QW2022/Proposal

Grant status: "Funded"; Conference planning: in progress This proposal document provides detailed explanation of the purpose and goals of Queering Wikipedia 2022, background on how the budget has been estimated, the structural design of the mainly virtual global conference, and how it will be governed.

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• This proposal has been approved as part of the 2022 'round 2' schedule.

Conference proposal

Purpose and vision

Scope

The Queering Wikipedia conference is focused on movement growth and innovation and provides 3 conference days to bring together our global LGBTQ+ community in a variety of events to discuss ideas and share opportunities to improve open knowledge about and for LGBTQ+ content within the Wikimedia movement. This is both a thematic event promoting reliable open knowledge about and for all LGBTQ+ communities and a growth event focusing on capabilities, capacity, diversity and the representative authority of the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group for all Wikimedia language projects.

The conference supports our volunteers and allies to work together to identify and build new capacities in our network, better to support each other and educate everyone in our Wikimedia family on best practices when sharing LGBTQ+ culture, history, and to ensure a welcoming environment for volunteers and readers on all our projects.

This proposal under the Wikimedia Foundation Conference & Event Fund, sets out the budget estimates, summary schedule and constraints for running a global QW2022 conference with oversight by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group.

A related grant under the Rapid Fund may be raised to establish, create or test tools, methods and to develop technical solutions in advance of a project manager being appointed and to create a recommended template for local (node) events and precursor events.

This proposal is possible thanks to reviews and discussions at Queering Wikipedia working days 2021 and feedback within the WMLGBT+ user group meetings and channels including a devoted QW2022 Telegram group with 28 members.

Strategic goals and deliverables

1. To deliver a conference for LGBTQ+ groups, allies and individuals to share and document experiences using Wikimedia projects
2. To recognize and document LGBTQ+ gaps, case studies and needs across Wikimedia projects
3. To expand and consolidate the Wikimedia LGBTQ+ network of stakeholders
4. To prioritise improvements for LGBTQ+ inclusion and safe access on Wikimedia projects especially for emerging communities
5. To develop the capacity of the Wikimedia LGBT+ user group and networks
6. To build a more integrated Wikimedia LGBT+ social community through discussion and fun
7. To experience using a global, multilingual and mixed virtual/physical safe environment

Important key details

Proposed dates	3 days in October 2022
Proposed location	Global online plus support for local self-organized nodes
Number of participants	300+ public event participants, 50+ in closed events for wikimedian development, knowledge sharing and networking
Event page	QW2022 and https://wmlgbt.org — conference on-wiki and public landing pages
Primary contact persons	Oversight by WMLGBT+ governance team, financial procedures Wikimedia Austria CEO. Once established the official conference team will appoint a single point of contact for operational reporting.

History and legacy

The WMLGBT+ user group first started planning a global LGBT+ conference in 2019. By Spring 2020 this had become better defined and developed to the stage where a public call for proposals was published and funding was in place. The conference as planned had to be cancelled once the Covid19 pandemic made all physical conferences impossible. A different event, Queering Wikipedia Working Days, focused on community building and capacity building for the user group was successfully proposed, and this then ran in April 2021.

This legacy gives the benefit to the proposed QW2022 conference that there is already a set of registration requests and a list of potential supporters and presenters that were interested in 2020 and should be contacted again once the grant is approved for QW2022. Additional benefits are that the QW Working Days event had professional facilitation and translation services contracted out, in order to reduce the burden on our volunteers. This gives an excellent benchmark for QW2022 in terms of expected costs and how to assess the quality of services required.

Timeline and project management

The planning charts below have a lot of detail and if you are having difficulty reading them on meta, you can click on the image to view on Wikimedia Commons where there are more options for zooming, scrolling or downloading the image to your device.

Task chart

Project plan

Timeline

Events in brackets have known external risks and require contingency planning.

