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Volunteer Supporters Network/Hub Report 2022/C

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Volunteer Supporters Network

Hub Report 2022: Activities – outcome

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Global skill-sharing activities

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The skills and leadership development of people working in the field of community support was accelerated and amplified by 11 virtual meetings/workshops, each lasting about 60–90 minutes. A special focus was on community health issues and technical skills including Wikidata. In addition, a 2-days virtual “annual conference” held in November intensified the skill-sharing activities.

Regular skill-sharing meetings

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The VSN organized regular virtual skill-sharing meetings around community support. The goal of a total of at least 100 participants was exceeded by far. In the end, the workshops had a total of 329 participants, with a minimum of 15 for a meeting held only in Spanish (the other workshops were held in English) .

Overview of regular skill-sharing meetings
Topic Date # of participants
Events and campaigns around gender gap 7 April 2022 43
Banner campaigns 21 April 2022 27
Wikidata para principiantes 3 May 2022 15
Wikidata for beginners 9 May 2022 35
Tools for Wikidata competitions 12 May 2022 21
Writing LGBTIQ+ biographies in Wikipedia: tips and strategies to overcome barriers 28 June 2022 27
Wikimania 2022 session 13 August 2022 52
Designing and evaluating community surveys 15 September 2022 22
How communities address the issue of user retention 27 October 2022 34
Universal Code of Conduct – feedback and question session 19 October 2022 28
Let’s Connect 23 November 2022 25

The reason for the high number of participants is undoubtedly an expansion of the target group. Originally, this consisted only of VSN members. Due to the interest of other employees and volunteers, they were also allowed to participate. The Let’s Connect team supported by targeted additional announcements to reach the expanded target group especially in the global south.

Key learning: Skill-sharing activities are often not only interesting for the inner circle of the Hub. Expand your audience and find allies to reach them.

Skill sharing activities participants were offered a chance to receive certificates, confirming gained abilities; and by that being helpful not only in their wiki activities but also in general. They have also received an evaluation survey, which helped to see the impact of the training. Overall 41 participants asked for certificates.

The evaluation survey proved that the skillshare trainings were useful for the participants: 80% agree that they developed their skills thanks to the trainings, and 90% declare that they will put the skills from the training into practical use in their work in the Wikimedia Movement.

“ The training has made me realize that there are diverse things to learn. Well, with training received, I have been able to share feedback in my communities, understanding the various ways I can employ to support my community – learning and sharing knowledge, participating and organizing events, etc. ”

— from the survey among the skill-sharing meetings participants

“ I've learned good practices from other Wikimedia organizations, as well as people who are experts in a given topic, and I know I can turn to them for help. The variety of meeting topics meant that everyone could find something for themselves. ”

— from the survey among the skill-sharing meetings participants

“ This training has helped me a lot in improving my experience and turning me into an experienced person at this part. ”

— from the survey among the skill-sharing meetings participants

Skill-sharing at annual conference

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“ Inspiration for future work. ”

— a participant’s feedback at the annual conference

6 sessions at the VSN’s annual conference were dedicated to skill-sharing.

According to the survey sent to the 21 participants afterwards, 90% of the participants believed that meeting contributed to their professional practice. In the survey's comment section, reference was made to the possibility of sharing skills and acquiring others as well as to the quality of the presented content.

→ See also: INPUT: Global skill-sharing activities

Peer group support

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Peer group networking culminated in the 2-days virtual “annual conference” in November. Throughout the year, several internal communications channels were established or reorganized.

Annual conference

“ It gave me a sense of community. – I feel included. – We are people with emotions. – We are not alone. – Collaboration between all of us. – We, in a very safe environment. ”

— participants’ feedback at the VSN’s annual conference

 

The aim of the VSN’s annual conference was to develop better skills but also to create a sense of connection and mutual support. The latter was achieved by creating a safe space in which participants could openly talk about the challenges related to their work and receive support from others. This aims to create a sense of belonging and a culture of asking for help.

The post-conference survey shows that this aim was achieved, as the participants experienced the feeling of inclusion, community and collaboration. They highlighted some of the factors that helped them in that feeling, including the quality and engagement of the facilitator (100% survey participants considered the facilitation very good), the friendly atmosphere and the possibility of connecting and a possibility to see that participants share the same challenges and concerns.

Overall the participants were satisfied with the conference: 90% of participants agreed that the meeting satisfied their expectations.

Key learning: Participation in multi-day meetings can reinforce the cohesiveness of a hub as a peer group. This also applies to online events to some extent.

