Hi Chicago Wikimedians,
This email is an update regarding the Wikimedia Summit, which I attended,
and our group's vote in the Affiliate Selected Board Seats (ASBS) process.
We get to help choose two seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
Trustees!
Here's information on the ASBS voting procedure
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Voting>.
Board nominees are listed here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Nominat…>.
Incumbents Christophe Henner and Nataliia Tymkiv are both running again.
Richard Knipel (in this mailing list!) is also running. Our user group will
decide who to vote for. The vote involves ranking candidates from most to
least desired. After we decide, I (the "affiliate representative") will
fill out a Qualtrics survey to cast our vote. If there's interest among you
all to get together to discuss candidates, I can set up a time to
teleconference (or even meet in person). We can also discuss via this
mailing list or on our Facebook group. Let me know! The voting deadline is
May 31.
I wrote an overview of the Wikimedia Summit for the April edition of the
*Signpost* here
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-04-30/Commu…>.
I didn't give personal opinions of the conference there, but I'll give some
brief impressions here. I'm also happy to talk about what happened with
anybody either via email, or through a call, individually or as a group.
This was my first strategy conference and my second Wikipedia-related
conference overall. It was a lot to take in, but I got to meet and talk
with a lot of interesting and passionate Wikimedians from all around the
world.[1]
The 2030 strategy wants, among other things, to include more people and
content in the Wikimedia movement ("diversity") and also to improve
"community health". I think these two "thematic areas" (of 9 total
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working…>)
resonate most closely with our user group's focus, so I focused my
conference time on conversations surrounding these issues.
Wikimedia Foundation staff were also present at the Summit. I got to talk
to brand manager Zach McCune on whether "Wikimedia" should rebrand as
"Wikipedia". More on the proposal here
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/26/leading-with-wikipedia-a-brand-p…>.
I'm personally in favor of such a rebranding.
Strategy working groups are incorporating feedback into the strategy
recommendations in time for Wikimania 2019 in August. I'll keep you updated
on strategy stuff as it happens! For now, we can focus on deciding which
board candidates to vote for.
All the best,
Brian Choo
User:Airplaneman <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Airplaneman>
[1] Ivo Kruusamägi of Wikimedia Eesti
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Eesti>(Estonia) suggested we do
an Estonian week in Chicago. If there's interest, we can look into it.