Dear Pete and The Cunctator,
Surely, Twitter is getting worse by the day, and, surely, Elon is not the best practices person in the world. And, indeed, the WMF has lots of things to tackle and worry about. Nevertheless, the WMF has a Communications Team and the Communications Team has a Social Media department, and the Social Media department's job is to handle social media. So, even if these shouldn't be our main concern, is something we may talk about.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 2:44 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Twitter has a poor recent record on protecting its users from government interference and privacy invasion, an area in which the Wikimedia community and the WMF have typically taken a keen interest.
In 2015, Wikimedia's then-general counsel took pride in the WMF's perfect score on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) rating system for ethical response to government interference, a series that ran under the title "Who Has Your Back?"
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2015/06/29/whos-got-your-back/
As far as I can tell, the EFF hasn't run these ratings since 2019. In that year they focused on the issue of censorship (the specifics of the ratings varied in different year. They didn't consider Wikimedia that year, but Twitter got 3 stars out of a possible 6, putting it behind such companies as YouTube, Medium, the Google Play Store, and the Apple Store.
Now, in 2023, Twitter has apparently ceased self-reporting relevant data altogether to the Lumen group, which is connected to Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. But according to the report linked below, it has not refused even one government request for data since Elon Musk took over in 2022. It previously refused about 50% of requests.
One example that may resonate for Wikimedians:
"Under previous ownership, Twitter actively resisted requests from many of these same regimes. For two weeks in 2014, the platform was banned from Turkey, in part due to its refusal to globally block a post accusing a former government official of corruption. (The executive who led that charge was Vijaya Gadde, one of the first executives fired after Musk took over.)"
https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-orders/?ref=nobsb…
Twitter's choice to stop submitting data to Lumen as of April 15, 2023: https://twitter.com/shreyatewari96/status/1651865580629114880
I prefer to see the WMF follow the leadership of such organizations as the (USA-based) National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and officially de-emphasize Twitter as a means for public communication.
Wikimedia already has one of the top websites in the world; it is better to stand up for important shared values than to overlook this mismanagement of a highly popular website.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 5:27 AM The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com<mailto:cunctator@gmail.com>> wrote:
I honestly think the WMF has better things to do than worry about engagement on what is clearly a grossly mismanaged website.
On Tue, May 2, 2023, 3:53 AM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Justice,
Yes, it works that way, because we are not measuring the total engagement (where @Wikipedia wins @euwikipedia bat not @viquipedia) but the engagement rate per tweet, which is balanced with the number of followers.
Another topic is that the take-over by Elon Musk is affecting our engagement, but this should also be taken in account by the Social media team. In fact, there should be a discussion following up here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Twitter_verification_chec….
Since the changes on the algorithm affects everyone, the @Wikipedia team should be interested in learning about successful stories and how other social media handles continue having engagement while the one that should be leading is losing engagement every month.
Finally, I don't think that any discussion is "settled" if there's no answer. For the moment, the answer to the proposal of working together is silence.
Thanks
Galder
________________________________
From: Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo(a)gmail.com<mailto:owulakpakpo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2023 9:47 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi Galder,
Twitter has consistently seen a downward trend since the take over by Elon Musk. A lot of people are not using that platform like they did in the past.
And I thought this conversations was settled when WMF brought their social media strategy and engagement plan. But it looks like you keep bringing it up.
Again you don't expect accounts with less following to have same engagements with accounts with higher following it doesn't work that way.
Organizations define their own metrics and so success may mean different things to different organizations.
Regards,
Justice.
On Tue, 2 May 2023 at 07:41, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Dear all,
The impact of @wikipedia continues going down on Twitter. There's no strategy to turn this trend and the team seems happy with the numbers .https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Organic_social_media_strategy_update.
For context, the "Engagement Rate per Tweet" (this is the metric that the Communications Team proposed as a benchmark) felt to 0.011% (benchmark average is 0.035% and 0.05% for non-profits). Compare it with 0.27% of the Basque Wikipedia or the Catalan Wikipedia accounts (both have the same impact factor), or the 0.23% of the French Wikipedia account. We are talking about strategies with x25 impact.
Some months ago, some users made an offer to collaborate in making the social media communication strategy better, but there's no answer from the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm still waiting for an aswer to the offer.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:36 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
I write to send a small update on this. In a message about the methodology followed to measure success (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Social_media#Re:_Twitter_engagement_qu…), Laura Dickinson posted this: "According to its 2022 report<https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/>, the median Twitter engagement rate for brands across all industries is 0.037%; for nonprofits specifically, it is 0.054% [our engagement] over the last 28 day period is 2.7%."
I have measured the engagement with that methodology (https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/#title-…) for @Wikipedia in January (Likes+RT+Comments / Number of followers) and the result is: 0.012%, three times lower than the industry standard and 4.5 lower than for non-profits. For context, Basque Wikipedia had 0.055%, Catalan Viquipedia 0.060% and Indonesian Wikipedia an astonishing 2.79%. (You can check the numbers here: https://www.rivaliq.com/free-social-media-analytics/twitter-head-to-head)
There's an open question about the strategy followed and a sincere proposal of opening this account to a shared volunteers/WMF administration.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Àlex Hinojo <alexhinojo(a)gmail.com<mailto:alexhinojo@gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2023 7:42 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
+1
On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Peter Southwood <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net<mailto:peter.southwood@telkomsa.net>> wrote:
A Wikipedia account should be under the control of Wikipedians, following the editorial policy for Wikipedia, but they could let WMF do the technical work if such exists. WMF can and should run Wikimedia accounts. WMF running a Wikipedia account could be misrepresentation.
Cheers,
Peter
From: Andreas Kolbe [mailto:jayen466@gmail.com<mailto:jayen466@gmail.com>]
Sent: 19 January 2023 02:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
The obvious question surely is: Why not let volunteers (co-)run the Wikipedia Twitter account?
A number of Wikipedia language versions (French, Catalan, Portuguese, Basque, Waray, etc.) seem to have volunteer-managed Twitter accounts that are doing fine. If volunteers are good enough to write the encyclopedia and curate the main page of each language version, aren't they good enough to write (or suggest) the occasional tweet?
Andreas
On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:20 PM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hi/Bona nit,
This last tweet from @Wikipedia is a good example of what some of us have been mentioning in this list during the past days:
https://twitter.com/wikipedia/status/1615756186640334848?s=46&t=7wB7VI4gwIS…
Despite the fact that many Wikipedias have already had this new skin deployed since months ago as voluntary testers, not a single mention on their huge contribution was explained on Twitter (neither back then nor today…). We need to go to the 8th tweet of today's publication to read something like "The new features, which start rolling out on English Wikipedia today, were built in collaboration with Wikipedia volunteers worldwide."
