---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Asaf Bartov <abartov@wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 1:59 PM
Subject: Let's map capacities! (Announcing the CCM)
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>

Dear Wikimedians,

How many Wikimedia communities have embraced advanced Wikidata use? How many have active social media accounts, and are there geographic or cultural patterns to which groups have and have not? Which groups have a written, current strategy? What are the most common gaps in capacity in Latin America? or in Eastern Europe? What kind of investment in capacity building would be likely to bring the most value?

To answer these questions and more, we invite all of you to participate in the new Community Capacity Map (CCM): a self-assessment exercise for communities, groups (whether formally recognized user groups or not), thematic organizations, and chapters, to map capacities across the movement, with a view to identifying existing gaps as well as opportunities for capacity-building.

The CCM is here on Meta:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map

The context for this work, as well as "likely-asked questions, with answers" ("LAQ"?), are explained here, including an answer to "why should I take the time to read all this?" --

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/About 

(and also pasted at the bottom of this e-mail, for your convenience.)

The self-assessment is to be done based on the detailed Guidelines provided here:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/Guidelines 

I am looking forward to learning more about your groups' and orgs' capacities and gaps, and to do my best to play matchmaker between those needs and our available resources and opportunities.  While I encourage you to begin contributing straightaway, there is no deadline -- this is envisioned to be a long-term, ongoing, and tracked-over-time tool -- so contribute if and when your group is able to make the time.

(don't forget to scroll down to the LAQ!)

Warmly,

    Asaf Bartov

    Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities

==========================================

Likely-asked questions, with answers

this exists with working links and [modest] formatting here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map/About#Likely-asked_questions,_with_answers 

Why do this at all? 

The Community Resources team is doing this to attempt a more comprehensive view of capacities and gaps across the movement, to enhance our existing, anecdotal and ad-hoc, impressions of only some of the communities and affiliates. See the goal statement above.

Why now? 

The CCM experiment is an implementation of one of the recommendations made at the conclusion of the Community Capacity Development pilot year.

Why should I spend the time to read through it or go through the self-assessment? 

There are a couple of reasons you may want to put in the time: First, by self-assessing your group/organization's capacities and gaps, you are giving WMF and other potential investors in community capacity a chance to provide your group/org with resources and opportunities to build up those capacities. Secondly, self-assessing according to the Guidelines page may be in itself a worthwhile exercise and discussion-starter for your group/org, pointing at potential areas for proactive work by your org/group itself, for example in your next annual plan. Finally, self-assessing (at least some) capacities today would enable you to review and re-assess in six months, or two years, and see how your group/org has developed (or not) in each of these aspects.

So does WMF expect all groups and organizations to do this? 

No. This is an opportunity and a tool. Like all other tools, you are free to use it or not, and we certainly understand that it would take time and that you may have more pressing priorities in your group/org. We hope as many groups, organizations, and communities eventually take the time to self-assess, at least on some capacities, but it is not mandatory, and there would be no penalty for not participating.

Would we have to provide self-assessments for all of the capacities? 

No. Feel free to self-assess on as many or as few capacities as you are able to, interested in, or find relevant. You can also add assessments gradually, as your group/org finds time to discuss and agree on assessments.

Should I assess capacities in the context of my wiki community, my user-group/chapter, or what? 

It depends. It may make sense to do separate assessments, or just one. For example, while the English community has plenty of bot builders and technical experts, you may belong to a small community contributing in English in a country with little or no bot-building expertise, such as Wikimedians in Uganda. In this case, it would make sense to describe the capacities of the Ugandan group you're part of, and not of the whole English Wikipedia community. On the other hand, it is possible that there is a very high degree of overlap between the Estonian community's capacities and the Estonian chapter's capacities, and in that case, it may be most useful to assess just once, for the Estonian community or Wikimedia Estonia, or possibly once for the community for on-wiki capacities, and separately for Wikimedia Estonia only for the organizational and off-wiki capacities. See the Guidelines page for more details.

Okay, and suppose we did put in the time and provided some assessments. What can we expect next? 

You can expect, at the very least, one program officer at Community Resources paying attention to your contribution, and possibly, depending on each specific capacity and assessment, that officer may have resources or opportunities to suggest to your community/group/org. The more groups provide assessments, the better-informed WMF would be, and the more likely it would be that WMF could allocate resources and create training opportunities for your group. Shared needs in a region would increase the likelihood of WMF acting even further, as it would allow economizing on the investment by training/supporting several groups/communities at once.

Are you saying if X number of communities demonstrate need Y, WMF is guaranteed to allocate resources to fill that need? 

I'm afraid not. But it does make it more likely, in that it demonstrates the need, making it easier to argue for it in internal budgeting and allocation discussions, and to marshal internal WMF resources (such as borrowing the time of subject experts at WMF to conduct training or mentor groups).

Okay, so how would WMF decide which communities to offer resources to? 

There's no simple deterministic algorithm, but WMF would prioritize emerging communities over other communities, larger groups serving larger populations over smaller ones, and at least at first, would probably prioritize "low-hanging fruit" -- lower-cost/lower-risk investments, as we learn and improve this program's use of resources.

Wouldn't the fact these are self-assessments mean we'd be comparing apples to oranges, given some groups would overestimate or underestimate their own capacities?  

No. We do understand there are some cultural tendencies (some cultures are more self-critical than others, or have rosier or more pessimistic views of future prospects and current capabilities). However, we think the fairly coarse granularity of the assessments (none/low/medium/high), coupled with the Guidelines for self-assessing, would lead most groups to make reasonably comparable assessments. Ultimately, these would remain subjective and unscientific assessments; but they would certainly at least indicate a group/org's own perception of their capacity. And before WMF (or others interested in investing in capacity building) make a decision to tackle a particular capacity with a particular community/group/org/region, we would be sure to take into consideration all the relevant context we have, i.e. not just the aggregate of the self-assessments in the CCM, but also all the accumulated experience, context, and history we are aware of at WMF, regarding that community/group/org/region.

Okay, this may not be the worst idea ever to come from WMF 

We're glad you think so. :)

What if none of this turns out the way you hope? 

Then we'll archive these pages and look for other ways to do effective capacity building. The CCM is an experiment, based on observed needs and an expectation that it would be useful. But we are ready to learn that it may not, and to change course if necessary. Let's give it a shot, though!

What if I have another question? 

Use the talk page! :)

_______________________________________________
African-Wikimedians mailing list
African-Wikimedians@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians