Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Reports/May Community Conversations Monthly Report

Overview

Recommendations

Implementation

Reports

FAQ

This is the May summary report of Community Conversations. We're glad you're here! ;)

This report was made primarily for Working Groups members to review the results of Community Conversations from May. It was published on Meta-Wiki due to transparency. "You" means Working Group members, and "I" means Community Engagement Specialist, Kelsi Stine-Rowe.

The format is a pilot - let's talk about what you like and what you don't like, and our May version can adapt.

Each of the tables below has the community feedback organized by Working Group theme. The content from the affiliates is presented to you in the raw form of the notes that have been submitted. The content from our language communities is presented in summary form with efforts not to use any analysis or interpretive lens.

We encourage you to write back to the communities- either in this document, or on your own. More context about the data, this report, and next steps are in the FAQ section. Enjoy!

FAQ

What is this? Why am I here?

This report is a pilot. It is our first experiment in what it looks like to take our diverse community and share it with the Working Groups in a way that is useful, somewhat structured, and unaltered. The intention is for summaries like this- or in a differently evolved format- to be put together at the end of every month and presented to Working Groups for their consideration when drafting recommendations.

What's with all these tables?

Each table in the document lists the feedback from affiliate groups and from within our project and language communities for the period of May, organized by Working Group. On the left most column, you can view the source of the information (affiliate/community), followed by information to contextualize the source and then the actual content.

What have you done with the raw data?

There has been no analysis or interpretation of the content other than correcting spelling errors- it is arriving to you in the original context in which it was delivered to the Core Team. More specifically, there are two types of feedback here.

1. Feedback from affiliates: volunteer Strategy Liaisons from affiliates take their own summary notes of their conversations. These notes are sent to the Core Team, cleaned for spelling, and otherwise copied directly into this document underneath the thematic category identified by the Strategy Liaison.
2. Feedback from language communities: our contracted Strategy Liaisons from language communities facilitate conversations across multiple channels and using interviews. They summarize the main points of these discussions and sent reports to the Core Team, which are copied directly into this document by theme. These reports are also being translated and shared with their communities of origin, so that there is transparency and accountability regarding their accuracy. More information about this, and links to these reports direct, is available in the last tab of this document.

Whose views are represented here?

Affiliates who have sent in notes:

• Northern Philippines & Metropolitan Manila
• Wikimedia Ghana User Group
• Wikimedia France
• Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group

+conversations in multiple language channels: Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi

But what about everyone else?

From the affiliates, these are the groups who have sent in notes from conversations they have held. For language communities, the notes here are from all Wikimedians who have chosen to participate. We are hopeful that the number will be even greater next month as this April summary report gains traction.

Overall, our reach is far from perfect- if you know groups of people who haven't had a chance to be involved yet, please reach out to us and help make the connection happen!

How do we respond to the communities?

Each thematic tab sheet contains a yellow highlighted column called "Working Group response." This column is for you, if you find it useful, as a way to ask follow up questions or to offer a response to the comments from the community.

If you prefer to reach out to the community with responses directly, please do so. It would be helpful for me to know when you do so by also writing in this column, so that I may know that an affiliate or community is not left with unanswered input. If you don't like this system at all- kindly let me know and we can adapt next month.

Why do some thematic groups have more feedback than others?

All Strategy Liaisons were encouraged to choose thematic areas that were of greatest interest or resonance with their community.

• For our volunteer Strategy Liaisons from affiliates, some of them made the selections themselves and led discussions from there, others let their affiliate members vote or choose by consensus.
• For our hired community Strategy Liaisons who lead discussions among our project-based language communities, there were broadly two approaches.
  1. Creating a calendar of conversation topics, with one topic as the focus of their work for a 1-2 week period. In these cases, community members always have the opportunity to comment on previous topics either on Meta-Wiki, established discussion pages, or by reaching out to the liaison directly to share their opinion.
  2. Creating active discussion groups and pages for all topics and to see where the community organically decides to spend its time and energy. This broadly self-selected approach is intended to continue for the duration of commuity conversations.

What if I don't know what to do with a piece of feedback or don't find it useful?

It would be great if the communities could hear from you about what type of feedback is most useful. One way to do that is to use the "Working Group response" column to ask for more context or background information. When you have received programmatic feedback that is important but not useful, it might be appreciated to write that group a small note thanking them for their efforts and ideas and either asking clearer strategy questions or indicating the best way to address that programmatic concern.

I (Kelsi) would also love to learn more about how to guide communities in giving the type of feedback that is most useful to you - please reach out! ;)

Overall, how are community conversations going?

Community conversations are going moderately well, though we need to continue to increase our reach and level of engagement.

Compared to the effort in 2017, we have more specific questions for the community to engage around, and our liaisons who were active in both processes feel that there is a modest but noticeable improvement in community enthusiasm and participation. The months of May, while designed to be time for soliciting feedback to the scoping documents, have in practice functioned as time to spread awareness of strategy discussions and helping community members to feel involved. We are also having our own learning curve - communities are asking for more concrete and granular discussion tools, which we are working to create, and community Strategy Liaisons are experimenting with the right balance between on-wiki and off-wiki engagement.

We are hopeful that with new tools and increased support, May will show a steady uptick on conversation feedback to share with working groups. We also encourage you to engage with communities directly on Meta-Wiki, on social media, and in any other channels where discussions are active. Community Strategy Liaisons will be posting summaries of their May reports, which were used to create this document, on wiki in their relevant languages.

I love this!

Thank you! Strategy Liaisons (and I) worked hard to get us here. It wasn't always easy, but it is definitely worth it.

I hate this!

This is a pilot- let's figure out together how to make something that is useful to you. I'd welcome a constructive email, chat, or 1:1 conversation. We are not at all tied to this format.

This was a lot to read, and I haven't even seen the feedback for my group yet. Can I take a break and watch a video?

Yes. Despite the poor image quality, this has long been one of my favorites.

Feedback by Working Group area

Advocacy

Source	Context	Content	WG response
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Enhancement of Wikimedia Regional or Thematic Collaboratives and deeper partnerships with international entities such as UNESCO, International Parliamentary Union, AU, EU, ASEAN would advance Wikimedia's interests and promotion of healthy content contribution.	This is something which has to be checked with the Panerships Working Group. To get a better picture of how these partnerships have or are supposed to have effect on Wikimedia, it would be very helpful to elaborate a bit more about the respective aims of the partnerships and how theses aims they can be reached.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Context: 1:1 interview	Media are not fair towards women, they write more about men than women. WMF should advocate and lobby in media to correct that. Media bias is reflected in the encyclopedia, and created the gap that we are all aware about. This argument can be generalised to all minorities, not only gender.	This is mainly in the scope of the Diversity Working Group. Where it touches Advocacy. Working groups are going to discuss topics where there is an overlapping to shape them in collaboration.
		Currently, affiliates advocating Wikipedia do these activities at their own risk and without any support from WMF Affiliates should be provided legal education/support about their country laws by WMF.	Thanks for emphasizing the risk for individuals and organizations when they commit for advocacy. It is already covered in our scoping questions and there seems to be a need to address it.
		The name of the foundation should be changed to its most known project “Wikipedia” to make it easier for branding-recognition, and for advocacy work. Nobody knows Wikimedia, and it creates problems and extra work to explain to different partners.	This is a longstanding question, to which the Wikimedia Foundation is currently putting some research and thinking on. See brand research and strategy: Communications/Wikimedia brands/2030 research and planning/community review
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	80+ person Telegram channel	1 - The general public does not understand the scope of being a "free" project. They understand that it is charge-free and even reusable, but not the philosophy of an open movement.	This is a general response to the feedback from the spanish speaking community, not particularly picking up the numbered topics: Thanks a lot to the spanisch speaking community for that wide slate of input, which helps us to see advovavy in the broader range as well as in specific contexts. You raised some issues where advocacy may not be the most affected thematic frame. For example the question of anonymity for contributors, which is an essential concept when it comes to online collaboration, is probably much more a question to discuss within the scope of community health. On the other side we see that advocating _for_ universal anonymity (including pictures and names during events) may again fit in our scope.
		• WMF should work to defend the right to attribution, especially in Commons’ files. They are reused without citing authorship.	Main points we take from your discussion on a general level is a huge demand for individual and organizational support when it comes to advocacy combined with better known and established processes when it comes to decision making or managing ressources. We would like to know if you have any examples for us, where advocacy activities went well and if there is an opportunity to learn from them for any future projects. Our goal is to think for the long term directed to the future of our movement.
		•Wikimedia phylosophy is generally unknown, affects new users, partners ... they do not understand that the articles can change or that everything is not admissible.
		2- The community values positively that we are a movement
		• It would be nice if WMF (or someone) did advocacy, among other things, "so they can stop from stealing my editing time".
		3- Ambassador programs facilitate advocacy.
		• Many institutions do not know who to contact
		• WMF should empower volunteers to appear as a recognized voice to partners (although it is true that it gives recognition to affiliates)
		• The biggest complaints of lack of infrastructure come from User Groups without legal personality. In the chapters there are not so many complaints
		• "Support" and "recognition" by the WMF to volunteer work could be a solution that does not imply an increase in Staff. The work of the Staff does not substitute that of the volunteers, it is simply different
		• Problem of scale: the WMF does not enter into local affairs because of the legal difficulty involved. Smaller affiliates do not have the capacity to take on that kind of tasks
		4 – There is a disengagement among the community of editors and affiliates.
		• When there are advocacy issues, such as European copyright, many users complain that they are not allowed to edit during blackouts. They are even hostile to things that go against "neutrality"
		• The poor vision that the volunteers have of the Staff hinders the activities and frustrates those who work in them
		• Feeling that the community is boycotting advances, such as when they were against the visual editor
		5 - Having a position in the issues that affect us is fundamental as movement, advocacy is necessary
		• Vanguard strategy. We are not just to maintain a website
		6 – Complains about how the WMF requires for User Groups the same metrics as Chapters. That affects the Advocacy in a negative way: it takes time away from them to use in administrative tasks
		7 - How are the results in Advocacy quantified? The metrics are very criticized, but in this context more
		8 - Global Advocacy, which is not limited to USA and European Union
		• Local agents are best for local Advocacy, which is not centralized
		• If they are volunteers, they will need training and funds
		• If they are employees, they should be hired by local entities
		• Bank of resources or support to those who try to do Advocacy. They go to the adventure
		9 - Users complain that their activities cost money out of their pocket
		10 - It is difficult to face for Advocacy/WMF when you have the feeling that you are feeding an American multinational
		11 - The WMF is slow. When the closure in Venezuela, the local community waited for the WMF to act. When there was an official statement ready, it was dismissed by the local community because it had taken so long that it was no longer necessary. In the Turkish case, the complaints were similar
		• A rapid grant may take 3 months. Very slow for emergencies.
		• For fast performances in which the WMF was needed, the affiliates used informal contacts from within the WMF rather than waiting for an official move.
		12 - It is proposed that the WMF should be used as an authority figure to appeal those users who "boycott" advocacy, but can be sensitive to the issue
		• Surely these editors do not have a good image of the WMF, so it would not be useful to have it as a voice who appeals the community
		13 - On the disengagement between publishers and affiliates, it is found that it is impossible to make a decision about Advocacy in the Village Pump
		•Case Copyright UE.
		• Spanish Village Pump is monopolized by a minority of users, since many do not use it, but decisions are made there
		• Most of users ignore the Village Pump because they don’t care about meta-wiki issues, but other users are interested and have received attacks in the cafe
		• Especially hostile towards members of affiliates (staff).
		14 - Related to several points: the WMF and part of the affiliates members/staff are living outside the core-editor feelings
		• The speech of the WMF is strange to these users
		15 - Is the Village Pump the ideal place to decide a blackout?
		• The decision should be made in less than 24 hours
		• Perhaps the dissuasive measures should be considered weeks ahead: who has the authority to raise it?
		•The Village Pump needs remodeling and a “new menu”. Coffee alters the nerves (Coffee is the name of the Spanish Village Pump)
		• But it is recognized as the "legitimate" space to discuss things. And everyone can participate
		16 - In the Spanish Wikipedia there was a debate to blackout in protest against European copyright. In the cafe it was dismissed
		• The opinions of those who dedicate time to do workshops about Wikipedia, work with institutions to improve content, etc. Are not going to be taken into account in Wikipedia?
		17 - There is a lack of understanding on a large part of the editors towards the work of the afilliates, and this especially affects Advocacy
		• If "the coffee community" is not "the advocacy community", should decisions be made there?
		• Should we do “advocacy in the Village Pump” to involve that community?
		• These users consider that advocacy goes against the Neutral Viewpoint
		• "Wikipedia must be neutral, Wikimedia not"
		• Maybe we need to make the editors themselves aware of why we use free licenses and these are important
		• Many of these editors ignore Advocacy and Affiliates work for not recognizing the WMF as a valid interlocutor
		18 - "Advocacy can not go against the neutral point of view, because neutrality does not exist. It is a concept that is used to legitimize a point of view. (In general, not only in Wiki)
		19 - Advocacy is not the same in cases where is needed to defend the survival and independence of the project (Turkey, Venezuela, China) than other cases.
		20 - There have been alliances without clear objectives that have ended up diluting. Concrete objectives
		• Models of success: alliances with associations where members are shared
		21 - Broad civil / digital rights alliances are well-regarded
		• And desirable, as argued in point 22
		22 – So far, the affiliates do not have resources to make an acceptable follow-up of legal issues (European Union)
		• As a consequence, the agents that make decisions do not have the affiliates as agents to be taken into account or to consult
		• When something has been done fairly well, it is because there has been support from the WMF
		23 - Training and capacity building in activism is needed for those who live in an adverse context
		• In such cases, local wikipedists value anonymity, this would imply a friendly Wikipedia when using VPN and TOR
		• The open culture exposes the names and surnames of board and workshop editors
• Personal photos on Commons expose volunteers. No photos should be requested to report an activity
• Social engineering workshops and training in issues like harassment and reverse stalking are proposed.
• WMF accompaniment is requested. A laboratory for the defense of volunteers in the field able to provide help for those who need it

Capacity Building

Source	Context	Content
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	The marketplace-like portal is useful to get valuable resources for organizational/ leadership training. Video recorded training or live stream training is encouraged. International events should focus on this and less on show and tell presentations. It should consider diversity and cultural uniqueness in capacity building program. There is no template for all. For example, LGBT as part of diversity promotion may be good in liberal minded countries but we cannot force it on conservative countries. Regional collaboratives such as ESEAP, Iberocoop or Thematic collaboratives such as Wiki Franca, Wiki Education, Wiki Med must be empowered/ capacity trained. They can be the mother source of train the trainer program. A Wikimedia department focused in capacity mapping may be in place. It should identify country/city-based communities or sector-based communities that require capability training and which can serve as a resource person or has resource assets that can be shared. They act as a match maker.
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group	in-person meeting of 25 people (8 women, 17 men, mixed professions including 7 students)	"Many believe that Africans must be integrated into positions of responsibility in order to be able to share the realities that are theirs." What would it look like for Africans to have more responsibility in a way that meets this need? What problems are creating this feeling for you that Africans do not have enough responsibility? Conclusions : We have listed four arguments: it should be noted that many articles written by Africans are censored or deleted by the administrators. Proposals : The movement must take into account the setting up of local administrators who will aim to give their opinion on the contents related to the local realities; Africans are better able to tell their stories, their habits and customs, their stereotypes are certainly not noted somewhere, but there are only them to confirm their veracity. The same goes for urban legends. Africans in positions of responsibility would be true spokesmen of the movement in their localities and vice versa; The presence of Africans in positions of responsibility would fill the gap in terms of Africa's presence, knowledge of Africa and its realities; They would be true ambassadors and will reduce the problems of representativeness and censorship; this would strengthen local communities in the Wikimedia movement.
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	Not enough new chapters in the previous years, only emerging user groups. It should be easier to become a chapter. The process for new Wikipedia language versions should be easier.
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections from a 1:1 interview	Following the previous conversation of April when it was said that more focus on developing capacities on tech area was needed, two other users ratified this idea. It was mentioned that tutorials should be created or improved in order to teach users how to work with bots and scripts. As examples, the structures of courses as done by Udemy or Coursera were cited.
Hindi speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections come from individual users, across 15 total people, 4 of them female.	Resources, tools and methods that best work locally, regionally and internationally: Multi sectoral planning is needed to develop the language communities spread over big geographical regions. For small language Wikis, regionalism takes precedence. More grants need to be allocated for capacity development in the emerging communities. Structures, process and bodies are needed to retain and promote capacity, and who should maintain these: Efforts have not been made so far to maintain a permanent relationship with educational institutions. For capacity building, this structure can work well and more resources and efforts need to be focused in this direction. Educational interns and fellow model can be tried for different wiki clubs and educational institution partners. Stakeholders that should take part in making capacity building inclusive and equitable: Educational and cultural institutions should be equally involved in the development of wiki community towards a well-integrated or justified development to increase. Development of educational programs or cultural information in community will be the dimension of this. An organic and a long lasting capacity development requires volunteer driven institutions such as Chapters and UGs as the fulcrum. Allied Organisations are also needed. However, their assessment requires much more scoping for a long-term. There are no precise scoping assessment to define the capacity developments, taking into consideration both implicit and explicit factors. Storytelling For Leaders: Most importantly, stories need to be translated as well. The recent WMF blogs which has become Staff based is not the ideal, best or anything that would help building leaders in the Wikimedia community. Capacity Building with Community Health & Diversity: Every community must have a code of conduct which provides for inclusion of diversity. Code of conduct should be universal because the communities haven't grown enough to create their own policies that they can implement by themselves. Due to this reason, a universal code of conduct is required. To transform culture and collaborating spaces, definitions of reliable sources and neutrality, to build a safe environment, we need some structure to bring the inclusion of all voices. In order to have diversity and inclusion of all voices, underrepresented voices, especially minorities, LGBT and indigenous cultures should be encourage so that their knowledge is represented in the Wikimedia and internet at large. They should be allocated special assistance from Foundation in terms of resources, infrastructure and help with designing projects for indigenous people and the untapped knowledge in diverse languages and cultures. In order to promote other languages apart from English for decision making and policy making process, we can try using other major 6 UN languages but that would still exclude minor languages. This would still give access to 80 % of the world that is not among English speaking region. For other languages, on the basis of requests by communities, professional translators can be provided so that the active communities are able to become part of the policy making for the Wikimedia movement.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: Survey20 participants - 5 options - Multiple votes 1- WMF should prepare/fund online courses/education material for that any wikimedian worldwide can watch/follow/take (similar to the Wiki Mooc projects) (15 persons - 75%) 2- Staff members of affiliates from developed countries should be encouraged to travel and live for a period in other areas (as part of their duty) where they can transmit their knowledge and experience to communities and affiliates in need of it (13 persons - 65%) 3- WMF should send material (computers, cameras, etc.) directly to users in need of it. ( 7 persons - 35%) 4- WMF should open a departement specific to capacity building that will accompany wikimedians and follow their needs and education (either online or physically) (4 persons - 20%) 5- WMF should employ external experts in specific areas (computer science, languages, project management) and send them across the globe to support Wikimedians. (3 persons - 15%) Context: 1:1 Individual interviewsSome countries have resources while others do not. WMF should oblige chapters to help User Groups and other affiliates by sending members to other countries to empower the community there. User Groups do not have neither financial means nor yearly plans to be able to work on capacity building. There should be more control about the work that is done by Wikimedians in residence, not that they came through friendships or just visit for tourism. In WMF there should be departement supporting minorities (both in advocating and capacity building). Identify people helping to build capacity in areas such as (Pakistan, Central Asia). Bridging the gap is related to advocacy and diversity, by bringing more members. Identify list of countries and languages where community is weak/needs support. WMF should hire specialists for countries/regions to empower them. WMF should employ people to teach Wikimedians and travel to visit them in events. Having regional WMF offices (decentralized) will help to build capacity in the whole world. Marginalized communities need special attention. Wikipedia is successful in some languages (German, Swedish, Norwegian) and can be a role model. What did they do to be successful, and how can we learn from them? A department created for Capacity building/research in WMF can work on answering these questions. Arguments of less internet penetration can be mitigated by working on visiting universities or areas that do not have this problem in the targeted countries. Try to adapt at least a percentage of the success factors, because others cannot be adapted (infrastructure, education level and quality, democracy..) Capacity building should take into consideration diversity. Donations and adequate material for people who do not speak good English. New ways of delivering capacity should be investigated (technologies and product) WMf should consider launching online courses and MOOCs about the different projects. Should be available 24/24 and in all languages.
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	80+ person Telegram channel	1 - Regional Events aimed at improving skills 2- It is proved that only women with academic knowledge "dares" to edit. Work must be done to include those who do not feel encouraged, especially young people 3- Improve the experience of new editors to increase the retention rate 4- The attitudes of deletionists demotivates many editors in good faith - Time is lost creating / recreating legitimate content - Complaints about Commons admins who act as if they were a project independent to Wikipedias. They must understand that some wikis do not allow to store local files - European copyright reform could force us to have even more aggressive patrols, despite we don’t like how they work now 5- Friendly patrols are wanted. We need templaters / deletionists who are not aggressive 6- Two types of users are identified: those interested in the movement, like the ones participating in Strategu and users who are only active online. - The first group receive tools to organize technical issues, how to deal with batch uploads, better methods to discuss, plan and consult ... - The second must be trained it with clear help pages, that are not outdated or are too technical, and as it has been said, with guided tutorials and gamification. 7- There are users comfortable with the current system that, de facto, block any possible change. If the WMF takes action on the matter can bring problems, being a more centralist entity than the community 8 – Proposal for the development and implementation of more open and democratic dialogue spaces, with tools / capacities focused on both the technological and social intrusion - The discussion pages became obsolete and that contaminates their use and effectiveness 9 - Insisence on implementing improvements already explained in Technology - Like improving the user welcoming 10 – Think about which tools are necessary and which are not to reach our objectives 11 - training to manage projects, funds and people must be provided 12 - Open Commons, use cc-sa-edu licenses and use Commons it as a project by itself, not just the wikipedia file storage 13 - The idea of improving editing tools is emphasized The idea of a "live" tutorial similar to the Word clip There is also talk of integration with IRC or implementing a Cheat Sheet The Cheat Sheet is difficult to explain. Boring. The assistant should improve with the AI and collect metrics of use and visits 14 - Great enthusiasm when imagining an anime series with Wikipe-tan as the protagonist 15 - An idea: "the difficult thing are attactive”. To retain users, Wikipedia must be attractive, not simple When Pokémon was created nobody thought that people would memorize the 150. Now there are more than 600. They have created a subculture 16 – Research must be done to identify our readership / editor. Based on this, muset develop new spaces inside and outside the Wiki to approach these users and invite them to be part of the movement 17 - Do not close the doors to anyone. Editors learn by doing workshops, and an open tool without barriers brings growt. But there is a point where there is a lack of training for those users who make workshops. 18 - Add avatars to Commons accounts. If people have "attachment" to their user account, they will behave better. For discussions, the fact that when you write there is no avatar makes some users become disoriented, they do not understand who speaks to them 1- We don’t cover (Spanish speaking)-Africa and the internet access doesn’t helps.(this comment was from a 1:1 interview)

