Dear Wikimedians,
I hope this email finds you well.
We are writing to update you on our ongoing initiatives to enhance support
for female-related projects or ideas or programs within the Wikimedia
community. The concept of the Wiki Women Collective
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Women*_Collective> group originated
at the Wiki Women Camp 2023
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp_2023> and has been an
ongoing discussion ever since. Recently, the Wiki Women Collective was
officially announced during the Women Summit
<https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2024:Program/WikiWomen_Summit> at
Wikimania 2024 in Katowice, Poland.
While we have received some nominations on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Women_Collective/Nominations>, it
seems there may be some gaps in understanding regarding the support groups
and the Wiki Women Collective. To ensure everyone has a clear
understanding, we are extending the deadline for Wiki Women Collective
nominations, which was originally set for August 31. This extension will
give women Wikimedians more time to consider how they can contribute to and
support this initiative.
To further clarify the purpose and goals of the Wiki Women Collective, we
are organizing two calls to engage and inform female Wikimedians:
South Asia Nomination Call:
-
Date: Thursday, August 29, 2024
-
Time: 6:00 PM to 6:45 PM IST
-
Google Meet Link: South Asia: Wiki Women Collective Nominations Call
Thursday, August 29 · 6:00 – 6:45pm
Time zone: Asia/Kolkata
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/dcu-krcf-xvu
Global Call:
-
Date: Saturday, August 31, 2024
-
Time: 7:00 PM to 7:45 PM IST
-
Google Meet Link: Global Call: Wiki Women Collective Nominations
Saturday, August 31 · 7:00 – 7:45pm
Time zone: Asia/Kolkata
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/qvi-kczc-nif
We look forward to your participation in these calls and to hearing your
thoughts on how we can collectively support and empower women within the
Wikimedia movement.
Best regards,
Nitesh Gill (CIS-A2K)
On behalf of the Support Team
Rejoins les Bibliothécaires et documentalistes du Bénin sur zoom ce
vendredi 30 août 2024 à 18h (Gmt+1) pour introduire Wikipédia et ses
projets frères à cette cible importante pour le libre partage de la
connaissance. Les détail et le lien d'inscription sont ici 👉urlz.fr/rTU2
<http://urlz.fr/rTU2>
Mermoze Adodo
Pour / Wikimédia Bénin
Dear Wikimedians,
We hope this email finds you well. We invite you to join the next episode
of WikiAfrica Hour "Wikimania - a Collaboration of the Open”
We are very excited to discuss this topic with the episode guests and your
joining is very valuable.
What can you expect from the episode?
In this episode, we will discuss the largest meeting point of wikimedians –
Wikimania. Wikimania 2024 was recently held in Katowice, Poland, and will
in 2025 be held in Nairobi, Kenya, and in 2026 in Paris, France. The panel
and guests are exploring its current and future vision related to the
partnerships and collaboration with other organizations.
Points which will be discussed:
-
The idea and the structure of Wikimania as an annual conference
organised mainly by volunteers
-
The short term vision of partnerships at Wikimania.
-
The Future of partnerships at wikimania at the long-term
Who are the guest speakers?
- Iolanda Pensa - Chair of Wikimania steering committee
- Maciej Nadzikiewicz - Lead of Wikimania 2024, COT member
- Antoni Mtavangu - Core Organizing Team member of Wikimania 2025
- Rémy Gerbet - Core Organizing Team member of Wikimania 2026
When and where will the episode take place?
Data: Friday 30th August
Time: 16:00 UTC
Join us LIVE on Youtube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMbGRk8Y9uA>.
You can also register in the event tool here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:WAH_Episode_38_-_Wikimania_as_a_colla…>
Looking forward to seeing you!
--
*Donia*
WikiAfrica Hour Production Coordinator
& Wiki In Africa Tools Community Facilitator
Hello all,
Every year, the month of October is dedicated to celebrating Wikidata’s
birthday, as our favorite Wikimedia project went live on October 29th,
2012. Since then, we’ve been celebrating together the achievements of the
community, bringing together active editors and newcomers, and taking this
opportunity to do outreach and bring more people onboard.
This year, for Wikidata’s 12th birthday, we would love to see many
decentralized community events taking place all around the world in October
and November.
Whether you are involved in a local chapter or user group, or in touch with
another organization that could organize an event, or simply interested in
connecting with other Wikidata editors, we invite you to start thinking
about organizing a Wikidata birthday event in the upcoming months!
