Thank you.
This actually worries me a lot. If I read it correctly, we will get a kind
of Wiki-Resident, but not with a cultural and educational institution but
with the local government of one of the most populous and influential
subjects of the Russian Federation. I do not think we previously had a
similar situation. In a distant past, we had a user who was hired by the
tourist office (not the government) of Gibraltar, and this is usually
regarded as a complete disaster. We also usually have serious opposition to
the intervention of governments to the editing of Wikipedia, the last
example was in May when the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was running an
editing contest. I think at the very least the projects must be informed,
and I would not be surprised if for example the community of the English
Wikipedia strongly opposes the initiative.
Best
Yaroslav
On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 12:06 AM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin <
frhd(a)yandex.com> wrote:
Dear colleagues,
This is
1 to introduce a reworked concept for Wiki-Smart Humanity ([[m:WISH]],
https://w.wiki/QGD ) project page
2 to update you on the groundwork in Tatarstan and around Russia for
growing local and regional public support for Wikimedia community projects,
as well as discussions about funding Outreach and other local activities
(since my previous report back in early April
https://w.wiki/MFm )
3 to inform you of the upcoming pilot regional procurement tender
initiated by one of our partners as the easiest way for them to incentivize
multilingual article creation and improvement regarding important regional
phenomena of Tatarstan.
Below you will find detailed description of for each point above. Comments
would be greatly appreciated.
regards,
farhad
P.S. I am in an uncharted territory, so very grateful to all Russia and
international colleagues that help me with listening, advice and ideas.
Tatar is a non-dominant language community, though in a much better shape
than many others around the world - this opens my eyes to the reality that
long-term preservation of currently living human languages (over 7000) and
their inherent riches of cultural knowledge would require significantly
more effort, funding and attention than needed to have enWP, ruWP, trWP and
all others in official state languages of UN member countries (about 50) to
describe everything that's currently missing. We are talking about amounts
that no fundraising will ever bring - something that can only be achieved
by staying true to the powerful Wikimedia Vision and aspiring to win the
hearts of our existing and potential volunteers for them to be ready and
willing to help us with something much more precious than money.
--
Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин
http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
1) [[m:WISH]] (
https://w.wiki/QGD) is community-supported (myself so far)
undertaking to collect and chart initiatives that bring us closer to
Wikimedia vision:
- various initiatives that help making all forms, types and categories of
knowledge equally well described in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects,
- as well as those that help make everyone a Wikimedian.
No individual or even a group can give equal attention and priority to
everything in the world, but we can chart initiatives that help us to move
towards the world where things are more equal. This started as a Meta-page
for the project around regions, languages, and different topic-specific
initiatives I started in Wikimedia Russia wiki, but Meta offered a great
chance to bring together similar initiatives that exist elsewhere.
2) I am in Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan / Russian Federation), so that's
where I start with regarding the Russia-regions' specific part of m:WISH -
https://w.wiki/WDk My first priority is to make editing Wikipedia and
other Wikimedia projects something widely respected, so I'm working with
institutional partners.
Locally I am still in touch with or contacted since last update:
* Tatarstan Presidential Administration (description
https://w.wiki/WDz )
* Municipality of Kazan (description
https://w.wiki/MFH / stats by
Wikimedia projects
https://w.wiki/JZh in Russian)
* Tatarstan Tourism board (description
https://w.wiki/WDD / lists
https://w.wiki/WDC )
* Tatarstan Investment Promotion Agency (description
https://w.wiki/MFL /
articles for creation list
https://w.wiki/PSU ) and
* Tatarstan Ministry for Culture (proposal in Russian
https://w.wiki/R7g)
Russia's Wikimedians helped me in reaching out to Moscow Trade and
Industry Chamber Committee on cross-regional and international cooperation,
as well as National Tourism Union - I spoke about Wikimedia opportunities
for growing international awareness about regional realities (
https://w.wiki/Qht in Russian) at their joint Online meeting on "Tourism
post COVID-19"
https://mostpp.ru/guilds_news/budet-li-turizm-posle-covid-eksperty-obsudili…
- very much interested to see how Tatarstan project will evolve to learn
and copy
3) We've advanced most with Tatarstan Investment Development Agency (TIDA)
WHY:
TIDA has English-speaking staff with global exposure (came across
Wikipedia before), the head of the Agency has an MBA from UK, and she
happens to know and trust me with interpreting various important events for
over 10 years.