Community Health

Source	Context	Content	WG response
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	It should have a clear distinction between administrators and conflict mediators. It should do away in depending to much on administrators or bureaucrats to mediate conflicts. Administrators or bureaucrats can perform the task but not all the time. It should consider building a larger helpdesk system for technical assistance, handling legitimate complaints from readers or content contributors (editors, media uploaders, etc). It can be outsourced to companies involved in customer service like what is being done by large companies. Countries such as Philippines, India, Africa, Latin America have 3rd party Outsource Providers on Customer Service. All users with privileged access (administrators, or with deletion rights) must learn how to do humane and friendly communication. Those being complained of being giving cold or cruel messages must be given sanction. Those with privileged access with who impose "copyright rules" or "notability" in deleting content must have proper training or properly assessed on their knowledge of such. To avoid burn out, an appreciation system beyond Wiki "love" and barn star. It can be a game, point system. "Competing with Integrity" rules must be in place if that would be implemented. Wikimedia trademarked merchandise can be used as reward prize.	Thank you for your ideas and suggestions - they mirror what we are discussing within the working group and we hope that you will find at least some of your suggestions resurface in the recommendations
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group	in-person meeting of 25 people (8 women, 17 men, mixed professions including 7 students)	"Many believe that Africans must be integrated into positions of responsibility in order to be able to share the realities that are theirs." What would it look like for Africans to have more responsibility in a way that meets this need? What problems are creating this feeling for you that Africans do not have enough responsibility? Conclusions : We have listed four arguments: it should be noted that many articles written by Africans are censored or deleted by the administrators. Proposals : The movement must take into account the setting up of local administrators who will aim to give their opinion on the contents related to the local realities; Africans are better able to tell their stories, their habits and customs, their stereotypes are certainly not noted somewhere, but there are only them to confirm their veracity. The same goes for urban legends. Africans in positions of responsibility would be true spokesmen of the movement in their localities and vice versa; The presence of Africans in positions of responsibility would fill the gap in terms of Africa's presence, knowledge of Africa and its realities; They would be true ambassadors and will reduce the problems of representativeness and censorship; this would strengthen local communities in the Wikimedia movement.	How and which way are artices written and then written and censored? Are there examples for this?
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	Men on a mission are a problem. Training people in moderating conflicts might help – a chapter voicing political opinions does not help. How can we incorporate different opinions and world views? We should develop conflict resolution strategies for including marginalized groups. The document does not define what Community Health actually is. Trust and Safety has a positive development and is a good example of a department without an actual mandate being accepted by the communities. But the cooperation with affiliates can be improved regarding finding solutions.	Philip: I've answered these questions on that talk page, standard answer here if still needed
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	This feedback comes from two users	The user have been through a conflicting editing process when discussing about an article. Refers that if he were previously informed where to report or discuss issues and request help, he would have done it earlier. Thus, he felt isolated and unprotected by other editors and engaged on editing war until he was aware it is not allowed and was informed where to expand the discussion, so other users could participate. An user agree with previous comments that we lack statistics to identify reasons on why users leave Wikipedia. Two users are concerned with how the basics informations of Wikipedia editing, like verifiability and neutrality, are presented to newcomers. One of them believe that we have to improve our help pages on that regard; the other one thinks we can make the general public to become aware of them, possibly by using schools as a channel.	Standard answer
Hindi speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections come from individual users, across 15 total people, 4 of them female.	Sharing problems on the talk page, taking into consideration everyone's views and opinions, having a suggestion box where people can suggest the rights and wrongs, taking feedbacks, not writing things that might result to a conflict or issues. Social and technical challenges within the current administrative and decision-making systems that hinder the creation and maintenance of community health are lack of basic training and onboarding exercises. For new recruits in the movement, there should be a proper training during the onboarding process on code of conduct and friendly space policies. Sometimes, cultural reasons can create misunderstanding. What is often considered acceptable sense of behaviour in some regions and cultures might not be considered appropriate at other places. There should be a universal code of conduct, not inclined towards Americanized version of conduct. For technical aspect, there can be some steps, such as, if a user applies for different rights, such as admin, checkuser, then there should be a compulsory form where they answer different questions related to trust and safety on how to make decisions and solve issues. Such inputs can be used to impose universally agreed upon code of conduct in communities. Also, there is no universal rule of how harassment should be dealt with. Local communities don't know how to reach trust and safety or that it even exists. Each community has its own rules and regulations. And there is a conflict about local policies and universal policies of code of conduct. Some communities may state that they are fine with their local rules and dont need the universal set of policies. Figuring out how to maintain balance between these is also essential. Everyone is allowed to join the movement, but how do we create such structure that openly welcomes, supports and includes diversity - people from different groups, creeds, colors and interests. On ensuring ability of communities to govern themselves, within the broad framework of the Foundation’s Terms of Use that can be improved while also respecting the dignity of everyone involved and their contributions towards our shared goals: You can build a healthy community without building the ability of the community to remain healthy. There should be trainings for community on regional and global level. There should be organizations assigned to different communities on regional level to onboard them for proper governance and policy making. They should be trained to be able to govern conflict management in their own communities. Cultural shift in communities be initiated to make contributing a more positive experience for everyone participating in good faith. More open minded attitude should be encouraged and volunteers doing any kind of online or offline contributions should not be discouraged unless they are violating the Wikimedia policies.	Standard answer
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: 1:1 interviewUser Groups should be more proactive in informing community members that they are welcome and accept their memberships. This will prevent “dictatorships” in some affiliates. How can people be protected (legally) when they get harassed in their home affiliate? How can vandalizers be punished on a more serious way? What are the best punishments and who decides on them? WMF should have a clear procedure – Start by warning and then escalate. Last step can be to isolate/ignore the “bad” people. What measures can the WMF in relation with local authorities of the country where the harassment happened? Trust and safety should be diverse in languages/laws/regions to be able to support all.	Maybe ask how Trust and safety could be implemented better in the Arabic community?
Sarmad S. Yaseen	Individual contributor from Iraq, who sent an email he would like reviewed by WGs. The text can also be read here for easier viewing	Dears, Hope this email finds all of you good and doing well, My name is Sarmad S. Yaseen and I am wikipedian from Iraq, I want to discuss the existing situation of Wikipedia Arabic. First of all, let’s please check below calculations logically: The population of Arabic speaking world are most around 430 M. Number of Arabic articles in Wikipedia as per today are around 715 K. The percentage is 0.17% Article per Arabic person! That is really a low utilization and very sad number for us and for all other Arabic Wikipedians, but the good side is that this percentage means we have a very big potential that needs more hard work and I think it’s the right time to change our strategy in the Arabic world. After many years of working as a volunteer for Wikimedia; I concluded that there are many tasks, activities, responsibilities, missions can not be done by volunteers or it can be done but not in a perfect way. I concluded that if you want to create a healthy, active Wikimedia society that has good numbers of articles with acceptable quality; we have to assign some person working on raising the awareness first, finding & attracting new Wikipedians, then these new Wikipedians increase the Arabic articles (Quantity and Quality) and form a larger & more productive Arabic community. Most of Arabic Wikipedia activities now are completely relying on Wikipedian volunteers, and Most of them have their own job, they can not travel from their city to another city for meeting someone in university to explain education program (as an example), and if he did this once; it will be very difficult to do this again and keep a proper following up because simply he don’t have enough time and he can not take all these days off from his job. Recently I managed to have Wikimedia Zero in Iraq and frankly the main reason that allowed me to do that is because I am an engineer working in mobile operator company in Iraq, so the facilities and connection already available for me at that time, The Education program in Egypt was and still one of the best and successful programs in Arabic world, the only reason that the wikipedian leaders already working in the universities, so they are available and have time to do this and to follow up. I think we need to change our strategy by hiring a fully paid persons dedicated for increasing Wikipedian culture awareness among Arabic societies by attracting new Arabic Wikipedians, these new Wikipedians will increase Arabic articles. The new employees must be available in the field because we will need them for representing wikimedia foundation, their objective will be creating new partnerships, contacting local organizations, universities, museums, libraries... etc. then handover their results to local user group that can follow up the performance of new wikipedians. It’s all about the time, volunteers are repaying on their free time to do something for Wikipedia, but imagine if we have employees their goal will be increasing awareness, then increasing the number of new wikipedians, then increasing number of Arabic articles, then improving the quality of Arabic articles. Sorry for this long email, but it’s really important for Arabic community, Appreciate if I can know what do you think? And share your feedback. Regards Sarmad S. Yaseen Wikimedia contributor from Iraq	What are in your opinion the causes for the problems you describe when it comes to community health?

