User:Constanza Verón (WMAR)/Taller1

Building community

• 
• 
• 

Summary

During the first six months of 2018, the Community Building Program has focused on strengthening the existing community and generating new strategic communities. In this sense, the activities we carried out reinforce our objectives for 2018:

• Supporting and promoting the emergence of new themed communities organized around the objective of editing with purpose.
• Strengthening and expanding the WMAR community, working to help it reflect the local community.
• Mentoring and guiding the emergence of new communities in the region and within the movement

Communities

Success: Communities.....

As we stated in previous reports, the community of editors in Argentina works better if it feels supported by people who share its interests. In this sense, since 2017 we have worked on themed communities that function as a space for the generation of new projects and collective work. During the first semester of 2018, we worked on the consolidation of two existing themed communities and promoted the creation of two new ones.

A) Consolidation

Gender The debate on gender in the national agenda, together with women’s need to gain visibility, generated the emergence of different initiatives that aim to make Wikimedia a space for the construction of the history of the struggle of the feminist movement. In this sense, and with the aim of incorporating more women to the WMAR community, during 2018 we have carried out the following: Mentoring Program: space for the transfer of expertise through regular encounters of the editing space “Wikipedia in a gender tone”, in which we count with the participation of long-term women editors that mentor newcomers. Organization in digital spaces: “Wikifeminista” Telegram group as an answer to the need of generating a safe and reliable space for meeting, collaborating and debating, for women volunteers at a regional level. Work on new themes: as an answer to the need to edit with purpose and on our community’s demand, we carried out activities to edit articles on issues that are currently on the national agenda, such as women’s human rights, LGTB, women in soccer.*

Photographers During the first semester of 2018, we made progress in the consolidation of the proposals of the community drafted in 2017. With the aim of supporting and mentoring initiatives proposed by the community of photographers, we carried out the following: Follow-up encounters for the projects: we carried out 2 online encounters to discuss and design strategies for the dissemination of the work done with the NMASF project. Technical support: we developed dissemination material to invite people to participate in the campaign led by the group of photographers. Support to new alliances: we mentored the work of the OpenStreetMap community to enhance work on Argentinean districts.

Abortion in Argentina: paradigm of the edition with purpose. The article “Abortion in Argentina” has been one of the most visited and edited articles of 2018. This is due to the debate in relation to the bill on voluntary termination of pregnancy, which brought long-time and new editors to actively intervene in the construction of content of the article.

Side effect: New leadership As a result of the mobilization and organization of the women’s movement in Argentina, new leaders with non-traditional profiles appeared in the WMAR projects, who showed interest in working on the Wikimedia’s projects basing on their own objectives as activists. These new leaders are journalists, photographers, leaders in collaborative projects such as OSM, that found in Wikimedia a space where they could collaboratively construct a new perspective on the women’s movement, either by building a visual archive, improving articles with a gender perspective or articulating projects. This new leadership has grown thanks to the mentoring and support, not only provided by WMAR but also by the very same network of volunteers that they promoted themselves. These new profiles allowed us to: Position women volunteers in new spaces Forging new alliances with groups with which we had never worked before Taking WMAR’s outreach to a national scale

B) Emerging communities

Litoral Region One of the obstacles detailed in our impact report was the lack of federalization of our community and our activities as a consequence of Argentina’s great surface. To face this problem, during the first half of 2018, we fostered initiatives in the inland of the country, not only providing funds but also being present during the activities. The fact that this community is located in the litoral region of Argentina and not anywhere else is due to the presence of active local volunteers with projects and interests aligned with WMAR’s strategic lines. In order to mentor and support the emergence of this new community, we provided: Encounters: we organized in-person and online encounters to identify projects. 2 online and 1 in-person encounter. Project design: 2 meetings to design and coordinate the implementation of projects. Technical and financial support: support for the design of the project from scratch until its implementation: material about Wikimedia Commons. 2 Mobility Grants to participate in WMAR’s events. Presence of WMAR’s representatives in the litoral region: in-person participation of WMAR’s staff in 4 events in the litoral region.

Journalists One of the greatest obstacles when writing in the encyclopedia is the lack of sources, especially about women. The journalists’ work is an essential pillar for the encyclopedia and, in this sense, it is strategic for WMAR to generate a communication network with journalists across the entire country, with which we can collaborate in the construction of quality knowledge. With this purpose, WMAR promoted: Offline meetings: to contact journalists and make WMAR’s work better known. Alliances with the media: we organized 1 project in alliance with a new medium.

