Hello Jorge
I really appreciate you took the time to send a public update before the
holiday season, as well as the private email with additional food for
thought. On Monday afternoon, I was gloomingly watching the mailing list
and thinking "still nothing in there". So I really appreciate the feedback.
I'll get back to you in January on a couple of points that I think
deserve clarification. Before or after the diff depending.
In the meanwhile, please enjoy the break.
Florence
PS: by the way... I fully agree with Sj... it is a good idea to actually
discuss with partners to agree in advance on how respective brands will
be used. And to actually *require* that our brand not be used in certain
circonstances (such as in association with other brands) without prior
agreement.
For those who forgot about this page :
It reminds to all partners (which really ought to be, not only
individuals, loose groups, and wikimedia affiliates, BUT ALSO big
partners), what is automatically allowed, what requires notification,
and what requires authorization.
Obviously, it is a big complicated to get a trademark policy with
details about what not to do (such as associating Wikimedia name with
Meta in a press release). This would be too detailed.
But if the trademark policy had been properly applied, it would have
required a legal review of the full project terms of agreement. And the
project terms of agreement could have included a provision regarding
communication does and don't and prevented our brand to be used in such
a unthoughtful manner.
Le 21/12/2021 à 19:24, Jorge Vargas a écrit :
Dear Florence,
As promised, wanted to make sure we circled back before the holiday
break after getting more information. Per my last communication, I
want to reiterate we are indeed working on a project that is framed
under a larger collaboration being discussed with the Africa Union.
This collaboration was not initiated or directed specifically with
Africa No Filter, which was only involved by the African Union as part
of the process. Along the way, Africa No Filter has shown more
interest in playing a more active role in the project, which we're
still currently discussing if and how they partake. So far, our main
focus has been identifying ways to work with the Africa Union to plug
them into ongoing and future priorities and initiatives in the region,
with this project being the first step towards that.
Due to some WMF staff absences and a few logistical mishaps, we were
not in a good position to fully coordinate on Africa No Filter’s
announcement, which went live without final confirmation from them.
That was not our intention, and we regret if this caught you or anyone
else off guard. The goal remains to finalize a Diff post that will
share the details of the project and was meant to be posted prior to
any other announcements. In the interest of allowing everyone their
holiday rest (and because this project is not really yet in motion),
we will be communicating more about it in January 2022 in a Diff post
and other channels. We also want to reiterate that this partnership
has absolutely nothing to do with Meta or the Hewlett Foundation, and
although we would have preferred not to be grouped together in a
single announcement, we can't control the way a third party decides to
share their information.
Our work with the Africa Union has started in 2021 as part of the work
the Foundation has done to listen to local initiatives, identify ways
to engage, and support existing priorities in the region. Recognizing
we can always do better, our teams are plugged into the field as much
as possible, hearing needs and identifying synergies to what the
movement is prioritizing locally. We strongly believe this project is
aligned and follows the line of other projects we've been supporting
in the region. This or any other project is also not coming from staff
or stakeholders outside of Africa, and it's our critical intention
that relevant work for the region and our movement there is led and
supported regionally. We can also assure you that the project will
continue to have plenty of room for feedback and discussion, as it's
meant to be implemented within the movement priorities in 2022. We
expect to have those interested partake and get involved!
Your email does flag something relevant that we take to heart, which
is how we can find ways to make sure relevant stakeholders locally can
have better participation and due diligence earlier in these
processes. Our intention will never be to create competing priorities,
yet we don't think it's also feasible to consult each and every
opportunity at hand, creating even extra work for volunteers. We
believe there's a delicate balance, and the Foundation continues to do
its best to find the best ways to reach. We take this opportunity as a
learning on how more expansive and trust-building forums can be
created while balancing volunteer requests, as we continue to
regionalize and localize our work as much as possible as mandated by
Movement Strategy.
We look forward to sharing more about this project in January 2022,
and to more opportunities for dialogue in the new year. I wish you a
restful and lovely break, in hopes the new year brings us more spaces
to share and build together.
Warmly,
Jorge
On Thu, Dec 9, 2021 at 12:58 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
HI Jorge
I find it disturbing that you dont have a detailed answer even
now, and that the WMF would agree to partnerships which dont
respect the community its the community who has built and maintain
the credibility of the projects.
