The annual Wikimedia Conference wound up last Sunday, 13 April—a four-day meeting costing several hundred thousand dollars, hosted in Berlin by Wikimedia Germany and attended by more than 100 Wikimedians. They included some 80 chapter volunteers and staff (eight from WMUK alone), one from the new thematic organisation, Amical Wikimedia, 11 from user groups (including the new Wikimedia Nepal and Brazil Community group), six WMF trustees, 14 WMF staff, nine members of the FDC and AffCom, and nine others.
2014 Wikimedia Conference—what is the impact?
23 April 2014
On the cusp of the Wikimedia Conference
2 April 2014
Wikimedia conferences—soul-searching about costs, attendance, and future
2 April 2014
Looking ahead to Wiki Loves Monuments
28 August 2013
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2014 Wikimedia Conference—what is the impact? |
Almost all of the nearly 40 sessions are documented on Meta; they varied between tightly conceived and delivered presentations on specialised themes, and group brainstorming that appeared to yield few tangible outcomes. Since only a small minority of affiliated organisation members were able to attend the conference, the documentation of proceedings has the potential to make the key messages widely accessible to those who might benefit. The Signpost scrutinised the quality and content of the notes, and assessed the potential for such a conference to make conceptual progress and improve knowledge and skills in the movement in line with the WMF's priorities.
The notes for the first of four sessions devoted to grantmaking and funding—Demystifying the FDC—suggest that some of the session was taken up by basic structural and procedural explanations that would have been more efficiently conveyed by proper communication between affiliates and the WMF's grantmaking resources, with better textual infrastructure in a number of languages. The summary states that the Funds Dissemination Committee process is becoming more familiar to applicants, but that there are still problems regarding both community input to the proposals and language barriers (perhaps the FDC remains a mystery to some). There were understandable queries as to why the WMF has submitted a proposal to the current FDC round, given that the submission is for comment only, not a funding bid (comments still open).
A second session on the grantmaking process invited and received feedback on the FDC in advance, and sorted it into three categories—"stop", "start", and "keep"; but it is not easy to make sense of many of the proposals that appear in the documentation. The summary statement "there was no further (broad) discussion" suggests that this session functioned rather as a clearing house of disparate ideas, without shaping them into a set of cohesive (or even competing) strategies for reform. At a third session on grant programs offered by chapters, Polish and Swiss participants explained a few of their own experiences. Asaf Bartov, head of WMF grants and global south partnerships, pointed out that although applicants for such funding don't like filling out forms and writing reports, these are the only ways to achieve transparency, sustainability, and to learn lessons; in other words, "Hard questions need to be part of the decision making process".
At Diversifying fundraising models and sources, South African, Indonesian, and Estonian speakers discussed the pros and cons of external funding, including the administrative burdens and potential for influence by third parties. Kaarel Vaidla from Estonia observed that "government is good for core-funding but they like to play political football with you"; but just how this might be translated into general advice or protocols for WMF affiliate organisations was unclear.
The page on Strategy processes in Wikimedia organisations is marked "actually, difficult to summarize". No fewer than 13 questions were posed, some of them of such enormous sweep as to defy corralling ("How do we collaborate across chapters, etc?"; "How do you make use of external consultants?"—no answers or responses were recorded). This suggests the need for narrower thematic targeting if discussion is to get anywhere. It is difficult to extract useful lessons from much of the official documentation of the meeting ("WMF aims get parted in strategic objects."; "Lessons: impact methods is highlighted; need for tools; challenges.").
The subsequent Re-imagine Wikimedia movement session was a brave attempt to bring together these disparate fragments, again with the different-tables technique. The documented summary began: "Actually, hard to summarize", and finished with exasperated good humour. As WMF trustee Phoebe Ayers said: "It's a little easier often to imagine what a very good Wikipedia would look like. It's a little harder to imagine what a very good [Wikimedia] will look like, but that's what we need to do."