On the Twelfth Birthday page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday>, you will find
more information about the birthday and how to organize an event.
Wikidata birthday decentralized events are organized by local groups within
the Wikidata community, onsite as well as online. They can take many forms
and can be adapted to the wishes, languages, favorite topics and interests
of the local group. It can be for example:
-
A meetup / get together with your local/regional community to share a
piece of birthday cake ;
-
An online editing campaign to improve Wikidata together on a specific
topic ;
-
A moment dedicated to celebrating Wikidata’s birthday during a Wikimedia
conference ;
-
A “translathon” to improve the labels of Wikidata in your language ;
-
A workshop in a library or university to get more people aware of
Wikidata ;
-
A livestream presentation to showcase interesting tools ;
-
…and many other things!
On the How to run an event page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event>, you
will find many other examples of events, and you can take inspiration from
the past years and what other people have been organizing.
You will also find a communication kit with visuals that you can use to
communicate about your event, and instructions on how to add your event to
the global schedule.
If you are planning an event for Wikidata’s birthday, you may need some
financial support in order to run the event smoothly. On the Funding page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event/Funding>,
you will find some useful information about how to get funding, to help
your participants join or to provide equipment or refreshments.
What is new this year: Wikimedia Deutschland will run an experiment on
providing microgrants to fund projects related to the Wikidata birthday.
These grants, of a maximum amount of 1,000€, will be provided to the
selected projects after an application process that is running until
September 1st. You also have the option to ask for WMF’s Rapid Fund if the
amount or eligibility criteria work better for you. You will find all the
information about how to apply and what to prepare on the Funding page
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event/Funding>
.
If you are interested in organizing an event, we strongly encourage you to do
it together with other people. We suggest that you reach out to your local
affiliate to get logistical and communication support, or to other Wikidata
editors who share similar interests, for example your favorite WikiProject.
You are also very welcome to join the Wikidata Events Telegram group
<https://t.me/joinchat/HGjGexK8LA2wJZEk1x1p_A>, in which you will find
other community organizers who have been running events in the past and can
answer your questions or provide inspiration. On top of that, we are
running organizers office hours
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Twelfth_Birthday/Run_an_event#Connec…>
from July to October: you can join these online meetings to connect with
other organizers and ask questions to the coordination team.
I’m looking forward to hearing about your Wikidata birthday events, and I’m
available at lea.lacroix_ext(a)wikimedia.de if you have any questions.
Best,
--
Léa Lacroix
Community Engagement & Events Consultant
Contractor for Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
*****ENGLISH*****
Dear All,
We are happy to announce that since the 15th of July, the francophone
Wikipedia has reached the important and symbolic milestone of 20% of
women biographies ! This is an important step towards the improvement of
encyclopedic content concerning women and gender minorities. In 2016,
when the sans pagEs project started, this figure amounted to 14% only.
Thank to you of you who have made this achievement possible by working
collectively !
You will find here the link to our press release in English :
https://sanspages.org/2024/08/21/on-wikipedia-1-person-out-of-5-is-a-woman/
Please feel free to share the good news in your channels and thank you
all on the hard work done collectively to adress this issue ! We remain
at your disposal should you wish more information or organize events.
With Wikilove,
Natacha LSP
*
*
****FRANÇAIS*****
Bonjour,
Les sans pagEs sont heureux·ses de vous informer que depuis le 15
juillet 2024, Wikipédia en français compte enfin 20% de femmes parmi ses
biographies, ce qui constitue une étape importante dans l'amélioration
du contenu encyclopédique lié aux femmes et aux minorités de genre. En
2016, année de la création du projet les sans pagEs, la part de femmes
dans les biographies n'était que de 14%.
Merci à tout le travail collectif réalisé ensemble pour réduire les
biais de genre !info
Veuillez trouver ici le lien vers notre communiqué de presse en français
:
https://sanspages.org/2024/08/21/sur-wikipedia-un-homme-sur-cinq-est-une-fe…
Nous restons à disposition pour de plus amples informations ou pour
organiser des évènements !
Cordialement et Wikilove comme on dit dans le mouvement Wikimedia, y
Natacha LSP
--
Natacha rault | Directrice | les sans pagEs
This message is being translated into other languages on Meta-wiki.
العربية • español • français • português • 中文
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
You can help with more languages.
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
Hi everyone - It’s approaching three years since I started getting to know
many of you through a nearly 300-person “listening tour”
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
that was designed to help me understand the current needs and the future
aspirations of the Wikimedia movement. A couple of months later, I
officially joined the Wikimedia Foundation as CEO. Since then, I have regularly
communicated here and elsewhere
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>about
what I’ve been doing and learning. And by now, I have met with or spoken to
thousands of you all over the world.
