Hi everyone,

We’ve had two Inspire Campaigns so far -- on the gender gap and on content curation & review -- to encourage ideas and grant proposals on challenging issues affecting the Wikimedia projects you work on. The third Inspire Campaign, starting on May 31st, will run for one month and focus on addressing harassment that occurs on Wikimedia projects:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire

The 2015 Harassment Survey[1] has shown evidence that harassment is pervasive; 38% of participants reported experiencing it, and 51% reported witnessing harassment. These include behaviors such as name calling, threats of violence, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation, among others. Furthermore, available methods and systems to deal with harassment are considered to be ineffective. These behaviors are clearly harmful, and in addition, many individuals who experience or witness harassment participate less in Wikimedia projects or stop contributing entirely.

Starting May 31st, everyone is invited to submit and work together in developing ideas to prevent and handle cases of harassment. Ideas can include research, software, events, training programs, outreach efforts, etc. If you need funding, ideas can easily be submitted as a proposal for a WMF grant. Ideas can also encourage discussions to consider changes in policies, guidelines, or best practices on your local Wikimedia project(s).

An FAQ page about this campaign and Inspire Campaigns generally is available.[2] An announcement e-mail will be sent out on the 31st. For folks who are interested in helping translate so we can reach a wide audience, I welcome your help on the FAQ page[2] and main landing page.[3]

If you have an idea or want to help develop ideas to address harassment, I encourage you to join me so that we can work together in addressing this important and difficult issue.

With thanks,

Chris "Jethro" Schilling I JethroBT (WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF) Community Organizer, Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

-- [1] < https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harassment_Survey_2015_-_Results_Rep...

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire/FAQ [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire