Grants:TPS/KrakatoaKatie/Wikimania/2017/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2017!

Participant

KrakatoaKatie

enwp

Outcome

• I attended several harassment and safe space breakout sessions that relate to the Safe space policy and creating new tools to combat harassment. As an Oversighter, I'm keenly aware of the problems faced by many Wikipedians. It was inspiring to meet Funcrunch and to see several other trans Wikipedians and learn about their experiences with harassment. It's a definite help in my job as a functionary. I'm eager to see the first rollout of the new tools.
• I attended a breakout about paid editing, and the problems we're having with undisclosed paid editing rings. We discussed the use and futility of using CheckUser in these situations, and how to recognize a UPE ring.
• The legal team's presentation about the current litigation being handled by the WMF and a discussion of their transparency report was very helpful. The block on Wikipedia by the Turkish government is a real problem, as we have many established Turkish editors who must now use VPNs and webhosts to edit; this directly affects me as a CheckUser. BLP issues were also addressed, as Oversighters get requests and legal threats about BLP issues on a regular basis.

Connections

This was my first Wikimania, and I was really surprised to see the number of familiar names to which I can now put faces! I met many enwp administrators and functionaries, as well as lots of other editors with whom I have interacted over the last eleven years. As a direct result of meeting Sphilbrick and Keegan, I'm now a real OTRS member!

I was surprised there wasn't a breakout or meeting for enwp administrators, because I feel such an event would be very helpful for networking and general discussion. If I attend another Wikimania, it's very likely that I will conduct such an event (or host a party).

Anything else

Thank you so much for the opportunity to attend. I may not have a lot to say here, but the experience was immensely useful, and I hope to be able to attend another Wikimania. :-)