What is May 17th?
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was
created in 2004 to draw the attention to the violence and discrimination
experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all
other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or
expressions, and sex characteristics. The date of May 17th was specifically
chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to
declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. https://may17.org
One year ago in 2020 we started QueeringW in hope #1 Queering Wikipedia
conference would be happening with a year of delay...now we hope it is in
2022!
Meanwhile we are "Together, we Resist, Support, and Heal"
<https://twitter.com/may17org>
Happy #May17 #IDAHOT #IDAHOTBITQ
for those who celebrate and would support
https://www.instagram.com/QueeringW
@may17org <https://twitter.com/may17org> #IDAHOT
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT?src=hashtag_click> #IDAHOT2021
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/IDAHOT2021?src=hashtag_click>
https://twitter.com/QueeringW
Dear Pete and The Cunctator,
Surely, Twitter is getting worse by the day, and, surely, Elon is not the best practices person in the world. And, indeed, the WMF has lots of things to tackle and worry about. Nevertheless, the WMF has a Communications Team and the Communications Team has a Social Media department, and the Social Media department's job is to handle social media. So, even if these shouldn't be our main concern, is something we may talk about.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 2:44 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Twitter has a poor recent record on protecting its users from government interference and privacy invasion, an area in which the Wikimedia community and the WMF have typically taken a keen interest.
In 2015, Wikimedia's then-general counsel took pride in the WMF's perfect score on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) rating system for ethical response to government interference, a series that ran under the title "Who Has Your Back?"
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2015/06/29/whos-got-your-back/
As far as I can tell, the EFF hasn't run these ratings since 2019. In that year they focused on the issue of censorship (the specifics of the ratings varied in different year. They didn't consider Wikimedia that year, but Twitter got 3 stars out of a possible 6, putting it behind such companies as YouTube, Medium, the Google Play Store, and the Apple Store.
Now, in 2023, Twitter has apparently ceased self-reporting relevant data altogether to the Lumen group, which is connected to Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. But according to the report linked below, it has not refused even one government request for data since Elon Musk took over in 2022. It previously refused about 50% of requests.
One example that may resonate for Wikimedians:
"Under previous ownership, Twitter actively resisted requests from many of these same regimes. For two weeks in 2014, the platform was banned from Turkey, in part due to its refusal to globally block a post accusing a former government official of corruption. (The executive who led that charge was Vijaya Gadde, one of the first executives fired after Musk took over.)"
https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/?ref=nobsb…
Twitter's choice to stop submitting data to Lumen as of April 15, 2023: https://twitter.com/shreyatewari96/status/1651865580629114880
I prefer to see the WMF follow the leadership of such organizations as the (USA-based) National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and officially de-emphasize Twitter as a means for public communication.
Wikimedia already has one of the top websites in the world; it is better to stand up for important shared values than to overlook this mismanagement of a highly popular website.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 5:27 AM The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com<mailto:cunctator@gmail.com>> wrote:
I honestly think the WMF has better things to do than worry about engagement on what is clearly a grossly mismanaged website.
On Tue, May 2, 2023, 3:53 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Justice,
Yes, it works that way, because we are not measuring the total engagement (where @Wikipedia wins @euwikipedia bat not @viquipedia) but the engagement rate per tweet, which is balanced with the number of followers.
Another topic is that the take-over by Elon Musk is affecting our engagement, but this should also be taken in account by the Social media team. In fact, there should be a discussion following up here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Twitter_verification_chec….
Since the changes on the algorithm affects everyone, the @Wikipedia team should be interested in learning about successful stories and how other social media handles continue having engagement while the one that should be leading is losing engagement every month.
Finally, I don't think that any discussion is "settled" if there's no answer. For the moment, the answer to the proposal of working together is silence.
Thanks
Galder
________________________________
From: Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo(a)gmail.com<mailto:owulakpakpo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2023 9:47 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi Galder,
Twitter has consistently seen a downward trend since the take over by Elon Musk. A lot of people are not using that platform like they did in the past.
And I thought this conversations was settled when WMF brought their social media strategy and engagement plan. But it looks like you keep bringing it up.
Again you don't expect accounts with less following to have same engagements with accounts with higher following it doesn't work that way.
Organizations define their own metrics and so success may mean different things to different organizations.
Regards,
Justice.
On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 07:41, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear all,
The impact of @wikipedia continues going down on Twitter. There's no strategy to turn this trend and the team seems happy with the numbers .https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Organic_social_media_strategy_update.
For context, the "Engagement Rate per Tweet" (this is the metric that the Communications Team proposed as a benchmark) felt to 0.011% (benchmark average is 0.035% and 0.05% for non-profits). Compare it with 0.27% of the Basque Wikipedia or the Catalan Wikipedia accounts (both have the same impact factor), or the 0.23% of the French Wikipedia account. We are talking about strategies with x25 impact.
Some months ago, some users made an offer to collaborate in making the social media communication strategy better, but there's no answer from the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm still waiting for an aswer to the offer.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:36 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
I write to send a small update on this. In a message about the methodology followed to measure success (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Re:_Twitter_engagement_qu…), Laura Dickinson posted this: "According to its 2022 report<https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/>, the median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is 0.037%; for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054% [our engagement] over the last 28 day period is 2.7%."
I have measured the engagement with that methodology (https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/#title-…) for @Wikipedia in January (Likes+RT+Comments / Number of followers) and the result is: 0.012%, three times lower than the industry standard and 4.5 lower than for non-profits. For context, Basque Wikipedia had 0.055%, Catalan Viquipedia 0.060% and Indonesian Wikipedia an astonishing 2.79%. (You can check the numbers here: https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/twitter-head-to-head)
There's an open question about the strategy followed and a sincere proposal of opening this account to a shared volunteers/WMF administration.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Àlex Hinojo <alexhinojo(a)gmail.com<mailto:alexhinojo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:42 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
+1
On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Peter Southwood <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net<mailto:peter.southwood@telkomsa.net>> wrote:
A Wikipedia account should be under the control of Wikipedians, following the editorial policy for Wikipedia, but they could let WMF do the technical work if such exists. WMF can and should run Wikimedia accounts. WMF running a Wikipedia account could be misrepresentation.
Cheers,
Peter
From: Andreas Kolbe [mailto:jayen466@gmail.com<mailto:jayen466@gmail.com>]
Sent: 19 January 2023 02:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
The obvious question surely is: Why not let volunteers (co-)run the Wikipedia Twitter account?
A number of Wikipedia language versions (French, Catalan, Portuguese, Basque, Waray, etc.) seem to have volunteer-managed Twitter accounts that are doing fine. If volunteers are good enough to write the encyclopedia and curate the main page of each language version, aren't they good enough to write (or suggest) the occasional tweet?
Andreas
On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:20 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hi/Bona nit,
This last tweet from @Wikipedia is a good example of what some of us have been mentioning in this list during the past days:
https://twitter.com/wikipedia/status/1615756186640334848?s=46&t=7wB7VI4gwIS…
Despite the fact that many Wikipedias have already had this new skin deployed since months ago as voluntary testers, not a single mention on their huge contribution was explained on Twitter (neither back then nor today…). We need to go to the 8th tweet of today's publication to read something like "The new features, which start rolling out on English Wikipedia today, were built in collaboration with Wikipedia volunteers worldwide."
If this is the situation in which the main account is monopolized only to the English version and its news/articles, why not specifying it as "English Wikipedia" in the profile and in the main link?
Days pass by and we keep sharing to this list proofs, data and justified arguments (even collagues offering themselves and willing to trace a joint planning!), but still not a word or single thought from the Comms department. Disappointing, I am sad to say.
Kind regards/Salutacions
Xavier Dengra
El ds, 14 gen., 2023 a 09:52, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> va escriure:
Egun on Boodarwun/Gnangarra,
You are righth in one thing: it is very difficult to prove a point only from one puntual statistic. That's why I have been tracking statistics for a long time, because patterns are here the most important thing. Neverthless, there is only one way to know if the point me and some other users in this thread are rising is valid: experimenting. @Wikipedia should try something: tweeting 6-7 times a day, with varied topics, "on this day" like tweets, varying timezones and even curiosities about how Wikipedia works (https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1614045362985082881 2 million impressions in 9 hours). Then, after -let's say- one month, if the results (engagement, followers, retention) are better, it would be quite obvious that there's a point changing the social media strategy. If not, if engagement is the same, no obvious uprise in followers or RTs is visible, the current strategy could be validated.
Me, personally, I'm ready to help the Communications Team with this task, proposing intercultural items that could be tweeted and promoted. If they want help, they know where to go for it. Again, I think that following the same pattern is a bad communication strategy (as we can see by our own eyes) and trying something new could be better. Is up to the communications team to aknowledge this and give a try.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com<mailto:gnangarra@gmail.com>>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2023 6:00 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Kaya Galder
The assumption that despite there being a wider audience the interests of those audience members is exactly the same, if that was true why have multiple channels. What I am saying is that in different communities that doesnt and will never hold true. Using statistics to compare the two is the issue and then complaining about different audience responses to the same event being caused by those posting to the channel. Its not the channel operators, it's the underlying expectation that all audiences are the same and react exactly the same way every time even as the audience is increasing by many orders of magnitude.
Boodarwun
On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 02:06, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
@Gnangarra: I would doubt on the idea that Pelé is not relevant to the English audience, as it was the most visited article by far that day (https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/topviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a…), and the second most visited next day, just after the less known Andrew Tate. Also, the account is not ENGLISH Wikipedia. Is called Wikipedia, so it should take into account, even if it tweets only about English Wikipedia (as pointed by @Xavier Dengra) a global audience. Because, again, the goal is "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". Not only for US centered people, but by a global audience. Even with that in mind, Pelé was the most visited article in English Wikipedia.
@Yaroslav: Basque Wikipedia is not one of the few accounts tweeting about Pelé, and in perspective, there are more Basque tweeting accounts per speaker, than there are for other larger languages. We are not competing with major news outlets; we are competing to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet". Wikipedia is doing well on that: nearly 2,5 million visits in two days for the article about Pelé only in English. I think that there may be very few web services having 2,5 million visits for a page about Pelé in two days, if there's any. Also, next day the most visited article was about Andrew Tate. So, you are right: we are not a news outlet, but we are visited according to the news. Any strategy that doesn't have this in mind, will fail.
You also ask how many tweets a day would be enough. I don't have an answer for this. I would like the communications team to come with one, but they don't seem either to have one. I don't think that tweeting every hour is better, but I'll explain why one tweet per day is a bad strategy, based only in what we know about the Twitter algorithm:
* The Twitter algorithm tends to show a tweet to followers and others more often if it gets more engagements (RTs, likes, comments...). So, maximizing engagements seems a something positive if we want to reach to new people.
* It also shows an account more often if the user interacts with it. If someone likes, RTs or comments a tweet, it seems that this account will be shown again soon. That's why you see more often tweets from your friends than others. And that's why ideological bubbles are created.
* If people are engaged with a tweet, it will be shown more regularly after a tweet by other people you follow once you scroll down. This is why if you open a tweet by a far-right politician, you will see below other tweets by far-right sided politicians and the opposite for left, libertarian, green or vegans. It shows you similar content, based on people's interaction.
So, tweeting more doesn't maximize engagement (if you tweet every minute, you will lose it), but tweeting less minimizes engagement. If you only tweet once a day, and you don't get too much attention, your next tweet will be less important for the algorithm, and so on. The only valid strategy is one that gets people engaged to your tweet, so you get more impressions, and this drives more interactions, and this drives more followers. Because, at the end of the day, we want to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet".
I don't know how much is the ideal thing. In Basque Wikipedia our strategy is to publish 5-6 tweets every day, and then also interact with people talking about Wikipedia or speaking about articles they have created (like @viquipedia does, with great success). Our topics from the 5-6 daily tweets now (2023) are like this: every morning (yes, most of our followers live in the same time-zone) a biography of someone who was born/died on this day; then, something that happened 100 years ago. At noon, an artwork. If the artwork is depicting something interesting, a second tweet linked to that explaining the artwork itself. Two tweets in the afternoon: the first one, optional, about something related to Wikipedia itself (Statistics, projects, some user who has created something cool...) and then science/technology in a broad sense. At evening, we like to tweet something related to current events, if this is interesting. We have a shared doc with the daily tweets and we program them some days in advance. Also, we use MOA to have them copied to Mastodon.
I don't know, again, if this is the optimal. I know that is better than one-per-day, because data is obviously better. Engagements, followers and interactions are better this way, as I have proved above.
Best,
Galder
________________________________
From: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2023 3:37 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau <xavier.dengra(a)protonmail.com<mailto:xavier.dengra@protonmail.com>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi/Bon dia
Yaroslav: Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Since 4 years ago we updated the social media methodology for the Catalan Wikipedia Twitter account (approx 4.5M native speakers, 10M audience), we boosted from 15.3K to 45.4K speakers, now being the 4th most followed language of Wikipedia.