If this is the situation in which the main account is monopolized only to the English version and its news/articles, why not specifying it as "English Wikipedia" in the profile and in the main link?
Days pass by and we keep sharing to this list proofs, data and justified arguments (even collagues offering themselves and willing to trace a joint planning!), but still not a word or single thought from the Comms department. Disappointing, I am sad to say.
Kind regards/Salutacions
Xavier Dengra
El ds, 14 gen., 2023 a 09:52, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> va escriure:
Egun on Boodarwun/Gnangarra,
You are righth in one thing: it is very difficult to prove a point only from one puntual statistic. That's why I have been tracking statistics for a long time, because patterns are here the most important thing. Neverthless, there is only one way to know if the point me and some other users in this thread are rising is valid: experimenting. @Wikipedia should try something: tweeting 6-7 times a day, with varied topics, "on this day" like tweets, varying timezones and even curiosities about how Wikipedia works (https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki/status/1614045362985082881 2 million impressions in 9 hours). Then, after -let's say- one month, if the results (engagement, followers, retention) are better, it would be quite obvious that there's a point changing the social media strategy. If not, if engagement is the same, no obvious uprise in followers or RTs is visible, the current strategy could be validated.
Me, personally, I'm ready to help the Communications Team with this task, proposing intercultural items that could be tweeted and promoted. If they want help, they know where to go for it. Again, I think that following the same pattern is a bad communication strategy (as we can see by our own eyes) and trying something new could be better. Is up to the communications team to aknowledge this and give a try.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com<mailto:gnangarra@gmail.com>>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2023 6:00 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Kaya Galder
The assumption that despite there being a wider audience the interests of those audience members is exactly the same, if that was true why have multiple channels. What I am saying is that in different communities that doesnt and will never hold true. Using statistics to compare the two is the issue and then complaining about different audience responses to the same event being caused by those posting to the channel. Its not the channel operators, it's the underlying expectation that all audiences are the same and react exactly the same way every time even as the audience is increasing by many orders of magnitude.
Boodarwun
On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 02:06, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
@Gnangarra: I would doubt on the idea that Pelé is not relevant to the English audience, as it was the most visited article by far that day (https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/topviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a…), and the second most visited next day, just after the less known Andrew Tate. Also, the account is not ENGLISH Wikipedia. Is called Wikipedia, so it should take into account, even if it tweets only about English Wikipedia (as pointed by @Xavier Dengra) a global audience. Because, again, the goal is "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". Not only for US centered people, but by a global audience. Even with that in mind, Pelé was the most visited article in English Wikipedia.
@Yaroslav: Basque Wikipedia is not one of the few accounts tweeting about Pelé, and in perspective, there are more Basque tweeting accounts per speaker, than there are for other larger languages. We are not competing with major news outlets; we are competing to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet". Wikipedia is doing well on that: nearly 2,5 million visits in two days for the article about Pelé only in English. I think that there may be very few web services having 2,5 million visits for a page about Pelé in two days, if there's any. Also, next day the most visited article was about Andrew Tate. So, you are right: we are not a news outlet, but we are visited according to the news. Any strategy that doesn't have this in mind, will fail.
You also ask how many tweets a day would be enough. I don't have an answer for this. I would like the communications team to come with one, but they don't seem either to have one. I don't think that tweeting every hour is better, but I'll explain why one tweet per day is a bad strategy, based only in what we know about the Twitter algorithm:
* The Twitter algorithm tends to show a tweet to followers and others more often if it gets more engagements (RTs, likes, comments...). So, maximizing engagements seems a something positive if we want to reach to new people.
* It also shows an account more often if the user interacts with it. If someone likes, RTs or comments a tweet, it seems that this account will be shown again soon. That's why you see more often tweets from your friends than others. And that's why ideological bubbles are created.
* If people are engaged with a tweet, it will be shown more regularly after a tweet by other people you follow once you scroll down. This is why if you open a tweet by a far-right politician, you will see below other tweets by far-right sided politicians and the opposite for left, libertarian, green or vegans. It shows you similar content, based on people's interaction.
So, tweeting more doesn't maximize engagement (if you tweet every minute, you will lose it), but tweeting less minimizes engagement. If you only tweet once a day, and you don't get too much attention, your next tweet will be less important for the algorithm, and so on. The only valid strategy is one that gets people engaged to your tweet, so you get more impressions, and this drives more interactions, and this drives more followers. Because, at the end of the day, we want to be "the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet".
I don't know how much is the ideal thing. In Basque Wikipedia our strategy is to publish 5-6 tweets every day, and then also interact with people talking about Wikipedia or speaking about articles they have created (like @viquipedia does, with great success). Our topics from the 5-6 daily tweets now (2023) are like this: every morning (yes, most of our followers live in the same time-zone) a biography of someone who was born/died on this day; then, something that happened 100 years ago. At noon, an artwork. If the artwork is depicting something interesting, a second tweet linked to that explaining the artwork itself. Two tweets in the afternoon: the first one, optional, about something related to Wikipedia itself (Statistics, projects, some user who has created something cool...) and then science/technology in a broad sense. At evening, we like to tweet something related to current events, if this is interesting. We have a shared doc with the daily tweets and we program them some days in advance. Also, we use MOA to have them copied to Mastodon.
I don't know, again, if this is the optimal. I know that is better than one-per-day, because data is obviously better. Engagements, followers and interactions are better this way, as I have proved above.
Best,
Galder
________________________________
From: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2023 3:37 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Cc: F. Xavier Dengra i Grau <xavier.dengra(a)protonmail.com<mailto:xavier.dengra@protonmail.com>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Hi/Bon dia
Yaroslav: Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Since 4 years ago we updated the social media methodology for the Catalan Wikipedia Twitter account (approx 4.5M native speakers, 10M audience), we boosted from 15.3K to 45.4K speakers, now being the 4th most followed language of Wikipedia.
Our method in a nutshell: we have up to 23 knowledge themes that we oblige ourselves to post at least once every week. The number of our daily tweets vary from 6 to 10 only in content (i.e., articles). This depends on, ofc, whether it's a working day vs a weekend or other time aspects (peak hours). Plus the interactions (RT+kudos) with our wikipedians that share their new articles tagging us, which has been a massive way to appreciate their task and to visibilize to others the task of being a volunteer in Wikipedia. In fact, the latter has been especially critical to bring us huge additional views and to renew a few of our new, most active editing community (especially young users!).