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Conflict of interest, run by Asaf Bartov and the WMF legal team's Stephen LaPorte, might have been a soul-searching sequence of morally challenging and borderline ethical scenarios—putting participants in awkward psychological spaces in a dynamic learning experience, laced with anecdotes real or confabulated. This would always be hard to convey in the documentation, which nevertheless shows signs of a well-thought-out approach. Like this session, Programmatic evaluation could have benefited from online streaming and edited uploading to YouTube—one participant told the Signpost that "simple streaming is now quite cheap and easy: Android phone + Internet + Ustream app". But if the take-home message for those who attended Programmatic evaluation is contained within the write-ups on Meta, it's hard to know the extent to which attendees left with tools sharpened for application to their next project, as opposed to merely a new theoretical perspective.
Among the more strategically technical topics was Lessons learned in huge projects: Wikidata, presented by Wikimedia Germany's Lydia Pintscher and Abraham Taherivand. Their message was to take your time in finding the right employees for your software team; diversity is a huge advantage in a software team; and work with them in single, integrated office.
The meeting touched on the following points: The process of developing future strategy won't start before the new executive director is announced, expected by the end of May; the whole community, explicitly the affiliates as well, will be included in this developmental process. On the technology side, Wikidata and Etherpad integration will be the next steps, according to Sam Klein, possibly with more emphasis on local development teams. Alice is unsure about the difficult role of the chapter/affiliate-selected board seats: they don't necessarily represent the affiliates, and she would like to have a space for sharing and developing policy ideas and resolutions.
There is no doubt that a Wikimedia conference presents huge challenges for whoever is organising it. The final session, Future of the Wikimedia Conference, roundly thanked the Wikimedia Germany organisers and volunteers who had made the event possible. It was generally agreed that the program was much better than before, and that accommodating all attendees in one hotel was a good idea (the organisation even included an efficient and well-designed online feedback form for participants). Asaf Bartov announced: "This year's program teams did a really good job, pushing, asking for the input." But on a critical note, Bartov is documented as telling participants:
| “ | What we can do better is preparation. Not only speakers (they were better prepared than the last year's), but also the attendees. They should know more than only the title and have an idea on what to achieve. ... I think this conference is meant to be a working conference instead of a community gathering. To achieve that you need topics, on which people should work on to have a worky work group conference. Historically, some WMCONs basically discussed non-problems. The key for the conference is to find the right topics and problems. | ” |
Vladimir Medeyko, from Wikimedia Russia, was one of the conference participants. He told the Signpost that "technically this year the conference was the best-organized, [although] it is perhaps true that each year the Wikimedia Conferences generate less benefits than earlier", citing the sheer complexity of the movement as a problem for these events. "Of course it generates some understanding, some ideas, some new ways to go." Reflecting his specific technical orientation, the strongest event for him was Software development as a new opportunity for chapters.
Perhaps the challenges ahead for such conferences lie in working out how to prompt meaningful, cohesive discussion that goes beyond mere airing of questions and points, and in developing clear ways in which the results can be drawn together into strategies and recommendations. Oddly, despite the large array of topics, three of the WMF's key priorities—the global south, the startlingly persistent gender disparity, and editor retention in the WMF projects—were not mentioned.
Hey you—yeah you, the Wikipedian! Do you want to help a museum, a library, a university, or other organization explore ways to engage with Wikipedia? Great—you should offer your expertise as a Wikipedian in residence!
The Wikipedian in residence concept was proposed by Geoff Burling in 2006. Liam Wyatt was the first to make it happen when, in 2010, he persuaded the British Museum to bring him on, to help their curators get to know Wikipedia and its volunteer community, and explore opportunities. Individual outreach to organizations remains a great way to earn a Residency, but these days, you will also find job postings all over the world from organizations that are already on board with the idea.
If you find yourself in such a role, you will have opportunities to help your host organization share knowledge in new and exciting ways; and to help Wikipedia readers and editors around the world benefit directly from the expertise and institutional knowledge your host possesses.
