pool of women who they know who may be interested in attending. One important step in doing this is strictly enforcing the safe space policy as many women are concerned for their personal safety and comfort. In addition, occasionally asking women to speak first may have a positive effect on contributions from women. Attracting expatriates The idea of recruiting expatriates was raised. Users identified some possible roadblocks: Some of them may not have many contacts with expatriates and are not sufficiently acquainted with them. In addition, some expatriates may be especially busy with work. I (WhisperToMe) personally identified another roadblock: many expatriates are only in Hong Kong for a short period of time and may leave after work contracts expire. Additional safe space considerations Some people are particularly shy and/or do not want their photographs taken. Diversity also means accommodating other personality types and those with different habits, so enforcement of the safe space policy helps include them. |
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| Igbo User Group youth strategy salon | 16 people at in-person event | Question 1: What effective measures should be taken for the future so our greater community can use languages other than English to make decisions, eliminating the requirement for mastery of English as part of our decision-making community? Answers: By ensuring that all administrative pages on Wikimedia platforms should have language administrators assigned with the responsibility to ensure the translation of relevant pages. The Wikimedia Foundation must ensure that enough language administrators are representing the 302 language projects hosted by the WMF.
The engaged translators or language administrators should be adequately motivated or paid and suitably equipped to work.
The duties of the translators should be appropriately defined to avoid mediocrity amongst translators.
A human intelligent Software that helps people translate to different languages should be designed and inputted in all platforms.
QUESTION 2: What steps should stakeholders take to ensure language diversity across various platforms to provide support to ensure the broadest possible representation of various languages as well as those with physical and cognitive challenges to participate in our movement?
Answers: Furthermore, they should be given a quota in the board seat or any decision-making body to adequately protect their interest.
To identify role models in different languages that will be part of the decision-making bodies and allocate quota to ensure representation.
Develop friendly interfaces for the easy creation of new language projects.
QUESTION 3: How can children and youths understand the contents presented to them? Categorize contents base on the age range Make content interactive and easy for children of every age to add content. The audio content should be synchronised with the written materials. Collaborate with Disney, carton network and other animation agencies or company to develop content for children. This content should be relevant based on human diversity. That is to say, the content should relate to people of diverse cultural heritage. |
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| Wikimedia Polska strategy salon | 12 participants at in-person event | Last but certainly not least, the group talked about diversity of our community. Does the content of articles about minority-related topics impact our ability to attract new community members representing those minorities? Quote: “Take our pages on LGBT and the autism spectrum, for example. People, who see the [poor] level of our writing about them don’t want to come and edit Wikipedia. They don’t want to be in a place which describes them incorrectly.” While we’ve not come up with a solution to this issue, it was noted that more controlled environments, such as thematic workshops or editing contests held live (see Recognition and Competition: organized content creation contests), can provide a way for minorities to enter our community more easily. |
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| Wikimedia Portugal strategy salon | 7 person in-person event | Regarding the Diversity Working group Recommendation #9: The majority of participants felt strongly that the acceptance of a non-commercial license in Commons would cause more harm than good. The main points raised against were that it complicates reuse of our content further down the line, the usability of non-commercial licenses for educational purposes is dubious and some went as far as saying that the Wikimedia Movement should recommend to Creative Commons that CC-NC type license be no longer supported or should be abolished. As upsides, a few participants mentioned that we would be able to probably host ten times more content than we do now. The consensus view was however, that the difficulties were greater than the advantages. There was some discussion about decentralization of the formal structure of the movement, including the allocation of funds and grants. Some of the participants felt that funds generated in very high degree by volunteer work were not easily accessible outside of the WMF and large chapters. Despite Portugal being located in Europe, the Wikimedia Community in Portugal is defined as an Emerging Community (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community Engagement/Defining Emerging Communities). While this year, Wikimedia Portugal has been successful in attracting funds from the WMF, there were some worries about instability of rules regarding for example Rapid Grants, and that there is no more possibility to ask funds for projects with a value smaller than 500 USD. This led to some discussion on the instability of nomenclature of some of the sites and services, such as the Tool Labs/Tool Forge, and the proposed re-branding of the Wikimedia Foundation. In particular there was some disagreement of whether the rebranding to Wikipedia Foundation was opportune, particularly with the emergence of Wikidata as a vibrant and exponentially growing project in recent years. An alternative view expressed by participants was that it is natural for rebranding to occur for the most widely known product of the movement. A consensus view was that this rebranding was not a crucial aspect at the moment for the Wikimedia Movement. Furthermore on recommendations regarding decentralization, despite the participants feeling that some degree of decentralization was positive, a concern raised regarded unequal pay across the globe for the same job. Technical jobs in the US, and particularly the San Francisco area, are well paid, while the same job in other parts of the globe, including Portugal may be not so well paid. So, some care should go to ensure that, if decentralization goes forward, some assurances regarding work conditions, fair pay and work/life balance should be made for an ethical minimum standard and a gold standard for all Wikimedia jobs. |
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| Wikimedia Taiwan youth strategy salon | 21 people at in-person event | Why do we need to build a diverse environment within wikimedia communities ?
We are living in a world with diversity from the beginning, the same in our communities. Ignore all those differences, not just a simplification of the reality, it also would be very dangerous, especially in this “post-truth” world.
We could expect the benefits of diversity in the communities： Reduced turnover rate
Increased creativity and innovations
Better reputation of organization
People from different backgrounds can offer a diverse profile of talents and experiences, that may be of benefit to the project and organization, and bring out different aspects of the same topic. Though some crossover of expertise can be beneficial when it comes to assisting each other, it’s important to make people with the appropriate skills to fit each of the roles within the communities. A variety of skills and experiences among the team also means that members can learn from each other. Communities with diversity include individuals with a variety of different characteristics, such as gender, age, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, political views and cultural backgrounds.
Community diversity starts with recruitment. If you want to build diversity in an open knowledge community, you first need to engage with diverse candidates as community leaders. And respect is always an essential value while you want to include everyone. Finding novel places or topics where people feel safe and confident is a great way to start a real conversation in the community. Real eye contact and open attitude is important while talking. Try to list all the conclusion during the meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page and publish it on an open platform. Encourage cross-over teamwork People would be so competitive sometimes, and it occurs across all cultures and ages. But cooperate with people from different backgrounds is important to creativity. Organize teams by projects or the same time arrangement, rather than age and expertise, or pair people together who normally don't interact to work on something never have been done before. The teamwork will follow. Show how to offer honest feedback if you are a community leader Making friendly rules and post it on top in community’s fan page. Zero-tolerance to improperly expressions and discrimination. Keep every discussion open, organised and searchable. Help the new members to learn from education materials and guide them to find answers by themselves, then always encourage them to speak out their thoughts anytime. Finally, delicious foods are always a useful way to connect everyone. We always face lots of differences on management style. How to create and manage a safe environment for community members to speak up ？ Creating an environment where members can feel psychologically safe and can speak up is important in a diverse community. Increase self-disclosure – make people feel free to express themselves Members in this forum all agree that people stay open and ready to share anytime, plays an important role in community management. All the members need to know they would not face harsh comments from others in any discussion. Be interested in your team - Include everyone in the meeting Notice subtle hints that people are anxious or fearful, check in with them, be interested in them, and support each other. Take turns in conversation – listen, ask questions. Don’t dominate the conversation always. Rather than focusing on blame someone for the mistake, focus on what we could learn from it. Figure out how to fix the system and rules together is also a good way to build a diverse team. How could we integrate the value of diversity in Chinese Wikimedia Movement ecosystem ? The Chinese Wikimedia Communities involve a huge number of members and a variety of cultural backgrounds. Editors from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Malaysia and Singapore are all using Chinese Wikipedia, for instance. But the direct and indirect, verbal and non-verbal insulting is more and more common now. To make some improvement of this situation, we think we need to reveal the truth and speak up to the global communities more often. Wikipedia projects should not become tools for people who want to manipulate the truth. We should encourage minority groups edit Wikipedia and introduce their culture in their mother language as soon as possible. Try to record different views on tech, environment issues, rather drag the whole movement in the political mud. |
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| South Africa strategy salon | 6 people at in-person event | Languages (Diversity): By highlighting small-language Wikis we increase Capacity in the local language Wiki and eventually Diversity in the larger language wikis. Problem: People do not know that they can edit Wikipedia, never mind the fact that it’s available in their language. Oral citations aren’t allowed as a source on English Wikipedia, but the biggest knowledge gaps exist in oral cultures
Recording indigenous knowledge is a UN Sustainable Goal which means that oral citations need to be made a priority.
Global Recommendations:
Educate the West on the need for oral citations and create Social Consensus on the use thereof aka in which context is oral citations allowable?
Educate Oral Cultures that they can use oral citations in their own language Wikipedia, by creating their own Chapter/Language rules.
Education (Diversity and Capacity): By getting kids involved from a young age, you can address Capacity and Diversity. Use Banners and Badges to indicate where articles are a Work in Progress or created for school assignments so that the articles do not get flagged for immediate deletion.
Create a set of Banners on Wikipedia that targets users who aren’t logged in, stating, “Did you know that Wikipedia is also available in isiXhosa, siZulu, sePedi and Afrikaans?” (for South Africa) OR Did you know that Wikipedia is also available in Catalan? (for Spain). The person can then click on their desired language and be directed to that language Wikipedia.
The native language Wikipedia’s should then have a banner stating “Did you know that you can edit Wikipedia yourself? Find out more” and then be linked to a page that explains how editing Wikipedia works. Bonus points if these pages are NOT written in English. This is a very easy thing to implement and immediate results can be tracked.
Global Recommendations: Universities: While there are many science related articles, there is a big gap in the Humanities. Team up with Universities and have students submit their papers directly to Wikipedia. The teacher can their serve as the editor/peer-review to review the work and correct use of citations.
Discrimination (Diversity): When we descriminate against a group we limit their contributions to Wikimedia. Include it as part of the New Member Onboarding Procedure
Diversity Metrics: "A language is a dialect with an army" - Someone. "These days the army can be an online army" - Michael
Body Quotas: Risk: What if the user group is a LGBT group or a minorty respresentative group, like Khoekhoegowab this would meant that they would probably be skewed in one gender and would not be able to meet the quota numbers?
Hiring for hiring sake, doesn't work, e.g. Having a person of a specific gender to make up the quota when they have no experience or qualifications. The necessary mentoring needs to be in place for these members.
Rather: User groups need representation on the Chapter and Foundation Governing Bodies. Representation should not be dictated by gender, but rahter by user groups.
Every user group should have a representative on the governing bodies.
Ombudsperson:
Replace Ombudsperson with just "Ombud" as "Ombudsman" comes from the Swedish and they have now dropped the "man".
Just saying "Ombud" is more neutral and modern.
WikiOral: |
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| WMDE | Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Deutchland, who met and discussed the following points during Wikimania 2019 | CAVEAT: The content below is a summarized and condensed version of comments voiced by members of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board during a meeting at Wikimania in Stockholm. They represent first thoughts, questions and reflections on the recommendations at that given point in time and do not represent an organizational position of Wikimedia Deutschland. Diversification of types of knowledge (orally transmitted knowledge)One of the main issues of the Diversity Working Group already played a major role in the development of the Strategic Direction in 2017: How can we collect all kinds of knowledge in the Wikimedia universe, including more "non-Western" communities that are under-represented? Board members supported this objective with a view to the strategic direction. The key question to investigate would be how oral knowledge can actually be collected (collection, digitization, creating new projects). The second question is to what extent integration into existing projects such as Wikipedia is possible or where the limits lie. In the next step, concrete implementation proposals should therefore be elaborated in more detail and checked for their effects. |
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| Wikimedia DRC-UG Strategy Salon | 22 people at in-person strategy salon | Question 1 : Pensez-vous que la signature d'un code de bonne conduite par tous les participants -tes dans tous les evenements soit une bonne chose?
La signature de chaque participant(e)s au code de bonne conduite va permettre à tout le monde de bien respecter les règles et les politiques de fonctionnement des projets de WMF, tout en apportant la liberté d’expression de tous participant(e)s.
Permettrait de garder un climat favorable/sain à tous ;
Permettrait de faire un travail du genre collectif en respectant le code de bonne conduite ;
Permettrait d’avoir une discipline dans le déroulement des évènements ; Insuffisance des formations et l’information sur l’écosystème Wikimédia ;
Manque d’amour (volonté) et d’esprit de partage ;
Manque des matériels informatiques ;
Accès à l’internet coûte cher ;
Manque d’un siège local reconnu ;
Manque de centre d’intérêt Manque de connaissance sur l’outil informatique ;
Manque d’info et de maîtrise de l’écosystème ;
Les informaticiens s’intéressent à la NTIC ;
Les femmes et autres couches sont désintéressées par manque de volonté et aussi la notion de connaissance libre n’est pas intégrée dans les autres domaines Le relais communautaire sera d’office la représentation de la communauté locale auprès de la WMF ;
Il facilitera une franche collaboration entre la WMF et la communauté locale et présentera les besoins de la communauté ;
Ils auront la tâche de présenter les contraintes de la communauté locale auprès de la WMF et présenter les solutions proposées par cette dernière à la communauté locale en toute franchise.
Question 5 : Pensez-vous que la decentralisation de structures administratives pour la repartition des fonds soit une bonne choses?
Elle permettra la transparence dans l’exécution des tâches au sein de la communauté ;
Faciliter la traçabilité de fond lors de la rédaction des rapports pour chaque activité ;
Faciliter la répartition des fonds d’une façon transparente et équitable ;
Une bonne gestion de la finance par rapport à la prise en charge des activités organisées au sein de la communauté local concernant les projets portés par le mouvement Wikimédia ; La communauté trouve bonne toutes les récommandations formulées au cours du salon stratégique pour la communauté du congo (WMDRC-UG). |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | Could you give us an outline of what you envision to be part of the CoC? How will you secure that everybody will live up to your CoC? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | It would have been great to read more about e.g. the actions that should be regulated via a Code of Conduct; who should be ultimately resposible for enforcing rules and take action; what action to take against purpetrators etc. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | A wiki cannot be only and always welcoming. It is an important task to protect a wiki and filter new edits. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | Some rules are established by the Foundation, some rules are established by the editing community per wiki. The document seems to be one-sided in favor of the Foundation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | an't you simply write below the editing window: By saving your edit you agree to our Code of Conduct? - or something like that? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | Regarding the ombudsman: which "issues" (anything mentioned before?), and how to "deal" with them? What exactly would the liason (ombudsperson) do? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment | Regarding the agressive editors, there are also situations in which there is no clear division of victims and aggressors, just editors who disagree. The measurement by itself is sound and should not be called a "grade school [...] detention". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#zero-tolerance for unacceptable behavior | Please share your reflection on ways to maintain zero-tolerance, for example in the light of recent events. What have the talks of your working group with CH and R&R working groups led to? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment in favor of local project autonomy | Once again, calls for undermining (or in this case, essentially destroying) local project autonomy, and a global solution to things which should be decided locally. Strong oppose. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment in favor of local project autonomy | Surely this is not in line with the Board statement in the Fram Case ("we also recognize the critical importance of allowing communities to be self-governing"), so is this proposal deliberately taking a stance against the Board position? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comment in favor of local project autonomy | One benefit, only possible with the resources of the WMF, is hinted somewhere in the drafts: training (mediator training) for arbitrators and administrators, and possibly hiring professional mediators to resolve disputes. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Irony | Further centralising of power through a take-it-or-leave-it, one-size-fits-all approach would not promote diversity. You would be driving away anyone whose personal or cultural beliefs did not match those of the WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Irony | If other Wikipedias feel that their policies have been imposed on them by the English one, then they can change them. That's very different from the "recommendations" we're discussing, which would impose the same CoC on everyone, would be written by the WMF, and could not be altered by any group except the WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Irony | Many communities have deviated from enwiki policies in the last 15 years, and this is a really interesting aspect of diversity in the Wikimedia universe that is under threat by the centralisation attempts of the WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#The way forward... | The WMF should not be mandating a code of conduct across all projects without consent of and deciding input by those projects. The ability of local projects to decide their own civility policies is something that cannot be stripped away without damaging every existing community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#The way forward... | How is such a method supposed to aplly to unregistered editors/IPs? A major attraction of the WP was/is the ability to be able to contribute quickly and spontaneously without much or any bureacratic hassle or requirements. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Support | ‘Local autonomy’ will not protect the most vulnerable in many cases, and libertarian bro view on the world that this is not important has failed us already. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Support | Free software communities have a Code of Conduct by now and those that went through the hurdle, benefited from the CoC. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Support | Currently our behavioural "rules" are scattered throughout the infinite number of policies and guidelines, many of which are seldom read. It's ambiguous, which rules apply when. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#The lack of self-criticism | It doesn't seem as if the group even considered issues of local autonomy, varying cultural norms, or the possibility that managing a useful encyclopedia requires different rules for interactions than a kindergarten class. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Harassment survey 2015 | Harassment survey 2015 was gold standard rubbish. No reports should be derived thereof. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Question. | Who gets to decide what behaviour is acceptable and what is unacceptable? What criteria will be used? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Model Code of Conduct rather than Universal Code of Conduct | A Code of Conduct will only be effective if it has "buy in" from the community that it governs. Also, behavioral expectation are different on different communities. A process could draft a Model Code of Conduct that would be sent to all of the projects to consider, amend and adopt. This has the advantage of allowing local adaptations to reflect unique community expectations as well as to engage a much wider section of each community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Q4a and Q4b Risk Assessment | The Working Group should modify its answers to Question 4a and 4b to acknowledge these risks and explain how to mitigate them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Q4a and Q4b Risk Assessment | People could use a Code of Conduct or "civility" in general to game the system. The CoC could be drafted imperfectly or enforced unfairly or that toxic users could hide behind their identity group status. There is also a danger that people will deliberately mis-identify their identity group status to receive favorable treatment. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Two problems | Any code of conduct won't actually work unless the community broadly supports with the actual text. Anyone who thinks that the Foundation can impose an effective code of conduct by some force of authority clearly has little grasp of the how things work out there. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Two problems | The community are the experts. It is absurd and ignorant to suggest that a solution is going to be designed by people who have no experience in how editing conflicts arise. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Two problems | It's almost as if these recommendations were drafted by people without the slightest idea about how the projects work. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Two problems | Individuals have suggested (or actually used) "other internet community experts" and felt their advice is clearly germane to Wikipedia. Except...we aren't like anyone else. Our goal, set-up, formal complexity and methods of engagement are all radically different to anywhere else. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels like Childhood | This feels like my childhood in East Germany. You had to follow, or you will be kicked out of the community. Terrible idea. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Response | The idea of having a common set of expectations and guidelines while doing diversity work is great. But we're not a part of Wikimedia to do diversity work. A diverse user base is essential because it helps us achieve the mission better. That's where our focus should be. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Where is the Code of Conduct? | Why any CoC is necessary? What's a hypothetical example of behavior that would be allowed under current (say) en.WP policy but prevented by a CoC? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#In principal support for some aspects but struggling with minimal community consultation | This is a little worrisome you need to bridge the gap with the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#In principal support for some aspects but struggling with minimal community consultation | Perhaps representatives will need to be some sort of council of elected representatives for each of the main projects, for smaller wikis, and for people who are not on any wiki but could be. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#In principal support for some aspects but struggling with minimal community consultation | The CoC should have a 3-part structure of 1) positive behaviours to strive for, 1) red-line behaviours that are unacceptable, and 3) a clear process for handling issues. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Nope - and here's why | No consideration that communities are different to each other. No consideration that stricter behavioural rules might handicap non-harassing competence. It doesn't think how to handle the loss of editors who don't like the new rules, made by non-community members. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Nope - and here's why | Why this consultation has not been specifically promulgated (rather than a "go read all the vast working group documents) to the appropriate place on every single Wikipedia? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#More tolerance and zero tolerance | You can have a policy of "zero-tolerance for unacceptable behavior" or you can be concerned that "Even those operating in good faith may alienate others by strict adherence to rules and policies" as the preceding section urges. You can't have both. Please acknowledge that these are competing aims and communities have to balance and struggle to balance them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#More tolerance and zero tolerance | Be aware that on Wikipedia one person's efficient deletion tagging is another person's incivility, and that's before our coterie of trolls sees the opportunity this gives to tie the whole community in knots with trolling. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Split Discussion - Code of Conduct | There is also a universal code of conduct discussion at the "Community Health" working group. Not sure why they didn't merge their proposals. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Extra click for IP editors | In theory one extra click is not going to dissuade many vandals or spammers, but it is likely to lose us a proportion of our goodfaith IP editors. A possible compromise would be to only require IPs to click on the code when they edit talkpages. Talkpage edits are much more likely to include civility violations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Impractical | No one is agitating for less civility in any of the projects. The comment under point Q. 4b misses this. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Impractical | Having a sentence on the edit page explaining that "By submitting this edit you agree to our Code of Conduct" with a link to that document would be satisfactory. On the other hand, providing only this much information may result with people agreeing to terms they are not aware of. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Impractical | This could be an attempt to force one group's ethics & expectations on the wider community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Philosophy not code | 13 years ago we had a very simple philosophical statement to follow... it stated: “Don’t be a d!ck”. It worked well as a universal “Code of conduct”. Perhaps we should bring it back. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Incorporate what? | It’s all platitudes and nothing that could be enforceable in any sense. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Incorporate what? | WP is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an advocacy outlet. WP is naturally going to exhibit the current biases in scholarship. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Safe spaces | There should be no safe space for vandals. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Where is the CoC? Is there a draft? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Who writes the CoC? Who finally decides that this is the CoC everbody has to adhere? Will the communities asked to do some sort of ratification on it or will it be the usual top down approach? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | What means zero tolerance? Infine global ban in case of violation? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Who decides if a behaviour contradicts the CoC? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Will somone accused of violation of the CoC be informed about what he is accused of? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Who decides about sanctions? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Will there be any possibility of appeal against sanctions? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | All these pages are written in English. It actively tries to exclude people without sufficient English skills from participation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Will the CoC be translated in all languages of all projects or will users be forced to sign a CoC in a language they are not proficient in? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | How does the signing work? Would a user have to send a paper to the WMF or is there a check box they would have to click? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Currently it is possible to edit without having an acoount. Will that change? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Has there been any assessment if the proposed measures wil have impact on anonymity? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Some questions | Could somebody of the persons responsible for this process comment why wikimedians without English language skills are excluded from sicussions on these topics. Or are they supposed to rely on google translate? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Pig in a poke | The general shift in values away from freedom of expression, free discussion, and the pursuit of truth is scary. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Pig in a poke | The ability of each Wikimedian to influence this process seems to be low due to the level of vagueness. They are just data points, possibly reflecting the views of whatever other active contributors have values similar to theirs. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Pig in a poke | Has any high-quality survey been conducted of the likely effect of various possible rules on those who already do contribute as well as on those others who might be induced to contribute? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Proposed wording for World Wide Wiki Code of Conduct | The CoC could write "be kind". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#CoC versus ToU | What is the benefit of an explicitly "accepted" Code of Conduct versus an implicitly accepted Terms of Use? What would a CoC achieve that a ToU can't? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#CoC versus ToU | Suspectedly, where a ToU applies to the website(s), a CoC would also apply to the various Wikimedia organizations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#CoC versus ToU | Presumably the Code would cover in-person interactions and off-wiki communications. Would it also apply to WMF employees and board members? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Culture conflicts | There are good reasons why norms of due process were developed. There's a current that wants to destroy those in the hope of making interactions better for marginalized people. Those values seem to be pushed by WMF leadership but most Wikipedians value living in a community with due process. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Anyone? | The rules are scattered throughout many policies and guidelines, and it depends on the situation, which policies are applied, with what weight. A Code of Conduct improves this by 1) being a focused, concise summary of basic rules, 2) raising awareness of civility values. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Anyone? | Why not just ask each community to put together a single page summary of the key policy of that community. Anyone could do that without the WMF. The fact that they jumped to wanting a unified COC suggests nothing other than a power grab and reduction in community autonomy. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#From Catalan Salon | There should be recommendations aimed at improving participation, inclusion and diversity of participants in the governance structures of the movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#From Catalan Salon | It's doubtful whether communities understand the need to improve inclusion, as they are comfortable in the current situation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#From Catalan Salon | WMF and some affiliates are seen as agents outside the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#From Catalan Salon | Inclusion must be done for something. We must also think if we open ourselves, for whom we do. Repeating 'diversity' as an empty word will not make them even more inclusive. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#From Catalan Salon | The change in culture may not be accepted by communities, conservative by nature. The non-existence of channels to improve inclusion makes that users concerned about the lack of diversity on the platforms to have no way of articulating possible improvements. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Existing code of conduct for technical spaces | Has there been any analysis of how effective that has been since its introduction? Are there relevant lessons from its implementation? Would it be considered as a model for the proposed movement-wide CoC, or would that be something entirely different? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Comment | This seems to use some undefined buzzwords. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Comment | Some people have confused the two different meanings of "maturity". Diversity is a goal. CMMI is about process improvement. CMMI is goal-agnostic. Whoever wrote Q5 is simply using a buzzword lifted from CMMI without actually understanding CMMI. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Comment | The Cultural Diversity Maturity Levels Model omits the initial, poorly controlled phase and ends with a perfect workplace that has nowhere to go. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Start again | This needs to be re-written, because it is largely incomprehensible. There are ungrammatical sentences. What does "transveral" mean in this context? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Please don't use punctuation this way | Please don't use punctuation this way. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | Do you say that bad articles should be kept, even if they are the worst and most unnotable ones, because they are about to decrease a gap, and other articles that have the same problems, because they are not reducing a gap, must be deleted? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | This is completely pointless. It is indeed problematic to strive to get a neutral point of view when you already have it! Wikimedia is already welcoming to all genders, tribes, religions etc.. This thing you provided about Diversity is pointless, we already have these things. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | This proposal is entirely without merit, and demonstrates nothing but contempt and ignorance for what Wikipedia strives to be - a place for reliable, encyclopedic information. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | The "classic notion of an encyclopaedia and ‘universal knowledge’ needs to be discarded" is so fundamentally at odds with what the WMF projects are about. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | These guys who wrote these "suggestions" seem to want to create trouble when there is no trouble. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | Is this really what the donations generated by our volunteer work pays the salaries for? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | Doing away with notability won't cause people to start writing about the topics you want them to. It will only give the green light to every paid marketer, crackpot, and tireless fanboy to load the encyclopedia up with stuff that is A) white guy centric, and B) bullshit. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question | Nobody is interested in the grocery shop at the corner. And no scientist is getting more importent, just because she is not white or not heterosexual. And yes, most rulers were men in the last centuries, Wikifoundation strategies will not rectify this. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | The idea of encyclopedic knowledge was the motivation of my work in the project. Did I spend my time for the wrong idea? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | These recommendations, not only #2 but the other ones too, appear to have emerged from the notion that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects should have the same rules as the free and open western societies. It won’t work, because the purpose and the scope of the Wikimedia projects is different from those of a society. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | Maybe some examples would help to understand what you actually mean and how this would affect our activities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | Wikipedia is the community's project. The Wikimedia Foundation is hosting it, but it is not their role to tell us what we write, and how we write it (they simply can't), so the whole discussion seems a bit moot. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | This whole thing seems to be a completely misguided attempt to fix something that isn't broken, or at least not in the way members of these workings groups make it out to be. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | We should consider changing the form, adding more forms and/or letting go of forms all together”. With form referring to writing style, and Wikipedia being a specific writing style as we currently use it, and emphasising how our movement is more than just English Wikipedia. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"The idea of encyclopedic knowledge feels problematic" | Changing your policies because you're not getting the outcome you want has the potential to cause profound and highly undesirable effects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#What is the actual recommendation? | Here, the other sections introduce a lot of ideas that are not directly linked to Q1. What actual recommendation is that idea linked to? What would be the consequence of "discarding" the notion of encyclopedia? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Potential hazards to editors from repressive countries | The proposals here seem to include a lot of data collection about personal characteristics of people who contribute to Wikimedia projects. It is essential that any data collection not endanger editor anonymity, even the implied danger that comes with saying that certain editors are exempt from data collection. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Types of diversity | "Gender, Geographical, LGTB+, Cultural, Indigenous people, Religion groups and Ethnic groups" - these tend to be controversial topics on Wikipedia projects. Diversity is much broader than that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Types of diversity | Our gaps are not only those considered to be controversial! We also still have many gaps in our written record (due to archival wipeouts, wars, deliberate rewrites, etc). Is there any place where these "diversity types" are being kept and tracked? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Signing proposals | Why doesn't every proposal finish with a list of people who made the proposal and who are accountable for it? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Diversity types are a bad idea | The idea of diversity types incorrectly assumes that there are knowledge communities that aren't in the mainstream that deserve added protections and others that don't. Having this dual standard would mean that we don't have equal standards anymore about how to deal with notability and sourcing of claims. Instead, we should focus on having good rules that can be applied all over the board. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Diversity types are a bad idea | If we actually want better policies we need to look at the place where policy gets made. That's various RfCs. This is the venue where policies can influenced and we might task professionals to comment on the RfCs. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#No universal knowledge? | We already struggle enough to keep absurd fringe claims out of the Wikipedia, especially in science. There is no shortage of people who want to add claims that have been proven wrong over and over again. They would certainly use such a recommendation as argument for adding more nonsense. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Is this an attempt to “right great wrongs”? | Could you comment on how the policy at enWP that says “Wikipedia is not the place to Right Great Wrongs” might impact these recommendations (and on how these recommendations might impact that policy)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Guidelines ? | Strongly support access to more detailed and focused stats, and the development of tools to give more autonomy to the communities and leverage to action groups. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Guidelines ? | Guidelines are likely to be quite vague and poorly adapted to the diversity of development of our projects. Secondly, editors should be able to draw their own conclusions and have their own guidelines developed. If they are not sufficiently aware, then what ought to be done is more awareness. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question 2 | We need much better metrics of diversity, well beyond merely the gender gap. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question 2 | People use our projects because they are useful, and being used is our number one recruiting tool. All of the edit-a-thons in the world are never going to make up for the organic recruitment we get by simply being indispensable. We may go further that way and translate well written articles to projects where they are missing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Question 2 | We need to leverage the financial power of the Foundation, brute-force incubate budding projects, and directly influence our goal of being the essential irreplaceable resource for access to free knowledge. We can do committees and working groups until we're blue in the face, or we can make a Marshall Plan for free knowledge. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comment | This is the type of initiative you ought to be focusing on. It's an excellent suggestion and works to support the communities rather than damaging them. More of this type of support, and less (as in no) dictating to communities how to run themselves. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comment | Could be great for Wikisource and Commons. It might also make sense to partner with the Internet Archive for this. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Missing text | This is the right and proper way to close coverage gaps. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Assumptions and Downsides | There seems to be text missing from the Q 1 What is your Recommendation? section. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#If | Please rethink your assumptions and the possible downsides. For example, perhaps you are assuming that funding this activity is of a higher priority than most other WMF projects. The downside is that less funds are available for other priorities. Research is needed to determine the appropriate funding level and then have the community ask whether we can afford to make a long-term commitment at that level. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#If | Directing resources towards improving access to sources is a much better way of addressing diversity than any of the other proposals. Suggestion to add ways of improving awareness of the existence of such (new) sources to these "recommendations". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#If | p]edians how to research and could contract with library experts to draw up handlists of sources for topics where coverage is lacking. In many case the resources are out there, but the volunteers have no idea they exist. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#If | Teaching people how to properly research and produce resulting contents acceptable to the Wikimedia projects is key to improve diversity. Everybody that has been around the Art & Feminism initiative have already observed the article massacres, mainly due to the poor preparation of the participants. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Comment | Could you specify stakeholders here? There are definitely a whole range of stakeholders who are fully independent of the Wikimedia movement over which we don't have jurisdiction. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Words | You use the words female and male. Could you please change them into women and men. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Words | Sysops and similar positions should always be chosen primarly based on the candidates competence, not just on their gender to fulfil quotas. That's insulting. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Assumptions (Q2) | The problem of diversity is not within boards, between EDs, and C-levels, but within the communities of editors and contributors with a huge gender gap. What do you propose about the gender gap in the communities? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Assumptions (Q2) | 1) quotas are legal under the local laws where various affiliates operate, 2) gender is the most relevant identity group factor that needs a remedy, 3) quotas will attract more new (particularly female) content creators rather than repel existing content creators, 4) quotas will be legally and or socially acceptable in 2030. Could you please explain your reasoning regarding each of these assumptions? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Q7 | Perhaps the answer to Q7 should be changed to "No"? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Comment 2 | As long as a group of users are dedicated Wikimedians, they should expect support from WMF without regard to race, gender, or any other consideration than "Will this group benefit Wikimedia?". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Comment 2 | Admins/crat elections stand for the post one-at-a-time in all major wikis. Also, software settings allow us to change genders at will and nobody knows about my socio-economic background. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | Anyone who wanted to hold one of these positions would have to declare their: age; disability; language; sexuality; racial and ethnic group/identity; and socio-economic level? If so, to whom would they provide this information? If not, how could the "Recommendation" be enacted or enforced? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | Do the people writing these proposals even understand how we choose administrators, bureaucrats and arbitrators? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | This is going to scare off more women and minorities than the current system does as it would open the door for (more) gender- and race-based harassment. It's already been observed that stating that you are a woman on your userpage increases the amount of vandalism you receive in your userpages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | Following the recommendations, WP:ANON and personality rights do no longer appear to hold for admins and others with advanced rights. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | Asking someone to disclose their identity for something important may be normal in the real world, but this would be an unacceptable barrier for Wikimedia and would ensure a dearth of diversity in important positions for years to come. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | The proposal would be better to actually try to increase diversity among all contributors. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The end of anonymity & confidentiality? | It's mysterious how this would be successfully implemented within our mouvement. At best, we could provide guidelines for elected positions and staff positions in formal organizations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Intended scope: what are leadership positions? | How would the 40:40:20 quota apply to individual leadership roles? If people in the candidate pool do not want to disclose their self-identified characteristics to the public how would that be handled? Are there identity criteria other than gender that are more relevant to assuring diversity? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#New Projects or User Groups | The document recommends that this begin to apply to newly-formed Projects or User Groups. Why does the Working Group believe that this is feasible? Would it be preferable to give each new project or user group two years to establish themselves before making the 40:40:20 quota applicable to them? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#New Projects or User Groups | What are the consequences if a group does not meet the 40:40:20 rule? Will the group be forbidden to install new admins, unless there will be a female or minority candidate? Will current admins be de-administratorized in order to meet the 40:40:20 rule? Is it better to have no ArbCom than an ArbCom with 90 procent male members? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#New Projects or User Groups | User Groups can start off small and often have a narrow focus on a single language or culture, so it is hard to see how many of them would be able to follow a 40:40:20 rule. In many countries it is a criminal offence to be gay, so it might prove difficult to meet any quotas relating to that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#New Projects or User Groups | What would a chapter that has very few women skilled to serve in the board, or has skilled women but none/very few want to serve in the board, do? It's insulting for women that people would approach them asking to fill a role not because of skills and competence, but because of gender, as there is a quota to fill. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#New Projects or User Groups | Remember the key facet isn't "are there any women", it's "are there any women who: want the position; are sufficiently skilled for the position and are not disconcerted by the possibility that they are selected to fill a quota position. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Q1 | What are the en:Stakeholders you are talking about? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Q1 | "Various racial and ethnic communities; of different socio-economic levels" - define!? I'm half bavarian, half hessian, living in Saxony and I'm millionaire. Does this qualify? Or only if I move to Kenya? Is pretending to be homeless the better socio-economic level? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The world already IS diverse | This idea is made mainly by people that living in stark diverse countries as the Unites States. But this did not is so in all parts of the world. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The world already IS diverse | As long not the half of the members of local organizations are female, why they should deserve 50% of the positions? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The world already IS diverse | The fairy tales, that then there will be enough female writers will stay a fairy tale. This idea really could destroy our projecs. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Statement | If there is ever a point at which someone is told they cannot run for a position because they are part of [x] group, we have completely failed the Wikimedia mission. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Quotas and admins | Quotas can be useful if many people compete for a small number of available positions like, for example, a board. In case of admins we have a different situation. We should be grateful for any qualified volunteer who is willing to take the mop and runs for adminship. We should not stop anyone from becoming an admin just because this would be in conflict with a quota. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Studies (NPOV) | You only link studies showing a positive effect. If this was an article on Wikipedia this selective approach would violate neutral point of view. Just a single quick search led to the same amount of studies showing a negative impact. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Studies (NPOV) | Wikipedia is not comparable to a company with an HR department. There are no formal applications before being allowed to write an article. There is anonymity. So all those fancy studies are basically worthless, since they'e not applicable to this project. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Studies (NPOV) | The working groups invested few time in question 4a. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Dangerous assumptions | This proposal assumes that men/women/other are the best, if not only, advocates for their gender. That is a dangerous assumption. There are numerous examples of women being their gender's worst foe, as well as men advocating sincerely & effectively for women. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#User groups | Regarding User Groups, the expression "any 3 people" could be seen as a little bit misleading. The practice seems that there may be small groups of founders but that the groups of participants are usually much larger. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | We would need clarity which bodies are meant and which not, e.g. audit committees or committees that organize an event. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | It is not clear which "committees" within a wiki are meant; what about the jury for the biannual writing contest of German Wikipedia? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | What will happen to an organisation or wiki that does not comply with the quota? Will they loose funding, or will they even loose their affiliate status, or, in the case of a wiki, be shut down? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | Who will evaluate the situation in an organisation or wiki? Who will decide whether it meets the quota requirements? Will office holders be mandated to reveal their real life identity in order to check the gender (or sex?) of a person? Will official documents be required? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | Which are the exact criteria to make you a "diverse" person? Who decides for which country or language community which criterion is relevant? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#To whom does this apply and how to enforce it | If there are only male candidates for a "governing" body, would the WMF prefer no ArbCom or chapter board to be established at all? If a woman announces her candidacy, will she automatically be elected? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Qualified candidates issue | It is hard to convince a qualified candidate to apply for a 'diversity' position. They want to be elected for their qualification, not for their gender/ethnicity/race etc. It might happen that feeling a quota will lead to election of a person who is not qualified/trusted. The more you stress you need a diversity gap filler, the least qualified candidate you get. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#No Male Candidates until Quota Resolved | If this rule was implemented to English Wikipedia admins, it would lock men out of applying as admin candidates for 308 months - just shy of 26 years. That doesn't sound reasonable. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#A technical question | Asking a candidate applying for a position about his sexual preferences, ethnic background, disabilities (to name a few criteria) would clearly violate the law in at least some countries. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Some feedback | Quotas at some levels may be useful, but implementing quotas at every level of wiki administration and governance would not be practical and should not be recommended. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Some feedback | It would be completely impractical to require that every wiki's advanced rights holders maintained the 40/40/20 ratio, as these ratios are not present at the working level. Diversity should be measured against known levels of working-level participation, not statistics of the world's population. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Some feedback | Efforts should be focused on ensuring that men/women/other diverse groups have equal access to administrative/leadership roles, rather than mandating participation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#There's reason for concern | Quotas is an archaic notion from the 1980s and 1990s that many subsequent studies have shown didn't really pan out the way it was expected. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#There's reason for concern | The 40% ratio may put a lot of pressure on those women who publicly identify as women to take on leadership roles that they don't particularly want, and that it could have a paradoxical effect and discourage women from sharing their "personal status". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#There's reason for concern | Women should participate at every level, from fixing typos to chairing boards and everything in between, in any role that they want. They should receive support and opportunities for development. Good projects shouldn't go down the tubes because they haven't managed to attract the mathematically correct ratio of women. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Support | There should be a substancial financial enveloppe for projects / chapters / user group / people achieving this process without being obliged to. Something big and radical is needed to change the direction. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Support | Democracies sometimes are not always good places for equal opportunities and progress. They sometime need a big push to swallow the medecine. This is waht we need : a push. Quotas are just that, a temporary push in the good direction. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Negative impacts | If the recommendation was implemented, certain bodies that are unpopular would have an even harder time to find members. Some demographics may be overburdened and feel forced to participate in more committees and bodies than they would otherwise feel comfortable with. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Negative impacts | This discussion would much benefit from a more thorough approach towards question 4, and any outcome with these considerations may result in a broader acceptance as such. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Wikimedia France | quotas for any affiliates? even the very small ones? The recommenation is present as a target to reach but the calendar may suggest as an obbligation, especially for new every new affiliates. sanction for non-compliance? how to count? each board member goes in a category? or a board member can be in several categories? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Comment | Don't be surprised that the answer is "insufficient proficiency in written English", "not here to contribute to the encyclopedia" or "have nothing to add". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Please, don't use Wikidata for this | Wikidata data model is already stretched thin to host things that are relevant to day-by-day Wikipedian work, but tend to outnumber as items the original scope of the project. This kind of data is better structured and can be more useful in a SWOT analysis, NOT in Wikidata. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Please, don't use Wikidata for this | It's diffficult to see how using Wikidata is beneficial for this goal. A single page, or perhaps a set of pages/subpages, would work much better on a traditional wiki model to identify barriers. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Please, don't use Wikidata for this | Wikidata isn't supposed to be a dumping ground for all of the data in the world. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#How would this information be collected without abrogating user privacy? | Most users don't voluntarily provide the extent of demographic information that would be required in order for the data collected under this recommendation to have much validity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#How would this information be collected without abrogating user privacy? | It's worthwhile to do research on this issue, but putting user demographic information on Wikidata doesn't qualify as research. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Comment | It is strongly recommended or even mandatory if it is widely used - much more than userboxes today. While filling out these forms truthfully is mostly harmless in Western countries this is not universally true. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Citations | There are citations in the document that are not fleshed out. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Highly uncomfortable | There are very valid reasons to not give the impression to new users, that we are Facebook's clan-brothers. Well-meaning-newbies can disclose a lot of info, unknowingly and be subject to doxing attempts. Further, privacy is a fundamental aspect of our project. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Highly uncomfortable | On Wikimedia projects you are expected to contribute quality work. To quote someone from enwiki, a Wikipedian has responsibilities to a Wikipedia reader, not just to other Wikipedians. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Wikidata | Imagine User: pages on Wikidata made as Wikibase entity content model. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Strong oppose | Wikipedia is not Facebook. Privacy should remain to be the fundamendal rule. Disclosing self-identity might be potentially making oneself a lightning rod for harassment. Self-disclosed information is not accurate. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Strong oppose | What would you do with the data and how do you protect the individual data and avoid its misuse? Suppose that two accounts have exactly the same identity group profile -- could that be used as evidence in a sockpuppet investigation? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Strong oppose | Is there a suggestion or assumption that people can authoritatively edit WP articles if they have an identity group that matches the subject? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Strong oppose | You recommendation of storing detailed data on each user is directly contradicted by the recommendations of the RS which wants us not to collect and store very personal data. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Very significant conflict with user privacy principles | A core principle of participation in the movement has always been that one reveals as much or as little about one's personal status as one wants. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Very significant conflict with user privacy principles | Just about every one of the criteria being suggested here is a *current* criterion for suppression if it is posted by anyone other than the user on just about every project. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Very significant conflict with user privacy principles | Even if disclosing personal information wasn't obligatory, new users would feel that as some kind of community expectation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Very significant conflict with user privacy principles | In case of conflicts these informations are used for harassments. Much of this can no longer be suppressed or oversighted as frequently well-known third-party sites are used to prolong this forever. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Very significant conflict with user privacy principles | We should actually increase warnings for new editors advising to be careful when disclosing personal information online. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | There is not enough elaboration on the consequences. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | The working group members did not make explicit enough what are their basic ideas on what a wiki member is and what the community is (or should be). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | This raises the question of what do we think about a wiki identity, and how it does or should relate to the real world identity of a Wikipedian. Should the wiki identity of an individual only be shaped on the actions and merits in the wiki, or should external identities play a bigger role. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | What are our recommendations for newbies? Should we encourage or discourage people to publish a lot of information about themselves? What kind of information we recommend to publish, what not? What are the consequences of encouraging to do so? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | What do we know about the present state? What is the relationship between the external and the wiki internal status of a wiki member? Can you "import" status to Wikipedia; e.g., when you are a professor, or rich, or leading member of a religious group, does this give you status within the wiki community? And is that desirable? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | What about the granularity of the data? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | How truthful do you expect users to be when completing the questionnaire and how does the user's understanding of the categories match the designer's? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#How does this fit into the general idea of wiki identity | If an editor self-identifies as a vegetarian, is he assumed to have bias or expertise when editing those articles? Should we discount or amplify his views? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Comment | The WMF, when it wants to talk to the communities, should talk directly, not via third parties (and not via anonymous role accounts). We don't need a WMF mouthpiece. The idea isn't "Pull another Fram, but talk more next time", it is "Never pull another Fram". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Comment | Having another layer of bureaucracy doesn't aid communication. If the WMF is bad at communicating, its members should get more training and practice, not pass the responsibility on to others. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Comment | In Fram's case, there was a perception that nobody on the Foundation (or T&S specifically) had any real desire to put their name to the non-responsive replies. IIf an ombudsman was just used for the whole thing, the situation would not have improved at all. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Comment | Adding new layers of bureaucracy is never a good idea. If the WMF was cut down in half tomorrow, nobody would notice a difference because there are too many employees doing completely unnecessary things. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | The term "ombudsman" is being used in a non-standard way. The primary role of an ombud is typically ensuring fair treatment, not communication. "Liaison" is the term. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | The idea of an ombudsperson charged with hearing complaints and dealing with Foundation-Project disputes sounded like a good idea. Just having another layer of bureaucracy to engage in legalistic doublespeak isn't going to accomplish much. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | Almost every Foundation community liaison functioned as if it was his job to appear after the Foundation did something that the community saw as a wrong & placate their anger, instead taking action ahead of time by telling the Foundation not to do it because the community would see it as a wrong. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | Every "stakeholder" (wiki? affiliate?) shouldn't select one for a body of ombudspersons. The persons should also not have the task of being a "liaison". The person should have the trust of several parties and not be put in a difficult position between them. The expectations must be clear. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | Any wikimedian, having contributed a significant amount of voluntary work should be intituled to get free legal and psychological support in case of alleged harrassement. We need more of this service integrated in the communities and representing both communities and WMF to identify and solve conflicts before people get harmed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | One person is not enough. We need a ombudscommission and an elected one as well, and we need people who are used to edit and know the wikimedia movement well. We also need people from outside, to give their advice on how decisions could be perceived on a legal and societal basis. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#"Ombudsman" | On enwiki, users engaged in legal action against Wikipedia or its editors are generally blocked until that action is rescinded or concludes. Either they keep editing and risk exacerbating the situation if legal action needs taken, or they end up blocked and effectively Streisand the whole thing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Improving global and cross-community information-sharing | Different sections of the community don't know enough about each other, how they can help each other, what their different needs are, what their different experiences are, and so on. This is a valuable idea that could have some real impacts and spread good and useful practices. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Improving global and cross-community information-sharing | Ombuds ensure policy is followed and that the rules are applied fairly and correctly; in some cases, they may have a role in advocating for a particular party. Ombuds are not communications people, though, and it seems that this recommendation is focused on communication. It might be worthwhile to have a *separate* recommendation specific to Ombudspeople, but it is a bit confusing to group these two concepts together. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Very vague | It's too vague. The recommendation is basically just "improve it". You can make that recommendation for everything without saying anything. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Thoughts for moving toward harmonization | This recommendation should be merged into the RA group proposals. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Wikimedia projects are, and always should be, free content. We absolutely should not permit NC and/or ND licensing; this would destroy that aspect of our movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Foundation can expect an angry mob with torches and pitchforks storming the castle if you attempt to destroy the core policies and guidelines. Criticism should not be causally dismissed without consideration of whether that criticism is a majority or even catastrophic. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Wikimedia projects are and always should host free content. We shall not permit NC and/or ND licensing. This is a holy grail. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Experts are always welcome but collaboration supersedes that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Wikimedia should stay part of the Free Content movement, this is fundamental. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | The "it would be semi- or fully-protected from drive by editing for those sections marked" comment basically means no more IP editing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | If you want to fail at liberating the world through non-free content, you can always fork the Wikimedia projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Widening the inclusion of non-open content is contrary to the entire ethos of the Wikimedia movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Yes to the extent that fair use is not used when it could be, it harms open scholarship. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Answers to question #3 are frightening to say the least. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | None of the proposals actually do something to foster diversity, rather smother it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | If people in disadvantaged communities need more protection and recognition of their contributions by commercial entities, they, sadly, need to create different projects for this. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Comment | Misappropriation and unwanted commercial use of certain content is not Wikimedia's concern. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#"On a governance level"... | What has caused conflict is the WMF grabbing power for itself and failing to consult or communicate adequately. The solution to this is not to oblige volunteers and projects to accept whatever the WMF decrees. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Motivation for ND/NC recommendations | What NY Times text about the modern use or abuse of pictures about slaves in the 19th century, and the other one about a fashion company using names and iconic props of Native Americans, have to do with ND and NC? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Motivation for ND/NC recommendations | The question Q4 is very important: If you make such a proposal that would fundamentally alter our understanding of "free content", you must think through the possible consequences. This generalistic "answer" is totally inappropriate. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Motivation for ND/NC recommendations | We are a free content project, so at the end of the day, if someone does not wish to share their content under a free license, this isn't the proper place for it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Request for explicit sources with respect to "re-colonizing" | None of the four sources appears to directly support the claim in the recommendation or provide any specific evidence for why this is an issue for Wikipedia specifically. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case against NC and ND | ND does not address the issue of misappropriation, it addresses the rather different issue of derivative works. NC might not be violated if no one was being charged for them, and ND would not be violated if it was a faithful reproduction. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case against NC and ND | It would be helpful if the Working Group considered compiling specific examples to discuss, where the cases are not currently allowed on Wikimedia projects, and by not allowing them, or requiring an "unconstrained" free license, is a colonization issue or re-enforces existing systemic bias. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case against NC and ND | Whatever reassurance that those NC and ND conditions give you, you should know that they are temporary and will lapse in at most the next century or two. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Do not contaminate Wikipedias with pseudo-free licences, start alternative projects. | If the WMF wish to start new projects using NC, ND and similar licences, and to remove requirements for reliable sourcing, they can create new projects to do this, but should not under any circumstances call them Wikipedias. There may be a good niche for such projects, but this must be done in a way that does not contaminate Wikipedia or destroy its credibility. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Suggestion: sources to support NC and ND licensing | The proposal should explain how NC and ND licenses will benefit this issue. If possible, give more sources, that address the doubts. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Terms of Use for the WMF | The recommendations regarding the role between the WMF and the communities are completely backwards. It is not time to extend the terms of use. To the contrary, the board should create "terms of use" that the foundation has to comply with in their dealings with the communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Terms of Use for the WMF | The WMF must respect the five pillars. It has the role of a facilitator, not a leader. It shouldn't interfere with the decision processes and should recognize that it is, by far, less diverse than the different communities representing all cultures of the world. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Terms of Use for the WMF | Local groups are more aware of local problems than are people in Californian offices; suggestions from the WMF would be welcome, to provide some impetus for positive local change ... WMF orders and universal obligations are likely to be anti-diversity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#A good way to reduce contributions - "each time an editor acts anonymously as an IP" | "each time an editor acts anonymously as an IP" - that's a very good way to reduce contributions by "outsiders" so Wikipedians are not disturbed by IPs or other folks. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change? | It'd be appreciated if the Diversity Working Group gave more thought to the assumptions being made to justify this recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change? | What assumptions are you making regarding the legal liability that comes from having the WMF take over content responsibility for the sake of diversity and Knowledge Equity? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change? | What estimate have you made regarding the costs of implementing this new content responsibility? If a minority viewpoint will be subject to Western standards in a Western legal system in terms defamation, how do you propose to navigate the gap between the goal of broadcasting authentic viewpoints and defamation concerns? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Q4a. Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change? | When asked to outline the negatives, it's clear that they can't imagine any. This is literally a problem with *all* the recommendations given here. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Support Terms of Use changes | Making ToU clear, accessible and up-to-date is sensible. The community responsibility part should be ok too if the end result gains wide community acceptance. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Support Terms of Use changes | Independently from the licensing questions, there's a number of sentences that should be supported. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#How to protect from uploading possibly free content as non-free? | We should focus on how to communicate that the use of these licenses do not benefit the editor, or Wikipedia as a whole, or its users, except in a few marginal cases, when it is a necessity. The use of non-free licenses should be marginal as a result, but allow to host content about underrepresented communities, while respecting and protecting their cultural heritage. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GNU Free Documentation License | GFDL must die. It's very confusing for a new users to understand what they need to do to comply with using it and there's little good faith reason why newly added content should be licensed with it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#“Western-idea of academic-based knowledge” | Academic-based knowledge is based upon research methods that permit intersubjective verifiability. This is an universal principle that works across all cultures and lays the foundations for our pillars of the Wikipedia projects. Fortunately, academic research universities exist around the world, not just Western countries. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#“Western-idea of academic-based knowledge” | It would be helpful to explore how access programs such as The Wikipedia Library can be provided to smaller communities. Likewise, it could be a good approach to donate books and equipment (like a camera) to Wikipedians in third world countries. That this would be infinitely more helpful than to consider the abolishment of our pillars. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#“Western-idea of academic-based knowledge” | The ability to incorporate reliable sources from China or Nepal is usually not limited by a supposed lack of sources in Eastern regions, but by the language barrier and online access issues. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#“Western-idea of academic-based knowledge” | Can you give some examples of what the group has in mind by the phrase "other ways of knowing"? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#“Western-idea of academic-based knowledge” | How would you decide what is authoritative and appropriate if the usual high-quality source-based "anyone can edit" model is ditched? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Why not new licenses? | Why not a new license? The Spanish-speaking community suggested a CC-EDU, that would work as a NC one, but completely free when used in educational projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Talk about "decolonization" might actually be colonization in disguise | Talk about "decolonization" might actually be colonization in disguise. There's a de-emphasis on Western attitudes in favor of non-Western ones discussed mainly by people from Western Europe & North America. What do the non-Western people think of this? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Talk about "decolonization" might actually be colonization in disguise | If all this proposal does is perpetuate more useless planting of seedlings in the desert, then it is just another example of the Foundation betraying the volunteer communities in the pursuit of employee careerism. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Talk about "decolonization" might actually be colonization in disguise | "Oral history" (= primary sources with all the problems coming along with them) or "alternative/traditional healing methods" are not the solution. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#NC and ND practicalities | How do we manage existing CC licensed material and ensure derivatives of these files aren't licensed with NC and/or ND licenses? How do we handle non CC but still CC-BY compatible licenses and ensure derivatives of those files aren't uploaded with more restrictive licenses? How do we stop contributors re-uploading their work with more restrictive licences? How do we ensure any new uploads under the ND license are safe from derivative works? How do we protect our downstream re-users who have commercial requirements or whose use strays into derivative works? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#NonFreeWiki | One way to make it very clear is to have a separate project for non-free and pseudo-free media. Keep Commons the default, and make it necessary to use a prefix to use the not-so-free media files. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#NonFreeWiki | The Draft should mention (have mentioned) NonFreeWiki / FairUseWiki / UnCommons and the Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Most WikiPedia projects already allow the use of non-free content | What will this proposal add to the EDP policy? Is this proposal an extension of that policy to all the wikimedia projects? The rules of EDP are reasonably strict. Will this proposal relax those criterias, such as: "No free equivalent is available", "Minimal usage"? What are the pros and cons of allowing non-free content on Commons, compared to the pros and cons of starting another project similar to Commons, only for non-free content? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Most WikiPedia projects already allow the use of non-free content | There have been proposals to allow hosting of non-free media on Commons, but the problem that occurs with this proposal is that due to legislation, each usage requires a specific explanation of why such usage is permissible, and by hosting a file on Commons, we lose the ability to ensure compliance with this. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Most WikiPedia projects already allow the use of non-free content | How we would communicate changes to our own users, to external re-users, and to our downstream project re-users, and to ensure they check their re-use is compliant with either fair use legislation or the proposed NC and/or ND licences? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Proposal to introduce Non-Commercial and No-Derivative licenses | While it might increase slightly the scope of material we could host, it would erode the ability of people to re-use our content and would undermine the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Facilitating access to orphan works | The topic of facilitating access to orphan works is completely lost in the final recommendations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | "Re-users" are outside users who make use of Wikipedia/Wikimedia content, not the editors themselves (and re-users are of course not beholden to the terms of use). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | The desire to have "ND" sections of text is completely against the "free" movement ethos that Wikimedia was founded on. The WMF does not define that term. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | There are many editors who contribute *because* of the free content policy, and we could lose those editors, for example. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | It's uncertain whether it's legally possible to move Wikipedia off of the current licenses, which means there can not be any ND nor NC sections, and the recommendations should be aware they need to stay within that reality. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | Regarding ND-licensed photos, if there is a feature to make articles available on smaller devices and they are cropping images to save some visual space, that could then be a problem where it is not today. None of the negatives of this far-reaching change are discussed at all. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | If a re-user copies an article from Wikipedia, typically the illustrations are all OK to be used with it, since the context is the same (or should be). If NC images are allowed, now that allows only *some* re-users to copy that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#GFDL Invariant sections | It would be prudent for WMF Legal Counsel to explain what parts of the proposal they believe WMF could implement and what parts are legally impossible, with further input from the WMF Developers who can explain what is technically impossible. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | Rather than hypothetical claims or analytical thinking that bias must exist, case studies from Wikimedia projects would be a far better way to convince the wider community that a change is needed, and what changes might be effective. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | The current recommendations appear to randomly throw in almost entirely irrelevant, misquoted and misleading sources. These should be removed as they give a fake impression of the text being based on reliable sources, when the recommendation text may simply be personal opinions with zero reliable sources. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "Strengths and weaknesses in a human rights-based approach..." - the source is very high level and throws no light at all on the recommendation, it's entirely unhelpful and irrelevant. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | Including sources which are so high level they prove nothing, or sources which might actually demonstrate the opposite of the point being made in this recommendation, just shows sloppy thinking and an absence of relevant research. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "Scaling up from the grassroots and the top down..." - source is irrelevant. It includes discussion of "multi level arrangements", but provides no evidence that is directly relevant to the recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "Classical Versus Grassroots Development", Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine - it's not helpful in illustrating the recommendation apart from giving a false impression that the statements being made in the recommendation are built on evidence hidden in sources elsewhere. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "Who Should Own Photos of Slaves? The Descendants, not Harvard, a Lawsuit Says" - as an example this is inflammatory rather than illustrative. These pictures do not relate to ND/NC. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "Appropriating traditional culture..." - this source is so irrelevant, it appears to have been slapped as an afterthought in the recommendations based on a Google search for some links with the same keywords. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Case studies to support recommended changes | "The Foundation views its responsibility as being..." - this is a misattribution and it cherry-picks a part of a sentence from a personal letter. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Test big changes in user experience | Metrics about what makes the change successful should be defined and after a few months there should be a review whether or not the feature provided the desired effects in changed behavior and whether that's worth the loss in contributions. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#What the hell is the recommendation? | The working group might have misunderstood the GNU license. The recommendation should be reframed to remove mention of the GNU license, since it's essentially "let's do exactly what the GNU license prohibits". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Western knowledge | Paradigm shift towards accommodating concepts of Western idea of academic-based knowledge is not at all a black and white territory contra the image projected by the recommendations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Western knowledge | Scantily written recommendations (and their clarifications) have got far more to do with sociopolitical activism than harvest in net improvement of encyclopedia. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Western knowledge | It's neat intellectual dishonesty to discount the volumes of literature that covers the plethora of issues surrounding these newer forms of knowledge-models/scholarship models and give a patronizing answer to the boilerplate-query, that explicitly asks for the negative impacts. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Western knowledge | There should be much more academic debate about the merits of this shift before resources are expended to implement it. This is not something that must be resolved quickly without pilot studies and focus groups to avoid an irrevocable mistake. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Comment | The system should enable revert so that any contributor can withdraw his or her recordings easily. -- Sorry, contributions cannot be reverted at the whim of its contributor. Changing this practice would allow select individuals to have unchecked veto power over their contributions, which would damage our mission, as well as favor one group of contributors over the rest of the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Comment | Excellent idea. Sounds like a very worthwhile project. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Interviewee licensing | Must an interviewee be notified about the licensing and copyright? Would an interviewee agree to allow an interview to be used commercially and agree to have it released under an "open content" license? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Support | Other projects, such as Transcribe Smithsonian are beginning to transcribe their oral history archives, which are fine primary source material, and the finding aid should be a good citation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Don't care | Don't care as long as it doesn't affect major wikis. Open new projects and do whatever you wish. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | It takes time to record and re-record audio files. It can take quite a long time to read an entire Wikipedia article out loud. Given that an article may change every day, it would be necessary to continually re-record parts of articles or entire articles just to maintain the usefulness of the recordings. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | There are/were not enough volunteers. Most active contributors already have their hands full writing articles. Serious work would need to be done recruiting enough volunteers to make this usable, and that energy could perhaps be better spent recruiting people to produce and improve content. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | Very few new recordings are created because there is little incentive for volunteers to contribute to an abandoned project that will never be good enough to be actually useful to the average visually impaired person who wants to listen to an arbitrary article. The project will never be viable unless there is a significant investment into creating and maintaining new recordings. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | The project would need to maintain standards for how good a recording needs to be to be retained on the site and shown to readers/listeners. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | A more feasible way to approach this would be to develop either improved screen reader software or improved text-to-speech software, since this would take much less human effort and would be able to cover a much larger base of articles. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | A database of voice recordings not based on Wikipedia and not containing interviews only, could be significantly more useful, due to the inherent linguistic and ethnographic value of storing such recordings. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#Scalability | Being able to automatically transcribe and translate most recordings would be a necessity due to the possibility of numerous copyright violations being uploaded. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#More ambitious: An improved Wikimedia Commons APP | In the age of Netflix and HBO We should be more ambitious: a Wikimedia Commons APP. Alice in Wonderland? Popeye the sailor? Then do it. Make it TV compatible and, well, maybe Wikimedia Commons has not the best film collection, but let's make files easy for users. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#What about sign languages? | Sign languages are not written, but they are not oral either. A project that is not based on written languages is the best opportunity they have to be included in the Wikimedia movement, since VideoWiki does not seem to be designed for that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#What about sign languages? | Recording all signs in a language in different videos and stringing them together is very impractical. Not only would it sound horrible, it wouldn't make sense either because the recordings wouldn't have conjugations/declensions. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#What about sign languages? | There's been a lot of technical work done on it, but some necessary software is blocked so long as the WMF doesn't commit any resources to reviewing the code that was written. This should be a priority, given that there are many tens of millions of people who's native language is a sign language. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#What about sign languages? | Most people who learn or speak a sign language can't read it because it's just not taught in general sign language education, unless you have some kind of specialisation in linguistics or are just interested in this writing system. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 10#This recommendation could be expanded | You might want to consider making this more expansive and recommend that serious consideration be given to opening new projects in a range of languages that permit or are focused on material that may not meet inclusion criteria for the existing projects. Wiki-Oral should just be the start; there is a lot of information and knowledge out there that simply doesn't make a good fit into any of our existing projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Comment | Sounds like a good idea. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Comment | Such a newsletter would end up having significant perverse incentives. Very little of the core mission of Wikipedia involves diversity (mainly the topic selection) and anything beyond this will bite Wikimedia in the arse as the communities "pander to the newsletter" regardless of how much of an improvement or detriment this is to the projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Separate project, sub-project of a parent project, or mailing list? | Is this going to be a separate proposed project, a sub-project of a project (like Wikipedia), or a mailing list? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Separate project, sub-project of a parent project, or mailing list? | Doesn't Wikipedia already have Signpost, which used to be weekly but now reduced to monthly mostly due to declining number of staff? Also, would the diversity newsletter have the same fate as Signpost, which (again) is a monthly newsletter? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Separate project, sub-project of a parent project, or mailing list? | Who is supposed to write it? Who decides about the content of the newsletter? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#User pages? | "The aim of developing user pages is not to encourage personal relationships but to facilitate coordination and assess the community diversity." - How does it relate to the "recommendation"? There's nothing about user pages in the text above. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Oppose another monthly or more frequent publication | mw:Newsletter:The Community Tech Newsletter has been stalled since January this year. Newsletters require a lot of effort and resources to survive. Lower frequency (quarterly or bi-annually) would be better. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 11#Wikimedia Space | It'd disputable whether a newsletter is the ideal format to distribute news nowadays, even less when targeting readers underrepresented in our movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Comment | Harmless but seems redundant; we already have projects in tons of different languages. We might do better to focus more on recruiting editors who speak those languages to work on them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Step 1 | Wonder how long it takes to translate this recommendation into at least some major languages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#What IS the actual recommendation? | What is the actual recommendation? The topic is linguistic diversity, I get it. Something about software, too. But what exactly? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#What IS the actual recommendation? | If you want to start a Wikipedia in a language that doesn't have one, then start one. The process exists. If there is a problem with starting such a Wikipedia, then change the process. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#What IS the actual recommendation? | Google provides a fairly decent translation instantaneously - not the quality we want of course but good enough to give you a decent idea of the topic. Shouldn't we just concentrate on getting more stuff up in one language, any language? No worry that much about making all of it available in multiple languages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#What IS the actual recommendation? | The Working Group must make a tangible recommendation and then present a cost-benefit analysis of the recommendation. For example, if the recommendation is that the WMF sponsor simultaneous translation at meetings then which languages will be supported, and what would be the cost? As the number of decision-making groups increases, the translation costs will increase as well. Are you willing to limit your recommendation to just the top 5 most frequently spoken languages, or are your recommendations extending to 7,000 different languages? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#What IS the actual recommendation? | When will a more complete recommendation be made available for community comment? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Vague | The recommendations are too vague barring technical stuff. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Vague | Your ideas have been proposed by the community much ago. Global templates/modules have been asked for years but sternly neglected by WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Nous have ήδη | There are at the moment 294 active Wikipedias. Pity you aren't informed in detail about Wikimedia. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Harassment at its best | Making a recommendation for language diversity only in English is derisive to all non native speakers. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#This recommendation is confusing | Are you saying "everything should be made available in every language"? There's plenty of evidence already that just creating a project in a language does not mean that the project will thrive, grow, or be useful even to readers/users of that language. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Better tools for Incubator / test wiki sites, not auto-generated content | Incubator needs to have editing tools equivalent to major languages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Better tools for Incubator / test wiki sites, not auto-generated content | Relying on templates and auto-generated articles can put people off in the beginning stages of a new encyclopedia. Auto-generated articles are of low quality. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Comment on Q 3.2 - Indigenous communities may have better things to do than rewrite software documentation | Communities with lesser-spoken languages translate software documentation into their language can be a barrier. Small communities aren't necessarily interested in spending their time translating technical material. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Comment on Q 5 | The material an indigenous community needs for its purposes may be different from what you would write for English speakers. Simply providing more text to improve machine translation isn't an appropriate goal for all languages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Comment on Q 3.1 - What will change | It'd be easier to hold regional meetings in regional languages, and provide English language translation with video. A serious commitment to multi-lingual meetings would require equipment, and a financial commitment | |
| Meta-Wiki | 12#Wikimedia France | Be vigilant to the linguistic diversity of the main events of the movement and encourage social and income diversity of the movement: 1) events: a difficult question to treat but almost never raised, no serious thought; there are scholarships but the system itself is humiliating 2) projects: develop actions in the area of social diversity, non-graduates, poor, single mothers, isolated peasants, disadvantaged neighborhoods, etc. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#This draft gearing toward English Wikipedia? | Looks like the current draft is about mostly English Wikipedia, isn't it? If that's not it, how does this draft address issues at non-English projects, like Croatian Wikipedia and Azerbaijan Wikipedia, which were plagued with content and community issues addressed at Meta-wiki? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Notability & reliable sources | Suspicion that the recommendation is the work of specific individuals who have had problems with their articles concerning notability, & reliable/verifiable sources. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Notability & reliable sources | We could modify the rules to accept the most reliable sources available. In some cases this would use secondary sources; in others it would be the present the unadorned facts of primary sources, properly attributed & the absolute minimum of interpretation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Notability & reliable sources | A specific proposal is what is needed to improve diversity; vague suggestions based on vague complaints will not only fail to fix the problem, but weaken our methods to assure we are writing the best possible content. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Notability & reliable sources | We shuldn't start accepting sources that don't meet the reliability criteria. Rather, since those sources exist but are hard to access, why doesn't WMF use its rather substantial clout to help us get access to them? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Notability & reliable sources | Everything can be part of a family of open knowledge projects but it is a mistake to think that everything can be part of an encyclopaedia. Diversity in sources and in methods of gathering and sharing is great. An encyclopaedia on its own cannot be diverse in this way because it must be what it is, or be nothing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Much of this can be accomplished without changing either reliable source or notability standards | This seems to be more an issue of better educating both the existing editing community and new editors. Notability and reliable source standards vary from project to project and are applied by those local editing communities; there aren't global standards for these concepts, and I don't think you've made the case for them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Much of this can be accomplished without changing either reliable source or notability standards | It'd be a better idea if the recommendation were, "We need to have community conversations regarding the on-going standards and goals for our encyclopedia projects including improving quality assurance measures to meet those standards and goals". | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Much of this can be accomplished without changing either reliable source or notability standards | The main problem isn't necessarily "the criteria" so much as (some) people (sometimes) implementing the criteria unfairly. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 13#Much of this can be accomplished without changing either reliable source or notability standards | Imagine a world in which editors don't have to guess whether a news website in an unfamiliar language is reputable based on its aesthetic model, because the sum of all human knowledge about newspapers, magazines, and academic journals was already in Wikipedia. |
PartnershipsEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | 1- Which are suitable partners in the Free Knowledge Ecosystem?
Google, Microsoft, Facebook? The Framework should prioritize institutions who work for real Free Knowledge, like Mozilla or Creative Commons. Community, both here and in other conversations, wants barriers and clear cases when partnering with for-profit institutions who work with private software like Google. We must know which are the limits, and if We partner with them, they should release the results for free and with free licenses.
2- Partnerships should occur in the local context when possible. It would be a mistake that, when most recommendations ask for adaptation in the local context, that WMF or a global entity would create big partnerships from top to bottom. If applied ignoring local communities, it can harm relationships between local communities and global movement structures.
3- To cooperate is a good idea when the vision is shared. That implies that partners must understand Wikimedia vision and collaborative, volunteer projects.
Opt-in/Opt-out clauses should be implemented when negotiating such partnerships. We have a lot of doubts about the possibility of having an external partner as a thematic hub for Wikimedia movement. To release data in Commons or Wikidata is not being part of Wikimedia movement, We have values broader than 'just editing' or using certain platforms.
5- Checkpoints should be recomendations. Centralizing is incomptabile with point 3 of the recommendations of this very group. All priorities and Central documents proposed in every WG, should be defined in an open process with participation of the editing community.
6- Unified entry point: Incompatible with decentralization. We disagree with the assumption made: in our experience with GLAM, all of the partners were able to find us.
We don't believe that bigger partners interested on Wikipedia are unable to find WMF or any other affiliate. To contact with WMF should be as easy as sending an e-mail. The main website of Wikimedia Foundation has a section clearly visible to contact them with a business@ e-mail account. We can't believe that a new entity (with budget and staff) should be created to receive an e-mail.
If that wasn't the proposal, please, redo the text. We'll be glad to read it. We don't understand what problem does this adress. If there are problems that only few people can solve (like Magnus might be), then We should invest in CB.
A new infraestructure to adress dobuts that community should solve isn't needed. Invest in CB. A problem of our community is that We don;t have many crossfeeding with other techinical communities.
3- As said before, Our community doesn't has many crossfeed with other technical communities. Solving that is good. The assumption that We offer visibility instead of product is true. And that Wikipedia might have less visibility in the future is also true. Maybe We should be creating our own Siri. After all, it relies in Wikidata! Our doubt comes when recognizing: How? We don't want paid editing. Barnstars, blog posts, tweets... that's ok. Which donations do we recognize? If we 'reward' economic donations, we might endanger our independence and credibility. About 'giving thanks' to a partner for donating a lot of content, it is ok. But not in exchange of money. 4- We don't believe that lack of documentation of previous cases is a barrier to new partnerships. It may help to grow (and every WG asks for more documentation) but this is not a barrier. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | If previously I’ve found some recomendations that were half cooked, this one is directly raw. They are in redaction/reflection/study phase. That We need a mark to work with partners is obvious. We don’t need comments: We need material to discuss.
That We need to document processes is super-obvious to me. When doing partneships, when going Wikimania or when doing whatever we do with money of other people (donors). |
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| French language community | Broadly shared community views across multiple channels: Village Pump, Twitter, IRL. | Strongly include editing communities in partnership projects : The 'random editor' almost never hears about partnerships, so they never benefit from it (and the partner doesn't benefit from their contribution in return). | |
| French language community | 2 GLAM cultural institutions who provided written feedback to directed questions. Feedback is validated and shared by additional conversations IRL with Wikimedia France employees, volunteer event organizers in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, plus Liaison personal experience of 3 years work with GLAM institutions. | partners currently appreciate :
personalized training in immersion with competent people
discovering the possibilities offered by the galaxy of Wikimedia projects tools are complex licence issues difficult to include contribution in work time (already many tasks to do) needs: ideally, have one person from staff, nay an entire team, to contribute on a regular basis |
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| French language community | Feedback from one employee at WMCH, drawing from personal experience with volunteers and partners | training GLAM staff for Wikimedia projects works better when done within the broader scope of "digital" issues
GLAMs need to be able to measure their contributions' impact (to justify why they do it) so we need tools to measure this (WMCH is currently testing a tool for this)
for volunteers:
all their expenses need to be covered, including babysitting
offer volunteers easy access to training about wikimedia projects and tools ensure training of GLAM staff (training of professionals cannot rely of volunteers only)
write reports to help GLAMs justify their investment in Wikimedia projects when talking to public authorities (who fund them) - these reports can afterwards be used to convince new partners.
build partnerships on the long term so that we have lasting projects and not one-shots
The WMF should better inform its affiliates of its GLAM (and other) activities in their countries ("we sometimes learn from our partners that Jimmy Wales or some other figure from the Foundation is coming to Berne/Zurich because they have been invited to his conference...while we haven't - to our partners's astonishment") - similar case in Canada. |
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| Algeria strategy salon | In-person event with 17 participants | Prerequisites
Succeeding in establishing successful partnerships requires for each entity, whether it is a regional users group,a thematic group or a chapter to :
Have a legal form for the entity.
Create regional associations.
Establish a periodic strategy.
Put an annual plan (for events - collaborations - goals).
Expand the community through volunteers. Everywhere in the world, one needs to identify their potential partners. In Algeria for example:
Associations with the same goals
Educational and knowledge institutions.
G.L.A.M organizations.
Other entities interested in open knowledge.
State-owned companies. Any regional users group, thematic group, chapter or even a single person should establish a method for finding future partners. It is better to identify a single target, as it gives more chances to succeed. In Algeria one idea to focus about is the development of local content and find partners who has the means to help us do it. To do this, if a partner is involved, the regional users group, thematic group, chapter or even a single person must have the tools to evaluate and measure their potential partner. How to develop a partnership? Identify the targeted themes Define the needs of each project Find volunteers to start partnerships. Contact the organizations interested in different areas. Collaborate with the science clubs at universities. Target the right people. Create, build a network of contacts (directory). How to keep a partnership? Develop a win-win relationship. Set up a work schedule with the partner. Find partners who have the same goals. Find screen partners. Enhance the partnership with the partner. Renew partnerships. |
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| Georgia strategy salon | 10 participants at in-person event | Wikimedia Foundation should make more efforts to start partnerships with institutions such as universities, libraries, government agencies, educational institutions, museums, galleries, etc. The Wikimedia Foundation should also help and encourage the foundation’s affiliations to start partnerships with various institutions, especially libraries, museums and educational institutions. WMF should have a clear strategy for building partnerships, it should also give this strategy to its affiliates, especially user groups that don't have bureaucratic apparatus and professionals to create partnerships. A closer partnership of the WMF with universities and educational institutions will help increase the popularity of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in response to the anti-PR campaign of Wikipedia. The WMF should help establish partnerships between its affiliations, which will strengthen relations within the Wikimedia movement, as well as the sustainable development of the entire movement. |
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| Maithi Wikimedians User Group stratgy salon | 19 people at in-person event | Find the organization with same goals or have interest in Open source information. Make an annual plan or specific projects needs before proposing it to government agencies or with any local organization. Recruit volunteers from different locality, it helps your community to grow as well as to reach wide number of peoples. Target the right people from the government entity to show your mission and goals. To make your voice heard efficiently, gain the legal status and build a good capable team. |
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| Igbo user group strategy salon | 17 people at in-person event | it is an arrangement where parties, known as partners, agree to cooperate to advance a mutual interest. The discussion focused on: Opportunities and challenges related to building partnerships in local, regional and global levels. How we can scale the work that we do beyond our capacity and reach.
Collaboration with other Organisation and movement.
The move in our strategic direction with opportunities for broader impact.
We looked at the things limiting us, that is situations that don't help us in Partnership: Our technologies (Not user-friendly to accommodate collaboration from institutions)
Most of our partnerships are project-based
From our discussions, we decided to make a list of Organisations we should partner with locally as an affiliate and as a movement.
For local partnership: National Library
Center for memories
Ministry of Education
MTN Foundation
Heritage Bank
BBC Igbo
On a global level:
UNESCO
UNICEF
Disney World
Nickelodeon
BBC
Al Jazeera
GOOGLE
The questions asked:
Question 1:
How do we build capacities to successfully work together, especially in regions where we still lack sustainable partnerships.
suggestions:
This can be achieved by engaging partnership consultants to develop strategies to improve Partnership.
Use Partnership consultants to train key people in the movement and position them as partnership strategist in different regions of concern. These people will ensure collaborations in major projects, scrutinise partnership opportunities before engagements and develop frameworks for partnerships in the movement.
Question 2:
Which areas do we need partners, what partners do we want to work with?
Suggestions
We grouped the areas as follows:
Knowledge access
Collaboration is essential in this area to provide free or affordable access to educational content. Partnership with companies in The Telecommunication Industry, like> Vodacom Group
Orascom Telecom
Maroc Telecom, etc.
It was pointed out that we can partner with mobile phone companies to include software or chip that will store educational content from Wikimedia projects into phones. Collaboration is essential to have relevant content that reflects all human knowledge.
Learning Institutions like:
Nigerian Universities
War Museums
Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters.
3.Knowledge kits and teaching aids
Collaboration is essential here to provide knowledge in a way that diverse people can use it irrespective of age and other factors. We can collaborate with:
App developers
Gadget companies
Question 3:
What structural, including technical, changes might we need to make to be more partner-friendly?