If our account, managed by volunteers, can conduct this organized work for a small-medium size language, why should we accept that a whole staffed team from the WMF, firstly, rejects to provide engagement data on our common, biggest handle? And secondly, why should we give up on them preparing a strategy to improve its scope and objectives?
Regarding the last question, I'd like to add a last thought: never ever in the 4 years that I've been upfront in the handles in my language, the @Wikipedia account has given a simple, courtesy RT of any knowledge content (articles) from the Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Basque, Catalan, Galician, French, Suda or Portuguese (etc.) existing handles. That should be a key aspect in our debate.
Because if @Wikipedia is mostly used as the “central account” for the project, then it should also be very careful 1) to not always post in English and give some room to interact with the other language handles, 2) to stop centering their tweets on English-speaking culture, and 3) to post without clear range of topics to stay balanced. Oppositely, if it is decided that @Wikipedia is only the English-language handle, then it may change its profile name to "English Wikipedia" and not continue as the reference speaker either for the WMF nor for significant news or events.
Best/Salutacions,
Xavier Dengra
------- Original Message -------
On divendres, 13 de gener 2023 a les 14:56, Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt(a)gmail.com<mailto:ymbalt@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Galder,
on the other hand.. Basque Wikipedia is one of very few accounts twitting on the Pele death in Basque, whereas a lot was twitted in English. I do not think English Wikipedia twitter can compete with major news outlets, they operate on a completely different scale.The low-hanging fruit would be twitting DYKs, FAs, GAs, or may be some other randomly picked stuff. Also, you say one tweet per day is too little, how may do you think is normal? If I personally see an account which tweets more than say 10 per day (not counting threads) I start thinking may be it is a spam generator.
Best
Yaroslav
On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:26 PM Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Some months have gone since I started this topic in this list, and still, we can't know how much engagement we have at Wikipedia, because data is not available. Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk, things are changing, there are more accounts in Mastodon daily, but still Twitter matters. I have been looking at the Twitter activity in the last days for @Wikipedia and I'm still very worried about the (lack of) strategy followed here. A full team, with staff members, which only produces one tweet per day, a lonely message in the vastness of the ocean, and gets really poor engagement numbers.
A couple of weeks ago Pelé, one of the greatest football players of all time, died. (English) Wikipedia Twitter account needed 7 days to tweet about it, even if the article was changed in a few minutes after the death (https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1611363972174778368). The tweet had 13.729 impressions (now we can know the number of impressions), 14 RTs and 129 likes. Wikipedia account has nearly 644.000 followers. If we divide these two numbers, we get a rate of 2,13% of impressions per follower.
The same day Pelé died, Basque Wikipedia made a tweet. Not a week after, just when it was news (https://twitter.com/euwikipedia/status/1608541274491211776). The tweet had 964 impressions, 3 RTs and 2 likes. Basque Wikipedia account has 7,956 followers. This is a rate of 12,11% of impressions per follower. x5.68 times larger, relatively than (English) Wikipedia Twitter account.
(English) Wikipedia Twitter account has nearly 81 times more followers than the Basque one. English Wikipedia is more visible, because it has a (now golden) verified account symbol, so tweets are more often promoted. English has 1.500 million speakers around the world. Basque has fewer than one million. English Wikipedia should have around 1.000 more followers than Basque Wikipedia. English Wikipedia article about Pelé had 2,5 million pageviews in the two days after his death. Basque had 250 pageviews. This is 10.000 times more pageviews.
@Wikipedia has 644.000 followers, and @euwikipedia has nearly 8.000. Audience of English Wikipedia is 10.000 times larger for the same event. Why Wikipedia is not 10.000 times larger? Why doesn't Wikipedia account have 80 million followers? YouTube's Twitter account has 78 million followers. "By 2030, Wikimedia is to become the central infrastructure for Free Knowledge on the Internet.". How could we if Youtube's account has 100x more followers than we have? How can think that we are in a good shape if our tweets are only seen by less than 2% of our followers?
I hope that 2023 comes with a change. A change to open these accounts, have a fresh way of thinking on social media ,and building engagement, both with momentum, not losing opportunities, and promoting good content.
Sincerely
Galder
________________________________
From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <galder158(a)hotmail.com<mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2022 3:21 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
Dear all,
Some weeks ago, we had a discussion here about the different approaches we have for the @wikipedia account at Twitter. We don't know yet how many interactions does the account has, but as I said in the discussion, we try to find ways to measure our work at @euwikipedia. Today I want to share with you that this account was ranked last week as the most influential social-movements account in Basque language (https://umap.eus/ranking/gizartea) and the 10th most influential account in all categories (https://umap.eus/ranking/orokorra). This is a good metric we use to know if we are doing fine or not.
Sincerely,
Galder
________________________________
From: Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk<mailto:andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk>>
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2022 8:50 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org<mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: @Wikipedia losing opportunities in Twitter
On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 at 18:48, Lauren Dickinson <ldickinson(a)wikimedia.org<mailto:ldickinson@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
> Also, Andy, we will follow up this week regarding your questions
> about the @WiktionaryUsers and @Wiktionary accounts.
Three working weeks have passed since the above was written; I've seen
no such follow-up. Have I missed something?
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Dear Jayantilal,
The organizers of WikiConference India have already shared
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2023/Discussions_and_F…>
more details about the event including staff engagement. Others invited you
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedi…>
to follow up on the talk page.
CIS also responded to your question
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedi…>
on the list. For your thoughts on their proposal, you can follow up on
the grant
page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Ce…>.
Please note decisions about funding are made by the regional funding
committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Regions/South_Asia#Regional_Committee>
of volunteers and not by Wikimedia Foundation staff.
For your questions about hiring practices, you can read more here
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/03/building-a-global-staff-community-at-…>.
If you have a question about existing projects, do feel free to contact
that project's leads.
Your latest question about scholarships combines affiliate staff and
contractors with Foundation staff and contractors. To clarify, staff and
contractors of the Foundation are not eligible for scholarships based on
their paid work.
Often though, staff and contractors of the Foundation come from the
community itself and actively contribute to community initiatives as
volunteers, and represent that work during different conferences.
Best regards,
*Belinda Mbambo*
Senior Manager: Global Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jayantilal Kothari <jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 3:58 PM
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Request for Transparency Regarding WMF Staff in
India
Dear Maryana Iskander and Wikimedia Foundation,
I hope I am not disturbing you or have asked you to be in some place which
I should not have. Please note that my concerns are only in good faith and
not anything more. Earlier also WMF staff have asked community members to
respond on the mailing list and I have not done anything new. Why can't you
reply ? If you cannot reply then why you cannot atleast acknowledge.
