Nordic Wikimedia/Berlin April 2017 Meet-up at Wikimedia Conference

Wikimedia Conference 2017 dinner break Nordic meetup
Nordic meet-up WMCON 2017
Berlin, Hotel Mercure Tempelhof, Restaurant
1600 pm till 1700pm
Participants
Anass Sedrati (Wikimedia MA), Finn Nielsen (Wikimedia Danmark), Hogne Neteland (Wikimedia Norge), Marta Peebo (Wikimedia Eesti), Sara Mörtsell (Wikimedia Sverige), Heikki Kastemaa (Wikimedia Suomi), Mārtiņš Bruņenieks (Wikimedians of Latvia), Anna Troberg (Wikimedia Sverige), Jaakko (Wikimedia Suomi), John Andersson (Wikimedia Sverige), Johan Jönsson (WMF), Bengt Oberger (Wikimedia Sverige), Mattias Blomgren (WIkimedia Sverige), Simon Studinski (Wikimedia Danmark)
Facilitator, note-taker
Kaarel Vaidla (Wikimedia Eesti)

Agenda

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  1. How to move forward and upcoming events
  2. Meeting-up
  3. Communication plan
  4. Project ideas

Discussion

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1) How to move forward and upcoming events

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Kaarel: General introduction. Long discussions related to Nordic collaboration. Lots of talk, but less action, so we need to move forward.
Anna: It would be good to have a concrete project.
Hogne: Actually 2 options: 1) project to work together, 2) have a meet-up in Nordic region. It is possible that it is easier to have a meet-up and then the project, but It can be other way around.
Anna: We can discuss upcoming meetings-conferences. In Sweden Diversity Conference in the end of 2017, probably GLAMwiki Conference next year and Wikimania in 2019, if lucky. We need to discuss these things, as to have collaboration around these things.
Hogne: Tell a bit more about Diversity and GLAMwiki conference.
Anna: Diversity conference has taken place before in Berlin and in Washington. Around 80 people and discussions around the theme of diversity.
Sara: It will take place last weekend of October. There is general application online, but not yet specific application for the conference.
John; Deadline for application is May 2017.
John There will be GLAMcamp, next year (2018) in autumn, which we can design the way we like. Will be used as a way forward for exchange and learnings, working with tools, batch uploading, basically hands-on practical workshop and presentations around that. Idea is to forward global GLAM cooperations based on the knowledge gained in existing partnerships.
Sara: How big, how many participants? John: 60-100. It would be good to get more people involved from developing nations to give them tools and strategies to get started.
Hogne: What is the plan for involvement?
Sara: We can collaborate in preparations. It has already been discussed with Astrid from Norway for diversity conference. Nordic meet-up could be a separate thing.
Anna: But it can be also connected to the conference.
Kaarel: What else is coming up? There is something in Estonia.
Marta: There will be conference 1st and 2nd of November in Tartu, Estonia for about 200 people. Theme is open data, open knowledge. How to use open data platforms in an academic sense, e.g. people doing their thesis - how to contribute open source to Wikimedia or use that in the process. There will be GLAM representatives, whom we would like to empower to contribute to these platforms. Third track may be verification of facts, which is political, but currently important and relevant. Everyone is invited to participate.
Kaarel: It is also one of 8 official events of Estonian Presidency of the Council of European Commission.
Voices: What does it mean for the conference?
Marta: There is support from European Commission team to communicate and draw media attention.
Finn: In Denmark there will be workshop Sharing is Caring for GLAM collaboration. Seminar on collaboration in GLAM sector that attracts people from outside. There is GLAM person and National Gallery (also participated on d:Wikidata:Europeana_Art_History_Challenge\Europeana 280 last year). There will be also 1-day workshop ? edit-a-thon in Århus after the conference. Denmark, workshop caring is sharing. GLAM person and national gallery in Denmark, also involved in Europeana 280. In Aarhus. 1-day workshop, edit-a-thon. The day before there is real conference. Appendix meeting in Denmark 20th and 21st of November.

