Hoi, An other problem with participation by proxy is that you are likely to strengthen current bias. Wikimania 2018 has come and gone and we want more and better information about subjects like Africa, There are many approaches possible. Crucial is what it is we are to achieve.
* Do we want a better representation on "our" Wikipedia for the subject at hand * Do we want sufficient information for best practices like all the places related from lowest to highest level of administrative and territorial representation * Do we want the information gap that has not even one percent of humans coming from Africa to be filled * Do we want our projects to be available for the people in Africa * Do we want the projects in African language to thrive
The problem is that in order to make these things happen, truly happen, you have to make it happen. By killing Wikipedia Zero for "obvious" reasons, we will not have a second generation of students in Africa benefiting from what we provided. It does not matter that we celebrate the first generation, we failed them.
When we are to celebrate African academia, it is to be found in Africa, not on American universities. The African American have sources, our sources to their name, making them notable. When we are to accept African academia it should be on their terms, their notability. When we want to see African language Wikipedias thrive, we have to invest in their education, in African education and not start at universities but at high schools, the children of that first and second generation. When they write articles in their language, never mind the subject of their class, there is room for new articles. There is room for many students, classes, schools to make a difference.
The mayors of Africa are as notable as "our" mayors. We need pictures in a same manner like the Geograph project in the UK. But we have to leave it to them what they write. Without them it is not for them.
The gender gap is important and yes, it exists at least in the same measure in Africa. However, the #AfricaGap is at least as discriminatory and they have to come from much father behind.
When the professionals are to take care of "our" interest and make a difference, they might find it interesting that (probably) the first GLAM project was to share material outside of our own comfort zone. Its major impact was Indonesia, not the Netherlands. <grin> it might "inspire" </grin>. Thanks, GerardM
On 23 July 2018 at 15:20, Paulo Santos Perneta paulosperneta@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
"*Given the extensive time commitment required for participation in the WGs, I think that it's reasonable to expect that a significant percentage of the members will be staff who are paid to participate because the time commitment is probably too heavy for many volunteers *" ( 2018-07-23 0:04 GMT+01:00 Pine W )
Isn't that a problem of "bias by design"? If the design of the groups favors the participation of staffers, who are paid by the chapters to look after their interests, isn't this an obvious conflict of interest? Why would a staffer of Wikimedia Antarctida, whose relation to the Movement is mainly defined by the salary (s)he gets at the end of the month, paid by his/her chapter, be interested in participating in strategy discussions for other reason than to advance the points and interests of Wikimedia Antarctida? Even assuming those interests do not conflict with those of the Wikimedia Movement (which is not granted), the expected input would still be very limited in scope.
All the best,
Paulo
2018-07-23 0:04 GMT+01:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
Speaking in general terms about diversity of the WGs, this is a
challenging
topic even for people who have the best of intentions. What do we mean by "diversity" and "bias" in regards to the composition of the WGs? That discussion alone could be extensive and there might not be consensus on
the
definitions.
If the goal in general is maximum diversity on as many factors as
possible,
that is a difficult goal to achieve. Given the extensive time commitment required for participation in the WGs, I think that it's reasonable to expect that a significant percentage of the members will be staff who are paid to participate because the time commitment is probably too heavy for many volunteers, and our existing volunteers already have plenty of important activities to do.
There are other ways that this phase of the strategy development process could be run that would be less burdensome for volunteers - and I personally would advocate for such an approach - but the downsides that I could foresee are that (1) the staff involved would likely also not be sufficiently diverse for the aspirations of many of us, and (2) the
culture
and mindset of staff can be very different from those of the volunteers,
so
there would almost inevitably be some loss in terms of the richness of
the
conversations.
What I'm trying to do here is to encourage us to have realistic expectations.
I lack the knowledge to comment on why particular individuals or groups were or weren't included in the WGs and I hope that Nicole and Kaarel can respond to the concerns that people raise here, perhaps in private communications.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe