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WALRUS/November 2021

< WALRUS

WALRUS/Canada meeting, on Mon Nov 15, at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific:

Agenda

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  • Editing campaigns
  • Wiki Loves Monuments
  • Wikipedia Asian Month
  • The idea of a "North American Hub" and how to support decentralized smaller usergroups
  • Movement Charter (and what should go in it)
  • Post-WikiConference North America review
  • there will also be a core group meeting Tues evening, Nov 15
  • Next SWAN call: Sunday, Nov 28, 2021

Join

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Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85904798020

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Notes

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Attendees
  1. Richard/Pharos
  2. Andrew/Fuzheado
  3. Clifford Anderson
  4. Jim Hayes
  5. Anne/Risker
  6. Peaceray
  7. Alan Wu
  8. Karen/KarenJoyce
  9. Rosie/Rosiestep
  10. Lane Rasberry
  11. Paula Marmor
  12. Wil /wil540_art
  13. Peter Meyer / econterms (WMDC)
  14. Christopher Schilling (WMF)
  15. Abhishek
notes

Risker shared that she would be drafting the Movement Charter. To prepare she is updating mailing lists, preparing to contact community organizations, and talking with experts from the Noosphere social movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere 

   with respect to the noosphere:  https://humanenergy.io/collective-consciousness-supported-by-the-web-2/  Section 3 has content about Wikipedia

Risker said that she was particularly interested in what people have to say about a hub in North America, and what people want to see in the Movement Charter, and what people do not want to see in the Movement charter. Peaceray - I am with Cascadia Wikipedians but currently visiting Delaware and visited the Barnes Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation Rosie - I have been onboarding as a Trustee on the board ofthe Wikimedia Foundation. This last week I met with Ariel Cetrone, the community organizer with Wikimedia DC, and we met with an organization which does ??? and next week I am doing a project with University of California in Sacramento on gender studies. Jim - I am in Alexandria. I went to wiki editing events for the Air and Space Museum, one about lawyers, and one for a small museum in Rhode Island doing history. Clifford Anderson - librarian at Vanderbilt Univeristy and on the steering committee for the Wikimedians Librarian usergroup. We are also contributing to 1000 Women in Religion project at the American Academy of Religion. Lane - at University of Virginia, wikiprojects at school of Data Science. Working in medicine on WikiData and general outreach to health providers Paula - I have been setting up dashboards, queries, and lists for wiki projects with decorative arts and crafts. I am a member of Wikimedians of Los Angeles but I have not been able to meet wth them in person for two years because of COVID. Alan - I work on some technical subjects but also on art and artists, particularly about the connection between technology and art. I was just at a book talk about Minoru Yamasaki, a Japanese American architect who has the distinction of building two buildings demolished on TV. There was Pruitt-Igoe, a housing project which was demolished two decades after being built. The other was the World Trade Center. Although many people pay attention to his two destroyed buildings, he was an accomplished architect with many buildings which did not get destroyed. He had an interesting personal life that included escaping Japanese internment during World War II. I am interested in the formation of the Wikipedia Charter. Karen - I live in Salt Lake City. I organized a wiki event for Ada Lovelace Day for North America. We decided that the event was to last from New Zealand morning till North American bedtime. I work at a tech company called Ancestry and am on the pride committee at my company. For pride I want to host a wiki pride editing event. I had in-laws who were interned in World War II for Japanese ancestry and who were drafted from the camps into the US Army for their language skills. Andrew - we had a crazy series of meeting for the North American selection process for a representative on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee selectors. We selected LiAnna, who was able to advocate for our needs. The Wikimedia Foundation hosted a feedback process for the process. Few people commented, but I did. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Drafting_Committee/Elections/Feedback#Statement_by_User:Fuzheado Wil - I am a member of Wikimedia New York City where I am Wikimedian in Residence at a recycling center in Brooklyn where we do editing and language translation of content related to public health. Richard - Wiki Loves Monuments was in October for the United States. For most of the world it is in September. We are coming into Wiki Loves Asia Month. Chris Schilling - I am a funding officer for North America for individuals and organizations in North America. The concept of hubs has a good chance of being a route for funding in the future. We in the Wikimedia Foundation should be trying to support communities which wish to take on roles and functions, then we want to support communities in becoming what they want.

