Discussions/Submissions

Discussions

Wikimania 2016 has an entire space dedicated to round table discussions with a series of Discussion Rooms available. The topics are yet to be decided: you are warmly invited to suggest topics on this page.

Call opens on February 25 and closes on March 30.

Outline

The Discussion Rooms host discussions with a specific style:

Discussions of 40-50 minutes each;
Clearly defined topic for each discussion, related to Wikimedia;
Aiming to reach pre-defined goals during the discussion;
Discussions take place in English;
Discussions are moderated by a facilitator;
There is no audience as everybody is expected to participate in discussions, and everybody is audience;
Key lessons and points are documented live on etherpad, and may be processed later.

Location: Esino Lario primary school. If need be, we can host a number of discussions in parallel, if the group needs to be split up. We are aiming for 1-2 discussions in parallel, maximum.

Time

The discussions are organized in a series of slots of 1 hour and a half.

Friday 14.00-15.30
Friday 16.00-17.30
Saturday 10.30-12.00
Saturday 14.00-15.30
Saturday 16.00-17.30
Sunday 10.30-12.00
Sunday 14.00-15.30

Content: Discussions can be around any topic related to Wikimedia. This year, a broader range of topics is accepted compared to previous years. That means also offline topics and topics that focus more on the Wikimedia Foundation could be proposed. For example, the Q&A to the Wikimedia Foundation board might be held in the Discussion Rooms and a slot of discussions may be dedicated to governance.

Process

A guiding committee will guide this process, and select the relevant topics primarily based on proposals and discussions here.

A public call is made for suggested topics, which are discussed on this page. For the sake of easy process, the guiding committee will decide going up to Wikimania which topics will appear on the program, and will prepare them for the sessions.

You can enter your proposal in the section below. Please include the following details in your proposal:

A title/topic (10-15 words)
A description of the questions to address (up to 100 words)
Purpose, what would you like to see accomplished?
Targeted participants (who would you like to see attend the session?)
optional: relevant experts - who would you really like to see there?
optional: preparatory readings or materials - what should people know in order to understand the discussion?

Please, click here, create a new section and enter your proposal according to the following form:

Title:
Proposed by:
Description:
Purpose:
Targeted participants:
Preparatory readings or materials:

Add a topic

How to grow and maintain communities under censorship and/or repressive regimes

Title: Title: how to grow and maintain communities under censorship and/or repressive regimes; Original title: Cooperation with Wikimedia communities in countries with reduced freedom of speech. What is more important - information or safety? Example of Belarus

Proposed by

Tomasz Bladyniec

Description

Discussion about the principles - if you cooperate with Wikimedia community in a country, where writing some things in public may bring repressions on the author, should we focus on freedom of speech - as the Wikipedia should be frist of all FREE encyclopedia - or should be try to protect fellow Wikipedians working in that country by not touching some fragile topics, like politics and others? The problem will be described on an example of cooperation of Polish and Belarusian Wikipedia community.

The example: we organise Wikipedia workshop in Poland for Belarusians, and the participants bring some symbols with them, which are legal in Poland but problematic in Belarus. Should we forbid it, making the participant upset and becoming censors ourselves? Or should we let them use it, making potential trouble for Wikipedians in Belarus?

Purpose

The discussion is about to analyse which principles of Wikimedia community are "carved in stone" and which ones may be subjects of compromises. Which choice is more moral and which - more pragmatic?

Targeted participants

All Wikipedians and Wikimedians

Relevant Experts

you

Preparatory readings or materials

Comments and Questions 2

Hi Tomasz, thank you for your proposal. For which other language communities could this discussion be relevant? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:26, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest to make the topic broader - examples are not really a good topic for a roundtable discussion, although they can play a role. The core topic I would imagine to be rather something along the lines of how to grow and maintain communities under censorship and/or repressive regimes. Still a very complicated topic that needs work, but then it might be something. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What are the movement-wide opportunities for supporting GLAM-Wiki?

Title: What are the movement-wide opportunities for supporting and growing GLAM-Wiki?
Proposed by: User:Astinson (WMF)
Description: Since 2010, GLAM-Wiki has grown beyond Commons donations and events focused on editing: data, mapping, mixed media, and more complex Open GLAM outreach projects abound. Global growth and more partnerships diversify what it means to do “GLAM-Wiki”, but documentation and technology lag behind this diversification.

This discussion will ask big questions about strategically supporting GLAM-Wiki across the movement:

How do we help new GLAM-Wiki volunteers grow partnerships?
What is the technical deficit for GLAM-Wiki?
What capacity building opportunities are there for Wikimedia affiliates, employed GLAM-Wiki participants, and the WMF?

Purpose

Identify opportunities for WMF and affiliates to support greater movement wide support of GLAM-Wiki
Help new and experience GLAM-Wiki contributors identify growing trends and opportunities in GLAM-Wiki

Targeted Participants

Active GLAM-Wiki volunteers, affiliate GLAM-Wiki coordinators and other programatic organizers
Wikimedia volunteers interested in developing GLAM-Wiki efforts in their own context

Preparatory materials

Explore the GLAM-Wiki documentation on outreach

Questions and Comments 3

Hi User:Astinson (WMF), thank you for your proposal! Which other GLAM-related presentations and events will be happening during this Wikimania and how does your proposal relate to them? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:34, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Gnom: All of the other presentations are specific skills, or cases studies, or more general overviews of GLAM-Wiki. My goal with this conversation is to collect what opportunities for supporting movement-wide impact with GLAM-Wiki, and trying to engage a number of practitioners in evaluating that opportunity. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Astinson (WMF), if you have the time, could you provide a list? Thank you very much, --Gnom (talk) 14:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looking forward in the GLAM-wiki field may be useful indeed. I would suggest to clarify the topic a bit. It seems the focus is really on partnerships with the GLAM sector (i.e. not activities that are fully Wikimedians-driven). Also, we will have to cut down a bit on the topic to make it clearer. I guess a brainstorm on what else is possible, which fields are unexplored might be promising. But that is a very different discussions on what is needed to better accomplish our current goals. So lets choose between What are the next goals for the GLAM-wiki collaboration and How can we better support the Wikimedia volunteers working on GLAM-wiki collaborations which seem to me the two main directions. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders: I have clarified this a bit, with a slightly different question "What are the movement-wide opportunities for supporting and growing GLAM-Wiki?" I also removed the trends question, since many of the other discussions talk about this at some level. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Astinson (WMF): OK, thanks. With this rephrased question, also a rephrased targeted participants is needed though :) If the focus is to get a clear image of what can be done to improve support, then the focus would be on people with either experience in running those projects, or people who have experience in supporting them. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:03, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure what you are asking-- the current description does focus on experienced coordinators. Also sorry for the late response -- WMCON and a bit of time off, to recover. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders:13:51, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Astinson (WMF), Astinson (WMF): congratulations! This proposal, What are the movement-wide opportunities for supporting and growing GLAM-Wiki? has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for It is tentatively scheduled for Friday 14.00-14.40, 24 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! -- Anthere (talk) 20:46, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Anthere: Sounds great, looking forward to hosting -- sorry for not responding sooner thought I did.Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:06, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing workshops in Schools, Discussing Pros and Cons, Challenges and Opportunities?

Title: Collaborations in education projects : discussing Pros and Cons, Challenges and Opportunities
Proposed by: Deror Lin and Darya Kantor
Description: Taking a 3 years program implementing editing workshops in a school as an example, this discussion seeks to address collaborations in education projects in general.

Quick outline of the show case: Editing workshops in the HaNagid school (with gifted middle school students) are not easy. There are many challenges, and students/ teachers/ headmaster don't always cooperate or misbehave. There are technical difficulties (not enough computers, no internet, the entire school being blocked on Wikipedia). However this is the third year that this editing workshop is done successful. Why? We'll talk about best practices, learning from our mistakes, and share ideas on the subject, and we can display how we use these challenges to create a more successful project.

Purpose: A lot of knowhow is gathered when you address a three year running project. Our goal is to learn as much as we can from this success. Expanding to other successful experiences in educational contexts.
Targeted participants: volunteers in Education programs. Project leader in Education programs.

Questions and Comments 6

Hi Deror and Darya, thank you for your submission. Please bear in mind that discussions are not presentations, so could you rephrase your proposal so that it is less about your own experience? Also, could you try to list a few school projects from elsewhere that could be discussed? --Gnom (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Deror avi:. Agreed with Gnom. This track focuses on round table discussions. The topics collaborations in education projects is interesting, and an angle from that may be possible. But I don't think it should be focused so much on a specific implementation. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:58, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Deror avi:, congratulations! This proposal, renamed "Collaborations in education projects : discussing Pros and Cons, Challenges and Opportunities" has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Friday 14.45-15.25, 24 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! -- Anthere (talk) 09:36, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Systemic Bias

Title: Systemic bias in Wikipedia - what does it look like and how to mitigate it?
Proposed by: Douglas Scott
Description: Systemic bias is a well-documented problem in open tech, but it is not studied extensively from the Wikimedia context. This is particularly frustrating for women editors and editors from Global South communities but also extends to other groups as well. Subtle systemic bias often goes unnoticed, or gets taken as humor. This discussion will hopefully give the participants a concise idea about identifying and overcoming systemic bias.
Purpose: To discuss what systemic bias is and looks like, the extent of systemic bias and its effects, and how be to try and mitigate it.
Targeted participants: All Wikipedia editors
Preparatory readings or materials: Wikipedia:Systemic bias, Gender bias on Wikipedia, Racial bias on Wikipedia

Questions and Comments 7

Hi Douglas Scott, thank you for your proposal. Should this discussion also deal with harassment? Also, could you add a simple definition of systemic bias to your description that is easy to understand for participants who do not speak English fluently, maybe using an example? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:49, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Discott: Systemic bias may be interesting to discuss, but it needs a bit more focus, a clearer goal for the discussion. What would be the result of a good discussion to you? I think it would definitely have to be separate from harassment discussions - systemic bias is usually more about the unknown and unattended issues, I guess. (not sure btw what the humor reference means) So: are you trying to uncover possible causes for systemic bias, approaches towards addressing it, or do you simply want to discuss whether it exists? And what would be the constructive outcome? Effeietsanders (talk) 21:08, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: Hi, Discott here, having trouble logging in over the past few weeks. :P In answer to your question, yes the discussion will not be about harassment and will focus on systemic bias in the sense of unknown or unintentional issues issues. I will see if I can add a better definition. @Effeietsanders:, discussing possible causes of of systemic bias is something of interest but of much greater interest would be seeking a constructive outcome to the problem. My assuption is that systemic baise does indeed exist.196.14.91.230 13:40, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support for young editors

Title

How can we improve the support for young editors?

Proposed by

DerHexer, DerMaxdorfer, DasMonstaaa, Freddy2001, Mosellaender

Description

This discussion aims at another gap in Wikipedia, the neglected support of young editors. For launching the discussion, attendees of the first-ever meetup focused on underage Wikipedians which could take place thanks to the support by Wikimedia Deutschland will describe their experiences. In the end, on-wiki support turned into real-life engagement and friendship, and full integration into the German Wikipedia community, for example, as ArbCom members. Other stories from the audience will lead to the main question on how to improve the support of these promising contributors, for example through Wikimedia organizations.

Purpose

Young editors, their supporters, and members of the Wikimedia organizations will discuss the question of whether or not a closer focus on supporting young contributors can make a meaningful, positive change to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in general. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, we want to motivate the audience to join us in supporting young Wikipedians in general.

Targeted participants

All Wikipedians at the age of 21 or younger, all people interested in supporting underage Wikipedians, especially staff members and volunteers of Wikimedia organizations specialized in supporting volunteers.

Preparatory readings or materials

Summary of first-ever meetup focused on underage Wikipedians

Questions and Comments 10

Hi DerHexer, DerMaxdorfer, DasMonstaaa, Freddy2001, Mosellaender, thank you for your proposal. Do you know of any other similar projects from other Wikimedia communities? Also, I would like to declare a conflict of interest here: DerHexer is a wiki-friend of mine and an employee of Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am a member of the board. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:05, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is just one project on Chinese Wikipedia which has a similar focus but is not as active as the German club. With stories from around the world where young editors either were sufficiently supported or not, we want to discuss whether or not such help, for example through Wikimedia organizations which can ensure safety as well as logistical run, can have an impact to these groups in the Wikimedia projects and thereby to the whole communities. DerHexer (talk) 07:24, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might be interesting indeed. If we program this, I would suggest to split the discussion in two: first focusing on the needs that are special to underage Wikipedians (can we put a clear definition on this?), and then how we could support those. Effeietsanders (talk) 10:00, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. Cheers, DerHexer (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to raise another point: Since all five (!) of you are coming from one project, you should be aware that for a successful discussion, you would have to play close attention to let others speak as well. --Gnom (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, we will only give some input and will hold back within the discussion where we also want to learn from other countries. Cheers, DerHexer (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Content translation across Wikipedias

Title: Content translation; Original title: Language-mixing in English-to-Spanish translations on Wikipedia
Proposed by

User:Góngora (Wikipedian since 2006, admin/bureaucrat, checkuser, and linguist/translator)

Description

(to be updated)

This talk is community-oriented and the main goal is to let users share their experience regarding cross-wiki translation. We often see many errors there. The ultimate goal is to learn from each other and to get feedback from experienced wiki-translators. Their tips can help other (less experienced) users to improve the quality of many articles on Wikipedia. Translation is a key concept and it is often subject to debate and controversy depending on factors such as quality of the translation, topic, etc. It could be interesting to get some advice from Wikipedians. The fact that so many languages and communities will be represented there, makes it even more interesting because we can see if there are any significant differences across different languages/versions.

Purpose

Translation is a very important tool and thousands of Wikipedians and Wikimedians translate articles on a daily basis. It would be interesting to ask experienced and non-experienced wiki-translators/editors about their task on Wikipedia, their attitude towards the English Wikipedia vs. other Wikipedias, and what choices do they make when they translate into their own language (Do they keep the foreign words? Are they loyal to the original texts? Do they adapt it to suit their own interests?)

Targeted participants

This project is aimed at Wikipedia translators and editors, regardless of language or community. All editors and translators on Wikipedia are free - and more than welcome - to join the discussion!

Preparatory readings or materials

Questionnaire(s), slides, and Translation tool on Wikipedia.

Questions and Comments 11

Hi User:Góngora, please bear in mind that discussions are not presentations. Can you rephrase your proposal to make it a discussion? Thanks, --*Gnom (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Seems too much like a presentation, and I don't see how this could be rephrased towards a discussion topic. I would propose to leave it out of the discussion schedule. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a presentation. On the contrary, the main goal is to interact with both experienced and non-experienced users and let them share their opinions and their feelings about cross-wiki translation. This is user-oriented and I am sure that a discussion of this kind can help others to improve their translation skills on Wikipedia. We often see many errors there. Translation is a key point. We do translate all the time. This is often a controversial issue on Wikipedia and it makes no harm to the project or event to openly discuss about this. This is my opinion. --Góngora (talk) 09:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Góngora: In the current shape, it wouldn't fit, I think. But we could add a more general discussion about crosswiki translations, if we can find the right focus. It is community oriented, so that is a plus. We would have to move away from the specific languages you mention, and the NTNU project as well, I think. The purpose would be to gather best practices in translating articles across wiki's and identifying different approaches. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:15, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders: Thanks. I changed a few things, following your suggestion. I think that this new approach can fit the goals of the discussion and, at the same time, it will provide me with useful material. --Góngora (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Góngora: congratulations! This proposal, renamed "Intertranswiki: different approaches towards translating content across Wikipedias" has been accepted by the Discussion Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday afternoon, 25 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please confirm you'll be attending Wikimania, and let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! --Rosiestep (talk) 02:53, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rosiestep: Thank you! I have already confirmed my attendance to Wikimania. See you in Esino Lario! --Góngora (talk) 13:18, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia articles: Controlling the quality and relevance

Title: New articles: Controlling the content, quality, and relevance - a critical cross-Wiki issue
Proposed by: User:Kudpung. Editor since 2006, admin (en.Wiki) since 2011, and linguist/translator (English, French, German)
Description: This is a cross-Wiki critical issue affecting all Wikimedia projects.The English Wikipedia is fighting a losing battle to control and maintain standards of newly submitted articles. The concern is over copyright infringements, paid advocacy (advertising) and COI (Conflict of Interest), Biography infringements, other inappropriate articles, and plain vandalism, hoaxes, and trolling.
Purpose: To discuss how the Wikipedia projects address these issues and to elicit suggestions how existing controls can be improved while at the same time not discouraging the creation of new articles by new users who are simply not aware of our policies and guidelines.
Targeted participants: Maintenance workers. Especially editors engaged in combating vandalism, reviewing new edits, and patrolling new pages.
Relevant experts: Admins who are particularly engaged on speedy deletion (en:WP:CSD), Proposed Deletion (en:WP:PROD), deletion discussions (en:WP:AfD), and blocking users who blatantly and/or repeatedly abuse the policies that govern content); and users who are concerned with training of maintenance editors and the mentoring of offenders.
Preparatory readings or materials: On en.Wiki, the Page Curation System and Wikipedia:Page Curation/Help and the parent project: Wikipedia:New Pages Patrol; en:Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, and en:Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles
Supports: Handouts containing statistics drawn from en.Wiki. Live demonstration of the way the Page Curation tool is used on en.Wiki. Explanation of the problems experienced by en.Wiki.

Note: Kudpung is a fluent speaker of several languages and this can easily be a multi-lingual discussion.

Questions and Comments 60

Hi User:Kudpung, thank you for your excellent proposal! Maybe you could mention the relevant projects on itwiki, frwiki, and dewiki and delete "Qualitätssicherung" from the title? --Gnom (talk) 14:11, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I boldly edited the title. Getting a good overview of the different processes in use, may be interesting. I would suggest to focus on 'quality and relevance' though, and leave out vandalism, trolling etc - those are the obvious ones. Related but different from the discussion proposal about Systemic Bias. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:13, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
*@Kudpung: We used your submission as inspiration for this discussion topic: The balance of references and footnotes: How far to go for optimal quality. Hope you'll join! Effeietsanders (talk) 13:51, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders: My discussion is not about re-discussing the criteria for notabillity. It is about the process of checking newly created artiles for suitability and tagging inapropriate articles for deletion. Kudpung (talk) 08:42, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What is Wikipedia's role in breaking news?