Staff continues to take over community work. Some staff are on scholarship
to the Education Conference in Europe as volunteers, some for Wiki Loves
Monuments Team discussion, some CIS staff in Universal Code Committee etc.
Everything cannot be like they are doing in their individual capacity.
Please note WMF contractors also take salaries which are higher than the
average Indian salary. It is high time that a policy needs to come up on
this with community discussion. Many people have said the same on this
mailing list. Even if they are allowed, let there be a clear cut policy.
Everything cannot be done by saying what they are doing in their individual
capacity. If you cannot have volunteers who are only volunteers and not any
full time or contractor or with CIS then what is the point.
One more person who was a volunteer at Wiki Conference has now become CIS
staff. Job announcement came on 31st July 2022 and recruitment in May 2023.
So late but they do not care to reply back. I also wanted to ask them if
they will do hardware support in their grant but they did not reply. They
have a budget of 1 Crore, 75 Lakhs, 82 Thousand and 4 Hundred. This is too
much. If they do not want to give hardware then they should atleast talk to
the community and share a plan.
I will repeat from what I had said before, "This message is a reminder
about the necessity of listening when the community needs to be heard, not
just when it's convenient. It's a plea for transparency and
accountability—cornerstones of our community and the Wikimedia movement.”
On Thu, 18 May 2023 at 2:51 AM, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi Jayantilal,
>
> as I'm reading this, mostly as an outsider from a different community who
> has great appreciation for everything that has been accomplished in various
> communities in India, I can feel the tension. This is unfortunately nothing
> new, and it's an ongoing balance that has to be struck between helping out
> as a staff member on one hand, and not undercutting the community to
> organize itself on the other. This is a challenge, even with the best of
> intentions. This only gets harder when there is a (real or perceived)
> struggle for influence/power. I have come to understand that India is an
> even more complex situation, due to the influence of CIS.
>
> I noticed that the WCI organizers have put forward
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2023/Discussions_and_F… in
> response to this thread. It might be beneficial for the conversation to try
> and follow up with this attempt to conversation, and see how far you get
> with regards to the transparency that you seek. If you can achieve this
> without the intervention of Maryana, this is probably more advantageous for
> everyone involved. That does not mean you have to agree with what is
> desirable, but at least you would be able to work from a common base of
> facts/information.
>
> If there are aspects on that page that are possibly misleading from your
> point of view, or simply information that is missing, you might be
> interested in bringing this up on the talkpage.
>
> Just a thought,
>
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 2:04 PM Jayantilal Kothari <
> jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Maryana,
>>
>> Your Listening Tour has been a commendable initiative to understand the
>> voice of the community. However, the essence of listening lies in its
>> responsiveness.
>>
>> Over ten days ago, we raised concerns that unfortunately remain
>> unaddressed. This isn't a single person sentiment but a collective voice
>> from the Indian Wikimedia community, a voice that has grown stronger since
>> the recent Wiki Conference India.
>>
>> We're concerned about the WMF India staff's involvement in community-led
>> events, notably the Wiki Conference India. While their participation is
>> welcome, there's a growing perception of encroachment on community-led
>> initiatives. The community's autonomy is being compromised, and several
>> experienced community members have voiced this concern on the public
>> mailing list.
>>
>> Furthermore, we've observed that the WMF India Staff is assisting
>> community members in crafting emails and guiding them on how to handle this
>> mailing list situation. As a community, we believe in the ability of our
>> members to speak for themselves. Currently, it appears that only those on
>> the WMF payroll—either through grant salary/contract or through WMF-funded
>> CIS salary—are speaking on behalf of Wiki Conference India, seemingly under
>> the guidance of WMF Staff India. We urge WMF India Staff to step back and
>> allow the community to voice their concerns independently. Check the Wiki
>> Conference India Team on Meta. Most of them are drawing salaries from WMF
>> or CIS or have been previous employees in the last 5 years. Very few are
>> people who have always been volunteers. Many of them have also not written
>> WMF against their name because they say they did this conference as
>> volunteers. Was there no volunteer to come forward and organize? This means
>> WMF staff have not been able to grow the community.
>>
>> We wish to understand the roles, responsibilities, and contributions of
>> the WMF India staff who actively participated in the Wiki Conference India.
>> Being paid by funds raised through volunteer-built platforms like
>> Wikipedia, their active participation in community spaces calls for higher
>> accountability.
>>
>> WMF has spent so much money on Strategy 2030 but the India Conference had
>> no session on it why? India is not important or what? Sunday there was a
>> session on Strategy 2030 but it was removed without telling participants.
>> Why?
>>
>> We would like to clarify that this is not a request for personal
>> information—since the identities of these staff members are already
>> publicly known—but a call for professional transparency, as we seek to
>> understand their specific roles and contributions. If these staff members
>> were comfortable taking to the stage and receiving credit at the
>> conference, they should be equally comfortable sharing the scope and impact
>> of their work with the community that they serve. Their willingness to be
>> in the public eye during the conference should extend to their professional
>> commitments and achievements. We're keen to know about the partnerships
>> they've formed over the past few years that have benefited Indian
>> communities, the initiatives the communications team has launched beyond
>> financial incentives for Instagram users, the community projects undertaken
>> by other staff members, negative response on fundraising and the hiring
>> practices aimed at empowering local user groups.
>>
>> Considering the nature of these questions, we're interested in
>> understanding your strategy for obtaining an unbiased picture of the
>> situation. If the primary sources of feedback are the WMF India staff or
>> their superiors, it might be influenced by the very concern we raise.
>>
>> This message is a reminder about the necessity of listening when the
>> community needs to be heard, not just when it's convenient. It's a plea for
>> transparency and accountability—cornerstones of our community and the
>> Wikimedia movement.
>>
>> We understand that you might be busy, but we would appreciate at least an
>> acknowledgment of this email, assuring us that our concerns have been heard
>> and will be addressed.
>>
>> We look forward to your acknowledgment and response.
>>
>> On Sun, 14 May 2023 at 3:52 AM, Shyamal Bagchi <discard.media3(a)gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> My emails are also being censored.
