Wow Kerry
Reading your email - this Australian nodded throughout. I think it raises
many of the challenges of digital engagement.
I do think the respect-o-meter would make a great research project. A
survey comparing how different groups/activities are valued would at least
raise the awareness that digital volunteering is a thing.
Within Australia we have obvious candidate groups of digital volunteers to
survey in terms of Wikimedia, Open Street Map, Trove, people working in
open data projects and genealogy etc
A global survey could also provide comparisons between countries/cultures.
And a conference paper or journal article wouldn't hurt:)
Cheers Pru
Pru Mitchell
Vice-President Wikimedia Australia
pru.mitchell(a)wikimedia.org.au
On 6 April 2017 at 03:08, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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.
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