Title: What is Wikipedia's role in breaking news?
Proposed by: Joe Sutherland (foxj)
Description: As Wikipedia grows larger and covers more and more topics, increasingly its coverage of breaking news events has become more comprehensive and, in many cases, outpaces mainstream media. We'll discuss the consequences of these developments, and what this means for Wikipedia as an encyclopedia based on verification but which allows for real-time editing.
Purpose: To discuss how verifiability of information conflicts with real-time updating of information in breaking news situations, and to take a closer look at some case studies of recent events.
Targeted participants: Those interested in the media and breaking news coverage, and how it is handled through the eyes of an encyclopedia.
Preparatory readings or materials:
- Ford, H.: Infoboxes and Cleanup Tags: Artifacts of Wikipedia Newsmaking.
- Keegan, B., Gergle, D. and Contractor, N.: Hot Off the Wiki: Structures and Dynamics of Wikipedia’s Coverage of Breaking News Events.
- Keegan, B.: The news on Wikipedia in 2014.
- Sutherland, J.: How Wikipedia responds to breaking news.

Questions and Comments 14

Hi Joe, thank you for your proposal. Can you expand on what the purpose of this discussion is? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:29, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While the topic needs more work on defining a good scope, I like the theme and the direction. It is also one of the few 'editorial' discussions. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:21, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gnom and Effeietsanders. Apologies for the delay. I think it's looking less likely that I will actually be able to chair this particular discussion, but the purpose of it would be to better understand Wikipedia's changing role in news coverage, and how the community collaborates on the writing of these articles. I think this is more of a "mass-collaboration" in general discussion than one specific to Wikipedia. Foxj (talk) 17:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Foxj: We used your submission as inspiration for this discussion topic: The balance of references and footnotes: How far to go for optimal quality. Hope you'll join! Effeietsanders (talk) 13:51, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing - I'll try to make it there! I'll definitely be at the conference. :) Foxj (talk) 14:25, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The future of Wikimania

Title: The future of Wikimania and other community conferences
Proposed by: James Forrester (Chair, Wikimania Committee)
Description: As the Wikimedia community has grown and changed in the past eleven years, so has Wikimania, our annual community conference. It has grown in scale, changed in nature, experimented with different styles and tracks, and explored different pricing and scholarship models, venues and purposes; this year's conference is an example of that experimentation. Many attendees consider it the height of their year, and the most effective way to build strong relationships with community members across the globe, make progress on tricky issues, and secure agreement and mutual understanding.
At its very largest, however, Wikimania has attracted fewer than 0.1% of the active editors of the sites. Many members cannot take on the luxury of attending a global conference, because they have commitments that make it impossible to travel, or travel that far, because they do not have the funds and cannot get a scholarship, or other reasons. How do we help as many of our community members as possible enjoy what makes Wikimania special? How do we make things better than they are? Where should our work be focused?
Purpose: As a group, we will share thoughts on what we each hope for the future of community conferences in general, and consider what changes might improve things.
Targeted participants: Community members interested in community dynamics, events, engagement and culture. Especially welcome are people from communities currently ill-served by the existing provision. Previous and prospective sponsors of such events, like the Wikimedia Foundation and chapters, are also welcome to give their views.
Preparatory readings or materials:

Questions and Comments 15

Hi James, thank you for your excellent proposal. Can you expand on how this discussion ties into the recent developments in the planning of future Wikimanias? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:33, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: Sure; of which developments were you thinking? I already mention [1] which is the main one, but I'm sure there are others. Jdforrester (talk) 15:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jdforrester, I was thinking of the "two-year Wikimania rhythm" and the "new venue selection process" that I've read about. I haven't quite understood what the status of these two proposals is, so maybe it's a good idea to make that clear in the description? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 15:00, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: Yup, those are part of that. Their status is exactly what the discussion is about. :-) Jdforrester (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Jdforrester, I think the description should briefly state what the current state of things is (Has anything been decided yet? If yes, what has already been decided?). --Gnom (talk) 20:26, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer : I am part of the Wikimania committee. James, I think it might be interesting to start the discussion with a short presentation state of the art (a very quick review of facts and figures for all past wikimanias would be welcome : number of participants, budget, diversity, focus etc.). What about featuring an informal survey as well ? (it may be a sheet of paper with a few questions, to drop in a box at the end of the discussion). Also... are you planning to be the sole facilitator of that discussion or do you bring some people with you ? (no, this is not an hidden agenda to try to be that facilitator myself). Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: I think that sounds like a great idea; I'll change the description tomorrow allowing for further feedback. I'd be more than happy to have other people facilitate if they'd be interested; if not you, whom? I'm not sure a pre-written survey is a good idea – part of the problem right now is forcing people's feedback into a set of pre-decided questions, and I'd like to get away from that. Jdforrester (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jdforrester: good point. Then it means that if there is another facilitator (IF), s-he should not be part of the Wikimania current committee, nor staff at WMF so as to avoid already adopted positions or pre-formed perspectives. I trust you not to fall in that trap :) So maybe what would actually be needed is assistant support to record what is being said, proposed, positions of agreements or disagreement. Anthere (talk)

Hi @Jdforrester: congratulations! This proposal, renamed "The future of Wikimania" has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Sunday afternoon, 26 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please confirm you'll be attending Wikimania, and let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! --Rosiestep (talk) 03:04, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Information sources

Title: Information sources
Proposed by: @cccricri
Description: A discussion to understand how to improve the choice of correct sources.
Purpose: Also open to talk about journalism and news production. An opportunity to discuss with relevant people from other countries about the best ways to check information sources before publishing.
Targeted participants: anyone; journalists, public administrators
Preparatory readings or materials: your own experience with reading good news or receiving uncorrect information.

Questions and Comments 16

Hi @cccricri, would you mind expanding your proposal? It is currently to vague and broad. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:36, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might have common points with Discussions#What_is_Wikipedia.27s_role_in_breaking_news.3F Anthere (talk)
Agreed, I would propose to merge those two proposals. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:30, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As an afterthought, I think that with some adjustment, 'referencing' in a broader sense is an important editorial discussion to be had, too. The two topics could well be paired. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Cccricri: We used your submission as inspiration for this discussion topic: The balance of references and footnotes: How far to go for optimal quality. Hope you'll join! Effeietsanders (talk) 13:51, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata: What do you expect in the next 1 or 2 years?

Title: Designing the future I: A roadmap for Wikidata
Proposed by: Lydia Pintscher
Description: Let's talk about the next two years of Wikidata. What do you expect to happen? What should the development be focused on? What should the content creation and maintenance be focused on? How can we unleash even more of Wikidata's potential?
Purpose: Get input from the attendees what they consider relevant for the next 1 or 2 years of Wikidata. This will not be a "I want a pony" session but instead focus on realistic goals and figuring out how everyone can help make them reality.
Targeted participants: Everyone with at least a basic understanding of Wikidata
Preparatory readings or materials: -

Questions and Comments 17

Hi Lydia Pintscher, thank you for your proposal. Can you explain how this discussion ties in with other Wikidata-related events happening at this Wikimania? Also, I need to declare a conflict of interest: Lydia is an employee of Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am a member of the board. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:37, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This one would be mostly about getting people to talk and brainstorm and express their wishes. The other sessions are more about teaching all things Wikidata. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lydia Pintscher (WMDE), if you have time, can you provide a list of Wikidata-related events at this Wikimania? --Gnom (talk) 15:01, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So far we have one presentation in the critical issues presentation by one of our editors and nothing else as far as I am aware. I have submitted more but those were not accepted and I've just been told that our workshop likely won't make it either. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 15:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an excellent topic again. We would need to work out the details a bit further, but a discussion about the near future of Wikidata would be good. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:32, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is an important topic for our future. Link to the critical issues pres : Critical issues presentations/Wikidata in Wikipedia. If retained... the discussion should be organized after the presentation... Anthere (talk)

Hi @Lydia Pintscher (WMDE):, congratulations! This proposal, renamed Designing the future I: A roadmap for Wikidata, has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday 10.30-11.10, 25 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! -- Anthere (talk) 09:34, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How do we identify, develop and support community leadership?

Title: How do we identify, develop and support community leadership?

Proposed by: User:Astinson (WMF) & Jaime Anstee

Description The Wikimedia Movement rarely relies on individual leaders to guide our global impact, rather many volunteer contributors and movement organizers lead with small acts: from “Being bold” during their first edit, to hosting edit-a-thons, and mentoring volunteers running programs and activities. Program Capacity & Learning at the Wikimedia Foundation is exploring how our movement can encourage and peer-mentoring and development of more community leaders as embedded within and across our regional and thematic communities.

During this conversation, we will talk about:

What leadership qualities should we support in our communities?
What strategies do communities currently use to identify, develop and support volunteer leadership?
What prevents volunteers from identifying themselves as movement leaders?

Purpose Frequently, we rely on individuals who already have the leadership skills and qualities before joining the movement, to lead. This often creates single points of failure within communities. Learning more about the common strategies and issues related to leadership will help our communities plan for developing more leaders in their own context. We expect the following outcomes from the discussion:

Leaders will understand big picture of where we are headed with program capacity and learning supports for community leadership development.
Community leaders will learn what resources our team currently offers to support them as leaders in their home communities
We will engage in a conversation about how to identify what leadership and what community leadership development could look like for our movement
Participants will Influence our team’s next steps in developing support for leadership development throughout the community.

Targeted participants

Existing program leaders
Volunteers interested in becoming stronger leaders within our community, both online and offline
Members and supporters of affilliates interested in encouraging leadership in their own context

Questions & Comments 23

Hi Astinson & Jaime, thank you for your proposal, which I find quite interesting. In your introduction, you state that the Wikimedia movement traditionally relies on the wisdom of the swarm and not on individual leadership. So can you explain why you are apparently trying to change this? Also, please be aware that at least from my cultural background, the words "leadership" and "leader" sound very awkward to begin with. Maybe you want to look for a different expression? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 11:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: Thanks for the great feedback! At the most basic level, we are in the process of developing more peer-to-peer mentoring for individuals who want to expand their role as "leaders" with activities, programs and guiding communities. More broadly we are working on developing a more collective understanding of shared definitions of leadership in the movement -- there are a lot of different ways we rely on the "swarm" to take responsibility, and then to engage others in persuing impact in fulfilling that responsibility. Our hope is to bring some more shared ideas on how to endorse that leadership in community members who act in their own context, to validate that the work they are doing and to help more communities design for helping volunteer learn how to do that kind of work.

As for the cultural incompatibility of the word "leader" -- we identified that in one of our consultations (esp. in the context of totalitarian/strongman governments and cultures). If you have suggestions for better language, we would love to have them (or we can work actively on that shared definition within our context). Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Astinson (WMF), maybe the expression "to take on responsibility" can be useful. --Gnom (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Astinson (WMF): & @JAnstee (WMF): The general topic of 'community leadership' might be an interesting one to tackle, and to find a topic in. The specific proposal is a bit wide and feels more like a workshop or two day retreat than a 45 minute discussion (especially looking at the purpose). If we want to take on such topic, it would have to be refined, to focus probably on off-wiki or on-wiki leadership, and put two or three questions at the center. Also, ideally there should be clear outcomes - beyond 'understanding'. Still, it would be hard to program, given the heavy competition! Lets see where the balance brings us. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:21, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Effeietsanders. Thanks for your comments. While we could certainly use a two-day retreat, we have successfully held this conversation with a few different groups in time slots ranging from as little as 30 up to 60 minutes of discussion time so far. We do have specific prompts for the dialogue and will break into subgroups as needed to keep the conversation sizable to the time allotted. While it may be something to give more ample time where able, since engaging the community in the definition of leadership and gathering insight on how we can best support organic leadership in our movement are priority for us, and community engagement has specifically been called out as important for our team's upcoming work in our FDC annual plan review, we would nonetheless appreciate the opportunity to have this dialogue at Wikimania. These initial in-person dialogues continue to help inform our more general approaches for gathering input for this important work and are key to the process for defining how to support leadership in the movement. Thanks for your consideration JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Astinson & Jaime, I just learned that the Wikimedia Foundation has already decided to launch a "Peer Leadership Academy". I am quite confused regarding the purpose of this discussion now. --Gnom (talk) 20:31, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Gnom Thank you for asking. That is partly correct, the discussion fits with other similar discussions we have been initiating as this will be a focus of our work next year and we will be shifting our existing learning day events into a peer mentoring support model as the Peer Academy. These discussions are the initial feeder into our work to develop the new Peer Academy model for program capacity and learning support in partnership with program and community leaders. JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Forking Wikipedia... and merging back again

Title: Forking Wikipedia... and merging back again!
Proposed by: en:User:cscott
Description: It used to be accepted wisdom that "forking" a community project was a terrible thing to do. Once content was copied, changes to the different copies could never be reconciled. So we pioneered centralized projects with centralized version control: on Wikipedia, there is *one* copy of an article. Every user edits the central copy, and changes are propagated immediately.; Around 2005, that model began to be challenged. Today, "fork and merge" models are prevalent for software development -- there is no centralized authority, instead on sites like github, every user has their own copy of a community project. Excellent tools to visualize changes and contribute them "back upstream" ensure that everyone is working together and the project is not fractured.; One unexpected side effect: since making a personal "fork" was the *first thing* you do when you want to contribute, the pressure of immediate visibility of edits is reduced. New contributors don't get confronted when an immediate (and seemingly unfriendly) revert when they initial attempts are not perfect -- instead they can be encouraged to further develop their ideas in their own personal fork. Thus barriers to entry are reduced and newcomers are not made to feel unwelcome.; This discussion will explore the "fork and merge" model in the context of Wikimedia projects. Can we expand the power of the "Draft" namespace? How do we guide a new editor through preparing a "draft" and submitting it? What's to prevent hostile or biased forks? What are the impacts on our communities and our social mechanisms?
Purpose: To explore decentralized content creation mechanisms and consider how they might be applied to our projects. To find the benefits and potential flaws of this model, and identify promising initial projects that can be done.
Targeted participants: Editors. Those involved in edit wars. Folks who want to build welcoming spaces.
Relevant experts: Those familiar with user studies of newcomers and their experiences first contributing to the project.
Preparatory readings or materials: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T113004 contains a technical discussion, which may be useful for those who are familiar with git, github, and the like. However this discussion is intended to be *non*technical!

Questions & Comments 24

Hi en:User:cscott, thank you for your excellent proposal. Maybe you can look at the description again and make sure this won't be a presentation but in fact a discussion? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 11:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Although you say that the discussion should not be technical, it feels a lot like it could easily diverge into a technical yes-no discussion. Does this go beyond a pure theoretical discussion? I'm doubtful. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi, User:Gnom and User:Effeietsanders! Thanks for your questions. I am assuming that the audience is at least vaguely familiar with the (mis)behavior of the "edit conflict" process in wikimedia projects, or if technical with github and related workflows, so a presentation won't be needed to set the context. I was a bit expository in the discussion description specifically so I *wouldn't* have to set that context in the actual discussion. I have made presentations and had technical discussions of this content before, so I'm not interested in re-covering that ground! What I'm really interested in is hearing from users and editors about their experiences with edit conflicts, with the draft namespace, and with other attempts at mitigating these issues, and to get new ideas which are *not* coming from the "well, git does it this way..." perspective that I've already heard in previous technical discussions. As well, I'm interested in hearing from folks who have worked with forks, hostile or otherwise, and learning what tools they used (or would like to have used) to manage them. Some forks might just be folks who are trying to maintain content in mediawiki whose canonical source is elsewhere, like the winners of some TV program or sports playoff. What tools do we have for synchronizing content and notifying when synchronization is necessary, and what tools could we build? I want to ensure we don't build new solutions that are overly biased toward "the way code developers do things" or "the way code developers thing about the problem", and instead of responsive to editors and the social needs of communities. I'm hoping for a discussion which takes advantage of the unique community present at Wikimania, which wouldn't be possible in a conversation of developers in San Francisco.Cscott (talk) 19:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hm, maybe you could look at your proposal again and rewrite it a bit to make it easier to understand, Cscott. --Gnom (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Cscott: hmm, so basically it is about organisations that want to include their information on Wikipedia, and use it elsewhere too. I can't quite imagine usecases for it yet. However, I can imagine them for Wikidata. Would a discussion on that be more likely to result in something constructive? Because if we limit ourselves to 'edit conflicts', I don't think we'll get very interesting discussions :). But even then, the topic remains tricky... Effeietsanders (talk) 14:36, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Beautiful articles, beautiful layout

Title

Beautiful articles, beautiful layout

Proposed by

en:User:cscott

Description

It's no secret that our wonderful encyclopedia doesn't look particularly beautiful on the screen. When articles are printed out, it is even less so. When viewed on a phone, sometimes things look truly terrible -- and sometimes important information is unreadable.

Traditional encyclopedias (and paper publications) have a number of tools allowing designers to tune the appearance of articles. Our options in mediawiki are quite meager in comparison.

In this discussion I invite designers to weigh in on what it would take to make Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia projects) truely beautiful. One important aspect may be better semantic tagging of article content -- which image is the lead image, which section is this figure associated with, what could be pulled into a sidebar, what are the key columns of this table. What other information is missing from our markup?

Can articles have different "layout designs"? If so, how many do we need? What are the different categories of media presentation? Can/should articles have sidebars? What other layout features from the print work could we consider?

Purpose

To imagine a beautiful Wikipedia, learn from experienced designers, discuss concrete features which are missing, and identify promising initial projects that could improve our presentation.

Targeted participants

Designers, readers, and those who care about beauty.

Relevant experts

Designers of beautiful and usable documents on paper, web, mobile, etc.

Preparatory readings or materials

Some examples of alternative designs to consider:
1. en:Wikiwand
2. mw:Winter
Some examples of how images are used in our existing articles, collected by @violetto: mw:Wikimedia_User_Interface/Use_cases/Images
T112991 contains a technical discussion which was started at the Wikimedia Developer Summit. However, this discussion is intended to be *non*technical, involve folks not in the developer community, and concentrate less on wikitext syntax and more on the big picture.

Questions and Comments 25

Hi cscott, thank you for your excellent proposal. Can you include existing projects like Wikiwand and Skins like "Winter" into the description? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 11:38, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Cscott: This topic is definitely quite different, and it is a big challenge to talk about the design without a very good structure and visualisation. I'm not sure we can accommodate that in this setting. But, maybe we can find a structure to make that work - although I can't promise of course. For that, we would need a clearer purpose (what should be the result of the discussion? What would you want to accomplish?) For example, I can imagine discussing 'what would a minimal design of Wikipedia look like' or to discuss where the needs of the editors and the needs of the readers stop aligning. What kind of recommendations would you like to aim for? Effeietsanders (talk) 09:30, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- @Gnom: @Effeietsanders: Hello again! First, a process question: is the description of the talk intended to remain static during the guiding committee's selection process, or should I be editing it in real time in response to comments and questions? I can see how selection could be difficult if the session description is changing every day, but I can also see how it would be nice to work in concert with the guiding committee to work towards improved descriptions when/if a topic is eventually decided. I'm uncertain where we are in this process, perhaps you can help me understand.
To respond to your questions: yes, it would really be nice if this conversation took place in a way that encouraged designers to think about the issue in advance and bring ideas and examples to show off, perhaps a bulletin board of beautiful designs in a prominent place in the venue, something like that. But even without that, I feel it would be worthwhile to talk about this issue with folks who are passionate about design, and who may be able to point to many examples I am not aware of (or examples in other media, for example printed books they thought particularly beautiful or easy to use), and then discuss what they liked/disliked about them. I personally was aware of "Winter", for example, but have never heard of "Wikiwand" before. I want participants to bring a bunch of other examples of projects I haven't heard of before! Because WP is an *online* encyclopdia, we might be able to go a long ways toward displaying different candidate designs with just a web browser and a projector, if participants bring some URLs.