PARTNERSHIP:
* March 19 in-person meeting
https://w.wiki/WEP to present the idea
https://w.wiki/MFL
* Issues discussed
- developing articles for creation lists and Wikidata element creation for
them first in agency specialization area, then to cover all phenomena of
importance in Tatarstan
- 3+8 target languages for TIDA
- presentations, training session to staff and various stakeholders and
WiR-type ongoing consulting
- ways to prepare the ground to have targeted Tatarstan Presidential or
Government grants to local Wikimedia community, to avoid
Wikimedian-in-Residence positions (complicated for TIDA and other agencies)
and otherwise available procurement tenders (perceived low efficiency due
to too much red tape and legal complexity vs. Wikipedia's strict policy
compliance requirements for content)
* current Wikidata based multilingual (3+8) priority articles for creation
list
https://w.wiki/PSU
WHERE WE ARE:
TIDA will be announcing a pilot public procurement tender for multilingual
Wikipedia content creation (at this stage Tatar, Russian, possibly allow
for English) any day now. It's expected to be organized at Tatarstan public
procurement entity's
https://goszakupki.tatarstan.ru/eng/ (CC-BY 4.0)
dedicated procurement portal
http://portal-zakupok.tatar in line with
Russian Federation Public Procurement Law (FZ 44). It's expected to amount
for RUB 1 million (USD13900) & open to bidding for by any legal entity or
private proprietor that would like to apply.
References:
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_procurement_in_Russia
* Full text of Federal Law 44 Inofficial English translation at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Antimonopoly_Service portal -
https://en.fas.gov.ru/netcat_files/File/44-FZ%20eng.pdf
HOW DID WE GET THERE:
1
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_Map_November_2019_Huge.png -
we need to get whole of the map bright and info available in all languages.
2 TIDA is interested to help with Tatarstan, would like to advance with
small trial steps, being guided by those with experience and readiness to
help them. They are capable and comfortable to organize a procurement
contract first, meanwhile observing how others work on topics in the area
they feel comfortable with
3 I am keeping Wikimedia Russia informed of all my contacts and progress,
so during April 2 Online Meeting
https://w.wiki/LsZ WMRU director
Vladimir Medeyko
https://w.wiki/WFi stated that our partnership or its
individual experienced members should take part in TIDA-originated and
other similar regional procurement procedures
4 Once TIDA got the approval to initiate procurement (approvals by
Tatarstan Ministry of Finance, then Prime Minister, then President of the
Republic, May 29, communicate to [wikimedia-ru] Russian-language list
https://w.wiki/W7q & English-language Telegram group
https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral/15582 ), I inquired with Wikimedia Russia
colleagues and identified three respected editors from Russian Wikipedia
(that have extensive experience with Paid editing and disclosing COI), who
then agreed with my request to take part in the upcoming bidding procedure
& provide a detailed response to preliminary request by TIDA:
* Anna Biryukova -
https://w.wiki/WEZ
* Dmitry Erokhin -
https://w.wiki/WEa
* Dmitry Rozhkov -
https://w.wiki/WEb
OVERSIGHT
I was unable to identify previous Wikimedia experience (and thus
templates) for large scale cross-project and multilanguage declaration of
Paid Editing & disclosure of possible Conflicts of Interest, as well as
providing for Community Oversight of such projects, so I'm trying my best
to keep the caravan moving whilst assuring everybody is informed and feels
in control.
