Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Meetings/South Asia + ESEAP

Questions for the candidates

Rtnf

First question.

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

Do you think we are really going to that direction right now, given that, right now, there are so many restriction on each wikimedia project and so many stalled new wikimedia sister project proposal, pending for approval. Disgruntled users, after waiting too long , seeking for policy changes, even give up or quit our platform entirely. This is not good for our own knowledge ecosystem.

Or, should we just define what is "knowledge" that mentioned on our slogan? What's included and what's not. So people can decide whether they should really join our movement, or just quit entirely (since their vision,it turns out, dont really match with our vision).

What's your opinion on this matter?

Second question.

If one of you got elected on this election. Can we contact you closely, to make sure that all of your past promises, especially that is made during this campaign period, will be actually fulfilled?

Thank you Rtnf (talk) 22:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

MubasherKaleem

How an elected Non-Asian candidate can work for the benefits, development and promotion of such languages having Pakistani or Mid-Eastern script like Arabic (AR), Urdu (UR), Saraiki (SKR), Punjabi (PNB), Pashto, Sindhi etc. Because he / she may not understand the script it self and can't even add / update the history or works in any of the mentioned language.

Thank You --MubasherKaleem (talk) 13:33, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Jonathan5566

Tell us about your thought of this, and how can we do to avoid some harassment between wikimedian(s) like this. Jonathan5566 (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

OhArthits

ความรู้ที่แท้จริง ที่มีคุณค่า คือความรู้ที่ได้แบ่งปันให้เกิดประโยชน์ ระยะต่อไป..

นายอาทิตย์ โฆษชุณหนันท์ OhArthits (talk) 02:00, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

TheFamousSandwich

Question: Why do you want this role? Why should you be elected? Why do you think you are suited for it? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheFamousSandwich (talk)

Schamin82729

Question : How do you plan to train junior Wikipedia editors like myself in regards to the formatting and structure of the various Wikipedia pages? -- — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Schamin82729 (talk)

Recording

Will this talk be uploaded on youtube?

Sorry, but, due to cultural reasons, 10.30 UTC (17.30 GMT + 7 especially) is quite a "tight" time period for majority people in SEA. So, i and other people in GMT +7 time zone maybe cant attend this event in full. We probably have to quit sometime around 18.00 GMT +7. But, i still think that this event is important. So, i think it would be better if we have a way to watch it asynchronously.

For context, we SEA people divide our day with 4 division of time.

1. Morning (from sunrise to meridiem, where "meridiem" is defined as when the sun is directly on top of us, midday)
2. First part of afternoon (around ~30 minutes after meridiem until "half time between meridiem and sunset", it's around 15.00 and 15.30 specifically)
3. Second part of afternoon (30 minutes after "half time between meridiem and sunset" until sunset)
4. Night (around 19.30 to sunrise of the next day)

Between this time period, we usually have "obligatory breaks". For example between 1 and 2 (around 12.00 - 12.30) , we have lunch break. Between 2 and 3, we have afternoon break (around 15.00 - 15.30). Between 3 and 4 we have dinner breaks (around 18.00 - 19.30).

Usually, any big events that is held on SEA, especially for the event that is held by the people who know SEA culturally, respected this "unwritten cultural rule" by accomodating this time division to their event's rundown.

Thank you Rtnf (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@Rtnf: yes, the meeting will be recorded and published. The chat logs and transcripts will be, too.

As for the time, it is indeed quite tight for folks at UTC+7, but please keep in mind that this meeting combines the two largest regions, covering more than 20 countries. We recognize that the time might not work for everyone, but please do attend at your convenience. Thank you! RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 01:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Mike Peel

Hi, sorry I can't answer questions on the call, here are my written answers.

"If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?"

Communities have to grow organically, and be driven locally - this work can’t be done directly by the WMF, and attempts to do that in the past have really not worked out well. Instead, opportunities have to be created to grow the communities - opportunities to get funding, to get support/training with community and organisational growth issues, and opportunities to participate in decision-making processes (such as committees, in-person meetings, etc.) have to be made available.

"Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?"