I think the ultimate outcome of a design process would be an illustrative article, in a beautiful layout, which showed examples of different sort of content (equations, illustrations, charts, tables, video, sidebars, pull quotes, lead images, etc, etc) in the article. But that would indeed be difficult to obtain from a discussion! So a more reasonable goal for *this* session would be to compile a big list of (a) designs we like, (b) content types (or semantic tags) we should accomodate/think about, and (c) commentary from the participants critiquing these. What do we feel Winter does well? What sorts of content did it fail to display well? What alternative presentation of that content do we prefer? Etc. That's the sort of raw material that might inform a proper design process later which came up with a synthesis. Cscott (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Cscott, anyone's invited to edit the discussion proposals at any time, please feel free to even completely rewrite them. It's a wiki. --Gnom (talk) 19:46, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Common Confusions about the Wikimedia Movement (and how we can help correct them)

Title: Common confusions about the Wikimedia Movement (and how we can help correct them)
Proposed by: Zack McCune, Heather Walls
Description: On the Communications team at the Wikimedia Foundation, we often correct public and media confusions about the Wikimedia movement. From how articles are edited, to which "Wiki" projects are part of the Wikimedia movement, we see clear patterns in misconceptions. In this session, we would like to log confusions from across chapters, countries, projects, and cultures. What does the public misunderstand about your chapter or your work? Then we will work to itemize potential solutions. What types of blog posts, videos, press resources, or public messaging can the Communications team offer to help?
Purpose: Identify common misconceptions about the Wikimedia movement, and propose solutions (especially communications and messaging) to aid better public understanding of Wikimedia.
Targeted participants: Anyone in the movement! Anyone in the "public"!
Relevant experts: PR and Communications leads who lead Wikimedia Foundation liaisons with press and media
Preparatory readings or materials: (none)

Questions and Comments 29

Hi Zack and Heather, thank you for your proposal. How can we make sure this won't be a presentation or a workshop? Also, have you reached out to other movement organizations with significant press experience such as the large European chapters regarding this proposal? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:08, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to wrap my head around how this could be turned into a discussion proposal rather than an interactive presentation. There are some more communication focused proposals, maybe we can combine them and extract one urgent question you'd really like to get some feedback on, something you've been struggling with that is different across cultures? I can imagine for example that we could discuss scaling the PR across countries better, and how we could make optimal use of our capacities. Some items you mentioned would surface in that too, but the goal would be much clearer. Effeietsanders (talk) 20:14, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@ZMcCune, Heatherawalls: congratulations! Your proposal has been accepted by the Discussion Room committee as the main basis for one of the Discussion Room sessions that will be centered on dealing with common misconceptions, Misconceptions about the Wikimedia movement, and what can we do about them. It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday 14.45-15.25, 25 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. Please be bold and include further reading materials if you want! I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! Galio (talk) 16:28, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Half of our readers are mobile now. What does this mean for editing Wikipedia?

Title: Half of our readers are mobile now. What does this mean for editing Wikipedia?
Proposed by: Tilman Bayer (analyst in the WMF Reading team and longtime editor) and Jon Katz (product manager in the WMF Reading team)
Description: December 20, 2015 was the first ever day when mobile pageviews surpassed desktop pageviews on Wikimedia sites, highlighting a trend that has been going on for several years both on Wikipedia and on the rest of the internet.
What does this development mean for editors? What are common issues that occur when Wikipedia articles that were written on desktop are being read on mobile devices? How can editors mitigate them? What should software developers do to adapt Wikipedia content for the needs of mobile readers while preserving the intentions of those who wrote it?
Purpose:
- Provide an opportunity for editors to learn more about this development and share their own observations
- Identify mobile-specific problems and solutions that editors and developers can work on
- Provide an opportunity for developers and members of the WMF Reading team to learn from experienced editors who are familiar with the wide variety of existing content

Targeted participants:
- Experienced editors (on Wikipedia and sister sites)
- Interested software developers
Preparatory readings or materials: (optional)
- 2016 Readership Trends Update
- New readership data (Wikimedia Foundation tech talk)

Questions and Comments 30

Hi Tilman and Jon, thank you for your proposal. I think this is a very important topic, but your description sounds like a presentation and not like a discussion. Can you fix this? Also, will there be other talks regarding mobile reading and editing at this Wikimania? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:23, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Gnom. If we want this to be an effective discussion, it should focus on a question that should and could be answered by the community at large. Some discussion about mobile seems relevant, but it would require drastic rewriting I suspect from this particular proposal. What is a main question you would like to get community input on? And even better, that the community wants to discuss? Maybe we should take the focus off the technical aspect, and off the WMF - and more on the community aspects? Not sure what direction that would pull us in eventually, but I'm sure we can come up with something! Effeietsanders (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gnom and Effeietsanders, to your points:

"sounds like a presentation and not like a discussion": I assume this referred to the parts of the proposal that said "We will highlight common issues ..." and "we will present some data and examples ...". That was not at all meant to be a full presentation. (BTW I myself will already have enough to do with preparing two other slide decks for talks that I'm presenting/co-presenting at this Wikimania ;) Rather, this aimed at a short introduction, of 5 minutes or less, that would have served to focus the discussion and establish some common ground - also considering that, realistically, not all participants will have had time to read the suggested preparatory material. It is quite similar to what Anthere suggested to be added in the case another discussion proposal above ("a very quick review of facts and figures"). I guess we were not entirely clear on the overlap between proposers, facilitators and relevant experts. In any case, we are happy to defer to your input on this and plan the discussion without such an introduction. I have just edited the submission to reflect this change.
"will there be other talks regarding mobile reading and editing at this Wikimania?": No, not to my knowledge. (BTW, in general, it seems to me that the compared to previous Wikimanias, the schedule contains very few talks about reader and editor interface topics.) Concerning discussions, there is one other proposal above by our much esteemed WMF colleague CScott (a software engineer in the Parsing team, not the Reading department), who is putting forward new ideas for semantic tagging and a reformed layout structure, which if implemented would have an impact on the questions discussed here too. But that discussion proposal focuses on a very different audience (designers, rather than everyday editors). Also, our submission is not about proposing and getting feedback on a future vision for a new content model, but about exploring the present reality on the mobile web version of Wikimedia sites and in the Android and iOS apps, and the practical issues that the changes of the last few years have brought for routine editing. So these two proposals are quite orthogonal. Lastly, mobile editing - i.e. editing on a mobile device, as opposed to editing with readers on mobile devices in mind - is a different topic which is not called out in this submission.
"What is a main question you would like to get community input on?" - First, this is not meant to be a consultation of "the community" by the WMF on a particular project planned by the WMF, but rather a multidirectional exchange of people with different perspectives and expertises. (Jon and I will bring familiarity with readership data and many of the software decisions that shape the current mobile platforms, for example.) I expect it to have similiarities with this open-ended discussion that Andrew - independently - started on Facebook earlier this month. The main question is stated in the title, and the four sub-questions listed in the description should serve to generate participant input that is useful for some or all of the three stated purposes.
" And even better, that the community wants to discuss?" - It's your job as committee to decide whether this discussion topic is of enough interest to the community. But I'm quite confident that it is. See also the lively community participation in the aforementioned Facebook discussion, or this recent editing contest on enwiki that explicitly referred to the changing mobile realities as a motivation.
"take the focus off the technical aspect" - Effeitsanders, can you explain what you mean by that? At the root, the difference between mobile and desktop is a technical one, so I'm not sure how far we will get by ignoring it. If you instead meant the input on software development (the last of the four sub-questions), that something that is bound to come up naturally when discussion the other questions.
"and off the WMF" - I don't see an exclusive focus on WMF (and have slightly edited the description to clarify that software development comes from outside WMF too).

One other thing: While we can plan this discussion without introductory slides, it might still be useful if the facilitator has access to a laptop attached to a projector, to quickly pull up examples that participants want to discuss and show to the group (see e.g. the many links posted in that FB discussion).

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I like the topic suggestion very much - especially if we look at this issue in a broader sense. Does it have to be always text as a medium / format? Or could it be video (particularly short animated explainer videos which provide a quick overview over complex topics) that has become a popular format for the dissemination of information. I believe such videos can enrich existing content and provide an entertaining and easily comprehensible access to free knowledge. It became easier today to create video content - especially thanks to software allowing you (half-)automatically create videos from the text. (e.g. mysimplpeshow) I'm looking forward to discuss it at Wikimania. Norma.jean (talk) 13:42, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Like it as well Anthere (talk)

Hi @Tbayer (WMF), Jkatz (WMF): congratulations! Your proposal has been accepted by the Discussion Room committee as the main basis for one of the Discussion Room sessions that will be centered on the transition to mobile editing, Going mobile and keeping editing: needs and challenges to edit Wikipedia from mobile devices. It is tentatively scheduled for Saturday 11.15-11.55, 25 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. Please be bold and include further reading materials if you want! I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! Galio (talk) 15:28, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Galio: Awesome! One concern about scheduling: Jon is now also going to give a user digest presentation about a very similar topic ("Mobile, adaptability, visibility", 14.30 on Sunday), and it would be extremely beneficial if this discussion could happen afterwards, so that the audience of the digest presentation has an opportunity to participate actively in it. Is it an option to schedule the discussion at 15:00 on Sunday? In case that is too tight, perhaps the digest could be rescheduled too.

Another question: As mentioned above, it would be great if the facilitator has access to a laptop attached to a projector, to quickly pull up examples that participants want to discuss and show to the group. Will this be possible at the venue?

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 03:36, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PS: According to Ginevra, we may be able to move the digest presentation to 14:00 instead of 14:30 on Sunday. Would that help? Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tilman. Please excuse my delay in replying —we were dealing with the final schedule and I wanted to have a clear answer before getting back to you. Unfortunately the sessions are very densely packed and we have still to figure the definitive placement of the Board Q&A and some help we expect to get from Jimmy, so it would be very difficult right now to move this discussion to Sunday afternoon. Regarding your other question, last year we did use projectors for the Discussion Room sessions, mainly for projecting the live notes but also in case some participant wanted to show an example. I know the local team is still working on the rooms where we'll host these sessions, but in any case our idea is to have it. Regards, Galio (talk) 03:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Innovative Ways of Engaging the Public in the Wikimedia Movement

Title: Innovative Ways of Engaging the Public in the Wikimedia Movement
Proposed by: Andrew Lih User:Fuzheado
Description: In what ways might we find new ways of engaging the public in Wikimedia's mission, beyond asking people the click on the "Edit" button? It's time we talked openly about ways to engage folks where they live -- on mobile devices and social media platforms. What if we could encourage the use of wikilink syntax outside of Wikipedia, so that Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat would support direct linking to Wikipedia? How might we use people's social media networks to refer articles or editing tasks to others? In what way could Wikipedia use the notification layer to keep people informed?
Purpose: Find new ways of engaging new audiences for Wikimedia content.
Targeted participants: Novice and experienced Wikipedians
Preparatory readings or materials: TBD

Questions and Comments 31

Hi Andrew, thank you for your proposal. Do you think you can narrow the topic a little? Also, shouldn't we try as hard as we can to engage the public as editors? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I find the topic has the right scope... and also consider that our goal should not be only to engage the public as editors. Sorry Gnom ;) Fuz, maybe you may give a few examples (such as Wikipedia Weekly which was so useful during Jan-Feb crisis). Well, I do think you should expand on the prep material, not keep it TBD. Anthere (talk)
@Fuzheado: Oh, me likes it! We should make a choice though - are we talking about a PR-kind of approach, or something inside our projects (smaller edits, data collection for Wikidata, etc). Effeietsanders (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Fuzheado: Oops, forgot to work this out, but we scheduled this topic here: Discussions/New_ways_of_engaging. Effeietsanders (talk) 23:03, 13 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders, Anthere: - Thanks, I originally pitched this as a way to think of alternatives to edit-a-thons and other standard enagement methods. Thanks -- Fuzheado (talk) 04:50, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Intelligent Edit-Review and Curation Tools

Title: Intelligent Edit-Review and Curation Tools

Proposed by: Nick Wilson, Benoît Evellin, Joe Matazzoni
Description: Edit and page review are crucial to the integrity of our projects. Yet the tools that exist to help reviewers with this task can be difficult to master, are unevenly developed, and are often available only on the largest wikis. Intelligent workload triage is largely missing, and duplication of effort is a common problem. By improving back-end support for these tools and using ORES's AI edit-scoring technology, we can create systems that help us focus our efforts where they’ll do the most good. How can we best improve the various curation tools and enable customizing them by local communities?

Purpose: To discuss what tools we currently use for edit-review, and what else we need or want. Where are the bottle-necks? What are the great features at specific wikis, or in specific tools, that should be expanded/globalized? How else can we improve the experience, for both edit-reviewers, and the editors whose edits are being reviewed?

Targeted participants: People involved with anti-vandalism, new-page review, edit review, supporting new users, and related activities. Anyone who has helped develop or maintain tools for these purposes. People from diverse communities, including those who enjoy powerful curation tools now, and those who don't have such tools but want them.

Preparatory reading, for those who are interested

A description of the ORES edit-scoring technology.
Fascinating analysis of the current state of anti-vandalism patrolling, by Krinkle.
An excellent paper on the difficulties and possible solutions for customizing page curation tools for local wikis, by Oliver Keyes.

Questions and Comments 36

Hi Nick, Benoît, andJoe, thank you for your proposal, which I find very interesting. Do you already know of a few people you'd be interested to talk to and who will attend Wikimania? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gnom, this discussion will be relevant to all editors who regularly use a watchlist, or use recentchanges, or use the existing edit-triage tools (New Page Patrol, Recent changes patrol, Huggle, Snuggle, STiki, various other scripts and tools that use ORES, etc), including anyone who attended wm2015:Submissions/Wikipedia's health: A socio-technical overview. -- Does that help? I checked Attendees for specific usernames but it's not very complete at the moment. Also, there is some overlap with the proposal above at #New Wikipedia articles: Controlling the quality and relevance, but that is focusing on one specific tool, whereas we aim to discuss the entire ecosystem of edit-review tools. HTH! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity (WMF): et al: Thanks for the proposal. The general idea behind this strikes me as relevant. I'm a little struggling with the specifics though. You mention you want to 'meet' a group of people, which seems to me more likely to happen at the hackathon given their characteristics. Also the purpose is not very well defined. I could imagine reshaping this to become very promising though - if we focus it more on gathering experiences from different communities (what approaches exist, what approaches would exist if the right tools existed, what are the bottle necks) as most communities seem to struggle with the manpower needed to run the expensive quality control processes. This will only become harder if/when the work to get more new editors is successful. So a very valuable idea, but I would suggest to pull it out of the technical realm, and into the 'what do you do, and what do you need' area. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:18, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders: How you describe it is exactly the intent. (Similar to the "Empowering the power users" discussion group that you facilitated in Mexico). I'll attempt a rewrite next, to make that clearer! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Quiddity (WMF): (and Trizek (WMF), JMatazzoni (WMF)) Thanks again for the submission. We used it as the basis for this discussion with some rephrasing: Edit review & curation tools: what do you use, and what do you need. I hope you like it this way! We'll have a further discussion on the details of facilitation, but I hope you'll be actively present! Effeietsanders (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Women and Gender gap : the way forward

Title: WikiWomen
Proposed by: User:Anthere
Description: Making Things Happen
Purpose: * Brainstorm and identify actions that would help reduce the gender gap : social media campaign that lasts beyond Esino Lario to promote and cross-promote our articles ? editathons ? special projects ? grant requests ? regional conferences ? tech tools beyond WIGI ? research projects ?; * Plan ways to go forward
Targeted participants: People interested in the topic : the shy woman sitting at the table who has come to her first Wikimania and is suffering from Imposter Syndrome, the woman attending her 10th Wikimania, and everyone else
Preparatory readings or materials
Ideal timing: After the talks, user digest and critical issue on the topic; in an ideal world... the discussion would take place either JUST BEFORE Meetups/WikiWomen's Lunch or JUST AFTER it.

Questions and Comments 37

Hi Anthere, thank you for your proposal. This sounds like an extension of the WikiWomen's Lunch, right? Why not just extend the lunch itself? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

disclaimer... I wrote this proposal in the name of m:Wikimania Women. Then I was asked to help on deciding which discussions should be kept... Anthere (talk)

We can... but I thought of the "space" issue. Ideally we need a place to meet, but we have no idea where the women lunch will take place, or how it will unfold. I remember that some years, we grabbed food at a commun buffet and moved to a room. Other years, we had lunch bags, so we grabbed a lunch bag and move to a room. Key point is that in basically all cases, the room was ONLY free during lunch time. After lunch, it was used for presentations or other activities. If we have a room to have the lunch, but invite women to move out in the street to have our after-lunch discussion, chance is that we lose our people :) So essentially... yeah, what we need is time a bit extended after our lunch in the SAME place. Or actually time before our lunch is ok also. Note that there is also a request to hold an women edit-a-thon during Wikimania. So ideally... the 3 things could get together (something like... end of morning... discussion place... then lunch together... then extended with the edit-a-thon time). Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: Having a discussion about the gendergap / diversity seems relevant, but we would have to focus the topic a bit. Right now... it is quite broad :) Also, the purpose is a bit unclear. I would suggest to pick one or two topics that are highly relevant to the diversity question, and use those. We could focus on gathering existing processes, existing approaches, brainstorming possible solutions for something or gather stories/experiences. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:22, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Let me think about that a bit... (since you are in Berlin... do ask Flonight for her input as well !!) Anthere (talk)
Keeping a few links at hand :
Note : we are thinking of not holding a women lunch this year. We would only keep this discussion spot (if approved), to discuss ways to go forward and in particular the set up of a conference/summit dedicated to the gender issue. Anthere (talk)

We have re-written the discussion proposal and included desired outcomes for section: --Rosiestep (talk) 05:05, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Brainstorming regarding a content gender gap thematic conference. Discussion to include draft agenda, possible date(s) (e.g. March 2017 in conjunction with Women's History Month), possible location(s), funding sources, communication plan. Outcome: Resolution to commit to an international content gender gap thematic conference, with an outline of how to move forward
Brainstorming regarding communicating about content gender gap among editors. Ways forward to encourage the creation of a "Gendergap" WP page per language wiki. This is a Wikiverse issue that deserves a Wikipedia page, and most large wikis have yet to publish one. We are three years into this goal and so far only English and Spanish? The printed sources (mostly in response to March 8th activity) are generally English, but that should not be the major show-stopper it seems to be now. Outcome: resolution regarding a dedicated communication channel for content gender gap across languages, and document our known comm channels (e.g. FB, Twitter, Telegram, Skype, Wikipedia talkpages, Wikimedia talkpages, Wikiproject talkpages, etc.).
Discussion and documentation of tips&tricks we currently use to (a) find the notable women already in the Wikiverse but not yet on WP (harvesting redlinks per language wiki); and (b) battle the notability gap due to a lack of reliable sources by finding alternative reliable sources and easing their usage methods as a way to encourage re-use.

