WIKIMOVE/Podcast/Transcript Episode 8

Transcript of WIKIMOVE Episode #8 - Movement Strategy

Nicole:

Welcome to episode eight of WIKIMOVE, our podcast where we discuss the future of the Wikimedia movement. I'm Nicole Eber and with me is Nikki Zeuner. We are both working in Wikimedia Deutschland's Movement Strategy and Global Relations team.

Nikki:

This episode was recorded on January 20th at 14:00 UTC. Things may have changed since we recorded this show but what we still know is that...

Nicole:

By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.

Nikki:

Our home base is not only the audiocast but we also have a meta page and a web page and all the relevant links that you hear about in this episode are going to be available in the show notes. Talking of Homebase we're not really talking from home only Nicole is at home but I'm the on the road, so that's why our sound is a little bit different today. What's going on today's show?

Nicole:

Today's Show is a special show about movement strategy, surprise surprise! We invited three distinguished guests from Africa to talk about our strategy 2030 and how to make it relatable and understandable for newcomers in our movement

Nikki:

So we did an evaluation survey, just to introduce this interview, a while ago and Ruby who is on our show todaysuggested that we better communicate movement strategy to newcomers.So we think WIKIMOVE can be a tool not just to communicate about movement strategy with those people who are involved in it but also with those people who are new to it and become a tool to better understand what it is. Ruby can you elaborate a little bit on your thoughts there?

Ruby:

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be on this podcast, I'm so excited, I believe that movement strategy is really an important part of our movement and we all have a very big role to play in it because these conversations started way back, like in 2017, and I got to join the movement somewhere in 2019 and I've had opportunity to be in some of our conversations both locally and globally and I mean like initially when I joined these conversations I was doing a lot of listening and then I contributed when I had the confidence to begin to contribute to it.

But one thing that I noticed especially, and I will speak for the African Community, is that a lot of newcomers, and sometimes even people who have been around for a while, continue to be left out of significant knowledge and conversation around the movement strategy because I would say that basically, us organizers we're very busy recruiting people hundreds of people, we are thinking about running our events, we're trying to meet our metrics, we're trying to meet our important timelines and we seem to have little time to sort of like communicate this to the newcomers that we are recruiting every day and to our movement and our communities and so you find out that there are newcomers organizers who even don't know anything about the movement strategy and they're doing an amazing work in the community.

So I'll say that knowledge is power and knowledge about movement strategy is significant at helping us achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves by 2030. I see this because once we are aware, once the newcomers also get to know about the movement strategy you will see that it's going to reflect in our programs, it's going to reflect really in our events, in the tools that we're building in the community. So we see that this is really a significant role that communities organizers and user group need to consciously play and communicate to their community members and it's up to us to identify ways that we can socialize it in a way that appeal to our community. Like we're doing here talking about movement strategy on WIKIMOVE, which is an exciting opportunity to bring people along in this conversation.

For instance I am thinking of us organizing a three-day train-the-trainers workshop and as part the three days training we have incorporated an expert and planned time where we're going to train these organizers about the movement strategy. Because we see it as a very significant thing because these are people who are training the volunteers in other part of Ghana you know, different regions of Ghana, and so we need to bring them along in this conversation.

And believe it or not newcomers are the future of the movement and there are volunteers who started the movement strategy conversation, trust me some of these volunteers are no longer with us and this is a reality that we're going to be seeing. So using me as an example for instance, I just joined like 2019 in this conversation and there are people who are going to be joining from time to time and we need to find a way to bring them along and before I end my plenty of talking I did a very interesting survey that was trying to understand newcomers and trying to assess newcomers knowledge about the movement strategy, especially and also ask them if they had questions about the movement strategy.

And I was very amazed and got interesting feedback and for some they were asking like 'When is it going to take place?' 'Who is going to implement it?' And so it tells you that we have a lot of work to do in bringing along these newcomers, if we continue to leave these newcomers out of this knowledge, out of this conversation, we are only going to have a future of leaders who will not be guided by or who have no knowledge about the movement strategy and we might not get to where we want to get to. So I know this can be a really difficult task but I am a community leader and I know sometimes it's difficult to get volunteers attention to these things and it's not enough to just tell volunteers 'Go to the meta page' to read all those bulky message that will not happen, so it's about how we bring them into this conversation in a more interesting and engaging way so that we can bring them along with us. That's the little that I'll say.

Nikki:

Thank you so much Ruby and I hand over to Nicole to introduce the guests that we invited and sort of given this prompt by Ruby.

Nicole:

Thank you Ruby and thank you Nikki. It's my pleasure now to introduce our guests and I'll start with Ruby Damenshie-Brown, she joined the movement in 2019 and volunteered in different roles, she also contributed to the global campaign for Wiki for human rights in 2022 as a fellow at the Wikimedia Foundation and she's now working at the Open Foundation West Africa as a senior program officer.

