Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time to add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania, hence the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read this expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change the link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
Asaf Bartov wrote:
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time to add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania, hence the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/102946507
Thank you for posting this.
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning. The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death. But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead yet.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on the ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation of the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future? Full-time staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia Foundation contractors?
MZMcBride
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit, but no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably concise and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are euphemistic as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list of countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the assumption that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested are welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I promise to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on the ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation of the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future? Full-time staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia Foundation contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in progress), no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Thanks Asaf, I've updated WMAR website with the new presentation.
*Osmar Valdebenito G.* Director Ejecutivo A. C. Wikimedia Argentina
2013/8/29 Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit, but no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably concise and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are euphemistic as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list of countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the assumption that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested are welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I promise to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on the ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation
of
the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
Full-time
staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
Foundation
contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in progress), no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
What about making it simply global...?
Balázs 2013.08.30. 2:44, "Asaf Bartov" abartov@wikimedia.org ezt írta:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit, but no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably concise and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are euphemistic as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list of countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the assumption that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested are welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I promise to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on the ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation
of
the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
Full-time
staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
Foundation
contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in progress), no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
What about making it simply global...?
Balázs 2013.08.30. 2:44, "Asaf Bartov" abartov@wikimedia.org ezt írta:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit, but no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably concise and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are euphemistic as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list of countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the assumption that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested are welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I promise to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on the ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation
of
the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements. Does the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will be working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
Full-time
staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
Foundation
contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in progress), no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
'Global Strategy countries'?
I think this aligns with the intention of GS, which is to support initiatives that help make our movement more global by investing in areas/languages where editors and/or readers is low but potential is high.
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Aug 30, 2013 11:42 AM, "Balázs Viczián" balazs.viczian@wikimedia.hu wrote:
What about making it simply global...?
Balázs 2013.08.30. 2:44, "Asaf Bartov" abartov@wikimedia.org ezt írta:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South" is emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit,
but
no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably
concise
and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are
euphemistic
as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a list
of
countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some uniformity throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of the consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the
assumption
that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested
are
welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I
promise
to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on the actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil and India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on
the
ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a discontinuation
of
the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements.
Does
the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff will
be
working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
Full-time
staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
Foundation
contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the world!) means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in
progress),
no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be WMF grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list 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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Regarding missing alternatives to the GS _term_.
2013/8/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
'Global Strategy countries'?
I think this aligns with the intention of GS, which is to support initiatives that help make our movement more global by investing in areas/languages where editors and/or readers is low but potential is high.
I tend to say that it's not about areas/languages but about the challenges mentioned in Asaf's slides. "Global" -- in my opinion -- is a term that emphasizes _unifying_ aspects of a subject. At its core the GS initiative is about conditions (re: WP, accessing and contributing) that are _different_ between certain areas of the world and others. That's why "global" won't do the trick. The "challenges: factors" section in Asaf's slides suggests that this difference has its roots in * limited access to the internet and to materials, * diglossia and other language issues, * financial, political and cultural limitations.
...all of which are social issues (<-- terribly unscientifc oversimplification alert). In other words: The challenges have nothing to do with latitude (or longitude) but have an inherently social nature. Thus, there may not be a need to find a geographical label at all. What matters is a priority list which determines in which countries support is both highly necessary and most likely to be effective. With the countries listed in the aforementioned slides the WMF has such a list. I guess if Greenland[1] met the priority criteria (showing a huge community potential, having web access issues and specific cultural issues, and so on and so forth), it would probably make the priority list, wouldn't it? My point is: An alternative term for "global south" could be something based on _what_ is addressed instead of _where_ things are addressed. Could be something in the direction of "Social Access Initiative" or the like. (Really, just an example for illustration purposes, I won't defend it :-)
Best, Michael Jahn
[1] My apologies to Greenland. I know nothing about you, except that you're way up north! It's a shame. Don't mean to insult you.