Diversity

Source	Context	Content
Ghana user group	In person meeting of experienced and new editors. Total of 8 people.	Note from Strategy Liaison: "I would have to mention also that some of the participants thought some of the questions were too difficult to understand. The questions I selected from the scoping document to this group of people largely centered on having a code of conduct for volunteers, increasing awareness in low awareness regions which are a part of, how effective would it be to use other languages aside English, how easily understandable is the use of other languages in Wikipedia projects and how volunteer time would be adequately rewarded by the foundation. " There was a largely an agreement on whether there should be a code of conduct to regulate organizations in their efforts to be inclusive. Also there was a mention of organizations getting the opportunity to have their own tailor made codes and conducts to fit their own values. On how to increase awareness in low awareness areas, there was agreement on the following. Go to a country, collaborate with a school or software institution, recruit early adopters, resource them to recruit others.Retention of editors is about how to keep them engaged. Engagement is about asking the people how you can keep them engaged. The was also an agreement on using other local languages aside English. In our particular situation the consensus was that people do not really read Wikipedia in other languages, so writing contents became a challenge. There was a disagreement on this particular subject on whether it is attractive to learn Wikipedia and whether it is being understood. Whiles one group said it was attractive but more research needs to happen, another group said attractiveness isn’t a trait of our movement platforms and softwares. There was a general agreement on resourcing volunteers enough for the work that they do. Others made the point that some volunteers worked twice as hard as paid staff hence there should be a form of monetary incentive that should be given to them.
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Capacity building / empowerment is the key. Sector representation be considered provided that it both are capable of performing the role. It was discussed that there is a possibility that in the future, Wikimedia board of trustees may have similar representation present in the board like two medical doctors or two members of the academe or two similar nationalities sitting. If both individuals are capable, one should give way for another capable candidate whose sector that may need representation. Wikimedia should continue programs that promote diversification of editors. It should have a department or person to search sectors or communities that has not been engaged in the movement, for example people going to Papua New Guinea or Mongolia or people going through the scientific, medical communities.
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	Paying editors creates hierarchies. Just having diversity for the sake of diversity is not enough. We are losing pace with society when we don’t incorporate gender-sensitive language. We develop tendencies of isolation and need to invite external experts. Forcing solutions on the community only strengthens tendencies of isolation. The topic of diversity violates our principle of neutral point of view. The topic of licenses is wrongly placed in this scoping group. Big projects have difficulties to implement changes.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: Survey 19 participants - 5 options - Multiple votes 1- There should be specific projects or Wikipedias for specific minorities: Children - Blind people - etc. (15 persons - 79 %) 2- WMF should employ more people specialized in empowering minorities (for example a person specialized in breaching gender gap, another in empowering local languages, etc. ) (13 persons - 68 %) 3- WMF should give financial compensation and encouragements to those who dedicate a lot of their time to participate in the movement different activities. (9 persons - 47 %) 4- WMF should empower human rights (3 persons - 16%) 5- WMF should impose guidelines for diversity on all its affiliates (3 persons - 16%) Context: 1:1 interviews -The reality of the world is reflected on wikipedia. Interests of men are different than women’s interests. Maybe we should leave it like this? -Languages depend on their locutors: If they are interested in being present in Wiki, they will. -There should be a balance between quota and qualifications. If there is a quota for a specific role, but none of the participants have the qualifications, it is better not to follow the quota. -WMF should empower and encourage women to remain on Wikipedia, by financial support of their initiatives. -Media are not fair towards women, they write more about men than women. WMF should advocate and lobby in media to correct that. Media bias is reflected in Wikipedia. -If WMF wants to support a language, they should prioritize locutors in the native environment, not the ones in Europe/West, who can have other agendas (political). -To attract people from new communities, WMF can invite them to international events in order to empower them and make them involved in the community. Special scholarships can be awarded, because these people do not have the required level to receive the regular (and very competitive) scholarships. -WM should follow-up with the growing communities to ensure that they are stronger and keep diversity in the movement. By hiring people for this specific task. By asking these communities to send regulars reports of their advancement. Growing communities still need further support - Need experts/follow-up. Affcom should be more careful when accepting affiliates. Some affiliates are not active while WMF think that they already guaranteed diversity in that region/minority by having the affiliate. -Before considering strategy of diversity, scope of diversity should be very well defined. It is not the case now. Content empowerment is different than users empowerment. What are we seeking? The first or the second or both? Do we seek diversity in readers or editors? People are interested more in reading/finding content in their language not in creating it. Some identities are over-represented in the diversity discussion while others are absent. What are the criteria or creating User Groups in the name of diversity? Why is there an LGBT User Group but not a Shiaa User Group or Long haired people User Group? Is there a limitation for diversity? What is the scope of diversity? A single individual can also claim that he is diverse and unique. To what extent can we define a community/ identity that needs to be represented? -Diversity is not only about content and encyclopedia, but also about the WMF (staff, Grants, conferences) and affcom. Not only geographically, but also diversity in gender and experiences. -Diversity is not only a matter of resources. Different regions have different challenges. Did you segment the regions? We are talking about people who have other challenges - cannot even write and read, do not know what Wikipedia is. How can outreach be done to them? -Why is awareness about Wikipedia low? Because we are all volunteers To organize events, organizers need to take vacation from their regular work, which is not convenient. The same applies to those who are present in the event.To go to universities and other cities, you need to spend a lot of time, you cannot do it as volunteer. Volunteering should be about writing articles, not organizing events and offline work. If only one person is hired in every country by WMF, there will be a big change in the diversity situation. If an area is not supported, of course it will not give the expected results in diversity We are not seeking more grants, but rather to be hired by WMF in our countries. It gives huge change in terms of time and involvement. -Important announcements and events should be in all major languages Most of Meta is only in English. Board of trustees voting process is only in English. Trust and safety should be diverse in languages and aware of laws of all regions to be able to support all.
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	80+ person Telegram channel (mostly), and select points from 1:1 interviews.	1- Gender parity for WMF Board and recommendations for the Affiliates’ Board. Definite and tangible equality policies. Roadmap and time horizon for implementation. 2- Given that barriers for the entry of female editors are common in all language editions, there is a need to generate new structures created without male coding The "REACT" model is suggested: Rights + Education + Access + Content + Targets 3- It is recognized a need for incorporating new profiles of knowledge, such as cultures without written language and minority languages, taking advantage of the multimedia potential of the different Wikimedia projects 4- Adapt to the use of TOR, VPN and editing from the mobile phone to favor participation in adverse political contexts and places with high mobile penetration but no wide use of internet in desktop computers. 5- "Do not make decisions without consulting the communities", adapt to the needs of different human groups As an example, the Maya community tried to boost its Wikipedia edition. They found the difficulty of editing in the Incubator, and they are asked to publish the list of 1000 articles that all Wikipedia should have, about topics that are not of their interest 6- Adapt to the context of young users and learners 7- Promote alliances with associations to collect the kind of knowledge we do not reach (oral sources, etc.) 8- Power structures are so solidified that Wikipedia is an unsafe place to edit. Therefore, it is necessary to generate concrete measures so that new users can learn to edit safely It is said that admins should have training A less rigid editing system 9- There is a talk about "creating new sources" for minority languages, relying on external partners and alliances. Bearing in mind that many of these communities may not have access to the internet. 10 - A clear position in favor of diversity, defining which are the subjects that have been historically discriminated, without falling into false neutrality or leaving space for hatred-speech supporters to gain a foothold in the name of a supposed right to discrepancy. There is talk of a Charter of Principles, antiracist and antifascist, for Wikimedia projects, with the example of the prohibition of fascism in the Portuguese constitution. 11 - There is a debate, inconclusive, where the need to collect oral sources to accommodate unwritten knowledge is recognized. The reluctance comes from the verifiability part, suggesting on the part of those users the use of projects other than Wikipedia where the verifiability is not central It is suggested to explicitly incorporate the use of oral sources and traditional knowledge, with clear limits, and to expand the use of sources such as papers, educational materials and clarify which blogs can be used and which ones can not be used, but without removing rigor or de-structuring the current verifiability model. 12 - Any subtantial change to the project policies must be debated in the community, otherwise will be doomed to failure 13 - To favor Cultural Diversity, to promote the participation of local organizations in the documentation process would be highly recommended. There is debate about the fact that issues from minority language contexts are erased in majority languages wikis under "local sources / not relevant" claims. There is no concrete solution to this problem, it is suggested that if people were less "deletionist", we would not have so many problems. 14- A campaign similar to the gender gap but aimed at Cultural Diversity is suggested. It is justified in that a vertical change of policies will not be welcomed among the community, but a campaign of sensitization from the base, yes. It is noted that, at least in es.wiki, the "relevance policy" is not a policy but a wikiessay 15 - Is given the example of the Swedish archives, where disclaimers are used before reproducing old information that today would be considered racist / ethno-centric. Any kind of curatorship done by gender experts would be interesting? 16 - Remove barriers to participation in the movement, especially the linguistic barrier that requires knowledge of English to participate in any international event (and even for participating in Meta or Commons) 17 - There is talk of neocolonialism. It is necessary to avoid that from Europe / USA global campaigns are launched that could make invisible the work of local communities that may be carrying out similar initiatives Respect the development of local communities and their rhythm 18 - Adapt the projects to the current internet standards to favor youth access Example, That Commons implements the "drag and drop" of Instagram or Flickr 19 - Redesign of the Mobile APP to favor editing 20 - Urgent measures to prevent harassment on the platform 21 - It is valued that Wikipedia is recognized as a valuable tool when fighting against Fake News 22 - There is talk of the misuse of Wikipedia Zero and it is suggested that Kwix would be more interesting as educational material Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but the edition is not for everyone: there are people who misuse, or have no interest in contributing correctly Sensitization and Wikipedia dissemination campaigns are recommended prior to the implementation of Wikimedia Zero to avoid system abuses
Sarmad S. Yaseen	Individual contributor from Iraq, who sent an email he would like reviewed by WGs. The text can also be read here for easier viewing.	Dears, Hope this email finds all of you good and doing well, My name is Sarmad S. Yaseen and I am wikipedian from Iraq, I want to discuss the existing situation of Wikipedia Arabic. First of all, let’s please check below calculations logically: The population of Arabic speaking world are most around 430 M. Number of Arabic articles in Wikipedia as per today are around 715 K. The percentage is 0.17% Article per Arabic person! That is really a low utilization and very sad number for us and for all other Arabic Wikipedians, but the good side is that this percentage means we have a very big potential that needs more hard work and I think it’s the right time to change our strategy in the Arabic world. After many years of working as a volunteer for Wikimedia; I concluded that there are many tasks, activities, responsibilities, missions can not be done by volunteers or it can be done but not in a perfect way. I concluded that if you want to create a healthy, active Wikimedia society that has good numbers of articles with acceptable quality; we have to assign some person working on raising the awareness first, finding & attracting new Wikipedians, then these new Wikipedians increase the Arabic articles (Quantity and Quality) and form a larger & more productive Arabic community. Most of Arabic Wikipedia activities now are completely relying on Wikipedian volunteers, and Most of them have their own job, they can not travel from their city to another city for meeting someone in university to explain education program (as an example), and if he did this once; it will be very difficult to do this again and keep a proper following up because simply he don’t have enough time and he can not take all these days off from his job. Recently I managed to have Wikimedia Zero in Iraq and frankly the main reason that allowed me to do that is because I am an engineer working in mobile operator company in Iraq, so the facilities and connection already available for me at that time, The Education program in Egypt was and still one of the best and successful programs in Arabic world, the only reason that the wikipedian leaders already working in the universities, so they are available and have time to do this and to follow up. I think we need to change our strategy by hiring a fully paid persons dedicated for increasing Wikipedian culture awareness among Arabic societies by attracting new Arabic Wikipedians, these new Wikipedians will increase Arabic articles. The new employees must be available in the field because we will need them for representing wikimedia foundation, their objective will be creating new partnerships, contacting local organizations, universities, museums, libraries... etc. then handover their results to local user group that can follow up the performance of new wikipedians. It’s all about the time, volunteers are repaying on their free time to do something for Wikipedia, but imagine if we have employees their goal will be increasing awareness, then increasing the number of new wikipedians, then increasing number of Arabic articles, then improving the quality of Arabic articles. Sorry for this long email, but it’s really important for Arabic community, Appreciate if I can know what do you think? And share your feedback. Regards Sarmad S. Yaseen Wikimedia contributor from Iraq

Partnerships

Source	Context	Content
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Similar to resource allocation, this marketplace-like portal must advertise existing movement partners who can join in the affiliate or community lead campaigns. Communities and Affiliates also can use the marketplace-like portal to get nice global campaigns to join and force partnerships. The portal is also useful to avoid redundant partnerships which mandate/objective may overlap the other. It may serve as a partnership "clearance house" as well to get the best movement partner for the requesting party. The portal must be designed for user ease of use, doing away of the meta (which only an experienced Wikimedian would know). The Wikimedia CEO or affiliate CEO should still continue as an ambassador to encourage more partnerships. Capability building for less capable affiliates must be in place. Regional collaboratives such as ESEAP, Iberocoop or Thematic collaboratives such as Wiki Franca, Wiki Education, Wiki Med must be empowered/ capacity trained as well to collaborate with potential partners. They can be the mother source of train the trainer program. Partnerships be diversified not just with source building (like GLAM sector) but capability enhancement as well (public speaking, leadership training, event management, etc). Wikimedia and Wikimedia Affiliates must also serve as a match maker to deploy capable wikimedians as resource persons to third party (non-Wikimedia) symposium, conferences, forum, trade events.
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group	in-person meeting of 25 people (8 women, 17 men, mixed professions including 7 students)	"Many believe that Africans must be integrated into positions of responsibility in order to be able to share the realities that are theirs." What would it look like for Africans to have more responsibility in a way that meets this need? What problems are creating this feeling for you that Africans do not have enough responsibility? Conclusions : We have listed four arguments: it should be noted that many articles written by Africans are censored or deleted by the administrators. Proposals : The movement must take into account the setting up of local administrators who will aim to give their opinion on the contents related to the local realities; Africans are better able to tell their stories, their habits and customs, their stereotypes are certainly not noted somewhere, but there are only them to confirm their veracity. The same goes for urban legends. Africans in positions of responsibility would be true spokesmen of the movement in their localities and vice versa; The presence of Africans in positions of responsibility would fill the gap in terms of Africa's presence, knowledge of Africa and its realities; They would be true ambassadors and will reduce the problems of representativeness and censorship; this would strengthen local communities in the Wikimedia movement.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: 1:1 interviewsTo sign a legal document/contract with many partners, the affiliates/volunteers need to have a legal representation in their country/region. WMF needs to support with that. Affiliates (especially User Groups) do not have a legal status that allows them to be partners. Official partners ask the affiliates who they are? WMF should provide a status/documentation to all their affiliates, not only to chapter. For the moment, people go under other partner associations in their home countries. In the User Group contract it is written that we are not WMF representatives and cannot talk/work in the name of WMF. This is a huge limitation for partnerships. In many countries, If you are not a legal association, you can’t have partnerships. Volunteers are afraid to create associations because it is dangerous for them (they will be responsible of the content of wikipedia and can risk prison). A solution can be that WMF helps affiliates have a legal status (but also protect them legally). WMF should provide documentation/proofs for their affiliates to make it easier for them to show that they are official and can contact organisms. WMF should help volunteers/affiliates by building capacity (communication techniques/ legal counseling) since it is not the responsibility of regular volunteers to drive negotiations/contract work. Affiliates should be provided legal education/support about their country laws. WMF should ask to have a “partnerships” responsible in each affiliate and to empower them. WMF should prepare material and tutorials for partnerships to educate affiliates Explain different categories of partnerships. WMF should perform more advocacy work to improve Wikimedia image in order to be accepted as a partner. WMF should hire more people in different regions of the world to foster partnerships. Volunteers working with partnerships (and other offline work - conference preparation) should be paid. This work is very big and cannot be compared with volunteer editing. WMF should make sure that neutrality will be respected in partnerships. Even official organizations/partners have to be checked before being agreed to be partners. Controversial partners can affect the neutrality. Currently, partnership work with volunteers is happening independently from the WMF, so theoretically volunteers can partner with autocratic governments and receive funding to perform Wikimedia projects. How can this be controlled? Sometimes there are unilateral initiatives from governments (without partnerships) that can affect the content of the encyclopedia. How can WMF correct that? Is it a content problem or a bigger (political) one? How are partnerships with governments assessed? WikiGap is organized by Swedish embassies, Swedish state is thus allowed to be a partner, while UAE or Qatar are not allowed. Who decides on that and based on which criteria? WMF should help with material Concrete issues: Photographers were accepted from partner to take pictures. However, they were not allowed to take pictures if their material was not professional and the photos of quality. Scanners not available: Libraries were open to a Wikimedia UG but they couldn’t scan the documents because they didn’t have scanner. (overlaps with resource allocation). Partnership intra-affiliates Chapters should help user groups with their experiences. Send people from chapter to be in residence in chapter to teach users, and vice-versa. People outside Wikimedia movement who have experience in digitalization for example can be employed as consultants to empower the affiliates. WMF should seek good relations with governments because it simplifies the partnerships. WMF should have a clear plan about how to reach the governments and partner with them. Avoid the political-historical work and mention that it is cultural (monuments etc.) Seek partnerships with the ministries of culture, education, which makes it much easier to organize events for the affiliates. Clarify to governments that they cannot expect to get something back and cannot have content edited the way they want. Many countries have official User Groups but the lack of contact with governmental bodies makes their work very limited.
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	80+ person Telegram channel	1- For many partners it is difficult to discern "who are" the Wikimedians / affiliates Difficulties to sign agreements when there is no legal form Difficulties to carry out volunteer projects during office hours Difficulties to make compatible wikimedian activity and family life in the voluntary context 2 - In the context of affiliates with little infrastructure in the Global South, "package events" managed by a strong affiliate in another country have worked well It is a "top-down" model, but it might be appropriate for the WMF to drive it further When the WMF has helped to hold events, there have been cases in which volunteers were confused with employees by their partners, bringing some frustation because the partners were expecting more engagement from those users. 3- In contexts where you can not receive money from the WMF, partners are who support the expenses of the alliances 4 - Users like to make alliances with cultural entities (small) but public institutions have infrastructure to do big things - Small affiliates take advantage of the bigger infrastructure of their partners to do things 5 - Partnerships with for-profit entities are not approved - If done, it is demanded that the partner must understand our philosophy and that volunteers can follow up on the partnership via wiki - White book or decalogue according to cases 6 - There are some concerns related to roles and the non-legal entity of some affiliates 7 - Partners love us but lack funds to do things (comment was from a 1:1 interview)
Sarmad S. Yaseen	Individual contributor from Iraq, who sent an email he would like reviewed by WGs. The text can also be read here for easier viewing	Dears, Hope this email finds all of you good and doing well, My name is Sarmad S. Yaseen and I am wikipedian from Iraq, I want to discuss the existing situation of Wikipedia Arabic. First of all, let’s please check below calculations logically: The population of Arabic speaking world are most around 430 M. Number of Arabic articles in Wikipedia as per today are around 715 K. The percentage is 0.17% Article per Arabic person! That is really a low utilization and very sad number for us and for all other Arabic Wikipedians, but the good side is that this percentage means we have a very big potential that needs more hard work and I think it’s the right time to change our strategy in the Arabic world. After many years of working as a volunteer for Wikimedia; I concluded that there are many tasks, activities, responsibilities, missions can not be done by volunteers or it can be done but not in a perfect way. I concluded that if you want to create a healthy, active Wikimedia society that has good numbers of articles with acceptable quality; we have to assign some person working on raising the awareness first, finding & attracting new Wikipedians, then these new Wikipedians increase the Arabic articles (Quantity and Quality) and form a larger & more productive Arabic community. Most of Arabic Wikipedia activities now are completely relying on Wikipedian volunteers, and Most of them have their own job, they can not travel from their city to another city for meeting someone in university to explain education program (as an example), and if he did this once; it will be very difficult to do this again and keep a proper following up because simply he don’t have enough time and he can not take all these days off from his job. Recently I managed to have Wikimedia Zero in Iraq and frankly the main reason that allowed me to do that is because I am an engineer working in mobile operator company in Iraq, so the facilities and connection already available for me at that time, The Education program in Egypt was and still one of the best and successful programs in Arabic world, the only reason that the wikipedian leaders already working in the universities, so they are available and have time to do this and to follow up. I think we need to change our strategy by hiring a fully paid persons dedicated for increasing Wikipedian culture awareness among Arabic societies by attracting new Arabic Wikipedians, these new Wikipedians will increase Arabic articles. The new employees must be available in the field because we will need them for representing wikimedia foundation, their objective will be creating new partnerships, contacting local organizations, universities, museums, libraries... etc. then handover their results to local user group that can follow up the performance of new wikipedians. It’s all about the time, volunteers are repaying on their free time to do something for Wikipedia, but imagine if we have employees their goal will be increasing awareness, then increasing the number of new wikipedians, then increasing number of Arabic articles, then improving the quality of Arabic articles. Sorry for this long email, but it’s really important for Arabic community, Appreciate if I can know what do you think? And share your feedback. Regards Sarmad S. Yaseen Wikimedia contributor from Iraq