>>> Why is this happening and who is doing it ?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 9 May 2023 at 00:51, Wiki Prasad <wiki_prasad(a)mail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> i say same thing, my email not posted. it is censored.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, May 08, 2023 at 4:48 AM
>>>> *From:* "Jayantilal Kothari" <jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com>
>>>> *To:* "Wikimedia India Community list" <
>>>> wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, miskander(a)wikimedia.org
>>>> *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Request for Transparency Regarding WMF
>>>> Staff in India
>>>> Hello WCI 2023 Organizing team,
>>>>
>>>> First of all, thank you for hosting the event. I appreciate your
>>>> willingness to engage in discussions and provide clarifications on concerns
>>>> related to the conference. However, I would like to remind you that this
>>>> email thread is specifically addressed to the Wikimedia Foundation and
>>>> Maryana Iskander.
>>>>
>>>> I am curious if the Maryana/WMF has requested your team or given
>>>> authorization for you to justify or defend their actions in this matter. As
>>>> this thread focuses on WMF's actions and decisions in relation to the
>>>> Indian community, it is crucial to maintain separate discussions for
>>>> separate issues to ensure productive and organized conversations. I kindly
>>>> request that you start a separate email thread or Meta-Wiki discussion for
>>>> addressing concerns related to the conference itself.
>>>>
>>>> Let's give the WMF the opportunity to address the concerns raised here
>>>> directly. Thank you for your understanding, and once again, congratulations
>>>> on organizing a successful event.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 7 May 2023 at 10:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Bodhisattwa,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for your reply.
>>>>>
>>>>> While Wiki[p/m]edia started out as a pure volunteer project, it has
>>>>> long occupied a sometimes uneasy position between some of the biggest and
>>>>> most valuable companies on earth, who use our free content to make money,
>>>>> and volunteers working for love. This makes culture clashes of some sort or
>>>>> another inevitable. I don't have a solution.
>>>>>
>>>>> I also suspect that you have a point with the "white guilt". What this
>>>>> means, of course, is that people are still not "seen".
>>>>>
>>>>> If you ever feel like writing an op-ed or report about these matters
>>>>> for the Wikipedia Signpost
>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost>, please
>>>>> feel free to send me a mail or just drop into our Newsroom
>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom>.
>>>>> The Signpost hardly ever has content about India, let alone content written
>>>>> by Indian contributors. (The issue due to be published in a few hours' time
>>>>> is a rare exception.) It would be great to see that change.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Andreas
>>>>> (User:Jayen466)
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 6:55 PM Bodhisattwa <
>>>>> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Andreas,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no denial that money is needed in our region to run programs
>>>>>> but there should always be a critical debate, if we are asking too much
>>>>>> amount and for the right cause. I can't talk about others but I come from a
>>>>>> cross-border language community which has always shown high regards to the
>>>>>> value of donation money and expressed concerns in the past, whenever it has
>>>>>> felt that money asked in a grant proposal is out of proportionate. So,
>>>>>> whenever a grant proposal comes from my language community or from the two
>>>>>> affiliates of the region, we brainstorm for days, if not months, to
>>>>>> understand if there remains any small chance to waste the valuable
>>>>>> resources which are to be entrusted upon us. For example, questions
>>>>>> naturally arises in our community that if we really need to or have the
>>>>>> luxury to spend this huge amount of around 10 million INR just for a 3-days
>>>>>> conference to meet and greet each other after a long time or could that
>>>>>> amount of money be invested on local affiliates and communities so that
>>>>>> they can sustain themselves and provide quality output for the next decade.
>>>>>> There has always been this debate and the people who talked about the
>>>>>> second option are quietly moving away from the movement as they were not
>>>>>> heard properly or were targeted for their critical analysis. We strongly
>>>>>> feel that throwing unnecessary amount of money to whatever proposal comes
>>>>>> over from the region is detrimental to the community dynamics as these
>>>>>> money spoils people in the communities, brings more mistrusts and
>>>>>> corruption and changes the motivation to contribute to the open knowledge
>>>>>> movement. Also, huge amount of money does not necessarily translate to
>>>>>> delivery of high quality output all the time, good results can come from
>>>>>> limited resources too, even with zero budget, if they are planned properly;
>>>>>> there are numerous success stories in our movement of those, which are
>>>>>> rarely acknowledged or celebrated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What we feel that there might be some 'white guilt' working in the
>>>>>> background to reverse colonial sins from the past in the regions which
>>>>>> might drive people from the west to approve more money in Africa and Asia
>>>>>> without consideration of local inputs. Any voices against these western
>>>>>> perspectives to flood local communities with huge amount of unnecessary
>>>>>> money are marked as counter-productive, ignored, silenced and bypassed with
>>>>>> different regulatory measures imposed upon the community until people stop
>>>>>> criticising and get fed up of being ignored. For example, personally, I
>>>>>> have developed apathy nowadays regarding whatever is happening around grant
>>>>>> process western to our state border of West Bengal until they directly
>>>>>> affects us and prefer to remain silent during their community review
>>>>>> process.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By the way, I have no objection hiring WMF staffs from the region. In
>>>>>> fact, a number of staffs and contractors from the region are and were
>>>>>> highly respected for their support and understanding of the local
>>>>>> communities. But all are not beds of roses. There are multiple evidences of
>>>>>> opacities, ignorance, agenda pushing, bossing around, corporate mentality,
>>>>>> hijacking of community plans and projects etc. among staffs, which builds
>>>>>> walls of mistrusts separating them with the volunteers rather than breaking
>>>>>> them. I can't disagree to what Jayantilal implied in his statement. So, to
>>>>>> me, staffs are always welcome, but if they have no intention to listen and
>>>>>> support for community needs, then we frankly don't need them around our
>>>>>> communities to push their own agenda, we can manage ourselves.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Bodhisattwa
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023, 18:30 Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Bodhisattwa and all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You raise an interesting point – that the influx of money appears to
>>>>>>> have a demotivating effect on Indian volunteers. This has also come up in
>>>>>>> discussion elsewhere.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Now I have been one of those who have urged the WMF to spend more
>>>>>>> money in India. I have always felt that actual spending on the ground has
>>>>>>> not matched the Foundation's fundraising messages about how money is
>>>>>>> urgently needed to build capacity in Indian and African languages. And I
>>>>>>> have argued that hiring staff in India, e.g., makes more sense than hiring
>>>>>>> staff in the US, where salary expectations may run to hundreds of thousands
>>>>>>> of dollars per year.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> How would you resolve these competing considerations?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Andreas (Jayen466)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 3:21 AM Bodhisattwa <
>>>>>>> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Coincidentally, just yesterday afternoon, when we were having a
>>>>>>>> meeting in Kolkata with volunteers from West Bengal and Bangladesh, these
>>>>>>>> concerns came up among other things. We were wondering about the visible
>>>>>>>> impact of the increasing number of WMF staffs in India to improve our
>>>>>>>> editing and reading experiences, significant partnership development or
>>>>>>>> strengthening the communities in the last few years and if they have any
>>>>>>>> impact at all in our language community to make our life easier as
>>>>>>>> volunteers.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Anyway, if the volunteer communities or team of organizers are not
>>>>>>>> strong and vigilant enough, there is always a chance to get something
>>>>>>>> hijacked by staffs. This is not new; it has happened before a number of
