Wikimedia LGBT User Group August 2019 social media
This online meetup was for members of the LGBT+ User Group. The focus was on administrative strategy for social media accounts which the community operates in the name of Wikimedia LGBT+.
- Date: Wednesday, August 7, at 1:30pm EDT / 6:30pm BST (see timezone calendar here).
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The Wikimedia Friendly Space Policy will be followed for this meeting.
Attendees edit
- User:FULBERT / Jeffrey
- User:Kawayashu / Houssem
- User:Pharos / Richard
- User:Ladsgroup / Amir
- User:Fæ / Fae
- User:RachelWex / Rachel
- User:Bluerasberry / Lane
Notes edit
Notes are at https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/lgbt_social_media_august_2019
Procedural issue - Can we share these notes? - no objections Can we share twitter stats? There is nothing personal here, share it! Can we post all this to wiki? Yes!
Who owns the Facebook account?
Fae said that he started it around 2015. It has its own community of contributors.
Rachel said that regarding the twitter account, she has been intentional about what the account posts. All tweets are either LGBT+ or wiki, and most tweets are both. Sometimes she posts general wiki news or general LGBT+ news which could be relevant to Wikimedia LGBT+. The account gets retweets and some messages in non-English languages. During Wiki Loves Pride campaigns / edit-a-thons, people have tweeted about those to promote and give shout-outs to participants / contributors. Rachel also has retweeted Wiki Women in Red tweets and tries to get the other language Wikipedia groups to collaborate in translation, finding photos for articles, etc.
Some spam accounts send products which seem LGBT+ related but out of scope of wiki and are unsolicited. Perhaps this happens to all sorts of LGBT+ themed accounts. Rachel said that if someone wants to promote a petition or event then she prefers that we message Wiki LGBT+ directly rather than tag the organization in a tweet.
We do not currently have a social media policy but also perhaps the organization is not mature enough to justify having a policy.
Rachel shared some stats about how many people are following. Rachel said that only 20% of users have engaged with the content and that this was a low number. Richard remarked that this seems very high. Overall the group did not know how to interpret this number.
Jeffrey asked how we should be using this social media account. Rachel said that she has been posting and responding as she likes to share LGBT+ themed Wikimedia content, but there is not a strategic plan for the account. For example, Rachel said, there is not a particular plan to use the account to promote an outreach or educational campaign or to ask people to join any particular Wikimedia project. Rachel observed that there are many Wikimedia holidays and sometimes she and others have used or sought to use the account to encourage LGBT+ participation in these various Wikimedia events. As an example, there is a "Gender Non-binary Day" holiday which some LGBT+ organizations commemorate and which she promoted through the account, and this account made it popular.
Fae said that the goal for these channels should be to support the usergroup and its community of contributors. This is not about marketing or selling Wikipedia. We also do not need to promote Wikimedia Foundation outreach campaigns or product releases in general unless we find that useful for our own community. We do not need to set goals of increasing twitter engagement or subscribers except as useful to the community.
Again it was asked - who has userrights to the Facebook Wikimedia LGBT+ account? Amir said that he thought it was Another Believer. Richard suggested that it could be Hexatekin. Fae said that he set up various accounts but is unsure of if he set up this one. Rachel said that in Facebook there is a "page" and a "community" where 920 people "like" it. The last post was in 2018 on National Coming Out Day. https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaLGBT/
Rachel raised the issue of intentionality. What should the plan be for planning the social media strategy? Jeffrey replied that the usergroup itself needs this kind of planning. Should the plan for the usergroup guide the social media plan, or would a plan for the social media accounts suggest good strategy for the usergroup?
Suppose we were to draft a strategy - start on wiki or start in a private small group? The advantage of on-wiki is that it ensures a documentation history and invites others. The disadvantage is that premature conversation confuses newcomers. Jeffrey proposed that for 2-3 weeks conversation start in Google Docs then move to on wiki after.
Richard said that a goal of the usergroup might be to do outreach and recruitment to people who are not current wiki contributors but who might edit if they hear of a campaign.
Amir said that in Wikidata there is a new property, "preferred pronoun", which goes on biographies. Another things sort of related is a behavioral policy or code of conduct for Wikidata. This includes that there should be a non-discrimination policy for people to include sexuality in Wikidata. Amir has been advocating for LGBT+ interests in Wikidata policy making. For example, he advocated that proper references be part of any data posting related to gender and sexuality. There are Wikidata rainbox t-shirts for sale. https://shop.spreadshirt.fr/wikimediashop/ Rachel suggested that, perhaps, now and then we can tweet about these T-shirts and see if there are any buyers!
Lane suggested that a potential revenue stream for Wikimedia LGBT+ could be diversity consulting to universities and foundations which want to practice LGBT+ inclusivity in their programs and events. Fae said that this would create staff labor commitments when currently the usergroup does not have staff. More investigation is needed.
Rachel said that in the near future Wikimedia UK would be seeking to hire a staff person to support LGBT+ efforts. Perhaps this person could assist in developing revenue streams. Amir said that we have to check the person's job description to find out if this is a part of it, or if this fits in with any of it.
Fae said that if we are thinking about getting money, then we should have a list of things that we want to do. Lane said that his wish would be to document LGBT+ themed wiki projects in a central location, and guessed that 70% of LGBT+ Wiki projects never get documented in a way that makes them known to the global wiki LGBT+ community.
Rachel asked about interest in setting up a scheduled tweets in twitter or having a calendar of events to promote. Richard asked if there are shared automated tools to coordinate this. Rachel said that Hootsuite might assist with this but we do not currently have one set up for this purpose. Fae suggested that we might coordinate the calendar on-wiki and that the general Wikimedia community could coordinate this.
Amir suggested that it would be useful to have Wikidata items for various Pride Marches around the world. Lane shared that Gayta Science, https://www.gaytascience.com/, expressed some interest in a Wikimedia partnership. They have a dataset of which prides exist and which organizations participate in them.
Action Items:
- Jeffrey is going to start a Google Doc for the Wikimedia LGBT+ social media channels--purpose and goals to align with other Wikimedia LGBT+ projects--Rachel will help
- Richard is going to contact Dorothy Howard about the FB page to see if she wants to keep it going or if we should take it over
- Fae and Rachel are going to work on a 2020-2021 calendar of events to put on wiki
- Rachel will investigate social media management tools
- Wikimania attendees can figure out how to fit the social media planning in Wikimania discussions for LGBT+ events at Wikimania
Ideas for future Wiki Loves Pride campaigns 2020-2021
- Wikidata and Wikipedia articles for all Pride events around the world
- #WikiLGBTHistory--all 50 states participating--LGBTQ+ historical events / BLPs in every state. This could also be international in scope.
- Others?
Next Meeting: September--group is OK with monthly meetings