While its nice to see high level efforts from the WMF extreme care
should be being taken in who we partner with and how they present
the relationship. I find it troubling that a partner can make an
announcement and include a third party, especially when that
third party has a long history for data collection, private data
resale, supporting fake news, and violating copyright.
Knowing this how robust are the data privacy exchanges what
security is in place between the WMF and ANf & AU given that they
are working with such a concerning third party and see the two as
intertwined the "jumping of the gun" and link that third both very
little respect for us
Regards
Gnangarra
On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 at 03:39, Yael Weissburg
<rweissburg(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Thank you, Jorge, for this thoughtful and clear response.
Florence, Xavier, and others: I know there's often good reason
to message Wikimedia-l, and also to let you know that you can
always reach the WMF Partnerships team at
partnerships(a)wikimedia.org and on our Meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Partnerships_team> if
you want to engage with us directly!
Best,
Yael
--
Yael Weissburg (she / her)
Director, Strategic Partnerships
Wikimedia Foundation
E: yweissburg(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:rweissburg@wikimedia.org>
M: +1.415.513.6643
On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 11:28 AM Jorge Vargas
<jvargas(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi Florence,
Thanks for your email. We wanted to acknowledge receipt
and say that we're working on a more detailed answer about
the partnership with Africa No Filter (ANF) and the Africa
Union (AU), and to some of the higher-level points you've
raised around our general approach to this work.
We're gathering all the right information to make sure we
can offer a comprehensive answer, but in short, to your
first question, the collaboration between WMF and ANF
described in the announcement, is led by the Foundation's
Partnerships and Community Programs teams and will be
implemented in collaboration with Wikimedia communities.
This collaboration sits under a larger ongoing
relationship with the African Union, who were actually the
ones who first connected us to ANF. We broadly introduced
the project during this specific session [1] at
WikiIndaba, and have a comprehensive Diff post coming up
soon with more information about this project's goals and
how it connects with existing movement priorities, which
we are happy to forward to this thread when it’s live.
Unfortunately, ANF went slightly earlier on what was going
to be a joint announcement, and we're talking with them on
how this came about.
To be clear, we are not partnering on this project with
Meta; we are partnering solely with ANF and the Africa
Union, within their 2063 Agenda strategy [2] for the
region. We have no involvement in the separate partnership
that ANF announced with Meta in the same announcement.
We read your email as elevating some larger concerns we
want to make sure are heard, for us all to have a good
faith and important dialogue on how we inform,
collaborate, and work with the Movement in
partnership-related activity. Our intention is never to
create overlapping/conflictive work with the ones in the
Movement, but rather add value and collaborate, as we
believe we are doing in this case.
We will be providing an answer soon with more details.
Regards,
Jorge Vargas
Director of Regional Partnerships
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2021/Program/The_futu…
[2]
https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview
On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 11:36 AM F. Xavier Dengra i Grau
via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all,
Thank you for raising up this topic in the list,
Florence. I fully agree with you in all your points
and find it of great concern, especially regarding
accountability of the WMF towards the community. But
also because its increasing agreements and decisions
that are not thoroughly reviewed or shared before a
long way (i.e. money, hiring and staffing time
expenditure) has already been done.
This matter can be linked a lot with the long debate
that Galder (user Theklan) had here about a month and
a half ago on the disappointing WMF tech support,
while we see big efforts on content that disrupt the
decentralized role of communities and that, in this
precise case, they seem to be even very unequally
communicated.
I am looking forward to read more on this in case
someone is aware of what's going on. It does not look
any good so far, especially for the silence on "our"
side (as what WMF does has an impact in the discursive
trustworthiness of all volunteers) and because in that
newsletter it is being mentioned as a project side to
side with Facebook.
Best,
Xavier Dengra
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
El dimecres, 8 de desembre 2021 a les 4:51 PM,
Florence Devouard <fdevouard(a)gmail.com> va escriure:
Hello
Got that in my mailbox today.