Hi @Anthere: congratulations! This proposal, renamed "Gender gap: thematic conference planning alongside current issues review" has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Sunday morning, 26 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please confirm you'll be attending Wikimania, and let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! --Rosiestep (talk) 03:00, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: I know that this is a template answer (which I will copy for my own feedbacks without any shame), but given that I am member of the discussion team, it reads funny :)))) Errr. Yes, I confirm that I will attend Wikimania... Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: yes, I can see how it does. But there are others who will see this who do not know that, so it was mostly for their benefit, and, of course, for posterity. See you next month; finally we will meet! --Rosiestep (talk) 00:54, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep: I have a practical question ... you say that the proposal has been renamed Gender gap: thematic conference planning alongside current issues review. But where do we see that ? Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: Not sure I understand the question? I tried to make the title be representative of the above points. Feel free to rename it to something which better describes it. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:26, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosiestep:Well, this page still is called Women and Gender gap : the way forward and the title of the discussion in it is still Women and Gender gap : the way forward. I understand it is a mean to preserve the past, the history. But I fear it might be a bit confusing to anyone visiting the page, no ? In any cases, there is nothing urgent. We can discuss that next Sunday if needed. Anthere (talk)

Wikipedia in the Global South the way forward

Title: Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia movement in the Global South : the way forward
Proposed by: Rberchie, Islahaddow, Jorge Vargas (WMF) & Jack Rabah (WMF)
Description: Wikimedia projects are stronger in parts of the world with regular and affordable internet access, large digitally literate population, and existence of significant content in their local languages, among other things. How can we make the Wikimedia projects stronger in parts of the globe where people face complex barriers to access knowledge? How can we raise awareness of the existence of Wikimedia projects in these communities?; The Global South and most emerging economies happen to be the least covered in terms of Wikipedia and its sister projects [1]. This has obvious consequences with regards to geographies of knowledge and how the world is viewed [2] [3], but also has consequences for how developing or emerging editors and communities are viewed by the larger community.; With lower editors, these emerging communities are less developed (although no less passionate), less experienced and not as established and therefore cohesive as their northern or western counterparts. Having said that, their numbers are growing - as is their need to be heard. Several developing community editors have raised their frustration that decisions affecting the community as a whole often do not take developing communities into account - that the systemic bias extends beyond content into decision making and attitude. If developing communities worked together as a collective to make their voices, challenges and suggestions heard, this can change. This discussion will seek to share experiences with other Wikipedians and Wikimedians from the Global South to collate the issues and frustrations, see how they are related, and chart the best way to solve these issues.

What can be done to proactively support the Wikimedia movement in the Global South?
What can be done to change frustrations into action, and provide a greater voice within the movement?
What are some best practices and success stories that can be learnt from or replicated in other places?
What is the strategy being lead by the Global Reach team of WMF, to reach new readers in the Global South?

[1] http://geonet.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/new-publication-digital-divisions-of-labor-and-informational-magnetism-mapping-participation-in-wikipedia/

[2] http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-09-15-wikipedia-world-view-shaped-editors-west

[3] http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/09/19/westerners-dominate-wikipedia-editing

Purpose

Find out how collectively we can work together to get emerging Wikipedians heard and therefore increase Wikipedia activities in the Global South. We can also identify the best ways to raise awareness and increase readership of Wikimedia projects in these parts of the world

Targeted participants

All are welcome but especially Wikimedians and Wikipedians from the Global South

Relevant Experts

Asaf Bartov

Preparatory readings or materials

meta:wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_South_Exchange

Questions and Comments 40

Hi Rberchie and Islahaddow, thank you for your proposal, which I find very interesting. Can you expand your description a bit and make it easier to understand for those who do not speak English fluently? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gnom, we have worked on making it clearer and providing links for extra reading. I hope it is clearer now, let me know if it is not. Islahaddow (talk) 08:55, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposal Reaching new readers in the Global South - a proposal by WMF’s Global Reach team. --Gnom (talk) 13:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Disclaimer... I work with Isla and Rberchie. More reading material and links would be good. Current link is not working. Anthere (talk)
@Rberchie: The (geographic) systemic bias seems relevant enough to have a discussion about. I do think it requires a bit more focus though. Right now, the proposal is a bit of a mix between online and real world projects. I think it would be an improvement to focus on the systemic bias in Wikimedia projects in major languages (English, French - maybe Spanish, Chinese?) and how that could be approached. That would also give a good purpose for the discussion (gather information on how these topics are approached, both online and through activities in real life), and what more could be possible. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:55, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
pointing out to related talks: Critical issues presentations/Gender gap in the global south: Lessons from policy and outreach -- Anthere (talk)
Critical issues presentations/Starting from scratch Anthere (talk)

Hi @Rberchie:, @Islahaddow:, @JVargas (WMF): & @JRabah (WMF): congratulations! This proposal, renamed "Wikimedia projets and Wikimedia mouvement in the Global South : the way forward" has been accepted by the Discussion Room Committee and will be included in the Discussion Room program. It is tentatively scheduled for Sunday 10.30-11.10, 26 June 2016, but that is subject to change. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything our team can do to assist you with preparations for this discussion. I look forward to meeting you at Wikimania; safe travels! -- Anthere (talk) 20:46, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reaching new readers in the Global South - a proposal by WMF’s Global Reach team

Title: Reaching new readers in the Global South - a proposal by WMF’s Global Reach team

Proposed by WMF's Global Reach team. Presented by Jorge Vargas (WMF) & Jack Rabah (WMF)

Description Wikimedia projects are stronger in parts of the world with regular and affordable internet access, large digitally literate population, and existence of significant content in their local languages, among other things. How can we make the Wikimedia projects stronger in parts of the globe where people face complex barriers to access knowledge? How can we raise awareness of the existence of Wikimedia projects in these communities?

This conversation will provide a platform for community members and Wikimedia staff to discuss the best ways to tackle this difficult problem, and to discuss ideas and efforts currently being planned by the WMF's Global Reach team.

Purpose The purpose of this discussion is to present the strategy being lead by the Global Reach team of WMF, to reach new readers in the Global South. Specifically, the presenters will cover the different types of partnerships being explored, planned, and deployed in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. We hope to obtain feedback from the participants, and work together on identifying the best ways to raise awareness and increase readership of WIkimedia projects in these parts of the world.

Targeted participants All are welcome. We encourage participation of Global South representatives.

Preparatory materials None

Questions and Comments 41

Hi Jorge & Jack, thank you for your proposal. Please note that this is a discussion so there is no room for any presentations. Do you know of any other Global South-related events at this Wikimania? Also, I would like to disclose a conflict of interest: I am a former colleague and friend of Jorge's. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposal "Wikipedia in the Global South the way forward". --Gnom (talk) 13:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@JVargas (WMF): @JRabah (WMF): I would be in favour of having one good discussion about editing from the global south / systemic bias from the global south, but I'm afraid that a presentation like the one you propose would be out of scope. For now, I would propose not to schedule this particular topic but rather focus on the other one linked by Gnom and making that into an awesome discussion. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:37, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Gnom and User:Effeietsanders! Thank you so much for your comments, and apologies for the delay in replying. We would like to provide clarification around our proposal and explain why we would like to keep our discussion, instead of merging it with "Wikipedia in the Global South the way forward".

* Our submission does not overlap with the mentioned proposal. Our focus is on expanding Wikipedia readership at scale by addressing access and awareness, whereas editorship seems to be the focus of the other submission. We understand that readership has an impact on editorship because a subset of new readers will eventually become editors, but our talk doesn’t address specific editorship challenges.

* We believe it is critical for the Wikimedia movement to expand our reach in developing countries and hence our discussion regarding how to do this is an important topic to be addressed with Wikimania participants.

*Our plan is not to make a presentation (although we see why the submission seems to be read that way), but rather start the discussion on readership and awareness. We will be sharing survey results we've been gathering, and discussing the strategies to increase readership in specific emerging countries.

*We also want to highlight that it is important to have more than one discussion regarding developing countries during Wikimania, considering it's a very relevant topic for our movement, and one that requires more attention than what it has received in the past.

We hope we have answered your questions, and that you support our submission! Let us know if we can clarify any further. Regards, --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 04:30, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jorge, thank you for your comments. We have in fact decided to merge the two discussions and we hope you will find a way to make room for both aspects of the topic in the discussion. The description is still up for changes which you should discuss with User:Anthere. --Gnom (talk) 20:55, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, unfortunately, we have received many proposals and we have only a limited number of slots. Please see here. Two slots is not an option. I think it would be a good idea to discuss with the other "owners" of that slot to see how to best organize the time available. The answer may be to have first a global introduction then to shift into two groups in the same room if that is the best option. Or maybe the other "owners" are interested by your approach and willing to clarify their own input in that direction. Please talk together (=have a drink together before the event ? In any cases, I think we already planned that more or less... ) @Rberchie:, @Islahaddow:, @JVargas (WMF): & @JRabah (WMF):

How create wikimedia affiliate from user group in not big wiki chapters?

Title: How to create a sustainable Wikimedia affiliate from a User group in a not big Wikipeia.
Proposed by: Mr. Zabej, Svetit
Description: The discussion is denoted for non huge Wikipedia, where there is not an organization structure of Wikimedia. In Belarus we in a stage of small and active user group. The next step can be transformation to Wikimedia Affiliate. It is not only bureaucratic question but developing community. It is important that self-organization will be origin of wiki activities.

The discussion will be splitted on next talking blocks about:

Principles which will in the premises of organization.
Possible approaches for defining organizational development strategies (3 months, 1-2-year period)
Decision-making mechanisms.

Purpose: To develop principles and possible strategies to foster creating and sustainable development of Wikimedia community.

Targeted participants: Activist non-big chapters who do not have a Wikimedia affiliate and consider to create it.

Relevant experts: Wikimedians participating in them affiliate creation and ready to share their experience

Preparatory readings or materials: experience in other chapters.

Questions and Comments 44

Hi Mr. Zabej and Svetit, thank you for your proposal. Have you already identified people who you think should participate in this discussion? Also is this topic not better situated at the Wikimedia Conference? Finally, could you ask someone who is fluent in English to proofread your proposal? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Firstly, We think audience who really develop not big chapters and faced with different organizational, legislative or psychological (team building) issues.
- Secondly, I don't know how the format really look like. Can you show typical structure?
- Thirdly, About proofreading I thought that wiki community is a peer-to-peer review. If you have better knowledge in English please fixe the obvious mistakes. Thanks, --Mr. Zabej (talk) 09:12, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might also rather be a topic for a wikimeet rather than discussion given its local nature ? Anthere (talk)
- Anthere, what is wikimeet and how does it look? --Mr. Zabej (talk) 09:12, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Mr. Zabej: Here is the link : Meetups Anthere (talk)
@Mr. Zabej: and @Svetit: Thanks for your interest in becoming an affiliate. I agree that this is a very local question, which is highly dependent on your specific situation. I would be more than happy to discuss it with you in Italy, but I fear that a discussion with a large group would not be very productive. I would also recommend to get in touch (if you're not already) with the Affiliations Committee. I propose not to include this topic as a discussion in this track. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:50, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hello Effeietsanders, I don't agree that it is a very local question. As I see today there are only 41 chapters especially in the global North. So, others more than hundred countries (at least 55 user groups) don't have the chapters and potentially would like to have more structured community and own organization as a affiliate. What is more, the countries represent the global South, that mean at least many common issues for creation formal organizations (such as austerity, non stable political and economic situation, no tradition to establish NGO etc).
- All in all, if you describe how the discussion usually organized you argument can have more or less weight. Thanks, --Mr. Zabej (talk) 09:12, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Effeietsanders:, I agree with @Mr. Zabej:. There are a lot of user groups, which don't have own chapters. I can name someone. It will be better when you will help us and them. --Artificial123 (talk) 09:28, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How to continue the Affiliates boards training program

Title: Reinforcing skills and competences of board members. How to continue the affiliates boards training program.
Proposed by: Tim-Moritz Hector (tim-moritz.hector@wikimedia.de – Germany – WMDE) and Frans Grijzenhout (frans@wikimedia.nl – Netherland – WMNL)
Description: Discuss the need for an international training for Affiliate board members. Discuss the framework, the scope and targets for a new training.
Background: During the pre-conference days of the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin we organized the 3rd training for board members, with a focus on grant processes, relation board – staff and other issues that pose obstacles for good board performance and growth. The training was directly aimed at new board members elected at affiliates with staff or an ED, where the board is a governing body and not a managing or operational board. For this discussion session we would like to find out whether there is a common ground for a continuation of the board training program. Are there subjects that need to be addressed? Are there specific target groups that need support? Should a next board training explicitly be targeted to affiliates without staff? Should more operational and tactical issues be inserted in the training and / or should the training be aimed at developing individual skills? Next to these primary questions we also like to raise the issue of organizing the training. Hopefully we can lay the foundation of a new series of board member trainings and create a tangible start for the 4th Affiliates boards member training.
Purpose:Secure the continuation of a boards training program. Discuss the framework of a 4th training: scope, targets, organizational issues and bring together volunteers to organize it.
Targeted participants:Affiliate Board members
Preparatory readings or materials: Evaluation + learning materials from earlier Boards trainings (to be published on meta).

Grijz (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Questions and Comments 45

Hi Tim-Moritz and Grijz, thank you for your proposal. Why should this discussion be held at Wikimania and not at the Wikimedia Conference itself? Also, I would like to disclose a conflict of interest: Tim-Moritz and I are both members of the board of Wikimedia Deutschland. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:43, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Might it share some common ground with Discussions#How_do_we_identify.2C_develop_and_support_community_leadership.3F ? Anthere (talk)
Tim-Moritz & @Grijz: Definitely sounds like an interesting topic, but I'm uncertain if the nature of your question makes this the most suitable format for it. I think the Affiliates meeting would indeed be a better opportunity - as you're specifically talking about trainings for board members. However, I could imagine a slightly broader discussion about trainings in general, and the discussion Anthere links is indeed a relevant one for that. That would also be easier for a wider group of people to participate in. In general the idea of setting up a training for board members is great though! At this point, I would propose not to schedule this topic as part of this track. (disclaimer: Grijz is chairman of Wikimedia Nederland, which I'm an active member of - and we work together frequently in that capacity) Effeietsanders (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Community Council

Title: Wikimedia Community Council
Proposed by: User:Pharos
Description: An attempt to rethink community structures, and alternative/complementary aspects to Wikimedia movement governance.
Purpose: Peace, Progress, Pasta
Targeted participants: Metapedians
Preparatory readings or materials: meta:Wikimedia Community Council Compact (this is not the current proposal, just an illustration of the types of new institutions that are possible)

Questions and Comments 46

Hi User:Pharos, thank you for your proposal. Would you mind expanding it so we know what you want to discuss? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:44, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be good to discuss potential roles for the community in wider governance (potentially including greater participation on the WMF board), but principally the alternative model of a general community council, with quite separate functions from the board, and working out how such a new structure might be designed to best reflect our global community, online and offline. Think of it as a non-binding constitutional convention for the Wikimedia community.--Pharos (talk) 17:35, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Pharos: I think I know where you want to be headed, and I would be supportive of having a discussion about the ways that the community can organise itself and influence decision making processes (in the widest sense of the word). We would have to rephrase the topic a bit though, because with this phrasing, it is unclear what would be the intended outcomes, what the purpose of the discussion would be, ideally. I would suggest to rephrase it to Wikimedia Community representation and focus on getting a clear overview of the reasons to get a community representation, and get some basic outline what it could look like (should it be proportionally representative or focus on representing diversity, should it be a body that speaks with one voice, or something like a forum, should it have a legal or moral authority, etc). I do see possibilities for this, as long as we don't get too many meta-topics. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:00, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Title: Good faith collaboration - Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects.

Proposed by: Kritzolina, Patrick Earley (WMF), Kalliope Tsouroupidou (WMF), and JGerlach (WMF)
Description: Wikimania is an ideal venue for a conversation about principles for interaction because there will be a many different people present who can share a range of experiences with collaboration on the Wikimedia projects. What needs to be done to make Wikipedia a friendlier space for everyone while also safeguarding freedom of expression? What generally accepted principles for conduct and interaction within the Wikimedia movement are necessary to ensure everybody is able to contribute and participate? Is to “assume good faith” enough to advance Wikipedia’s goal of being an encyclopedia of free knowledge in which every human being can participate? We hope the conversation will produce principles that can be adapted into rules that fit into a local context of culture and norms.
Purpose: To develop and discuss a set of possible principles that strike a good balance between free speech and safety from harassment for all editors on the Wikimedia Projects.
Targeted participants: All Wikipedians, and especially members of what can be considered “vulnerable communities” within our movement.
Preparatory readings or materials: Wikimedia Harassment Survey, Harassment Consultation, Online Harassment Resource Guide, existing policies (like Friendly Space policies, Code of Conduct for Technical spaces, etc). Some current thought trends on the issue can also be identified under these articles:

Questions and Comments 51

Hi Kritzolina, Patrick, Kalliope, and Jan, thank you for your excellent proposal. Regarding its focus, I understand this discussion should be more about talking about a community ruleset? --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposals "Harassment on Wikimedia projects, and the road forward" and "Tools for Tackling Personal Attacs, Harassment and Toxicity". --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Gnom. Thank you for raising this question. We would like to talk about interaction principles for the Wikimedia movement that could have a positive impact on collaboration and content. JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(responding to all three at once) Having a good working environment is indeed very important, and we should somehow get that topic in there. Not sure what would be the best form though. Prohibiting and acting upon harassment (which does then need a clear definition, given the variety of linguistic backgrounds) could maybe be a separate topic from good community behaviour and best practices in creating a friendly working space. What are different approaches? Effeietsanders (talk) 15:04, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Effeietsanders. The approach that we wish to discuss is based on principles that can be broken down into rules that take into account languages, cultural context, etc. --JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JGerlach (WMF), could you expand your proposal based on these answers? Please make sure that it is easy to understand for people who do not speak English fluently. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 06:19, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Gnom, I expanded the description above. Thanks! --JGerlach (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Harassment on Wikimedia projects, and the road forward

Title: Harassment on Wikimedia projects, and the road forward.
Proposed by: Patrick Earley, Kalliope Tsouroupidou, Haitham Shammaa
Description: This session aims to open the discussion around the topic of online harassment on Wikimedia projects. The session is designed to engage the attendants by getting their input on the topic, their experiences and observations, and their proposed solutions.

