Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Working Groups/Diversity

We invite everyone to have a look at the existing documentation of the Working Groups, and then add comments, additional input or share concerns via this talk page. Your comments will be taken into consideration by the respective Working Groups.

Diversity in the group

It's not clear to me how diverse this diversity group is. For instance, is there anybody with experience working in one of our LGBT+ groups? --Nemo 16:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

This is the first selection. We have members which cover geographical, language and gender diversity. If possible, we are thinking to involve other members of LGBT community and users differently abled. If you have ideas of wikimedians with these characteristics please feel free to suggest their names. Thank you :-). --Camelia (talk) 17:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

As I said in my e-mail to the group, I see no participants from Oceania, wonder about the diversity of language and definitely we need representative(s) from the communities of LGBT+ and differently abled. This was an enlightening thread [1] shared on Wikimedia-l. SusunW (talk) 13:46, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nemo bis, Camelia.boban, and SusunW: Thank you for raising these points. As someone involved in selection I can address some of the;:

• This group does have an LGBT+ dimension. I am not sure they are comfortable with sharing their experience publicly here, however, we are sure there is significant experience in this group.
• People working on language diversity are well-represented in this group. There are at least three people for whom this is the major topic of work in Wikimedia world: Amir Aharoni (technology support and outreach about language diversity), Eddie Avila (indigenous languages), and Galder Gonzalez (minority languages). We did not necessarily look for diversity of native languages, however, and gave preference to people who have an experience of promoting language diversity with one or more communities.
• Oceania in particular is not represented indeed, we looked for representation of major regional groups. Oceania is a part of ESEAP regional group, and we have one member from East Asia in the group.
• Unfortunately we did not receive any applications of people particularly focused on disabilities. Inclusion of people with such experience (and particularly on autism or similar) would of course be welcome — NickK (talk) 14:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks NickK I guess my concern on ESEAP is that it is a huge region, same with having only 2 representatives from Africa. One representative for the region seems insufficient to provide adequate discussion on the regional needs as a whole. For example, it is a completely different thing to have developed a system where much of the available resources are digitized but behind paywalls, as opposed to a system when many available resources are published in small runs and not even digitized; when print newspapers/journals are still the norm and digitization covers only a small fraction of the available content; or even whether one has reliable access to libraries or the internet, or not. Since we are a project aimed at open knowledge, we cannot even begin to discuss how to provide better access unless we understand the limitations and challenges we are up against globally.

As for adding people who have different challenges, perhaps en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Disability or its versions in other languages would provide potential candidates? SusunW (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@SusunW: We are limited in size of groups: experience shows that it is quite hard to organise efficiently a group of over 15 people. Given that we have about 10 regional groups we did not have enough room to include two people per group, and yet one group is missing (WikiFranca).

I think the most valuable candidates those are who not only write about disabilities on-wiki but are working on contribution of people with disabilities to Wikimedia movement (research or outreach). I attended a couple of such talks at wiki events: wm2015:Submissions/My life as an autistic Wikipedian (in English, presenter unfortunately already a member of a different group) and WikiConvention francophone/2016/Programme/Les personnes avec autisme sur Wikipédia (in French), there are clearly other people involved that I am not aware of. I have not reached presenters and do not know whether they are interested in joining this group, however — NickK (talk) 16:52, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks NickK, organizing groups of more than 2 or 3 is often difficult, indeed :) And yes, if this is indeed a focus area we agree we need to include, it will probably require us reaching out individually to people we know. SusunW (talk) 17:03, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@SusunW: I would say the best way is to discuss with group members what kind of profiles you need, and I am pretty sure some other group members might already have ideas of names — NickK (talk) 18:01, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

It's a small thing, but it would help to turn the list of members blue. Nemo 18:59, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

UN 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages

2019 will be the United Nations's International Year of Indigenous Languages. What better opportunity to talk about diversity, gaps, discrimination, privilege and allyship we are focused on? Trying to preserve languages in danger of extinction like Istro-Romanian language, Istriot language or otherwise threatened Romansh language, Ladin language with original spelling, Ladin language with modern spelling. Thanks to Mizar for the segnalation. --Camelia (talk) 21:31, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Safe space

I believe that any plan to increase diversity must also include safety measures to protect those voices and must be in place prior to any other steps to recruit members in any capacity. As it stands right now, each Project controls their own standards, which may or may not include a safe space policy. To my knowledge, the only policy in effect for the foundation is for actual physical events. This is woefully inadequate since the majority of editing is done on line. Likewise, the code of conduct appears to apply only to staff and board members and "provide guidance to volunteers". If indeed the goal of the organization is to expand, it requires that it take constructive efforts to ensure that all contributors in whatever capacity have a safe space free from discrimination, harassment, and/or intimidation. SusunW (talk) 14:00, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Preservation of unreppresented/endangered entities

As is generally done in all areas, I think we also have an obligation to preserve those that are the minority realities, unrepresented or endangered (languages, cultures, communities). I could give an example to consider reliable audio/video files as sources and to identify other ways of retrieving information (for example, partnerships with associations) where there are few written sources (oral African culture, endangered languages, women in ancient periods etc). --Camelia (talk) 10:04, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

statiscally such types of minority are difficult to find amongst existing users. So the only way to embrace them is to ask for partnership with associations and local governments.--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Asking for input