I had known that for a few days because it had been
displayed on ANF website and been the object of an
ANF previous email a few days ago about a partnership
between Wikimedia Foundation / ANF / African Union to
fix the gap related to African representation. So it
is not really a surprise to ME, but...
On one hand, it is a good news to see the big
organisations get involved.
On the other hand... there are a few points bugging
me and I wanted to share just that.
ANF has been announcing those partnerships for
several days on their networks.
But from WMF... I see a complete silence. No
announcement in the lists, nor in the grant space,
nor on diff, nor to the affiliates impacted by this
announcement;
Nothing. No mention of an Africa Knowledge Initiative
on meta either. Nothing at all.
The total silence from WMF raises questions and
concerns in my mind. Such as :
1) Is that partnership real and known from the
Wikimedia Foundation ?
2) If it is, why is Wikimedia Foundation not
informing the community about what seems to be a
significant partnership ?
Is it that in truth no one at WMF cares about this
partnership ? Or is it by fear of community reaction
? Or is it a wish to not have local groups involved
at all ?
3) What's the role of the Wikimedia Foundation in
that partnership ?
Is it just allowing ANF to use the Wikipedia brand ?
Is Wikimedia Foundation providing a grant to ANF ? Is
Wikimedia Foundation providing staff time to ANF ? Is
Wikimedia Foundation offering volunteer time from the
communities or facilitating recruitement of cheap
labour ? Is Wikimedia Foundation planning to provide
networking support in connecting ANF to the
communities and usergroups ?
What is WMF role in this ?
4) When Usergroup Affiliates are approved, a thorough
review of their request is made to avoid any
situation of overlapping activities with the other
usergroups. And once approved, there is a concern
that they have to coordinate and inform about
overlapping activities.
Clearly, the WMF is here officially supporting a
collection of initiatives that will overlap with
already existing activities and could impact existing
usergroups. However, WMF did not inquire of existing
groups opinion on such a partnership, nor did it
actually sought to simply inform them. Did WMF tried
to involve the impacted parties ?
In short, in a spirit of collaboration and shared
mission... would not that be expected that impacted
communities be informed/polled/or even involved ?
5) In the past few months, I have seen WMF staff
increasingly get directly involved into Content
Projects. It seems that WMF staff who once where busy
developing tools to support the communities, are now
rather spending time creating, leading or
facilitating content projects. I suppose there are
benefits to doing that. And do not misunderstand me,
I appreciate every staff member involved in such
effort and recognise their skills.
But when WMF staff move from support function to
Content Projects leadership, it also can have
detrimental consequences in our ecosystem, such as
inequity in resources access between projects
organized by WMF and projects organized by community
members (*). It can have detrimental consequences in
decreasing the opportunities for community members to
take on leadership roles. It can have detrimental
consequences in making WMF appear like a content
producer.
My question would be... is this shift in WMF staff
activities ... simply due to the lack of leadership
at WMF level for the past months... or is it an
deliberate move ?
Sorry, long rant today... but seeing the meta-name
thiefs associated with our brand was the last drop ...
Florence
PS: I have examples...
-------- Message transféré --------
Sujet :
Meta, WikiMedia, and the Hewlett Foundation partner
with Africa No Filter
Date :
Wed, 08 Dec 2021 23:00:15 +1100
De :
Africa No Filter <info(a)africanofilter.org>
<mailto:info@africanofilter.org>
Répondre à :
info(a)africanofilter.org
Pour :
Florence Devouard <Fdevouard(a)anthere.org>
<mailto:Fdevouard@anthere.org>
Meta, WikiMedia, and the Hewlett Foundation are the
latest partners to join Africa No Filter in shifting
narratives about Africa.
*Hewlett Foundation, Meta, and the Wikimedia
Foundation are the latest partners to join Africa No
Filter in shifting narratives about Africa*
*8 December, Accra*: Narrative change organisation,
Africa No Filter, today announced new partnerships
with Hewlett Foundation, Meta (formerly Facebook),
and the Wikimedia Foundation for its campaign to
shift the stereotypical narratives about and within
Africa.
The new funding pool of USD1.2 million will be
invested in research, building community, and
storytelling initiatives that present new
perspectives on the continent, including projects
that reimagine African creativity through immersive
reality and expand how Africa is represented on
Wikimedia projects
<https://africanofilter.cmail20.com/t/t-l-chkudkl-wthuildtj-r/>.
This is part of Africa No Filter’s goal to grow the
community of partners and funders who want to see
current narratives shift towards a more contemporary
and nuanced view of the continent.
The Hewlett Foundation is the ninth funder to support
the Africa No Filter donor collaborative, joining
Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundations, Comic
Relief, the Hilton Foundation, and the British
Council in partnering with Africa No Filter to shift
and disrupt stereotypical narratives about Africa.
Hewlett’s funds will primarily support ANF’s ongoing
grantmaking in the arts, culture, and media space. A
portion of the funds will go towards a storytelling
campaign aimed at shifting narratives around sexual
health and reproduction rights in Hewlett’s key
countries.
In line with Meta’s focus on the immersive
technologies, which they are calling the metaverse,
the partnership will push the boundaries of
storytelling by supporting content producers to
create virtual and augmented reality films that tell
African stories. It will also ensure that African
creators are represented as the next generation of
the internet emerges.
Greater representation of African people, experiences
and contexts are at the core of the collaboration
between Africa No Filter and the Wikimedia
Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia.
More content about Africa will be added to Wikimedia
projects, including Wikipedia, to close knowledge
equity gaps on one of the world’s most visited sites.
According to the “Extent of Geolocated Entities in
Articles” tab of the Geography Gap Project
<https://africanofilter.cmail20.com/t/t-l-chkudkl-wthuildtj-y/>,
only 5.5% of all geotagged articles in all Wikipedia
language editions are related to Africa. On English
Wikipedia specifically, 4% of geotagged articles
relate to Africa. Africa No Filter seeks to increase
the number of African contributors to Wikimedia
projects and to grow the corpus of African knowledge
in multiple African languages.
Through the partnership with Wikimedia Foundation and
the African Union, Africa No Filter has launched the
Africa Knowledge Initiative. This collaboration will
bring together creatives, activists and
mission-aligned organizations, along with the African
Wikimedia communities to produce verifiable, locally
relevant, and easily accessible content to increase
the representation of African knowledge on the
internet. The Africa Knowledge Initiative will grow
the corpus of African knowledge and the number of
African knowledge producers. It will also translate
the knowledge into multiple African languages.
The Meta and Wikimedia Foundation projects will offer
funding, mentorship, and capacity building. They will
be launched through grant callouts on Africa No
Filter’s usual platforms.
Moky Makura, Executive Director at Africa No Filter,
says: "We are incredibly honoured that Africa No
Filter has been identified as a trusted partner and
custodian of these projects. Each partnership
supports the creation of content that is more
representative of what is happening across the
continent, which fuels our mission. New partnerships
and funding allow us to increase our reach and impact
and ultimately bring awareness of the importance of
which story Africans are telling. It means we can do
more – it’s an exciting time for Africa No Filter. "
Media enquiries: Lerato(a)africanofilter.org
<mailto:Lerato@africanofilter.org>
*About Africa No Filter *
Africa No Filter is a donor collaborative shifting
stereotypical and harmful narratives within and about
Africa through research, grant-making, community
building and advocacy by supporting storytellers,
investing in media platforms, and driving disruption
campaigns. It is funded by Ford Foundation,
Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Luminate,
Open Society Foundations, Comic Relief, the Hilton
Foundation, the British Council and Hewlett Foundation.
*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit
organization that operates Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a
world in which every single human can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone
has the potential to contribute something to our
shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to
access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and
the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences
for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia
content, support the volunteer communities and
partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate
for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge
to thrive.
*About Meta*
Meta builds technologies that help people connect,
find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook
launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect.
Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further
empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is
moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences
like augmented and virtual reality to help build the
next evolution in social technology.
*About Hewlett Foundation*
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation advances
ideas and supports institutions to promote a better
world. For more than 50 years, the Foundation has e
supported efforts to advance education for all,
preserve the environment, support vibrant performing
arts, strengthen Bay Area communities, make the
philanthropy sector more effective, and foster gender
equity and responsive governance around the world.
Remember to like our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and
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