This translated into the following results:

Target	Last year (if applicable)	Progress	End of year (projected or actual)	Comments
3 new thematic communities	2	2
supporting the initiatives from the photographers’ and gender communities.	n/a
bimonthly follow-up meetings	n/a	2
foster 5 thematic projects	n/a
design materials to be used by the thematic communities	n/a

What’s next?
“De-virtualize” ourselves: The gender community has grown and continues growing year by year. Particularly during the first half of 2018, our new online spaces helped communities bond in a supportive way , connecting different Spanish-speaking countries and a variety of projects that are working on reducing the gender gap. This has been an important first step that faces its first obstacle: the need to meet face-to-face, to physically share a space of debate in which we can leave user names behind. The need to “de-virtualize” became an obstacle due to the distance that keeps us apart.

Gating factor: When context is key

Argentina is a country with a high degree of social activism where many organizations suggest an agenda according to their current political and cultural needs. The new proposals and activities that we carry out must be in line with the local agenda, since that generates greater commitment, not only in our volunteers but also in our counterparts.

Among the most important issues on the national agenda are the discussions regarding the place of women and their rights. In this sense:

• We sought to generate initiatives that appeal to the community and encourages it to edit with purpose, creating a mutual commitment while making local issues more visible.
• Address the needs of the community and organize activities according to the national agenda, generates a sense of belonging. People are committed to a specific purpose and Wikimedia projects are a means to this end.

This factor is at the same time an obstacle, because:

• It is difficult to attract volunteers unless we are dealing with current issues.

• The local context of economic crisis doesn’t leave people a lot of time for non-remunerated work.

What have we learnt in 2018?

• Organizing activities around the particular interests of the community generate greater commitment and participation.
• The support of WMAR not only financial but face-to-face is fundamental to accompany the emergence of new communities.

Success:Diversifying the WMAR community beyond being editors

One of WMAR’s strategic objectives aims at generating a diverse and federal community. To achieve this, during the first half of 2018 we continued supporting our long-standing community while working on expanding our community beyond the editors’ limits, incorporating new profiles that complement and nourish Wikimedia’s projects.

At a local level: Support to our long-standing community: we continue mentoring initiatives and taking care of the demands of our long-standing community by:

• Mobility Grants: we gave XXX local mobility grants. These grants aim at improving and encouraging the participation of our community in WMAR’s activities, strengthening bonds within the local community.
• Projects support: we worked with our volunteers designing and mentoring projects that help them become project leaders in our spaces.
• Offline meetings: we organized XXXX offline encounters, which allowed us to strengthen the bond with our volunteers while integrating new editors to our long-standing community.

What have we done to incorporate new profiles?

New profiles and networking. One of our objectives for 2018 is to incorporate new profiles to WMAR in order to diversify our community. We understand that to expand our community it is necessary to generate new networks and encounter spaces beyond our traditional community spaces. In this sense, with the purpose of disseminating WMAR’s projects to a new audience, we organized:

Open Bar Themed encounters with people and organizations that work on the construction and dissemination of knowledge, with the aim of generating a network with new counterparts. At the same time, these encounters attract a new and diverse audience with interests aligned to WMAR’s. So far, we have achieved: 3 new counterparts 45 participants in the event 100% satisfaction with the initiative 70% of participants are interested in training in WMAR’s projects. 10% of participants have stayed in touch with WMAR.

Connectiva Born from the need to stay in direct touch with women’s organizations that work on gender and new technologies, with the aim of sharing initiatives, problems and creating collaborating bonds. So far, we achieved: the creation of a Telegram group with XXX organizations the organization of an offline encounter to get to know each other in person the design of a plan of action

At a regional scale: We worked to put together a network of regional support for small groups which will promote their initiatives.

• Support to emerging communities identified in the Telegram groups. Through online encounters, we mentored Latin American volunteers for the organization of activities in their local contexts in Peru, Paraguay and Chile
• Regional networks: we are carrying out great work on a regional scale to make the gender gap in the encyclopedia more visible. In this sense, we generated a regional network in which we not only share information about activities but it also works as a space for generating new projects and alliances.

At a global scale:

• Wikimedia Conference

Retention of new members: Initiatives that allow us to attract a new audience have a great impact in the dissemination of our work. The challenge is then to retain new participants and turn them into volunteers. For that purpose, during the first half of 2018, we developed a new follow-up method for our activities in the following way: Realization of surveys in paper during the activities Identification of profiles of people interested in participating in the training sessions Direct communication with people interested Integration of activities and projects led by WMAR.