I think in general, the problem is that not enough content is available on-wiki in all languages. I think work has to be done before the fake news even starts to be circulated - since fake news spreads quickly, accurate information needs to be available earlier so those that first see the fake news have the information to quickly correct the narrative. I think on-wiki, processes generally work quite well - and can be improved by having more people editing and watching articles, i.e., by growing the communities.

"What ideas do you have about creating awareness of Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia, which have strong emerging communities in the recent past, such as Wikisource and Wikidata?"

I think first we need to collectively decide as a community: what do we want to do with projects like Wikisource? At the moment, they continue along quietly and are not very well noticed - should we give up and close them down, or are we serious about them? I hope the answer is the latter - in which case they should be a lot better supported. I think they need dedicated tech teams, perhaps within affiliates - this has been working really well for Wikidata and WMDE - to bring the tools they use up-to-date and generally support the community. They also need to grow communities, which can be done by, e.g., talking more to one-step-removed communities, and better linking from other Wikimedia projects.

"What are your thoughts about harassment on the Wikimedia projects? What do you have to say about the Universal Code of Conduct?"

It is a problem that needs to be tackled better - people generally behave a lot worse on-wiki, where the perceived consequences are much less than doing the same off-wiki. I think the Universal Code of Conduct will really help with this, and it's been great to see that being developed. I also think that meeting people in-person also really helps reduce this behaviour, and I would really like to see more support for local meetups and encouragement for editors to attend them once the pandemic is over.

"How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?"

I think any technical barriers on-wiki (related to different scripts, and getting the basic templates set up, etc.) have to be tackled, if they haven't been already. Then I think there needs to be more support of existing community members who speak those languages, to do outreach and generally appeal for more editors to get started with editing. I think Wikidata is a great thing here, since it is inherently multilingual, so you can significantly grow the content of small wikis by using Wikidata-driven content, and translating Wikidata labels can significantly improve language coverage with minimal repetition of translations.

"Why do you want this role? Why should you be elected? Why do you think you are suited for it?"

@TheFamousSandwich: For answers to this, I recommend reading the candidate statements, which are linked to at Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Candidates#Candidate_Table.

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." "Do you think we are really going to that direction right now?"

@Rtnf: Yes, I honestly think we are going in that direction - and given the rate at which a lot of other content is going behind paywalls, I think we're one of the leading communities to do that. There's always more that can be done, and a desire to do it more quickly - which should definitely be supported. We really need to focus on the long run, though - Wikimedia projects should be around in 30+ years and still going strong then, and we need to make sure that the foundations are well established to make sure that happens.

"If one of you got elected on this election. Can we contact you closely?"

@Rtnf: I'm always open to questions on my talk page, and would also be active on the Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard.

"How an elected Non-Asian candidate can work for the benefits, development and promotion of such languages having Pakistani or Mid-Eastern script"

@MubasherKaleem: Obviously, I can't directly! I've been supporting those languages through my work with Wikidata - which is inherently multilingual, so I can edit it in my language, but results can be seen in all languages. In particular, try viewing the Wikidata Infobox in Commons categories (which I developed and deployed), and see how it works in your language (and if it doesn't, please let me know!). On the Board, I would support the WMF supporting more work being done by local affiliates and community members who do speak those languages, and making sure that there are ways for the WMF to communicate well with those communities.

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:42, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Dariusz Jemielniak

1. If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?

First, I strongly supported increasing our budget for the Global South communities, and the one for the upcoming year includes an unprecedented growth of spending for fostering these communities. Moreover, I would like the strategic and financial decisions to be made at the regional level, not in San Francisco. As the chair of the FDC I have helped develop a model of funds distribution involving the community members – and I think we should have local FDCs, understanding the local situation. One of the ideas from my candidacy statement is a systematic leadership program, geared towards less represented regions. Not only can it help Global South communities grow, but also in the long run it will lead to us creating internal capacity to have trustees and chapter leaders sourced internally. Finally, I think that the WMF needs to continue and expand the policy of hiring people from Global South communities, as this is the best way to create bridges and understanding of what is really needed.

2. Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?

