Grants talk:Project/MSIG/Building the Language Diversity Hub

Overall Positive Feedback

Dear Team,

Thank you for being patient as we worked through the broad feedback regarding this pilot plan for the language diversity project.

The alignment of your proposal with the Strategic Direction of Knowledge Equity is praiseworthy. Acknowledging the long-standing gap in support for small language communities, your emphasis on rectifying this issue demonstrates a clear commitment to addressing an underserved area. The pivot toward international coordination and delivery, transforming the project into a hub pilot rather than an isolated affiliate venture, is a truly commendable approach. Additionally, the learnings from this work (as with the education thematic hub explorations), if intentionally documented would be instrumental to helping shape the formation of other potential thematic work that might happen within the movement.

The potential insights and learnings from your process could prove invaluable to helping shape potential thematic endeavours across the movement, even beyond Hubs! YPam (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Feedback for Improvement

Programmatic focus;

• While commendable that the proposal encompasses diverse project ideas, there is a need for sharper strategic focus. Presently, it reads as a collection of disparate initiatives rather than a coherent and coordinated hub pilot.
• The sustainability of integrating new languages into the incubator remains unclear. Considering the challenges within the existing incubator framework, a strategic overhaul may prove more beneficial than introducing additional communities into an already complex ecosystem.
• The rationale and potential benefits of collaborating with external partners require clearer context. Currently, this inclusion expands the scope of the proposal without a well-defined value proposition or seamless integration with the overarching narrative.

Budget considerations;

• Ideally when a hub plan is set and focused, multi-year funding would potentially be the pragmatic approach to support hubs initiatives across the movement. However, multi-year funding for hubs pilots are not being approved at this time.
• Consider providing more clarity regarding the staff related expenses itemised. This could be in the form of a brief work scope and expected deliverables or goals. Additionally, more clarity is required regarding the Project Participants mentioned because the current proposal does not currently demonstrate a need for the role envisaged role(s).

Broader Considerations:

The hubs piloting guidelines provide some essential guidelines on key considerations for piloting a hub. Currently the plan detailed in this proposal does not cover some of the “must” have requirements. These include;

• A stated goal - Clear explanation of the goal of the hub with clearly defined success criteria, including why this goal needs a hub structure or cannot be achieved with existing Wikimedia structures.
• Clear plan - Description of how the pilot will begin and continue to address the needs identified in the needs assessment. What actions will the pilot focus on in the first months and years (including which ones, how prioritized, why prioritized)?

Additionally, the MCDC draft charter of the hubs aligns with the guidelines especially in relation to what a hub pilot “should” have. These points detailed below are not articulated in the current plan, yet are critical for a successful hubs pilot

• The current draft requires for a hub project to be overseen by more than one entity. The proposal as detailed provides for an entity as a fiscal sponsor, but an additional affiliate entity is required.
• It is also requires that a hub pilot demonstrates a continuous effort made to ensure diversity of leadership (representation of gender, age, languages, regions, and others.). Currently the hubs leadership structure is not clearly defined. While it is stated that this will be done through implementation, it conveys powers on the steering committee to vote on decision-making. More transparency is needed regarding this process. Additionally, a shared governance model is required, as a description of how the pilot will be overseen, including clear description of roles and responsibilities, and process for managing community feedback and input.
• It is also required for a hub pilot to have a clear plan on how the progress of a hub will be monitored and evaluated. Including clear definition of objectives and key results for the pilot. As such it would be essential to ensure that a learning and evaluation framework is developed to able enable for regular review of the achievements, challenges, and lessons learned to make informed adjustments as needed.

YPam (WMF) (talk) 21:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Recommendations moving forward

Given the significance of the broader considerations outlined above the following is recommended to ensure that this essential Hub for our movement does get the required runway for a smooth take-off of a pilot that serves diverse language communities effectively and efficiently.

• That the team dedicates 3-6 months working to address these gaps as required for the launch of a hubs pilot. This recommendation is shared with the understanding that this period would require time and effort. The work can be done with both financial and other resource support from the foundation. The team can receive the backbone support needed to develop a strong runway for a pilot of the language diversity Hub.
• An initial first step of strengthening and clearly defining the membership, roles and responsibilities of the steering committee would be critical. This can help ensure not only stronger direction for the work, but also to ensure transparency in governance and decision making. In doing this, more affiliates interested in implementing the Language Diversity work could be identified.
• This steering committee can deliver on the essential task of clearly defining the goals of the hub and potentially a theory of change and learning and evaluation framework to ensure that targeted goals and measured and achieved.
• Additionally, based on having these essential piloting requirements, the committee, with the support of the communities could revisit this project plan to determine alignment with the goals set and agreed to.

Please note that this is only a recommendation, does not intend to slow down the progress of the work. Rather it provides a potential pathway for ensuring that the pilot of a significant thematic area as Language Diversity, receives the attention and dedication needed. This is to ensure that work of service delivery to global language communities is done effectively. The specific steps taken is open for modification as might be determined by the steering committee, if this recommendation is considered.

Thank you YPam (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback, @YPam (WMF).

Please note that, after several months of extensive work, the Language Diversity Hub steering committee has finalized our new strategic direction. Therefore, we have updated our grant application for your review. Many thanks for the support, and sorry for the long delay.

We look forward to hearing from you soon. @Oscar . @Malikbr and Shahadusadik (talk) 01:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Staff resources from Wikimedia Norge

I'm happy to see that the grant application has now been worked on, after the steering committee opted to appoint @Shahadusadik as project lead from June 2023 and onwards. Just to clarify: Wikimedia Norge invested a staff position on this hub pilot from spring 2022 and up until June last year, partly funded by a MSIG. Since then we have set aside 20 percent of @Jon Harald Søby (WMNO)s position to follow up on the pilot and other language support efforts. Please be considerate of his time moving forward as he will no longer represent Wikimedia Norge in the hub, but will be taking part only in his spare-time. He will still be working a day a week to support under-represented languages in Wikimedia projects, as part of his job in WMNO, but in other settings than the hub pilot. Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO) (talk) 18:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO),

Thank you for your comments, sorry if the wording did not mention Jon Harald's remunerated time, in each of our meetings we have mentioned his invaluable contribution to the wiki-technical aspects and in fact we thought he would be one of our experts when it comes to resolving questions in the coming months, we hope he will be able to support us as a volunteer. I also take this opportunity to thank the investment of time, money and staff from Wikimedia Norge, without which we would not have had this initiative in the first place, cheers Oscar_. (talk) 17:04, 14 June 2024 (UTC)