Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network/Wikimedia Summit 2022

Notes and discussion of Wikimedia Summit 2022

These are questions we need to answer for the delegate/representative going on behalf of WREN.

Please help edit these answers!

Engagement in Movement Strategy (past and present)

Please provide information about your Affiliate’s engagement in Movement Strategy (past, present, planned for future). Engagement in MS is not a prerequisite. We are gathering information to ensure continuity with those who have been deeply involved to-date as well as ensure that the Summit opens the door for people and Affiliates engaging in MS for the first time.

• Has your Affiliate already been engaged in Movement Strategy activities and events in the past?
  • If yes: What has been your Affiliate’s previous engagement with Movement Strategy?
    • Many participants in the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network (WREN) have been involved in global consultations regarding movement strategy over the last five or more years. WREN has worked at length to provide feedback to the Content Partnerships Hub work, which has GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) engagement as a primary thrust area. Some have also been the most committed or the only local participants in their contexts and have been involved in implementation initiatives. In particular, there is a great overlap between the membership of WREN and those who engage with or lead the SWAN (Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network) calls on a monthly basis. Because WREN is not an affiliate of a single topic or region, and is centered on professional-volunteer collaboration, we have been on the forefront of addressing many issues related to the two primary Movement Strategy themes that spans multiple locales and domains of expertise:
      • knowledge as a service - working with GLAM, university and non-profit institutions on open access to reach a larger global public for higher impact, and providing the tools, techniques and services to do so.
      • knowledge equity - improving the representation of traditionally underrepresented groups so that the sum of all human knowledge is reflected in a more even and thorough manner, including issues of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation.

• • If no: What has held your Affiliate back from engaging with Movement Strategy?

Question: How do you envision your Affiliate’s role in the implementation of Movement Strategy? Feel free to refer to specific initiatives, recommendations or principles.

• The "Strategy Initiatives Prioritized for Implementation" as of mid-2021 are of particular interest to WREN. They include areas where we have already led, driving change and implementation, and provide opportunities for more leadership. Areas of interest from the prioritized initiatives:

Initiatives prioritized for global coordination, as of January 2021. Details can be found at Movement Strategy/Initiatives.

• B. Improve user experience
  • Newcomer resources
  • Cross-wiki Tools
  • Summary: WREN has been on the forefront of outreach and on-boarding of cultural, heritage, government, and educational institutions, with regard to systematic contributions at scale. This includes not only education around open access initiatives, but also training of personnel in the use of Wikimedia tools for Wikidata, Commons, and new initiatives such as Structured Data on Commons. WREN principals have given direct feedback to the WMF product, development, and search teams on how to improve the user experience for a range of use cases, such as the WikiCommons Query Service and Structured Data on Commons implementation of references.
• C. Skills and Leadership Development
  • Global approach for local skills development
  • Skills development infrastructure
  • Summary: WREN hosts a monthly online gathering that has helped to provide a community of support for GLAM activities, and has seen an increase of Wikimedians in Residence from Africa, Asia, and South America. The group has helped document and train peers in Wikimedia upload, enrichment, and metrics tools used on the front line of data and image contributions at scale. These tools include Pattypan, TABernacle, Quickstatements, OpenRefine, PAWS, Pywikibot, et al. WREN has also helped support mission-aligned groups such as the Wiki World Heritage User Group, and advocating for expanded support in Commons for file formats and capabilities needed for advanced GLAM work, including 3D and VR.
• D. Hubs
  • Regional and thematic hubs - Strategic and Content Partnerships
  • Summary: WREN has been in contact with the formative Content Partnerships Hub team, and is eager to provide active support in its development.
• F. Awareness
  • Increased awareness about the movement
  • Summary: WREN has helped to increase the visibility and activity in countries with no affiliates and user groups like in Southeast Europe and Asia. WREN participants have also been on the forefront of presenting at international conferences related to cultural heritage, and are often asked to speak or train other GLAM professionals and researchers in various disciplines. Venues include Creative Commons Summit, Hack4OpenGLAM, LD4 Conference, ICOM CIDOC, Museum Computer Network, MuseumNext, and more.
• H. Identify Topics for Impact
  • Identify impact of Wikimedia projects
  • Identify and track high impact topics
  • Misinformation
  • Bridge content gaps
  • Initiatives for underrepresented communities
  • Summary: The GLAM institutions involved with WREN are among the most trusted in their respective communities, whether they are cultural and heritage institutions, or ones that employ best practices for preservation, access, curation, or knowledge integrity. University research centres and institutes are also increasingly involved with WREN, helping to fill content gaps across various platforms and use and extend the capabilities of Wikimedia tools and platforms. They play a key role in fighting misinformation or supporting knowledge equity, and combining efforts with the Wikimedia community makes their efforts that much more visible and relevant to the public. Some examples include increasing the representation of traditionally underrepresented communities in adding content from the African diaspora in their local languages, adding missing women scientists to Wikidata, supporting digital inclusion knowledge and participation for Indigenous communities or increasing the quality of LGBTQ content across the Wikimedia projects.

Question: How could participating in the Summit help your Affiliate contribute to Movement Strategy implementation?

• We are happy to relate our best practices from our WREN meetings, peer learning and collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation liaisons, developers and product teams. These include but are not limited to:
  • Showcase case studies in effective feature development, such as the implementation of references on Structured Data on Commons, which took place from May 2021 to January 2022. WREN was the major driver of this new feature that has allowed GLAM institutions to contribute metadata at scale to Wikimedia Commons while providing specific source information such as direct URL links, database specifications, and timestamps. This was an extremely efficient user story-to-implementation development cycle, and could provide a template for other projects within the movement. With a history of disconnects between WMF feature development and community acceptance (Flow, MediaViewer, et al), this is an example that can be held up a positive learning pattern. This touches on 9(a), 9(b), 14, 36(a).
  • Promote projects to address knowledge gaps, for which GLAM institutions and Wikimedians in Residence are on the front lines of implementing. These include gender gap projects like Women in Red or the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, or increasing the supply of source and reference material from journals and databases such as Annual Reviews or CDC NIOSH, or new content (and users) on Women's and LGBT+ health (Croatia). Relevant areas: 3, 36(a), 36(b), 36(c), 37, 38.
  • In the service of greater knowledge equity, support emerging GLAM professionals and Wikimedians in Residence from underrepresented groups. In the last year WREN has seen an increase of Wikimedians in Residence from Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and other locales. We have found that working with GLAM, research and education sectors provides effective ways to facilitate cross-cutting, high impact engagements with language groups and cultures that have been traditionally missing from the mainstream Wikimedia conversations. Relevant areas: 31, 32, 33, 25, 3, 38.