The presenters will also present findings from the previously done harassment survey and online consultation, and collect feedback from attendees through interactive exercises. The goal is to share the session’s outcomes widely, and contribute to our collective wisdom around defining, preventing, and dealing with online harassment.

Purpose: To allow participants to explore how harassment affects their online experience, and that of of their colleagues. This session will involve an exploration of experiences, ideas for change and potential solutions.

Targeted participants: All Wikipedians, especially those with interest in understanding how online communities interact, and how user behaviour affects online collaboration.

Preparatory readings or materials

Wikimedia Harassment survey, Harassment consultation, Online Harassment Resource Guide, existing policies (like Friendly Space policies, Code of Conduct for Technical spaces, etc)

Questions and Comments 52

Hi Patrick, Kalliope, and Haitham, thank you for your proposal. Regarding its focus, I understand this discussion should be more about discussing the results of the harassment survey? Please note that discussion should not be mini-presentations. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposals "Good faith collaboration – Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects." and "Tools for Tackling Personal Attacs, Harassment and Toxicity". --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Patrick, Kalliope, and Haitham, thank you for your proposal. Would you please elaborate on: "... The goal is to share the session’s outcomes widely ...". Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gnom, Rosiestep - sorry for the very late reply :( I've been discussing this presentation with the folks working on the other two anti-harassment discussions. Community Resources is also presenting on the upcoming Inspire campaign on harassment (yay!). I feel we should withdraw this submission, as we can better focus on the other discussions, and avoid spreading the topic out too much for attendees. If you agree, feel free to decline this one. Apologies for using your reviewing time ... PEarley (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tools for Tackling Personal Attacks, Harassment and Toxicity

Title

Tools for Tackling Personal Attacks, Harassment and Toxicity

Proposed by

nithum, Iislucas, Ewulczyn_(WMF)

Description

Harassment and civility issues are a growing concern for the Wikimedia projects as well as other online communities. This past year we have seen calls for machine learning based tools for dealing with this problem in a variety of forums, including Wikimedia-l, the enwiki Village Pump, the 2015 Harassment Consultation and the Community Wish List. We would like to continue these discussions at Wikimania, focussing on the following questions:

What aspects of toxicity should we focus on identifying (e,g personal attacks, aggressiveness, sockpuppeting, etc)?
Given a tool that could accurately score a talk page edits across the dimensions of toxicity we want address, how could these scores be used to improve editing culture?
What are the possible pitfalls we need to consider when building and deploying these tools?

Purpose

Define key aspects of toxicity and generate ideas for how models that can detect toxicity could be used to improve editing culture.

Targeted participants

All are welcome

Relevant Experts

Halfak_(WMF)

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions and Comments 53

Hi nithum, Iislucas, and Ewulczyn, thank you for your excellent proposal. Regarding its focus, I understand this discussion should be more about talking about methods for combating harassment? Could you rewrite the proposal so that it is easier to understand for people who do not speak English fluently, and for those who are not from the English Wikipedia community? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposals "Good faith collaboration – Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects." and "Harassment on Wikimedia projects, and the road forward". --Gnom (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi nithum, Iislucas, and Ewulczyn, thank you for your proposal. As this proposed discussion is about new tools, would you please clarify what knowledge, if any, a participant should have regarding tools creation. Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rosiestep, Gnom - to the first question, this presentation is about a very specific approach to anti-harassment. I think that it won't overlap with other harassment-related talks as it really will be diving into details about how this project could work for our communities. It should complement especially "Good faith collaboration – Principles for Interaction and Conduct on the Wikimedia Projects.", which will tackle free speech concerns around behavioral tools and policies. To Rosie's question, if I could answer for Ellery and co., participants with tool-building skills will be very interested, but the project will have engagement opportunities to all editors/contributors (in the style of the existing ORES project). I think non-technical community will be interested in the broader implications of the project. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Posted after deadline

Third tiers

Propositions have been moved here when the committee agreed that they should not be scheduled - to make clear which topics are still actively being considered. Sometimes because the topic wasn't clearly suitable for the discussion format, because it would require too much rephrasing/reworking. But sometimes also because there were too many topics in the same field. If you find your topic here, it is not any less important! Please do persue the topic at the conference, but other methods might be more suitable.

Standardizing an IoT Environment at Wikimedia

Title: The Wikimedia IoT Foundation Proposed by: Habatchii (talk) Description: Creating IoT (Internet of Things) Benchmarks for the Wikimedia Family Purpose: To reinforce accessibility and reader participation in official Wikimedia events. Targeted participants: General audience Preparatory readings or materials: Most recently added reference articles on the topic of IoT which can be located in the Wikipedia website. Also, any non-profit affilates currently promoting IoT applications; (i.e.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation)

Comments and Questions 1

Hi Habatchii, I suppose "IoT" means "Internet of Things". However, I don't understand what this proposal is about. Could you please expand the purpose of this discussion? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand quite either how the Internet of Things would be a suitable topic, or how it would relate to Wikimedia. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:33, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WikiToLearn: Can we kill textbooks?

Title: WikiToLearn: Can we kill textbooks?
Proposed by: Riccardo Iaconelli
Description: WikiToLearn is an open platform where students, researchers and key people in the academia can create and refine notes and textbooks, tailored precisely to their needs, giving them the power to customize teaching beyond what traditional textbooks allow.

The aim of WikiToLearn is to produce enough free material to replace standard textbooks in use in schools and universities. For this we implement beautiful PDF exporting and network with the existing communities that work daily with knowledge. There are many overlaps with what Wikimedia Foundation and the community want to do, hence there are many collaboration opportunities are up for grabs.

Purpose: The two main purposes are letting the community know about WikiToLearn and our activities, and to understand and discuss how we can cooperate to improve the body of free content for the world. We are already sharing a lot of source code, but I am sure we can do much more than this.

Targeted participants: All are welcome, especially people with some involvement in schools or academia (students, professors, researchers).

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions and Comments 58

Hi Riccardo, please bear in mind that discussions are not presentations. Maybe you could rephrase your proposal so that it is less about your own project and more about discussing the general idea of Open Educational Resources (OER)? --Gnom (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposal "How can we promote Open Education on a larger scale?" --Gnom (talk) 14:21, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very specific discussion - not quite suitable for the format of a round table discussion. It might be more useful to discuss it during the breaks, or agree to meet some very specific people you could brainstorm with? Especially given the overlap pointed out, I suggest to leave this out. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sharing experience: One learning pattern at a time

Title: Sharing experience: One learning pattern at a time
Proposed by: Spiritia (talk)
Description

In this discussion I am systematizing my current experience with creating learning patterns. It's a bit *meta* talk: I will try to share my experience about how I share my experience. :) I want to encourage other people to overcome more quickly my own barriers to entry: the realization that my 10 year long experience in Wikimedia is not isolated, and can relate to other contributors and benefit them; and the awareness that even tiny bits of experience, which I'm taking for granted or even tend to ignore, may turn out to be significant, helpful new knowledge for someone else.

My experience with learning patterns has resulted so far in five completed LPs, and several more that need to be finalized. Five LPs may not seem too much of work done, but some of the patterns are rather detailed and have been endorsed by other users, and I have received certain positive feedback about them.

The backbone of the discussion are some of the most important lessons I have learned while creating my learning patterns:

Thinking about the context: Putting your experience in context and discovering what exactly can be relevant to the others.
Finding the balance between "too abstract/broad" and "too concrete/narrow".
Dividing a big chunk of experience into smaller and independent bits, and presenting them separately, in a modular way. (Drawing an analogue with the concept of greatest common divisor, or complete groups of independent events.)


No.	Again no.	Umm, yes.

Ordering and organizing the elements (listed items, etc.) of a learning pattern. The added value of colours, symbols and visualization.
Thinking about the user's needs: Outlining the aspects where the user can adapt the learning pattern, when and how.
Thinking about the learning pattern: Naming, categorization, linking to other related patterns, promotion.

In conclusion: Experience is nothing without being able to learn from it. And to share it with others.

Purpose: Help other people believe in their ability to create useful learning patterns. :)
Targeted participants: Wikimedians, interested in learning patterns.
Preparatory readings or materials: I didn't find any "theory" of making Wikimedian "learning patterns", but I'd love if someone adds it here, if any. In the meanwhile, here are the five LPs which I am referring to: meta:Category:Wikimedians of Bulgaria learning patterns.

Questions and Comments 9

Hi Spiritia, thank you for your proposal. Please bear in mind that discussions are not presentations, so could you rephrase your description so that it is less about your personal experience? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I don't see how this can be turned into a discussion topic. I suggest to leave it out of the discussion programme. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your opinions. It was really originally proposed as a critical issue presentation, which despite the positive evaluations did not make it. I decided to resubmit it here, only because within the WMF Learning and Evaluation team the topic received wide acclaim and support. It is sad that the essential changes in this year's programme design lead to so many underestimated topics and triumph of form over content, but this is how it is this year, and we have to accept it. :) Spiritia (talk) 09:40, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Spiritia. I accordingly moved it out of the programme. But I am interested by your patterns. Have you considered posting a start here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns ?

Future of Italian language and culture across various Wikimedia projects

Proposed by: Philip Grew (Ph7five)

Description: The state of the main Italian-language Wikipedia project is strong, with one and a quarter million entries. In addition, a few closely related regional languages (e.g. Lombard, Neapolitan, etc.) have very healthy Wikipedia projects. The Italian Wiktionary project is also substantial. Building on this base will guarantee invaluable reference sources to users who work with Wikimedia materials in Italian well into the future, though there is always much work to be done. The place of a language in the world, however, also involves how that language appears to those outside its community of speakers. Italian does not seem to be doing so well in this regard. For example, calls have gone unheeded on the English language Wikipedia for domain experts to weigh in on topics such as the spread of Italian as a national language. Can Italian-speaking Wikipedians do more or do things more systematically to promote the language in the non-Italian Wikimedia community? How does Italian fit into today's polyglot world? What role can Wikimedia projects play in the future of the Italian language and culture? Are there key concepts that represent Italian we should expect to find in non-Italian Wikipedias?

Purpose: Identify areas of priority for contribution, especially on projects in other languages, and outline pathways that might facilitate access to existing materials in Italian for those to whom Italian is a foreign language.

Targeted participants: Italian linguists, learners of Italian, Wikipedia translators, those interested in local cultures.

Preparatory readings or materials: http://www.meta-net.eu/whitepapers/e-book/italian.pdf

Questions and Comments 26

Hi Philip, thank you for your proposal. Do you think there is a discrepancy between this discussion's focus on the Italian language and Wikimania's international scope? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 11:56, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Gnom. Sorry for my slow reply. I always work on en.wikipedia and it.wikipedia or sometimes fr.wikipedia but only got the notices when using de.wikipedia while logged in. Actually I do not think there is any discrepancy at all because the intent was precisely internationalist. I was thinking especially of en.wikipedia but also of other non-Italian Wikipedias, whose articles on Italian-langauge-related topics may not be getting enough attention. The location led me to think it might be an ideal opportunity to try to encourage Italian Wikipedians to pay attention to an international readership interested in their language, not just on the it.wikipedia project but internationally. However, much of the work can probably be done through the country project (which lacks a language subgroup for now, though, and has no good articles in its language section). I do think the Italian-speaking community on Wikipedia may be paying too little attention to the language's accessibility to non-Italians. Ph7five (talk) 21:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ph7five: I'm not sure if I understand the proposal well, but it seems to propose to discuss the position of Italian in the mind of people outside Italy? I'd say that this is a bit too far away from Wikimedia to be a helpful discussion for this track. I do recommend you try to discuss with people in the hallways etc about this, maybe you'll find a few that want to enter this philosophical debate with you. For now I'd recommend not to schedule this topic as discussion. Effeietsanders (talk) 15:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You may be right Effeietsanders. Perhaps the proposal was too philosophical. If there are Italian linguists in the hall, I'll certainly ask them if the interests of learners of Italian can be better met. Ph7five (talk) 21:22, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A resident anthropologist for the Wiki community?

Title: Do we need a resident anthropologist for the Wiki community?
Proposed by: Douglas Scott
Description: What does our community look like, how to do we function, what social customes and norms have developed within the community; how does this effect people who are not part of the community and the nature of the content on Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia? Should the Wikimedia Foundation employ a resident anthropologist or commission an anthropologogical study of the community to help answer questions like this? What other questions should we ask an anthopologist? Should we even think about getting an anthropologist or asking for such a study? These questions will be discussed here.
Purpose: Explore the idea of a social and cultural study of our community.
Targeted participants: All Wikipedians and Wikimedians
Relevant Experts: you
Preparatory readings or materials

Questions & Comments 20

Hi Douglas, thank you for your proposal. Haven't there already been a number of outside studies on this topic? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 10:42, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom:, Discott here (been having trouble logging in lately) from what I understand yes and no. Yes people have written about the culture of the Wikipedia editing community but, to the best of my knowledge, we have never had an anthropologist write.196.14.91.230 13:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a preparatory study for a proposal to WMF to hire an anthropologist to do research... in any cases, the discussion should feature a state of the art. Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: it is more of a discussion to see a) what is out there on the topic (awareness and knowledge sharing) and b) to discuss the merits of such an idea and whether or not it might be worth while to request that such a proposal for a study should be done. And if so how so.196.14.91.230 13:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also see Discussions#Wikimedia_governance:_how_difficult_is_it_to_study_and_understand.3F Anthere (talk)

@Anthere: thanks for the share. This is slightly different in that the focus of this discussion is on the editing community broadly (not just on governance which is more of a management systems approach) and what our cultural norms are, how they impact us, and how they impact others who might want to interact with the community generally. However Shun-Ling Chen's presentation does look relevant and this discussion might be a good counterpart to it.196.14.91.230 13:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how good a fit this topic is for a round table discussion - I think that requires more topics where more people are aware and into the topic, and where an outcome could actually be useful. This sounds more like a topic for a mailing list discussion or in the hallways. I would propose not to schedule this topic as discussion. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:07, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Effeietsanders: It has been discussed in hallways, on and off in a very casual sense, for years now. I feel that it needs a more formal format such as a round table discussion to take the idea forward assuming the idea has any merit. Discussing the merit of the idea is part of this. It strikes me that it would be better to set-up a mailing list only once this has been discussed in such a format and not before. But then again I am more inclined to discussions than to mailing lists which I try to stay off of. 196.14.91.230 13:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Open and Transparent? Wikis, Wikipedia, Wikimedia

Title: The Pros and Cons of Transparency: Wikis, Wikipedia, Wikimedia
Proposed by: Jon Beasley-Murray (User:Jbmurray)
Description: This session will consider the relationship between openness and transparency. The software underlying wikis seems to encourage both, for instance in the fact that every page history and every edit is open to inspection. More generally, the Wikimedia movement often claims to embrace openness and transparency as core values. But recently, there has been much debate as to what they mean in practice. What are or should be their limits? And to what extent are these two qualities the same in any case? Wikimaina is the perfect place for a sustained and productive discussion of the place of transparency and openness on wiki and off.
Targeted participants: Any and all Wikimedians
Preparatory readings or materials: None at present

Questions and Comments 33

Hi Jon, thank you for your proposal. Do you think you can narrow the topic a little, or further explain your idea? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:28, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jbmurray: I fear this is a very broad topic indeed, and would quickly turn into a philosophical debate. You claim it would be a sustained and productive discussion - what kind of outcomes did you have in mind? At this point, I would propose not to schedule this topic as a discussion. But I would encourage you to have the discussion with people informally! Effeietsanders (talk) 21:43, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A pseudo-copyright beyond public domain? Limits for reproducing and sharing the cultural heritage

Title: A pseudo-copyright beyond public domain? Limits for reproducing and sharing the cultural heritage
Proposed by: Simone Aliprandi (founder of Copyleft-Italia.it) - info@juriswiki.org
Description: Copyright has already an incredibly long duration, after which a creative work formally falls in the so called public domain. Anyway there are lots of strategies and “legal expedients” to put limits even over non-copyrighted works, e.g. the strong enforcement of the database rights, the application of contractual terms and restrictive licenses, the addition of limitations based on administrative rules. We can speak of a “pseudo-copyright”. This problem is particularly perceived in Italy, where public authorities seem to be very “jealous” of the public cultural heritage and not so available to share digital pictures existing in the public archives.
Purpose: To brainstorm and discuss about legal expedients to extend copyright beyond public domain
Targeted participants: anyone
Preparatory readings or materials:

Questions and Comments 50

Hi Simone, thank you for your proposal. Please note that discussions are not presentations. Can you rewrite or withdraw your submission? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:55, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Simone, I'm not sure what to say. Typically, the discussions at Wikimania would be about shortening the copyright term, and not finding ways to protect works for a longer duration. I'm confident that you'll find plenty of people to discuss and brainstorm with, already for that reason alone. I don't quite see a useful outcome of this discussion at this point, as it is also very abstract and broad. I propose not to schedule this topic in this track. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Knowledge shaping tools for dummies

Title:

Knowledge shaping tools for dummies

Proposed by:

Marco Ciurcina and Puria Nafisi

Description:

Free software designing tools for making knowledge paths algorithms

Purpose:

Debate about future of collaborative knowledge shaping

Targeted participants:

Curious, collaborative and fun people

Questions and Comments 35

Hi Marco and Puria, thank you for your proposal. Can you expand it so we can better understand what it is about? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MarcoCiurcina: I'm also uncertain about your proposed topic. It does feel quite technical, and therefore more suitable to the hackathon. At this point, I would propose not to schedule this topic for the discussion track. But maybe you could clarify and persuade. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:09, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Resolving small-project disputes

Title: Resolving small-project disputes
Proposed by: Ajraddatz
Description: A discussion of how small-project disputes are currently resolved, the effectiveness of current approaches, and what different institutions or practices could improve response and decision in these cases.
Purpose: To brainstorm different approaches to dealing with small-project disputes, such as a process within Meta RFC, a dispute resolution committee, etc.
Targeted participants: Individuals involved in dispute resolution on individual projects, and those active globally / on meta.
Preparatory readings or materials: meta:Requests for comment/Archive and meta:Requests for comment/Dispute resolution committee

Questions and Comments 12

Hi Ajraddatz, could you please expand your proposal? I don't quite understand what it is about. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's about how small-wiki disputes are currently resolved, and what possible ways forward there might be. What in particular is unclear about this? Ajraddatz (talk) 22:20, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ajraddatz, I would propose that you try to explain your discussion topic to someone who has never seen a "small wiki" and has no idea what a "Meta RFC" is. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that makes sense. I'll look at this later today. Thanks, Ajraddatz (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ajraddatz: While I have a warm feeling with the topic from my steward days (I know how painful it can be to work on those topics), I would fear such discussion would quickly end in anecdotes and lots of stories that cannot be verified. Would it be possible to push such discussion above that level? For that, it would require more focus. At the moment, I don't see how that could work, so for now I would propose to not schedule it but I'm happy to listen to ideas. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:21, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia projects and disabilities: a witness from visual impaired people

Title: Wikimedia projects and disabilities: a witness from visual impaired people
Proposed by: Ilario Valdelli (Wikimedia CH) and by Simone Mignami, visual impaired student of the master in engineering in Lugano
Description: Among the usual readers/writers of Wikimedia projects, there are also people with disabilities. For them a specific format of the pages can be hard to read with the tools which are used as assistance. What is for us a "graphical" element, like the Table of Content, conversely it is an important component for this group of users. In this discussion there will be a final user (a visual impaired engineer and may be some additional ones) showing a real case of impediments found in Wikimedia projects. Using the experience of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Wikimedia CH is starting a project of analysis to define the gap which exists to have "friendly" Wikimedia projects for visual impaired/blind users.
Purpose: The organization should be like a discussion where editors can address questions to these visual impaired users and vice versa these users with disabilities can ask to the wikipedians what would be their opinion to introduce guidelines to facilitate people with disabilities. The selection of the format of "discussion" is connected with the high level of interaction which is expected. The ideal setup is to give the opportunity to look in a computer desktop of a visual impaired or blind user and to experiment their "user interaction".
Targeted participants (who would you like to see attend the session?): Wikipedians/wikimedians in general but mainly those working on templates and GUI
optional: relevant experts - who would you really like to see there?: Technicians
optional: preparatory readings or materials - what should people know in order to understand the discussion? It would be good if users already know that blind and visual impaired users are dismissing Braille code because the computer tools offer them a valid assistance.

