Hi Iolanda

Thank you for your support and help with getting Wikipedia on the program of SXSW! It's been a couple of weeks since you sent your message, but I wanted to respond to the part where you voice concerns about engaging with processes that -- if I understood correctly -- are not fully aligned with our ways of working towards open knowledge.

Of course, we shouldn't lose sight of our mission and do our work in line with our values. And the various actors in the Wikimedia movement and the larger space of open/free knowledge have different roles in this work. Some do the work you suggested - they engage with local or national knowledge institutions to advocate free licensing and similar practices that further access to knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation's Global Advocacy team seeks to participate in conversations and set the agenda for events where international decision-makers meet and discuss public policy and regulations for the internet. We're trying to explain to stakeholders from all sectors how the Wikimedia projects work and how they benefit society. To do so, we sometimes need to go through processes that aren't fully aligned with our values. The privacy policies of the voting platform for SXSW is just one example of this.

Regarding your point about changing institutions' practices: in my opinion, it's not a successful strategy to try and change institutions without engaging with them positively or while even boycotting their processes. I appreciate that our movement's purist views have helped us preserve the beloved character of our projects. And I believe we need to be strategic about how and where we want to insist that external stakeholders adhere to our own values.

Thank you again for your support and for all your work for our movement in Italy and beyond.

Best,
Jan

==



Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Director
Wikimedia Foundation



On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 12:38 PM Iolanda Pensa <iolanda@pensa.it> wrote:
I gave my positive vote. and nice proposal!

but sincerely, I am not sure we should really engage with those processes. to be able to vote and comment, I had to register on two platforms and give my data to institutions and platforms which are not aligned to us and accept their terms and conditions.
are we sure it is an effort which makes sense? maybe we could first convince those institutions to produce open knowledge or contribute to platforms which produce open knowledge (there are many). maybe something to consider for conferences.
i know it costs a lot of effort, but that effort - making knowledge open - is also our job and mission.

my very best regards
iolanda

 



Il giorno 9 ago 2024, alle ore 13:49, Friederike von Franqué <friederike.vonfranque@wikimedia.de> ha scritto:

Hi all, good luck from me as well 😎

Amanda Lawrence <amanda.lawrence@wikimedia.org.au> schrieb am Fr., 9. Aug. 2024, 10:56:
You got my vote! Good luck Ziski and all. 

On Thu, Aug 8, 2024 at 11:57 PM Evelin Heidel <eheidel@wikimedistas.uy> wrote:
Zizki, are you tampering with elections? Naughty...

El jue, 8 ago 2024 a la(s) 10:31 a.m., Iglika Ivanova (iglika.ivanova@gmail.com) escribió:
Fantastic!
and Wiki❤️ed!



On Thu, Aug 8, 2024, 1:17 PM Franziska Putz <fputz@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi friends,

I hope you're all enjoying Wikimania, online or onsite! If you're in Katowice, please come say hi to me. 

I'm sharing this message because we need to crowdsource some WikiLove for an important policy event. As many of you know, explaining the Wikimedia model to policy stakeholders is a key priority for our movement. We've identified a BIG stage where we'd like to do this: the South by Southwest 2025 [1] conference in Austin, Texas. They have a unique process, and we need your help - to win a popularity contest.

How you can help: We submitted a panel proposal (details below the line) titled "How can fictional futures help us strengthen truth and facts online?". Panels that are selected are those that get the most votes. Voting is open between now and August 18th. If there's one thing we're really good at, it's crowdsourcing. Please vote for our panel here [2], and help us explain the model to this audience.

Grateful if you could also share this with your friends in the movement and beyond!

Best,

Ziski

[1] https://www.sxsw.com/

[2] https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/151603

_________

The panel,  "How can fictional futures help us strengthen truth and facts online?", will bring together speakers from the worlds of tech, fiction and journalism, to talk about how we can create a future where reliable, well-sourced, and human-verified information is not only flourishing, but public trust in it is growing. The speakers include:

  • Sewell Chan (Moderator) – Editor-in-Chief, Texas Tribune 
  • Karen Lord – Award-winning science fiction author 

  • Stephen Harrison – Contributing Editor, Slate

  • Rebecca MacKinnon, Vice President Global Advocacy, WMF


As part of these discussions, we will raise awareness about how Wikipedia’s human-led content moderation model is an antidote to mis- and disinformation. As we enter into a time where the use of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent, Wikipedia’s human approach to verifying content becomes more important than ever; this is something that our teams have collectively been emphasizing in our external messaging to help educate the media, lawmakers and the wider public about how this model is important in maintaining information integrity, and why it should be protected.


Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
UTC Timezone
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