SSiy (WMF)
Welcome to Meta!
editHello, SSiy (WMF). Welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Wikimedia Forum if you need help with something (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). Happy editing!
Thank you for participating in the September 2019 Wikimedia Café
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Thank you for attending the Wikimedia Café. Archived meeting notes are at Wikimedia Café/minutes 2019 09, and you are welcome to make corrections or additions if you think that there is a need to do so. ↠Pine (✉) 21:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
Follow up from the September 2019 Wikimedia Café
editHello, what is the status of the contacts with Samaritans? Are the Samaritans interested in having a more formal type of community-to-community contact between their community and the Wikimedia community? ↠Pine (✉) 07:29, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Pine, Lane's been in touch with Samaritans, and they've been discussing plans to come to the conference in Austria next year. Lane will have a much mroe current view of the discussions so far.
- Thank you. By the way, when participating in talk page discussions, I suggest using the ping template if you want the attention of one or more specific people. While using the template is not required, I for one usually appreciate being pinged. Best wishes, ↠Pine (✉) 20:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Sherwin is passed
editSherwin died today.
Sherwin was reliable and faithful for advocating for the Wikimedia Community. I know that at the Wikimedia Foundation there are many obligations, and not everyone can have a strong community focus because there are many other things necessary to do. I do not expect every employee there to advocate for the community, especially not lawyers, and especially not in the circumstance like safety where community and corporate interests routinely come into conflict. Sherwin was a person who was able to give a lot of attention to community by joining online and in person community meetings, reaching out to people for conversation, and genuinely advocating for volunteers and the Wikimedia community. That was not his professional role, but that is what he himself chose to do with his opportunity and position, and I greatly appreciate that personal choice he made. I especially am grateful for his support of Wikimedia LGBT+, which is a small community that needs a lot of assistance due to hardships. Lots of people ask the Wikimedia LGBT+ community for favors, but Sherwin was one whom I knew to come to the organization with unsolicited favors and support. It is so hard to have real friends and contacts in this tense wiki environment of money, public image, and the global anti-gay sentiment that routinely disturbs the Wiki LGBT+ space. I trusted Sherwin.
I often feel that the Wikimedia LGBT+ community is under so much pressure, and is so small, and has so few external supporters who stand up for our needs. I regret that the Queering Wikipedia 2020 conference was canceled because of COVID, but before we knew that would happen Sherwin organized good support and partnerships for us. Around the time of this year's online Queering Wikipedia conference he said that he support us again for our next in person conference. Now that he is gone I am missing the relationship, and I regret that his support was irreplaceable right now in this still early development and formation of the global wiki LGBT+ community. It is so hard to get taken seriously when we talk about safety issues, but Sherwin did understand, and I feel hurt to lose Sherwin our ally.
There have been so many Wikimedia Foundation staff people to try to start what seem like personal relationships, but they turn out to be professional and evaporate when they quit working for the WMF. Sherwin already was a community advocate and he supported us even aside from his work. Of course all this ends when anyone dies, but this loss hurts so much because would have done so much for and with our global community. I miss him, and his passing is a loss for everyone. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)