• 2021-12 proposal published on meta for comment
• 2022-01 proposal public feedback, sponsorship and WMLGBT+ and selected WMF Affiliate partner support
• 2021-02-07 submission deadline
• 2022-02/03 respond to interim WMF feedback and questions
• 2022-03 proposal for tools and integrated hosting to support QW2022
• 2022-04-01 expected date for WMF grant approval
• 2022-04 establish conference team
• 2022-05 recruitment open for project manager
• 2022-06 appoint a project manager
• 2022-06 invites for speakers and content
• 2022-06 agree with partner nodes and agreements with proposed volunteer-run nodes
• 2022-07 conference team and administration training
• 2022-07 survey expected participants for additional needs
• 2022-07 offer contracts for translation, facilitation and technical support
• (2022-08) publish conference programme
• (2022-09) registration opens
• (2022-10) conference dates, total 3 days, but do not need to run consecutively
• (2022-11) conference publications and report
• (2022-12) conference budget closes

The specific conference dates and related contracts for services will be dependent on the ongoing changes to international pandemic restrictions. The processes for oversight and good management of changes to schedule and dependencies are recognized as critical to a successful conference in this challenging international environment. Despite these challenges, a key goal of the conference is to ensure no groups are excluded due to these external changes.

A key part of this proposal is to ensure a project manager is employed to create, agree and deploy project management plans to deliver a successful good quality conference and ensure that volunteer time is used well, without risking volunteer burn-out or stress. The project manager will aid the conference team in developing the detailed conference plan, including detailing the necessary and sufficient work products such as documents, website pages, training materials, procurement contracts, along with time and task management so that progress and risks are reliably reported.

Budget

Line	Budget	Description
Project management	$30,000	Contract project management
Participant expenses	$18,750	Low carbon travel, accommodation
Presenter expenses	$4,800	Low carbon travel, accommodation
Management team	$4,000	Expenses and honoraria
Translations	$10,000	Contract, up to 10 languages
Facilitators	$6,000	Contract
Node costs	$10,000	Venue charges, technology costs
Communications	$3,500	Publications, honoraria
Awards, competition prizes	$2,400	Products, branded merchandise
Total	$89,450

Project management

The project management budget is primarily to cover costs of contracting project management services to support the conference development, reporting and deployment. The smaller costs of necessary project management support, such as technical authors and administration will be considered under this budget line, including an estimated 10% allocated to financial management and reporting.

The conference team will manage the recruitment process and ensure the project manager is supported with unambiguous and timely lines of communication to refine needs, buy-off work products and provide community feedback on risk management and key decision making.

The project manager is envisioned to be a part-time contractor, with some flexibility negotiated in advance to allow for the risk of necessary schedule changes.

Participants

Participants may claim support for access needs, local travel to "node" events, and accommodation if allowed within WMF restrictions. Access may include childcare during the event and reasonable food expenses.

Presenters

Presenters may require support similar to that considered for participants, but there may be costs needed to ensure high-quality connection for videoconferencing or audio interviews. There may be associated 'office' expenses such as travel and expenses to prepare materials or necessary IT support. The conference team will determine if honoraria are a suitable way of simplifying out of pocket expenses and to increase the commitment for timely delivery from presenters.

Conference management team

The management team will be a group of 6 to 10 active volunteers or advisors, ensuring that the conference plan gets delivered, the global Wikimedia LGBTQ+ community of volunteers are actively involved throughout and best use is made of the conference budget. The conference team may claim reasonable expenses and/or an honorarium to recognize their out of pocket expenses and work needed to deliver the conference goals.

Translators and Facilitators

Estimates for facilitation and translation are based on the successful contracts put out for open tender for Queering Wikipedia Working Days in 2021.

Both facilitation and translation procurement will need to be reviewed at least 3 months in advance of the conference, giving sufficient time for open tender and selection processes. Facilitators and translators will need to work together during the conference sessions where live audio translation channels are supported. The specific tools and options for live closed captions will also need testing well in advance, and experience with those tools or similar platforms may be critical for supplier selection.

The professional facilitation and translation may be supplemented by volunteers, for example assisting with on-wiki translation or formatting, or volunteer facilitation of user training, workshop sessions or community resolutions.

Nodes

"Nodes" are physical venues for volunteers to participate in the QW2022 global conference and can provide facilities such as high-speed broadband connection, good quality videoconferencing equipment to aid presenting to the conference or to enable active participation. The nodes may benefit from the support of a local partnering WMF Affiliate, or be organized to support any group of LGBTQ+ volunteers who wish to take part as an independent group or in countries with no recognized Affiliate.

The planned budget is expected to be sufficient for 4 or 5 nodes covering venue charges, equipment costs, licensing and additional costs from the management, selection and facilitation of the node. Further node costs may be covered by existing Affiliate event budgets, or require the support of small local rapid grants well in advance of the conference.