>>>>>>>> times and it will happen a lot more in the future. This could not be
>>>>>>>> avoided as I feel the spirit of volunteerism in the Indian communities is
>>>>>>>> much much weaker than the past and dying, if not already dead in some of
>>>>>>>> the cases. In the last few years, I have seen long term trusted community
>>>>>>>> members from all over the country leave the movement frustrated, heart
>>>>>>>> broken and exhausted, including from my language community. Increasing flow
>>>>>>>> of unnecessary money are rapidly changing the motivation of volunteers with
>>>>>>>> a strange notion prevailing nowadays that money is the solution of all
>>>>>>>> problems in the region. Community oversight and long discussions on meta
>>>>>>>> talk pages about any huge amount of grant proposals are now a thing of the
>>>>>>>> past. But who cares?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Unlike the previous wiki conferences, the wider Indian community
>>>>>>>> did not get the invitation and space to actively take part in the decision
>>>>>>>> making process from the very start of planning this conference which led to
>>>>>>>> giving room to WMF staffs, who took over. Without community vigilance, a 3
>>>>>>>> days conference asked and spent 3 times more donation money than the last
>>>>>>>> one and has set up precedences of many unwanted things which would burden
>>>>>>>> future community programs and events in India. It's not at all surprising
>>>>>>>> that even though no one was stopped, but a very few number of volunteers
>>>>>>>> from my language community actually applied and participated in the
>>>>>>>> conference, even being one of the most active community in the region.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>> Bodhisattwa
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023, 00:53 Subhashish <psubhashish(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I find this email better worded than the other one in this list a
>>>>>>>>> few days back which was also about different issues.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Some of these issues, though I'm not personally aware of,
>>>>>>>>> certainly need to be addressed by WMF.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thank you for upholding the importance of the community by saying
>>>>>>>>> -- "I am okay with WMF staff being paid, but it should not undermine unpaid
>>>>>>>>> volunteers and the movement's ethos." Can't agree more.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> While I see public listing of WMF staff and contractors both
>>>>>>>>> on-wiki [1] and the Foundation's official site, WMF staff in India might
>>>>>>>>> mean staff and contractors who are hired both for long-term and short-term
>>>>>>>>> and part-time roles. It could also mean those who play global roles (say,
>>>>>>>>> engineering staffers) but reside in India and don't necessarily interface
>>>>>>>>> only with the India-based community. Their participation in a national
>>>>>>>>> level event could be an one-off thing.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> But those nuances apart, the volunteer and staff dynamics
>>>>>>>>> certainly is a topic worth discussing.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> A worse social phenomenon in India is a foreigner being treated
>>>>>>>>> with more dignity than a local. The intersectionality of caste, gender,
>>>>>>>>> fluency in English, intergenerational privilege and many other social
>>>>>>>>> factors play a role. I still think this is not a standalone issue and
>>>>>>>>> should be discussed (and investigated if needed) keeping in mind the
>>>>>>>>> intersectionality.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 1.
>>>>>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_staff
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Subha
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, May 3, 2023, 11:09 PM Jayantilal Kothari <
>>>>>>>>> jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Dear Maryana Iskander and Wikimedia Foundation,
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to request more
>>>>>>>>>> transparency about the roles and responsibilities of WMF staff in India. I
>>>>>>>>>> am assuming good faith and believe that any issues arising are
>>>>>>>>>> unintentional; however, these occurrences seem to be negatively impacting
>>>>>>>>>> the overall movement.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It has come to my attention that WMF allocates a relatively small
>>>>>>>>>> amount of funds to the Indian community. This implies that a significant
>>>>>>>>>> portion of donor money is spent on staff, making it crucial to ensure that
>>>>>>>>>> donors and the Wiki community are aware of how the funds are being utilized
>>>>>>>>>> and the impact generated.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Firstly, I have noticed that WMF hires non-community staff
>>>>>>>>>> members who may be initially unfamiliar with the Wikimedia community and
>>>>>>>>>> movement in general. This is not an issue as long as newly recruited staff
>>>>>>>>>> members are willing to work collaboratively with the community, rather than
>>>>>>>>>> competing with them. Unfortunately, there have been instances where this
>>>>>>>>>> has not been the case, such as WMF India staff paying Instagram users
>>>>>>>>>> without consulting the community, and the recent WikiConference India,
>>>>>>>>>> where WMF staff overshadowed volunteer committees and took over volunteer
>>>>>>>>>> roles during conference planning.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Initially, I thought that privacy concerns might be the reason
>>>>>>>>>> behind the lack of transparency. However, during the recent conference, I
>>>>>>>>>> observed that such staff members were comfortable being on stage and being
>>>>>>>>>> identified as WMF Staff amongst friends from the industry whom they invited
>>>>>>>>>> to the conference. It appears that more people from the industry are aware
>>>>>>>>>> of WMF India staff's existence than the community itself. Some staff
>>>>>>>>>> members were keen to take credit for the entire movement and even
>>>>>>>>>> conference planning in front of the volunteer community and friends from
>>>>>>>>>> the industry. It might help and advance the careers of WMF India staff by
>>>>>>>>>> showcasing WikiConference India on their resumes, but the main purpose of
>>>>>>>>>> such community events is to give a chance to community leadership and to
>>>>>>>>>> celebrate unpaid community members. I am okay with WMF staff being paid,
>>>>>>>>>> but it should not undermine unpaid volunteers and the movement's ethos.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The Wiki community looks up to WMF staff for support, but now
>>>>>>>>>> there is a fear that WMF staff may hijack community programs and stages,
>>>>>>>>>> with WikiConference India being a recent example.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding the roles and
>>>>>>>>>> responsibilities of WMF India staff members and their interactions with
>>>>>>>>>> volunteer communities. The Wiki community is dedicated to the mission and
>>>>>>>>>> will continue to thrive even without WMF staff. I believe it is crucial for
>>>>>>>>>> WMF to publicly share the roles, responsibilities, and outcomes of the WMF
>>>>>>>>>> India staff over the last few years. This transparency will enable
>>>>>>>>>> community members and donors to appreciate the efforts of WMF India staff,
>>>>>>>>>> as currently, the impact of their work remains unknown.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I kindly request that WMF provides a list of all WMF India staff
>>>>>>>>>> members and their achievements, so we can celebrate their accomplishments
>>>>>>>>>> and collaborate with them more effectively.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Looking forward to your response.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> With Regards,
>>>>>>>>>> Jayantilal
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Jayantilal
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list --
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>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Jayantilal
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l
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>> Regards,
>>
>> Jayantilal
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>> Sent from my iPhone
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Regards,
Jayantilal
Sent from my iPhone
*Belinda Mbambo*
Senior Manager: Global Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello all,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees believes that Wikimedia
affiliates are a key and integral part of the Wikimedia movement, and
affiliates’ success is vital to the Wikimedia movement’s success. To that
end, it is crucial to develop a clear vision regarding the affiliates,
making it possible to assess whether the Foundation’s investment in,
collaboration with, and policy towards affiliates is promoting the right
goals. The Board will be embarking on building a Wikimedia Foundation
Affiliates Strategy in collaboration with the Affiliations Committee (AffCom),
the affiliates, and the broader communities. This strategy will help guide
the Foundation’s immediate work in supporting affiliates for the next few
years.
