I JethroBT (WMF)

Chris "Jethro" Schilling

Senior Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation

Well, well, well— if it isn't the consequences of my own actions...

About me

Hey folks. Since 2006, my curiosity has kept me engaged with the English Wikipedia under the username I JethroBT. I've contributed and worked together with editors in a variety of areas such as building high quality articles, community building, and developing help spaces. Before working with the WMF, I taught and studied cognitive science and psychology. Since graduating, I've coordinated a number of edit-a-thons and relationships with institutions in the Chicago metropolitan area.

I live in my home state of Pennsylvania in the United States, and previously lived in Chicago for about 14 years. You are likely to find me contra dancing or practicing taiko, two vibrant folk traditions supported by fantastic communities. (Stay curious!) Otherwise, I am probably planning my next trip to Japan. 日本語を少しゃべられますが、いつもまだまだです。

I enjoy getting to know the people involved in our projects, the challenges we've faced, and why we are motivated to contribute. Feel free to reach out to me anytime you like.

My work

Currently, I am managing funding programs for communities in the United States & Canada and the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) & Central Asia regions.

I joined the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Resources team in 2015. With the Community Resources team, my role is to lead and maintain our grant programs, where folks can apply for funding to support ideas, events, and programs that improve Wikimedia projects and benefit the communities who want to use or contribute to them.

In my past work, I supported volunteers to develop initial thinking for events and projects with IdeaLab and the related Inspire Campaigns, which invited editors to develop ideas to solve important and pervasive needs in our movement along a certain theme.

Here are most projects and programs I've been closely involved with. (It gets hard to keep track of everything after awhile.) My involvement has been in my capacity as staff unless otherwise noted:

I've enjoyed participating in many movement events, including

WikiConference North America 2024
CEE Meeting 2024
Turkic Wikimedia Conference 2023
CEE Meeting 2022 in Ohrid, North Macedonia
Wikimania 2021 held virutally
Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden
FDC Deliberations 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal
Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa
Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy
WikiConference North America 2016 in San Diego
Wikimania 2014 in London, UK (as a volunteer!)

I've contributed to the following academic publications:

Im, J., Zhang, A. X., Schilling, C. J., & Karger, D. (2018). Deliberation and resolution on wikipedia: A case study of requests for comments. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-24.

Disclaimer: I work for or provide services to the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is the account I try to use for edits or statements I make in that role. However, the Foundation does not vet all my activity, so edits, statements, or other contributions made by this account may not reflect the views of the Foundation.

Contact me

E-mail: cschillingwikimedia.org
Talk page: Meta wiki as
I JethroBT (WMF)
I JethroBT is my volunteer account on English Wikipedia

User language

en-N	This user has a native understanding of English.

ja-2	この利用者は中級の日本語ができます。

es-1	Este usuario tiene un conocimiento básico del español.