As some of us travel to Wikimania next week, I wanted to reflect on where
we are now – both in the world, and in our movement. I also want to share a
few thoughts on the things that are keeping me up these days, what is
giving me hope, and where I need more help as we try to move forward
together.
===Setting priorities, showing results===
When I arrived in 2022, it was a very difficult moment of transition at the
Wikimedia Foundation. Leadership changes are always disruptive, and I was
met with a growing list of demands from Foundation staff, affiliates,
volunteers, and others about what needed to be changed, fixed, added,
eliminated, expanded, or devolved. And there wasn’t much agreement on any
of them.
I listened first, and then got to work prioritising the Foundation’s focus
in areas that felt urgent and important, including:
-
Shifting more financial resources
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>
to affiliates and other movement entities by slowing the Foundation’s own
growth;
-
Centering the technology needs of contributors and projects
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#…>
as a top priority across the Foundation;
-
Reaching and supporting global communities in many more languages
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Communications/Organiz…>
(from 6 to 30+);
-
Providing more transparency about the Foundation’s staffing levels
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>,
budgeting details
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>,
human resources policies
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/03/building-a-global-staff-community-at-…>,
and executive salaries
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/…>
;
-
Assembling a capable leadership team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
through both new hires and internal promotions
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/executive/> that is committed to
accountability, and strives to lead by example;
-
Changing the Foundation’s orientation to have a more explicit external
focus
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>
on technology and social trends, laws and regulations, funding and
resourcing shifts that should inform our decisions and actions;
-
And evolving our strategy and planning to more closely align to the
movement’s strategic direction and recommendations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>
– more on this below.
In a relatively short period of time, we have made significant improvements
responding to a range of concerns I encountered when I arrived. This is not
the full list of what has improved – of course there is more to do and many
more improvements to make. But I believe that the Wikimedia Foundation has
changed for the better. Some of you have let me know whether or not you
agree.
=== Puzzle solving===
And now? As I think about all the issues we face, I keep returning to these
puzzles
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
because, for me, they remain difficult questions that require inventive and
collective puzzle solving. I can’t solve them alone, and the Foundation
can’t solve them in isolation, either.
The one that is keeping me up is whether we are delivering what the world
needs from us
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>,
now? I want to talk more about how we strengthen communities all over the
world in the face of increased risks and threats to our people and
projects. Some of these include combating mis/disinformation
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/10/19/wikimedia-is-an-antidote-to-disinform…>
in this blockbuster year of elections
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2024>, the increasing
sophistication of cyberattacks on our platforms, tracking complex legal
requirements
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025/…>
across a growing list of jurisdictions, responding to ongoing demands to
remove content on our sites
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/transparency/2023-2/>, the questions
being posed in novel legal cases
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Legifer/juin_2024#Suite_concer…>
that we are litigating right now, and the step-change increase I see in
crisis management and brand attacks for a more polarising world.
These risks we face are mirrored by even bigger threats in the broader
knowledge ecosystem. These include more frequent internet shutdowns
<https://www.accessnow.org/internet-shutdowns-2023/>, threats to civic
spaces
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/06/mapping-and-addressing-threats-civ…>,
decreasing freedom online, attacks on free expression,
<https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2023/repressive-power-artificia…>
lower levels of public trust in information sources, increased threats to
human rights, and the amplification effect of powerful AI tools
<https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05749> being introduced all at the same time.
In the face of all this, a mandate of our mission
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/> is to “make and keep
useful information from [our] projects available on the internet free of
charge, in perpetuity.” What does this require of us, now? I want to talk
more about how our projects become “multigenerational
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/multigenerational>” to sustain
themselves in this volatile future.
Are there enough contributors, administrators, and other editors with
extended rights to create, revise, and share the sum of all knowledge? Are
enough people with varied perspectives and experiences raising their hands
to participate in shaping their project communities, our global movement,
or even just to vote in elections? Can we maintain and increase the trust
of the public in our content, and also for our financing?
All of this requires the Foundation to keep centering itself on enabling
the essential technical infrastructure that is core to every aspect of our
mission. In 2022, I said that while I can’t solve the puzzle of
tech-enablement
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>alone,
“I can take accountability for the leadership, focus, and clarity that is
needed to begin closing the gap between where we are and where we need to
be.” Since then, we’ve named this priority for the entire Foundation. Our
teams have accelerated what they can improve quickly, and named the things
that they can’t do alone.