Communication channels

The network communicates through a number of varied channels, which allow consultation, internal organizational work and announcing. This allows the members to be informed about the VSN happenings but also reach out for support if needed:

  • mailing list for members and liaisons of the Volunteer Supporters Network (hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation),
  • mailing list for members Volunteer Supporters Network (hosted by Wikimedia Deutschland; dedicated to organizational work),
  • Telegram group for members and liaisons of the Volunteer Supporters Network.

→ See also: INPUT: Peer group support

Global community competition

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As an example of how to support a global community contest, the VSN contributed to the International Museum Day Wikidata Competition in May. The VSN served as a multiplier and expertise provider in order to engage Wikimedia affiliates as local organizers and to ensure high participation and free content numbers.

Satisfaction of diverse goals

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Would you recommend it to other affiliates to participate in the Museum Day project next year?
Results of the survey among the participating affiliates
All Chapters User Groups
yes 18 (100%) 13 (100%) 5 (100%)
no 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

26 Wikimedia affiliates contributed to the project as local organizers of the International Museum Day Wikidata Competition in May. All affiliates involved would recommend participation to other affiliates.

The participating affiliates were asked after the competition how relevant the following aspects were for their context (for details see tables below):

  • creating awareness in the general public
  • free content creation
  • communication/cooperation with cultural or educational institutions
  • supporting our communities
  • gaining new editors
  • learnings for our organization/communities

Their responses showed a wide variety of what was relevant, and different things were important to different affiliates. This was also evident in the communication leading up to the competition. Some affiliates were particularly interested in workshops for their communities, others more in the external communication plan. Concerning the differences between Chapters and User Groups, free content creation stood out in particular for Chapters, while for User Groups, community aspects were more important. Learning something was significant for both groups, but especially for User Groups.

Key learning: Complex multi-stakeholder projects implemented by a Hub can and should meet a wide variety of stakeholder needs, including those that were not originally the primary purpose of the project.
ALL: How relevant were the following aspects of the Museum Day project for your context?
Results of the survey among the participating affiliates
very relevant relevant a little bit irrelevant
creating awareness in the general public 3 (17%) 9 (50%) 5 (28%) 1 (6%)
free content creation 9 (50%) 5 (28%) 3 (17%) 1 (6%)
communication/cooperation with cultural or educational institutions 5 (28%) 4 (22%) 6 (33%) 3 (17%)
supporting our communities 7 (39%) 8 (44%) 2 (11%) 1 (6%)
gaining new editors 1 (6%) 12 (67%) 4 (22%) 1 (6%)
learnings for our organization/communities 4 (22%) 10 (56%) 3 (17%) 1 (6%)
CHAPTERS: How relevant were the following aspects of the Museum Day project for your context?
Results of the survey among the participating affiliates
very relevant relevant a little bit irrelevant
creating awareness in the general public 1 (8%) 6 (46%) 5 (38%) 1 (8%)
free content creation 8 (62%) 3 (23%) 1 (8%) 1 (8%)
communication/cooperation with cultural or educational institutions 3 (23%) 3 (23%) 5 (38%) 2 (15%)
supporting our communities 6 (46%) 5 (38%) 2 (15%) 0 (0%)
gaining new editors 1 (8%) 9 (69%) 3 (23%) 0 (0%)
learnings for our organization/communities 3 (23%) 6 (46%) 3 (23%) 1 (8%)
USER GROUPS: How relevant were the following aspects of the Museum Day project for your context?
Results of the survey among the participating affiliates
very relevant relevant a little bit irrelevant
creating awareness in the general public 2 (40%) 3 (60%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
free content creation 1 (20%) 2 (40%) 2 (40%) 0 (0%)
communication/cooperation with cultural or educational institutions 2 (40%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%)
supporting our communities 1 (20%) 3 (60%) 0 (0%) 1 (20%)
gaining new editors 0 (0%) 3 (60%) 1 (20%) 1 (20%)
learnings for our organization/communities 1 (20%) 4 (80%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Redistribution of movement resources

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Redistribution of financial resources

The sponsoring of prizes for the Wikidata competition led to a vivid redistribution of financial resources. The privileged affiliates in the Northern and Western Europe region and, to a smaller extent, the Wikimedia Foundation financed prizes for affiliates from less privileged regions. The beneficiaries were first and foremost Africa, followed by Central and Eastern Europe and finally Latin America and South Asia.