Sugestions: Encourage partnership in our project structure and the approval of major projects and grants. For example, we can insist that projects like Wiki Loves Africa must be executed with partners that will play vital roles in the success of the project. replies: To have a good MOU that is understood by all involved. To have a brand value and Integrity To duly recognise and appreciate partners (especially external partners) through certificates and other means deemed fit. |
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| Wikimedia Taiwan youth strategy salon | 22 peoplt at in-person event | In today we discussed the difficulties Wikimedia Taiwan's partners face while they try to cooperate with us. How to choose suitable cooperative partners? In our former experience, the reasons for conflicts between Wikipedia and our partners used to belong to our partners themselves. Considering our standpoint, if our partners fail to demonstrate their ambition, or being inactive in their activities. Wikipedia Taiwan is hard to find a reasonable cause to continue this cooperation. In the next discussing, we considered that if our partners simply satisfy with the roles as observers, would they be willing to collaborate with Wikipedia Taiwan? We didn't think the answer would be positive. Because the Wiki's guidance for rookies is extremely unfriendly. In the situation of lacking actual guidance from members of communities, the newcomers are hard to exactly understand the models of functioning and cooperation of Wikipedia Taiwan. Should we provide the method of consultation of Wiki? That's a possible way, but first, we should reduce the misuses of the newcomers. In our experience, rookies usually expect the tutorial from 0% to 100%, without the longing of learning, but hoping the assistance of experiencers, it might cause our manpower wasted. Some local communities with less scale haven't communicated with Wikipedia Taiwan yet. However, we need to contact them on our own initiative. To sum up, we need to approach more non-wiki communities to know what we need to prepare before discussing future projects with them. |
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| Wikimedia Thailand strategy salon | 6 person in-person event | It is unclear who is responsible for doing sponsorship (affiliate or WMF). Guidelines for partnership and partnership ‘committee’ should be created. Establishing a partnership can be difficult for new and small affiliates. Newly established affiliates and small user groups might have difficulty in doing partnership due to the lack of legal status. As a result, collaboration with external organizations usually come in a form of sponsorship rather than partnership. A partnership must be mutualistic, which means that both parties gain benefits. For sponsorships, only one party gains benefits which explains why collaborations tend to be project based (short-lived) and not sustainable. The lack of legal status hinders the credibility of the organization and makes partnership more difficult. For brand recognition, it is usually the WMF that other organizations want to partner with, not the affiliate. Some may argue that it is the WMF who should be responsible for partnership. Examples of previous partnerships established by the WMF include collaboration with Google and UNESCO, which are international organizations. However, these organizations may not be geographically available in certain parts of the world. Due to limitations as such, we propose that affiliates should be the one who initiate partnership. The formal partnership agreement if possible should be signed by the affiliate on behalf of the WMF. Partnership platform for potential partners should be established. Partnership can also be initiated from the outside-in, and not necessarily from inside-out. A partnership platform should be created to ensure that third party organizations know how they can be part of our movement and in what way they can be involved. Different organizations may require different models of partnership due to different resources they can provide. Some organizations may be more comfortable providing financial resource, while others can provide technical specialty, audience or volunteers. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R1 | What is meant by "partnership framework"? If it's about teaching how to approach institutions, offering advice, collecting experience, then it's OK. In contrary, this shouldn't mean more employees producing unaccessible documentation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R4 | Have there been occasions where a lack of shared knowledge hurt the Wikimedia movement? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | If the movement selects its next round of partners based on "knowledge equity", then it may be perceived as adopting a non-neutral point of view. A balanced set active partnerships (for example working with established GLAMS like the British Museum) as well as novel partners like indigenous peoples might be a more acceptable approach. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | The priority for selecting partnerships should be based on the capacity of our partners and their ability to deliver reliable content in the most efficient manner. The partnership process should develop a scorecard of criteria for accepting new partners, and the criteria should be much more sophisticated than "does the partner strengthen knowledge equity?" | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | New partnerships should be reviewed by an objective group representative of the entire community rather than just WMF staff or people who have a close interest in the subject matter of the proposed partnership. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | It's questionable whether there is a broad consensus as to the priority order of the list under Q2-2. The author would put Content partnerships in the first phase and defer access partnerships for a few years. Access issues evolve over time, so a desirable solution today, may be obsolete as the internet evolves between the present and 2030. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | There is a serious concern that "content partnerships" and "data partnerships" provide non-promotional NPOV content and data. The Working Group should develop detailed criteria for partners to avoid such problems. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R5#Priority for Knowledge Equity | There should be a standard of conduct for partners. It could contain: 1) No paid editing of WP main space articles by partner employees, 2) No artificial pressure to promote articles for quality award, 3) No "contests" to create competition between editors, 4) Labeling an employee as a "Wikipedian in Residence" should not be an automatic, blanket exemption from following all other rules. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R6#Very elitist approach | Having a single entry point is irrealistic and not the best way to empower wikimedian volunteers. In most cases, partnerships do happen thanks to human relationships, during events such as conferences. Sending a potential partner's official to a platform with unknown individuals not related with the event participants would be ineffective. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R6#Very elitist approach | Single entry point raises lot's of question of who would be in charge of that entry point. And what about the very negative feeling for the regular wikipedian who would not be empowered to engage into building such partnership but would have to hand out that to others? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R6#Very elitist approach | The best approach is one that involves volunteers. On the one hand, the Foundation should provide support for those who want to reach out to other groups for various reasons. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q1 R6#Very elitist approach | We need complete transparency in order to coordinate partnerships, evaluate their effectiveness and police COI. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R1#Comment | This is something direly needed for years. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R1#Comment | The recommendation does not reflect on how partnerships work in the open & free movement. When a museum wants to cooperate with us, that partnership typically does not start with us approaching them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R2#Partnerships in the open & free movement tend to start with being open | The software we produce is hard for third parties to use, our APIs are not user-friendly, our external tools tend to be very hard to discover for non-Wikimedian audiences. This is a gap in technical partnership strategy | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R2#Ambiguous wording | "Development, Research, Investment and Improvement of existing tools to help organize content creation by the professional network partners" is ambiguous. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R3 | Recommendation to partner with folks working on machine translation. We should invest in our own engineers and infrastructure supporting machine translation, especially between minority languages and script variants. We should build clusters specifically for training translation (and other) deep learning models. These technologies have the potential to supercharge our work by letting us erase barriers between "big" and "little" wikis and more effectively work together. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R5#A database for complete transparency | Each partnership should sign a written partnership agreement, and a PDF of that agreement should be available to the community. The names and contact information for the main contact person should be available as well as a full financial disclosure of how much funds are commited, any unusual restrictions on the editorial independence of the partnership participants, and how will the success of the project be evaluated and by whom. Links to progress reports and any final evaluation should be in the database. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R5#A database for complete transparency | Any member of the community should be free to evaluate the success and track record of related partnerships. Informed decisions should be possible to be made as to whether to expand an existing partnership or form a related, separate partnership. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R5#A database for complete transparency | Related database should be created as a "job clearinghouse" for hiring partnership staff or Wikipedians-in-Residence. In order to avoid allegations of discriminatory selection processes, each opportunity should be posted on a central list of available positions, and each year, the WMF should summarize the data. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R6 | Develop policies regarding 1) conflict of interest, 2) model partnership agreements, 3) HR policies to assure the selection of paid staff or grantees in a non-discriminatory fashion, 4) limitations on paid editing and 5) protections and safeguards to maintain the editorial independence | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R6 | Every partnership must comply with all applicable HR laws, and the burden of compliance should be carefully spelled out in the partnership agreement. The community has high expectations regarding integrity, equality of opportunity, and quality/competence of the activity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q2 R6 | Capacity must be built to educate expectations for: 1) the employee-volunteer recruitment plan/process 2) the funding/payment scheme 3) the partnership goals 4) the partnership assessments both during and at the end of its term 5) an opportunity for reflection and community-wide input regarding whether the partnership furthered the mission and goals, 6) a safe harbor complaint mechanism where concerns can be raised with respect to partnership deficiencies without claims of "harassment" or "hounding" | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R2#Too vague | More case-studies including partners who are happy and who are not are needed. Some concrete ideas about broader recognition. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R2#This is a bit rich | This is a bit rich from a foundation that shows nothing but active contempt for its volunteers through sham consultations, top-down decision making and arbitrary enforcement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Good | A few example partners, please. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Vague | What concrete changes are being proposed? | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Start | Start by identifying and quantifying the gaps. Then it may become clearer what is reasonably practicable to do about them. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Start | Before you choose a partner you need to know they can help with a gap, so you need to know what gaps exist so you can select appropriate partners to plumb the depths of the gap and help fill them in, unless there are specialist gap detectors and surveyors out there. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Start | Some gaps will be filled by editors without intervention from a focused group, Others will be filled by special interest groups. The gaps least likely to be filled without intervention could be researched and specified, this may get groups or editors to focus on them specifically, and this is where research could most usefully be focused. Grant money could be used for researching these gaps, and this should fall within the generally accepted range of movement scope. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R3#Start | Encourage the non-English language projects to use sources in their own languages over translating articles from the English. There are many cases where non-English scholars are far more accomplished than those in English. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R4#Support | Support for the recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | Q3%264 R4#Clarification needed | It is not clear what is being proposed here. Is this an proposal to pay staff to document stuff? If so what stuff? |
Product & TechnologyEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | What is the future of Wikimedia product and technology and who are the stakeholders that need to be included in this conversation?
We build system which understand local languages and collect speach to text to improve content and later import into wikipedia
Develop system to automatically check content during article and suggest changes concerning the articles if it contains malicious content
The Stakeholders to help us include :
Gouvernment and institutions where there is ongoing research on technology and innovation
Students in universities who are passionate about technologies
Others communities/developers who develop products and use technologies which the wikimedia products/technologies will depend on We visit the following structures : Universities, Tech innovation hubs, Tech research centres
This is in order to get informations on products developed using recent technologies which wikimedia depends on or would likely depends on By building local work centers with basic facilities like laptops and internet to enhance local developers work
Organizing hackathons/workshops where volunteers or staffs can help these developers to acquire new skills on new/current technologies Install wikipedia and other projects like Wikidata on a server in schools and research centers to ensure access offline for research Install this local version in work centers |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | 1- Decentralize. Fear about outsourcing. Good to have community feedback and a core point of the product process. We want more people working on codebase. Fears about interest conflict. 2- We are worried that every WG asks for dedicated teams for things that doesn't need so much people. Invest in community selfgovernance is ok. And the failure of the mailist as a communication tool is real, too. With Wikis, Meta, list, Wikimedia space, phabricators, etc... We have a dispersion of communication tools. 3- We agree with the reasoning. Community tech ambassadors doesn't work. WMF/Product should come closer to communities. In Catalan we have the tech ambassadors inactive, but our community is not so reactive against changes because our online community is close to our Affiliate and there is some trust. Trust and self-recognition is another key point in this (good) idea. 4- We don't know if a council is the answer, but is true that the lack of channels for feedback result in users boycotting advances as the only way to protest against changes that they see from up to bottom because nobody asked them. Amical Way and trust and self-recognition between affiliates and online communities should be taken into consideration when studying this. Using Beta for new developments so users could test before being implemented could be great. Let them play before implementation. 5- It already exists but it doesn't works. If it doesn't works, then new ideas should be tried. More people without reimagining is not a solution. 6- We Agree 8- Good to have volunteers and editors in the Pannel. WMF Staff and 3rd parties are those who need the most feedback from editors and volunteers. Indeed, Editors and volunteers should be advisory in every Pannel and project in the Wikimedia movement. 9- Would be interesting to engage academia in this. We don't need a big entity, but partner with academical third parties. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | 1. I’m not a technician. So, the externalization of techonolgy makes me no fear. Because I’m already relying in third parties when using my technology. 2. IDK. It sound ok, but it is SO prioritary? 3-5-6-7 Makes me feel confused. In one hand, We want to externalize. In the other, We want to enrole developers. I’m the kind of guy who buys a hammer without asking how it is made, but seems like we want to be at the right and the left at the same time. 4,8 (and partially, 3) propose the creation of control/representation/government organisms. Maybe with one it would be enough. We should keep in mind that this WG objective is to manage technology (drive a bus) not to establish a new project (build a busses company). |
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| French language community | Survey and general consensus from online and social media discussions | Survey
Result from a short survey on Twitter : « Do you feel involved in the development of Wikimedia technologies (MediaWiki &cie)?" (35 votes) 6% Yes, totally! 17% Yes, pretty much. 37% No, not really. 40% No, not at all. Online Discussion Feedback our interfaces should be adapted to web standards (UX and UI are currently unappealing, especially for non-technical people) associate editors and non-editors users in design thinking, co-creation, co-design... teach non-technical people how to interact with technical teams (qualify bugs, report issues, ask for features...) |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Wikidata | Do you envision more affiliates setting up software development department? Will all Wikipedias use the same MediaWiki contentmanagementsoftware, or do you envision that each separate language version of Wikipedia will be hosted on a different version of MediaWiki? With communities in the lead to command and instruct software development, how will they coordinate their decision among the 300 language versions? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#What is external entities ? | Is that about building some kind of development for profit startup for mediawiki? That would end to have direct conflict with WMF goals, and as significantly more powerful will end to destroy the whole wikimedia movement as we know it. So maybe some precision on the meaning of external entities should be done to everybody that it is Wikimedia Deutshland who is called an external entity in mind. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#What is external entities ? | Something like "distribued development process" in the title of the recommendation, or "Product & Technology development process" in the working group would be useful to make clear that the idea is not to make technical decision in the behave of the crowd as such technical decision should be done by expert such as developers or similar. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#On Q 4-2 What could be done to mitigate this risk? | This could be called Product lifecycle management. If funding of a feature doesn't exceed conceiving, designing, and realizing, into servicing, and possibly even eventually sun setting or replacing of the feature, maintenance will always become a problem. Require the maintenance phase to be funded with the project for a set time, because if you don't, your problem will be certain. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#On Q 2-1 What assumptions are you making about the future context that led you to make this Recommendation? | The word choice of "large wiki communities", the text may increase and value and expectation setting if the word "large" is struck. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#I think | It's necessary to decentralize the data and source code. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Thoughts on decentralization | This model of decentralization does not seem to go far enough. In a future where there are many many units developing software, the WMF could become the bottleneck for that software to be deployed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Shared goals and shared responsibilities | What the benefits of this idea are, what problem are we trying to solve? Major architectural issues and product features were not addressed until the Foundation made them a focus. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Shared goals and shared responsibilities | The relationship between the collaborating bodies must be accretive in the sense that the organizations working together must be able to accomplish more than a simple assigning of development tasks or transfer of funds. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Shared goals and shared responsibilities | There is a difference between demonstrating competence in product development and aspiring to it. The WMF must continue to foster the level of understanding present in community projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Shared goals and shared responsibilities | The Foundation should be a central part of helping organizations manage projects operationally and from a capability building perspective. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#So you're doubling down on Flow Structured Discussions? | So you're doubling down on Flow/Structured Discussions? What part of "no" do you not understand? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#On Q 3-2 Who specifically will be influenced by this recommendation? | Recommendation not to use "or maybe some other large chapter" but something more generic, to indicate that any other (fit) entity might have to take this on. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Community approaches | This recommendation would be improved by starting with community decision making norms which can be supported by new and existing tools rather than starting with the tools. There's no magic tool that's going to take the place of collaboration and mutual trust building between Foundation and the communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Community approaches | The Foundation’s talk page consultation *strongly* advised to make incremental changes and not make wholesale changes to the software itself so any development here should have a strong stakeholder component. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Is this an attempt to disempower existing decision making structures | This proposal sounds like the WMF doesn't like the decisions that are produced by the current process and wants to change the decision making structures in a way that they approve what the WMF wants. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comments | Agree with anything that increases communication between the different stakeholders and move away from a top-down model of imposition by WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comments | The decision of what software to develop should not be made by the We Make Failures executives, because they have clearly and repeatedly demonstrated that they are not able to use that power competently. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comments | We don't want to see more "consultations" where the WMF ignores community input, especially when an "initiative" is explicitly unwanted. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Comments | There are things the community has been asking for for literally years, such as a fix to CAPTCHA accessibility problems for blind users and an improvement to search functionality, that seem to get more or less ignored. If that "no thanks" feedback could be delivered at an earlier stage, that would save frustration and wasted time on both sides. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Let's do this | This is the most important recommendation coming out of this group. The output would be profoundly influential in the next stage of the movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Vague | it is important to change: "between the organization building the feature and the editor community." to "between the organization building the feature and the editor and reader communities." | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Vague | Is this going to be the final decision making body, in case of new technical changes? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Vague | How much of this decision making body will be chosen by the volunteer community? Who will appoint them? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Deployment council | How is this different from a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-advisory board ? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Relationship to recommendation 3 | This seems to be highly coupled with the recommendation to open up product governance. This deployment council seems necessary to ensure that product council decisions are accepted by the communities they represent. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Sounds positive | Deployment isn't necessarily a binary status of deployed/not deployed. There are features deployed to only some wikis, etc. There will need to be some thought over which stages require Deployment Council input/approval. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Sounds positive | Would this process incorporate other existing deployment requirements such as Security review, Design review? Or would this solely be about the community side? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Support | The scenario has bettered over the last couple of years but we need to improve a lot on these aspects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Sceptical, but cautious support | Support to the extent that it forces decisions to be made based on facts and requires communication of the rationale behind them. However, this could just as easily be business as usual i.e. the WMF dumping their incorrect justification for their top-down decisions and completely ignoring any dissenting feedback. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Comments | The recommendations are totally vague whilst the outcome sounds like recommendations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Technical side of volunteer attraction & retention | There are various regions of the Wikimedia technical ecosystem that developers (mostly volunteers but other too) can be involved with. Can we think of more ways for people to be involved? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Technical side of volunteer attraction & retention | The movement provides execution platforms. Are these existing platforms good enough to be “the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge” and enabling Knowledge as a Service? How do they need to evolve (or with what do they need to be replaced/supplemented) to attract and retain new developers? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Technical side of volunteer attraction & retention | The platforms provided as part of Cloud Services in particular need a clear strategy. Would a developer recently attracted to the movement and used to run her stuff on AWS or Heroku would be happy on Tooforge? Some experienced Wikimedia developers avoid running their stuff on Toolforge/Cloud VPS because they just don’t want to bother. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Technical side of volunteer attraction & retention | There is little sense in perfecting the social components of our developer acquisition pipeline, if the technical components do not follow. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Technical side of volunteer attraction & retention | The movement is large and sprawling and we need better models to support critical tools and processes that aren’t part of the core readers and editor experiences. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7 | Isn't there already a decent "external" developer community? While the 3rd party ecosystem may not contribute monetarily (besides individual contributions), doesn't the Foundation get code support? How would the 3rd parties help with brand and marketing (aside from consultants/developers/hosts/etc. with branding for their own businesses)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7 | "Becoming the essential infrastructure of free knowledg" - If the foundation really wanted to do this (platform for the world's free knowledge), they should really consider supporting WikiJournal's proposal to become a full sister site. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7 | Doesn't Wikiapiary and $wgPingback provide a compelling case that there is a robust MediaWiki ecosystem? Not sure what changes might effect major stakeholders (or who they are? 3rd party users?), but it would seem there would be potential for a huge backlash if there were some breaking changes. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Different use cases | It's going to be difficult to get significant 3rd party support for MediaWiki because the Foundation has a different use case. However, there are other proposals that address calculating the market size and potential monetization of the MediaWiki platform that can also be used to assess the potential for third party support and we should use data to make decisions here. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Obvious, glaring omission | WMF shouldn't be worrying about new technologies such as machine learning, blockchain and the like when its core product (MediaWiki) is a complete mess. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Statement of support | There’s a general need for some advisory body on both the ethics panel and product and social impact. Our readers need to understand that the projects represent the values behind Wikipedia and the movement. This would support Wikimedia’s special place of responsibility in the internet. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | Planning based on valid information is generally a good thing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9 | The recommendation suggests an additional associated workforce who might stay a bit in limbo. Additional thoughts on this are needed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Combine with recommendation 8? | Support for this kind of introspection about the impact of our product choices on society but wondering if this can be combined with the previous recommendation. |
Resource AllocationEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire strategy salon | 25 people at in-person event | Q 1: In the Wikimedia movement, who decides where the money goes?'
The Wikimedia Foundation, the volunteers of the organization. 'Q 2: Should we create regional grant bodies to better allocate funds according to local contexts? Even if it meant that a larger part of our overall budget was spent for administrative purposes? Why?' Yes. Because these new regional organizations would have a better visibility of situations that should be taken into account for funds allocation. And this would address the issue of fairness, transparency and also allow better tracking of allocated funds. 'Q 3: Should we devote more of our resources to communities and knowledge systems that have traditionally been "left out" within the movement? Is it worth it even if it means less money for our existing programs and activities? Why? ' No. It is preferable that resources are allocated to existing programs and activities. More income-generating activities should be created, more B2B partnerships (win-win) at the global level (UNESCO, French Institute, OIF, Goethe Institute, etc.), but also at regional and local level (libraries , museums, galleries ...) 'Q 4: Do we want to focus mainly on the entities of the Wikimedia movement or do we want to make our resources available to a larger number of stakeholders of the free knowledge movement outside of Wikimedia? ? ' We must focus primarily on Wikimedia movement entities, but Wikimedia entities should work in synergy with structures such as libraries, museums, laboratories, schools, etc. 'Q 5: As an emerging Wikimedia community, what would empower you? What do you need from the movement? What needs to change for you to succeed? ' To be financially independent. To be unavoidable in the field of knowledge. Being able to change mentalities: instilling a culture of volunteering and patriotism. Annual funding for our strategic action plans. Have the means to employ at least four (4) staff members who will take care of the operational tasks. This could ease the workload of volunteers. |
|
| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | A: In general terms, writing is a bit agressive here. Point 1: How to "restore" equity if it is the place we want to ho? If equity is our objective, then our depart point is a scenario where there is no equity to restore We are concerned about point 2: either it is a too restrictive view of what the movement is, or it is a vision too intrusive in the activity of volunteers. A little far-fetched
Point 8, paragraph 1: we believe that the alignment should stick to the vision of the Wikimedia community and not the vision of wiki-community+ strategic direction. There may be affiliates or users who do not completely agree, for example. Are they excluded from the allocation of resources? Many approaches in the theorical level are good, but we must see how they are implemented, because a bad implementation could lead to the invalidation of the proposal.
H: We see a danger in this proposal: in the last years a lot of User Groups appeared. They didn’t had many members, but had access to funding. This can potentially led to a “beach bar” situation, where every wikimedian could crate his own user group just to have access to funding without many control. This proposal doesn’t solve the problem but can even make it bigger. |
|
| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | Redo everything. I agree with some few ideas, (the need of an organizational mark and some minor generalizations), but I dislike most of the ideas. Let everyone talk is a good idea at the beggining, but for microgestion, a team is better. It is just one example of things I don’t agree, but there are a lot of things to disagree. |
|
| WMDE | Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Deutchland, who met and discussed the following points during Wikimania 2019 | CAVEAT: The paragraphs below are a summarized and condensed version of comments voiced by members of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board during a meeting at Wikimania in Stockholm. They represent first thoughts, questions and reflections on the recommendations at that given point in time and do not represent an organizational position of Wikimedia Deutschland. Payment of VolunteersBoard members voiced the concern that within different recommendations across working groups were hints that it might be useful or necessary to pay volunteers. One of the reasons given for this is that in certain regions there is no volunteer culture and that this is the only way to enable non-privileged people to become involved in Free Knowledge. Even though the motivation behind these proposals is understandable, board members shared concerns about ill-considered changes to the volunteer principle in the projects, as this could have an explosive effect on our movement. Before making a decision, possible applications should first be concretized (e.g. better differentiation between paid work on the projects and paid offline work) and the chances and risks of "paying volunteers" should be researched in more detail (including the experiences of other organizations). Redistribution of funds in the MovementIt was recommended that in future at least 50% of all funds should be given to the so-called “Global South”, and that self-generated funds should be given to the Movement for this purpose ("all money is movement money"). In connection with an expected high funding requirement for the entire Movement - on Wikimania the sum of 1-2 billion US$ was on the table - this would have a direct and strong impact on us as a financially strong, fundraising organisation. How is the funding requirement for the Movement and the contributions of the individual organisations determined? Who will make these decisions in the future? What effects are to be expected on our fundraising agreement and the future design of movement fundraising? Depending on the outcome of these questions, the legal/tax feasibility would have to be clarified. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Joining the movement | What constitutes joining the movement? Does making a first time edit while unregistered constitute joining the movement? If so, then they will "agree to participate in the generation and allocation of resources". This will change the anyone can edit model. Will the anonymous editor have to tick a box declaring they will participate in the generation and allocation of resources before they can save their edit? | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#What will change? | Can you be more specific about how resources are allocated now, and how resources will be allocated in the future after your recommendations are implemented? | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | Making agreement a precondition for movement membership is a barrier to entry. some may not approve of banners or large donor development; or not wish to participate in resource generation, but that should not be a barrier to membership or collaboration. better to say "movement members should be aware of resource generation and allocation, and we welcome their participation". | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | Principle 4 and 6 conflict: to the extent you drive local resource-raising, they will own it, not the movement. autonomy implies a loss of control to allocate. better would be adjusting allocations at WMF level to provide more equity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | Accountability is more of an ethos, than a checklist, i would like to see more norms socialization, and training, than "sanctions for non-compliance". | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | "Resources will be allocated to support not just the creation of free knowledge, but also the consumption and distribution of free knowledge"+1 and the growth of users from knowledge consumers to knowledge producers, and curators. | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | More discussion about resource abundance and people scarcity, rather than resource allocation equity. because past resource decisions have impacted past content creation. if you force more local resource autonomy, then you will have less influence over that portion of the movement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | You could fill resource gaps to foster equity, but that would require a resource team to coordinate among movement groups. you should consider providing metrics of existing allocations with financial statements, before making broad numerical goals. you will need to resource capacity building using lessons learned from privileged regions, to build more equity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Principles | If you force organizations like WMDE to go raise money from other foundations, then the influence will go to those foundations, not WMF. Maybe a taper of resources towards autonomy, matching grants, or even expense accounts for stars that train more diverse partners? | |
| Meta-Wiki | A#Seems to be missing a key principle | There is no principle that says anything about the "first" allocation of resources will be to ensure that the knowledge gathered to date will remain accessible, and that resources will be dedicated (at whatever point) to ensuring that the necessary infrastructure will be resourced to promote the growth of the knowledge collected. | |
| Meta-Wiki | B | Turn around the current linguistic logic and put the "weight" of linguistic diversity on structures that hold the movement's money and not on structures that receive the money = take charge of translation of demands/submissions/reports and/or hire people who are systematically multilingual with a large panel of languages. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Controversy | Perhaps instead of a compensation structure, the WMF could adopt a financial bonus plan: honoraria for all contributors who reach a certain number of edits or a certain number of featured articles. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Controversy | The rationale for the existing paid staff is that certain roles require full time attention for work that cannot be performed by volunteers. This recommendation would change that key test to creating paid roles for volunteer tasks. That change would fundamentally alter the nature of the organization. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Controversy | For consideration: if there is some knowledge gap, local universities have already created established career paths to full those gaps and the WMF could solicit applicants for short term grants to fill specific needs. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Controversy | Any form of compensation for content creation or editing runs the risk of adversely affecting editorial independence, which on some of the larger projects is held as a central dogma. Paying expenses for organising training, meetings etc and attending them, no such a big problem. Projects with really small communities may be happy to have some paid translation done of what they consider important articles, but they should be asked first. Many Wikipedians on ENWP are strongly opposed to paid editing and would prefer to see it completely banned. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Controversy | The expression ''functionary'' should be defined in context. It has caused a lot of confusion in several proposals because it is not clear what it is intended to mean. The proposals should be more clearly expressed considering that the editor communities were requested to comment, and had little involvement in the planning process. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Volunteerism and Privilege | If we want to walk the talk of the strategic direction, we will need to grow the movement, and build the capacity to do so. That's why the Capacity Building WG has discussed the need to allocate resources towards recognizing/reimbursing volunteers as well. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Volunteerism and Privilege | No objection to compensating volunteers for this kind of work. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | Paid editing is quite enough of a problem without us actively contributing to it! Maybe some recommendations could focus on reducing that actual issue? Or in other words, good God no. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | This is really appalling, and comes close to encouraging violation of the WMF's Terms of Use. Clearly, the way these strategy proposals are being solicited is a total disaster. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | Agree, too. This way lies the road to madness. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | Determining who gets paid and who does not based on the color of their skin, their gender, or their sexual identity would be incredibly destructive of morale. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | This working group needs to be disbanded and reformed with people who actually have some involvement in the communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | The recommendation should be clearer about what classes of work would be considered for pay, as this is a touchy point and people may jump to conclusions. It is preferable that the conclusions should be the correct ones. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | "We need to pay or otherwise compensate people to participate..." We generally equate "participate" with editing, although people on the off-wiki areas may look at things rather differently. The language used should be as clear and simple as reasonably practicable, and should avoid context sensitive terminology and in-group jargon. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | There are numerous examples of inappropriate payments that have landed individuals and/or projects with considerable push-back/ | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#What??? | Clarification is necessary. Also it will always remain possible to misuse funds and fund inappropriate projects, and even when the funds are disseminated according to generally accepted policies and to apparently worthy projects, things can still end up a mess. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Please clarify the word "privileges". | It's not clear about what privileges you are speaking about. If these privileges are related to the Wikimedia communities (i.e. participation to committees) it's clear but if these privileges are "social privileges", it is not clear how this group can decide to resolve these social discrepancies also because it is not up to them to resolve this difference. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Why someone should keep the privileges? | May you explain why someone should keep these privileges and not renounce to them since this recommendation would allow them to have new (and probably less onerous) ones? | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#From equity to the disequity | The equity, if pushed to its extreme, it's inequality. In fact the risk is that, to resolve certain discrepancies, others are created. In this case this recommendation is quite dangerous precisely because it is too extreme and risks to create contributors more valued than others. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Diversity: please clarify | Probably an Observatory to clarify the evolution of the word "diversity" may be important considering the big stress you are putting on it. The risk is to create more marginalized groups and entities if this concept will be blocked. | |
| Meta-Wiki | C#Diversity: please clarify | We need to define what "counts" and what "doesn't count" for diversity. If the only thing that matters is the number of women, then everyone should be told that the only thing that matters is the number of women (or whatever the chosen category is). | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#Inequalities | Just because there's lots of wealth in the US doesn't mean it reaches everyone. Some editors go hungry if there is no food at an event, or walk and bicycle long distances in summer heat to get to events because nobody is willing to pay their transit fare. The push to move at least 50% of resources to the Global South means that now there will never, ever be funds available for working folks in the US who volunteer, or for US women, who still typically only earn a fraction of what men earn. | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#Global South | There were so many discussions where we (collectively) acknowledge that terms Global South/North were not the best idea. Some so-called Global South areas are well-served whilst some in the Global North are underrepresented and unsupported. | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#Thematic and cross-region structures | An increasing number of activities are being run by formal or informal groups, which do not fit into a region. Art and Feminism, or Les sans pagEs are two examples, but there are many others. How would those structures or efforts, more international in nature, fit into this new regional model ? | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#Legality and internal charters | In cases where there are pre-existing bodies, there could be issues - they'd be enacting major mission changes. Especially with regard to those becoming net donors, some may have to resolve major clashes with their internal charters and potentially legislative rules about nonprofit. | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#Creating a strategy for 2030 using wrong schemes | The term "Global South" especially if used in the geographical terms (as you are doing) is an inaccurate and wrong assumption. The selection of "global south countries" cannot be done or, at the opposite, can marginalize more the existing marginalized communities not based geographically in an undefined "Global South". | |
| Meta-Wiki | D#When equity is discriminatory | Review your concept of Global South, probably using a different concept more adapt to a long-term vision (there will be a Global Southe in the 2020?) but definitely to leave the geographical distinction to introduce more a thematic distinction mainly looking at other recommendations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | E#Wikimedia France | Who will the employer of the staff of regional/thematic hubs? If it's the WMF, it's not decentralization. | |
| Meta-Wiki | E#Thematic hubs: Decentralization vs delocalization | The definition of thematic hubs is not clear. While the regional hubs are connected with a specific region, the thematic hubs is still an unclear concept. Supposedly, there can be more than a single thematic hub exactly for the principle of equity because if the lead of a thematic area is moved to another entity that's not decentralization but delocalization. | |
| Meta-Wiki | F#Does anyone who wrote this know what it means? | Rhe recommendation is supported by no evidence. | |
| Meta-Wiki | F#Does anyone who wrote this know what it means? | Simply because something is complex does not make it suitable for evaluations that employ complexity theory. The second bold part advocates "testing, evaluation, iteration", while the following paragraph draws a contrast – "rather than 'tried and tested' approaches". What is a tried and tested approach if it's not one that has been tested and evaluated through an iterative process? This recommendation is contradictory and appears to use terminology without justification or indication of sufficient understanding of what they mean. | |
| Meta-Wiki | F#Does anyone who wrote this know what it means? | Provide some evidence for why "Resource allocation for deliverables needs to draw on Complexity Theory". At the moment, it looks like someone has read about a theory and then tried to fit a "recommendation" around it. Change "rather than 'tried and tested' approaches" to "in addition to 'tried and tested' approaches". | |
| Meta-Wiki | G | Yes, absorbing resource allocations is a problem. But this proposal is so vague as to be useless. | |
| Meta-Wiki | G#Priorities | There seems to be a confusion here regarding our goals and priorities. Our goal is not to resolve the entrenched inequity of the world, but rather to provide free knowledge to everyone. With better access to knowledge, everyone can advance in life, but it is not the purpose of WMF to hold some movement components back for the sake of advancing societies who are impacted by global inequity. Please clarify what you are recommending. | |
| Meta-Wiki | G#Priorities | The recommendation shows that its proposers have forgotten what 'the movement' is about. | |
| Meta-Wiki | G#What about physical sustainability of our editors and readers, and the impact of global heating on communities in hot climates? | We haven't mentioned environmental sustainability, or becoming a zero-carbon emissions organization anywhere in our recommendations. To support our editors and readers in places impacted by extreme weather, zero carbon emissions is a good first step. | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Two thoughts | There are a number of needs relating to Wikimedia projects that need to be funded, yet do not receive any money. I.e., there seems to be no provision concerning helping established & productive editors in obtaining information to develop content. On the other hand, this could also be used for corruption, where some Wikimedian creates a group ostensibly to promote free knowledge, but in practice they are simply using the money for personal benefit. | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Two thoughts | There seems to be an underestimation of organizational complexity. The WMF might be financially stable, but it often struggles to deal with the Wikimedia community and projects. Why the WMF is so eager to spend money and setup infrastructure to help other organizations when there is still so much to be done within Wikimedia? | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Two thoughts | Building an organization that can serve the Wikimedia community is quite different from building a huge grant-making fund, and that would put the core projects at risk. | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Two thoughts | Wikisource has a number of problems of usability, it would be much more wise IMO to invest on solving them, instead of throwing money around to 3rd parties. | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Who dictated this "strategic direction"? | "By 2030... We will build tools for allies and partners to organize and exchange free knowledge beyond Wikimedia." - No idea how such controversial stuff passed into the strategic direction, but IMO it makes no sense to waste money in external agents when our own stuff still looks like something out of the 1990s. | |
| Meta-Wiki | H#Who dictated this "strategic direction"? | If partners are not working in/producing for the Wikimedia projects, why would money be diverted to them? Since when has the Wikimedia movement became a charity that diverts money donated to fund it's own projects, in order to fund external projects? | |
| Meta-Wiki | I#Support | Some real data on what readers are using the projects for should be helpful to those editors who are trying to create a quality product. It will probably make little difference to the majority of occasional editors. | |
| Meta-Wiki | I#Commercial wording | We should be careful and not start adopting a commercial framework in which the Wikimedia community turns into a knowledge service provider for a knowledge consumer market. | |
| Meta-Wiki | I#Commercial wording | The Working Group should also be more concrete regarding what "institutions" are included in the recommendations. What about an ad agency, public relations firm, or a vendor that wants to use WMF projects as a basis for Siri or Cortana? | |
| Meta-Wiki | I#Commercial wording | Providing some technical facilities to help with audio is generally a good thing, though some articles may be less suited than others to this route. A great deal depends on what type of decisions they are stakeholders in. This should be clarified. | |
| Meta-Wiki | I#Commercial wording | Not only does the word "concumers" evoke a commercial & impersonal mindset, it excludes these people with emphasis from how these projects work. There ought to be a better term. |
Revenue StreamsEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire strategy salon | 25 people at in-person event | Q 1 : How do we get money for our work as Wikimedian/Wikipedian?
Donation request
Spontaneous donations from people
One-time or regular grants from public of private entities
Membership fees
Legacy
Q 2 : What do you know in general about resource allocation?
Resource allocation is important when talking about:
Investments
Commerce
Exchange
Fund-raising
Lucrative activities
Work / employment
Q 3 : Do you know how the current system of revenue streams work in our movement? Is it good? If not, why?
The current system of revenue streams currently relies mostly on an annual donation request.
Yes, this system is good. Nevertheless, Wikimedia should be recognized as a public-interest organization to be able to receive related subsidies. For example, thanks to this status, the Red Cross receives subsidies in every country in which it is represented.
Q 4 : Most of Wikimedia's existing funds come from small donors in the entire world. How could we increase our donor base outside the western world? Should we look for more funds from companies, governments or big organizations? Why?
Organize local donation requests, engaging more with companies, governments and other big organizations. This could ensure the effectiveness of Wikimedia's activities and its dynamism. Yes, so the communities are more dynamic. Communities' dynamism can be measured thanks to annual activity reports and also comparing the amount of funds received and the amount of activities organized. Q 6 : What revenue streams options would be acceptable or not (e.g. merchandising with the Wikimedia brand, consulting, traingin, renting, etc.)? Why? Acceptable options Organize games (eg raffles, with the help of partners); Establish partnerships with the Ministry of National Education and Higher Education to receive annual grants; Organize paid trainings for companies that would like to have articles on Wikipedia or on sister projects. Rent Wikimedia premises, if available, for events. Open stores selling clothing and accessories (t-shirts, caps, keychains, bags) with the Wikimedia brand Allow all companies and institutions using Wiki resources for profit to pay a share (5% for example) of their earnings to Wikimedia. Non-acceptable options Write articles for money 'Q 7: What other organizations should the Wikimedia movement learn from or be more similar to when it comes to generating revenue? Why?' We could follow the example of the Junior Chamber International (JCI), which in addition to membership fees, receives grants from United Nations agencies (UNICEF, UNESCO) to which it is affiliated. It then invests these funds in profitable activities in order to self-finance their own activities. 'Q 8: Do you have a local revenue generation perspective or experience for your community or organizations?' Yes. In our organizations, we collect membership fees, request funds / subsidies from local governments, rent movable and immovable property. 'Q 9: What principles should we follow to generate income? What are the red lines we should not cross? Why? ' Principles transparency and honesty in the use of funds received, Accountability. Red lines not to make Wikimedia a for-profit organization; do not prioritize revenue generation to the detriment of Wikimedia's original purpose. |
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| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | How can we maximize the revenue for the movement?
Go in partership with the united nations organisations to support in some of our activities in relation with some of their own activities (other like Unesco for education, WHO for health...) What do we need to change or add to our current fundraising structures and processes to make them more sustainable, adaptive, and distributed appropriately? Organise a funding structure in our own localities (training the community in our local areas to have it's own money) and training on how to build partenership and selling yourself What “red lines” should exist to guide our practices? What new approaches are we willing to consider to maximize the revenue streams for the movement? Wikimedia should remain a free world for knowledge as started in it's initial mission or visions and it should be emphasized Members of Wikimedia mouvement should have an ethical or professionnal standard / guidlines gouverning them Include peer mentorship or transfer of know how, for example organising workshop or trainings for community members. Which (movement) bodies should take on what (local, regional, global) responsibilities in ensuring revenue streams for the movement? How can these efforts be best coordinated? We need to decentralised the structures, internationnally, national, regional and local A proposed decentralised revenue structure International (San Francisco) - Africa and others continents - Cameroon and others countries - Douala, Yaounde, Buea and others towns Do we need to connect or align our strategic approaches for revenue streams with those for resource allocation? Definitely. Because the revenue raised must be efficiently and effectively allocate and used. |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | Feedback listed by recommendation number 1- We are unsure about the heavy usage of the Wikimedia API. Data or some research would be appreciated as a foundation for the recommendation The concept of "large enterprises" sounds a bit too subjective to us.