Richard: on November 27 there will be a workshop on hubs. This could be regional, like North America, Middle East, South Asia, etc. and the Movement Strategy calls for delegation of power to regional levels. Hubs Co-Creation Workshop on Saturday, Nov 27, 2021, 13:00 to 17:00 UTC (your timezone). Register deadline Nov 25. - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hubs/Workshop_November_27,_2021 The documentation says that there will be discussion about how to structure these. In a pilot, there was an exploration of a hub in Africa, but the users requested to have a language based hub for Arabic language. Anass/MENA/Arabic study - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hubs/Implementation/Regional_Hubs_Draft_Plan Rosie: I want to add to the list of questions tonight so that Chris can come up with answers. The hubs creation workshop will happen in 12 days on the Saturday of the United States Thanksgiving weekend. The time will be 5am on that holiday weekend. What happens if people from the United States are not able to attend this? Will we be underserved through the rest of the process? Richard: please help with taking notes on this part of the conversation because we can take that feedback to the group. Anne: for organization in the United States we have had community groups in major cities. For most of the rest of the world the chapters are national. In Canada there is a national chapter, but it does not serve all provinces. Originally the chapter was English speaking, but now it is based in Montreal and does more French events. Canada is a large country like the United States so flying between major cities can take hours. There is a chapter structuring system which discourages the formation of something like Wiki User Group Toronto, where there are lots of people in that city but no access to support and recognition. Various players in early Wikimedia governance protested the idea of a Wikimedia chapter for the whole United States because the thought was that it would be too powerful. Andrew: I'm pretty sure Estonia's budget is bigger than the total of the US Anne: I understand why Arabic speakers would want an organization for people who speak that language. Rosie: going back to the topic of hubs. I understand that Wikimedia Canada has aligned itself with Wiki Franca, the French speaking countries of the world. Perhaps Canada can be part of two hubs - both a French speaking one and a regional one. Anne: I think that 90% of the Canadian Wikimedians contribute content in English language, so we need to represent both English and French. It would be challenging for me if the organization representing my country did not use English. Peter - I think a large hub can be more efficient than a small one. We need a couple of people to help us keep compliance with taxes and nonprofit administration for our community organizations. One hub that knew how to maintain tax status in US and Canada would be very helpful, because that administration could scale the capacity of volunteers to organize. Then most of our volunteers can focus on content, software, etc -- the topics of actual interest Andrew - Is the current thinking that hubs will only be regional, or will there be thematic hubs also? Contrary to what Risker says, I feel that we have very little power in the United States in the Wikimedia Movement. We have very little funding in the United States as compared to any other active Wikimedia community. If we did a regional hub then we would be eligible to receive resources. A hub implies a certain amount of centralization and we do not know what kind of resources would go with that. Richard: the money which comes to the United States is not geographical, but is mostly thematic. Art+Feminism, Black Lunch Table, and Wiki Education Foundation are the major funding recipients. Andrew - 60% of Wikimedia fundraising happens in North America but very little money goes back to the North American community. Richard: Is the idea of a North American Hub for a lot of Wikimedia Foundation staff to leave the Wikimedia Foundation and take a paid staff position with the North American hub? Does the Wikimedia Foundation already have plans for the hub and what it will do. Rosie: My understanding is that the hubs will not be cookie cutter and not one size fits all. We are at the point where we are asking questions. It would be good if people can attend that meeting later this month, but besides that Wikimedia Foundation-organized meeting, I think that this community should have its own conversations. Central Europe knows what members will be in its hub, and Iberocorp knows who will be in their hub. We should have our answers. Richard: The hub should be a community organization and not an extension of the Wikimedia Foundation. Anne: Do we really want a North American hub or do we want an English Wikipedia hub? 25% of English language edits come from outside the United States. English Wikipedia has more edits than the other language put together. Hardly anyone does research on any other Wikipedias. What happens in English Wikipedia simply does not apply to other language versions. The Noosphere people are talking about a global consciousness but they are looking at English Wikipedia. Lane - just to put an idea on the table, in WALRUS and WikiConference North America we already have an adminstrative system that works. WALRUS has been meeting regularly for about 10 years and WikiConference North America has been an annual project with many participants since 2014. Until and unless someone proposes a better idea, let's propose to model the North American hub as a successor to either of these groups. (+1 from econterms) Wil - I already see members supporting more than one volunteer community. This should be encouraged.

