Hi Lucy,
You invited comments on the communications strategy, so a few comments:
You say “we are perhaps not drawing on these volunteers to their full potential.” – I would certainly agree with that – recently when a wp article about a major local city was to appear on the front page for 24 hrs I put together something for local papers and asked if Wikimedia UK had some boilerplate text with “contact details” “information for editors etc” to wrap around the local interest, I was told that there wasn’t anything like that available. In relation to a recent completion (The West Country Challenge for which Wikimedia UK agreed to pay for some book tokens as prizes) I was again asked to get some coverage in local papers etc and although I tried through local contacts no editor carried it.
I am unsure what is meant by “relatively conservative volunteer and editor community for whom certain communications approaches might not be supported”. You suggest –“It’s important to note that some individual volunteers will have a greater level of influence than others because of their role on the charity’s board or evaluation panel.” The wide range of backgrounds and experience of some volunteers and members should also be considered and they may have “influence” unconnected with Wikimedia activities. We know that the educational level of wp editors tends to be higher than in the general population (& they are tech savvy) and many hold fairly high level positions in their “day jobs” as well as editing wp as a hobby. This could link with the strategic goals: “to Support the development of open knowledge in the UK, by increasing the understanding and recognition of the value of open knowledge and advocating for change at an organisational, sectoral and public policy level” and “To support the use of the Wikimedia projects as important tools for education and learning in the UK”. Many editors are also teachers in schools and universities, or in similar “positions of influence” and this does not seem to be recognised in Wikimedia UK activities – although many volunteers may want to keep the roles separate.
The challenges of traditional “print media” are many and varied, however my experience, and advice from media colleagues, is that there is an inbuilt bias against “internet stories” whether local, national or international, and this can be a challenge to overcome. It would be helped by “boilerplate text” being available for volunteers etc to include.
To reach new audiences via Twitter/facebook etc it would be helped by some “standard messages” – for example if I see a picture posted by a friend on facebook I rewrite each time something which says “Nice picture – would you be willing to share on wikicommons” and then with various levels of guidance about CC licencing etc.
For “newsjacking” key anniversaries can be useful – a campaign to get the wp article Magna Carta as TFA on its 800th anniversary (15 June 2015) was not successful, however the page had approximately 600,000 views that day and over 1,194,000 views in the 90 days surrounding it (normally 6-10,000 per day). This sort of thing, which gets national media coverage could be included in the strategy.
For the newsletter & or blog etc there could be a write up of the recent West Country Challenge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_England/The_West_Country_Challenge ) which created or improved over 500 articles about topics related to the seven counties in the south west of England in a few weeks- and promoting the contests and challenges aimed to contribute to The 10,000 challenge (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_10,000_Challenge ) (all invented by User:Dr Blofeld). Sometimes Wikimedia does not seem to be aware of some of the activities going on among the wider UK editing community and this could be seen as a weakness linked to the communication strategy.
I hope the se comments are useful
Rod
From: Wikimediauk-l [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Lucy Crompton-Reid
Sent: 16 September 2016 14:49
To: UK Wikimedia mailing list <wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK communications strategy
Hi there, I hope you're well and have had a good summer?
Here's the link to the draft strategy - thanks in advance for taking a look:
Feel free to add comments directly to the document or email me with feedback.
Best
Lucy
On 16 September 2016 at 14:12, Ed Hand <edwardxx@gmail.com> wrote: