Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin

The Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is an experiment on establishing a regular communication on highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's technical work, work with communities and affiliates, as well as other stakeholders like readers, donors, regulators, the media and the public.

The highlights included in the Bulletin issues would be about the Foundation's work as the organisation (including the Board) - planned events, meetings, conversations, community feedback rounds, issues, updates on work we co-create with the movement etc. It'll cover a wide mix of topics from different authors. We have started translating the bulletin into different languages and welcome help on more languages. Once established it will be the one stop shop for all Foundation communications and the single place to find all materials; it is not meant to replace or discontinue any specialised public newsletters or regular updates different teams are doing.

The Bulletin will have links to other newsletters, and other Foundation's thematic newsletters will include a link to the Bulletin, so that the recipients of the communication can choose to (un)subscribe depending on which information is more relevant to them, and hopefully, feel well informed, but not overwhelmed.

We would be grateful for your feedback on the concept itself, but of course, details and suggestions on anything from the design itself to specific words used would be also welcome! :)

A new edition is envisioned to be published every two weeks, and you can subscribe to the bulletin via talk page delivery (on every Wikimedia wiki).

Background

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This experiment builds on the findings of the movement communications insights research. Recommendations from movement participants asked us to build a better front door - a single point of entry for information, support and resources from the Foundation. They also recommended that we invest more in centralizing and storing movement information so that people can access what they need, when they need it.

Past feedback that has informed this approach suggests that:

  1. Regular top-line communication seems to be the best way to be connected.
  2. The communication should be with a known publishing frequency, and that any additional communication in between is only if something urgent happens.
  3. There should be links to other specialised newsletters, updates from the Foundation, and searchable archives of previous editions.
  4. And that this type of connection would be beneficial to avoid over communicating, but also to address a fear of potentially missing out, if some notification somewhere was missed, and to help find relevant information or channels where those can be provided.

This initiative is supported by the Movement Communications team at the Wikimedia Foundation with the input from Community Affairs Committee, to ensure that "the Board communications with communities (...) is integrated with larger movement communication strategies" (per its charter).

A new edition is envisioned to be published every two weeks, and you can subscribe to the bulletin via talk page delivery (on every Wikimedia wiki). "Soft launch" happened on June 17, 2024, and full launching is planned in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, if the experiment is successful.

Issues

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2024