Our method in a nutshell: we have up to 23 knowledge themes that we oblige ourselves to post at least once every week. The number of our daily tweets vary from 6 to 10 only in content (i.e., articles). This depends on, ofc, whether it's a working day vs a weekend or other time aspects (peak hours). Plus the interactions (RT+kudos) with our wikipedians that share their new articles tagging us, which has been a massive way to appreciate their task and to visibilize to others the task of being a volunteer in Wikipedia. In fact, the latter has been especially critical to bring us huge additional views and to renew a few of our new, most active editing community (especially young users!).
If our account, managed by volunteers, can conduct this organized work for a small-medium size language, why should we accept that a whole staffed team from the WMF, firstly, rejects to provide engagement data on our common, biggest handle? And secondly, why should we give up on them preparing a strategy to improve its scope and objectives?
Regarding the last question, I'd like to add a last thought: never ever in the 4 years that I've been upfront in the handles in my language, the @Wikipedia account has given a simple, courtesy RT of any knowledge content (articles) from the Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Basque, Catalan, Galician, French, Suda or Portuguese (etc.) existing handles. That should be a key aspect in our debate.
Because if @Wikipedia is mostly used as the “central account” for the project, then it should also be very careful 1) to not always post in English and give some room to interact with the other language handles, 2) to stop centering their tweets on English-speaking culture, and 3) to post without clear range of topics to stay balanced. Oppositely, if it is decided that @Wikipedia is only the English-language handle, then it may change its profile name to "English Wikipedia" and not continue as the reference speaker either for the WMF nor for significant news or events.
Best/Salutacions,
Xavier Dengra
------- Original Message -------
On divendres, 13 de gener 2023 a les 14:56, Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt(a)gmail.com<mailto:ymbalt@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Galder,
on the other hand.. Basque Wikipedia is one of very few accounts twitting on the Pele death in Basque, whereas a lot was twitted in English. I do not think English Wikipedia twitter can compete with major news outlets, they operate on a completely different scale.The low-hanging fruit would be twitting DYKs, FAs, GAs, or may be some other randomly picked stuff. Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Best
Yaroslav
On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:26 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Some months have gone since I started this topic in this list, and still, we can't know how much engagement we have at Wikipedia, because data is not available. Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk, things are changing, there are more accounts in Mastodon daily, but still Twitter matters. I have been looking at the Twitter activity in the last days for @Wikipedia and I'm still very worried about the (lack of) strategy followed here. A full team, with staff members, which only produces one tweet per day, a lonely message in the vastness of the ocean, and gets really poor engagement numbers.
A couple of weeks ago Pelé, one of the greatest football players of all time, died. (English) Wikipedia Twitter account needed 7 days to tweet about it, even if the article was changed in a few minutes after the death (https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1611363972174778368). The tweet had 13.729 impressions (now we can know the number of impressions), 14 RTs and 129 likes. Wikipedia account has nearly 644.000 followers. If we divide these two numbers, we get a rate of 2,13% of impressions per follower.
The same day Pelé died, Basque Wikipedia made a tweet. Not a week after, just when it was news (https://twitter.com/euwikipedia/status/1608541274491211776). The tweet had 964 impressions, 3 RTs and 2 likes. Basque Wikipedia account has 7,956 followers. This is a rate of 12,11% of impressions per follower. x5.68 times larger, relatively than (English) Wikipedia Twitter account.
(English) Wikipedia Twitter account has nearly 81 times more followers than the Basque one. English Wikipedia is more visible, because it has a (now golden) verified account symbol, so tweets are more often promoted. English has 1.500 million speakers around the world. Basque has fewer than one million. English Wikipedia should have around 1.000 more followers than Basque Wikipedia. English Wikipedia article about Pelé had 2,5 million pageviews in the two days after his death. Basque had 250 pageviews. This is 10.000 times more pageviews.
@Wikipedia has 644.000 followers, and @euwikipedia has nearly 8.000. Audience of English Wikipedia is 10.000 times larger for the same event. Why Wikipedia is not 10.000 times larger? Why doesn't Wikipedia account have 80 million followers? YouTube's Twitter account has 78 million followers. "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". How could we if Youtube's account has 100x more followers than we have? How can think that we are in a good shape if our tweets are only seen by less than 2% of our followers?
I hope that 2023 comes with a change. A change to open these accounts, have a fresh way of thinking on social media ,and building engagement, both with momentum, not losing opportunities, and promoting good content.
Sincerely
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2022 3:21 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
Some weeks ago, we had a discussion here about the different approaches we have for the @wikipedia account at Twitter. We don't know yet how many interactions does the account has, but as I said in the discussion, we try to find ways to measure our work at @euwikipedia. Today I want to share with you that this account was ranked last week as the most influential social-movements account in Basque language (https://umap.eus/ranking/gizartea) and the 10th most influential account in all categories (https://umap.eus/ranking/orokorra). This is a good metric we use to know if we are doing fine or not.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk<mailto:andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk>>
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2022 8:50 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 at 18:48, Lauren Dickinson <ldickinson(a)wikimedia.org<mailto:ldickinson@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
> Also, Andy, we will follow up this week regarding your questions
> about the @WiktionaryUsers and @Wiktionary accounts.
Three working weeks have passed since the above was written; I've seen
no such follow-up. Have I missed something?
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Gnangarra
'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardoon ngalang Nyungar koortaboodjar'
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Regards
Justice Okai-Allotey
Board Member Wikimedia Ghana User Group<https://wmgh.org/>
Communications Officer Humanists Association of Ghana<http://www.ghanahumanists.org>
Africa Coordinator Young Humanist International<https://humanists.international/about/young-humanists-international/>
Freelance Digital Marketer
Freelance Visual Storyteller
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"Our lives begin to the end the day we become silent about things that matter" - Unknown.
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Hello all,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees believes that Wikimedia
affiliates are a key and integral part of the Wikimedia movement, and
affiliates’ success is vital to the Wikimedia movement’s success. To that
end, it is crucial to develop a clear vision regarding the affiliates,
making it possible to assess whether the Foundation’s investment in,
collaboration with, and policy towards affiliates is promoting the right
goals. The Board will be embarking on building a Wikimedia Foundation
Affiliates Strategy in collaboration with the Affiliations Committee (AffCom),
the affiliates, and the broader communities. This strategy will help guide
the Foundation’s immediate work in supporting affiliates for the next few
years.
In order to ensure that there is continuity and institutional memory during
this process, there will be a delay of the elections for AffCom until after
the strategy is complete, and the terms of the current AffCom members will
be prolonged (in a separate resolution) to December 31, 2023. While the
strategy is under development, AffCom will continue its current
responsibilities, in addition to collaborating on the Wikimedia Foundation
Affiliates Strategy.
Once the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy is ready, there would be
clarity on what is expected from the Wikimedia Foundation for supporting
affiliates, and what is expected from affiliates.
As the weeks progress in the new calendar year, a plan of the process will
be released, including opportunities for communities and affiliates to
engage. You can find some FAQs below to assist further understanding of the
Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy.
Best regards,
Nat & Shani
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Liaisons to the Affiliations
Committee
== FAQs ==
1. What are Wikimedia movement affiliates? What is AffCom?
Wikimedia movement affiliates are "independent and formally recognised"
groups of people intended to organise and engage in activities to support
and contribute to the Wikimedia movement [1]. Currently there are three
active models for affiliates: chapters, thematic organisations, and user
groups. The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) advises and makes
recommendations regarding the recognition and existence of Wikimedia
movement affiliates.
2. How is the work with affiliates at the Wikimedia Foundation organised
now?
As of now, processes are fragmented across different teams at the Wikimedia
Foundation, and some decision making regarding affiliates is happening at
different levels. A unified and consistent process is beneficial to all
parties, hence the start of the work on the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy.
3. What is the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy? Is this an update
of some existing document or something brand new?
Until now there has not been any unified vision regarding how the work
around affiliates should happen, as there was no affiliate-specific
strategy developed before. The Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy is
to be a blueprint that will guide the Foundation’s immediate work with
affiliates. This strategy will be in place to inform and guide the
Wikimedia Foundation budget and support to affiliates, until some kind of
Movement-wide Affiliates Strategy is developed.