I currently lead a large team of researchers to combat disinformation online and publish research about it, and I agree that both fake news and corporate and regime propaganda on Wikipedia is a big problem, just as is any extreme views bias, or even just Western thinking – I once published about the discussion about Ganga river, and I still don’t understand why is it called „Ganges” on English Wikipedia. That’s why I mentioned tackling disinformation in my statement as one of the key challenges. In my view, we need to up our game in creating hybrid systems, combining machine learning with well-trained volunteers. We have a good starting position, as we’re doing it much better than Facebook or Youtube, but we need to invest in tools and new functionaries. As a former steward, I believe this group can serve as a good paragon of how disinformation combating can be organized.

3. What ideas do you have about creating awareness of Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia, which have strong emerging communities in the recent past, such as Wikisource and Wikidata?

Wikidata is a game changer, we have practically created a golden standard of a knowledge database. Abstract Wikipedia can be a next big thing. All these initiatives show that we have the ability to organize the communities around important knowledge building ideas, but sometimes fall short in terms of providing sufficient technological infrastructure, if it has to be different than what we have. We also have not been able to successfully promote any name besides Wikipedia globally – that’s the reason for our recent brand impasse. We need to increase awareness of smaller projects, as this is where new editors come from, and especially with interfaces such as Alexa or Siri it is already much more dififcult. I think we need to have a new brand initiative – focused on making the emerging strong projects visible, and leveraging Wikipedia and Commons in doing so.

4. How you will ensure that there is no online harassment on Wikipedia which is a major discouraging reason for many editors to edit.

We started with the Universal Code of Conduct, but to make a real change we need to change the culture. I published research about anti-women harassment and bias – and sometimes the harassers are super clever in following the literal rules. That’s why I think we need to invest in training administrators, and possibly even have global task forces to reduce the hostile behavior. It has to be community run, though.

5. How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?

We need to give voice to minority languages – we currently don’t have a council that could advice the WMF on the specifics of their needs, even though all together they actually may be serve a majority of our readers. Some people suggested translating en-wiki automatically, but I think it is a horrible idea to dump 6 million articles on communities that can’t curate it. However, I think we should make translating articles on request much easier, and not rely just on English wiki.

6. "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Do you think we are really going to that direction right now? asked by Rtnf

Yes, I think that a vision creates a general direction. It is a compelling vision - and you're absolutely right, that we have a long way to go, and you are right to recognize the problems we have. Still, I think it is important to have a long-term goal, no matter how long distance it is.

7. If one of you got elected on this election. Can we contact you closely, to make sure that all of your past promises, especially that is made during this campaign period, will be actually fulfilled? asked by Rtnf

Absolutely - and I have been regularly contacted by Wikimedians during my term and replied :) On my meta page you can actually see, that I keep reporting on the successes (and failures) of my committments and plans.

8. How an elected Non-Asian candidate can work for the benefits, development and promotion of such languages having Pakistani or Mid-Eastern script like Arabic (AR), Urdu (UR), Saraiki (SKR), Punjabi (PNB), Pashto, Sindhi etc. Because he / she may not understand the script it self and can't even add / update the history or works in any of the mentioned language. asked by MubasherKaleem

Well, I may not understand these scripts, but coming from a Polish community (with a very specific alphabet) I do understand how annoying it is to be ignored about its needs. I actually published a book, translated into 2 languages so far, which also discussed the Western alphabets and cultural domination on Wikipedia. I strongly support a local approach - to funding, to decision making, and also to locally-specific tech improvement requests.

9. Well us about your thought of this, and how can we do to avoid some harassment between wikimedian(s) like this. asked by Jonathan5566

I believe that errors (and tech crises) will happen, but it is not an excuse. We need to make an effort, obviously, to not only not make other language projects' work more difficult, but also make it easier. Regarding harassment, please see question no. 4.

10. Why do you want this role? Why should you be elected? Why do you think you are suited for it? asked by TheFamousSandwich

Please, see my answer to the community question no. 6 here, as well as my statement - I have a lot of experience, skills, training especially suiting this role.

11. How do you plan to train junior Wikipedia editors like myself in regards to the formatting and structure of the various Wikipedia pages? asked by Schamin82729

I believe that editathons are a great way to do this, but also as you can read in my statement, I propose systematic workshops and trainings. I also postulate regional focus - which allows organizing local events, which is both more affordable and easier to organize, to socialize and train junior editors. Still, I think that given that you came here and asked a question, you are already on a good track on your own! :)

Please, feel free to follow up with any clarification questions. Pundit (talk) 11:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Vinicius Siqueira

(1) Movement Charter is a singular advance in the Foundation’s governance procedures

To be successful and to produce meaningful and equitable decisions, these new structures should be compounded by a diverse and representative group of members.