A potential benefit of the node design for the conference is that precursor events will be encouraged by the node team, such as editathons and use of good quality videoconferencing at the node to take part in conference development for volunteers that may have been otherwise excluded due to a lack of high-quality digital access.

Communications

The communications budget is likely to be managed by a sub-committee on behalf of the conference team. The budget includes associated costs of publications, advertising, awards and prizes and branded merchandise.

A communication strategy will be published to ensure clear expectations for how community notices, social media and the timely promotion of registration will be coordinated.

Audiences and scale

The conference programme will be designed to cater for widely different audiences throughout the event. Based on past most virtual events, such as the Queering Wikipedia Working Days in 2021, though a “core” group of volunteer Wikimedians will want to participate throughout the conference, a much larger group of people who are active in LGBTQ+ related projects, non-Wikimedia projects or are active on Wikimedia projects in aspects such as volunteer safety and project administration, will also benefit from taking part or wish to learn more about the needs and views of the LGBTQ+ volunteer community from presentations during the conference.

The conference programme will be designed with three different tracks to make it easier for content providers to target these varied needs:

A: Public presentations

• Published in 6 core languages with up to 6 more on request
• Live public access
• In addition to presentations with Q&A sessions, interview format will be encouraged for streaming and publication in podcast audio format, reducing the presumption that audiences have the technology and bandwidth to join live video broadcasts
• Public training and introductory sessions for those new to making Wikimedia project contributions, and existing Wikimedians wanting to understand or question potential LGBTQ+ best practices

B: Wikimedia project improvement

• Workshops and non-public training sessions
• Editathons
• Policy proposals

C: Wikimedia LGBTQ+ capacity and community building

• Evolving the WMLGBT+ user group
• Feedback and test sessions for community networks
• Networking and social events
• WMLGBT+ annual meeting, reports, resolutions for user group membership

For budget estimation the audiences for these three tracks are envisioned as:

A: 300: different viewing or participating members of the public likely to be members of the wider LGBTQ+ community and allies

B: 120: Wikimedia volunteers and open knowledge partners contributing to events and learning from them

C: 50: Wikimedia LGBTQ+ participants with interests in helping LGBTQ+ related initiatives or open knowledge

Community input

A LGBTQ+ community survey is open at QW2022/Survey, to encourage feedback on which issues, skills, projects and community building activities are a priority for the conference. This is based on the standard recommended grants engagement survey.

The standard Grants template requires us to use the survey to complete the table below. Since we cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important, so each row needs to be ranked as high, medium or low, then answer the subsequent questions

Description	Priority	Details
Strategic discussions: What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?	High	Meta issues Queerphobia on wiki projects Collaboration around queer vocabularies UG strategy Safely engaging new users Sustainable support structures Becoming more representative Content Identifying missing content The “Unreliable Sources” problem
Capacity development: Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?	Medium	Wikidata Sustainable support structures Fundraising Communication and community-building
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?	Medium	How to address abuse and harassment Engaging new editors User-group admin processes
Community building: Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?	Medium	Meeting people with similar identities Getting people together from similar regions

Survey analysis

1. How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?

• The survey was promoted on the English Wikipedia LGBT studies noticeboard, the Wikimedia Commons village pump, WMLGBT+ user group telegram discussions (130 members), the LGBT Wikimedia mailing list and the WMLGBT+ Twitter account (37,000 followers).
• There were 18 responses to the survey.

2. Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 3 goals?

• Queerphobia on wiki projects — how to address it and the lack of functioning on-wiki processes to escalate abuse and harassment
• Collaboration around queer vocabularies — we don't have a good handle on it, and there is potential for widespread harm if we don't establish community guidelines and best practices quickly
• Countering systemic bias with underrepresented biographies — the “Unreliable Sources” problem

3. Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?

• Plan strategies for addressing queerphobia in the absence of functioning on-wiki support and escalation structures
• Learn more about and discuss taxonomy and controlled vocabularies — both for "queer vocabularies" above and increased use of Wikidata
• Gather best practice from other LGBTQ+ groups and other groups working on underrepresented subject areas

Requirements and constraints

Languages

The main language for the conference is English, as this remains the default for most Wikimedia projects working internationally. However, the WMLGBT+ user group has been global and multilingual since inception with the majority of participants identifying their first language as not English.