How can we ensure knowledge equity while commecialisating the API? However, not everything can be solved with technology. There are local particularities (subsidies, declarations of public utility, exemptions of taxes, etc.) that only depend on the members and their "awareness" of the situation.
3- We feel the recommendation lacks enough detail.
4- We support promoting free knowledge ecosystem and favoring the presence of third parties that eventually reverse the results of their activity to the movement and not fall into parasitic dynamics.
We believe WMF should not take this responsibility directly.
5- We see well that this recommendation should be addressed, but we are not sure that all the members can carry it out taking into account their current situation (for example, us).
6- We are concerned about the possible conflict of interests and ethical conflicts that may arise in this type of initiative. We are also concerned that the suggested models are difficult to apply depending on which contexts or territories. Care must be taken with the possible '' vices '' of economic or budgetary management, which can lead to inequality situations between affiliates when it comes to supporting less-favored affiliates or in situations of greater difficulty.
8- It seems logical and reasonable, although it would be good to know what can be done to get donations, beyond the mechanisms to achieve them.
There would be a deep reflection on the ethics of the mechanisms to obtain donations.
9- Perhaps this one should be in the first position in the list of recommendations. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | As previous, but even worse. For me, in Europe, my problem is how to donate. Big donors asks for tax exemptions, and We can’t provide that right now. |
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| Hindi language community | Mix of feedback across 6 individuals | Recommendation 4: On “Providing Paid Wiki-related Services” We can selectively create professional consultancy services keeping MediaWiki and Wikibase. Based on which organization is seeking consultancy, if they are an open source, we should not be charging them. There can be a larger community discussion around it. If the consultancy seekers are not an open source organization, they are seeking it for personal gain and they are a for-profit, it depends on the context and situation, for us charging them money for Mediawiki services. But a lot of community discussion needs to be done and more context should be stated why this recommendation has been stated. In summary: For NPO - we should be not be charging for non-profits For Profit Organization- We can charge them for media wiki and Wikibase consultance after community discussion. |
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| WMDE | Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Deutchland, who met and discussed the following points during Wikimania 2019 | CAVEAT: The content below is a summarized and condensed version of comments voiced by members of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board during a meeting at Wikimania in Stockholm. It represents first thoughts, questions and reflections on the recommendations at that given point in time and do not represent an organizational position of Wikimedia Deutschland. Monetization of APIThe Revenue Streams Group's recommendations suggest monetizing API access for large enterprises. WMDE - as the steward of Wikidata - will form a clear position on this: Should we clearly advocate for "open infrastructures" and against monetization? Or should we adopt a more differentiated position, for example that access to our content must remain free for all people and organisations, but that some organisations must pay for the provision of our content on their platforms (e.g. Google, Facebook etc.)? This question will probably come up again when the Revenue Streams and Resource Allocation recommendations are implemented and can best be discussed then. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | This recommendation goes against all that I believe is good with free knowledge. Charging for access to knowledge is a not a slippery slope, it is jumping off a cliff. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | The recommendation as currently written also seems to not understand how big players are using our APIs. (They mostly don't.) | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | Our mission is to provide free knowledge. If we start going "yeah we will, but if you are of an arbitrary large size using one arbitrary way of our many tools to retrieve it, it is not free anymore" the mission is compromised. There is an argument for that or mission only states humans should be able to share the free knowledge and not corporations. This line is of a disservice to both ourselves and humanity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | This is just completely contrary to our goals of free knowledge for all. Hell no. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | charging for high volume non-authenticated use and using the money to make WMF Engineering and MediaWiki suck less is undertandable. But this is untenable for other reasons. Your inspiration is the equivalent of charging for a recent changes feed? Utter bollocks. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | The immediacy of such a feed is wrong, because it contains unreverted spam, attack pages, vandalism, etc. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | A paid support model (where the client pays for technical support, uptime guarantees, bug fixes and feature requests) has the benefits of bringing in revenue to employ engineers to work on the API and forcing the WMF to suck less without having to figure out which API requests need payment. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | This is totally against the free knowledge ethic. More evenues for what? For hiring even more staff that doesn't even know about the community and the principles that they have behind? This idea sounds to me like a suicide of Wikipedia and its whole concept. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | This is a positive and very reasonable source of revenue. This is going to improve the overall quality of our APIs for everyone, well only the very highest users will be expected to pay. If NGOs, education institutions, and research institutions have very high volume usages we will still have the ability to give them free access. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | If by offering paid API to several big corporations we can improve the quality for everyone, and be able to better serve those who can't pay or just do not have traffic comparable to Google or Amazon scale, this is a great win for everybody. We definitely need to be flexible and open to requests for help and support from organizations with high traffic, but being non-profit (even by default policy). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | Big players have no incentives to do massive use of our APIs even if they were reliable. We are not going to charge these giants but smaller companies that do not have the money and/or the incentives to build their own replicas. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feels wrong | Why this would necessarily be “compromising our most basic principles”? In the MetaBrainz model, access is still free and it does does not appear that anybody gets their free access cut off if they exceed some threshold ; more that if you are hitting a lot, then you are encouraged to become a tier-supporter. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comparison with like-minded orgs | MetaBrainz − also a non-profit foundation, also operating an open-data/free-knowledge project − does have a tiered-system for API access and a pay-for Live Data Feed. It is unclear whether usage restrictions are actually enforced − the language makes it more sound like a voluntary gentlemen’s agreement. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comparison with like-minded orgs | en:OpenStreetMap practices: the official API discourages heavy users ; and the same goes for the official tiles. In both cases, heavy hitters are encouraged to either set-up their own, or contact a commercial service provider. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comparison with like-minded orgs | This is not unseen in similar projects. Large volume access might have a significant cost for the WMF and, when it comes to large commercial organizations, it would be fair that they pay, i.e. contribute to cover operational costs. Large volume access could also be granted for free for partners where it makes sense, such as academic research. But most often these are usually good with current tooling (XML dumps, recent changes stream API, etc). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Comparison with like-minded orgs | It's important to not hurt independent researchers or community members who use these tools to improve our projects. Did the Working Group consider any particular API access to be covered by paid agreements? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Insufficient detail | There is not enough detail on this recommendation for me to support or oppose it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Current high-volume usages | How much are currently used the API, and by whom? The percentage of API calls that are generated by us vs by third parties, of current API calls that would no longer be free, who is doing those API calls. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Current high-volume usages | If it's so few organisations, why not just approach them and ask for large annual donations, rather than creating special a paid service for them? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Current high-volume usages | I'm skeptical that getting paid for providing a service to tech organizations will get less criticism, but I don't have much expertise in that area. Our relationships with companies like Amazon and Google are already quite problematic. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Current high-volume usages | Could you do something in between operating a paid service and asking for donations? Something along the lines of "your <IP address/range or retail device> is using a huge amount of API queries, please can you pay us $X if you want to continue doing this, otherwise we'll have to apply a rate limit to the requests?" That way, there's more grey area, and you don't have to operate a separate paid service. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feasibility | Is there some data or analysis on the feasibility of API monetization? What could be the cost and the revenue, and whether the profit would be meaningful?E.g., if the expected profit would be in the order of 100k$, it would probably not be worth. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feasibility | We will always provide free access to API to most people, and therefore we will not be able to exploit them as a commercial company would do. Moreover, we will always provide dumps of our data, and that limits how much we can charge: basically, we can't charge for accessing the data, but for the convenience of using a ready-made access point. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feasibility | A paid support model could work, and has my support as long as the additional engineers will result in collateral improvements for the community. But no charging for access. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feasibility | Charge people for support, not just for access. That way, those who are willing to use self or community support still can have the same access at the same level without paying a nickel, but bigger players who will want dedicated hardware and to be able to call someone on the phone can pay a premium for such a service level. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Feasibility | Further research is needed and perhaps a feasibility study to determine estimated costs and benefits. From a policy perspective, when the public accesses our websites, we build our brand and have the opportunity to gain banner ad donations. When the public accesses our information through the API, via Siri or Cortana, we do not build our brand and get no banner ad donations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Impact on bots and small organisations | Bots can make large numbers of API calls to do their editing work, would there be some way of avoiding affecting these? Also, what would happen with smaller organisations that wanted to make a lot of use of the API, would this make it more difficult for them to compete with the larger organisations like Google etc.? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | We might think we can charge big commercial users, but do they have alternatives? For example, could they just decide to stop linking to Wikipedia for answers and link to one of our mirrors instead, like Alchetron? They might get that for free, or at least for a lot less than what we’d be looking to charge. Just because you create a market doesn’t mean you can be sure of controlling it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | The Working Group should do research to determine whether Wikidata or the API offers something of value that mirrors cannot offer. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | If really big commercial users are paying for a service, there will be contracts, and there will be massive penalties for non performance on the part of Wikipedia. We might find these penalties for non-performance to be punitive. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | The Working Group should do research to determine industry practices and contractual performance expectations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | If some users are paying, will their needs be prioritised by the development teams over other, non-paying needs? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | What impact would these kinds of commercial arrangement have on existing fundraising? If we complicate it with contracts from Google etc. isn’t it the case that some potential donors will be less likely to give? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | We have a base of small donors which can easily donate $1.1 billion by 2030. Major policy changes could risk that revenue stream. When people access the website or the mobile app, and we provide a satisfactory user experience, we build our brand and gain an opportunity for a banner ad. When a Siri or Cortana user access our database, we do not build our brand or gain and opportunity for a banner ad. Our small donor fundraising base will decline as users stop visiting our website directly. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 1#Questions | Some people have argued that to survive, we must take the $1.1 billion and invest it in the Knowledge Engine so that our brand will be a part of the future world of knowledge provision. The movement has to ask itself, what does it take to offer value to users in the year 2030, and how can we make a significant contribution to that new world? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"I"? | The recommendation says "So, I propose creating a function [...]": I think it should not be in first person. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"I"? | This creates substantial confusion between local groups and the global Wikimedia movement in the view of the public, if they suddenly see multiple "Wikimedia" affiliated people asking for donations. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#"I"? | Wouldn't a centralized fundraising support office be in the same position as the WMF, setting priorities for which organizations get what kind of fundraising support? Does the current WMF development team see a need for pushing some fundraising activities out to other affiliates? Have affiliates expressed needs for support in their fundraising activities? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Inequality of fundraising | Diversifying the fundraising campaigns is a good idea, but not among the Wikimedia affiliates. For this reason and due to higher staff structure difference, some chapters or affiliates will be able to compete better for the donations and outshine other communities with less weight inside the movement. That will definitely jeopardize the economical equality. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Inequality of fundraising | The WMF should be a guarantor that the fundraising campaigns are contextualised to every sociologic and geographic context, and be a guarantor that the money is distributed fairly for volunteer-driven projects and communities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Assumptions | This working group should follow the format and state assumptions, risks and mitigation measures. A cost/benefit analysis would also be helpful. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Assumptions | Assumptions: 1) It would be desirable to deconflict funding requests made by the WMF and different affiliates. 2) Compliance costs could be reduced if centralized. 3) There are subscription databases of people with substantial resources, and the WMF could subscribe on behalf of all affiliates. 4) The small donor banner ad revenue would go to the WMF rather than the local affiliates. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Assumptions | The Working Group should research what fundraising expenses and staffing the WMF currently has and to what extent those could be made shared resources. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Assumptions | The WMF should develop a donor privacy statement for use by affiliates. To the extent that the WMF and its affiliates share donor data, that should be disclosed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 2#Knowledge sharing | Sharing knowledge about fundraising is important. A kind of hub should be put in place with fundraisers of all over the world. And also organize again a Fundraising meeting. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Insufficient detail | There is not enough detail on this recommendation for me to support or oppose it. One-liner/one-paragraph proposals which are way vague. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Other companies? | This movement is not a company. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Case studies | Is there any study or data on NASA or other comparable approaches? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Case studies | It's a bit peculiar that this recommendation cites NASA as one of its two motivating examples even though NASA doesn't make any money from merchandise. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Communication risks | This recommendation has an impact not only on revenue streams, but also on our public image. It may be a positive impact or a negative impact, but it should be investigated before accepting this recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Neither enough detail, nor following the free knowledge principle | The concept of creating nice merchandising it's good as a basic idea (which has been already implemented). But from here to license the products or copyrighting them there is a huge step that it is definitely against the concept of free knowledge. Whoever wants to pay a bit more to contribute to the Wikimedia movement it is welcome, but DIY should be a norm. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Relation to Wikipedia Store | How is this different from the Wikipedia Store? Is this a recommendation to expand the official store? Or is this about something completely different such as trademark licensing to third parties? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#Promotional and motivational value of Wikipedia merchandise for volunteers | Many volunteers would be happy to wear Wiki t-shirts if they were distributed at editing events. If we view t-shirts and bags as a revenue stream, rather than distributing them to interested volunteers, we lose an important outreach and promotional opportunity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#The problem with revenue streams | Keeping the stream flowing, if not increasing in volume, usurps the importance of what the revenue funds with the result that more resources are devoted to the revenue stream than to anything else. Example of US collegiate sports. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 3#The problem with revenue streams | Before any of these recommendations is acted on, we need some mechanism to prevent any revenue stream -- existing or future -- from becoming more important than what the existing projects are doing. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Free | MediaWiki is a free software and all allied aspects shall always remain so, from all purviews. No support for WMF outsourcing it's engineers to support other installations - too dangerous. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The whole wikimedia movement is going a lot worse than I even think of before putting my words on | The best idea for revenue would be to eventually limit the scope of WMF fundation on what is sustainable with reasonable ways to make money. If making money mean having conflicting goals with the scope of WMF, because the scope is too large, you have to reduce the scope not loose you soul. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Mixed feelings | It could force the WMF engineering department to become competent and fix all the broken shit there is in MediaWiki, VisualEditor and so forth without depleting community resources. Enterprise software is not known for its robustness or code quality and MediaWiki fits right in to that characterization. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Mixed feelings | It might lead to refactoring and feature development that is actually wanted by, or is useful for the community. However, this may give WMF an excuse to force enterprise features unwanted by the community on the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Goal of paid services | The goal of providing paid services should be clarified. Is it to raise money that can be spent on other activies that further our mission, or is a way to directly further our mission (e.g., because we believe that it would be a better world if companies used more wikis)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Goal of paid services | Any paid services must have careful safeguards retaining the editorial independence of Wikipedia and the WMF. The Working Group should explain its proposal in greater detail as well as consider the negative impact on the volunteer editing community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#This is a completely lost of sense | Paid-editing is the end of Wikipedia and all the voluntary movement behind it. This is the problem of filling the Wikimedia Foundation and some chapters with staff members that don't even know what are the Wikimedia principles. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#This is a completely lost of sense | The proposal is poorly worded. The aim is to provide paid technical support and training for MediaWiki and other extensions maintained by the WMF and affiliates. The funds raised from support contracts will pay for engineers working on bug fixes, feature requests and refactoring that are also beneficial for the community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Too complex | Too much organizational overhead for low value. It would require setting up a consulting organization, possibly with some degree of independence from the WMF daily operations to avoid dragging the whole organization. It would imply a significant increase in employees, diverting attention from core development to consulting. Would the net benefit of running a consulting business be substantial compared to total WMF revenue? This would risk adding a lot of complexity, bureaucracy and structural costs | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#How would the mouvement benefit from that ? | How would the mouvement benefit from that ? Would it be simply the maintenance of a database of contacts, which can simply be a wiki page RIGHT NOW, on mediawiki site... or would any other Wikimedia entity act as intermediaries between such providers and customers and getting a financial benefit from it with a percentage of the package ? The first case (a wikipage maintaining contact) is super easy to do. The second case raises a string of questions and foreseaable difficulties. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#How would the mouvement benefit from that ? | This proposal seems to suggest to make WMF do consulting around MediaWiki/Wikibase, a service that is currently provided by some small external companies. It seems to me that is goes against this Seems opposite to Product & Technology "Decentralize" recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#How would the mouvement benefit from that ? | It would be indeed interesting to precise if these MediaWiki support companies are part of "The Movement" or not. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Thoughts | Why does the Foundation need to bring in more money? Is there some unmet need it has identified? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Thoughts | Is there a market out there for Wikimedia/Wikibase consulting & support? No sense offering services no one is willing to pay for. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Thoughts | If there is a market for these services, why not help volunteers take advantage of it? We've given thousands of hours for free to the movement; this would be a chance for some of us to benefit from our altruism. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#Trademark licensing? | Assumption that the group offering the service would be separate from existing staff working on the software itself. What is Wikimedia offering that these groups can't do themselves? The only thing we would be adding would be the name. This would essentially be renting out our trademarks to for-profit groups. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 4#The WMF is not needed here | The Foundation should keep to the principle that what it produces is free for the world to use, and all its services are free also. What we cannot afford to offer freely should be done by others. The commercial world is one domain; the WMF is another. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Work in progress | All of this is already happening, altough in different ways. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Earned income | Support for the idea as a sustainable way to do useful but non-core activities, but don't count on it as a way to raise funds that can be used for other activities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#Already implemented by some communities | Consulting services is a very sensitive topic and should be further explain to assess it is following the basic ethical principles. As a non-profit organisation, we should always provide this help to partnerships and just use it as a revenue if the partnership has the economical means to pay for it -and if this income is going to be reinverted in expenses for GLAM projects. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 5#A blanket endorsement of government grants? | Wasn't part of the idea of Wikipedia to provide an independent source of information which the public can edit? How would you propose to maintain this independence if the organization's revenue is based on government grants? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Already taking place | All of this is already happening. The Wikimedia Foundation, while still mostly relying on banners directly or indirectly, is increasingly developing other forms of fundraising; same for Wikimedia Germany. Nobody else has access to the banners, therefore almost everything else is already on this path. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 6#Membership | Each year, WMDE succeed to drastically increase their number of members. If I'm correct, it's donors that become members. This method could be a way to collect more money for the movement. This could be a good method to fidelize donors and to increase their contributions. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Oppose | Strong opposition to this recommendation. We should continue to use revenue from the Global North to support Wikimedia work in the Global South, for example. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#How is this principle to be applied? | Many affiliates could hypothetically become self-sufficient now, but it would be nearly impossible for affiliates centered in other regions to be entirely self-sufficient while also carrying out the activities that will lead to movement-wide diversity and development. Is there provision for the idea of "seed funding" to help new groups or affiliates start up? How does this mesh with similar proposals from Resource Allocation? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Equity | Saying that all actors should strive to be financially self-sustainable is at risk of putting at a disadvantage some organizations depending on their context. We should expect that some actors will always financially support other actors. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#The role of movement funds | Some of the funds we raise are linked to one specific organization, because they are a specific consequence of its activity. Currently, however, most of the funds are raised because of the collective effort of the movement, especially through the banners. If every actor is independent, what shall we do with movement money? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Independence of the Wikimedia Foundation | Becoming financially independent would be difficult for many movement actors, but, because of its sheer size, it would be especially difficult for the Wikimedia Foundation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#This seems to conflict with many recommendations from other working groups | Many other working groups are making recommendations that assume that financial resources will flow from regions that are wealthy to regions that are "cash-poor" in order to grow the movement and support global objectives. If a movement organization is to start in 2025, where does the seed money come from? How do they raise funds for an organization that doesn't yet exist, and has no chance of formalization until they raise a certain amount of money? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 7#Definition | The working group shall clarify what is "financially self-sustaining". Is it 100% of the revenues or 50%? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Support | Support for the core goal though not satisfied about the methods. These type of stuff shall be prioritized. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 8#Supposed preference for cash | This recommendation is stating both that digital payment systems are bad for developing countries and that such countries like digital payment systems a lot. What you want to say is that, while WMF currently gives priority to online payment methods which can bring the most revenue (the next are in India), you'd like Wikimedia to support even online payment methods which may be more expensive for us, just for the sake of inclusivity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Insufficient detail | There is not enough detail on this recommendation for me to support or oppose it. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Good | Good, but nothing (remotely) new and we know these for years. | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Wording | This recommendation needs a better wording: at least an introduction like "The following core principles on revenue streams should be shared by all movement actors: [bullet list follows]", have full sentences, and clarify things like "Principles used by WMF (not all applicable)" | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Independence and freedom from influence | If that's what we want, why would we turn to government grants for revenue? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Details, context, argument, risks ... | All the recommendations provided in the "Revenue Streams" area are surprisingly short, lacking all the rationale developped in the other groups. Over 2 years to get to that... seems a bit insufficient. Are the recommendations published still draft mode due to time constraints, or are they considered final ? | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Details, context, argument, risks ... | Revenue Streams WG can't say is the solution to collect more money but you should ask for an annual meeting, for a hub of fundraisers, for a fundraising policy... | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Wikimedia France | The charter should have a part dedicated to partnerships and funders (arm vendors? non democratic countries? what about potential donations by the Vatican, theocracy?). | |
| Meta-Wiki | 9#Wikimedia France | What will be the impact of decentralization on Revenue streams: subsidiarity of access to fundraising banners and data of donors; who is in charge (regional hubs, thematic hubs, every affiliate?). |
Roles and ResponsibilitiesEdit
| Source | Context | Content | Working group response: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Côte d'Ivoire strategy salon | 25 people at in-person event | KEY IDEAS:
Roles & Responsibilities The Foundation should be brought closer to its affiliates through the creation of regional structures / hubs. These regional structures would be responsible for supervising local organizations in terms of funding, actions and prospects. Currently, the foundation is not sufficiently imbued with the realities of affiliates. Create a Board of Directors or a Management Committee that would gather representatives from regional structures. Q 1 : How are roles and responsibilities distributed in our movement? In our movement, Roles & Responsibilities are distributed according to statutes and bylaws. Q 2 : Who makes decisions? Decisions are taken according to statutes and bylaws. Q 3 : What are the advantages and problems of a centralized Wikimedia organization at the global level? Advantages coherence of decisions and their impact unity of the movement Problems Salon stratégique wikimedia côte d'Ivoire 2019 35.jpg slow decision-making ; people on the field react slowly to decisions because of slow formalities ; decision-makers are unaware of real problems people are facing (misreading / ignorance) Q 4 : Should the Wikimedia Foundation merge with other free knowledge organizations like Creative Commons ? Why ? Yes, they should merge to ensure easy access to information. Merging would also allow new partnerships with other organizations. One of the major downsides of a potential merging would be the absorption of Wikimedia by a stronger entity. Q 5 : Should we divide into separate Foundations : Media Wiki Foundation, Wikidata Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation ? Why or why not? No. The Foundation should not be split because it would prevent access to information. Q 6 : Do we want a governance body for the whole movement? Who would be part of this body and what would they do? Why? Yes, we want a governance body that would gather representatives from regional hubs. According to statutes, they would be the spokesperson for their regional community. Their task would be to bring information and expectations from their community to the international level. Q 7 : What structures should be built in order to deal with conflict inside our movement? Who would be the stakeholders of such a structure? Create a structure responsible for conflict management in the movement. To do so, there should be a call for applications inside affiliates to look for the best profiles. |
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| Cameroon Strategy Salon | 51 people acoss 7 in-person meetings | Quelle est la définition du « mouvement Wikimédia », qui en fait partie et quels sont leurs rôles ?