4. Why do we need a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy?
The Affiliates are a key part of the Wikimedia movement as mentioned in the
Wikimedia Foundation mission, and their success is integral to the success
of the whole Wikimedia Movement. As the affiliate ecosystem has grown in
size and complexity, it is increasingly important to review existing
approaches and ensure that the focus is on the right areas. The Wikimedia
Foundation Affiliates Strategy will help to strengthen and advance the work
of the affiliates.The Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy will take
into account Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations>.
The Strategy will direct Foundation attention to the needs of affiliates
and focus resources on those needs towards impact by affiliates.
5. Does the decision of developing the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy change the role of AffCom?
There are no immediate changes in the role of AffCom, which is continuing
doing its job. However, the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy will
direct the future work of the Wikimedia Foundation in support of the
affiliates, which could result in revising the role and scope of AffCom.
6. Why are the AffCom Elections delayed?
Traditionally, AffCom had elections at least once every year to select (not
elect) and appoint members who will serve in AffCom for a period of two
years. This year AffCom elections will not be held. Instead, the elections
will be delayed as AffCom is a key input for the Board in developing the
Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy, and adding the burden of
selecting and on-boarding new members will encumber the committee and make
it difficult for it to discharge its regular duties as well as collaborate
on the strategy. If the number of voting members falls below five (per
the AffCom
Charter <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee_Charter>),
elections will nonetheless be held.
7. Will the Movement Charter also have an "Affiliates Strategy" and/or
define affiliate roles?
While it is reasonable to expect that the Movement Charter will have
prescriptions on affiliates and their recognition, and some of these
responsibilities might shift to the Global Council once it is formed, it is
currently unknown how this will unfold, and it will bear consequences only
in years to come. Accordingly, this work is worth doing now so that the
available resources are having the impact needed and are best serving the
current Wikimedia movement and the affiliate ecosystem in the interim.
8. Is AffCom being asked to propose a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy?
No, AffCom is not expected to propose a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy. AffCom has been invited by the Board to collaborate and give an
expert opinion. While the Affiliations Committee is an advising committee
to the Board, the Board is responsible for this strategy and will lead the
community and affiliate conversations around it.
9. What is the timeline for this project?
The target is to have a draft of the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy for the Board’s approval at Wikimania 2023 (August 2023).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Affiliates
FYI, I asked WMF Communication Team about any plans of using Mastodon in future.
Here is their response [1] "The Digital Communications team has been researching Mastodon and considering our potential involvement with the platform in the future. At this time, we have no plans to create an account for the Foundation or Wikipedia. This is mainly because our observations show us that Mastodon is not yet reaching a large audience, which is one of the key objectives of our communications activity on social media. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our recommendations and practices to keep within our objectives."
[1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?diff=24262780
Regards,
SCP-2000
https://w.wiki/_zgcU
Dear all,
The WMF appears to have made contradictory statements about the Wikimedia
Endowment. Earlier this week, Rai 3, a channel of the Italian national
broadcaster, aired a program about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.[1] On their
website, they also link to responses the WMF gave to various questions the
programme makers asked.[2]
One of these questions concerned the Endowment. I quote:
*Q: The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100
million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate
501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to
the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think
there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is
created through worldwide donations? *
*A: Your information is incorrect. The Wikimedia Endowment was established
as a separate entity and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2022
following a 2021 board resolution. *
This answer was given to Rai in November 2022. Now I do recall an October
2022 blog post from the WMF reporting that the WMF's application for a
501(c)(3) non-profit had received approval and that the WMF was "in the
process of setting up the Endowment's strategic and operational policies
and systems".[3]
Has the money actually been moved from the Tides Foundation to this new
501(c)(3)?
At the time of writing, the Endowment website continues to tell its readers
that the funds are held and administered by the Tides Foundation.[4]
Is the information on the Endowment website obsolete?[5] If it isn't, and
the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November
substantially misleading?
Andreas
[1]
https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/La-community-8bb003fb-d8cd-42…
[2]
http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895524547_RISPOSTE%20WIKI%20MAIL%20…
and
http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895525034_TRADUZIONE%20RISPOSTE%20W…
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_…
[4] https://archive.ph/S8iI0#selection-2949.0-2949.1007
[5]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/01/11/adding-expertise-to-the-wikimedia-end…
refers to the "fact that we met – and even surpassed – our expected
timeline for the Endowment’s maturation into a 501(c)(3)."