Your role is that of a connector and a facilitator; you should aim to empower those around you (both the staff of your host organization, and Wikipedia volunteers who share the organization's interests). (If you find your host is approaching it as a paid editing program, you should proceed with caution; you might want to point them at this Signpost article: Foundation-supported Wikipedian in residence faces scrutiny.)
So what can you do to get off to a good start? Here are a few ideas. (Past and present Wikipedians in Residence, please add your own ideas and lessons in the comments!)
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Wikipedia's talk pages can be drama machines—or they can be ghostly silent. But ideally, they can be incredible forums for processing complex information, and determining the best way to clearly and neutrally guide a reader's learning process.
What makes discussions on Wikipedia work well? Facilitation! Just getting the conversation going, and reiterating important questions, can go a long way. Commit to working openly, in whatever way best fits your project, from the start. Use article talk pages, relevant WikiProjects, and other forums to help Wikipedians understand what you're doing, and how to support your work. Be sure to create a "project page" on Wikipedia covering the goals and activities of your residency, like the one from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis residency.
Whether you love or hate discussing the ins and outs of copyright and licensing, these topics are hugely important to your host organization, and to their ability to contribute meaningfully to the Wikimedia vision. You shouldn't bore all your colleagues with all the details. But you should seek out decision-makers, and make sure they have a good grasp of how free licenses work, and how various kinds of works enter the public domain. Doing so will help them guide their organization toward "playing well" with Wikipedia and the free culture movement for many years to come.
Your Residency will be over before you know it! You should build lasting and sustainable ties to Wikipedia, that last long after your stay is gone. One of the best things you can do is to help your organization—its curators, librarians, or staff—meet other Wikipedians, and learn how to interact in their strange environment. In-person events like an edit-a-thon or a Backstage Pass will probably be well received by your host. You should get your colleagues online to interact with Wikipedians, too; do something like the GLAMout, or at least guide your colleagues through a WikiProject's talk pages, or encourage them to subscribe to a relevant email list. Ideally, you should use all of these tools, and actively reach out to Wikipedians (both locally and internationally) to join you.
If you're an active Wikipedian, you've probably learned to be bold, and just add material to Wikipedia according to your understanding of what is appropriate. You might do lots of stuff without needing to discuss it, because you have developed an good sense for the consensus around you.
As a Wikipedian in residence, sometimes, you will want to resist that impulse. If you're adding a basic fact to an article, maybe that creates an opportunity to show a colleague how to format a reference. Or, maybe you've spent the last three months persuading your boss to release a collection of photos under a free license. Congratulations! But before you stay up all night uploading them yourself, consider the benefits of showing a few colleagues how to properly use the Wikimedia Commons upload wizard.
If you're doing the kind of stuff discussed above, this part will come naturally: you will be clearly expressing who you work for, and how you're approaching your work, as you add material to Wikipedia. But regardless, you should give the conflict of interest guideline some thought. Make sure that readers and editors who care about your topic, and would want to know about your involvement, have a reasonable chance of learning about it.
Your user page should clearly explain your Residency, and how you are approaching it. If you're working actively on specific articles, see #1 above: leave plenty of notes on relevant talk pages. And seek private feedback from Wikipedians you trust—an independent perspective can help a lot. You also might look at the Statement of Ethics I published for my consulting business, Wiki Strategies.
Remember that your host organization and future Wikipedians in Residence will follow your lead. Set a high standard that will provide a great example for future reference. And when you talk with colleagues about Wikipedia, be sure to cover this topic; help them create good user pages, leave good edit summaries, and use talk pages appropriately.
You have an opportunity to bridge gaps, using multiple forms of communication. Have fun with it!
Whether your Residency is three weeks or three years, your last day will arrive before you know it! As it approaches, you may start to realize that you are the most informed person on the planet about the intersection between your host organization and Wikipedia. Well done!
You should make sure your knowledge lives beyond your residency. Did you learn something useful from the kind of activities discussed above? Great!