In order to ensure that there is continuity and institutional memory during
this process, there will be a delay of the elections for AffCom until after
the strategy is complete, and the terms of the current AffCom members will
be prolonged (in a separate resolution) to December 31, 2023. While the
strategy is under development, AffCom will continue its current
responsibilities, in addition to collaborating on the Wikimedia Foundation
Affiliates Strategy.
Once the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy is ready, there would be
clarity on what is expected from the Wikimedia Foundation for supporting
affiliates, and what is expected from affiliates.
As the weeks progress in the new calendar year, a plan of the process will
be released, including opportunities for communities and affiliates to
engage. You can find some FAQs below to assist further understanding of the
Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy.
Best regards,
Nat & Shani
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Liaisons to the Affiliations
Committee
== FAQs ==
1. What are Wikimedia movement affiliates? What is AffCom?
Wikimedia movement affiliates are "independent and formally recognised"
groups of people intended to organise and engage in activities to support
and contribute to the Wikimedia movement [1]. Currently there are three
active models for affiliates: chapters, thematic organisations, and user
groups. The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) advises and makes
recommendations regarding the recognition and existence of Wikimedia
movement affiliates.
2. How is the work with affiliates at the Wikimedia Foundation organised
now?
As of now, processes are fragmented across different teams at the Wikimedia
Foundation, and some decision making regarding affiliates is happening at
different levels. A unified and consistent process is beneficial to all
parties, hence the start of the work on the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy.
3. What is the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy? Is this an update
of some existing document or something brand new?
Until now there has not been any unified vision regarding how the work
around affiliates should happen, as there was no affiliate-specific
strategy developed before. The Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy is
to be a blueprint that will guide the Foundation’s immediate work with
affiliates. This strategy will be in place to inform and guide the
Wikimedia Foundation budget and support to affiliates, until some kind of
Movement-wide Affiliates Strategy is developed.
4. Why do we need a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy?
The Affiliates are a key part of the Wikimedia movement as mentioned in the
Wikimedia Foundation mission, and their success is integral to the success
of the whole Wikimedia Movement. As the affiliate ecosystem has grown in
size and complexity, it is increasingly important to review existing
approaches and ensure that the focus is on the right areas. The Wikimedia
Foundation Affiliates Strategy will help to strengthen and advance the work
of the affiliates.The Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy will take
into account Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations>.
The Strategy will direct Foundation attention to the needs of affiliates
and focus resources on those needs towards impact by affiliates.
5. Does the decision of developing the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy change the role of AffCom?
There are no immediate changes in the role of AffCom, which is continuing
doing its job. However, the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy will
direct the future work of the Wikimedia Foundation in support of the
affiliates, which could result in revising the role and scope of AffCom.
6. Why are the AffCom Elections delayed?
Traditionally, AffCom had elections at least once every year to select (not
elect) and appoint members who will serve in AffCom for a period of two
years. This year AffCom elections will not be held. Instead, the elections
will be delayed as AffCom is a key input for the Board in developing the
Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy, and adding the burden of
selecting and on-boarding new members will encumber the committee and make
it difficult for it to discharge its regular duties as well as collaborate
on the strategy. If the number of voting members falls below five (per
the AffCom
Charter <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee_Charter>),
elections will nonetheless be held.
7. Will the Movement Charter also have an "Affiliates Strategy" and/or
define affiliate roles?
While it is reasonable to expect that the Movement Charter will have
prescriptions on affiliates and their recognition, and some of these
responsibilities might shift to the Global Council once it is formed, it is
currently unknown how this will unfold, and it will bear consequences only
in years to come. Accordingly, this work is worth doing now so that the
available resources are having the impact needed and are best serving the
current Wikimedia movement and the affiliate ecosystem in the interim.
8. Is AffCom being asked to propose a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy?
No, AffCom is not expected to propose a Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy. AffCom has been invited by the Board to collaborate and give an
expert opinion. While the Affiliations Committee is an advising committee
to the Board, the Board is responsible for this strategy and will lead the
community and affiliate conversations around it.
9. What is the timeline for this project?
The target is to have a draft of the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates
Strategy for the Board’s approval at Wikimania 2023 (August 2023).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Affiliates
FYI, I asked WMF Communication Team about any plans of using Mastodon in future.
Here is their response [1] "The Digital Communications team has been researching Mastodon and considering our potential involvement with the platform in the future. At this time, we have no plans to create an account for the Foundation or Wikipedia. This is mainly because our observations show us that Mastodon is not yet reaching a large audience, which is one of the key objectives of our communications activity on social media. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our recommendations and practices to keep within our objectives."
[1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?diff=24262780
Regards,
SCP-2000
https://w.wiki/_zgcU
Dear all,
The WMF appears to have made contradictory statements about the Wikimedia
Endowment. Earlier this week, Rai 3, a channel of the Italian national
broadcaster, aired a program about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.[1] On their
website, they also link to responses the WMF gave to various questions the
programme makers asked.[2]
One of these questions concerned the Endowment. I quote:
*Q: The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100
million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate
501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to
the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think
there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is
created through worldwide donations? *
*A: Your information is incorrect. The Wikimedia Endowment was established
as a separate entity and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2022
following a 2021 board resolution. *
This answer was given to Rai in November 2022. Now I do recall an October
2022 blog post from the WMF reporting that the WMF's application for a
501(c)(3) non-profit had received approval and that the WMF was "in the
process of setting up the Endowment's strategic and operational policies
and systems".[3]
Has the money actually been moved from the Tides Foundation to this new
501(c)(3)?