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Aug 30, 2013 11:42 AM, "Balázs Viczián" balazs.viczian@wikimedia.hu wrote:
What about making it simply global...?
Balázs 2013.08.30. 2:44, "Asaf Bartov" abartov@wikimedia.org ezt írta:
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 5:30 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The first section was removed? I got excited to see the term "Global South" with a line through it (in the agenda index), but I think I initially misunderstood its meaning.
No, the strikethrough was a visual cue that the _term_ "Global South"
is
emphatically not on the agenda.
The term "Global South" is pretty awful and deserves a quick death.
Agreed...
But based on the title of the presentation and this e-mail thread... I'm not hopeful that it's dead
yet.
...but what do we replace it with? This has been rehashed quite a bit,
but
no one has come up with a compelling alternative that's reasonably
concise
and is politically acceptable. (Personally I am happy with "developing world" and "developing nations", but of course those terms are
euphemistic
as well, and apparently no longer acceptable in some circles.)
I have stated before that the term, for us, is just shorthand for a
list
of
countries, and we make no essentialist assumptions about some
uniformity
throughout all these countries. It is my understanding that most of
the
consternation (kittens dying etc.) the term causes is due to the
assumption
that we _are_ making an essentialist assumption and treating all GS countries the same. I hope it is by now evident we are not.
Once again, I find no point to debating this. All who _are_ interested
are
welcome to hash it out somewhere, and submit a consensual term (or a shortlist) to WMF for consideration. If a superior term arises, I
promise
to make an effort to adopt it across WMF. Until then, let's focus on
the
actual work rather than the nomenclature.
I'm a little confused about whether the ongoing programs in Brazil
and
India will continue. There's a note that reads "No WMF contractors on
the
ground any more", but it's unclear whether this means a
discontinuation
of
the current folks. And the final slides focus on future engagements.
Does
the "no contractors on the ground" line mean only full-time staff
will
be
working with (engaging with, if you prefer) areas in the future?
Full-time
staff and local chapter folks, I guess? And simply no Wikimedia
Foundation
contractors?
There are no WMF employees outside the US, so "no contractors on the ground" (in the GS context -- we still have engineers around the
world!)
means that (once the Brazil transition is complete -- this is in
progress),
no program work in the GS will be done by WMF contractors, but only by local partners (movement affiliates -- chapters, thematic
organizations,
and user groups -- and unaffiliated partners), some of whom would be
WMF
grantees.
Cheers,
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list 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 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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I myself have little first-hand experience
For me the key finding are: *We know now what approaches does NOT work. I am struck with how much of these findings are also relevant for work being done from chapter. Hopefully Frank S can summarize these learnings in his work *Results from external resources only gives results when there exist an active community. And how and what type of resources make sense and how they should be provided is learned well by the new Grants organization.
But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a active community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of anecdotal stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been done a professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different of our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates success or hampers/disintegrate active communities?
Anders
Asaf Bartov skrev 2013-08-30 01:38:
Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time to add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania, hence the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read this expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change the link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51 AM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I myself have little first-hand experience
[..]
But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a active community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of anecdotal stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been done a professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different of our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates success or hampers/disintegrate active communities?
Not to my knowledge. I explicitly state that this is a tough nut to crack, i.e. that we don't yet know how to create that sustained core of self-motivated active editors. It's very much worth studying, but I don't have a research department at my disposal. If and when research brings us some proposed solutions (we must not assume in advance that there is precisely one way in which such cores come into existence), I'll be first in line to listen and learn. For now, with so much work to be done where we _do_ have a core of active editors, we'll focus on working with those.
As stressed in the presentation, while we won't _actively_ try to make something happen where there is no active editing community (e.g. Namibia, Suriname, Botswana, Afghanistan), we remain open to experimentation with _community initiatives_ anywhere in the world, via our grantmaking programs as well as any advice, networking, etc. we can extend to support such initiatives.
Asaf
I'm sorry I'm coming so late to this but I've been thinking about this a lot and there are two questions that I still have that have been bugging me that perhaps you might clarify, Asaf.
The first is why South Africa isn't included in the strategy. The more I think about it, the more I think that it seems like a glaring omission and so I keep thinking that there is something I'm not considering. If the Foundation used 'active editing community' as a benchmark, South Africa has a really strong editing community in Afrikaans Wikipedia as well as a strong chapter that is interested in extending this success to other local languages and to broader editing of Wikipedia within the region - a region that is very poorly represented on WP and would benefit from more assistance and advice from the Foundation.
The second is your point about research not being at your disposal at the Foundation. I'm curious about why research isn't part of your strategy. It seems to me that this would be the perfect opportunity to engage in more research to understand what kinds of challenges people are facing, what conditions make a local project successful, and also, about what kinds of projects are useful in their symbolic effects rather than focusing only on scale. I know that research capacity at the Foundation might be strained by there are always opportunities for collaboration with the research community, as well as incentives for researchers to engage in research that the Foundation really needs.
Hoping you can shed some light on this!
Thanks!
Best, Heather.
On 30 August 2013 17:24, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51 AM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I myself have little first-hand experience
[..]
But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a active community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of
anecdotal
stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been done a professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different of our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates success or hampers/disintegrate active communities?
Not to my knowledge. I explicitly state that this is a tough nut to crack, i.e. that we don't yet know how to create that sustained core of self-motivated active editors. It's very much worth studying, but I don't have a research department at my disposal. If and when research brings us some proposed solutions (we must not assume in advance that there is precisely one way in which such cores come into existence), I'll be first in line to listen and learn. For now, with so much work to be done where we _do_ have a core of active editors, we'll focus on working with those.
As stressed in the presentation, while we won't _actively_ try to make something happen where there is no active editing community (e.g. Namibia, Suriname, Botswana, Afghanistan), we remain open to experimentation with _community initiatives_ anywhere in the world, via our grantmaking programs as well as any advice, networking, etc. we can extend to support such initiatives.
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
+1 to the questions Heather asked. Especially the South Africa issue.
Abbas.
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 06:36:17 +0200 From: heather.ford@oii.ox.ac.uk To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF's New Global South Strategy
I'm sorry I'm coming so late to this but I've been thinking about this a lot and there are two questions that I still have that have been bugging me that perhaps you might clarify, Asaf.
The first is why South Africa isn't included in the strategy. The more I think about it, the more I think that it seems like a glaring omission and so I keep thinking that there is something I'm not considering. If the Foundation used 'active editing community' as a benchmark, South Africa has a really strong editing community in Afrikaans Wikipedia as well as a strong chapter that is interested in extending this success to other local languages and to broader editing of Wikipedia within the region - a region that is very poorly represented on WP and would benefit from more assistance and advice from the Foundation.
The second is your point about research not being at your disposal at the Foundation. I'm curious about why research isn't part of your strategy. It seems to me that this would be the perfect opportunity to engage in more research to understand what kinds of challenges people are facing, what conditions make a local project successful, and also, about what kinds of projects are useful in their symbolic effects rather than focusing only on scale. I know that research capacity at the Foundation might be strained by there are always opportunities for collaboration with the research community, as well as incentives for researchers to engage in research that the Foundation really needs.
Hoping you can shed some light on this!
Thanks!
Best, Heather.
On 30 August 2013 17:24, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51 AM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I myself have little first-hand experience
[..]
But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a active community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of
anecdotal
stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been done a professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different of our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates success or hampers/disintegrate active communities?
Not to my knowledge. I explicitly state that this is a tough nut to crack, i.e. that we don't yet know how to create that sustained core of self-motivated active editors. It's very much worth studying, but I don't have a research department at my disposal. If and when research brings us some proposed solutions (we must not assume in advance that there is precisely one way in which such cores come into existence), I'll be first in line to listen and learn. For now, with so much work to be done where we _do_ have a core of active editors, we'll focus on working with those.
As stressed in the presentation, while we won't _actively_ try to make something happen where there is no active editing community (e.g. Namibia, Suriname, Botswana, Afghanistan), we remain open to experimentation with _community initiatives_ anywhere in the world, via our grantmaking programs as well as any advice, networking, etc. we can extend to support such initiatives.
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hi Heather,
Apologies for the delayed response; as you’ve probably heard, we’ve been a bit under the weather around here. In any case, here are a few thoughts related to your questions, I hope they’re clarifying.
The Global South strategy and what it really means: Thank you too for giving us another opportunity to clarify what I think we should make clear from the start: Asaf’s presentation at Wikimania does not reflect the complete Global South (GS) strategy from the WMF Grantmaking team, but really our "Strategy for the proactive development efforts by WMF Grantmaking of existing highly active editing communities in the GS" or the“Focus Areas in the next phase of catalysing GS community development’”(you can see why we’ve tended to shorten what is otherwise a misnomer :-)). Our overall GS strategy continues to be to support communities and organizations across the Global South in multiple ways: through grants, through connections with other communities and organizations, and through the support of ideas, needs and capacities that may need resources (people, information et al) beyond money. We are explicitly looking at improving the distribution of resources across our global movement, given that last fiscal year, only 8.5% of our total grants spending in dollars went to the Global South. We do better in terms of *number* of grants: 33% of our total grants went to the Global South. Still, we know and recognise the current reality and its historical roots, and are strongly committed to shifting this dynamic over time.
The "focus areas" are just that -- focus areas -- and are not exclusive, that is, the focus strategy absolutely does *not* imply that countries outside the focus areas are not able to receive help from WMF. The various grants programs continue to be available to all (within each program's criteria), and recent grants to, for instance, Estonia and Armenia show that small countries can and do benefit from WMF funds and attention, albeit in a more responsive or reactive context, i.e. those groups take the initiative to reach out when they need resources from us. We will continue to be open to working with groups and communities from around the world, and certainly in offering any advice and attention that is sought. At the same time, we recognise - from both Asaf’s Wikimedian experience and mine from other movements and community initiatives - that too much money is just as dangerous (if not more) to emerging volunteer communities than too little money. For a community to have a relatively strong, stable and self-sustaining core of volunteers is rarely dependent on (lack of) funds, while key to its long-term success, and influences its ability to absorb and implement grants effectively.
So why these nine geography/language communities as focus areas in particular? As you know, we moved away from the Catalyst Projects model in India, Brazil and the Arab region, finding it both resource-heavy and strategically problematic: we believe that the best way forward is to combine the ideas and initiatives of Wikimedia communities with investment and attention from WMF. While continuing to focus on India, Brazil and the Arab region - and shifting the Catalyst Projects in the first two into partnership grants - we decided to focus on geographies and related language communities that had the highest base of editors, both nationally located as well as contributing to a larger online community, in the Global South. We are attempting to learn whether a pro-active engagement strategy with these communities - reaching out to both online and offline active contributors - would raise their levels of contributions significantly, and how we can support these initiatives through grants and other resources.
The table below gives you a sense of how we made our choices. Countries like China and Russia that were obviously in the ‘top 10’ in terms of quantitative indicators, we knew might be difficult to support more practically with large grants or other intensive processes at this time, and we ended up with these nine as an interesting mix of geographies, languages, contexts and community forms. South Africa does have a good-sized active editing community (around 9-13 very active editors, 123-125 active editors). However, the fact is that all of the countries in our focus areas list have significantly more active and very active editors than South Africa, other than in Egypt’s case (though editors from Egypt are arguably important to the larger Arabic language community, which is why Egypt is one of our focus geographies/language communities) and so it did not make the list this time around.