Product & Technology

Source	Context	Content
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	It should always be a hybrid of paid developers and volunteers. Developer hubs in San Francisco, Berlin, Zurich, Mumbai, Seoul may be setup to accelerate process of developing, testing. Must always welcome suggestions of ease of access or use. Pleasant usage experience (whether a reader or content contributor) must be encouraged and not rely much on the traditional users who are hardly resistive to change. Data bandwidth on getting content must be taken into the account. In locations with low network speeds, a lite or lean version of Wikimedia projects can be in place. It should not be a deterrent for improving content especially for locations capable for large downloads. Increasing video content must be present. Ease of use of uploading proprietary video formats and automatic conversion to non-proprietary format (.webm, etc) must be developed. Mediawiki must be promoted independently as a wonderful platform in the enterprise environment or in academic institutions making an in-house wiki. Deeper partnerships with other developer groups such as Python community, openstreet map, Mozilla must continue and be enhanced. It should also collaboration to all (open source and proprietary) application companies for cross platform talks for enhanced user experience.
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections from a 1:1 interview	Four users agree that editing resources, like Visual Editor or Content Translator are excellent for facilitating the editing process and they should be improved, like any other resource alike. However, it should be noted that making the editing process “too much” easy may bring unwanted results. According to them, editing an article can’t be seen as posting a comment on social medias and facilitating too much, may attract people that do not understand about our rules or how our editing process work.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: 1:1 InterviewWhat will be the users behaviour in the day governments will have information about everything related to us, and that we cannot be anonymous? Will people do self-censorships and will this affect the neutrality?
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	80+ person Telegram channel (mostly), and select points from 1:1 interviews.	1 - More support for mobile phone tools Basic demand: a good editor for cellhphones Better Commons APP 2 - Better Commons structure and improve audio and video tools That it can be navigated in such a way that Commons could be used to view its multimedia files, just as if it was Youtube Simple search engine Change the categories so English will not longer be essential 3- Online aggression reporting button We discussed the possibility of false reports, or being used for edit wars. There is a Consensus in that the possible counterpoints are not an impediment to improve CH We must discuss who receives the report and how to act Identify groups susceptible to bullying? Work with entities specialized in harassment or protection of minorities There was talk about the possibility of rating librarians with stars Training for admins 4- There are useful tools that, because they are external, many users do not know. The visualization tools of Wikidata Query Service 5- Sandboxes as a safe space, where admins do not insert templates. Sandboxes soulnd’t be indexable in search engines to avoid self-promotion Imagine Sandbox as a learning space. 6 - Simultaneous edition, as in Google Docs 7- Global referencing system. That a reference in an idiomatic version can be copied and pasted into another language without the need to adapt 8 - Put the open internet model of Wikimedia projects in value, it is one of our strongest points. One way to do so is producing alternatives to proprietary software if necessary Assistants such as Siri or Alexa use information from our projects. They have a bad reputation because they spy their users. Wikimedia could support a free alternative 9 - Improve search on Wikidata, more accessible. 10 - In the Hispanic context, we need mappings of technological projects and greater integration with communities that, from similar philosophies, participate in technological projects 11 - More knowlegde as a human right than as a service. 12 - Adapt the Wiki Loves Contests to make participation via mobile simple 13 - Improve access to non-English speaking communities to technological events. Greater pedagogical dimension of the contents shown in those events, many adapted only to the USA / EU context 14 - There was an interesting debate about the use of cryptocurrencies to finance projects. The biggest criticism came from the posibility of rewards to publishers (paid editing). Community is also against the possibility of choosing a cryptocurrency that does not comply with the philosophy of the movement Fear of lack of transparency and use of resources in mining 15 - That the platforms (web / app version) allow the creation of derivative works (memes, infographics, image editing) from the own platfrorm / Commons. 16 - Guided editing system, as a "Microsoft Office clip". Examples like the IRC integration in eu.wiki System similar to The Wikipedia Adventure or the Bus of ca.wiki 17 - The Incubator is invisible to new users, so it should dissapear to facilitate the creation of new projects in new languages. 18 - Wikidata Query Service needs to have the possibility to be embeded in every projects 19 - Many ToolServer tools are unknown. Improve its implementation or diffusion 20 - Commons categories: very discussed 21 - A general demand: Greater Gamification Wish list Tool to frame a fragment of an image without having to make a crop in a new file HotCat by default Functional visual editor in all projects More languages in the translation tool Commons APP for TVs, like Youtube A free Canva.com, integrated graphic editor, that generates attributions automatically