TIDA and others agreed with my request that:
1 / Project is advancing stage-by-stage (first only Russian and Tatar,
possibly some English)
2 / We do things publicly, including open statements on mandatory
compliance with sourcing and other Wikipedia quality standards in the
tendering procedure
3 / I keep Russia & International Wikimedia Community informed at all
stages
4 / When preparing tender documentation, TIDA analyses links to specific
policies that I provided them with in the project description, experienced
Wikipedia editors' comments and other available experience
5 / I don't take part in either preparation or the tendering process to
avoid COI as both initiator and an acquaintance of various parties, and my
role of impartial communicator (3),
6 / As an interested party (citizen of Kazan, Tatarstan & Russia, as well
as project initiator who wants to see this experience then scale globally),
I am ready and willing to consult all parties, and open to engaging at the
later stages (article analysis, improvement, translation, Wikidata Elements
or Commons categorization etc.)
MOVING FORWARD
* I was informed that Russian Government Procurement Law does NOT allow
setting too stringent qualifications for bidding participants, so the
process will only set content qualification criteria. Keeping in mind how
these can be interpreted by those without any prior Wikipedia experience
(let's assume some copyrighting or PR company is willing to bid), I asked
our partner to be ready that they might end up with a contractor who is
unable to prepare content in line with target language Wikipedia
communities' policies, practices and other expectations. TIDA seems to
understand this and is willing to mitigate this possible outcome by
breaking the process into stages, for necessary improvements to be done at
later stages. I also calmed them down that whoever wins the bidding is
better be ready to play well, as this case will most likely end up at the
radar of Russia's and international Mass media, might be investigated and
then forever described in Wikipedia.
* I will post the link to this on English-speaking Facebook groups and
Telegram channels of Wikimedia movement
* I will inform respective Wikipedia language section's Village pumps once
procurement contract details are out (Russian and Tatar for certain,
possibly English).
* Meanwhile, I start hearing similar interest from Tatarstan's Tourism
Board (to be continued)
-------- Пересылаемое сообщение --------
30.05.2020, 15:26, "Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin" <frhd(a)yandex.com
:
Dear Richard and WREN colleagues,
I have good news to share and a request for comment - one of my
counterparts in Tatarstan receiving regional department of finance approval
for funding Wikipedia related services via tendering state procurement
contract in line with Russian regulations.
Details below, grateful for any advice.
regards,
farhad
--
Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин
http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
We will start with them by making sure that
https://w.wiki/SBF list
entries (plus a few more Wikidata entities to be created) are equally well
developed and sourced in Tatar, Russian and English, after which the intent
is to venture into other domains (images, data, etc.) and 8 more languages
of initial interest to them.
I'm now thinking on how to structure all this in a way that our first
engagement with the regional government entity is seen as a mutual success,
as this is an important step to get backing of Tatarstan President
necessary to have local GLAMs and Education entities more willing to
consider cooperation with Wikimedia.
In parallel, we are discussing a WiR position for training their staff,
organizing events for their local and foreign partners, and moving their
investments portal to CC-BY.
I seem to be the only experienced local Wikimedian to be both active
internationally and proficient in regional language (Tatar), so I am still
undecided if I should concentrate on getting local partners happy or,
instead of doing the raw writing and sourcing work they are ready to pay
for, I better concentrate on making sure global Wikimedia community is
comfortable with this activity. I understand that myself and other
Wikimedia Russia members serving as eyes to assure material meets Wikipedia
and wider Wikimedia principles and policies would be good, with
international oversight from outside of Russia likely being an important
component as well.
On top of this, I am also talking to Tourism, Youth Affairs and Culture
departments, as well as Office of the President for their Tatar language
related initiatives, was recently invited to join an Advisory Committee on
Preservation and Development of Tatar language.
-------- Конец пересылаемого сообщения --------
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