QW2023/Call for proposals

Call for Proposals

• #2 submission round until March 19, 2023.

What are we looking for?

We are seeking proposals for presentations, panel discussions, capacity building workshops, strategy meetings, and team building sessions that would touch on the following themes:

• Questioning, challenging, and disrupting cisnormativity, heteronormativity, and / or homonormativity in Wikimedia projects;
• Making Wikimedia spaces welcoming, safe and receptive to everyone’s input through continuous education and systemic improvement;
• Building partnerships, community engagement, and outreach to Queer communities underrepresented in the Wikimedia movement;
• Promoting visibility of Queer content creators and Queer Wikimedia content;
• Empowering Queer individuals to become Wikimedia contributors and leaders;
• Linguistic, cultural, generational, ethnic, and geographical diversity among Queer Wikimedians and Queer Wikimedia content;
• Emerging Queer Wikimedia projects (ex: Queer places in WikiVoyage, Wiktionary, etc);
• Collaborations between Wikimedians and libraries, archives, museums, and community/academic/government projects;
• Wikidata and challenges of naming and categorizing Queer people, cultures, and identities;
• The role of the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group;
• Safety, bullying, and harassment;
• Peer reviewed research on any of the above topics.

While this conference is named “Queering Wikipedia”, it is intentionally inclusive of all Wikimedia projects (Wikipedias, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, etc.)

Deadline for second round of proposals is March 19, 2023.

Please scroll down for conference program descriptions and application for proposals.

Who should submit proposals?

We invite all Wikimedians, activists, scholars, educators, community organizers, students, librarians, archivists, record keepers, knowledge keepers, critical theorists, computer scientists, data specialists, and creative individuals to network and build partnerships to consider how Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects may lift up or diminish Queer populations and our cultural, historic, and scientific output.

We invite work that offers critical reflections on access to Queer information, queering Open Culture, decentering the voices of privileged groups and empowering the marginalized.

We are interested in work that suggests critical interventions into tools and traditions that oppress Queer people and Queer information within Wikimedia projects.

We seek contributions that will describe or construct practices that challenge entrenched ideas about Wikipedia, the Queer community, the types of Queer information resources sought after around the world, cisgender heterosexual involvement in Queer Wikimedia projects and engagement, and the roles of Queer Wikimedians in regard to supporting Queer visibility, civil rights, and activism.

We are particularly interested in hearing perspectives on Queering Wikipedia from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC); the disabled; People Living With HIV; sex workers; refugees; addicts in recovery; the formerly incarcerated; and, people from non-English speaking countries outside Western Europe.

Deadline for second round of proposals is March 19, 2023.

Please scroll down for conference program descriptions and application for proposals.

Conference program session types

Traditional presentation

20 minutes (approx 15 min for presentation and 5 min for Q&A and Discussion). Please include a conference abstract (and after acceptance, a paper and/or slides for the presentation to share on the conference Wiki).

Panel discussion

45 minutes (total 1 hour includes time for Q&A and Discussion). Propose a moderated 3-4 person panel where presenters engage in a live conversation with each other and the QW23 attendees on a topic or common theme. Proposal must include a moderator and 3 example questions that may be discussed.

Lightning Talks

7–10 minutes. Briefly share your topic, program, tool, or initiative. Format examples are

• Traditional timing: 7 slides, one per minute (on average, it takes one minute to present a slide).
• PechaKucha style: 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide (see www.pechakucha.com for more information on how to develop a great PechaKucha presentation).

Poster presentation

Casual 7–10 min. presentation and discussion with visual materials. Visual materials will be shared on the wiki. Please include an abstract and copy of the poster to share on wiki. Ideally formatted to A1 (59.4 × 84.1 cm / 16.53 × 23.39 in), and submitted, preferably, as an accessible PDF.

Workshops / Edit-a-thons

• Successful workshop proposals will blend lecture and active learning techniques. Brief instruction, skill share and/or guidance for a hands-on activity, development of a new practice, learning how to use an emerging Wikimedia tool, or editing / creating Wikipedia content. (Workshop example: finding and choosing photos that express diversities.)
• Edit-a-thons should include a learning activity / experience about terminology, identities, best practices within and/or for LGBTQ+ Wikipedia initiatives. (Edit-a-thon example: Top 100 LGBTQ+ articles significant to LGBTQ+ histories or rights to be available in as many languages as possible)

Community Building and Engagement, Strategizing Meetings, or Roundtables

90 minutes. Facilitated discussion on how to engage local, regional, national, and/or global communities in LGBTQ+ Wikimedia efforts. This time will be dedicated to meeting people with common goals and drafting a strategic plan for the LGBTQ+ community engagement effort.

