Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Global Conversations/Report/December 2020

New report from the 23-24 January Global Conversations.

More than 200 Wikimedians joined the second set of Movement Strategy Global Conversations on December 5th and 6th. The purpose of these events was to discuss the immediate steps needed to implement initiatives prioritized by the movement (initiatives are the changes and actions proposed by each recommendation).

From September to November, more than 50 affiliates, groups, and communities discussed their top priorities for implementation in 2021. During the Global Conversations on November 21 and 22, these priorities were discussed with the aim of identifying priorities for global coordination. The results of the discussions were grouped into eight “clusters”, each containing one or more initiatives that were selected as priorities for movement-wide implementation by individuals, communities, and affiliates.

Participants

Opening of the 5th December event by Katherine Maher.

Out of 349 registrations, a total of 220 people attended the Global Conversations either on December 5th or 6th (not including the event organizers and interpreters). Live interpretation and language support was provided in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Russian and Spanish during the events. Those who participated reported a diverse range of expertise within the movement, some contributing since 2002, others for only a few months. Overall, participation numbers were similar to the earlier November Global Conversations, which were also attended by about 230 people.

Discussing the top initiatives

The main activity of the December Global Conversations was a series of discussions about implementing the highly-prioritized initiatives in the Wikimedia movement (priorities were identified earlier in the November global events and previously by communities).

The “highly-prioritized” initiatives were identified as those belonging to the top quartile (top 25%), as well as initiatives that were pointed out in Meta discussions and in a registration question to be “missing areas”. Overall, the prioritized initiatives were grouped into eight “clusters” as shown in the table below (you may click on the “summary” link to learn more about the discussion of each cluster):

Each highly-prioritized initiative or cluster of related initiatives was discussed in virtual breakout rooms over two rounds of discussions, each 30-40 minutes long. The discussions were centered around the following question: “What are the immediate steps we need to take to implement this initiative cluster?”.

Cluster	Initiatives included	Notes
A	22. Movement Charter + 23. Interim Global Council + 24. Global Council	Summary
B	9. Methodology to improve the Wikimedia platform UX + 11. Resources for newcomers	Summary
C	31-33: Invest in Skills and Leadership Development	Summary
D	25. Regional & thematic hubs	Summary
E	2. Funding for underrepresented communities	Summary
F	3. Increased awareness about the Wikimedia Movement	Summary
G	8. Align with environmental sustainability initiatives	Summary
H	36-38: Identify Topics for Impact	Summary

Lightning talks

Main article: Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Global Conversations/Lightning talks

Lightning talks are brief presentations submitted by events attendees. The objective of these lightning talks was to provide a space for participants to present ideas closely related to the initiatives, including ones that may have been missed out in previous discussions. Each lightning talk was 3-5 minutes long, presented during the final hour of the meeting. Due to time limitations, ten of the proposals were accepted for the events (check out the proposals page for the full details).


Lightning talk	Related initiative	Speaker
Facing the climate crisis: becoming an environmentally sustainable Movement by 2030	8. Align with environmental sustainability initiatives	Gnom
Development of cross-wiki tools	14. Cross-project tool development and reuse	Amire80
Decolonising Wikimedia	37. Bridging content gaps, and 38. Content initiatives in underrepresented communities.	Lucy Crompton-Reid (WMUK)
A content adapted to new generations	41. Continuous experimentation, technology, and partnerships for content, formats, and devices.	Yamen
Improve Uploader for Alt-Texts	2. Funding for underrepresented communities 9. Adaptable UX to various devices 10. Compatibility with Accessibility Guidelines	KH32, Conny
La Mutation Wikimédienne	24. The Global Council, and 25. Regional & thematic hubs	Bachounda
Pathway to Capacity Building	31. Global approach for local skill development, and 33. Skill development infrastructure	MsKabintie
Regional language hubs	25: Regional & thematic hubs	Jon Harald Søby (WMNO)
Introducing Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN)	12. Peer-to-peer spaces 29. Enhance communication and collaboration capacity with partners and collaborators	Fuzheado
Wikimedia for the People	9. Methodology to improve the Wikimedia platform UX research, design, testing and community 11. Resources for newcomers 16. Code of Conduct 42. Monitoring, evaluation and learning at all levels with support and mutual accountability	marcmiquel

Feedback form evaluation

Summary of the post-event feedback survey results

Overall, 219 people (excluding event staff & interpreters) attended both events on December 5 and 6. We shared an post-event feedback survey with all of them, 93 participants filled out the form between December 5th and 14th (42%). You can find the summary of the evaluation as a pdf file on Commons.

Next steps

Closing and elaboration of next steps by Kaarel Vaidla.

Timeline of the Movement Strategy Transition events.

The 5-6 December Global Conversations started the conversation regarding How to implement the Wikimedia movement priorities in 2021-22. Interested communities and affiliates are invited to continue the discussion around each initiative cluster in a discussion space on Meta, where they would be able to take forward the discussion of implementation as well as to express their own interest in being part of it.

The next set of Global Conversations will take place in late January and early February, 2021. These upcoming events will focus on setting up the Interim Global Council, which is expected to play an important part in the implementation of the Wikimedia Movement Strategy. Additionally, the Support Team will organize follow-up discussions for the other initiatives in January and February. The focus would be to bring interested communities, affiliates, and Wikimedia Foundation teams together to define concrete steps needed to put the priority initiatives into action. Wikimedians are encouraged to share their thoughts on the discussion spaces on wiki. Help enrich the discussions with you experience and expertise.