Andrew: We have a huge technical debt in the Wikimedia platform where many important tools are about to collapse. In Commons many image management tools need updating and in the WikiCite project someone needs to take leadership of the community discussion and organization. One potential reason to exist as a hub could be to take on some tech development, the same way WMDE is a steward of Wikidata, or WMSE is a steward of Content Partnerships/GLAM. Cliff: Andrew, just want to say that I love your proposal. If we could select a few moon shot projects that we could all collaborate around that would really justify the hub. If we think about WikiCite for instance, I think it has the potential to overcome the bias against humanistic disciplines that we find in Scopus/Web of science. Cliff: Web of Science and Scopus are problematic commercial products and the WikiCite project has the potential to provide an alternative to make another big win. If we could organize to attempt moonshot projects then I think that would be a great goal beyond just the administration. Andrew: A North American or US hub could tackle grand challenges or moonshot (Cliff's term) projects such as WikiCite, multimedia or technical debt. That would give it a "reason to exist" that would provider stewardship for something across all the different projects, and not just en.wp. This would avoid the problem we have now of the WMF not being to act on many of these initiatives because they hit roadblocks with community acceptance (superprotect, flow, MP4/multimedia RfC, etc) Lightning talk by Lukasz of wikimedia Poland at CEE about lack of trust, and veto culture slowing progress. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2021/Programme/Submissions/Wikimedia_as_a_zero-trust_environement

Peter (in chat): On that point, technical debt . . . Perhaps we can team up in a hub with the MediaWiki Stakeholders Group, a user group with developer skills and consultants and a little money. If they could be somehow with us in the US hub. Movement Charter Risker and Richard are drafters of the Movement Charter, two of the 15 people who are tasked with this. Questions to this group: What do you want to see in the charter, and what do you NOT want to see? How do you envision the charter, which would be kind of the "Wikimedia Movement Constitution"


Other questions: How to choose members, who should have members, how does it work in relation to the WMF/existing entities Jim: will we be referring to the Hubs concept, will it refer to open source movement Pharos: What about resource allocation responsibilities Peter, commenting on the Movement Charter to RIchard: (1) please include open source principles in the movement charter. Let's say we DO open source and we use open-source approaches when possible. That's part of our identity; it's what we know and do. (2) Question: Do you (Richard) think that the movement charter will specifically mention hubs? It could state something about how resources get out into the network/community. Richard's answer: YES.

Risker guesses/estimates that there are 1000 employees in the Wikimedia movement including the foundation and the chapters (presumably not wikimedians-in-residence). The entire WMF grant budget is less than 10% of the WMF budget, the WMDE total budget is almost the same size. ALso...we have a very poor idea of who does what within the movement, and whether we want to require that hubs carry out certain actions if we want the WMF to drop those responsibilities Lane: I think there is bias in the Wikimedia Foundation budget. I feel that money should go approximately in proportion to population. Right now less than 1% goes to India and other regions similarly are underfunded in proportion to participation. But discussion about budgets is just a subset of a bigger issue, which is support for the values and ethics of the Wikimedia community. In community protests, including the Visual Editor, Superprotect, Fram ban, and the Rebranding issue, thousands of Wikimedia community volunteers took a position on values and ethics in our movement. The details are not important, but what is important is that when the community organized to sincerely state a position, no staff at the Wikimedia Foundation ever publicly join the community side of the conflict Andrew: Agree with Lane on needing neutral arbiters as I also gave that feedback in the MCDC feedback - there was no community election committee involved with MCDC, and only the WMF had the power to change the process. This should not be the case. Lane/Andrew: Neutral arbiter between WMF/Community/Global council to address issues. WMF staff seem to be hesitant to participate in some of the discussions. Election committee is huge issue, as seen in the MCDC election and possible global council elections Abhishek: Capacity building is necessary in emerging communities, people need grants and help; however, they are clueless about writing grants in English and follow up reports. Hindi Wikipedia is one of the biggest wikis in Asia and very few people speak/write English - as a result they don't apply for grants because it's focused on English application

Alan - Seeing the way that the US federal government works and the gerrymandering that goes on, I wish that we could avoid those kinds of problems in the Wikimedia movement and instead count people rather than regions. Karen: I came into this call thinking of user groups and imagining that the hub would give me that kind of support. Now from what I hear a hub could be so much more. I am for the idea of strengthening the community and where it intersects with the foundation. Abhishek - I think that it would be more useful to have independent elections for the community elected board seats. Chris - In terms of different controversial discussions which have come up in those discussions. I have never been asked to not participate in those discussions. The team that they are on or the department that they are on presents a public face that they have a unified position. When staff come into these discussions there can be difficulties. Some staff come into these discussions Lane WMF staff get paid to advocate for the WMF position, and neither WMF staff nor the community ever get funding to advocate for the community position. There is never funding to support community ethics and values when they conflict with the WMF position. Andrew: Speaking to Chris's point - censorship isn't always explicit. They may not say "you cannot say X" but they also are not encouraging you to speak up. The fact that it took an external letter like COLOR to tell the Foundation that something was very very wrong with the Brand process is indicative of something wrong internally at the Foundation that people who know better couldn't inform "the powers that be" on the brand team that the community was completely against how things were going. Anne: There is a leadership vacuum in the Wikimedia Foundation. A few years ago I never would have imagined having to tell the chief legal council of the wikimedia Foundation that there is a conflict of interest in hiring a board member directly into the Wikimedia Foundation, as I told Amanda Keton about María Sefidari. Superprotect was an action by a new CEO who did not know any better, or maybe who was trying to exercise her power. We know how that ended. Karen: no, how? Lane: She was kicked out of the CEO position Wil: Recruiting and retaining of inexperienced/new users should have a part in the movement charter. Retaining new users is essential to the sustainability of the culture. Andrew we have the opportunity with the MCDC to change some defaults in the movement. For example, none of the meetings of hte board of trustees in the Wikimedia Foundation are open. This is odd considering how much the community values transparency. There is not a single open meeting a year. Risker: I was in closed meeting for five years on Affcom and then on FDC. The FDC worked because the 9 of us were closed in a room on a weekend. We all deliberated until we reached a consensus. Risker: 40% of the Foundation staff does not live in the United States Andrew: Please try to drive the agenda and not leave it to the Wikimedia Foundation staff to set the agenda

Another issue is the Global Council There is the idea for a governance organization with community membership to assist with movement wide decisions.

Ideas for hub scope and structure

  • US, or
  • US+English-speaking Canada
  • US plus all Canada
  • Both plus caribbean and/or mexico ...
  • Or, very differently: Oriented to English Wikipedia, not geography
  • Organization depends partly on whether it has to have administrative capacity in every country or is oriented toward the substantive projects

Post-call thoughts:

(Most of this was mentioned above, but these are the parts I like best)

I like the idea of a North American hub consisting of US, all Canada, Caribbean and Mexico if those groups want to join. Mission could be focused on editors and contributors: 

   - Produce Wikiconference North America
   - Act as stewards for technical debt/tool development (with a focus on editor tools across Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Commons)
   - Incubate and foster regional and metropolitan user groups, and thematic groups within North America

It seems like leveraging the group that produces Wikiconference North America would provide us with an experienced team of Wikimedians to help build the hub. - Paula (PKM)

It might also be interested to specifically champion coverage of/participation by indigenous communities or other underrepresented groups in North America.

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