Hello there. As people interested in diversity, in addition to all you, I'm asking to have, in our discussions, the input/support from almost these wikipedians:

• Farkhad Fatkullin, wikipedian on the year 2018, who "established a bridge between Russia's minority languages communities and the wider movement after years of isolation" (ruwiki)
• Marcmiquel, ideated Wikipedia Cultural Diversity Observatory (WCDO) (cawiki)
• Comp1089, member of Para-Wikimedians Community User Group (plwiki)
• Nattes à chat, ideated Les Sans Pages project (frwiki)
• Nemo, which was expressed in a previous discussion (itwiki)
• Helaine Blumenthal, WikiEdu (enwiki)

Thank you, --Camelia (talk) 16:17, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

My home wiki is itwikiquote, not itwiki. Nemo 06:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

13 years

On 03 February 2006, it was reported to the WMF that our CAPTCHA system discriminates against blind people. See phabricator T6845. This appears to be a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and leaves Wikipedia open to the possibility of discrimination lawsuit.

In particular, National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it.

So why, after 13 years of inaction, do we not have a set of software requirements (including a testable definition of "done"), a schedule with milestones and updates, and budget and staffing information for solving this?

And no, I will not accept any proposed "solution" that lacks the name of an WMF employee who has been given the assignment of fixing this, a budget that says how much the WMF expects to spend on solving this, a deadline that say how long the WMF expects it to take to solve this, and a way for an independent third party to look at the results and verify whether the requirement were met.

Regarding hiring someone else to fix this, I would very much like the idea to be given careful consideration rather than being dismissed out of hand. The WMF is great at running an encyclopedia. Nobody else, anywhere on earth, even comes close. However, running an encyclopedia does not magically confer the ability to create high-quality software, and the WMF has a pretty dismal track record in this area (Examples: Visual Editor, Flow, 13 years of failing to making an obvious but boring improvement to accommodate blind people.) I realize that this will anger some people, but why should it? Olympic-level athletes don't get angry when you tell them that their athletic ability does not magically confer the ability to repair automobiles or do astronomy.

Comments from phabricator:

• "This doesn't just effect addition of external links, it also prevents new users from registering, requiring them to use ACC to request an account."
• "There is no one currently assigned to this, so no one is taking it upon him to fix this at this moment. It's also not something that any team at the foundation is responsible for, so it's not likely to be prioritized from that end."
• The only thing stopping us from having an audio captcha is that nobody's put the work into implementing it yet." --Source: Chief MediaWiki developer as of 2008
• "So the question is why has work not been put aside to fix an issue of recognised high importance that will, 13 years after first being raised, resolve an issue that results in us discriminating against people who are (in many jurisdictions) a legally protected minority?"

--Guy Macon (talk) 12:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:04, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

This is just so awful and I urge the WMF to proactively devote resources to the issue. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 19:55, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

As usual, I have not been able to get anyone at the WMF to reply in any way. By way of background, every time I write anything anywhere that I want the WMF to reply to (even if the reply is "no" or "go away and stop bothering us") someone invariably says "Well, Guy, you just haven't asked in the proper place. Ask here [suggested page]" This is one of dozens of places where I dutifully followed the advice, asked on the page they suggested, and got no reply. Does anyone want to suggest yet another place where I can be ignored? I can do this all day....

At what point do we conclude that the WMF is only interested in "user input" when in the form of one of the surveys they post where the answer has to be on the list of what the WMF is willing to listen to and anyone asking questions like "why are you discriminating against blind people" are deleted as being off topic.

From [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewalling ]:

"Stonewalling is a refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as marriage guidance counseling, diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases."' --Guy Macon (talk) 13:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

One would think that an accusation that the WMF is breaking the law and opening itself up to lawsuits would deserve some sort of response... I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Actually I'd think the opposite. If you frame it that way, you make it a legal risk to comment (plus, "oh then it's up to the lawyers to comment"). Nemo 14:13, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

...Unless, of course, the response is to simply start obeying the law. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:12, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Diverse groups

Including more people from LGBTQ community or physically disabled editors or socio-economically disadvantaged editors shall be highly encouraged and shall be one of our broader goals. Obviously.

But, I am highly unsure about including people from categories of ICD-10 personality disorders; that's a neat recipe to a disaster, with adverse results for both for the user and the community. And, I implore you to consult a trained physician, before indulging in these areas. Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 19:55, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Pinging you, since you're the sole recognizable name (to me) :-) Also, is the scoping document publicly available? Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 20:00, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric it is here. If you want more of the various groups' documents, go to the content page and there is a nav bar at the bottom for all the WG scoping docs. SusunW (talk) 20:04, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Evaluations and concerns

moved to Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Working Groups/Diversity/Recommendations

Languages

In my opinion it's a big failure that multilingualism was not placed front and centre in these recommendations. Our ability (or not) to include billions of people who don't speak English is the main factor fostering diversity (or not) in Wikimedia projects. Nemo 18:58, 22 September 2019 (UTC)