Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Reports/Summary of Movement Conversations 2020/Asia

The numbers

In Asia, around 200 to 300 people viewed the recommendations landing page or were informed recommendations exist by email or other means. Almost 200 people have viewed the Meta recommendations landing page in Hindi and over 8000 in English.

The number of actively engaged people in Asia was about 100 people, from affiliates or outside, engaged via online and offline channels.

Video calls (~ 35 people)
Social media, emails and chat groups (~ 60 people)
Several Posts on Wikimedia village pumps and affiliate talk pages

General feelings

Overall the recommendations and the process have received positive reviews. Many communities have appreciated the idea of gathering feedback to then include it in the process.

There has also been some criticism around the length of the process and the lack of details in the recommendations.

Areas of support

Promote Sustainability and Resilience recommendation mentioning dedicated local staff was supported and endorsed at large. About the expected outcomes, some volunteers/users emphasized liking the idea of recognition to encourage non editors to edit or contribute in all Wikimedia platforms.
There was support for Cultural Change for Inclusive Communities, especially the idea to create movement governance documents for offline movement bodies.
Community supported improvement in user experience could have better design for a wide range of devices, such as for mobile phones and tablets for contribution in diverse contexts.
Safety and Security recommendation was supported for universal code of conduct on grounds that the universal set of principles should be applied with room for local context to be applicable for the current structures and governance models in all Wikimedia spaces for better community health.
There was overall support for the idea of regional hubs and representative governance bodies for better community support and equitable representation of decentralized power with equitable distribution of representatives from throughout the Movement after the analysis of gaps existing in different regions and communities.
There was support for globally-coordinated leadership development plans to empower local communities to decentralize power and to create equity in the Movement where some better leaders are not given opportunity due to the current structures.
There was a strong support for Invest in Skills Development. It was suggested that knowledge management is key to advance community growth.
On Manage Internal Knowledge, a participatory, multi-lingual, and searchable knowledge-base system was supported with access to all Movement learning assets. There needs to be investment in institutional knowledge retention, and mentorship programs for development in leadership.
There was support for a technology council with equitable representation to ensure better management of the existing resources and missing gaps, a centralized council is needed for equity in projects and their language versions.
There was a strong interest in prioritizing knowledge with local relevance to the community for diverse and equitable representation on Wikipedia.
There was support for inclusion of oral knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge systems to be included in Wikimedia projects to bring more efficiency in the community to learn and engage with projects.
There was support on developing an evaluation process to improve diversity and inclusion in technology, policies, and governance systems to empower the capacities of movement stakeholders.
There was support for more investment in communication solutions and processes to support more inclusion of scaling the community collaboration for decision making on movement projects in a better way.

Areas of opposition or concern

Universal Code of Conduct: There was some opposition on Universal Code of Conduct on grounds that it would be hard to create since we come from different cultures.

Globally-coordinated leadership development plan: There was opposition on the grounds that the implementation of such plans may not be equitable in terms of diversity from underrepresented and marginalized individuals. There was fear that it would be an additional cost to the movement with little benefit to the community.

Evaluate, iterate and adapt: It was mentioned that it feels like there is a danger there will be lots more reporting required from projects and affiliates, or there will be a large team who are collecting data for evaluation.

Suggestions for improvement

Clarity needed on the Community involvement: It was suggested that there should be more clarity on the involvement of chapters/user-groups in the process since they will need to be involved actively in the implementation phase.

Movement governance document: In many emerging communities, such governance documents can be helpful. But it shouldn't be imposed. There should be proper documentation and policy to guide relationships between different affiliates and organizations.

Universal code of conduct: There is diversity in movement structure itself. There are some communities that are well developed, others that are developing. We need to understand which problems will need to be solved if there is a universal code of conduct.

Safety and Security: It was suggested that the current support for safety and security is not adequate and there should be more resources and support structure established to help people from different regions.

Manage Internal Knowledge: There needs to be more development of institutional knowledge retention, and encouragement of an elder system where people are encouraged to step back from leadership roles to encourage new ideas and process but still retain their connection to the community.

Innovate in Free Knowledge: It also needs a very clear communications strategy and responsibility for introducing the change to the community, the rationale and how it is going to be supported if it gets beyond the ‘sandpit’ stage.

Plan Infrastructure Scalability: A langcode.read.wikiproject.org can be developed for readers. This can be hosted externally so as to reduce traffic to and from the Wikipedia infrastructure.

Points to clarify

Promote Sustainability and Resilience: It's recommended to clarify the movement's definition of 'impact'. This means that there would be a clearer set of criteria around funds distribution based on what impact projects are expected to have on people and on knowledge equity.

Create Cultural Change for Inclusive Communities: The inclusiveness is the use of intangible cultural knowledge systems, we can't be inclusive until we recognise that the global North is the sole arbitrator of knowledge.

Ensure Equity in Decision-making: Clarification on emergent & regional hubs. How will it be formed? Is it a direct subsidiary of WMF or a confederation of communities? At what cost to run & sustain a hub compared to the status quo? Does the regional hub have autonomy or what?

Coordinate Across Stakeholders: Emergent support structures should only be implemented in a way that can be opted out by affiliates if they need to.

Prioritize Topics for Impact: Prioritizing knowledge should be important, but if there is no proper planning for execution, it would be a waste of movement resources. How do we ensure that?