Le mouvement Wikimedia est un groupe hiérarchisé ayant pour mission de permettre l'accès au savoir et partage des connaissances
Les membres sont tous ceux qui adhèrent volontairement au mouvement et participent à l'expansion, la promotion et la production du contenu Maximum de visibilités
Représentativités au niveau mondial, régional et local, tout ceci dans le respect des genres et des communautés linguistiques
Au Cameroun, une proposition a été faite concernant les membres du board : Il est important de prendre en compte la représentativité des femmes, et des composantes linguistiques officielles du Cameroun (français et anglais)
Comment partageons-nous les responsabilités au sein du mouvement mondial afin que les personnes, les organisations et les groupes aient les moyens de remplir notre mission au mieux, et d’avancer dans notre direction stratégique ?
Au travers de la décentralisation
Transfert des compétences (formations et responsabilités) : Mêmes structures du sommet à la base (mondial, régional et local)
Ressources humaines
Ressources financières Wikimedia foundation définit la stratégie politique du mouvement, finance les différents projets issus du mouvement, règle les litiges
Les communautés implémentent la politique mondiale et assurent aussi les activités d'autofinancement pour leurs projets Responsabiliser tous les membres Former les comités en leadership et fundraising |
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| Catalan strategy salon | Catalan community strategy salon (10-11 people) | 1-2: We agree. WMF cannot influence communities because they are far away from them. Product innovation fails because communities feel that those developments have been done without them in mind. So, feedback from community is needed. Decisions should be done by the community when possible. Organizations representing the movement should be elected by the communities in order to keep their representativity. 3- Agree. It is compatible with all the demands of clear rules and clear marks in all other WG. Movement Governance should be formed by a fully elected body.
4- We don't understand the expression 'owned by'. We want a fully elected body everywhere. Accountability always sounds great. But we need more details about the process. Where do the coaches appear from? Are they independent? who pays them, Back Office, Global Council?
Once again, this model is not flexible, neither Quotiel. We have worries about the election system and how Representative is this hierarchical model. From a model of WMF and affiliates, we go to a model with at least two intermediate bodies. For a random wikimedian, this means that he elects representatives for his affiliate, that the affiliate sends representatives to a regional hub, and that regional hub elects representatives for Global Body. GGB is formed by hub representatives, so there is a risk that GGB would only respond to the regional Hub and ignore the lower layers of the pyramid. What happens if regional elected representatives find themselves in the middle of nationalistic/interest/power struggles?
Local organizations have a great dependency of other structures (regional hubs, support structures), so the objective of the less dependence of WMF is not accomplished.
This model does not adapt to local context. We are a Thematical organization, and the only 2 thematical organizations in our movement have nothing in common to make a thematic support structure necessary. Which is Amical's Regional Structure? Iberocoop? Europe? Spain? Do we have the same local context than Latin America or Europe? Does our language have the same context that Basque or Spanish?
Emphasizing in such rigid regional structures in an internet-related project might create more problems that solve.
One particular user linked us this diagram dangerously similar to the proposed system. With regional institutions that embody autonomous areas, provinces etc. We don't want to make demagogic statements, it is a structure very commons in 20th century organizations, but not so interesting for the 21th where hierarchic organizations have been substituted for more decentralized models.
As per this link:
"The Soviet constitution and laws charter is designed to afford the largest possible degree of autonomy and cultural development for the various national groups regional hubs. They are free to preserve their distinctive customs, institutions and languages and a national group sufficiently numerous and geographically localized may under authorization form an autonomous republic or area affiliate with a full measure of local administrative autonomy."
Elgafar Model: Government governance body is partially elected, but we want it fully elected, not appointed.
We like the horizontal model. The formal and informal OMG adapts to local context, as was demanded by the community.
The governance support groups are equivalent to Hubs and Back offices in the other models. They support the decentralized Organized Movement Groups, who support both partners and Communities. It has the advantages of the other two models, but is more decentralized, it adapts better to whichever local context, and creates less bureaucracy. |
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| Spanish language community | 1:1 chat of a single Spanish user with Spanish strategy liaison | He focuses in Elgafar model “none of the three is perfect, but Elgafar is the least imperfect”. Good things about Elgafar: - It has a charter, a general document about what are we doing.
- It has a general organism (General Body) to direct “the thing” (he means the movement)
- It has the content as an important thing
- Regards the existence of a net of bodies with techinical support as a goal. Support to the diverse groups that make the movement is ok - He doesn’t knows how the Government body is chosen
- He doesn’t knows how and who writes the Movement Charter |
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| WMDE | Board of Trustees at Wikimedia Deutchland, who met and discussed the following points during Wikimania 2019 | CAVEAT: The paragraphs below are a summarized and condensed version of comments voiced by members of Wikimedia Deutschland’s Board during a meeting at Wikimania in Stockholm. They represent first thoughts, questions and reflections on the recommendations at that given point in time and do not represent an organizational position of Wikimedia Deutschland. Decentralization and subsidiary principleThe demand for decentralisation is a central theme in the recommendations; in the Roles & Responsibilities Group (but also in other groups) the introduction of a subsidiarity principle is called for. This would have a strong impact on the Movement as well as on WMDE as a movement organization. In order to be able to assess these effects, however, it must first be specified in concrete terms how decentralisation and the subsidiarity principle are to be precisely implemented – who is related to whom? Who is accountable to whom? The recommendations lack clarity regarding these questions. As soon as there is more clarity on the organizational model, a conversation about future power relations within this model should take place. |
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| Meta-Wiki (all below, commments from late August through mid October 2019. Will be further analyzed.) | Direct Link | Comment Summary | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Different format | The format of the recommendations differs from the recommendations of the other working groups. What is the rationale for this difference? What assumptions are you making about the future context that led you to make these recommendations? What will change because of your recommendations? Who specifically will be influenced by these recommendations? Could these recommendations have a negative impact/change? What could be done to mitigate these risks? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Dealing with opposing interests | Decentralizing decision making also has a downside. You don't appear to address that different distributed decision makers can have opposite interests, and how that is dealt with in Power and responsibilities. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Dealing with opposing interests | Many/most of the recommendations made by other working groups conflict with the core premise of decision-making at the lowest level and empowering individual communities to govern themselves. Most models discussed, particularly relating to community health, have been done from a top-down perspective. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The starfish or the spider | Once upon a time everybody knew Wikimedia was about empowering individuals. Somehow the offline side has gotten too centralized, and that can be remedied. However there remains a rift between autonomous online communities and offline organizations. How will this movement strategy process ever gonna ompact online communities? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | Support for recommendations 1&2 as they acknowledge part of the problem with the WMF and indicate a move away from the centralisation of power and decision-making. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | Recommendation 3 introduces the notion of a "charter", without addressing the key question: what would the status of this charter be? Would it be binding, like the terms of use? Would it be advisory? Something else? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | Caution had turned to concern by 6. This sounds a lot like the '40% female, 40% male, 20% various' proposal at Diversity/Recommendations/4, which is both a bad idea and unenforceable. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | This starts by seeming to oppose greater centralisation of power, less subsidiarity, more top-down enforcement, then, it appears to support greater centralisation. The recommendations appear to be based on the 2030 strategy without having been hijacked by special interest groups pushing an agenda, but at the same time, they are unclear. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | Not sure what even is being proposed here, or what things would look like afterwards if this proposal were to be implemented. It could do with a great deal more detail. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Welcome... caution... concern | Would everyone be obliged to follow it, with repercussions for not doing so? This looks like the crux that will show whether you're really going down the subsidiarity/local autonomy path, or the centralisation of power path. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | Please do not attempt to replace the file pillars. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | It is quite natural that the fundamental principles or a charter do not address everything. They provide something like a constitution where changes are hard or impossible. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | Statements like [t]he classic notion of an encyclopaedia and ‘universal knowledge’ needs to be discarded (recommendation # 2 of the diversity WG) let many volunteers wonder in which direction we are heading here. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | It is helpful to consider how to handle the relationship between WMF and the individual projects. A proposal was made beginning with "[t]he WMF must respect the fundamental principles of the projects" which found a lot of support so far. The civility pillar titled "Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility"should provide the foundation for strategy discussions in regard to community health and diversity. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | Why the role of these pillars appears nowhere to be recognized in these recommendations (beside the infamous recommendation to discard the classic notion of an encyclopaedia)? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | WMF could invest resources into a major community survey where regular editors (not so much the people active in the chapters) are asked to describe their communities, what they think is special about them, what do they perceive as their largest problems, what were important moments in their history, how do they rate the level of civility in their Wikipedia, maybe also some fun stuff like the weirdest editwar in their history. This could trigger change, which has to come from within the communities, not in the form of rules imposed by the WMF. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #A new charter? | "Equity" means many different things to many people, but it must mean fairness to the people who have made these investments and have sacrificed to get the movement to this point. What provisions in the proposed charter will address equity toward the existing stakeholders? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #What is the timetable to publish this draft? | Is there any proposed timetable to publish the recommendations, so that discussion can start? Also, how does this agree with the timetable already set by the core team, where a final set of recommendations is going to be published by October? Will there be any space for discussion for this WG recommendations? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Some thoughts on a global governance body | One of the working group members highlighted how inconsistent participation on volunteer bodies across the movement is. Have best practices or options for addressing this deficiency in a global governance body been explored? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Models now available and one question answered. | How are we supposed to answer questions when we don't even know what the proposed Charter says yet? And that is just the first question when every single one of them are in the same format. These are hopelessly specific for plans which have not yet been implemented. Why not ask people's opinions of the structures themselves, their implications, and suitability, instead of impossible true/false questions speculating on specific parts which have not yet been described? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Models now available and one question answered. | Someone just copied headings and propositions from the three proposals, and made each of them into those Agree/Disagree/Other questions. Even if it were possible to answer questions such as whether some TBD document fulfilled its proposed purpose, which again it is not, that would still not provide information about how to evaluate and improve the proposals. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Survey requires a Google account | The surveys appear not to allow responses except from those signed in to a Google account. Presumably this wasn't intentional? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #To establish a framework for decision-making, there will be a charter of principles, values, and governance behaviours. The charter will be developed through an equitable process with broad and diverse participation. | "To establish a framework for decision-making, there will be a charter of principles, values, and governance behaviours. The charter will be developed through an equitable process with broad and diverse participation." - there was no "broad and diverse participation" in the strategy process from its very beginning on. Rather there was a sort of fake participation. You could say something, people could agree, on the next level "summary" nothing was to be found. The whole strategy process is fundamentally flawed and should be stopped at once. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | A "mixture" can obviously range from 100% elected to 100% appointed. Democratic governance requires that the authority structure is elected, which is why Wikimedia chapters are organized this way[citation needed]. A self-appointing Board like the Wikimedia Foundation is autocratic. Let's try to refine this recommendation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | Appointments are made by the current Board members, so how this can correct for electoral underrepresentation? All that a self-appointed body can do is perpetuate its own biases, since we have a small number of people making this decision rather than a larger number that would participate in elections. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | If we believe in democracy then we need to go all the way, rather than this business of appointing the few WMF Board members who are nominated by what look like elections, but where the electorate has no actual power. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | A healthy precedent to bring up would be the voter registration drives like Freedom Summer. If we think voters have such skewed demographics that we can't trust them to make healthy group decisions, then we need to find more voters and hope we can fix the skew. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | When a majority of cats elects 5 cats to a BoT-like body, which then appoint 4 other cats, dogs are doomed. Those board appointments really look like some kind of appease to the masses, so that something apparently is being done to bring in diversity, when in practice nothing is actually being done. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | The result of appointments has been not only the perpetuation of biases, but an increasing and very worrying lack of competence - which is not unexpected, since their "electoral basis" is not any community, but the group itself, so they only have to comply with the very minimum the group expects one to do, which may be simply keeping one's mouth shut and not making waves or contesting other member's decisions. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | A diverse ethnic background does not imply diversity of opinions. A self appointing body - like AffCom - can have an appearance of great ethic, gender, etc. diversity, while being very monolithic in the way it thinks, as the body has an innate tendency to self preservation and to chose those who think the same, so as to avoid internal problems. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | We need entities with more critical abilities, and with better competencies and capacities when it comes to quick and proper answering to developing crisis. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | The model of X volunteers elected and Y staff/technical/advisory ppl appointed is really great and functional. It has not necessarily anything to do with "bringing more diversity to the board" as it is so often paraded, however. When this model is abused/hijacked to force "diversity", it risks becoming dysfunctional. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Elected vs. appointed | The focus must be primarily on competence and capacity. Even as a mater of respect to the competency of the candidates. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Comprehensibility | The names seem to be nonsense words that mean nothing at all, rather than using titles as an outline of what the proposals would entail. That should be fixed. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Comprehensibility | A version in plain English would be quite helpful, and the summaries need to be summarized, because reading these proposals gives no idea what they would do if implemented. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Comprehensibility | Wasn't this Strategy process supposed to be a joint effort and brainstorm with the community? Why are those specific models being forced upon us? Why can't we discuss more practical and useful stuff, such as general principles and orienting lines, and adapt them to our current structure, and instead are stuck with those precooked models? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Comprehensibility | Comprehensibility/understanding might improve if a link to the current structure, displayed in a similar way to the proposed ones, were provided. With that, people would be able to make comparisons more easily. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The end of the volunteer community? | 2 of the models (Elgafar & Quotiel) seem to basically ignore the existence of a volunteer Wikimedia community. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The end of the volunteer community? | "Each volunteer community will keep a close connection to one or more support structures" - This in particular seems to have been messed up in the scheme ("local project community" under a regional hub is total nonsense if you're talking about Wikimedia Project communities). | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The end of the volunteer community? | “Content CDM Communities” referred to the Wikimedia Project volunteer communities. Apparently the WG believes those communities will ever accept to become subject of a BoT style body, answering to it. Good luck with that. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The end of the volunteer community? | How best to ensure that the majority of global community members who do not officially become members of any formal, informal or localized groups continue to be enfranchised and supported? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #The end of the volunteer community? | This model won't fly unless you redefine those regional groups and affiliates entirely, so that they would be forced to accommodate those kind of independent initiatives by design. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Quality Control and Reputational Management | In a resourced constrained world, there are two basic causes for potential friction between autonomous groups: 1) competition for money and resources and 2) credibility/reputation. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Quality Control and Reputational Management | Working Group should address not only resources but also overall quality assurance across projects. We can predict that both will be a cause for tension and disputes, so the final set of recommendations should anticipate such concerns. Who will have responsibility for quality assurance within each entity and across projects? | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Wikimedia France | What is the role of the charter of principles, values, and governance behaviours? a values or governance charter? who is in charge of its application, its surveillance, point of contact in case of suspicion of non-compliance? The Movement governance body? is it binding? should affiliates ratify this charter? or add to the bylaws? how the charter will be elaborated? validation or vote? the order should be: first, deciding of the charter, then, of the new organisation of the movement. The charter should contain what Wikimedia is not / doesn't want to be. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Basque Wikimedians | Government governance should be fully elected. Support for a horizontal model. | |
| Meta-Wiki | #Basque Wikimedians | ELGAFAR shows the advantages of Quotiel and Situla, but it is more decentralized, providing a more effective and operative framework in relation to the local context, also avoiding unwanted bureaucracy. |
Language community updateEdit
| Language | Report Link | Participation Level (estimate) | Channels | Themes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | <[1] | Multiple 1:1 interviews conducted, no community level feedback or discussion | Private 1:1 communication | Advocacy, Community Health, Capacity Building, Diversity |
| French | [2] | ~20 people took part in discussions + 35 answered a short survey (more people also participated during Wikimania or WikiConvention Francophone, their feedback has been reported separately) | Village Pumps, meta talk pages, Twitter, survey, emails, and 1:1 video calls | Product & Technology, Partnerships, Diversity, Capacity Building |
| Spanish | [3] | Feedback is primarily from a single user on Telegram, plus strategy salons in Catalonia (Catalan language) and Bolivia (totaling aprox. 25 people) | Telegram, in person | All |
| Portuguese | [4] | Very limited, despite outreach and promotion from Strategy Liaison | Village Pump, Telegram, talk pages | None |
| Mandarin | None. | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| German | None. | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Hindi | [5] | 6 people across multipke channels | Village Pumps, Messenger and Whatsapp groups, and individual email outreach | Capacity Building, Diversity, Revenue Streams |