Hi María,

Thank you for sharing this update on wikilovesmonuments mailing list and the work that has been done towards consolidating resources and making the resources available to the community of volunteers more discoverable. :)

I have one question for you which is probably relevant also to other Wiki Loves contests (Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Africa, ...):

One of the biggest challenges we have in Wiki Loves Monuments international team is around securing specific skills in the stack of skills we need to run even better contest every year. I'd like to know where we can seek these specific resources and how we can get a sense of when we can expect to receive them, if at all. :) I give you a couple of examples of the resources we need:

* Communications is key for the work of the international team, but even more so for the work of local organizers. In the international team, we have identified a need to provide documentation to local organizers to help them be more effective in communications (with press, with institutions which can become their partners, etc.). While we can provide a wall of text :) and describe everything that the local teams should consider doing (or not), we know this is not effective for a lot of our audience. We need someone(s) who understands our audiences (the local organizers), their needs, and their environment, and how Wiki Loves Monuments work to help us create simple, joyful to read and engage with, documentation. Where can we ask for this type of resource? (I'm guessing this will touch on design research, design, and communications specialties).

* Building better and more user-friendly tools for our audience: The international team has been deeply involved in the development of the following two tools with volunteers:

https://tools.wmflabs.org/montage-beta/#/ https://tools.wmflabs.org/monumental

We have amazing backend and frontend volunteers who work on these tools. We define requirements for these tools and we build towards those requirements. What we are really missing is user research and design recommendations for both tools (we receive some from time to time during hackathons, for example, but we need more continuous support:). These tools are becoming more and more central to Wiki Loves ecosystem and we need to make sure that all backend and frontend developments are done towards systems that are designed to work well for our users (both organizers/admins and also jurors and participants). Where can we ask for this kind of resource? What kind of timelines can we expect for receiving substantial help on this specific front? :)

I'm looking forward for us, as a community of Wiki Loves organizers, to continue this discussion with you here, in Wikimania, and beyond. These contests have managed to design and implement a successful formula for bringing newcomers to Wikimedia projects (check Wiki Loves Earth results: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikiloves/ The Wiki Loves Earth community has managed to bring more than 12K (90% of their total pool) new volunteers to at least do 1 upload in Commons. This is incredible!:). This ecosystem can benefit substantially from help in very specific areas to become even more effective and we need to know where to ask for this help and what the timeline for receiving help will look like.

Best, Lily

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 5:59 PM, Maria Cruz mcruz@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi all,

Last January we announced the roll out of the Wikimedia Resource Center, [1] a hub intended as a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over the world to the variety of resources and types of Wikimedia Foundation staff support they may need to develop new initiatives or expand existing ones. The Wikimedia Resource Center’s beta version is now live on Meta Wikimedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center

The redesign of the hub was informed by user-testing sessions at the Wikimedia Conference 2017 in Berlin and feedback gathered on the talk page of the hub. We have ordered resources by user types to make them easier to navigate, and now all Wikimedians can add resources developed by themselves, other individuals or organizations to the hub. The next step for the Wikimedia Resource Center is to include features that will enable Wikimedians to better connect with other Wikimedians that can support them.

We are currently performing more testing and working to incorporate a link to the Wikimedia Resource Center from different community spaces, and it will be presented at Wikimania 2017 in Montréal. If you are interested in taking part in this conversation, please contact me, and if you are coming to Wikimania, join our session [2] to discuss how we best learn from each other in the Wikimedia movement.

We want to hear what you think about this new version and would like to also invite you to submit your comments about it privately, via direct email to me, or publicly on the talk page.

We’d like to thank Nirzar Pangarkar, Carolyn Li-Madeo and Volker Eckl,key allies in bringing the new design to life, for all their support in this project! Also a shout-out goes to James Hare, our technical design intern, who has done great work of processing all the documentation on the WRC, understanding its history and goal, and creating amicable interfaces for contributors.

We are looking forward to more collaborations!

Best,

María

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-January/085982.html

[2] https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_not_to_reinvent_the...

María Cruz \ Communications and Outreach project manager, L&E Team \ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. mcruz@wikimedia.org | Twitter: @marianarra_

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 7:54 AM, Maria Cruz mcruz@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi all,

As we have stated in our annual plan [1], “currently, community members must search many pages and places to stay informed about Foundation activities and resources.” We have worked in the past two quarters to create a single point of entry. We call it the Wikimedia Resource Center, and its alpha version is now live on Meta Wikimedia: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center

As the movement expands to include more affiliates and more programmatic activities every year, newer Wikimedians are faced with lack of experience in the movement and its various channels for requesting support. In order to expand Wikimedia communities’ efforts, we want to provide easy access to resources that support their very important work. The [[m:Wikimedia Resource Center]] is a hub designed in response to this issue: it is intended to evolve into a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over the world to the variety of resources and types of staff support they may need to develop new initiatives or also expand existing ones.

This version of the Resource Center is only the beginning. For phase two of the project, we will enable volunteer Wikimedians to add resources developed by other individuals or organizations to the Wikimedia Resource Center, and in phase three, the Wikimedia Resource Center will include features to better connect Wikimedians to other Wikimedians that can support them.

We want to hear what you think about this prototype and our plans for it! If you have comments about the Wikimedia Resource Center, you can submit your feedback publicly, on the Talk Page, or privately, via a survey hosted by a third party, that shouldn’t take you more than 4 minutes to complete. A feedback button is on the top right corner on every page of the hub.

Looking forward to more collaborations!

Best,

María

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/d... -- María Cruz Communications and Outreach Project Manager, Community Engagement

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