The list is still an exploratory one, and it is quite likely to see some adaptations in the coming year or two -- not in the sense of abandoning projects mid-way, but of adapting to changing needs or newly-discovered obstacles where projects were not started yet. So a couple of factors that could bump South Africa up and into the list are:
* some of the selected focus areas may turn out to not be ready for a practical WMF investment. Not much is known yet about the potential for doing work in Vietnam, for example, though Asaf is in exploratory conversations, and when more is known, a decision will be made about whether or not to embark on projects in Vietnam.
* South African Wikimedians' own initiatives (e.g. the successful grant with OSF) can make _proactive_ WMF investment in South Africa more obviously useful and practical.
Note: while this was not the reason South Africa did not make the focus list, it is worth recognising that the chapter in South Africa - while passionate, responsible and growing in confidence - is based on the energy and passion of two or three individuals currently, having recently lost two of its previously active volunteers to Real Life<tm>. So the chapter is still at the "promising" stage, and not yet a solid platform for significant initiatives. We certainly hope this will change; we have been supporting WMZA with grants and advice, and will continue to do so.
Work in progress: Overall, to be clear, this is a work in progress. We’re exploring a new set of approaches to ‘catalysing’ communities, that are highly contextual, and that may change depending on our initial work. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be building out more details about this strategy on Meta, and look forward to your further comments there.
Country
Major non-English languages
Population (millions)
Internet penetration (%)
Internet pop. (millions)
ENWP editors
ENWP very active eds
Maj. lang. eds
Maj. lang. very active eds
Active eds outside country (in non-EN major lang.)
Total active eds in non-en lang. (all countries)
1. India
ml, ta; gu, mr, kn, te, hi, bn
1210
11
133.1
1685
82
n/a
n/a
1. India (BN)
8
1
76
84
1. India (ML)
61
11
55
116
1. India (TA)
83
17
39
122
1. India (HI)
26
3
34
60
1. India (TE)
9
37
1. India (MR)
7
21
1. India (KN)
4
38
1. India (GU)
3
10
2. Brazil
pt
194
42
81.48
286
36
1288
164
409
1697
3. Turkey
tr
76
44
33.44
155
13
558
61
106
664
4. Mexico
es
115
37
42.55
124
5
538
44
4243
4781
5. Argentina
es
42
67
28.14
118
10
624
83
4157
4781
6.Vietnam
vi
88
34
29.92
51
2
268
44
78
346
7. Egypt
ar
80
36
28.8
43
3
175
19
571
746
8. Philippines
tl
92
32
29.44
428
40
18
4
40
58
9. Indonesia
id
237
22
52.14
164
17
368
32
65
433
South Africa (XH)
xh
51
17
8.5
123
9
0
0
4
4
South Africa (AF)
af
51
17
8.5
123
9
7
29
* These figures are from February 2013.
Research _is_ part of strategy but...: We do want - and certainly believe - research should be part of our strategy, for obvious reasons that we won’t belabour to you, as a Wikimedia/GS researcher! Just the existence of a focus initiative like this begs for a good research framework that will test some of our assumptions and hypotheses and throw up others. However, the point Asaf made was more in relation to our ability to manage and coordinate with external researchers, as well as our internal capacities to do relevant analyses. Within WMF, we are now setting up a better data analysis process by creating and strengthening our Analytics and Program Evaluation and Design teams, and within Grantmaking itself, we’re putting in place a Grantmaking Learning and Evaluation team that will support some baseline data and research. Asaf will also have more time to potentially coordinate external research in this area, as we are currently hiring for a program officer to support him in running the Project and Event Grants Program (what he’s largely been devoted to so far).
On a more theoretical level, though, we know that the research already taking place seems quite relevant globally -- e.g. editor retention research, policy change effects, etc., all have implications for our goals around editorship in the GS, especially as in most of the GS, the languages people are likely to want to contribute in are major, mature Wikipedias (Spanish, English, French).