Questions and Comments 13

Hi Ilario Valdelli and Simone, thank you for your proposal. I am unsure if this is meant to be a presentation or a discussion. Also, can you link to previous discussions of this issue? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ilario: thanks for the proposal. The topic is interesting, although I'm struggling whether it would be a suitable format. Basically you would have one experience expert who talks with a lot of other people. What would be more interesting perhaps, is to structure it into a meetup, and somehow try to give people the experience on how a blind person can still read or edit Wikipedia. Walk them through it. But that requires more a one-on-one setup. If you would expect some 5-10 visually impaired people at least, I'd be more tempted to schedule it, but without such indication, I am afraid (also given the strong competition this year) to suggest to not schedule this topic as discussion. If you do feel more visually impaired people would participate, please do speak up though! Effeietsanders (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Capturing Social Change through Outcome Mapping

Author: Jaime Anstee and Amanda Bittaker; + Community Discussants TBD
Description: How can we understand the social and environmental changes brought about through Wikimedia programs and partnerships? In the Wikimedia world of programs, there are many challenges to measuring outcomes that have a less direct, but influential effect on the success of our movement. Outcome Mapping provides a useful framework for helping to get beyond the direct outputs and products of our work to capture the intermediate and longer-term movement impact brought about through influence in a more complex social system. Influence is not an easy thing to measure, even when you have a clear behavior to measure, it is unlikely that you can claim credit for changing it because there are so many different influences on people every day. Still, strategies that focus on monitoring the behaviors and policies of our participants and program partners can help us to check in on our assumptions about how our outreach programs work and to better understand the contributions that our programs make beyond their immediate effect on online metrics. Such monitoring can also help us to understand the intended, as well as unintended, results of our efforts by extending our view of outcomes that are beyond our direct control. How might we use outcome mapping strategies to better capture the stories of our combined Wikimedia work and to better surface our shared movement impact?

Purpose

Participants will engage in discussion of outcomes, metrics, and the importance of developing ways to measure changes in behavior, relationships, and/or actions which we wish to influence through our community and program partnerships. In this discussion session we will outline the opportunities and challenges to existing metrics models and the potential for exploring measures that might help to better capture stories of the social change impact of programs. We will discuss the costs and benefits of such efforts, and identify potential shared opportunities to explore and try out these methods. (Note: This is separate from the proposed training session that will actually walk folks through a few of the strategic tools from the Outcome Mapping approach).

Targeted participants

Community leaders working to influence social change to increase participation in and support for Wikimedia partnerships and projects.

Preparatory readings or materials

Relevant experts

GLAM leaders, those leading partnerships in science, medicine, and technology
Outreach leaders seeking to influence attitudes, behaviors, and/or policy environments.

Questions & Comments 22

Hi Jaime and Sati, thank you for your proposal. Would you mind rephrasing it so that it is easier understand for readers who aren't fluent in English and have little understanding of the sociological(?) concepts mentioned here? For example, since this is will not be a presentation, will I be able to participate meaningfully without knowing what "Outcome Mapping" means? I'm asking this since there will be no time for any introductory explanations. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 10:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hello, Gnom. Thank you for your feedback. I have rewritten, please let me know if it is now more accessible. I have also needed to swap co-facilitator's due to Wikimania scheduling. To answer your question about background being necessary: No, while I have also now linked a presentation, the discussion will be entry level and be more general than technical. Those wanting to learn more on the specific strategies and how to engage more will be given instructions for doing so. Thanks. JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JAnstee (WMF): This sounds mostly like a complicated topic you want to present on. I'm afraid it would require too much introduction to actually have a solid discussion on it, and I don't see the clear question either (your scope is very wide - 'discussion of outcomes, metrics, and the importance of developing ways to measure changes in behavior, relationships, and/or actions which we wish to influence through our community and program partnerships' - basically you want to discuss everything?) and it has no clear purpose. I propose not to schedule this topic as a discussion. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:13, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Effeietsanders Thank you for your feedback. While yes, it is a complicated topic, it is one that I have just piloted two versions of at Wikimedia Conference. With this experience, I can confidently assure you that it is not the case that there would not be enough time. Outcome Mapping as a strategy for measuring programs is what the discussion is about. It has costs and benefits that vary from program to program and across affiliates with different evaluation capacity, so that will be what makes up the discussion besides a basic overview to understand the problem and some basic for considering Outcome Mapping as a solution. JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How you can benefit from the renaissance of the Wikimedia Blog

Title: How you can benefit from the renaissance of the Wikimedia Blog

Author: Ed Erhart (WMF)

Description: The Wikimedia Blog has been around since 2008; that's a long time in Internet years. We've been a primary method of the WMF's communications for those eight years, but the last year has seen some of the more significant changes in its history: we have a brand-new site design, launched a new set of simplified guidelines, and expanded our scope into becoming a Wikimedia communications hub to and for the general public.

I will show the community what changes we've made, explain why we've put them in place, and will invite them to contribute their own stories to the history-documenting platform we have. I'll specifically call for and target compelling narratives, high-impact projects, or media-worthy stories, along with finding public-facing editors who want to explain complicated Wikipedia processes to the public.

Purpose: To let people know that we're looking for these quality stories—and that by running them on the blog they can get attention from readers and the media. I would also like to establish correspondents in at least six non-US countries that will report on events on the Wikipedia(s) prevalent in their area. Doing so will alert us to big developing stories around the world, greatly benefit the community digest, and expand the blog's contributor diversity, moving it towards being a more accurate cross-section of the movement.

Targeted participants: Editors interested in the intersection of the public and the community, those who have had post ideas in the back of their head for months but don't know how to submit them, or simply anyone interested in how the WMF communicates to the public.

Preparatory readings or materials:

Blog updates
Examples of things we're looking for:
- Media-worthy: Harassment/women scientists, When people disappear
- Explaining Wikipedia: Pokemon, terror

Questions and Comments 28

Hi Ed, thank you for your proposal. This looks a lot like a presentation and not like a discussion. Maybe you can rephrase it? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't we use on wiki methods like talk pages for discussion?

Title: Let's have a conversation about upgrading Mailman 2.1 to Mailman 3.0, or should we switch to Discourse?
Proposed by: Ad Huikeshoven (talk)
Description

The Wikimedia Foundation hosts over 900 project wikis. All wikis have talk pages. Most wikis have a Village Pump to centralize discussions. However, major discussions within the Wikimedia Movement happen through mailing lists, Facebook groups like Wikipedia Weekly, and other on line and off line forums, for example Google Hangouts and conferences, like Wikimania. There is a clear need for an on line channel for discussions between times people meet at conferences. The mailing lists are run on the GNU Mailman platform. The mailing lists have many fans and supporters. Quite a few find the interface rather antiquated. On wmflabs runs a pilot installation of Discourse to test if Discourse could be an alternative for the wikimedia-l mailing list. On Phabricator a conversation has started about upgrading Mailman 2.1 to Mailman 3. But why would we need a mailinglist if we already have over 900 project wikis? What is missing on wiki or on talk pages for which mailing list would be the solution?

Purpose

Problem definition - Figure out what problem we're really trying to solve, and if it's really a problem. The discussion at Wikimania could deliver:

Clear definition and agreement on the problem Discourse is intended to solve (or other off wiki channels for discussion)
Agreement that the problem is an important one to solve
Consensus on the priority about the importance of solving this problem (or consensus that it isn’t a problem after all)
A list of clear problem statements that can be prioritized and can help evaluate proposed solutions
A reasonably complete list of viable options for solving the problem

Targeted participants

Active participants in Wikimedia discussions, specifically admins and moderators of mailing lists, Facebook groups, on line forums; Austin Hair, Andrew Lih, Brion Vibber, Catrope, Sumana, ...

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions and Comments 4

Hi Ad Huikeshoven, does your proposal have a title and a subtitle, and which is which? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:37, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Either way, the title/subtitle will need some work indeed. But the core of this proposal seems to be Discussion methods in the Wikimedia movement, I would suspect. It might be possible to organise a discussion, but it would have to focus on the broader question, I think - not just whether a specific tool should be used. At the same time, we should focus on a specific purpose, for example getting a good overview of the existing discussion methods and their advantages and disadvantages. Maybe we could conclude with one or two recommendations based on that. Effeietsanders (talk) 16:47, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Information delivery using Different Media and more

Title: Information delivery using Different Media
Proposed by: Ivaylo Mitev - evomitev@hotmail.com
Description: Wikipedia is delivering information using text format created and edited by different users. Can wikipedia be expanded to offer more: Video, Audio, User-to-User chat, Volunteer subject matter expert in the field who can be contacted for questions, Organised local lectures on the subject, Local groups formation for exploring the subject and possibly creating experimental/testing labs. Potentially bring a social connection side of wikipedia and the ability to to create subject related social groups and knowledge gathering repository. I know there is a storage limitation but the whole thing does not need to be centralised but can be offered as shared storage content using protocols similar to bittorrent for streaming/sharing/storing/distributing contents from a designated users shared space.
Purpose: To help people understand topics better. To bring people together. To help people find who they are what they want to do. To encourage and aid scientific discoveries outside of universities. To deliver education and knowledge outside of the traditional schools/universities educational system. To find the ultimate educational content and journey for a subject.
Targeted participants: ALL People in the world.
Preparatory readings or materials:

Questions and Comments 5

Hi Ivaylo, don't we already have all different kinds of media in the Wikimedia project and don't we already have many other on-line and off-line activities? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what the exact proposal is. If I destill this to what could really be discussed, the thing left over would be How social should Wikimedia projects become. Could be a discussion worth having, if not getting too technical. The other suggestions are indeed already implemented, I think. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:53, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Drones!

Title: Drones for Wikipedia/Commons
Author: Douglas Scott
Description: The use of drones to capture media has greatly increased over the past two or three years. This discussion seeks to understand better how drones can best be used to create media content for use on Commons generally and Wikipedia specifically. How can we get more people submitting drone content, what limitations and restrictions are there for using drones (both legally and technically), how to encourage people to use the technology responsibly (is it our place to even do so), and how best to use them to illustrate Wikipedia articles will be discussed.
Purpose: Discussing the value of drone generated media content and how best to engage with it.
Targeted participants: Anyone interested in drone created media content for use on Commons and/or Wikipedia.
Preparatory readings or materials: Wiki From Above 2015

Questions and Comments 8

Hi Douglas Scott, most important question first: Will there be a demo? If yes, could this also be a meetup/workshop? Finally, you forgot an important piece of preparatory reading ;-) Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom:, hi Discott here, unfortunately there will be no drone present at this discussion... unless someone else chooses to bring one that is. :-) 196.14.91.230 13:42, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How can we promote Open Education on a larger scale?

Title: How can we promote Open Education on a larger scale? – Experiences Advocating for Open Education from the Wikimedia Movement
Proposed by: Valentin Muenscher (Wikimedia Deutschland) & Tomasz Ganicz (Wikimedia Polska)
Description: So far education in the Wikimedia Movement is often about providing workshops and convincing individuals. The overall goal is mostly creating more content for our projects and gaining more authors. Is that really all we can do about connecting education and Wikimedia? Have reached our limits? Is that the highest impact we can achieve in that field? What about advocating in order to change the copyright so more content is freely available and useable? Or changing educational system to be more open? Or raising public awareness? Or convincing politicians? Or withstanding the power of traditional publishers? In this round, we want to discuss other, alternative and maybe more impactful approaches for Open Education. Additionally, we want to exchange experiences and good practices about how we can change our societies with Open Education. A similar session discussing the impact of Wikimedia’s work in the area of policy & society will take place at the Wikimedia Conference 2016 (April 20-24) in Berlin. Outcomes of the session will be included this panel, too.
Purpose: To support the discussion for advocating Open Education in the Wikimedia movement
Targeted participants: Everyone who is interested in education and Wikimedia
Preparatory readings or materials: Short Description of Mapping OER (Project of Wikimedia Deutschland); Documentation of the Wikimedia Conference 2016 (will be published in May)

Questions and Comments 59

Hi Valentin Muenscher (Wikimedia Deutschland) & Tomasz Ganicz (Wikimedia Polska), thank you for your proposal. Do you think you could include the community member/paid staff divide into this discussion? I need to disclose a conflict of interest here: Valentin is an employee of Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am a member of the board, and I am a Wiki-friend of Tomasz. By the way, the description needs proofreading, I think :-) Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This proposal overlaps with the proposal "WikiToLearn: Can we kill textbooks?" --Gnom (talk) 14:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Gnom, thank you for your suggestions. In my opinion this topic is not about a divide between paid community members and staff, but rather on different approaches and methods on how to reinforce open education. But of course, if the participants of the discussion would like to add this as an experience in their work, it definitely should be part of it. --Valentin Muenscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Valentin Muenscher (WMDE): @Polimerek: The description is very wide and needs a lot more focus. It is unclear to me what would be the focus of the discussion, what would be the exact goal. The title focuses clearly on open education, but the description doesn't. What aspects of open education are we talking about? Are we talking about open learning materials? Open methods? Wikiversity? Something else? What would be the ideal outcome of the discussion? Because 'supporting the discussion' isn't going to cut it, I'm afraid. I'd like to consider it, but it needs editing, I think. Thanks! Effeietsanders (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Effeietsanders, thank you for your feedback. We didn't want to narrow the discussion down to one specific part of open education, to allow anyone be part. Within the Wikimedia movement there is no common understanding of what is open education and focuses are quite different. The aim of this session is to talk about the approaches and methods, sharing expericances and discuss new ways. In my opinion it is not too much about, wheather you are into Open Educational Ressources or let's say Wikiversity, but more about how you reinfoce your work and push your goals. It's about the expericance with policy making and trying to reform the (education) system - or why it might not work. In order to give the discussion a boost at the beginning, I would offer to prepare two or three thesis, based on the experiance with Mapping OER and the documentation of the Wikimedia Conference. --Valentin Muenscher (WMDE) (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Making better Wikimedia logos: Learning from 15 years of Wikimedia marks

Title

How can we make better movement logos: Learning from 15 years of Wikimedia marks

Proposed by

Zack McCune, Heather Walls

Description

From snakes on magic towels to the iconic puzzle globe, what have we learned across the Wikimedia movement about project identity?

What design elements best suggest movement values?
What design choices allow something to hold international meaning?
What are your favorite Wikimedia logos? What makes them good?
What are the most confusing Wikimedia logos? What can make them better?
What common elements unite project marks?
Is there a risk of fragmentation or confusion from many logos?
How can we measure identity success and recognition?

Purpose

Explore the various visual identities of Wikimedia, and share what is most important.

Learn how we can all make better logos and visual design for Wikimedia projects.

Targeted participants

Designers, all community members interested in Wikimedia identity especially visual, all are welcome

Relevant Experts

Zack McCune, Heather Walls, you

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions & Comments 19

Hi Zack McCune and Heather Walls, thank you for your proposal. Can you expand on the purpose of this discussion? Is this more about movement identity or logo design? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 10:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The topic looks interesting. But it looks more like a presentation right now than a discussion. The topics to be raised during the conversation should be clarified. Anthere (talk)
@ZMcCune (WMF): @Heatherawalls: Agreed. Reading this, there are several directions I could see this going, which is tough. It could all be about policies etc (which is more something for the affiliates meeting), or about the general design theories etc (which is more a meetup thing). It could be more interesting if there were a clear goal for the discussion. For example, a discussion from back in the days was whether all projects should use the Wikipedia logo & trademark. Something like that could give a directed discussion. What was the trigger for you to propose this discussion? Is there some specific hot topic you think could be put up? Effeietsanders (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnom: @Effeietsanders: @Anthere: Thank you for your great feedback here. Let me say more! The purpose of this discussion is more about logo design than movement identity BUT those two topics should always be connected. We would like to gather insights on how design items (logos, typefaces, names, colors) can best impart the values of the movement (e.g. open, global, transparent, participatory, etc.) in graphics and illustrations. The proposed presentation at the beginning is simply to show some of the evolution of Wikimedia logos. It can help us all remember that the logos and visual assets we have today often need change and upkeep! I think our number 1 goal is to learn "what's broken" - specifically, what movement logos do not fully impart the project's purpose or the movement's values? Our number 2 goal is to consider "should they be improved and how" - specifically, how can the ~~broken~~ movement logos that are not serving the purpose as defined by our conversation (answer revised by Heatherawalls (talk)) reflect the best from other Wikimedia design or from better design practices? I apologize that this was not more clear. Is it OK if I revise the topic slightly to clarify? 194.115.26.9 10:47, 24 April 2016 (UTC) - Ack! Really from ZMcCune (WMF) (talk) 10:48, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi ZMcCune (WMF), everyone is invited to even completely rewrite the proposals. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 16:02, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our drop in the sea of knowledge – why does impact matter to the Wikimedia movement?