Dear everyone,
As presented at last year's WikidataCon
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VxTlBNkyk>, Wikimedia Deutschland has
set out to find new ways for collaboration around Wikidata software
development to enhance the diversity of our movement, increase Wikibase’s
scalability and robustness and breathe life into our movement principles of
knowledge equity. With a grant from Arcadia
<https://www.arcadiafund.org.uk/>, a charitable fund administered by Lisbet
Rausing and Peter Baldwin, we will be able to implement such a
collaboration in the next two years.
Today, we are happy to share an exciting update on the progress of this
project with all of you. After spending the last few months with
conversations with the movement groups who were interested in joining such
a partnership, we have now reached a point where we can spread the news
about the future partners and projects that will shape this Wikidata
software collaboration.
Wikimedia Indonesia, the Igbo Wikimedians User Group and Wikimedia
Deutschland will be joining forces to advance the technical capacities of
the movement around Wikidata development and with this, make the software
and tools more usable by cultures underrepresented in technology, people of
the Global South and speakers of minority languages.
Wikimedia Indonesia, a non-profit organization based in Jakarta, Indonesia
and established in 2008, is dedicated to encouraging the growth,
development & dissemination of knowledge in Indonesian and other languages
spoken in Indonesia. Since then, Wikimedia Indonesia has supported the
development of 14 Wikipedias in the languages spoken in Indonesia, 12
regional Wikimedian communities spread across the country, and two
Wikimedia project-based communities.
For this project, in collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia
Indonesia wants to build up a software team of their own in the course of
the next 2 years. The tools will hopefully help under-resourced language
communities contributing to the flourishing of their languages online
through lexicographical data, and also involving the local language
communities in contributing to lexemes in Wikidata.
Igbo Wikimedians is a group of Wikimedians that are committed to working on
various wiki projects related to Igbo language
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_language> and culture. The user group
is organizing projects around community building in the Igbo community,
content improvement for Wikipedia and its sister project and has
established its own Wikidata hub in 2021.
The Igbo Wikimedia User Group and their program of the Wiki Mentor Africa
<https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Wiki_Mentor_Africa> is aiming at
building up technical capacity in African Wikimedia communities by
mentoring African developers for Wikidata Tool Development. Wikimedia
Deutschland will support the user group in the implementation of their
project and mentoring program.
Wikimedia Deutschland has been founded in 2004 as a member’s association
and is located in Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Deutschland support
communities like the Wikipedia community, develop software for Wikimedia
projects and the ecosystem of Free Knowledge, and wants to improve the
political and legal framework for Wikipedia and for Free Knowledge in
general.
Specifically, Wikimedia Deutschland has been working on the development of
Wikidata since 2012. Since then, an active and vibrant community of
volunteer editors and programmers, re-users, data donors, affiliates and
more has formed around Wikidata.
Wikimedia Deutschland will be responsible for the administrative setup of
those collaborations and the communication with Arcadia. We are also happy
to share our experiences and knowledge about establishing software teams,
software development in the Wikidata/Wikibase environment, the Wikidata
community and providing support for emerging tech communities.
If you want to find out more about the partnership, you can read up on this
on our project page on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Software_Collaboration_for_Wikidata>,
where we will keep updating the community on the progress of this
collaboration. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions please
use the talk page there to get in contact with us.
We are all excited to see those collaborations coming to life!
With kind regards,
Igbo Wikimedians User Group
Wikimedia Indonesia
Wikimedia Deutschland
--
Maria Heuschkel
Projektmanagerin
Softwareentwicklung
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Dear all,
The Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee>
(Elections Committee) [1] is, from today until April 24, seeking an
additional 2–4 members to help facilitate the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
Trustee (Board) selection process.
The Elections Committee oversees the Board Community- and Affiliate seat
selection process. This is a volunteer role, and the appointment is for
three years. Please note that while you are a member of the Committee, you
will not be able to run for any election overseen by the Committee – this
includes the upcoming 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board elections and any
other election for 18 months following the end of your term on the
Committee. You will also be restricted in your ability to publicly advocate
for community members running in those elections. You can read more in the
Elections Charter [2], recently updated by the Wikimedia Foundation
Governance Committee (GC) based on the lessons learnt from the previous
Elections and the feedback received.
The term of the previous members of the Elections Committee expired on
March 31, 2023, and some of them confirmed their willingness to continue.
After their paperwork is done (if needed), they will be reappointed by the
GC along with the new members.
Please read carefully the information below before applying or recommending
that somebody applies.
