Disclaimer. I don't proclaim to be an expert on any of this. It's just my opinion
and is a commentary about Australia with which even other Australians may disagree.
- Differences and importance. I'll address these together because I think they are
linked.
I think within the community there are "shades of grey" when it comes to
volunteering. I would say in the Australian community those who engage in "hands
on" volunteering in the most demanding roles get the greatest respect. If you fight a
bushfire for days on end without sleep or you help wash a drunken homeless man in a
shelter, most people think "it's great that they will do that because it needs to
be done" but "I couldn't do that" or "I would not want to do
it". Whereas being a surf lifesaver (say) isn't seen as quite as deserving of
respect, yes, they do save lives from time to time (maximum respect at that point in
time), but in between there's also a lot of lounging about the beach chatting up the
girls and competing in surf boat races, and whizzing around the beach on a quad bike
(lower levels of respect). Whereas if you do fundraising for the same organisations,
it's still seen as worthwhile but sorting the second-hand clothes donations isn't
quite as demanding as risking your life, and running the charity luncheon fundraiser with
the A-listers and celebs is even less undesirable (indeed, actively desirable for the
social climber). Yet it's all volunteering for a "worthy cause" but the
respect levels are quite different.
So where does digital volunteering fit in this scheme of things? Probably pretty low down
on the respect-o-meter. Firstly I doubt if most people would even realise digital
volunteering existed. But if they were made aware of it, then if you did some kind of
digital volunteering such as doing mapping during a disaster (we get lots of cyclones,
bushfires and floods here so it is very important to know what road is open, how deep the
creek is, where are the power lines down, where are the trapped and the injured), people
would think that worthwhile but still not with the same respect as the volunteers who
actually go out in the little boats and drag people from rooftops and floating cars or
fight the blaze etc, using the maps the digital volunteer provided. Or to put it another
way, a digital volunteer generally doesn't risk dying, having to handle a dead body,
and nobody vomits/bleeds over them.
If we look at digital volunteering in something like Wikipedia or HistoryPin, yes, there
is some appreciation but most people probably guess that you do it when it suits you, you
do what it suits you to do (i.e. relates to your own hobbies/interests), and can be done
in the comfort of your own home. When I do Wikipedia talks and training, people often tell
me that they always donate to Wikipedia each year because they appreciate it so much that
they want to ensure its continued existence, but rarely do say they appreciate the people
who produce the content. In fact, most people seem to completely unaware of where the
content comes from. So I don't think there's huge respect for Wikipedians really.
Or to put it another way, Australians appreciate someone who would try to save them from
the flood more than someone who would argue that their death wasn't a run-of-the-mill
drowning at Articles for Deletion. :-)
On the Australian respect-o-meter, I think digital volunteering probably sits somewhere
between running the charity "op shop" (recycled second hand clothes etc) and the
organising of fundraising celebrity luncheons. I don't think any volunteering that
involves wearing expensive clothes and carrying a glass of champagne really gets that much
respect in Australia. Digital volunteering is probably seen as having similar
characteristics to the "op shop" in that there's probably a lot of time
commitment, can be tedious and repetitive and doesn't give the volunteer anything much
in return beyond a "warm glow" of having done something useful to others. I
think most people would think digital volunteering was not a social activity (unlike the
"op shop" where there are usually teams rostered on a regular basis and the
socialising is often part of the reward for doing the volunteering). I don't think
that the non-social nature of it alters its perceived value but I think it might lead to
the perception that digital volunteers are geeky loners who don't want/need social
relationships. I think I get more respect for my Wikipedia outreach work (Wikipedia edit
training etc) than I do for my Wikipedia contributions, perhaps because it is more
"helping others" in a face-to-face way, but I actually believe myself that my
contributions are more valuable (give once and the whole English-speaking world can
benefit).
The core characteristic of digital volunteering - using a computer? More seriously, using
a computer to create content where the analog equivalent would not be as useful (e.g. hard
to copy paper maps and distribute them and keep them updated during an emergency). I
don't think being a volunteer who counsels suicidal people in an online chat room
would be seen by most people as digital volunteering; the use of the Internet would simply
be an alternative to phone or face-to-face. The counselling itself is the core of their
volunteering, rather than the means by which they communicate. Similarly I don't think
maintaining the spreadsheet for the charity luncheon would be seen as digital
volunteering. The core of the volunteering needs to have a "must-be digital"
quality for digital volunteering.
What should authorities (at various levels) do for digital volunteers? Well, they do very
little for volunteers of any kind currently so I am not sure they are likely to do
anything different for digital volunteers. In Australia, there is no tax deductibility for
expenses incurred in volunteering (a volunteer firefighter generally pays for their own
protective outfits and their equipment, large 4WD trucks, is usually funded through
fundraising by the volunteer firefighters association). However, many employers will
choose to give paid leave (additional to normal leave entitlements) to staff, who are
called out to respond to an emergency as volunteers, but not usually for some regular
commitment of time at the homeless shelter or for emergency-callout training.
Legally most (all?) of our states in Australia have the "Good Samaritan Act" or
similar which ensures "that legal protection is extended to ordinary persons who,
without the expectation of a fee or reward, assist people in emergency situations".
That *might* be seen as extending to emergency digital mapmaking that due to inaccuracy
caused harm to someone, but I doubt that the situation of emergency digital assistance
been tested in our courts; the legislation was motivated to avoid the public being afraid
to assist injured people for fear of being sued if they unintentionally made matters worse
(a much more hands-on situation). I can't see it extending to Wikipedia contributions
somehow.
In my observation, for emergency situations, authorities prefer to engage with volunteer
organisations with large numbers of volunteers, clearly defined roles, training programs
and some systems of certification in relation to specific skills (e.g. first aid, boat
handling, radio operations), and the ability to deploy rapidly. For example, our State
Emergency Service is a good example of a volunteer organisation that is deployed in
emergencies.
http://www.ses.qld.gov.au/about/Pages/What-We-Do.aspx
For ongoing situations like homeless shelters, etc, there will often be contractual
arrangements with the volunteer organisation based around grant funding of some kind with
KPIs, reporting obligations etc. That is, the government generally wants to deal with
large professionally-run organisations, albeit composed largely of volunteers. For
example, if you choose to volunteer at one of our major hospitals, you will have formal
inductions, you will have a roster of regular days for volunteering and you will be
dropped as a volunteer if you don't attend enough of your shifts or don't do what
you are supposed to get done (it's just too much management hassle to deal with such a
volunteer). The expectations are as high as that of an employee (arguably higher as they
can't sack an employee as easily as a volunteer).
http://www.mater.org.au/Home/Support/Volunteers
In Australia digital volunteers are not usually operating within such kinds of
organisation or with that kind of rigidity. Nor do I think we have that kind of size of
organisation. I've done Map-Ups with Open Street Map, but I've never been a member
of anything officially, never been trained, etc. Even the guy who did the local organising
didn't seem sure if there actually was an organisation you could formally join. A
Map-Up involved turning up at some park in a random suburb, have a BBQ breakfast, parcel
out the map areas, drive around making notes of errors or missing things, meet for lunch
at a pub, spend the afternoon adding/updating the OSM. Wikimedia Australia has a
membership that teeters between 30-60 people spread thousands of kilometres apart, so we
don't even get the BBQ breakfast. I can't see any government desiring to engage
with either OSM within Australia (not even sure how you would contact it anyway) nor WMAU
(at least we have an email address). It's not as if WMAU can round up hundreds of
digital volunteers for some purpose. Despite Wikipedia's claim that
"Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of 2.35 million, and the South
East Queensland region, centred on Brisbane, encompasses a population of more than 3.5
million", I can't get more than 10 people to a Brisbane meetup once/twice a year
and I can't find anyone to assist with edit training and nobody has ever certified me
as competent to conduct training or make contributions. In contrast the State Emergency
Service has 6,000 volunteers trained and ready to rappel down a cliff face or coordinate
swift water rescues, and probably with certificates to prove their competency.
I am not sure if that answers your questions. But it was a thought-provoking set of
questions.
Kerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
Julian Fischer
Sent: Tuesday, 4 April 2017 8:46 PM
To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Digital engagement / digital volunteer work
Hi all,
Wikimedia Deutschland is planning a workshop (June 23, 2017) on digital engagement /
digital volunteer work.
The aim of the workshop is to identify with other stakeholders ("classic"
NGOs, Free- and Open-Movement, Volunteers, state authorities) open questions on digital
engagement / digital volunteer work that should be answered.
Research questions could be as follows:
- What is the difference between digital and analog engagement?
- What are the core characteristic of digital engagement?
- What should state authorities on the national and local level do in order to support
digital volunteers?
- How important is digital engagement for our society?
- ...
Is there anybody from the Wikimedia movement who can help us to broaden our German
perspective and give us international insides on this topic (e.g.
via a ten minutes video message)?
Do you know any inspiring study?
Cheers,
Julian Fischer
Head of Volunteer Support
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | D-10963 Berlin Tel. +49-(0)30 219
158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei
teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://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.
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l