Resource Allocation

Source	Context	Content	WG response
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Grants system should still continue. However, automation must considered like an online multiple-choice questionnaire to test capability (psychological) or capacity (organizational/ logistical) of the requesting party. For the ones evaluating the requests, it should have a system of service excellence for grants system to be quick and less bureaucratic. Less capable requesting parties (whose similar or different applications were rejected), a capacity building program must be proposed to the requesting party to ensure that a feasible and movement aligned proposal will be accepted in the future. An online marketplace-like portal be established to serve as a central hub for resource requests, reviews, testimonials. It should be designed like existing marketplace (Alibaba or Amazon) and we should do way the meta design and model. Ease of use, access must be at the most priority when designing the portal. Global South communities must be prioritized in allocation but the project impact must be first in mind. There are projects from the Global North are good with high impact.
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	Less than 10% of the budget is spent on community. This is not acceptable. US$ 2 Mio. is sufficient for all Wikimedia projects. Since most donations are made for Wikipedia the money should not be spent on anything else.	WMF invests in programmatic activities and evaluation to ensure that its allocation percentage is at or above the standard benchmark of 65%. During the fiscal year 2017-2018, it invested 74% in programmatic activities.
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections from a 1:1 interview	Other projects than Wikipedia should receive more resources, specially with new technologies. Many of them seem to be abandoned when we compare them with Wikipedia. There should have more Wikimedia apps for those projects. Wikiversity, for instance, could have an app, so people would allowed to learn from them by distance education. It remains unclear to him how WMF could help on creating those apps, whether hiring staff to do the work or providing existent volunteers with resources (money, capacity building). He agrees to the idea that by bringing resources to these projects it would attract more readers, and some of them may become editors. We need to be transparent on reporting to which places the resources are going. We have to invest them with equity, sending them to where there is more need.	There is strong investment happening around Wikidata and Commons, particularly in regards to structured data. It would be possible, like in the case of Wikidata, to work with a community or existing affiliate to develop a specific project, but there needs to be a will to do it from the relevant community as well. We are aqare of the equity question, and are using it as a lense throughout our work.
Hindi speaking Wikimedia community	Reflections come from individual users, across 15 total people, 4 of them female.	-To make grantmaking and resource allocation inclusive, new structure needs to be designed that is inclusive, and equitable and is able to empower different actors and organized groups within the free knowledge movement long-term especially from emerging communities. -One of the current issues of resource allocation is Access versus Focus. -Everyone can access the funds, theoretically on paper, anyone can get a grant. But with that there is no special focus in which region we should expand the movement and allocate funds for its development. -For bringing equity, we need to bring focus with the access. For example, in certain geographies, a certain percentage of funds should be allocated to create new structures and support new organizations so that there are new activities in that region and we can achieve equity. -Slowly, we are bringing this system in grantmaking but only in case of small grants such as rapid grants for small communities. -But for big grants such as FDC, Simple APG, emerging community grantees are very less because for that we need big organized structures that are very intensive work to build and that has not been possible for them. This is the current problem of the resource allocation model in the grants. -The current model of resource allocation can be modified in a way that emerging communities can get more resources and big grants. Many problems would be solved with grants allocation. How much and where the funds should be dispersed, a clear policy with defined geographical regions should be developed to further facilitate this process-Resource allocation should be centralised. Sharing of roles and responsibilities for capacity building and partnerships should be decentralised. -One of the biggest issue at hand for Resource Allocation has been the slow Rapid Grants processing. Most of the time, they fail to meet their due time schedule. This results in loss of volunteer retention, loss of important partnerships and personal hardships to volunteers. -More staff should be allocated in the grants team, so that the grants can be processed at a quicker rate. -There should be more investment to support long term contributions of Wikimedians at professional level, may it be, partnerships, capacity building or other technical projects with Wikimedian-in-Residence model, educational interns, mediawiki interns and project manager.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: Broad community inputThere should be more control and accountability in relation with resources. Some chapters are allocated big amounts without concrete results while communities in other regions struggle to get funded. Allocation money without clear activities, goals or milestones, just to ensure that every community receives money is not useful. WMF must provide human resources to targeted regions. Allocated resources for the region can help for many operations such as advocating Wikimedia and raising awareness about its positive role. There should be paid positions within the WMF for each region of the world. These roles should be taken by experts (such as experienced Wikipedians, admins) because they are the ones who know most both the region and the movement. Context: Survey30 participants - 4 options - Multiple votes 1- WMF should hire experts/Wikimedians who travel around the world to empower the communities - (27 persons - 90%) 2- WMF should provide to the community a feeling of safety and trust so that they feel the belonging to the movement - (23 persons - 77% Agree) - This option was added by a community member. 3- WMF should allocate a clear and fixed fund for the growing communities - (10 persons - 33%) 4- Things should remain the same and those deserving funds will receive them - (3 persons - 10%) Context: 1:1 individual interviewsWMF should have a clear estimate of their yearly budget, so that they can plan accordingly activities and strategy. Is it this happening now? -Reporting is very important to assess and know how much to give for each affiliate. -Chapters should me more accountable on their finances by sending financial reports to the WMF. WMF should work more with contractuals from all countries (not americans/European of foreign origins) and different genders with specific knowledge about communities in order to support and target them better, and to ensure diversity and representativity. -Each User group should have at least one person paid (even contractuals) to empower and motivate the community. -WMF has also to hire people not speaking english but can be good with their communities. Use Artificial intelligence to attract/headhunt the best people. Provide translators if necessary, but knowledge of English should not a barrier for an international organization. Is there currently someone working at the foundation who doesn’t speak English? -WMF should have a specific department to tackle down funding issues depending on the regions (can be merged with diversity department). It is not possible to have the same person working with funding marginalized communities (lacking devices, Internet), and also funding big and advanced projects in the west. -WMF should create new flexible ideas aligned with the concept of rapid grant. Grants do not necessary have to go to affiliates, but to all (depending on profile/project). “Targeted” Wikimedians should be pushed and encouraged to demand grants. *WMF should organize presentations, conferences, hire local people who can advocate this idea. *Targeted refers to targeted region, gender, minority, etc. In many regions, all Wikimedians are volunteers. They have a time constraint and cannot allocate time to offline projects. -Sometimes WMF allocates money for projects but nobody can perform them due to time constraints -Suggestion: Include a “mini-salary” for volunteers to encourage them to accept organizing events and allocating more time for offline activities. WMF should make sure that resources are shared equally. Having a centralized WMF in USA does not allow that. -Users from countries having bad relationships with USA cannot get grant from WMF, but can get from chapters nearby. WMF can use chapters as relays to finance countries with bad relations with USA (a solution that is currently refused by WMF). WMF is supposed to be international, not American, so why are these regions suffering from internal American political problems? -Many countries cannot receive foreign money and therefore cannot be chapters or even host events. This means that members remain volunteers and have other full time work or commitments in their life. From another part, chapters have time, money, staff and lot of support. This is unfair. -Giving resources to members in one country does usually affect in a bad way user in other neighbouring countries (examples: Strong and rich community in India Vs Pakistan, Chapter in Armenia Vs UG in Azerbaijan). The political American support is very visible in this, and this is another argument why WMF should be decentralized. Resource management is problematic in many regions -Bad management -Big amounts of money are problematic, and volunteers cannot manage them well. -Suggestions to improve: WMF should offer guidance to these communities on how to manage the resources, how to do good project management, auditing, etc. WMF should prepare and make public templates on how resources are used: For example checklist for every event based on experiences of other countries/experienced wikimedians. Example: Template for education program / edit-a-thon, etc. When asking for grant in a new community, there should be proportionality between the experience of the affiliation/Group, and the amount given. More money can be allocated when the affiliate prove they can manage/use the resources better. WMF should plan milestones/steps - First have 100 USD Grant then 1000 USD etc.	activities
Sarmad S. Yaseen	Individual contributor from Iraq, who sent an email he would like reviewed by WGs. The text can also be read here for easier viewing	Dears, Hope this email finds all of you good and doing well, My name is Sarmad S. Yaseen and I am wikipedian from Iraq, I want to discuss the existing situation of Wikipedia Arabic. First of all, let’s please check below calculations logically: The population of Arabic speaking world are most around 430 M. Number of Arabic articles in Wikipedia as per today are around 715 K. The percentage is 0.17% Article per Arabic person! That is really a low utilization and very sad number for us and for all other Arabic Wikipedians, but the good side is that this percentage means we have a very big potential that needs more hard work and I think it’s the right time to change our strategy in the Arabic world. After many years of working as a volunteer for Wikimedia; I concluded that there are many tasks, activities, responsibilities, missions can not be done by volunteers or it can be done but not in a perfect way. I concluded that if you want to create a healthy, active Wikimedia society that has good numbers of articles with acceptable quality; we have to assign some person working on raising the awareness first, finding & attracting new Wikipedians, then these new Wikipedians increase the Arabic articles (Quantity and Quality) and form a larger & more productive Arabic community. Most of Arabic Wikipedia activities now are completely relying on Wikipedian volunteers, and Most of them have their own job, they can not travel from their city to another city for meeting someone in university to explain education program (as an example), and if he did this once; it will be very difficult to do this again and keep a proper following up because simply he don’t have enough time and he can not take all these days off from his job. Recently I managed to have Wikimedia Zero in Iraq and frankly the main reason that allowed me to do that is because I am an engineer working in mobile operator company in Iraq, so the facilities and connection already available for me at that time, The Education program in Egypt was and still one of the best and successful programs in Arabic world, the only reason that the wikipedian leaders already working in the universities, so they are available and have time to do this and to follow up. I think we need to change our strategy by hiring a fully paid persons dedicated for increasing Wikipedian culture awareness among Arabic societies by attracting new Arabic Wikipedians, these new Wikipedians will increase Arabic articles. The new employees must be available in the field because we will need them for representing wikimedia foundation, their objective will be creating new partnerships, contacting local organizations, universities, museums, libraries... etc. then handover their results to local user group that can follow up the performance of new wikipedians. It’s all about the time, volunteers are repaying on their free time to do something for Wikipedia, but imagine if we have employees their goal will be increasing awareness, then increasing the number of new wikipedians, then increasing number of Arabic articles, then improving the quality of Arabic articles. Sorry for this long email, but it’s really important for Arabic community, Appreciate if I can know what do you think? And share your feedback. Regards Sarmad S. Yaseen Wikimedia contributor from Iraq

Revenue Streams

Source	Context	Content
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Existing system of global donation drive must continue. Countries must not have a block allocation or share from the revenue generated. The grants system can still continue. Established or developed Affiliates must be allowed to raise revenue at their own initiative solely for the purpose to fund their outreach programs and events, and not to earn any profit. There should be a clear agreement between WMF and the entity on the use of Wikimedia trademarks. It is highly encouraged that Wikimedia Stores be available online and offline during notable events (such as international conferences) / global campaigns (Wiki Loves X). More merchandise selections be available,. There are many Wikipedia fans out there. Though paid editing is discouraged and must be disclosed, WMF or any affiliate/ partners must demand any share in the revenue generated. Revenues generated in act of monetary donation on the usage of content must be given to the individual (affiliate if individual is commissioned) who made that content. All revenue generated must be fully disclosed and accounted for. For anonymous donations or endowments, privacy must be respected. If there is a donation given by a government, notable individual or any public/ private entity, any requests from the donor to change, add or remove content in Wikimedia projects must not be entertained. Content changes must always adhere to the existing rules of Wikimedia movement.
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	The way money is raised is upsetting, but complaints about this are getting ignored. Raising money is difficult because of different laws in different countries.
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 21 people contributed in the month of May.	The income have to be added on the same discussion with the spendings. A non-profit organization have to know how will spend, in order to request money properly. Sometimes the donation campaigns leave readers under the impression that Wikimedia projects are about to collapse, which is not a fair communication with donors. More input from local communities is required and more local campaign testing should be done.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: Survey12 participants - 4 options - Multiple votes 1- WMF can be funded from organizations with the same aims (8 persons - 67%) 2- WMF should allow advertisement (4 persons - 33%) 3- WMF can receive funding from companies after signing contracts (4 persons - 33%) 4- WMF can be funded by governments (1 person - 8%) Context: Broad community conversationHow do we ensure that donations are neutral? It might be that single individuals give donations and have their own agenda. The main source of resources should be partnerships with organizations with the same goals (free culture, neutral) and have donations as a secondary source of income. Context: 1:1 InterviewDonations to WMF over 1 M$ (or any high amount) should be discussed with the community before being accepted (especially if coming from controversial/governmental sources).