Title: Our drop in the sea of knowledge – why does impact matter to the Wikimedia movement?
Proposed by: Cornelius Kibelka/Nicole Ebber (WMDE), Jaime Anstee (WMF)
Description: Our movement – from the youngest User Group to the Wikimedia Foundation – is striving for impact on Free Knowledge in society, seeking to create impactful programs, processes, and support structures aligned with our shared mission. At the same time, “impact” is a concept that we struggle with. During the Wikimedia Conference 2016, we met to unlock the potential for better collaboration, learning, and development in our movement – and more impact of our movement. We will discuss and develop our next steps for clarifying the diverse impact perspectives and coordinating our joint efforts in assessing impact in the future.
Purpose: Based on the outcomes of the Wikimedia Conference 2016 and the pre-conference days of the Wikimania 2016, we want to provide you with an update where we as a movement stand and, depending on the outcomes of the conversations, present a summary and discussion of the diverse perspectives on impact which exist in the Wikimedia movement.
Targeted participants: Everyone interested in Wikimedia movement’s impact(s)
Preparatory readings or materials: WMCON documentation (TB published May 2016) - This session description will be updated as soon as the documentation of the Wikimedia Conference 2016 is published [in May].

Questions & Comments 21

Hi Cornelius, Nicole, and Jaime, thank you for your proposal! Since this is meant to be a discussion, can you maybe reframe your description so it sounds less like a presentation? Also, I need to disclose a conflict of interest here: Nicole and Cornelius are employees of Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am a member of the board. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 10:45, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE): et al, the topic is important, but with the current description I'm uncertain whether it would be a good round table discussion topic. As far as round table discussions go on this topic, the affiliates meeting is probably more the right place. The description reads mostly like a presentation, and that is not a good fit for this track. For now, I would propose not to schedule this topic as a discussion, although I can imagine there are specific discussion questions & attached outcomes possible that would be worth discussing (please suggest those). Effeietsanders (talk) 09:11, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom:@Effeietsanders:: Thanks for your comments. This discussion is thought to be a follow-up for the work we have done at the Wikimedia Conference. As you may know, the conference is this weekend, so I would like to update (adjust) the proposal in the upcoming week – if that's okay for you. What do you think? Cheers, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE) (talk) 11:25, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How can we make Wikimedia Poland and Wikimedia Italy accountable?

Title: How can we make Wikimedia Poland and Wikimedia Italy accountable?
Proposed by: Laurentius, Aegis Maelstrom
Description:

As a side effect of the centralized fundraising model we have, most Wikimedia organizations, and especially the largest ones, submit their annual plans to community review through one of the Wikimedia grant processes.

This enables the global community to look into each organization, with the result of increasing transparency, encouraging better planning, making possible for organization to learn from each other, and giving a way to address possible misconducts. Those processes are shaped in order to put higher requirements for the larger organizations.

A few chapters are able to raise significant funds by themselves and do not need to use global funds - namely, Wikimedia Poland, Wikimedia Italy and Wikimedia Indonesia. While this is great from any point of view, it highlights that the current approach may be not enough. Should we put in place other system to make them more accountable to the movement? Or the current situation (reports included) is just fine? Most Wikimedia affiliates are membership organizations, which ensures at least an internal control: is that enough? Should the chapter's agreement introduce stronger reporting standards for bigger chapters? And what about organizations like the Wiki Education Foundation, which is not even an affiliate? Do these orgs and the rest of the Movement miss some important flow of best practices?

As the transparency standards and local regulations vary heavily across the movement, we would review the WMIT and WMPL solutions and compare them to the other Movement entities; we would also discuss the moral hazards of both the lack and the introduced additional means.

Purpose: Answer to some of the questions above.
Targeted participants:
Relevant experts:
- someone from chapters with independent funding: Wikimedia Italy, Wikimedia Poland, Wikimedia Indonesia;
- someone from chapters with nearly-independent funding: e.g., Wikimedia Germany;
- someone from not-officially-affiliated organizations: e.g., Wiki Education Foundation;
- someone from WMF grantmaking staff and committees.
Preparatory readings or materials: (none)

Questions and Comments 27

Hi Laurentius and Aegis Maelstrom, thank you for your proposal. This still looks very much like a presentation or a panel with a rather narrow focus and not like a discussion of interest for a larger audience. Maybe you can rephrase your proposal? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting topic. I wonder though if it might not be more suitable to the Wikimedia conf than to Wikimania ? Or could it be expanded to a larger focus about accountability from our mouvement entities, with the case of the 3 above chapters being taken as example during the discussion ? Anthere (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Anthere, I think this would fit better at the affiliations meeting. Possibly we could have a discussion about the accountability of chapters/thorgs in general, but that would first require a good discussion on the rights/advantages, and that becomes very quickly a very complicated discussion, that is maybe a little too big for this track. In general an important discussion to have though. Effeietsanders (talk) 15:32, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Open Access & Wikimedia: Strengthening Wikimedia Projects by Opening Up Source Material

Title: Open Access & Wikimedia: Strengthening Wikimedia Projects by Opening Up Source Material
Proposed by: Nick Shockey
Description: This discussion will focus on how opening up access to scientific and scholarly research can improve Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This session will build on discussions at previous Wikimania conferences and touch on projects at the intersection of Wikimedia and the Open Access movement, such as last year's Open Access Week Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and the WikiProject to signal Open Access on Wikipedia. The discussion will also provide an update on the state of the global Open Access movement and ways that Wikimedians can get involved in efforts to promote openness in research.
Targeted participants: any and all Wikimedians, especially those interested in allied open and free culture movements
Preparatory readings or materials: None necessary, but some will be posted at a later date.

Questions and Comments 32

Hi Nick, thank you for your proposal. I think you could narrow your topic a little. Also, are you sure this will be a discussion and not a presentation? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does have more a ring of a presentation indeed. I'm trying to imagine what would be discussed exactly, what question would be answered. That Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects would benefit from open sources seems undisputed. The question the other way around (what could/should Wikimedia do, to make open sources more frequent) is more tricky. At this point, uncertain if it would fit. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:40, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Workshops and Women of the World- Safeguarding Women's Achievements for the Future

Title: Wikipedia Workshops and Women of the World - Safeguarding Women's Achievements for the Future
Proposed by: EUI Gender Project (Florence) in collaboration with the Advancing Women Artists Foundation in Florence
Description

In an effort to increase Wikipedia's representation of women's leadership (women in art, sciences, politics and so forth) the European University Institute (EUI) Gender Project in collaboration with the Advancing Women Artists Foundation in Florence called researchers and members of the foundation to create and edit Wikipedia entries in a way they think would advance both the representation of important women entries in Wikipedia and women's participation as editors. A Wikipedia marathon event took place on the day at the Institute in order to celebrate International Women's day. As a group of researchers, coming from various disciplines in the humanities together with artists, mainly organised and based in Florence, we started with the theme of art by women in Florence (in any historical period). The international backgrounds of the EUI researchers brought in more edits celebrating women from many different countries. We would like to expand this project to more communities and discuss how can we engage in strategic outreach.

Purpose

We would like to discuss further ways to open the project to more people interested, perhaps continuing with the focus in entries about women but also strengthening the input from women editors. We think that a more strategic outreach in academic environments where many women, especially young women, engage in research in various fields would help towards this end. In this discussion we would like to talk about methods of mobilizing targeted communities to that end, creating more calls for editing.

Targeted participants

Women in arts, humanities, sciences. All others interested. At a second level we would also like to reach to broader audiences within communities immediately accessible to our 'first outreach audience' as for example communities in the countries of international researchers, academics, artists etc.

Preparatory readings or materials -

Questions and Comments 38

Hi, thank you for your proposal. Is this not a presentation rather than a discussion? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:43, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. Please contact us on m:Wikimania Women for further online discussion Anthere (talk)

Project for Women who show up with hard skills

Title

How can we involve Women in Film and TV?

Proposed by

WS ReNu, DasMonstaaa, DocTaxon, Artemesia, Medea7, Jensbest, DerHexer, Marcus Cyron, (n.n.)

Description

Last year an idea at Wikimania in Mexico-City at the Workshop: IdeaLab Workshops: Making Ideas into Action which an Idea called Women showing up with hard skills was born. But how to start? Spontaneously! Supported by Wikimedia Deutschland and fulltime volunteer work a row of workshops "Editing is easy! Wikipedia for Women in Film and TV" started at Filmfestivals like Berlinale and Internatioales Frauenfilmfestival Köln/Dortmund and follow-ups in Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Munich and online on 2nd Wednesday of the month. This discussion aims at gaps in Wikipedia, by supporting groups of special interests and skills. For launching the discussion, attendees of the first-ever meetup of "Wikipedia Film Frauen - Team" focused on Wikipedians will describe their experiences on improving the project. In the end, workshops and on-wiki support turned into real-life engagement, networking and friendship, and integration into the German Wikipedia community, as editors and supporters. Other stories from the audience will lead to the main question on how to improve the support of groups with special job skills and interests in Wikimedia organizations.

Purpose

Part of the WPFF-Team (Wikipedia Film Frauen), as supporters, and members of the Wikimedia organizations will discuss the question of whether or not a closer focus on supporting groups of special interessts like women on film and TV can make a meaningful, positive change to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in general. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, we want to motivate the audience to join us in supporting events on filmfestivals.

Targeted participants

All Wikipedians interested in Film and TV, all people interested in finding ways to support people who are willing to close gaps, Wikipedians, especially staff members and volunteers of Wikimedia organizations specialized in closing gaps.

Preparatory readings or materials

https://de.wikipedia.org/.../Wikipedia.../WPFF_Berlinale2016 (to be translated in english)

Questions and Comments 39

Hi WS ReNu, DasMonstaaa, DocTaxon, Artemesia, Medea7, Jensbest, DerHexer, and Marcus, thank you for your proposal. Please note that opening statements from such a large number of people will eat up too much of the discussion time – this is not intended to be a presentation. Maybe you can rephrase your proposal? Also I would like to disclose a conflict of interest: I am Wiki-friends with some of the community members proposing this discussion and connected to some of them through Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am a member of the board. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 12:50, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@WS ReNu: et al: Agreed with Gnom, it should not be a presentation! I'm struggling with what would exactly be the discussion topic here. What is the main question, what would be the intended outcome of the discussion? Right now, a motivated speech would much better accomplish your goals than a discussion session, it seems. See the remark at the proposal 'Women' above. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Answer: Key Speaker is WS Renu. All the others are there for answering practical Questions. Marcus Cyron (talk) 23:16, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Public policies and the role of public administrations to promote commons wiki-alike production

Background: During the Commons Collaborative Economy event which took place in Barcelona 11-13 of March 2016, 300 people were working together on a series of proposals and policy recommendations for governments, ending in a joint statement of public policies for the collaborative economy to be sent to the European Commission. The goal of the session is to depart from that declaration of public policies to promote commons collaborative economy and discuss the potential and the challenges of the collaborative economy, and to define public policies that could help to promote the “Commons side” of the collaborative economy, and reflect on the role of public administration for the rise of the commons.
Link with Wikimedia: Wikipedia is a paradigmatic model to define commons collaborative economy, as a example of very successful and economically sustainable experience. But Wikipedia is only one of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, and we could consider how far public administrations could support and promote those type of projects in a way that create a helpful environment and help them scale. Furthermore, the new in plan regulations in collaborative economy (by the European Commission and other administrative levels) might also affect the regulations of WMF projects, and it would be good to rethink it and provide policy recommendations that help to promote instead of interfere.
Goal: Discussion intended to produce a set of policy recommendations. Public policies related to commons production refer to aspects such as:
- Improving regulations. On areas like the legal subjects associated to commons production like the WMF for the Wikimedia.
- Enable existing and new formulas for financing commons initiatives
- Promote incubation for new projects and initiatives in the collaborative commons economy
- Adopt or reassign the use of spaces and other public infrastructures for the sector

Change of administrations operate internally on some fronts linked to commons (I.e. Adoption of FLOSS and collaborative platforms tools (such as Wikis) by public administration)

- Combat malpractice and corruption in government policy in the field of technology and knowledge
- Assist in promoting cities and neighbourhoods to bring their economies and other related sectors closer
- Making sure investments in major technological events revert in promoting local commons
- Encourage and support the research and understanding of the phenomenon to move forward
- Education and digital gap: Measures to fight against the digital and learning gap
Targeted participants:Anyone
Preparatory readings or materials: Commons Declaration: Public policies to promote commons collaborative economy www.procomuns.net

Questions and Comments 42

Hi Lilaroja, thank you for your proposal. Is there a link between this topic and the Wikimedia projects? Please rewrite or withdraw your proposal. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am also missing the link to the Wikimedia projects - but aside from that, the topic is quite broad as it is. Knowing Wikipedians, it would quickly turn into a copyright discussion. Also, I'm missing the goals/purpose of this discussion. What would be an ideal outcome, what would you like to accomplish at the discussion? For the moment, I suggest not to schedule this topic as a discussion in this track. I am interested in the outcomes of your discussions in Barcelona though, and will read up on it! Effeietsanders (talk) 13:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Background proposal: Since June last year there is a new government in Barcelona city. The City has interest into promoting Collaborative Economy from a commons perspective, but in few words considered that public policies in collaborative economy should also be defined in a collaborative manner. In this regard, we created a working group (named BarCola - Barcelona Colabora) based on a public- commons partnership with representatives of main commons collaborative economy experiences in the City (Goteo, Guifi.net, Amical Viquimedia. Ouishare Spain also take part). We also developed a mapping of 1500 experiences of commons collaborative economy in the City in collaborative with European Project P2Pvalue (directori.p2pvalue.eu). Plus, organized procomuns international event last March. It was attended by 400 people and out of it, it was defined (based on collaborative methodologies) a policy recommendations declaration for public administrations. The declaration is embraced by Barcelona City Council, and it has been send to European Commission and other administrations. Last week was presented at the European Commission. Out of the procomuns event, it was also created a network of cities interested in promote commons oriented collaborative economy. Materials are available at: www.procomuns.net

Wikimania can be an important place were to present and discuss the the policy recommendations. Wikipedia is a paradigmatic model to define commons collaborative economy, as a example of very successful and economically sustainable experience. But Wikipedia is only one of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, and we could consider how far public administrations could support and promote those type of projects in a way that create a helpful environment and help them scale. Furthermore, the new in plan regulations in collaborative economy (by the European Commission and other administrative levels) might also affect the regulations of WMF projects, and it would be good to rethink it and provide policy recommendations that help to promote instead of interfere.

Tackling the roles within Commons-Based Peer Production communities: needs and technical value propositions

Title

Tackling the roles within Commons-Based Peer Production communities: an app for growing communities using real-time edition and communication

Proposed by

Antonio Tenorio (P2Pvalue project, Universidad Complutense de Madrid) - Senrof21
Samer Hassan (P2Pvalue project, Berkman Center at Harvard University & Universidad Complutense de Madrid) - Samer.hc

Description: In the EU-funded P2Pvalue research project we have been aware of the 1-9-90 rule that affects all Common-Based Peer Production communities (e.g. Wikipedia, free software, Arduino). The rule says that 1% of the participants are the core, 9% are ocassional collaborators and 90% are just consumers. We have done extensive research to find out what are the needs of each role, and the tools they typically lack (related to management and internal organization, listing the subprojects available and the needs of each project). In this session, we will discuss how these roles are reproduced in Wikimedia communities and try to identify the needs of each of these roles, so participants are more aware of their communities and can improve the dynamics within them. These solutions can be implemented in Wikimedia tools to reduce the frustrations of all participants and increase participation (90s=>9, 9s=>1) as we can show from our experience building Teem, a free software app focused on increasing the participation and sustainability of CBPP communities.

Purpose

Discuss the 1-9-90 rule and its appearence in Wikimedia communities, the needs of the different roles (1s, 9s, 90s) and introduce solutions to increase community sustainability and participation, showing an app that tackles these issues, managing communities while providing real-time edition and communication.

Targeted participants

All Wikipedians and commoners interested in how Commons-Based Peer Production communities work, and how to increase participation.

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions and Comments 43

Hi Antonio and Samer, thank you for your proposal. Is this a presentation or a discussion? Also, is there a link between this topic and the Wikimedia projects? Please rewrite or withdraw your proposal. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi @Gnom:, it is a discussion, we have rewritten the proposal as we explain in the next response at this talk. -- Senrof21 (talk) 21:15, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hi Senrof21, it still sounds like a presentation. In order for it to be a discussion, your proposal has to be (theoretically) executable even without you attending Wikimania at all. --Gnom (talk) 21:23, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - Hi Gnom, We are interested in running a discussion around this topic. It is true that this discussion will not work without us introducing it... We can see it as a discussion with initial framing (which we will bring) or like a sort presentation with longer discussion and participative environment. Please, let us know how you think we should proceed. Senrof21 (talk) 11:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - Hi Senrof21, discussions are not meant to be mini-presentations. Please rewrite your proposal so we can be sure that you will limit yourself to an introduction of maybe one minute. --Gnom (talk) 13:19, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        Hi |Gnom, We will introduce the discussion in a minute. I have changed the description for a better fit to a discussion structure rather that to a presentation. Thank you for your help, I hope it is better now. Senrof21 (talk) 17:28, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        @Gnom: and @Effeietsanders:, is our proposal accepted? should we keep improving the proposal? thanks! Senrof21 (talk) 10:47, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Senrof21: and @Samer.hc: Thanks for the proposal. I'm afraid that this topic is at the same time a little too theoretical, and too much on a tangent to be suitable for this track of discussions. I don't see how such discussion can lead (considering our typical participants) to a useful outcome - especially considering the many alternatives. Therefore, I propose not to include this topic in this track. Effeietsanders (talk) 13:47, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi @Gnom: and @Effeietsanders:, We have modified the proposal to focus in what can be interesting for the Wikimedia Community. We did the changes the previous week, but unfortunately they were not saved due to some problems with the WYSIWYG editor, we have added them again some minutes ago. Please revisit our proposal and let us know if it is interesting for Wikimania or what could we do to do it more attractive and interesting for the audience. Thanks a lot. -- Senrof21 (talk) 21:15, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Surviving the Foundation

Title: How to survive the Foundation. Risk management for our movement
Proposed by: Laurentius
Description:

Among the many organizations in our movement, the Wikimedia Foundation is clearly the biggest. It controls the trademark, the servers, and most of the software development and the funding. What if something goes wrong with it?