At the time of writing, the Endowment website continues to tell its readers
that the funds are held and administered by the Tides Foundation.[4]
Is the information on the Endowment website obsolete?[5] If it isn't, and
the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November
substantially misleading?
Andreas
[1]
https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/La-community-8bb003fb-d8cd-42…
[2]
http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895524547_RISPOSTE%20WIKI%20MAIL%20…
and
http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895525034_TRADUZIONE%20RISPOSTE%20W…
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_…
[4] https://archive.ph/S8iI0#selection-2949.0-2949.1007
[5]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/01/11/adding-expertise-to-the-wikimedia-end…
refers to the "fact that we met – and even surpassed – our expected
timeline for the Endowment’s maturation into a 501(c)(3)."
Dear everyone,
As presented at last year's WikidataCon
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VxTlBNkyk>, Wikimedia Deutschland has
set out to find new ways for collaboration around Wikidata software
development to enhance the diversity of our movement, increase Wikibase’s
scalability and robustness and breathe life into our movement principles of
knowledge equity. With a grant from Arcadia
<https://www.arcadiafund.org.uk/>, a charitable fund administered by Lisbet
Rausing and Peter Baldwin, we will be able to implement such a
collaboration in the next two years.
Today, we are happy to share an exciting update on the progress of this
project with all of you. After spending the last few months with
conversations with the movement groups who were interested in joining such
a partnership, we have now reached a point where we can spread the news
about the future partners and projects that will shape this Wikidata
software collaboration.
Wikimedia Indonesia, the Igbo Wikimedians User Group and Wikimedia
Deutschland will be joining forces to advance the technical capacities of
the movement around Wikidata development and with this, make the software
and tools more usable by cultures underrepresented in technology, people of
the Global South and speakers of minority languages.
Wikimedia Indonesia, a non-profit organization based in Jakarta, Indonesia
and established in 2008, is dedicated to encouraging the growth,
development & dissemination of knowledge in Indonesian and other languages
spoken in Indonesia. Since then, Wikimedia Indonesia has supported the
development of 14 Wikipedias in the languages spoken in Indonesia, 12
regional Wikimedian communities spread across the country, and two
Wikimedia project-based communities.
For this project, in collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia
Indonesia wants to build up a software team of their own in the course of
the next 2 years. The tools will hopefully help under-resourced language
communities contributing to the flourishing of their languages online
through lexicographical data, and also involving the local language
communities in contributing to lexemes in Wikidata.
Igbo Wikimedians is a group of Wikimedians that are committed to working on
various wiki projects related to Igbo language
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_language> and culture. The user group
is organizing projects around community building in the Igbo community,
content improvement for Wikipedia and its sister project and has
established its own Wikidata hub in 2021.
The Igbo Wikimedia User Group and their program of the Wiki Mentor Africa
<https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Wiki_Mentor_Africa> is aiming at
building up technical capacity in African Wikimedia communities by
mentoring African developers for Wikidata Tool Development. Wikimedia
Deutschland will support the user group in the implementation of their
project and mentoring program.
Wikimedia Deutschland has been founded in 2004 as a member’s association
and is located in Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Deutschland support
communities like the Wikipedia community, develop software for Wikimedia
projects and the ecosystem of Free Knowledge, and wants to improve the
political and legal framework for Wikipedia and for Free Knowledge in
general.
Specifically, Wikimedia Deutschland has been working on the development of
Wikidata since 2012. Since then, an active and vibrant community of
volunteer editors and programmers, re-users, data donors, affiliates and
more has formed around Wikidata.
Wikimedia Deutschland will be responsible for the administrative setup of
those collaborations and the communication with Arcadia. We are also happy
to share our experiences and knowledge about establishing software teams,
software development in the Wikidata/Wikibase environment, the Wikidata
community and providing support for emerging tech communities.
If you want to find out more about the partnership, you can read up on this
on our project page on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Software_Collaboration_for_Wikidata>,
where we will keep updating the community on the progress of this
collaboration. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions please
use the talk page there to get in contact with us.
We are all excited to see those collaborations coming to life!
With kind regards,
Igbo Wikimedians User Group
Wikimedia Indonesia
Wikimedia Deutschland
--
Maria Heuschkel
Projektmanagerin
Softwareentwicklung
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://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.
Dear all
As some of you may be aware, Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation have
been working together over the past months to advocate for changes to the
UK Online Safety Bill which is currently going through Parliament. Today,
we launched an open letter (with a consortium of signatories from the
civil society sector) and would appreciate the wider Wikimedia community's
support in amplifying this through your social media channels, if that
feels appropriate.
Here are some possible tweets that you may want to send - with the first
linking directly to the open letter and the bottom two linking to a blog
post, published yesterday (which now links to the open letter):
Click to tweet: <https://ctt.ac/KubhY> I signed the @Wikimedia Foundation
and @WikimediaUK's open letter to UK government leaders asking to exempt
@Wikipedia and other public interest projects from the Online Safety Bill.
If you care about free knowledge, join me. #ForFreeKnowledge
https://wikimedia.org.uk/2023/06/online-safety-bill-open-letter/
Click to tweet: <https://ctt.ac/3e1T0> The UK's Online Safety Bill is a
threat to @Wikipedia and other public interest projects. I join the
@Wikimedia Foundation and @WikimediaUK's call for changes to the Bill
before it becomes law. #ForFreeKnowledge
https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/protect-the-futu…
<https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/protect-the-futu…>
Click to tweet: <https://ctt.ac/B6g3l> I share the @Wikimedia Foundation
and @WikimediaUK's concerns about what the UK's Online Safety Bill means
for the future of @Wikipedia. Here's why. #ForFreeKnowledge
https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/protect-the-futu…
With many thanks
Lucy
--
Lucy Crompton-Reid (she/her)
Chief Executive
Greetings everyone!
DCW is thrilled to announce the initiation of the "making" of its leadership development and skills infrastructure plan. We look forward to your feedback on this because we want it to be helpful to the global community.
We are going to work on it from July 1 onwards. Please check with <https://w.wiki/6tNT> to know more.
Best regards,
Aafi