Talk:OKA

Letter of Intent

Hi everyone,

(@Piotrus @Mathglot @W7tu11l5ox FYI)

I've started the process of applying for a User Group status for OKA. The first step of that process is to create a Letter of Intent for OKA, of which you can find a draft here. I wanted to circulate it with you first for feedback before officially submitting it -- feel free to make direct edits or share any suggestions here. 7804j (talk) 09:37, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Maybe the user group should be for more than just OKA? Piotrus (talk) 09:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this. The definition of a User group is here; there are currently 153 of them. The large majority are regionally based (Ecuador, Botswana), and the rest are thematic or identity-based, for example: language groups (Albanian, Kazakh, Esperanto), identity or ethnic (LGBT, Women, Igbo), or subject interests (like WikiProjects: Math, Maps, Photographers).

There are a fair number of language-based groups, but none specifically for translators, and that would seem to be a natural group subject, and one with a larger reach than one based solely on a single, small non-profit, which would be unprecedented and might face steep odds. In addition, if you look at the Why should we apply section, benefits included swag, use of the Wikimedia logo, and applying for and receiving grants; restricting the User group application to just OKA might be seen to be in conflict with some of these ideas, whereas defining it as a translator interest group would align it more with the existing language groups and make it more likely to receive approval.

I have no inside knowledge of the whole process, so I am only speculating based on what I read, but in my opinion, you should scrap the current Letter of intent, and replace it with one targeting translation as a whole. I wouldn't name or mention OKA in the Letter at all, and apply strictly as a thematic interest group of all translators. Under that structure, OKA translators could certainly adhere as User Group members, along with the larger translator world. That could only redound to the benefit of OKA translators, as well as introduce OKA to other translators, and vice versa. Mathglot (talk) 11:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

So I agree that making it about translation in general would be less likely to encounter concerns. But I don't think this is a good idea, because:

(1) OKA is not in the position to facilitate a broader user group that covers all forms of translation. We're focused on the distribution of stipends, onboarding of new editors to Wikipedia for the purpose of translation, etc. but don't necessarily have the resources nor skillset required to organize a community around translation across Wikipedia (as Intertranswiki aims to do for EN WP). I agree that Wikimedia would benefit from such a user group, but it would require to be run by a larger group of volunteers beyond simply OKA.

(2) One of the reasons why we seek to create a user group is to better officialize and bring visibility to OKA within the Wikimedia community. That's also as a result of concerns raised by other editors that, considering the scale of OKA, we should aim to have a more official capacity. By creating a "Translation" user group, we wouldn't achieve that goal, since OKA and its translators would just be one of the many members of the group. I originally considered applying to the thematic organization status, whose description felt more aligned with our mission, but it seems like the process for these is stricter and there are only 2 globally at the moment. I agree that almost all user groups are currently linked to a country, interest or identity, but based on the description of what user groups are intended for, it seemed like OKA would still fit within that model (despite being unusual). In general, the challenge we constantly face is that there aren't really any other non-profit like us, that distributes grants to Wikipedia contributors, as a result there aren't really any well-lit path in how to achieve some more official recognition. Applying to a user group status was actually a suggestion from one of the admins we interacted with. 7804j (talk) 08:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)