Achieving a progressive balance based on equity (giving more for those who have less) on the resources distribution is essential to guarantee the development of underrepresented communities.

Creating a systematic global approach for local communities leadership development providing support and funding for the potential and interested volunteers. Expanding scholarship programs and improving evaluation and local devolution and learning spreading.

Providing a learning platform for volunteers to develop strategic skills. Promote the collaboration among staff, affiliates, individual volunteers, and other mission aligned organizations

BUT IT WILL ONLY BE EFFECTIVE IF IT IS AVAILABLE IN PEOPLE’S NATIVE LANGUAGE.

(2) I share the same concerns about misinformation, disinformation and hateful discourse proliferation in the Wikiprojects. The first level of control must remain under community governance.

Qualify the community. Provide capacity building, such as content verification, fact-checking methods, and detection of bias, discrimination, hate discourse, harassment, dignity offenses etc

Development of AI-based tools for information quality control in the projects need to be encouraged and funded.

WMF must assume situations that poses severe risks for the projects or that requires a more specialized approach, for instance, highly cultural and political sensitive controversies, propaganda of debunked theories, “nazi-like” ideologies promotion, and hazardous actions with potential or real high impact (e.g. capture of whole projects; masisive interventions; organized actions cross-wiki), need to be analyzed and judged by upper official arbitration structures.

That said, I defend the encouragement of active removal of non-educational hateful materials from Wikimedia projects.

(3) Promoting an inclusive and broad discussion with the whole community and these small or abandoned projects. Establish a roadmap to give directions about what to do in these cases.

(4) Continue the rediscussion in a lower level of a Universal Code of Conduct but assure a baseline of acceptable behaviour.

Have an accessible structure for harassment and abusive behaviour communication. Offer a prompt response to the complaints. Providing effective support for victims.

--Vinicius Siqueira (talk) 12:24, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Lorenzo Losa

These are the answers I gave during the meeting (with very little copyediting), and some additional answers to the questions asked in this page. Please feel free to ask me clarifications or follow-up questions. - Laurentius (talk) 12:26, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

1. If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?
5. How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?

In order for the global south communities to have a crucial role in decision-making, I think that the best thing we can do is to help them grow and strengthen. Actually, this applies to every community, not just to the one of the global south!

In order to achieve that, we can do a few things. We can provide more resource, not only in terms of money and grants. People often focus on money, but other things are important as well, like training, and taking into consideration the need of the different communities, for instance in software development.

Additionally, I believe that the interconnection and mutual support between different parts of the community is key. The creation of regional hub will be an exceptional opportunity, if they will become a space for regional community to collaborate, learn and support each other.

A similar approach can also help for Wikipedias in smaller languages - or, actually, smaller Wikipedias, because sometimes we have small Wikipedias for languages that have tens of millions of native speakers. The size of a Wikipedia edition does not always reflect the size of the language.

2. Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?

Fake news are an increasing problem worldwide, and even on Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is a bit an exception in a way, because it has some built-in countermeasures: the neutral point of view, the need to reference sources, and, of course, the fact that everyone edits the same article, thus reducing the risk of biases. This does not mean that we are safe: definitely not. The problem exists and is growing, and we should definitely talk about it. However, we already have some tools to fight it, and we should leverage them.

On larger-scale bias issues, for instance if a specific group tries to take over a project, we also have another tool: we are part of a global movement, and the communities of other projects can help. We should strengthen and leverage interconnections in our community. Again, it is not enough, but it is a powerful tool.

4. What are your thoughts about harassment on the Wikimedia projects? What do you have to say about the Universal Code of Conduct?

We need to nurture a culture where everyone can express themselves. This is key to provide fruitful discussion and ensure that there are not unspoken thoughts. The Universal code of conduct can be helpful to provide guidance to smaller projects, that didn't have a code of conduct yet, but a written document is not enough to avoid the problems. Change really happens when it is integrated in the culture of the people.

3. What ideas do you have about creating awareness of Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia, which have strong emerging communities in the recent past, such as Wikisource and Wikidata?