Roles and Responsibilities

Source	Context	Content
Wikimedia community near Manila, Philippines	1 Strategy Liaison and two community members (male/female couple)	Foundation should form an independent advisory body that will evaluate positions that have redundant roles & responsibilities and have clear distinction or naming from each. Merging positions/roles or expanding roles & responsibility. For example: Community Engagement, Movement Partnerships, Global Outreach, Affiliations Committee. Federated model may work on capable affiliates but the movement must have a program in place for weak and emerging affiliates. It should also have a program in place for unorganized entities such as individuals who prefer not to be identified as member of an affiliate but willing to work in an informal Wikimedia group. Conflict Management must be carried bottom up. Conflict between online individuals be settled in the online community. Should conflict escalates, the community create an independent mediation team and elect members within. Conflict between individuals within the affiliate should follow the model in the online community. If conflict happen between individuals/ groups & the governing entity (administrators, bureaucrats in online and an affiliate or affiliate board members), a higher entity (not in an ad-hoc capacity) must initiate mediation. It is suggested that the community engagement department in WMF will have this role rather than the affiliations committee. Mediation must not be limited to email correspondence. An online meeting at both parties convenience is highly encouraged for areas with stable internet connection. Mediator must not at a far distance and located within the same or minimal time zone difference. For areas that online meeting is not feasible, a movement funded mediator will be flown and perform the mediation at a location at a reasonable cost. If mediation cannot resolve the issue at a reasonable amount of period, the incident will be elevated to the WMF board of trustees with mediator's findings/ observation documented. If conflict happened within a country, WMF must always consult local laws. If legal action filed in a country where both parties reside, WMF must allow the legal course and must not intervene. WMF must respect the local laws and regulations. However, if one party is at a clear disadvantage (for example, one Wikimedia contributor (editor) is harassed by a government or a large local private entity), WMF may send legal assistance to the person.
Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group	in-person meeting of 25 people (8 women, 17 men, mixed professions including 7 students)	"Many believe that Africans must be integrated into positions of responsibility in order to be able to share the realities that are theirs." What would it look like for Africans to have more responsibility in a way that meets this need? What problems are creating this feeling for you that Africans do not have enough responsibility? Conclusions : We have listed four arguments: it should be noted that many articles written by Africans are censored or deleted by the administrators. Proposals : - The movement must take into account the setting up of local administrators who will aim to give their opinion on the contents related to the local realities; - Africans are better able to tell their stories, their habits and customs, their stereotypes are certainly not noted somewhere, but there are only them to confirm their veracity. The same goes for urban legends. - Africans in positions of responsibility would be true spokesmen of the movement in their localities and vice versa; - The presence of Africans in positions of responsibility would fill the gap in terms of Africa's presence, knowledge of Africa and its realities; They would be true ambassadors and will reduce the problems of representativeness and censorship; this would strengthen local communities in the Wikimedia movement.
Wikimedia France	8 person meetup	Question 1 : How and to whom should movement roles and structures be accountable? All participants believe that affiliates and the Foundation should be accountable to the entire Wikimedia community. The discussion turned on which aspects the affiliates were accountable for. Ex: origin of donations and use as this can impact the image of movement. However, today no tool or wiki allows the community to be interested in what is happening at the movement level. Meta-Wiki is difficult to access and the language barrier blocks the participation of many Wikimedians. Similarly, we asked ourselves what it means by "rendering account". Is it only informed or empowering communities to influence decisions made by affiliates or the Foundation but also the need to address people really concerned by the subject. We find that we are often over-equipped as a tool but none allowing us to make collegial decisions at the scale of the movement. Question 2 : What structures, processes, and behaviours will enable us to include all voices (including e.g. current contributors and emerging audiences) in our decision-making? Here too, we need to define the target audience and then think about the most appropriate tool to involve them in the decision-making process. If the goal is to diversify audiences, it seems necessary to develop tools to facilitate participation. Similarly, the community should be able to follow the list of decisions under discussion, by theme. Meta seems to be the ideal place for this, but is the wiki necessarily the solution? Here participants recognize the role of the chapter in connecting what is happening at the Wikimedia movement level and the community. They suggest, however, to launch a large survey of all communities to know which decisions they should be consulted on. Ex: consultation of 2016 to cancel the Wikimania or shift one year out of two but the decision was not implemented because the page was well hidden. We could map the types of discussions and common themes. There is a desire for more participatory democracy in the movement. Question 3 : Which responsibilities are better placed at a global, regional, local or thematic level; which should be centralized and which decentralized? The creation of a country affiliate has something practical, legal and clear for everyone. Nevertheless, there are some thematic or linguistic connections that go beyond the borders and are based on people's free will to associate. No clear answer on this subject but make sure to keep a global coherence and especially to give the Affcom means of control and support to all affiliates. Question 4: How might we integrate the Wikimedia Movement with the greater free knowledge ecosystem? On this subject, we have moved a little away from the original question to talk about the relationship between the movement wikimedia and the free software movement. The free world is a world of development and the web and it is not completely connected to Wikimedia. We must talk and talk together but not need. We want to federate all free knowledge but there seems to be a border between the two. the software is separate. Militate together yes but no fusion. Mozilla is doing more and more policy and suddenly we can get closer. A lot of intersection between the LUG and the local group. Historically these are the same profiles. Wikimedia does not put forward only free software and for some libristes we are too tolerant towards proprietary software. A participant recalled that at the base the movement wikimedia is still from a project of free development. The Foundation maintains Mediawiki. If Wikimedia wants to improve diversity in projects, the Foundation should no longer support the development of free tools and must use free tools. Wikimedia must set an example and no longer use proprietary tools. A Meta group bringing together Wikimedia and the free software movement would be relevant. Question 5 : How should conflict management and resolution be structured across the movement? The participants reminded the opacity of the decisions made often on this subject. Nobody has a mediating role in the movement and affiliates are not trained in conflict management. Affcom could be this conflict management committee but today the committee is losing confidence.
German speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 18 people contributed in the month of May	We have a problem with transparency regarding WMF and WMDE.
Portuguese speaking Wikimedia community	A total of 21 people contributed in the month of May.	Centralized vs. decentralized way of governance: General opinion on Telegram is that a centralized way of governance may be good for somethings, and a decentralized may be good for others. It is unclear how to divide and determine roles in a decentralized way. Who decides that? We could have central entities for support in a decentralized model, like the path Creative Commons is starting to walk, answered an user. When it comes to server maintenance and fundraising, it is better to have it centralized, but a decentralized model could work for all the rest. Concerning that Wikimedia Foundation is localized in San Francisco and local employees should be more expensive than in other countries, it may be reasonable to hire more people where the cost is lower. AffCom: Users believe that AffCom should be more transparent and that acting secretly is against Wikimedia Movement principles. Conflict resolution Deficient and obscure methods, with secret punishments, lack of clarification on banishment terms and involved parties. Trust & Safety is isolated from community; poor public communication, specially on its reports. Friend Spaces Policy is too much restricted on harassment and events. Should be expanded to other situations and ways of attacking or harming the environment. Wikis still hold a hostile environment and the resolution of rising conflicts is uncertain; it is left at the discretion of local communities the capability to solve conflicts or not. Most of them do not have it, and that is something that can’t be done randomly Those that work with hard cases, like child pornography, explicit violence, should also be subject of psychological monitoring The necessary measures to solve conflicts should be decided by broad community and not solely by WMF. There were many gaps on conflict resolution, and decision making processes that were undertaken by WMF when in fact it should be brought back to community. It is important that the documentation on how WMF works become more transparent and better disclosed.
Arabic speaking Wikimedia community	Various	Context: 1:1 interviewsWMF should be less americanized and be more decentralized and international The fact that WMF has ties with USA government makes it problematic to reach out to the whole world. WMF should strive not to give an image that this is an American institution, but rather international. WMF should be decentralized, by having offices/sub-branches in different regions, so that everyone can have access to funding and support. WMF and Affcom should consider limitations about number of chapters/User Groups in a country. One idea could be to have a mother-User Group in the country that can coordinate. Having separate/independent affiliates in one and same country creates problems. WMF should consider if User Group/Chapter is the best applicable model to represent our communities. Chapters are very independent from the WMF. They should come closer and be under the umbrella of the WMF. User Groups should send quarterly reports to the affcom. Not only the board of a User Group should be contacted (by WMF or others) but all mailing list, to increase transparency and democracy. In board of trustees elections, only the contact person is contacted. Local democracy in affiliates User Group members should be reassessed on regular basis, to make sure that they are active. User Groups should be supported by WMF and Affcom on how to enforce and control “local” democracy in their processes. It is unfair that “one” User Group representing many countries (and people) is seen the same way as a “small” User Group from a specific region or topic. There is a gap between “Wikipedia” and “Wikimedia”, between the online and the offline. The choice of admins is by vote from broad community while user groups have votes only from those who are aware (or made aware). There should be an obligation for User Groups to communicate more with the community, and provide regular reports and updates. User Groups should be more proactive in informing community members that they are welcome and accept memberships. There is a feeling that information is hidden (about User Groups, affcom) and not shared easily/spontaneously. Most of wikimedians are not aware about these instances even if they are experienced editors. There should be more accessible information about WMF institutions and advertised. This should be done proactively, not waiting for users to look for the information, but rather to share it with all and be public about it. There should be a requirement about editing Wikipedia and not only do offline Work when joining WMF or any affiliate. Work of board of trustees is not clear and transparent. Information might be available but very well hidden. Board of trustees should sent to User Groups/affiliates, monthly updates and reports of their work and activities. Board of trustee’s process should be more diverse Appointed members should come from various backgrounds. Who chooses the percentages/balance between those being appointed and those representing affiliates?
Spanish speaking Wikimedia community	1:1 interviews	Members of affiliates do not approve a centralized movement (both WMF or few choices of affiliates) In the Catalan context, there no worries about funding because the small dependence of WMF and the availability of alternative ways People seem resigned to not understand WMF and how it works. Silent dissidents. Most of them will do their activities despite the Wikimedia 2030 plan, if the conclusions are beneficial for them, that would be welcome, but they won’t change.