Consider capturing those lessons in a "how to engage with Wikipedia" document for your host organization. Your colleagues will want to refer to it when their memories start to fade: Wait, how do I make a wikilink? What are the different licensing choices, again? Don't kill yourself though, or reinvent the wheel. Documentation is no guarantee of learning, and you don't want to write a 500 page tome that gathers dust on your boss's bookshelf. A few short, easy-to-follow guidelines will serve your host well.
And maybe most importantly, tell your fellow Wikipedians how it went, and what opportunities are still in play with your host! Write a blog post (or three!) Send an email to the cultural partners email list (closed subscription, but by the time you've completed a residency, you'll surely be on it.) Give a talk at a conference like Wiki Conference USA. Tell us what worked, and what didn't—we're all eager to learn from your experience!
Cynthia Ashley-Nelson, who edited as "Cindamuse" on the Wikimedia projects, passed away in her sleep at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin on 11 April.
Cynthia's death was first relayed to the movement by the Affiliations Committee, on which she served as vice-chair for one day before her death. Originally an English Wikipedian, having registered an account on the site in 2007, she wrote two good articles on the site, including one on her distant relative Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury and the 2010 book on the first US president, Washington: A Life, and made about 33,500 edits. She was nominated for administrator by Pedro in December 2013 and passed with 97 votes in support.
In the Wikimedia movement, Cynthia was appointed to the Affiliations Committee, which advises the Wikimedia Foundation on the approval of new affiliates, at the beginning of 2014. She participated with Wikipedia's Volunteer Response Team, which uses an open-source ticket request system (OTRS) to respond to email inquiries, and co-moderated the Wikimedia movement's gender gap mailing list.
In real life, Cynthia lived in the United States. Born in California, she worked in Washington as the founder and executive director of Catalyst Resource Network, whose Facebook page describes it as an organization that fights one of the remaining areas of slavery: sex trafficking and exploitation. "We're basically a modern day Underground Railroad."
Tributes to Cynthia came in from around the movement. The outgoing and incoming chairs of the Affiliations Committee wrote in a joint statement that "In the short time since January that Cindy has been with us in the Affiliations Committee, we have come to value her thoughts, passion and refreshing ideas. She was working very enthusiastically with us, and we are all saddened that we won’t have the chance to learn from all of her ideas, insights and experiences. The months we shared proved her to be a very valuable and engaged member of the committee".
Foundation board member María Sefidari wrote in the Wikimedia blog: "We would send each other long emails about movement roles and how to move forward with the movement. And as it usually happens, conversations turned from the more formal to the informal, eventually including little snippets of our every day lives, the good things that happened to us and the not so good. When we met for the first time face to face several days ago, we gave each other a big hug. ... I think our last interaction was about getting together at some moment during the conference to just hang out and talk. She had a great smile."
Tributes are being left on her English Wikipedia talk page.
This week, we visited WikiProject Catholicism. Started in November 2005. The project has grown to include 75 pieces of Featured material and 118 Good Articles. WikiProject Catholicism is a child project of WikiProject Christianity (see our 2009 interview in the sidebar to the right) and oversees the Canon Law Task Force. We interviewed the multi-talented Johnbod.
Until next time, check out our previous reports in the archive.
Reader comments
After just over a month of deliberation, the Wikimania jury has selected Wikimedia Mexico's bid to host Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City, with a proposed date of 15–19 July. This choice, pending WMF staff review, will be only the second annual Wikimedia movement conference to be held in the Spanish-speaking world in Wikimania's 11-year history, after the Buenos Aires Wikimania in 2009. Mexico City's exotic mixture of modern and colonial elements and its dynamic economy are likely to provide an exciting backdrop to the event. Indeed, Mexico City is the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world, with 22 million people in its greater metropolitan area. An unusual feature of the city is its altitude, at 2,200 meters, or more than 7,000 feet—a challenge for some athletes at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the city.