First, we need to understand that different projects have different target audiences. Wikipedia is a very generalist project: it is useful basically for everyone, every day. For other projects it is different. Wikidata, for instance, is not meant to be directly used by humans. Awareness of Wikidata, therefore, is not the same as awareness of Wikidata.

If you go to some specific audiences, however, the interest for Wikidata and Wikisource is huge. For instance, today, in Italy, if I go to GLAMs and cultural institutions to propose a training, it may well be that they are not really interested in Wikipedia, but they are interested in Wikisource, and are *very* interested in Wikidata. Thus, we should target the right audiences for each project.

6. Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Do you think we are really going to that direction right now? (asked by Rtnf)

We are going in that direction, and we have achieved a lot since 2001, but we are far from reaching that result. However, this is how a vision work: it is something to aim, an inspiration, not something that we achieve in a few years.

7. If one of you got elected on this election. Can we contact you closely, to make sure that all of your past promises, especially that is made during this campaign period, will be actually fulfilled? (asked by Rtnf)

Of course! I actually hope that people will contact me. I think that contact with all parts of the community is essential for a board member. See also my answer to "How will candidates connect with the community once on the Board?".

- Laurentius (talk) 12:26, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Pavan Santhosh Surampudi

• If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?

Supporting Global South Communities to grow and providing an environment for leadership to grow in those communities should not be seen as a charity act or kind gesture from Wikimedia Foundation's side. I believe Global south hubs like South Asia, East & South East Asia Pacific are like Diamond mines and Gold mines for Wikimedia Movement. There are great opportunities awaiting for the global movement from Global South There are Future Global leaders who would make earnest contributions to the movement when given a chance from these regions.

From my experience, I can point out 2 major aspects we need to deal with in this regard:

• One - We need to incubate a very good leadership and skill development programme. That should be very good such that a volunteer should be able to put it in his resume. Such a strong leadership + skill improvement program will help more leaders from this area with the right skills. That would fix the first issue.

• Second - Investing more systematically on retention and increasing the number of active users in these projects. I have an experience in working in a Wikipedia project where there won’t be more than 25 active Wikipedians at any given time. All of the people who attend this meeting are overstretched and over working Wikimedians. We need to find better ways to bring people and retain them.

• How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?

I am from a language which has 70+ articles and below 30 active users, but there are 8 crore people who speak the same language. This is the case with many other languages from this part of the world.

I personally have a good understanding about problems and opportunities in these languages. We need to have more resources and attention to grow these language projects. We have to invest in training and skill-building that results in more leaders from these language Wikipedias.

• What are your thoughts about harassment on the Wikimedia projects? What do you have to say about the Universal Code of Conduct?

I consider harassment is one of the main reasons why our communities are not growing in numbers and also in diversity. As I wrote in my candidacy statement, harassment is another major issue that is stopping communities to grow and thrive . I witnessed some communities becoming dormant because of harassment and bullying, and also could see how difficult it is to intervene for other movement entities to support those communities. I believe efforts to reduce harassment and make communities safe should go hand in hand with leadership and skill development especially in the regional and community level.

• Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?

We need to start working more to catch up with ongoing technology growth and understand the importance of critical and verifiable sources that can offer legitimacy to the content. Supporting skilled editors and admins with tools will give our movement an edge in fixing the issue.

In addition to that, we need to spend more resources on research in understanding the patterns of this issue, ways to tackle this issue and in going in that direction need to collaborate with other tech giants wherever possible.

--Pavan Santhosh Surampudi (talk) 12:28, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight

1. If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?

I think the development of Hubs is crucial to giving a voice, and equity position to the Global South in terms of governance, resources, training, and leadership. This is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each region, each Hub, is unique and each community within the Hub has its own challenges. But we have to move away from the centralized structure of top-down San Francisco decision-making and flatten it. There are lessons to be learned from other regions, other Hubs; yes. But I believe ESEAP has a unique opportunity to be a leader in our movement because of its diversity - readers, editors, partners and so forth.

2. Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?