Investing (-) and receiving (+) prize packages for the Wikidata competition
Region Provider/receiver Sum
Wikimedia Foundation Volunteer Supporters Network (-5) -5
Middle East and Africa Benin (+1), Botswana (+1), Chad (+1), DRC (+1), Guinea (+1), Nigeria (-1), Rwanda (+1), Uganda (+1) 6
South Asia West Bengal (+1) 1
Latin America (LATAM) and The Caribbean Argentina (+1), Chile (+1), Uruguay (-1) 1
Northern and Western Europe Austria (-3), France (-2), Germany (-5), Italy (-2), Malta (+1), Netherlands (-1), Sweden (-1), Switzerland (-3), UK (-1) -17
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Central Asia Armenia (+1), Hungary (+1), Poland (-1), Serbia (+1), Ukraine (+1) 3

Redistribution of resources for translations

All participating affiliates were asked to translate the competition pages into their local languages. Because some of them shared the same language, in some cases the translation work was done by an affiliate also for other affiliates. The affiliates in Africa benefited the most from this arrangement. Most work was left to the Northern and Western Europe region, followed by the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. So, in general, time resources for translations were provided mainly by European chapters for the benefit of African user groups.

Providing (-) and benefiting (+) from translations of Wikidata Competition pages
Region Provider/receiver Sum
Wikimedia Foundation Volunteer Supporters Network (-en) -1
Middle East and Africa Benin (+fr), Botswana (+en), Chad (+fr), DRC (+fr), Guinea (+en), Nigeria (+en), Rwanda (+en), Uganda (+en) +8
South Asia West Bengal (-bn) -1
Latin America (LATAM) and The Caribbean Argentina (-es), Chile (-es), Uruguay (+es) -1
Northern and Western Europe Austria (+de), France (-fr), Germany (-de), Italy (-it), Malta (+en), Netherlands (-nl), Sweden (-sv), Switzerland (+en), UK (+en) -5
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Central Asia Armenia (+en), Hungary (-hu), Poland (-pl), Serbia (-sr), Ukraine (-uk) -3
Key learning: Hubs can play an important role in a more equitable redistribution of financial and other resources of the Movement: not only in terms of resources managed centrally at the Wikimedia Foundation or the Hub, but also in terms of direct rebalancing between unequally positioned Wikimedia affiliates.

User participation and free content

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In terms of content and community engagement the competition can be considered as highly successful. There may also be the possibility that a Hub is supporting a multi-stakeholder project whose metrics are less good. We think it is important to know that this was not the case here because it can provide an important aspect of “satisfaction” of the involved affiliates or communities.

Editors and new editors

979 unique users participated in the competition. Among them were 551 new editors.

“ As a platform, Wikidata is very dockable for people who want to contribute. Now I want to start a session about women on Wikidata and increase their visibility. ”

— Candy Tricia Khohliwe, local Wikidata competition organizer from Botswana,
quoted from WMDE blog

“ We're also adding value for the museums this way, by providing their image descriptions with much more linkable background information. ”

— Wuselig, long-time volunteer and competition participant from Germany,
quoted from WMDE blog

Local
competition 		# all
editors 		# new
editors 		Local
competition 		# all
editors 		# new
editors
Argentina 81 42 Malta 19 3
Armenia 20 7 Netherlands 41 11
Austria 24 8 Nigeria 94 39
Benin 23 3 Poland 46 11
Botswana 15 0 Rwanda 32 0
Chad 13 2 Serbia 24 8
Chile 25 6 Sweden 28 7
DR of the Congo 32 17 Switzerland 27 8
France 36 10 Uganda 33 13
Germany 57 25 Ukraine 73 36
Guinea 14 1 United Kingdom 96 48
Hungary 23 2 Uruguay 23 6
Italy 62 28 West Bengal 305 226

Content and reach

The competition resulted in 86,108,434 bytes added to Wikidata items about museums.

The landing pages of the banner campaign had 2,327,106 pageviews. Museums could see the potential Wikidata has to offer.

