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

The numbers

The conversations in Portuguese took place on various channels : there were 15 on-wiki posts in highly-visible places of all Portuguese projects, plus messages sent directly to about 400 active users, as well as emails, IRC, Telegram chats, posts and outreach on social media, and targeted outreach towards affiliates, including at the WikiCon Portugal. Overall, 14 people engaged with comments about recommendations or the process. Landing page on PT Wikipedia was visited 200 times.

Social media:

Telegram channel participants: 5
Number and list of posts, locations, conversation threads: 11
Number of people engaging: 14
On-wiki participants: 1

General feelings

The recommendations received, in general, positive feedback from stakeholders. Most users believe that they point to the “right direction”, have a “good writing” and compose a robust document. Some users were concerned about the process itself and were afraid that their voices wouldn’t be heard. Others also liked the recommendations, but with some suggestions for improvements. There was no opposition to any part of the document.

Areas of support

The recommendation to hire local staff from different countries was highly supported by participants (rec 1).
A construction of a code of conduct (rec 2) was the most supported point of the conversation, with emphasis on the safety of users, creation of “spaces of trust” and psychological support when needed.
A better organization of the wikis’ internal information was mentioned as important, especially for new users (rec 8).
A few users highly supported the investment in skill development (rec 7). One of them considered that to be the most important recommendation.

Areas of opposition or concern

None.

Suggestions for improvement

Not only non-editing volunteerism should be compensated (rec 1). Even if by non-financial resources, there may be volunteer areas that should not be excluded from that.
The writing on recommendation 1 suggests that we shouldn’t capitalize our structure, but also suggests offering premium service for large API users, which seems to be contradictory.
We can’t only focus on gender gap. Other gaps are also relevant, like marginalized LBGT and ethnic groups. Affirmative action was also seen as missing from document by one user.
A space free of conflict is not realistic as desired on recommendation 3. Conflicts should be better managed and they are part of the community growth and experience building, which brings to them a positive value in a healthy environment.
Code of Conduct and the Movement Charter should be part of the same document. At least the content of one of them should be part of the other.

Points to clarify

Recommendation 4 may have a broad interpretation unless we can define more clearly what is the “usual” or “expected” behaviour standard. We shouldn’t expect an environment impossible to achieve and then punish those that wouldn’t follow.
It is not clear how the Governance body would be selected. That is essential so it truly represents the “movement’s diversity”. Is it supposed to represent the ‘current’ diversity or some ‘desirable’ diversity? (rec 5)
What is the difference between this new Governance body and the Board of Trustees? Should be clarified. (rec 5)
What are the problems that are to be solved by solutions proposed for the “Open pathways to power positions”? They seem to be too specific and it is not demonstrated that they are the best ones among other possibilities. (rec 5)
It should be clearer if the coaches would have a paid or unpaid role (rec 6).