I have been working on this issue with a coalition called WikiCred. The first step is recognizing that we have a problem! We are not alone in dealing with this; it is a global problem and we need to work with other platforms in addressing it. In part, MS Initiative 9, Innovate in Free Knowledge, addresses this, but we are only at the start of the initiatives associated with it and I don’t think it goes far enough in addressing the issue. For this reason, I think we need to be open to Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt what we currently know and do addressing the issues of misinformation and disinformation -- this includes governments, regimes, platforms, news sources, and so forth.

3. What ideas do you have about creating awareness of Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia, which have strong emerging communities in the recent past, such as Wikisource and Wikidata?

In order to flourish, we have to make room for emerging communities, such as Wikisource and Wikidata; for transparency, I am a member of both of these communities. Promoting them through unique branding makes good business sense. Providing resources, including developer time, is a must. Annual conferences are important -- in person or online. Silence stifles creativity. WikiSpore -we had our annual meeting a few days ago- is an innovation hub for emerging ideas and communities.

4. What are your thoughts about harassment on the Wikimedia projects? What do you have to say about the Universal Code of Conduct?

I have witnessed harassment on Wikimedia projects and been a victim of it myself. I understand how it can be debilitating. I served on the MS Community Health WG where I was involved in interviewing dozens of people in the movement regarding harassment, civility and so forth. As a 6 year member of the Affiliations Committee, I have seen it within our Affiliates. On AffCom, I have taught Consensus-Building classes and have served on the Conflict Mediation Subcommittee. We need the UCoC as a baseline for activities across the movement in order to support diversity and safety practices and encourage growth. When I co-founded Women in Red, we didn’t know that our project’s talkpage would become a harassment-free place for editors; but it has through focused community engagement!

5. How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?

Minority language Wikipedias. Give them space. Give them resources. Give them the opportunity to meet, share research. WikiKnot and other wiki meetings support learnings.

These are the answers I gave during today's meeting. Thank you for the opportunity to share them with you. --Rosiestep (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

6. Why do you want this role? Why should you be elected? Why do you think you are suited for it?

I have been a Wikimedian for 14 years. At some point, my son's said to me, "Mom, you can't write all the articles; you have to inspire others." I have been doing that as a community organizer. Now, I feel it is time for me to do so at the Board level. As for why vote for me, why do I think I am suited for it, as well as why vote for any of the other candidates and why might they be suited for it, my views (and theirs) are made in our Candidate Statements, linked here.

7. "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Do you think we are really going in that direction right now?

Yes, I do think we are headed in that direction, knowing that some years, we move faster and others, slower; some days, we step back before we step forward.

A long time ago, I read Asimov's fictional Foundation series which includes the fictional Encyclopedia Galactica (the idea of the fictional Hari Seldon), similar in some respects to the fictional encyclopedia envisioned by H. G. Wells ("Encyclopaedic organization which centres upon... the Fundamental Knowledge System which accumulates, sorts, keeps in order and renders available everything that is known"). Unlike these examples, Wikipedia is real, and there is no timeline for when it will be done and when every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. When thinking about the Wikimedia movement, it is always on my mind, "What would Hari Seldon do?" to shorten the time it will take to accomplish our goal. A fellow Wikimedian of the Year had a rubber bracelet made for, "WWHSD?" because I talk about this so much. This is what keeps me focused on the direction described by Jimmy Wales... one article, one editor, one developer, one partner, one reader at a time.

8. If one of you got elected on this election. Can we contact you closely?

Yes, please! Here's my Meta talkpage.

9. How an elected Non-Asian candidate can work for the benefits, development and promotion of such languages having Pakistani or Mid-Eastern script like Arabic (AR), Urdu (UR), Saraiki (SKR), Punjabi (PNB), Pashto, Sindhi etc. Because he / she may not understand the script it self and can't even add / update the history or works in any of the mentioned language.

My parents and ancestors are Serbian. The Serbian language has its own script and there is a Serbian (SR) Wikipedia, which uses it. Ergo, I understand that smaller language sister projects have their own challenges. Like Dariusz mentions above, I believe problem-solving is not a one-size fits all. We must take a local approach in decision-making (e.g. each Wikipedia's policies), resource allocation, and tech development.

