Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Events Outline/Draft/Calls

This page contains feedback around the Transition outline's draft, which included some calls in specifci regional languages and with specific affiliates, as well as open office hours for all interested community members. Summarized minutes are below.

Office hours August 11th

Publicly open office hours for feedback were organized on August 11th, 2020:

Participants: 12 people
Time & date: Aug 11th, 15.00 UTC

Discussion:

Tight, ambitious timeline - end of the year is a busy period
- Translation work, bringing people together
People can join a thematic or topic call of interest without having to know strategy
- Needs proper analysis work that communities don’t need to do
Events don’t seem inviting as they are now
“Underprioritizing” large communities was probably the biggest problem with the previous phase
- Don’t forget the large communities
- Bring everyone along
Expectation management
- So people can decide what event to join, what is the outcome of joining or not
- What other consultations could be going on in the mo
Simplify the language overall
Make it super clear for people to know which event to join
Advance notice
On-wiki editing
Side-note: other processes, e.g. branding (trust issues, etc.)

Affiliates

ESEAP

Appraoches

Diversity and inclusivity:
- We need to see new faces
- How can we get new people interested to join
- Strategy is very complex, why is it important to have hubs, why is it important to implement
- They want to be volunteers, they may not want to be involved in the organization of the movement
Ask UGs to nominate someone to participate, then make an open call for nominations so we hear from communities too
- Canvassing can happen and voting is not a fair process
- Selection based on contribution, role, insights, what they can contribute
- People don’t have the time, they are students, working, have family commitments
Chinese - large in numbers, but difficult geopolitically
Malay - Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore
- Indonesian can understand formal Malay, but difficult informally, although can still be understandable

Translation into:

Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese (big community), Indoensian

Ibrecoop

Onboarding:

Small meetings for allied/similar organizations, depending the size.
- Venezuela / Colombia
- Central America
- Stakeholders (CC and others)
- Mexico / Argentina / Chile
- Spanish Wikipedia
- Sister small projects (Wikidata, Wikiviajes)
Individual calls for key persons who can valuable feedback but ignores the current Strategy phases

Transtion:

We need a permanent support from a paid translator for the written materials
We identify the need of a temporary and paid liaison to this process. Specially for organize the calls, ensure participation, track the process and take notes.

Movement Strategy and Global Relations Team

Members of the Movement Strategy and Global Relations Team at Wikimedia Deutschland has provided general comment, on their own capacity, as below.

Language

Simplify the language where possible; make the intent more explicit and clear.
Use less process language.

Roles and participation in transition

Role of larger affiliates and organizations: Make clear what options or opportunities larger affiliates / organizations have available to them to ensure they invest their time wisely without dominating. I.e. what was described to us on the call: where do large orgs want to lead/co-lead; where can they be a partner for others
Enabling participation of smaller affiliates and organizations: Suggestions: introduce a buddy system or a model whereby larger organizations support smaller ones; provide clear, accessible preparation materials; ensure tasks are small and relevant to participants.
Getting online communities involved: meet them where they are. Identify topics that are relevant to their work and focus on those.
How do we design for preventing undue influence of those in power?

Event planning and logistics

Major high fives for how inclusive you are aiming to be with these events!! Also kudos to the model of starting with small events, then bringing the global crowd together for movement conversations, and then breaking out into smaller meetings again to follow up.
Regarding event roll out: Balancing equity with team capacity / resources to host, manage or monitor events may prove challenging
It might be helpful to describe what audience or profiles you want to see at each event (or each type of event), to give affiliates some guidance on whom to send to what event.
This is an ambitious undertaking. More resources (event design and delivery, documentation, analysis, administrative aspects of hosting the events) may be needed than is captured. Documentation, analysis of input, and synchronization of all the input from the events will particularly be time and resource intensive.

Event design

If possible, be explicit about what tools will be used for decision making and how input will be analysed (although it may be too early to do that yet).
CRUCIAL: Capacity questions need to be incorporated into big and small meeting designs. Especially in times of pandemic.
Design question (not necessarily something to be clarified in the public materials): How can we avoid tough but necessary decisions being pushed back even further?

Small events

More clarity needed around how these will be organized and supported. What’s the outline or template people are given?
These could be an opportunity to practice subsidiarity, and spark sense making at the local/regional level
How / will resources and capacity be made available, in a cultural and context-appropriate way, to anyone coordinating or participating in the small events?
The process is the product - small events particularly look like they could and will continue the spirit of collaboration across the Movement. Don't underestimate the value these can have for informal, immeasurable connections and ideas forged.

Bigger picture

How will the Branding discussions and loss of trust impact Transition work?