====Making Progress ====
We are making progress. Over the last year, we have seen a 25% increase
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Product_Insights/Reports/June_2024>
in MediaWiki core developers. Our engineering teams launched a new data
centre in South America
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-ce…>
reducing load times (by as much as one-third of a second) across the
region. They have also upgraded core technical infrastructure for more
security and sustainability. We’ve transformed accessibility
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/17/dark-modes-bright-future-how-dark-mod…>
on our projects with dark mode. Our stewards now have the ability to globally
block accounts <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/23/tech-news-2024-30/>
(not just IP addresses and IP ranges). Patrollers now can tackle vandalism
on mobile
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/10/%d9%90addressing-vandalism-with-a-tap…>.
Communities can now customise wiki features
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Community_Configuration> to meet their
unique needs. Moderators can configure automated prevention or reversion of
bad edits <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Moderator_Tools/Automoderator>
based on scoring from a machine learning model.
We also see progress in becoming more multilingual than in name only
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
and making more contributions count
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>.
A new translation service (MinT
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/13/mint-supporting-underserved-languages…>)
supports 200+ underserved languages, including 44 with machine translation
for the first time. MinT is becoming the second most used translation
service (behind Google Translate) for Wikimedia projects. An Africa growth
pilot <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Growth_Pilot> experimented
with growing the active editor base in sub-Saharan Africa. Early results
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_Growth_Pilot_Live_Tutorials_…>
show that participants trained in core Wikipedia policies experienced a 38%
decrease in 48-hour edit revert rate on English Wikipedia at 6 months. In
addition, as part of a new project to create tools that guide newer editors
to contribute in line with policies on their local wikis, we
introduced References
Check
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/06/17/references-check-encouraging-adding-c…>.
With this tool, more than 42% of new content edits added references, and
were not reverted within 48 hours.
The Foundation has worked to comply with significant new regulations
<https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/the-wikimedia-foundations-perspective-o…>
like the European Union’s Digital Services Act
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act?wprov=wppw2> when the
Wikimedia Foundation was the only nonprofit organisation to be classified
as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) alongside major tech platforms. A
disinformation team has built this repository
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-Disinformation_Repository> to map
volunteer efforts promoting trustworthy information and acting against
disinformation. And many other Foundation teams have delivered results
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2024-2025#…>
on many other commitments.
Less visible has been tackling intractable topics that have sometimes been
left unaddressed by the Foundation, probably because there is no happy
answer. Difficult and unpopular decisions must be made, and we are still
learning how to make them well together. Some of these include: how to
evolve our systems to keep scaling Wikipedia as essential infrastructure
for the internet while also enabling the varied needs of smaller projects?
How to face into the realities of an internet that is becoming more
fragmented, less open source, and less free? How to make the right
collective choices for Wikimedia’s future as generative AI disrupts the
search-driven web traffic we have relied on for decades?
I wake up every day thinking about how many hard things like this we need
to solve together: protecting our people and projects from a now
much-longer list of sophisticated attacks and threats, complying with (or
dissenting from) a now much-longer list of laws, regulations, and legal
requirements; making the best moves we can now to sustain Wikimedia
projects for generations to come in a changed internet.
=== Progress also in our governance ===
With all of this need in the world, I hope that the governance of our
movement does not become an impossible puzzle.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impossible_puzzles> Many are
frustrated by the future of a charter, and the Foundation’s decision not to
ratify the current version. I can’t solve that frustration or confusion
here, but I can share my perspectives on what might help us move forward.
When I arrived, these were some of my views and questions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Chief_Executive_Office…>
:
“Early on, I asked for help to learn more about the founding pillars of
Wikimedia projects, about the organisational values of the Wikimedia
Foundation, and about what led to prior successes and failures throughout
our 20-year history. What emerged for me is the circular puzzle of how best
to run and manage the centralised institutions of a decentralised,
volunteer-led movement?
This question gets asked in many different ways: is the Wikimedia
Foundation more like a non-profit development organisation or a technology
company? What is the role of affiliated entities like chapters or user
groups? How do we account for the majority of ‘unaffiliated’ volunteers who
power our projects?
These issues then become layered with views about the power and trust
relationship between movement actors, including (but not only) the
Foundation and communities. How should decisions be made? How should
resources be shared? In my experience, these are familiar debates across
many volunteer-led social movements around the world.