== Duties and time commitment ==
The purpose of the Elections Committee is to assist with the design and
implementation of the process to select Board Community- and
Affiliate-Selected Trustees. The Committee may also assist with similar
community-selected positions as determined by the Board.
The Committee has responsibilities throughout every phase of the selection
process for Community- and Affiliate-Selected Trustees, as established
in Article
IV, Section 3(C) in the Foundation Bylaws
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Bylaws#(C)_Community-_and_Affil….>,
including:
-
Timeline – Work with Foundation staff to determine and communicate
election timeline specifics, based on target end date set by the Board.
-
Candidacy – Working with Foundation staff and in consultation with the
Board, design the process for collecting and reviewing candidate
declarations.
-
Outreach – Work with Foundation staff to reach the various Wikimedia
communities with information about the election, including voting and the
call for candidates.
-
Volunteers – Determine whether additional volunteers are needed to
assist with election administration, and work with Foundation staff to
recruit and coordinate those volunteers.
-
Communications – Review communications about the election drafted by
Foundation staff and collaborate in determining when communications should
be issued by the Committee, by staff, or by the Board.
-
Evaluation – Assist in reviewing candidates based on criteria set by the
Board.
-
Campaigning – Set and enforce rules regarding how candidates can
campaign, and oversee the process of asking candidates to answer campaign
questions.
-
Voting – Determine the voting method and voter eligibility criteria, and
work with Foundation staff to determine the voting platform and review
voter eligibility requests.
-
Results – Review and announce vote results.
You can see a more detailed matrix of responsibilities for different groups
organising the Elections here [3].
Elections Committee members sign up for three-year terms and will be asked
to sign a confidentiality agreement. Members can expect to contribute 2–5
hours per week before the selection process and 5–8 hours per week during
the selection process.
As an Elections Committee member, you will be responsible for:
-
Attending online meetings between now and the next election (mid-2024)
-
Attending onboarding and online training in May–June 2023
-
Working with the Committee to fulfill its other responsibilities [2]
The wider Wikimedia community votes for candidates to be considered for
community-and-affiliate selected seats of the Wikimedia Foundation Board
[4]. In 2024, the Elections Committee will oversee this selection process
for the four community-selected seats with expiring terms. This process
will be supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.
== Requirements ==
New members should have the following qualities:
-
Fluency in English
-
Responsiveness to email collaboration
-
Knowledge of the movement and movement governance
== Application Process ==
If you would like to volunteer for this role, please submit your candidacy
by April 24, 2023, at 23:59 AoE (anywhere on Earth) on Meta at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/No…
After this the shortlisted candidates will be asked to participate in an
interview with members from the Governance Committee. The interview will be
approximately one hour, and a member of Foundation staff will likely be
present for note taking purposes. The Governance Committee (GC) will most
likely appoint new members at its meeting on May 15, 2023.
Given the private information that committee members handle, you must be 18
years of age or older, and be willing to sign the confidentiality agreement
for nonpublic information [5] if you haven't already. You can view
information on how to sign this on Meta-Wiki [6]. You will need to submit
proof of your identity and age to the Wikimedia Foundation at
secure-info(a)wikimedia.org. You would be able to hold this position on the
Committee under a pseudonym, but the Foundation needs to confirm your age
and identity.
To sum it up:
-
Please carefully read the information in this letter, and follow the
links in it, pay attention to the time commitment requirements
-
Submit your application by Apr 24, 2023 at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)
on Meta at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/No…
[7]
-
Submit proof of your identity and age to the Wikimedia Foundation at
secure-info(a)wikimedia.org
-
If you are shortlisted, please attend an 1 hour interview with the GC
members
-
Sign the documents needed if appointed
Thank you in advance for your interest! If you are not interested, but know
someone who might be, share this message with them. Please let me know if
you have questions.
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Elections Committee Board Liaison
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections_Committee_Charter
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Ro…
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Confidentiality_agreement_for_nonpublic_inf…
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Confidentiality_agreement_for_nonpublic_inf…
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/No…
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*
The by laws are at https://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Rules - 4(5), (6) and (9)
give the committee the ability to accept or reject, but don't specify
grounds. Policies listed on the site don't mention criteria for accepting
or rejecting membership.
I'd love to help but the chapter just rejected my own application for
membership without giving reasons and I'm still trying to find out why.
Kindest regards
Andrew