“ Wikimedia's reach far exceeds that of museums. ”

— Klaus Staubermann, executive director of ICOM Germany,
quoted from WMDE blog

“ Wikidata is a site that is becoming more and more exciting, especially when museums go online and want to network, whether with each other or with other cultural institutions. ”

— Frank von Hagel, research associate at the Institute for Museum Research,
quoted from WMDE blog

Local
competition 		# total
edits 		# items
edited 		# items
created 		# bytes
added
Argentina 6072 1231 58 2597022
Armenia 1861 137 35 883310
Austria 1830 302 30 1521108
Benin 506 31 9 334154
Botswana 510 13 5 284672
Chad 318 6 5 152022
Chile 4170 411 107 1948444
DR of the Congo 329 16 11 182033
France 8372 1953 480 7205338
Germany 42470 4166 167 19241952
Guinea 362 14 5 205311
Hungary 3523 445 27 1947175
Italy 2770 197 37 2509020
Malta 2349 59 31 1654689
Netherlands 6351 1312 66 5186421
Nigeria 1963 110 61 955740
Poland 21653 2085 191 13826951
Rwanda 462 15 5 239168
Serbia 3164 196 15 1474841
Sweden 1987 974 6 1004516
Switzerland 2421 284 105 1797723
Uganda 794 51 30 385889
Ukraine 10351 1147 32 5604547
United Kingdom 5074 1057 34 3521667
Uruguay 2026 160 10 1174290
West Bengal 5642 2218 1660 10260754

→ See also: INPUT: Global community competition

Published resources

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The VSN published several resources that can inspire and be adapted by others in the Movement. The resources include a concept for “Wikipedia Ambassadors”, different policies and resources related to skill-sharing.

The VSN developed a Wikipedia Ambassadors concept that can be used and adapted by Wikimedia affiliates. It is an incentive for Wikipedians who maintain external contacts. The objectives are (1) an official status for experienced, competent Wikipedians who are respected in the community when they wish to indicate their connection to Wikipedia in outside contacts serving the online encyclopedia, (2) clarity and verifiability for institutions that someone is indeed "from Wikipedia", and (3), in combination, more fruitful external contacts in the spirit of Wikipedia’s "self-governance".

Wikipedia Ambassador concept

Several of the policies developed by the VSN for internal purposes can serve as inspiration or models for other groups. The VSN’s internal regulations cover the following topics: mission, activities, participation, membership structure, conduct and conflict resolution, communication channels, voting, dissolution and accountability. The VSN mailing list is now regulated by new terms of use. For VSN video conferences, a special safe policy is in effect.

Internal regulations Terms of use for mailing list Safe space policy for video conferences

The global skill-sharing activities also resulted in many published resources:

 
 
 
by Klara Sielicka-Baryłka, Wikimedia Polska
by Camelia Boban, WikiDonne User Group
by Constanza Verón, Wikimedia Argentina
by Constanza Verón, Wikimedia Argentina
by Martin Rulsch, Wikimedia Deutschland
by Manfred Werner, Wikimedia Österreich
by Raimund Liebert, Wikimedia Österreich
by Jessica Stephenson, Wikimedia Foundation
by Rubén Ojeda, Wikimedia España
by Constanza Verón, Wikimedia Argentina

It was fortunate that some experts published their materials on their own initiative. However, this was not systematically requested from the speakers and there is probably still potential there. Video recordings of online workshops cannot be recommended as a general solution. Recordings can prevent participation at all or some participants may be hesitant to ask questions in a published video. It should also be noted that the published resources from the workshops are formally very diverse and may not be self-explanatory without context.

Key learning: If a Hub produces material that can potentially be used as a resource for others, it should be published in some form. Findability and applicability solutions should be sought.

→ See also: INPUT: Published resources

Movement conversations

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The VSN participated in and initiated conversations relevant to Hub topics, in order to bring the learnings to a wider audience and to learn from other Hub-makers in the Movement.
 

The VSN contributed to the Movement Strategy implementation in conversations around Hubs.

Outcome of movement conversations
Event/platform Description
Hubs Dialogue VSN took part in a series of meetings organized by the Movement Strategy team with people who are planning future Hubs. The results of the meetings can be found here.
Pre-Summit Hubs meeting (1 September 2022) A meeting of regional and thematic Hubs representatives for the Wikimedia Summit organized by the VSN. 6 Hubs were present. We discussed our current work and what are the most important future needs of the Hubs.
Wikimedia Summit (9-11 September 2022) During the summit we participated in Hub-related conversations (including sessions around thematic Hubs) and other relevant conversations (including resources and revenues conversations), met with the MCDC representative and Christel Steigenberger, Peer Support Senior Program Manager. We have also submitted our work to the Baserow platform.
Movement Strategy Forum Sharing learnings and activities at the Movement Strategy Forum.

→ See also: INPUT: Movement conversations


 
Hub Report 2022:   A. Administration and organizational development   •   B. Activities – input   •   C. Activities – outcome
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