In our context, I am learning that some dynamics are about fundamental
values, structure and power-sharing: “We operate by the tyranny of the
majority – consensus – this is not good enough.” “Transparency is a tool,
not a value. What is the end goal of what we need transparency for – to
build trust or to what end?” “Capacity is the issue, not resources. We are
volunteers – giving us money doesn’t give us time.”
While other issues are about performance and execution: “Too much focus on
governance, not actual enablement of people and projects.” “What is the
focus of the Wikimedia Foundation today? It is totally unclear.” “We are
never willing to turn things off, shut things down or stop doing anything.”
The puzzle is how to build convergence between our divergent organisational
forms and in support of our movement strategy. How do we draw on similar
pillars and principles even though our organisations cannot be run like our
projects? How does our diversity (of every possible form) remain the
catalyst for what it takes to create – not just imagine – a world in which
every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge?”
I see similar sentiments echoed in the comments
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Result…>
submitted alongside the charter ratification vote. For me, these dynamics
are likely to remain a feature of any large, diverse, and divergent global
movement. Yet, this movement has set shared goals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations> that we
all have an obligation to implement effectively.
The Foundation remains committed to the idea of having a charter for the
Wikimedia movement. My prior experience from other volunteer-led movements
is that we need more clarity than we currently have in the conversations
about how to share and devolve accountabilities, not only power. The
Foundation has put forward this open proposal to co-create practical,
time-bound experiments
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Boar…>
that are intended to represent a break from the past. This is a good-faith
effort to work on the practicalities of shifting accountability and
decision-making to representative councils and volunteer-led bodies. Your
questions, suggestions, and comments on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard…>
will help make the outcome more successful.
We have also asked for proposals for how to progress on discussions about a
next version of a charter, taking into account challenges faced in this
process and the need to change it going forward, the Board’s expressed
reservations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Boar…>,
and the input submitted in the ratification vote.
Even prior to this vote, the Foundation has itself been identifying areas
of accountability that should responsibly be transferred to others. We have
executed on this intent, like devolving educational programmatic
implementation to affiliates and others. Through this, we are learning that
even on a smaller scale, equity in decision-making requires multiple
stakeholders to agree on strategy, governance, financing, operations,
staffing, communications, risk management, and who takes ultimate
responsibility at the end of the day.
Some of you joined a session I hosted at this year’s Wikimedia Summit to
ask what the Foundation should stop doing or hand over to others. While no
specific proposals were offered, it is a conversation that we intend to
continue. We need more clarity, not less, on roles and responsibilities in
our movement – this has been and remains a priority for me and the Board of
Trustees, who I see as deeply committed to Wikimedia’s mission and global
communities.
Where I need more help is how to make progress within my reality of
managing a much larger, highly regulated, more distributed, exceedingly
complex organisation like the Wikimedia Foundation is today. I personally
believe it is possible to change nearly anything we want about the
Foundation – with clear-eyed, informed, and realistic understandings of the
practical trade-offs and real-world consequences of those changes.
I am confident that the input provided on the Foundation’s open proposal
plus the conversations next week for those attending Wikimania will help us
find a clearer path forward together.
===Rational optimism===
These governance questions may be discouraging to some of you right now.
Not me. I know we can solve them… and draw on the best of our values and
humanity along the way.
One second ago, people around the world accessed Wikipedia
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/07/26/the-journey-to-open-our-first-data-ce…>
5,500 times. Our reach is consequential. I see from our readers, donors,
partners, and allies that what we do is needed now more than ever before. I
see that our values continue to unite people
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikiped…>
everywhere. I see that we can work with others to advance our commitments
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/open-the-knowledge/journalism-awar…>
to equity.
In tough moments, this global community always finds its way through.
That’s what the Wikimedia movement has been doing for almost 25 years, in
spite of the critics, naysayers, and sceptics. We do this by assuming good
faith <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith>, engaging
with respect and civility
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars#Wikipedia's_editors_should_treat_each_other_with_respect_and_civility>,
expressing appreciation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars>,
and talking through our disagreements. And above all, having each other’s
backs
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_7#c-Gane…>
now when the world is really counting on us.
I welcome your reflections and your input on-wiki
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard…>
about the path forward. You can contact me at miskander(a)wikimedia.org or on
my talk page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User_talk:MIskander-WMF>
or by signing up for a conversation
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…>
with me and other Foundation leaders and Trustees at Talking: 2024.
Maryana
Maryana Iskander
Wikimedia Foundation CEO