2) Meeting-up

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Sara; It is possible to have Nordic meet-up. The question is how big to we want it to be? 20 people is easy to fix, 50 people is a much bigger thing.
Hogne: There are 20 people already here in Berlin. Probably there would be more people. Probably we should choose easy access Nordic city. Stockholm seems good. However, we need more planning and decide what this event will be about and what will be agenda.
Anna: It is related to question of how big it should be and then we can discuss how to fit in the work related to meet-up in our schedules. We need time and during the Summer times there isn’t any.
Jokes: Agenda should be world domination and we need German efficiency and Norwegian money.
Hogne: We want to learn a lot from Sweden, so it could be best practice conference, i.e. what is working? How can we help each other? etc.
Marta: Estonian focus is on education, so we want to learn about that. There also seems to be a wider growing interest in education.
Bengt: Possible topic would be Freedom of Panorama, which could be an issue. There is a possibility for Dimi to join from Brussels and have a meeting around that. Copyright is based on EU laws and so there are same problems in other countries. We would have to synchronize our activities and agenda on that anyway.
John: Practical issue - the Diversity Conference (and usually other conferences) are on week-ends and if the Nordic Meetup would be in connection the Diversity Conference it would have to take place on the weekdays before. Is it possible to come on workdays for Nordic Wikimedians? Probably it is quite difficult.
Heikki: it is really difficult for Wikimedia Suomi people.
Hogne: It is realistic for paid staff, as to volunteers it is much easier on week-end.
Bengt: Is it alright to open it up for public meeting?
Anna: It can be 2-day event, one day open, other closed working day.
Tanel: We have done it with Finno-Ugric conference. Part of it open to people outside Wikipedia (GLAM, education, minority languages people). It is good for converting people.
Kaarel: It has not been too effective for Finno-Ugric seminars, but there is potential in that. Different locations with different possibilities. In Sweden it would be possible to work on already established networks, in Latvia it would be a good chance to start building the network.
Kaarel: Summary - 2-day event for about 20 people, possibly with open day'. Who will work on this?
Hogne: We need employees to work on this, but it has to fit their schedules.
John: It can also be an informal event first time. We do not have to make it too structured right away. In that way it is easier to organize. Currently it is not a part of the planning for this year and next year it can be something more, because it will already be in our annual plans.
Kaarel: This is also how CEE has evolved. Task force?
Hogne: From Norway probably Jon-Harald, but he is not here. It would make sense to have some time to discuss it locally.
Action item: Every country will designate 1 person to work in meet-up discussions and planning by April 15th 2017.

3) Communication plan

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Mārtiņš: We need a clear channel for communication.
John: There is the Nordic e-mail list, it is called Wikimedia Northern Europe mailing list.
Anna: At the moment it is inactive.
John: So everyone, sign up to that mailing list!
Kaarel: Should we also have a meta page?
Simon: There is already a meta page, but it is also quite inactive.
Anna: What should be the name of this collaborative? Nordic or Baltic? It has to be something that is inviting.
John: That is why it is currently Northern European. We need to think of something.
Kaarel: We need people to take ownership of continuous communication. Who wants to do what?
Anna: I can take care of communication, i.e. voluntell others.
Sara: I can connect education people and e-mail them and have a discussion about education exchange about the meeting.
Heikki: It would be a good idea to announce on mailing list when there is something going on. Let’s develop Inter-wiki exchange. For example it’s easy to send people from Stockholm to Helsinki and vice versa, we just have to know about things happening.
Kaarel: Do you mean monthly newsletter?
Voices: No, this would be bad idea. What we need is notification about things coming up in Nordic region.
Hogne: It would be also good to send info about blog posts also to the mailing list. Our communications teams can then work on this info and it is also a good way to keep everyone updated.
Kaarel: Also we can continue tradition to have meet-ups on every bigger conference like here. Just have to take care that there is someone organizing it.
Action items: Everyone will join mailing list. Anna will be overseeing continuous communication. Sara will reach out to education people. Everyone will post upcoming events and blog posts to mailing list. Have meet-ups on every bigger conference

4) Project ideas

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Mārtiņš: Collaboration with CEE region, participation on Europeana campaign 1914-1918. Later is a challenge for affiliates to create Wikimedia collaboration portfolios. Competition of affiliates in a friendly way.
Kaarel: This is already in activity plan of most Nordc affiliates, only Denmark seems missing.
Kaarel: Also education seems a wider topic we can work on.
Hogne: And 'Freedom of Panorama.
Kaarel: There are also 100 year anniversaries coming up in some of the countries (Finland, Estonia, Latvia). Probably we can do something about that?
Heikki: Yes. There is already a plan for international competition related to FInland 100. The idea is to have 100 qualified articles translated to any language at the end of this year.
Kaarel: This has potential to be joined with other anniversaries, perhaps have an editing period between Finnish and Estonian one.
Heikki: Good.