We would actually love to know from you and your fellow researchers what challenges you see that are both specific to the GS and to Wikimedia, i.e. from the point of view of the online communities, the main challenges seem to be either standard Wikimedia challenges (e.g. newbie biting, where to start, surprise policy violation attacks), or standard GS challenges (Internet access, data charges, access to libraries, long distances or poor infrastructure). My sense is that the challenges that are both specific to the GS and to Wikimedia are around building a self-sustaining core of community (because of some of these intersecting challenges mentioned above and the constraints on cognitive surplus), as well as a potential language/confidence barrier in reaching out to the global Wikimedia community, including WMF, to request for support when needed. I certainly hope that if the latter should be the case, we are changing the reality rapidly: we are always open to conversation, on wiki, on email, on VOIP… and to supporting Wikimedians, particularly in the Global South, in expanding their communities and their online presence.
Let us know if we can answer any more questions, or clarify things further.
Warmly, Asaf and Anasuya
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 9:36 PM, Heather Ford heather.ford@oii.ox.ac.ukwrote:
I'm sorry I'm coming so late to this but I've been thinking about this a lot and there are two questions that I still have that have been bugging me that perhaps you might clarify, Asaf.
The first is why South Africa isn't included in the strategy. The more I think about it, the more I think that it seems like a glaring omission and so I keep thinking that there is something I'm not considering. If the Foundation used 'active editing community' as a benchmark, South Africa has a really strong editing community in Afrikaans Wikipedia as well as a strong chapter that is interested in extending this success to other local languages and to broader editing of Wikipedia within the region - a region that is very poorly represented on WP and would benefit from more assistance and advice from the Foundation.
The second is your point about research not being at your disposal at the Foundation. I'm curious about why research isn't part of your strategy. It seems to me that this would be the perfect opportunity to engage in more research to understand what kinds of challenges people are facing, what conditions make a local project successful, and also, about what kinds of projects are useful in their symbolic effects rather than focusing only on scale. I know that research capacity at the Foundation might be strained by there are always opportunities for collaboration with the research community, as well as incentives for researchers to engage in research that the Foundation really needs.
Hoping you can shed some light on this!
Thanks!
Best, Heather.
On 30 August 2013 17:24, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:51 AM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
Thanks for sharing this, giving me an insight into an area where I
myself
have little first-hand experience
[..]
But what about the key issue: What are the parameters that makes a
active
community to be created and also be sustainable? We have a lot of
anecdotal
stories and a lot of subjective opinions, but have there ever been
done a
professional study taking an analytical approach, using many different
of
our communities as input to find the critical parameters that creates success or hampers/disintegrate active communities?
Not to my knowledge. I explicitly state that this is a tough nut to
crack,
i.e. that we don't yet know how to create that sustained core of self-motivated active editors. It's very much worth studying, but I
don't
have a research department at my disposal. If and when research brings
us
some proposed solutions (we must not assume in advance that there is precisely one way in which such cores come into existence), I'll be first in line to listen and learn. For now, with so much work to be done where we _do_ have a core of active editors, we'll focus on working with those.
As stressed in the presentation, while we won't _actively_ try to make something happen where there is no active editing community (e.g.
Namibia,
Suriname, Botswana, Afghanistan), we remain open to experimentation with _community initiatives_ anywhere in the world, via our grantmaking
programs
as well as any advice, networking, etc. we can extend to support such initiatives.
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Thank you so very much for your reply, Anasuya and Asaf. And sorry you've been ill :(
Your message was so helpful - thank you for explaining how the decisions were made, and for writing that you are open to changes in the strategy as you learn more about this process. That is much appreciated :) I also want to say that I don't want this to be seen as an attack on the strategy. I think you have done such great work already, and more importantly, have been open to learning from your mistakes (as we have as we've gone through this process with you) at a time when there has been tremendous changes at the Foundation - all of which I appreciate. I just think that there are some foundational challenges that the current strategy brings up that I've been thinking a lot about recently. I share them with you in good faith below :)
1. The first point is that there is a key symbolic and practical difference between focus countries and general support. As Asaf said at Wikimania (my paraphrasing): 'We won't go out of our way to support projects outside of these countries, but will be open to requests for support from anyone elsewhere.' I think the feeling in some countries outside of this scope is that, instead of welcoming their initiatives, they are sometimes met with immediate and pretty vehement opposition. This isn't to say that the WMF isn't supporting those initiatives, it's just that the tone of those conversations is often oppositional and sometimes even aggressive which doesn't bode well for good relationships between the Foundation and community members who, admittedly have a long way to go to developing strong proposals for support, but who need to feel supported and valued if they are to continue doing this work. This makes the 'active focus' so much more of a big deal than it would immediately be apparent: being in an area of active focus often means that the barriers are just much easier to overcome since it is in the WMF's best interests to make things happen there.