For instance:

the Foundation tries to take control over the community, or to take actions against the community;
a governance crisis;
a litigation with serious adverse effects.

For Wikimedia chapters, we have ways to act in case of problems: they are usually membership organizations, so they are accountable to their members; the largest ones usually present their annual plan to the FDC; and there is at least a chapter agreement that can be revoked. The same does not apply to the Wikimedia Foundation.

If a chapters fails (for any reason), it's a problem, but the effect on the global movement is minor; and another organization can take its place. Even in the case of Wikimedia Germany, yes, there would be consequences for the developement of Wikidata, but the WMF can take it over; and it would be a big issue for the German community, but in time it would recover.

Instead, a major problem in the Foundation is a global issue, and no organization is able to take over its role. Can we do something to mitigate those risks? Can we build an emergency plan? Can we plan for a backup for the Foundation?

Purpose: start a discussion about these issues. Understand how relevant they are - are these issues worth working on? Develop some rough ideas on what we can do.
Targeted participants: People interested in the long-term survival of our movement.
Relevant experts:
- someone from the WMF legal team, who may tell us when we are saying something really stupid.
Preparatory readings or materials: (none)

Questions and Comments 47

Hi Laurentius, thank you for your proposal. Do you think you could rephrase it so the discussion can be more constructive and less about doomsday scenarios? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:46, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Discussions#How_can_we_make_Wikimedia_Poland_and_Wikimedia_Italy_accountable.3F could be incorporated in the topic possibly ... Anthere (talk)
@Laurentius: I agree that this sounds a little too much like doomsday, and it would in this form be more suitable to have such discussions at the Affiliates meeting. If we have a discussion, it would probably be more constructive to make it less theoretical, less abstract - and focus on a particular aspect. The range of organisational topics is huge this time, and worth addressing, but I'm not confident this is the most likely one to program. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia governance: how difficult is it to study and understand?

Title: Wikimedia governance: how difficult is it to study and understand?
Proposed by: Shun-Ling Chen
Description: Wikimedia governance is a topic of critical importance to the community, and has been a fascinating example for researchers interested in collaborative projects. Yet, the discussions about Wikimedia governance are scattered. Many major debates have taken place on Wikimedia-l; however, relevant discussions often simultaneously happen elsewhere, i.e. “VIP”s talk pages, Meta-Wiki, project village pumps, Signpost coverage/comments, and recently, the “Wikipedia Weekly” group and other places on Facebook. Discussions are especially scattered with heated controversies, which makes them difficult to follow even for seasoned community members and experienced researchers, and impossible for community newbies and new researchers.
Purpose: Aside from being an editor (though not particularly active), I’ve studied Wikimedia governance since around 2007 and published several academic papers on this topic. Last year, when friends from the open data movement in Taiwan wanted to look at Wikimedia governance as an example, they asked me for advice, which gave me a chance to reflect on it. Since last December, the removal of James Heilman from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees triggered an extended discussion that led to a variety of governance issues. In March 2016, I took it as an opportunity to analyze it with a research assistant who is brand new to the Wikimedia community. We organized some relevant Wikimedia-l discussions using “Debater”, a new tool developed by local open government activists.; In this discussion session I plan to use 5-10 min to share our experiences from a researcher’s perspective - e.g. what was difficult, what kind of secondary information and structural explanation was useful - and some preliminary results. (If interested, participants are invited to try out the debate organization tool [ https://github.com/ETBlue/debater Debater] we’re using to analyze one Wikimedia-l thread during the session. Trying out the tool means more than quoting from posts or exchanges, but will involve extensive discussions amongst participants regarding how to frame the issue, how to break up long and articulated debates, which intervention should be left out, how to categorize the issue and tag the quotes in order for easier references. Sometimes we will also reflect on how to improve the tools and which feature requests we could make.); This discussion would benefit from the participation of researchers interested in governance issues in Wikimedia or other online collaborative communities. It is also an occasion for researchers and community members who care about governance issues to share their views and experiences. Ideally, the participants will identify issues, exchange views, share tools, suggests features for existing tools, and form an informal group to continue the discussion after Wikimania.

Targeted participants: All are welcome but especially researchers interested in Wikimedia governance (or governance in other online collaborative communities) and community members who are interested in governance issues

Preparatory readings or materials: https://etblue.github.io/debater/?source=https://hackmd.io/MYNgLAZgDATGCsBaMATAhjZAjApgRkQA5CRNgIB2SMHNMQi4IA==/download (as an example - still a work-in-progress) (Debater is designed to show quotes from people’s interventions in a discussion, and to organize the exchanges with various kinds of tags. In this example, due to the length and volume of the discussions, the editors [mostly my assistant] provide summaries of some Wikimedia-L discussion threads. We should be able to provide another example at Wikimania using Debater as it is intended to show more of its features.)

Questions and Comments 48

Hi Shun-Ling Chen, thank you for your proposal. Please note that discussions are not meant to be presentations. Could you please rewrite your proposal? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:51, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Gnom, thank you for your comment. It is indeed intended for a discussion. The proposed short presentation, which has also been shortened, is only to serve as a start to get things going. I have also added some explanation about the potential demo of the tool, which in fact can only be carried out through extended discussions among the participants. -- Shunlingchen (talk) 07:23, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hi Shunlingchen, please be aware that there will be strictly no presentations in the discussion track. --Gnom (talk) 17:33, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also see Discussions#A_resident_anthropologist_for_the_Wiki_community.3F Anthere (talk)
- Hi Anthere, thank you for bringing this proposal to my attention. While I don't regard myself as an anthropologist, I agree we can have lots to share in terms experiences, methods and tools. I am more than happy to have this proposal combined with other relevant ones, as the intended goal is to have an occasion to exchange with other researchers and committed community members on how to understand/study community governance. Shunlingchen (talk) 07:29, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sharing judgments and similar documents in a wiki mode: problems related to privacy and copyright, from Wikisource to JurisWiki

Title: Sharing judgments and similar documents in a wiki mode: problems related to privacy and copyright, from Wikisource to JurisWiki
Proposed by: Simone Aliprandi (founder of JurisWiki) - info@juriswiki.org
Description: Judgments, especially those of the highest courts, are really important documents for a transparent and democratic organization of the "res public" and should be as accessible as possible to the community. The same goes for the other measures by which public authorities decide on specific cases applying laws and regulations. Nowadays the web offers endless possibilities for sharing all this essential piece of public information, but also strong barriers related to the management of privacy and copyright come into play. Can the publication in a wiki be a solution?
Purpose: To brainstorm and discuss about copyright and privacy issues related to the publication of judgements in a wiki mode.
Targeted participants: anyone; lawyers, journalists, public administrations
Preparatory readings or materials:

Questions and Comments 49

Hi Simone, thank you for your proposal. Have you reached out to the Wikisource community about this? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:54, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Aubrey: Maybe you can think of a way to turn the proposal above into a constructive and helpful discussion about Wikisource and the sources it could include? Sounds promising to me, but needs some work to make sure it has a proper participation and the outcomes are useful. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:48, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Real Time Collaboration

Title

Real Time Collaboration

Proposed by

en:User:cscott

Description

An attempt to envision a future with real time interactive collaboration mechanisms for Wikimedia projects.

Many modern editors, like Google Docs, have mechanisms for real time collaboration: multiple users editing and chatting together as they build new content. Putting aside the technical discussion of implementation, what is needed is a discussion focused on *social* and *community* aspects of new editing models. If we have real-time chat, how do we prevent harassment? If multiple people are working on an article, who decides when the edit is "done"? How do you find people to collaborate with, and how are collaborative sessions presented?

Here are two jumping off points for discussion:

Some interesting ideas have been proposed which build on Wikipedia's already existing WikiProjects, in order to build interactive social communities but keep the focus on the work, not on the participants. The mechanisms to initial a collaborative session or show ongoing collaboration could be managed by the WikiProject. You don't look for "friends" to collaborate with, you join a WikiProject. Chat rooms are associated with pages, not people. (But how do we handle disruptive participants?)
Introducing chat during collaboration also introduces the possibility of abuse. As a first draft, it has been proposed that chats are not logged (are not part of the archived "history of the page") but there is a big obvious "report abuse" button which will store the current chat log and send it to be reviewed. What other mechanisms will we need to keep the collaborative community friendly, open, and safe?

I hope that participants will help bring up topics for discussion and we can collaboratively begin to imagine how an interactive wiki which respects the spirit of our community will work.

Purpose

Round-table discussion to ensure that the social and community mechanisms for new interaction mechanisms are in place, so that when we attempt new things we preserve the spirit of our community.

Targeted participants

Editors, readers, users of social media, folks who care about maintaining friendly spaces, folks who care about preserving the spirit of the projects. WikiProject members.

Relevant experts

User interaction designers, community liasons, builders of safe spaces.

Preparatory readings or materials

Some developer-focused materials are present at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T112984

Questions and Comments 54

Hi cscott, thank you for your proposal. Am I correct in thinking that this discussion is about a far-off Wiki-future? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi cscott, thank you for your proposal. I read most of the Phabricator log. What kind of interaction do you envision between non-technical and dev participants in this discussion? Will it be weighted more toward UX feedback, towards dev interaction, or something else? Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 15:37, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: No! Not necessarily! mw:Extension:TogetherJS already exists (and a gadget which does the same), and there is no technical barrier to implementing real-time chat on our projects in the very near future. The thing stopping us is *not* technical issues, but rather a solid understanding of what these sorts of tools would do to our community. If we immediately turned on chat, for instance, we'd immediately have a huge harrassment problem, and we'd immediately have a lot of complaints from editors about it being a distraction. If we immediately turned on real-time editing, we'd have to figure out how to invite someone to collaborate with you. So what is missing is *not* a technical discussion or implementation, but instead a shared community discussion about the social aspects. Currently editing Wikimedia projects is primarily a solitary activity, with non-real-time interaction, and occasional group interactions via talk pages or WikiProjects. Without recapping the discussion description too much, what is missing is the discussion about what sorts of social and collaborative features would be helpful and how to preserve the spirit of our community while using them. Also, perhaps, a small community willing to experiment with these features; the close-knit spirit of Wikimania in Esino Lario in particular might help us forge such a group.
@Rosiestep: Thanks for reading all of that! I'm not really expecting many dev participants in this discussion at all. I may be wrong in my expectations, but the WMF contingent (in particular) is much reduced this year -- I will be the only one from my team attending Wikimania 2015, for instance. So I really expect this to be a discussion *not* focused on any particular implementation or UX, but rather a more free-flowing discussion about participants' experiences doing collaborative work. To make up an example: "I write academic papers with my colleagues using Google Docs. What is convenient is X, Y, and Z, but it's really annoying how P, D, and Q work. If we had an environment like that for writing Wikipedia articles, it would need to have features A and B." Another conversation I'm very eager to have regards safe spaces and harrassment: "I like platform Foo for talking with colleagues. I find that it's XYZ feature really helps to cut down on harassment." or "I tried to have a work session with tool ZZZ, but I found that our work kept being interrupted. There was a 'Report Abuse' button, but we found that the trolls were using it to report our work session as abusive! We were interrupted by the site moderators as often as by the trolls. If we'd been able to do YYY, that would have helped a lot." We hear a lot about places that are *unfriendly* -- twitter and our wikimedia talk pages are often mentioned as such -- what I'd really like to hear more about is places that people find *friendly*, and to try to dig deeper into what features are responsible for making it so.

Criticizing Criticism

Title: Criticizing Criticism
Proposed by: Darya Kantor
Description: As our organization is based mostly on volunteers it is extremely important to learn how to criticize. Criticism is an important tool for any evolving community, however how to criticize without hurting motivation is just as important. I'm involved with many projects. some are successful and some aren't. When I got negative responses for my project I was upset and thought of leaving. I didn't, but it made me think- If the criticism would have be gentler, or different would that have been any different? How do we criticize without creating a negative reaction? Or perhaps even should we? Is there a difference between Feedback and criticism?
Purpose: To try and find new ways to share criticism and learn from mistakes, while maintaining volunteers motivation. Part of the leaning process I went through with my project included some failed attempts. How do we learn these important lessons? and how do we keep going without giving up?
Targeted participants: volunteers active in projects.

Questions and Comments 55

Hi Darya, thank you for your proposal. Would you mind expanding it so we can better understand what it is about? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Darya, thank you for your proposal. Would you also please elaborate on "learn from mistakes"? Do you have key examples, or should participants bring examples for discussion? Thanks, --Rosiestep (talk) 15:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Gnom and Rosiestep. I'm not sure It's still relevant but I added to my proposal as you requested. If it's too late then never mind :-) I think that a lot of people would like to talk about getting feedback to their work but not being criticized... I did receive a bad criticism once. And it made me think... I would like to share and think together with others as to this point. Thanks very much. Daryag (talk) 09:06, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Engagement with Higher-Ed

Title: University as Producer - Evaluating the work done so far and exploring the new ways to engage with the higher-ed
Proposed by: Novak Rogic
Description: The assumed natural alliance between University and Wikipedia is not materializing at the significant rate; the undisputed higher-ed’s potential to contribute to Wikipedia doesn’t seem to deliver its latent capacity. We’d love to analyze efforts put so far and discuss the additional ways to improve the engagement. We’d also like to discuss stakeholders (university leadership, faculty, students) and factors like licensing, policies, technology and IT managerial practices
Purpose: At UBC, we are running central UBC Wiki with over 20,000 users and see that it sometimes acts as a stepping stone to contributions to Wikipedia. We’d like to learn about others’ experiences. The discussion could cover:
- Discuss possible incentives for university, faculty members, researchers and students that could encourage the engagement. From institutional marketing and promotion (it looks good to partner with Wikipedia), badges, to re-usability of the content created.
- Overcoming policies and guidelines, style preferences, some unpleasant Wikipedians, and coding complexities.
- Analyzing the current user experience and identifying difficulties when using student assignments/education programs
- Brainstorm and inventory additional factors that prevent more meaningful contributions from higher-ed
- Design a questionnaire for further understanding of difficulties
- Discuss and sketch a document that could address these difficulties and create plan of action. This can be the base for promotional materials like "welcome to Wikipedia" and other similar promotional efforts
- Establish a group of within The Wiki Education Foundation with the goal to enable continual feedback/improvement cycles
Targeted participants: Wikipedia Ambassadors, The Wiki Education Foundation, people in higher-ed, both faculty members and technical managerial staff, students
Relevant experts - who would you really like to see there?
People like Ian Ramjohn, Sage Ross, and Jon Beasley-Murray for example, represent academic with Wiki Education Foundation, key developer, and academic that is not closely associated with WikiMedia. Would be great to have as wide perspectives as possible
Preparatory readings or materials - what should people know in order to understand the discussion?
lots out there - tbd.

Thanks! Novak73 (talk) 22:32, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Questions and Comments 56

proposals for discussion were opened till March 30th. See if you can merge your proposition in another topic. thanks Anthere (talk)

Suggestion to do a meet-up rather than discussion

Wikimedia In Asia

Title: Wikimedia In Asia
Proposed by: Addis Wang
Description: Discussion about future plan and strategy for Wikimedia Movement in Asia. Topics will include: Aboriginal/minority languages, Wikipedia Asian Month, Outreach, Public Relation and NGO Management etc.
Purpose: Enhance the collaboration within the Asian Community and help the Wikimedia Movement grow in Asia
Targeted participants: Asian Wikimedian, regional collaborators
Preparatory readings or materials:

Questions and Comments 56

Hi Addis Wang, your proposal sounds more like a meetup than a discussion. What about organising a meetup instead? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 13:40, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Gnom. Sounds great for a meetup, but that is a different track. @AddisWang:, I suggest to take a look at Meetups and post it there. For this track, I would suggest to leave it out. Effeietsanders (talk) 09:55, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I move that proposition to the appropriate section. Anthere (talk)

Dialect Wikipedias

Title: Wikipedia speaks dialects
Proposed by: Patrick Kenel
Description: In German and Italian-speaking countries, there are various Wikipedia editions for regional groups of dialects. There's also a Scots Wikipedia, a Walloon Wikipedia or an Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, each of them specifically local variants of widely spoken languages. What are the pros and cons of such projects? We can examine this for instance by taking the example of Lombard, the native language of Wikimania's host region.
Purpose: Get-together of Wikimedians with at least one researcher in the field of linguistics.
Targeted participants: Everyone who is interested in the topic and the culture of Lombardy and the Swiss canton of Ticino.
Preparatory readings or materials: -

Questions & Comments 18

Hi Patrick, thank you for your proposal. Can you expand on the purpose of the discussion? Right now it sounds more like a meetup – maybe it should become one? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 10:37, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I haven't been on this wiki to catch up on discussions so far. No, it's not a meetup and I don't know if someone from lmo-WP will come to Wikimania - which would of course be a good thing. (BTW: I'm quite active on als-WP which is the one for the Germanic dialects on the north side of the Alps.) It's a discussion about the purposes of such dialect Wikipedias. Wikipedia is offering dialects the possibility of not just having local literature or dictionaries, but an encyclopedia. How does that work if there's no standardized form and just a tiny community? Is it possible that Wikipedia advances the orthography of such dialects? That are some of the questions to discuss. I know about an Italian scholar, Emanuele Miola, who has done research in the Lombard context with the title "Dialects go Wiki". I'm convinced that a little mountain village like Esino Lario (because of its history) is the best place for such a discussion, unlike previous or future Wikimanias in big cities. --Pakeha (talk) 19:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like an interesting discussion, but I'm also a little uncertain about the structure. It seems to me that all these regional languages are so different, that it would be hard to have a common discussion about them, and still come to joint conclusions. It would be a lovely conversation though, but that it indeed more for a meetup. So at this point, I'm more leaning towards suggesting not to program this topic as discussion. Effeietsanders (talk) 21:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn

An intentional community for the Wikimedia movement (withdrawn)

Title

~~An intentional community for the Wikimedia movement~~ withdrawn

Proposed by

--Micru (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Description

An “intentional community” is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. Wikimedia volunteers already share this common purpose with the ideal of gathering the sum of all human knowledge, but is it enough to grow a community around this topic? For a community to thrive it needs much more, support, commitment, and even higher levels of idealism.

Purpose

Investigate what could be the role of an intentional community in the Wikimedia movement. Define possible stumble blocks, explore alternative futures.

Targeted participants

Anyone who wants to share their point of view about the topic

Preparatory readings or materials

Questions and Comments 57

Hi Micru, do you really mean Wikipedians actually living together in a shared house? Have you discussed this idea elsewhere before? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 14:01, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gnom, I withdraw my proposal since I will not attend wikimania.--Micru (talk) 16:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]