UnConference (self organized, flexible and improvised space)

There will be a time set aside during the conference for an “UnConference”, a dedicated space for groups of people to discuss topics or issues not (sufficiently) addressed by the conference programming. This is a great opportunity for people to share emergent ideas or challenges, and to seek out more information, build new community alliances, and/or work on solutions to challenges.

Creative Works

Works that present and/or embody creative interpretation of the theme of the conference. These can take many forms, including: an artistic-creative work in digital and/or analogue media, UI prototypes, creative and critical collaboration (performative) practices that reflect on inclusion, diversity, emancipation, discrimination and similar phenomena from the realities or visions of LGBTQ+ Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects…Limitations of work presented would be primarily related to topical relevance, urgency, resources and capacities to display it space (non-gallery) and time (extended weekend) of the Conference.

Preparing your proposal

In order to ensure a strong application, please check the questions we ask as you prepare your submission. There is an example proposal below.

• Primary contact (email if submitting through form, username if submitting through meta. We don’t need both, but we need some way to contact you)
• The session type for your proposal.
• Title of proposal.
• Short description of the presentation or proposal. What do you intend to present, discuss, and/or teach?
  • (This can be a proposal abstract. It needs enough description that evaluators know what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to do it.)
• What will the participants learn from this presentation?
  • (If you’re stuck answering this question, try filling in the blank: Once my session is finished, viewers/participants will be able to ___________)
• Does your proposal address challenges/solutions for specific at-risk populations or underrepresented communities? If so, describe how?
• The focus of the proposal in terms of Wikimedia strategy goals (Community growth, Policy and safety, Academic content growth, Collaborations and partnerships, Capacity-building)
• Language of the presentation
• Is this presentation for specific populations? If yes, who do you want to attend your program?
• Do you need accommodations as a presenter?

When writing your proposal, we encourage you to do the following:

• Describe how your proposal addresses one or more of the conference themes as described above.
• Explain what you want people to learn from what you will show, teach, or demonstrate;
• State clearly how the proposal addresses Wikimedia strategy goals (Community growth, Policy and safety, Academic content growth, Collaborations and partnerships, Capacities building, Other_____)

Example:

• Short description of the presentation or proposal. What do you intend to present, discuss, and/or teach?
  • In my presentation, I will show how a small group of lesbian Wikipedians of color have had success in building a large multicultural Wikipedia community in [city X]. During this presentation, I will share the strategies that this group has used to engage the broader community in Wikimedia engagement, how they partnered with their library for support, and how they teach edit-a-thon participants in [city X] how to improve and create LGBTQ+ content in Wikipedia.
• What can the participants learn from this presentation?
  (If you’re stuck answering this question, try filling in the blank: Once my session is finished, viewers/participants will be able to [describe strategies to, list ways to, identify methods to overcome barriers for …])
  • Participants can learn the following: strategies to build Wikipedia community in places where LGBTQ+ safety or visibility may be a challenge; strategies to engage non-LGBTQ+ populations in improving or creating LGBTQ+ content; How to involve the public library in Wikipedia engagement; Teaching diverse audiences how to edit Wikipedia.

Remember your audience and the main theme of the conference. What you intend to show, teach, or demonstrate should be grounded in LGBTQ+ existence for an international, multilingual, multicultural LGBTQ+ audience. If you are an LGBTQ+ academic scholar, how can your knowledge be transferred and/or applied to LGBTQ+ Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, etc) or user groups?

While English and Spanish will be the primary languages used for the conference, with as much simultaneous translation as possible, not everyone reviewing your proposal will be a native speaker of English/Spanish or an academic. Please use vocabulary that would be accessible to a broad audience.

Invited presenters will be asked if their session may be recorded.

Application form

Update: Conference call for proposals is closed. You are welcome to propose for unConference.

Session proposals for unConference part (just short 5min lightning talks) can be submitted publicly by following these steps:

• Step 1: Insert the title of your proposal in the text entry box below.
• Step 2: Click on the "Add new proposal" button to create a new application form.
• Step 3: Fill in the application form and save the page to submit your proposal.

Please make sure that you have logged in before submitting your proposal.