2. My second point is that the WMF has chosen to look mostly at active editors at a national level in order to decide on the focus countries, but has added more symbolic reasons in its decision to support Egypt. I totally support the decision to focus on Egypt but I think it points to the need for a systematic approach for choosing what active interventions the Foundation will make. The problem, I think, with the approach of using active editor counts as the primary way of deciding which countries to focus on are as follows:
- Countries are being compared to one another without an understanding of the barriers to participation in different parts of the world. The unintended consequence of this is that it gives the impression by people working in places where it is a major success to get just one more active editor, just one more article about a relevant local topic, rather than scores more that their work isn't valued as highly.
- We often choose a particular way of evaluating where to focus our efforts because of the availability of the data, rather than because it is the best way of understanding a problem. The problem with this is that it can result in us believing that this is the right way of evaluating whether something will be successful when other alternatives (perhaps more difficult) might prove to be more accurate.
- Finally, I was struck that the number of *readers* of Wikipedia aren't taken account in this decision. There is a great paper by Judd Antin and Coye Cheshire called 'Readers are not free riders' [1] that speaks about the importance of reading Wikipedia in becoming a Wikipedian. Active editors shouldn't, I believe, be the only way to think about which communities are most engaged in Wikipedia.
3. All of these issues lead me back to the same question: what is the goal of this programme? And: how will we know when it is successful? Is it about increasing the numbers of active editors in particular countries? Or, is it about trying to actively solve the problem of weak representation of particular subjects and people at the level of geography? I would advocate for the former rather than the latter because increasing numbers cannot be seen as an end in itself. We have the benefit of being a community that doesn't have to be driven by numbers or shareholders or profits. We can think more deeply about the symbolic power of our interventions and about what it means to be successful as a global movement. We're trying to build an encyclopedia in which the sum of all human knowledge is represented. We're only going to do that with the involvement of people around the world. And as people like Mark Graham have shown [2], some of the weakest representation on Wikipedia is of places in sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding why this is a problem *by engaging in projects* in this part of the world seems to me an obvious strategy - but only if this is the type of goal that we're looking towards.
4. What I would advocate for is two things:
a) The first is to establish a strong research agenda that doesn't only assess the success of current projects (for example, the current programme that tracks an editor's edit counts from the moment of a training intervention etc) but to also gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of Wikipedia in the lives of people in places where there may not be a large number of editors. Doing this will enable the WMF to gain a better understanding of how to turn those readers into editors. This needs to happen because the conditions of access to WP is *so different* in some parts of the world that we cannot simply import old understandings of how to generate interest in editing through interventions like the Wikipedia Academies. [I'm going to write a bit more about the value of ethnography in this context on ethnographymatters.net if you are interested]
b) The second is to develop interventions that are not only aimed at gaining more editors but that can make a high impact in the lives of ordinary people around the world. I'm reminded here of a project discussed at the Haifa Wikimania where Wikipedians worked with students in a project to install Wikipedia on computers in Cameroon and that within hours of the installation people from the village were queuing up to read up on medical information. That's the kind of project that I would want to see the WMF 'going out of their way' to initiate and support - in addition to the easier (but never easy!) projects of supporting already-successful editing communities. In doing this, we will be able to learn more deeply about how Wikipedia needs to change as countries in the Global South come online. I know that you don't want to be developing a programme where the Western ways of doing things (i.e. growing Wikipedia) are merely imported wholesale into the Global South. But without a solid understanding of what Wikipedia is and what it can be in places where it is just a seed, this won't happen.
