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/Nominations. 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/Community_view. 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_Groups#Thematic_Areas) 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-proposal-for-2030/. 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.