10. Well us about your thought of this, and how can we do to avoid some harassment between wikimedian(s) like this.

There are jerks within the Wikimedia movement whose only goal is to make trouble for someone. Some jerks do it as a hobby; some jerks are paid to harass/spread misinformation/insert disinformation by organizations/regimes who have their own agendas. Make no mistake, we cannot lock the door and keep them out. But what we can do is work together for the common good. The UCoC (Movement Strategy (MS) Initiative #16) is a step in the right direction along with other initiatives associated with MS Recommendation #3: Provide for Safety and Inclusion. In addition, we need to provide more funding for underrepresented communities (MS Initiative #2), improve the user experience (MS Recommendation #2), and always Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt (MS Recommendation #10). None of this will solve all the problems, but implementing these Initiatives will enable smaller language sister projects to grow and thrive in the future.

11. How do you plan to train junior Wikipedia editors like myself in regards to the formatting and structure of the various Wikipedia pages?

As the co-founder of Women in Red, a 32 Wikipedia language community, for years, I have worked for years with editors in different language Wikipedias on how to train newer Wikipedia editors regarding local policies, local language editing, local language support. For these efforts, Women in Red was honored by UN Women/ITU by being shortlisted for the GEM-TECH Award. Other examples include my work with Sabin Muzaffar, founder of Ananke Magazine. See also what Editor Netha Hussain wrote about my efforts in Huffington Post. More here.

These are my answers to the additional questions. Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:40, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Answers from Adam Wight

4. What are your thoughts about harassment on the Wikimedia projects? What do you have to say about the Universal Code of Conduct?

Editors have said that online abuse is the biggest obstacle to their participation in Wikimedia projects. The Universal Code of Conduct is a good first step, although it needs to be ratified by the communities (the future Global Council) rather than just the WMF. The Foundation can fight abuse using software design, such as never showing IP addresses (development in progress), and by making positive social interactions easier (e.g. "thank" another editor). The communities need support to change culture, so far the Tea House has illuminated a path forward for providing mentorship, and improving editor retention.

1. If you are elected, what would be your strategy to grow Global South communities, especially for them to have a crucial role in the decision-making processes of the movement?

By distributing more resources to local communities, we empower them to make their own decisions. The Foundation currently gives less than 8% of its revenue to affiliates, I would push for a phased increase in the proportion of money that is distributed. The contributors create our wealth, after all.

I have reservations about the "regional hub" concept proposed by Dariusz and others, I imagine that a local organization might perpetuate existing injustices, for example Brahmin domination over Dalits might be harder to avoid in an Indian subcontinent regional context. Better would be to support a Dalit organization directly, which would have a representative in the Global Council where they can explain their work and what resources are needed.

5. How will you support the minority language Wikipedias?
3. What ideas do you have about creating awareness of Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia, which have strong emerging communities in the recent past, such as Wikisource and Wikidata?

I want to see a diaspora of knowledge projects. We have been locked into the encyclopedic project, with tightly policed boundaries, for too long. Let's create an open wiki farm with no barriers to entry, legal, technical, and safety support. Allowing these smaller projects (e.g. local historians, schools, activists, minority languages, and non-encyclopedic work) to thrive will allow for on-wiki culture to evolve and find the principles which are appropriate to their work. I would like to mention the paper "Decolonizing the Internet by Decolonizing Ourselves", by Whose Knowledge?, and acknowledge the impact their ideas have had on me. To give examples of other kinds of knowledge and why they don't fit into Wikipedia, a community of scientists or historians do not benefit from a "no original research" rule. A group putting oral histories online would not benefit from a requirement that sources be written and academic--that only works for a tiny slice of the knowledge in the world. Allowing anyone to create their own project brings the world a nucleus for building up other forms of knowledge.

2. Fake news is an increasing concern across all internet platforms, and Wikipedia is no exception. How do you think we should be talking about this problem? or What is your plan to solve the problem of ideologically motivated edits and articles?

My time working for the ORES (Scoring Platform) team gives me an understanding of the possibilities for machine learning to help with this problem. We could certainly build a software system to flag likely propaganda and paid promotional editing. User:Waltercolor mentioned a brilliant initiative on French Wikipedia, where identified propaganda edits are made public. Going further, we could partner with journalists who may have the ability to expose the actors paying for these edits, making it a much riskier and expensive business to spread disinformation on-wiki. Adamw (talk) 13:02, 31 July 2021 (UTC)