Events during the conference that include active volunteer participation, such as workshops, shall have a parallel translation in most languages requested. Based on past WMLGBT+ multilingual events this will include Spanish, but other languages shall be catered for depending on the number of user requests in the months before the conference.

Conference publications, including subtitled videos and slides from presentations, shall be made available in a minimum of:

• English
• Standard Written Chinese
• Spanish
• French
• Modern Standard Arabic
• Russian

Additional languages to be planned for and added on-demand will be:

• Japanese
• German
• Polish
• Turkish
• Croatian
• Portuguese

Where the publications can be prepared in advance of the conference they shall be translated and published alongside the event. For budgeting purposes, it is presumed that live audio translation during group workshops and presentations will be professional contract services. Conference documents, like registration web pages, workshop notes and minutes of meetings which are not time-limited are likely to depend on volunteer translators with planned time-critical documents either going to contract translators or offering volunteers an honorarium towards out of pocket expenses for a planned translation role in the conference team.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

Registration will be available early for groups and participants with special needs, this will enable assessment of the support needed, including the potential for small grants to assist with access, booking services and travel, and training in tools and services to enable secure and safe participation.

"Nodes", both Affiliate and volunteer-run, shall be assessed using an accessibility checklist, encouraging adapting or changing venue if necessary. The assessment will include physical venue and supporting services such as food, public transport and recommended accommodation.

Target audiences may have very different backgrounds, inputs and needs. These varied needs must be compensated for by allowing for the extra time needed during events or additional support offered flexibly. Needs shall be assessed early in conference design as well as during registration. Inclusion includes ensuring there is capacity and support for:

• Technical support, such as ensuring presentations can be accessed in subtitled formats, advanced access to presentation materials and personal technical support during interactive events.

• Safety must be planned for the special needs of the international LGBTQ+ community. Some participants will require anonymous access to maintain their safety and could be at risk of real-world harm if outed. In addition to offering events where anonymous participation is encouraged, the conference management shall have training in good practices for maintaining a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and provide processes for prompt handling of complaints and ensuring that publications and public access are managed so as not to compromise that safety.

• Technology inclusion shall be planned for so that there is a spread of events available for the most technically excluded, such as access via a low-bandwidth mobile device only, or temporary access at public WiFi services such as libraries or cafes. In addition, the conference design is reliant on remote nodes and potential participants will be encouraged to ask for support to set up a local node where several participants can access the conference at high quality and in real time to participate in events. For those with limited mobile access, the costs of upgrading their bandwidth access will be considered a reasonable participation expense.

• Diversity will be measured and a visible feature of the conference, starting with representation in the conference team, giving priority to marginalized groups being represented in presentations and actively seeking participation from non-white, non-cis and non-English-speaking groups.

• Inclusion for those with personal commitments or constraints on availability is partially covered by conference design, for example, making it possible to follow events while doing household tasks, arranging presentation and training schedules to be global time-zone friendly, and also by encouraging participant expenses to incorporate reasonable costs of childcare or eldercare or the costs of takeaway food.

Pandemic risks and travel

The budget and conference plan have made no presumption that international travel would be permitted either by pandemic related legal restrictions or by the Wikimedia Foundation in line with Covid-19 Eligibility criteria. By design, the conference can meet the overall goals with no dependency on international travel. International travel may only be allowed and incorporated if all legal international travel restrictions are removed before the conference, the Wikimedia Foundation has changed the grant restriction, and travel poses no disproportionate risk to participants.

There is a presumption that local node events may include overnight accommodation by October 2022. This is to be managed as a risk as it presumes that the Wikimedia Foundation will remove the restriction against overnight accommodation or agree on a waiver in order to address the need for access and support for technologically disenfranchised minority groups. A contingency plan which limits nodes to a 1-day event shall be included in the node and related QW2022 event agreements.

Friendly space policy

Registration shall include the requirement for participants to agree to a specific LGBTQ+ friendly space policy, published at QW2022/Friendly Space, and the Universal Code of Conduct. Active participants shall be vetted at registration by a devoted safe space team. Processes and policies relating to access and friendly space will have oversight by the conference team and be published on meta.

Participants shall be welcome to participate anonymously and encouraged to understand the benefits of staying anonymous, however, the safe space team may require confidential access to Wikimedia identity before access to non-public conference meetings and/or legal identity for participants with needs that include financial support.

The QW2022 safe space team will be available throughout the conference and be able to respond rapidly to complaints or incidents, supported by pre-agreed procedures and authority. Significant incidents may be escalated using WMF and WMF Affiliate processes using published complaints procedures.

