Hi everyone,
This year, we’ve all had to deal with significant disruptions to the in
person work that we usually do together. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic,
many of you have had to cancel movement events and gatherings, or shift to
virtual options. It’s been a year of tremendous adjustment, and I’m
grateful to all of you for your flexibility and your creativity in
exploring new ways to collaborate and connect despite these restrictions.
As we had to put movement events on hold, the Events team at the Wikimedia
Foundation decided to take the time to evaluate the support we were
providing for Foundation funded and produced movement events and identify
areas for improvement. We are calling this exercise an “Events Refresh.”
Our goal is to look at the strategy, design and logistics of events and how
we can make them more effective and a better experience for both the event
organizers we partner with, as well as for the participants who attend.
To begin this evaluation process for events, we hosted preliminary
conversations with several community organizers and event leaders from our
movement to hear directly from them about how we can better support events
moving forward.
Our first finding from these initial conversations will come as no
surprise. The Wikimedians we spoke with emphasized, time and again, the
important role that events play in fostering community connection,
engagement, and sense of belonging. They shared with us how these in person
gatherings allow participants to better understand the scope and breadth of
the movement, to feel that they are contributing to something bigger. You
can read a summary of our initial findings from these interviews on
Meta[1].
== An Updated Friendly Space Policy for Events ==
This Refresh exercise also included a review of the existing policies we
have in place for movement and Foundation events. Following that review, we
have updated the Friendly Space policy [2], in order to have more clear
guidelines around youth safety at events. We wanted to provide more clarity
and support for community organizers that are exploring events with youth
participation.
The Friendly Space policy applies to all movement events hosted or
supported by the Foundation. It is designed to provide a safe and welcoming
experience for all participants at in-person and virtual events, and
protect against harassment. The updated Friendly Space policy contains more
explicit protections to address the safety of young attendees (generally
defined as ages 15-24 based on the United Nations definition of youth[3]).
These include a minimum age for young people to attend events without being
accompanied by a parent, guidelines on mature content at events for youth,
and a youth safety plan. We believe that these new guidelines will help
organizers who are thinking of hosting movement events for younger
attendees.
== More Opportunities to Share Feedback on Events ==
Our Events Refresh exercise is just getting started, and this work will be
ongoing. In the coming months, we will continue connecting with communities
to better understand and design for their needs. Our first three
engagements will be focused on:
* Capacity building for event organizers. How can we increase access to
high-quality learning materials about events and accelerate learning and
growth opportunities for volunteers? Chen Almog will be leading this effort.
* Participation accessibility. How can we make movement events more
accessible for participants, reducing linguistic, technological, cultural,
economic, social, and other event barriers? Rachel Farrand will be leading
this effort.
* Event Ecosystem design. How can we create a framework for events so that
community organizers and event participants can connect and collaborate
across related events? How can we ensure that events have continuity for
their audiences? Joël Letang will be leading this effort.
Starting in December we'll also be kicking off Community Events office
hours[4] to provide real-time support to current and potential community
organizers, host Q&A related to Events and provide other relevant updates.
Please feel free to connect with the Community Events team at
communityevents(a)wikimedia.org
I’m looking forward to when we’ll all be able to gather again in person.
Until then, please share your feedback on other ways we can support you
for movement events - we want to hear from you.
Take care and stay safe,
Janeen Uzzell
Chief Operating Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events_Refresh
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy
[3] https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/youth-0/index.html
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Events_team/OfficeHours
--
------------------------------
*Jáneen Uzzell*
Chief Operating Officer
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
@janeenuzzell
Hello, everyone,
The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed on Wednesday, November 18,
at 9:30 AM PST/17:30 UTC, and will be on the theme of interpersonal
communication between editors. Interpersonal communication, for example via
talk pages, plays a crucial role for editors to coordinate their efforts in
online collaborative communities. For this month’s showcase we have invited
2 speakers sharing their research on getting a deeper understanding of
interpersonal communication on Wikipedia. In the first talk, Anna Rader
will give an overview on editors’ communication networks and patterns, and
the different types of dynamics commonly found in the way that users
interact. In the second talk, Sneha Narayan presents recent work
investigating whether easier interpersonal communication leads to enhanced
productivity and newcomer participation across more than 200 wikis.
YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G35OEDJ53bY
As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. You
can also watch our past research showcases here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
This month's presentations:
Talk before you type - Interpersonal communication on Wikipedia
By Dr Anna Rader, Research Consultant
Formally, the work of Wikipedia’s community of volunteers is asynchronous
and anarchic: around the world, editors labor individually and in
disorganized ways on the collective project. Yet this work is also
underscored by informal and vibrant interpersonal communication: in the
lively exchanges of talk pages and the labor-sharing of editorial networks,
anonymous strangers communicate their intentions and coordinate their
efforts to maintain the world’s largest online encyclopaedia. This working
paper offers an overview of academic research into editors’ communication
networks and patterns, with a particular focus on the role of talk pages.
It considers four communication dynamics of editor interaction:
cooperation, deliberation, conflict and coordination; and reviews key
recommendations for enhancing peer-to-peer communication within the
Wikipedia community.
All Talk - How Increasing Interpersonal Communication on Wikis May Not
Enhance Productivity
By Sneha Narayan, Assistant Professor, Carlton College
What role does interpersonal communication play in sustaining production in
online collaborative communities? This paper sheds light on that question
by examining the impact of a communication feature called "message walls"
that allows for faster and more intuitive interpersonal communication in a
population of wikis on Wikia. Using panel data from a sample of 275 wiki
communities that migrated to message walls and a method inspired by
regression discontinuity designs, we analyze these transitions and estimate
the impact of the system's introduction. Although the adoption of message
walls was associated with increased communication among all editors and
newcomers, it had little effect on productivity, and was further associated
with a decrease in article contributions from new editors. Our results
imply that design changes that make communication easier in a social
computing system may not always translate to increased participation along
other dimensions.
-
Paper <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359203>
--
Janna Layton (she/her)
Administrative Associate - Product & Technology
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
The international Wikimedia community might be interested in this upcoming
event --
CDKN is a collaborator with WMZA (see previous event:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/African_Climate_Change_edit-a-thon ) and
the movement that has been growing their outreach to the international
climate communication community.
Cheers,
Alex Stinson
---
Dear colleagues,
The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) and Future Climate for
Africa (FCFA) invite you to participate in an online climate change
edit-a-thon, Wiki4Climate - A week of editing on climate change topics from 24
November - 1 December 2020.
Wiki4Climate aims to mobilise a community of climate change professionals
(researchers, practitioners and communicators), climate and community
organisers, and existing Wikipedia editors and volunteers, to edit and
update climate change articles on Wikipedia.
The event has four specific goals:
1.
To enhance climate change content on Wikipedia, particularly related to
the Global South,
2.
To increase awareness on the value of contributing to the platform,
3.
To enhance the confidence and skills of climate change professionals to
edit Wikipedia, and
4.
To build a community of climate change editors, particularly women and
editors from the Global South.
For more information about the edit-a-thon and to sign up, visit our
Wikipedia project page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Online_edit-a-thon_on_climat…
Please share this opportunity with your networks and anyone you know who
may be interested in joining.
We hope to see you there!
Emma Baker, on behalf of the Wiki4Climate organising team
emma(a)southsouthnorth.org
www.cdkn.orgwww.futureclimateafrica.org
--
Alex Stinson
Senior Program Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
Twitter: @sadads
Learn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other
Wikimedia projects partner with cultural heritage organizations:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM
Dear all
Greetings,
We write to inform you all that our annual report for the year ended
2019-2020 is ready.
We wish to thank the Wikimedia Foundation for its supports in the previous
reporting year and we hope to strengthen the relationship between us in the
new year.
And to all our colleagues across the globe, let's do more together.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_User_Group_Nigeria/Reports/2019-2…
Olaniyan Olushola.
Kaya
Over the last 9 months the movement has really taken to the use of "zoom"
style technology to hold and host events, I dont doubt they have been
really productive in addressing the many needs of the community.
One thing I have noticed is just how many of these notices are coming
through now with some meetings taking place not once but multiple times to
ensure everyone has access to them in their best time period.
I know as volunteers we are able to pick and choose what we do, I also know
we are placing a lot of pressure on affiliates to be upto date on all these
events. I raise a concern that perhaps we as a community are starting to
over do these meetings and stretch volunteer resources to point of breaking
or being overwhelmed. I know that as WP20 approaches these meetings are
going to accelerate and put greater demands on our limited resources.
I propose that the community has a quiet period from the 14 December to 5th
January where we dont hold general meetings, webinars, cafes, and strategy
discussions to give people time to refresh and focus on family. Obviously
some small group focused community meetings will be necessary as part of
WP20 and other preparations so I'm not suggesting ruling out all meetings
just asking that we remember that there is life outside of the movement we
should be allowing people time to focus on as well.
--
Gnangarra
*Power of Diverse Collaboration*
*Sharing knowledge brings people together*
Wikimania Bangkok 2021
August
hosted by ESEAP
Wikimania: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnangarra
Noongarpedia: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/nys/Main_Page
My print shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Gnangarra/shop?asc=u
The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey[1] is now open!
This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community
Tech[2] team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to
submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other
proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the
proposals between 8 December and 21 December.
The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia
editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate
them for you.
Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!
P.S. If the pages are not fully translated into your language, visit a
dedicated page[3], be bold, and add the translations!
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Community_Wishlist_Surve…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2021/Translation_…
Kind regards,
Szymon Grabarczuk (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi everyone.
The next Wikimedia Café online video meeting will occur on Sunday 15
November 2020 at 7:00 PM UTC / 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST / Monday 12:30 AM
IST. The focus will be on the Global Council which the Wikimedia Movement
Strategy plan is establishing.
Please see the page on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Café>
for more information. If there are any problems with connecting to the
meeting or if you have any questions or comments then please write on the
Meta talk page.
Hope to see you there. :)
-- Yair Rand (User:Yair_rand)
Hello
The webinar to learn about Wikiquote will be hosted this SUNDAY 15th Nov
at 6pm CET. Link to join : https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84625507631
This is part of the #shesaid campaign, to get more entries on wikiquote
from notable women.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Women/SheSaid
If you are a wikiquote expert, your input will be very welcome.
If you are interested to learn more about wikiquote and the way it
works, this is the right time :)
Ant