WikiDonne/Conferences/Wikimedia Summit 2019

L'user group WikiDonne ha avuto l'occasione di inviare un suo rappresentante User:alexmar983 a Wikimedia Summit a Berlino. Dal 29 al 31 marzo 2019.

User:camelia.boban è stata presente in quanto delegata di AffCom.

Relazione del partecipante

I took part for the first time. Similarly to what occurred in Santiago for Iberoconf2019, I found the occasion interesting. The conference was focused on strategy not on approach, so there was a lot of discussion.

All people cited are listed also in Wikimedia Summit 2019/Participants' List

Thursday, 28th March

I arrived later than expected (around 5 p.m.) because of a problem on the high-speed railway line.

At dinner, I discussed a lot with User:Peaceray of UG Cascadia, we agreed on the lack of Wikidata and Commons literacy and among anglophones users.

After dinner, I discussed with delegates from Estonia, Denmark, Chiacago UG (Brian) and Ecuador (Edgar) about gender gap situations in different countries. It seems that in some communities sometimes there are female sysops who are not helpful in engaging female users. We also discussed about the progresses in Ecuador, where women are finally gearing edit-a-thons directly.

We discussed with Ivo the situation with WSC2019 in small-sized and big countries, respectively.

Friday, 29th March

Morning

At breakfast, I spoke with Karel Vladia of the core team of the 2030 strategy at newbie table, I shared my concern about the very strong “essential infrastructure” statement in the first sentence of the strategy plan. It could be perceived as too rigid and criticizing the essence of a balanced internet, the delegate of UG Malta (Tony) also shared the concern that it can be badly interpreted. I further discussed with tony about the events they did around Rome in the last years. I offered the support of WikiDonne and pointed out Lorenzo of WMI at a nearby table.

First session 10:10: Taherivand of WMDE gives some numbers, we have 210 partecipants.

Speak by Michelle Muentefering

Speak by Kathrine Maher

Presentation of Organizers 5 minute chat with Frans of Wikimedia Nederland about what we do and about the implementation of the emerging strategy. 11:00 more strategy with Karel Vladia and Nicole Ebbert.

Group photo

Afternoon

At lunch I discussed with Josie Frasier of WMUK about WLM effort in Italy compared to UK. I had also a discussion with girl from UG Ghana, Sandister Tei, about the current situation in Africa, model of cooperation of different UGs and association in the same areas. I asked for more (female) African jurors at WSC2019. Discussion with Ana of WMPT and Ivo again about WSC2019 and about the role of women in the contest. Room 1, Strategy Overviewer, discussion with the delegates Edgardo Rosero Villacìs (Ecuador), Ivan Quintero Santacruz (Esperanto UG), Paula Dominguez Font (Wikimedia digitization UG), Juan Quintero Santacruz (Colombia), Pru Mitchell from Wikimedia Australia.

We all wrote a question, mine was about recognition of chapter and use groups and ended up in the middle. . We read three most voted questions.

Aked for feedback by group in the room, I summarized a problem as follow: we use a non.standard terminology like UG and “small” or “big” and we do not discuss often about the same concept. For example, geographical UG and theme UG are different aspects.

Questions asked by K.M, she wanted to be sure about the use of the expression “political effect”. What is it? The idea of who wrote the questions is the relationship with national government.

I stopped writing because many things are already in the official transcript.

I discussed a little bit more with Ivan Quintero Santacruz, representing Esperanto community.

I attended the important panel on the new election procedures and it is quite delicate for us as a UG. We managed to introduce a week for community evaluation of the candidates, voting will be reduced but I support as delegate that we think about the candidate and 3 or 4 weeks don’t make a difference, having good community feedback does. Point 5 is very critical and a funnel to diversity.

I left a comment about the critical evaluation of the process which was existing when the vote was just a chapter matter.

I am also worried that removing the above threshold number of support will actually remove important information for newbies of the process.

Evening

At dinner, discussion with a woman from WMDE about their internal processes, than private meeting about WCUG (I gave my twitter account to Marcus Cyron), than WSC2019 meeting with Thomas Shafee (Australia, Wiki journal of Science), Ivo K. and the MediaWiki stakeholder representative Bryan.

Saturday, 30th March

Morning

I had a brief discussion with Ssebaggala Douglas from WMF about science in Africa. I entered the “role and responsabilty” panel discussion, since it’s the topic I feel more inclined and prepared. I discussed with Lorenzo Losa, Gurlal Maan from Wikisource and the Claudia from Austria and another delegate from Tunisia about “how to whom roles and strucutres should be accountable?” and “how might we integrate the WM with the greater ecosystem of knowledge”. As UG, the standardization of chapters as possible fiscal sponsor/frontrunner/hub for international initiative and cooperation is interesting.

Afternoon

After lunch, I shared expertise with the capability group I have advocated for more community interaction and reorganization of meta page. Also, for more variable composition at workshop I discussed with the delegate of Greece UG, and after that I attended for few minutes the small meeting with WMF board members Dariusz Jamielniak and Esra’a.

User group meeting. I like everybody is presenting themselves, is useful. It’ also quite diverse. We did literacy for the role of BoT and made a quick analysis of overall knowledge. It’s not bad but it’s also not 100%. It was stressed how the members represent the foundation as a whole, not a specific interest.

I inquired about a current status of information among members of user group for statistical purpose. Only 9 UGs including us have started this process. I said we are aware of the lists of members, because of the mail I have sent yesterday, In any case, I already suggested to have clear signature on meta since the Santiago conference last month.

Evening

I did not attend the party, I had a deadline to finish, I worked in my room.

Sunday, 31st April

Morning

At breakfast, I discussed about the ASBS2019 with Melissa from San Diego UG, we than discussed about the situation in that area and the potential role of her UG as a contact between USA and Mexico.

We were split in small groups. Discussion with the delegate from Russia (group 5) about their activities especially Wikimedians of Bashkortostan, I also discussed about the attempt to organize a wikievent in Bari inviting people from Eastern countries. Than, in group 3, with the chairs of Belgium, Armenia and wikivoyage representative I discussed about the need for a wikidata literacy conference, finally with Ivo, Thomas, Theres F. Triumph, the member of Wikimedia Polska Wojciech Pędzich, Pritiranjan Tripathy (India), Abbad Diraneyya (Levant) and Gurlal Maan (India) about the need for a Wiki Science Group tweet. We agreed to create it soon or later stressing his role as an interface platform. Ivo took notes. Therese Triumph activities with Women and Chemistry will maybe prove interesting to be integrated with the activities of gender gap of WikiDonne.

Afternoon

At lunch, I had a discussion with Ivo, the MediaWiki stakeholders UG delegate Bryan Hilderbrand, the Ukranian delegate Yury Bulka, two African delegates who joined later (couldn’t read their tags) about the role of independence of scientific research.

Discussion in the afternoon in small groups. Firstly, with San Diego Delegate Melissa Gauss, Macedonian treasures Toni Ristovski, and the representative from Cote d’Ivoire. Main topics were affiliation connection, wikidata literacy for capacity building, scientific outreach, and face-to-face interactions. Than the second group was mostly about Wikimedia software but they were talking very low and I had problem to understand everything. Third round with Youssef (Tunisia) Wikimedia Tool developer, Antonio Pulido (the host of the group) chair of Amical Wikimedia Toniher and a Paulina for Wikimedia Mexico. Support for advocacy of small chapters was a key topic, diversity of language in the Canadian situation, need for generic guidelines or resources, transfer of knowledge inside chapter tweet

Evening

I finally discussed with the representative of WMCH User:Rama about their role in the strategy, as member of their chapter.

In the evening, I met Kalliope Tsouroupidou from WMF and her role in AffCom. I suggested that more feedback is requested from the applicants at the end of the process, in order to make it smoother.

Monday, 1st April

I met the delegates from Armenia and Bulgaria for the first time while waiting for the train. We mostly discussed about the ASBS2019.