Mexico City beat two other proposals—Cape Town, South Africa; and Monastir, Tunisia—after bids from Bali, Indonesia; and Dar es Salaam and Arusha, both in Tanzania, and Esino Lario in Italy's Lake Como region were either withdrawn, disqualified, or otherwise ruled out. One jury member, the UK chapter's Richard Symonds, wrote on the Wikimedia mailing list that "the reason we disqualified Bali and Dar es Salaam was that those two bids were not really complete enough to score". There have been calls for the details of scoring to be made public.
Speakers are likely to include prominent experts in the fields of Wikimedia values, free culture, and the future in the Spanish-speaking context. The strengths of the bid are listed as conference facilities, public transport (although "Mexico City has daily transit troubles and numerous protests at their main streets"), and internet connectivity, with relatively cheap international flights, especially to North America, uncomplicated visa arrangements, and a low cost of living. Although just over two years old, the chapter says it has established relationships with government, the cultural sector, companies, and NGOs, a high media profile, and experience in the organisation and development of international events. Much is made of the location as a tourist destination, with a "huge variety of international restaurants, gourmet and regional food", and a large range of "luxury brands and stores".
However, Mexico City has its drawbacks, such as a lack of available large-scale accommodation (against the significant advantage of the single hotel for all participants at the recent Berlin conference; see related Signpost coverage). It will not be possible to walk to the venue—about $10,000 has had to be allocated to shuttle buses to and from the venue and accommodation. The chapter wrote that there is a chance of "sudden fee changes", "slow response of institutions and procedures", and higher prices in the summer peak season.
What about safety? The WMF's Steven Walling wrote on the Wikimedia-l mailing list that "Mexico tends to have a reputation for violent crime. Sources do seem to suggest Mexico City proper may be better, but it would be comforting to hear how we've assessed the bid regarding the safety issue, and how we're going to be prepared in case the worst (robberies, kidnappings) do happen." Safety is "not a small concern", according the Foundations's Philippe Beaudette, who assures Wikimedians that the WMF team is working on it.
The total income for the Mexican bid is listed as nearly US$450k, which includes a WMF grant of $300k, sponsorships of $100k, registration fees of $40k from 1500 projected attendees (the largest previous Wikimania was in 2012 with 1400 attendees), and other grants and revenue of $9k. The expenses are listed as some $344k. Costs will include $25k for CCTV, streaming, and recording, in addition to $28k for Wi-Fi, electricals, and audio. Audio for the main stage alone will be an additional $18k, and AV display equipment for three rooms another $10k, with $2k for electricians.
There is an unexplained $34k for library and garden furniture; and for participants, knick-knacks like pens, stickers, notebooks, t-shirts, backpacks will set us back $60k, not including stationery for sessions ($3k) and printing for participants' program kits and sundries ($8k). Ivan Martínez, the president of Wikimedia Mexico, told us that while the conference's venue will be donated free of charge, "we have to rent furniture and other equipment to hold proper sessions for this amount of people." As for the $60k, "This is a high estimate and will be dependent on how much sponsorship we can raise. We have already discussed going over this item and others in the budget in more detail with the WMF conference staff. They thought it was high as well."
Wikimedia Mexico has no paid staff, so project management and "expenditures of volunteers" will come to $17k, with the matter of employing regular chapter volunteers on projects a delicate one. "Waitress service" may rankle a bit with those who are keen to see the Wikimedia movement embrace the genders on equal terms.
While Wikimedia Mexico's proposed budget was higher than those of the South African and Tunisian bids, Martinez explained that "When preparing the budget, we were not trying to match or be competitive with the Cape Town bid. The Foundation gave direction that the budget should be close to $300,000, and that is what our team was aiming for. There are some items like promotional materials and video that are higher, but these items are also dependent on our obtaining sponsorships to cover part of the expense."
Specific budget items will evolve over the next few months.
In related news, Garfield Byrd, the Foundation's chief of finance and administration, has advised the Signpost that the financial report from last year's Wikimania has been received. The report, which was due within three months after the August event, has been the subject of a succession of queries from both the Foundation and the Signpost, and a final deadline of 15 April to avoid external auditing. Byrd says: "Once we have agreement on the report with Wikimedia Hong Kong, we would expect the Wikimedia Hong Kong will post it on Meta where comments and feedback can be posted".
Reader comments
If I were the kind of person who made snap judgments based on flimsy evidence, I'd say our readership is in a funk. Compare this week's Easter queries to last year's; they're down by 50%. Also, compare this week's "Purple Wedding" on Game of Thrones, which saw the death by poisoning of that loathsome sprog Joffrey Baratheon, to last year's "Red Wedding", down by ≈40%. It's a recurring trend; the Golden Globes, the Oscars and several other annual events are noticeably lower in the rankings from last year. Are people just not able to summon the necessary enthusiasm? Although the barrage of worrisome news appears to have faded from the list this week, perhaps its cumulative weariness has had an impact. The high position for the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, a topic of interest mainly to British readers and so not usually likely to reach the top 25, shows that our readers are in a mood of sombre reflection. Certainly our readers seem drawn to the darker elements of the Easter holiday this year, if the order is any indication.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation for any exclusions.
For the week of 13 to 19 April, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Game of Thrones | 
|
775,534 |  |
Well, it took a week, but Game of Thrones is back on top. Could it have something to do with a certain homicidal brat getting his long overdue comeuppance? |
| 2 | Good Friday | 
|
607,170 |  |
It's Easter week this week, and it seems people were more drawn to its dark side this year, the day that commemorates ("celebrates" isn't really the word) the torture and crucifixion (Passion) of Jesus Christ, as opposed to Easter Sunday (below) which celebrates his resurrection. |
| 3 | Hillsborough disaster |
|
551,667 |  |
The worst football disaster in British history, in which human crush led to the death of 96 spectators and the injury of nearly 800 more, got some often vociferous attention during the week of its 25th anniversary on 15 April, with some questioning whether the steps taken to prevent its recurrence have inflicted more harm than intended. |
| 4 | Easter |
|
549,027 |  |
It's hard to remember these days, under the onslaught of bunnies, chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps, that Easter, not Christmas, is the most sacred date of the Christian calendar. Doubtless a lot of people learned that this week, along with some fairly eye-raising information about the events it actually celebrates. |
| 5 | Bubba Watson |
|
496,963 |  |
One of the few professional southpaw golfers, Watson won his second Masters Tournament this week. |
| 6 | Game of Thrones (season 4) |
|
477,676 | |
As usual, people will be using this page to look up air dates. |
| 7 | Heartbleed | 
|
444,564 |  |
Despite its virus-y name, this isn't a virus; it is a security bug in the "heartbeat" (basically a repeated "Is All Well?" signal) in the OpenSSL program, which is widely used to provide security for internet sites. It is estimated to have affected 17 percent of all sites using the program, which spooked Netizens en masse this week as they rushed to change their potentially compromised passwords. |
| 8 | List of Game of Thrones episodes | 
|
433,201 | |
Most likely air dates again. |
| 9 | Göbekli Tepe |
|
423,487 |  |
Southeastern Turkey is home to some of the earliest known urban settlements in the world; so old we don't have names for the people who built them. The Göbekli Tepe site features ritualistic structures that may be as much as 12,000 years old, as pointed out in a thread on Reddit this week. |
| 10 | Amazon.com |
|
419,848 |  |
This article has been veering wildly (and suspiciously) around the view graph for several weeks, but at least now its presence on the list has a reason: Amazon Fire TV, announced this week, is a digital streaming device to watch online content on an HDTV. How it distinguishes itself from the three or four other such devices currently on the market is a matter of some dispute. |
Fourteen featured articles were promoted this fortnight.
Four featured lists were promoted this fortnight.
Seven featured pictures were promoted this week.
One featured topic was promoted this fortnight.