Carbon footprint

The conference design shall gear its choices to reward greener options for travel, products and services. For example, participants travelling to a node event will be encouraged to choose trains and buses over air travel, and public transport over driving their own car.

By taking the opportunity that pandemic travel restrictions have created by testing and experimenting with virtual networking and engagement, it is envisioned that the majority of participants in 2022 will remain virtual, having a minimal environmental impact.

Additional costs to enable the greener choices will be allowed, for example, an extra night’s accommodation needed after taking a longer but greener travel option. The conference team will publish a carbon footprint report to summarize learning points and to celebrate ways that planning these choices affected the footprint of the conference.

Organisation

Organisation chart

A key learning of QW Working Days in 2021 was to establish a WMLGBT+ governance committee to provide an authoritative way to represent the user group for financial decisions and assessment of other governance issues. The QW2022 conference will be owned and organized by the QW2022 conference team, with the project manager as part of that team reporting progress, helping the team to manage the schedule and risks, and in turn, the conference team reporting to the governance committee for financial oversight and confirmation of best practice. The conference team will be responsible for reporting progress and outcomes to the WMF grants team, including early alerts for necessary changes to the way the budget is spent or the primary schedule.

The WMLGBT+ user group has a monthly meeting, where the specific point of contact for the conference team will have a regular time on the agenda to update progress, issues and decisions. The WMLGBT+ governance committee meets every 2 to 3 months but may have extraordinary meetings to assess urgent governance issues. As part of oversight, the governance committee will have access to all reports and documents unless there are agreed privacy reasons to limit access, such as registration records and as part of the whistle-blowing process anyone can contact the governance committee in confidence to report a governance-related concern. The governance committee will review any financial risk with their WMF point of contact, if not already managed by the conference team. The conference team and project manager will agree on a meeting schedule with the Wikimedia grants representative to respond to questions they may have, and report progress and gain feedback on risks or changes.

Partnerships

Financial management will be factored out to Wikimedia Austria (WMAT), building on an existing productive relationship and providing trusted processes for agreeing on contracts for services and paying expenses. Further Wikimedia Affiliates may be approached for factoring out services such as paying expenses for conference nodes in their country and adding good governance for the selection of quality locations or local services for the nodes.

Agreements to include node teams as part of the conference, recognition of Affiliate support, or agreements with external partners such as those offering to participate in conference content will be selected by the conference team and reviewed for oversight with the governance committee before partnerships are made part of any publication. Changes in responsibility for financial reporting and oversight will be reviewed with the Wikimedia grants contact before being finalised.

Conference team

The current proposal team is:

• Darwin
• John Samuel
• Zblace
• OwenBlacker
• Kaizenify

In addition, there is a much wider group of interested volunteers that participate in the QW Planning group.

The Conference team will be officially established soon after grant award with a starting point being the volunteers having been part of earlier workshops and development of the conference proposal, and then reformed after canvassing for greater diversity in language representation and different LGBTQ+ needs for emerging communities. In order to find candidates, there will be a campaign of outreach across Wikimedia project LGBTQ+ related noticeboards, Wikimedia project village pumps, the main Wikimedia email list and the popular WMLGBT+ Twitter account.

Glossary

• LGBT+ or LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and others. There is no single internationally recognized term or acronym that standardly refers to the LGBTQ+ community; however, queer community and LGBTQIA community are considered reasonable equivalents. The stand-alone acronym LGB is discouraged as it is often read to be deliberately trans exclusionary.

• WMLGBT+ is an acronym for Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, a recognized Wikimedia Foundation Affiliate.

• Telegram is a social media application, a popular alternative to Facebook with the benefit that user data is not being passed to third parties.

Discussion

For questions and detailed discussion about this draft grant proposal, or to discuss potential "node" locations, please use this page's Talk: page. Anonymous support, questions or feedback are welcome too, please email Special:EmailUser/QW22 if you would like to have these posted for you to protect your privacy. Please read QW2022/Volunteer if you are interested in joining the QW2022 team or could support the conference in other ways!

You are welcome to have a friendly chat with LGBTQ+ volunteers on Telegram or use other methods to talk with the user group, see Wikimedia LGBT+/Communications.

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

• Endorsements have been moved to Grants:Conference/QW22/QW2022#Endorsements.