In conclusion, in the words of outgoing chair Kat Walsh, and something reiterated by Abbas Mahmood at Wikimania, 'we (should) be doing the things that are hard and not only the things that are easy.' I look forward to helping wherever I can as you develop the strategy in the months to come :)
best, Heather.
[1] http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~coye/Pubs/ConferenceProceedings/AntinChe...
[2] http://www.zerogeography.net/2009/11/mapping-geographies-of-wikipedia.html
hi asaf, would you have a breakdown of the ~200'000 usd given to global south please?
rupert.
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time to add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania, hence the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read this expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change the link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Rupert,
The ~200,000 USD Asaf mentions is the total of the grants we gave to five GS chapters in the last fiscal year (to WMAR, WMIN, WMMX, WMVE, WMZA). Of the overall 5.65 million USD we gave out in grants last year, the total to the Global South was ~470,000 USD (including the grant to CIS India, IEG grants, travel and participation grants and scholarships).
Hope that helps, Anasuya
On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 8:42 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.comwrote:
hi asaf, would you have a breakdown of the ~200'000 usd given to global south please?
rupert.
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time
to
add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania,
hence
the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read
this
expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change the link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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many thanks, that helps a lot! is the base data (a list of grants and how you consolidate it) available, including a link to the project page?
rupert.
On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Anasuya Sengupta asengupta@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Rupert,
The ~200,000 USD Asaf mentions is the total of the grants we gave to five GS chapters in the last fiscal year (to WMAR, WMIN, WMMX, WMVE, WMZA). Of the overall 5.65 million USD we gave out in grants last year, the total to the Global South was ~470,000 USD (including the grant to CIS India, IEG grants, travel and participation grants and scholarships).
Hope that helps, Anasuya
On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 8:42 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.comwrote:
hi asaf, would you have a breakdown of the ~200'000 usd given to global south please?
rupert.
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some time
to
add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania,
hence
the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read
this
expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change the link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list 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 Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- ***Anasuya Sengupta Senior Director of Grantmaking Wikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! Support Wikimedia https://donate.wikimedia.org/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
All the data is public: Project and Event Grants are all listed at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index/Requests and tabulated at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Table Annual Plan Grants (FDC) are listed here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals
Cheers,
Asaf
On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 10:29 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.comwrote:
many thanks, that helps a lot! is the base data (a list of grants and how you consolidate it) available, including a link to the project page?
rupert.
On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Anasuya Sengupta asengupta@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Rupert,
The ~200,000 USD Asaf mentions is the total of the grants we gave to five GS chapters in the last fiscal year (to WMAR, WMIN, WMMX, WMVE, WMZA). Of the overall 5.65 million USD we gave out in grants last year, the total
to
the Global South was ~470,000 USD (including the grant to CIS India, IEG grants, travel and participation grants and scholarships).
Hope that helps, Anasuya
On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 8:42 AM, rupert THURNER <
rupert.thurner@gmail.com>wrote:
hi asaf, would you have a breakdown of the ~200'000 usd given to global south please?
rupert.
On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everyone.
I have finally uploaded my Wikimania talk to Commons. It took some
time
to
add links and explanatory notes that were spoken aloud at Wikimania,
hence
the delay.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pd...
If you have read it elsewhere (I had to upload my speaking copy to a temporary space for the venue computer to present from, but it was not meant for reading, and was not shared by me), I encourage you to read
this
expanded version -- it will make a lot more sense.
If you have linked to the temporary copy somewhere, please do change
the
link or re-share with this full version.
I welcome discussion and questions.
Cheers,
Asaf
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- ***Anasuya Sengupta Senior Director of Grantmaking Wikimedia Foundation*
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