And then we have two guests here that really brought a lot of questions to this conversation and I look very much forward to talking to Sharon Naa Deedei Tagoes, she studies at the Ghanaian University and joined the movement in 2022 as a volunteer, also at the Open Foundation West Africa. And then we have Likambo Isaac Kangu he is a South Sudanese Refugee living in Uganda currently and he joined the movement in August of 2022 so he's very new and he's currently a diaspora coordinator for the Wikimedia Community User Group South Sudan in the refugee settlements in Uganda so he's bringing a very specific perspective to our conversation today.

So we prepared together some questions and I think the first block of questions that you guys wanted to ask us are around generally what the movement strategy is Likambo do you want to open up with the first question?

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

Yes I have some questions, my first question is: What is the 2030 movement strategy about and why is it in place?

Nikki:

That's an excellent question that gets us right into the topic, so it is about the people of the Wikimedia movement all across the planet working on freeing up knowledge and it's about how they work together. It's about how they connect about how they build each other's capacity and about how they make decisions, so decision making is what we in movement jargon we call 'governance' so at what point you know, is it in Uganda, is it at the level of the user group that you're you're making decisions or are the decisions happening maybe at a regional Hub or the decisions happening at the Wikimedia Foundation?

So those are some of the things that the movement strategy tries to change from where we are now to where we want to be in 2030, to have a movement that is inclusive of everybody, that is easy to join, it is fun to join and that provides the infrastructure sort of the backbone for creating free and open knowledge. So I think Likambo Isaac you had another question after.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

What does movement stand for?

Nicole:

Yeah I'm going to take that question because it's one of my favorite things to talk about as well. So the term Movement we use it very very often in in all our conversations and discussions and for me movement really stands for basically every human and every organization and you could potentially also say every machine, that contributes to the Wikimedia projects and our mission. So all the volunteer community members but also of course the Affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation who contribute to this movement.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

My third question is why is it 2030 but not 2025 or 2050?

Nicole:

Yeah thank you, so in 2016 the Wikipedia turned 15 years old and there was a moment where we, as movement, basically thought okay the last 15 years were like revolutionary and exciting and united us but what about the next 15 years? What are we going to achieve and build together in the next 15 years? And I think just to come up with a rounder or nicer number it wasn't then 2031 or something like that but 2030 because I think also at that time many other organizations or groups were working towards some future goal and 2030 was far away on the horizon but still close enough to make some plans for it, that would be my explanation for it.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

How did the movement strategy come about and what inspired it?

Nicole:

Yeah that is also a very good question and I think we could even talk about this for I don't know hours, but I'm trying to be brief because I know that there are many other exciting questions coming up. So first of all as I said in 2016 when Wikipedia turned 15 there was this big question on the table like what's next? What about the next 15 years? And so on and how are we going to remain relevant in the world? And what are we going to build probably also that's beyond the encyclopedia?

And I would like to mention two things and one is the the Chapters Dialogue project that Wikimedia Deutschland initiated in 2013 already where we actually interviewed all the Affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation about their roles and responsibilities and about their needs and challenges in the movement. What basically came out of this was that many Affiliates weren't happy with their roles and also the relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation and that they felt that we had basically grown out of our own governance structures, that we were standing in our own way in terms of growing the movement and also diversifying resources, so there was some kind of frustration with the current situations.

And then also we realized that we are like super far away from our own vision which says 'every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge' so every single human being and all knowledge that's something that we actually need to get better at and where we really need to change our own functioning and our own ways of doing things to actually come closer to that vision. And now I think the next question is coming from Sharon

Sharon:

What would the future look like in 2030?

Nikki:

The Future come 2030, if it's up to the movement strategy, as you know the movement strategy is not a person but it's a bunch of language that can be found all over meta and the core of the movement strategy is what we call the Strategic Direction, and the Strategic Direction says that by 2030 we will be the infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge and anyone can join us.

So the future in my view looks like that the Wikimedia movement is a movement that is very attractive for people to join, that is fun to join, that it's easy to join. So most people in the world will know that Wikipedia and the other sister projects or projects you can contribute to, you can not just consume them but you can also contribute to them and it's easy to do that.

We have removed the technical barriers we have removed some of the social barriers maybe we're going to talk about later and so whether you're a diaspora Refugee in a different country or whether you're somebody sitting in a tower in a city wherever you are in the world there's a language version or ways to to understand other language versions and translate them and bring them to you so that's kind of the my interpretation of the Strategic direction. It means that we're an open movement, anybody can join us and we're continuously improving sort of the social and the technical infrastructure.

Sharon:

As a volunteer what is my contribution to the strategy and what do I stand to benefit from the strategy?

Nikki:

So it's a really good question and when I answer that question I always go back to that part of the movement strategy that's called the Strategic Direction because that is sort of the Visionary part of the movement strategy. And the way I see it is that in 2030 or by 2030 the strategic direction says we are the infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge and everyone who wants to can join us.

So the vision I have in 2030 is that we are an open movement that is very easy to join, that it's fun to join whether you're a refugee in a camp somewhere in the diaspora outside of your country or you're some Urban person sitting in a high tower in a city it doesn't matter. You can join and you can work together across the world and we have removed the technical and the social barriers that make it hard for people to join and to share their knowledge. So that's my vision and everyone has a little bit of different vision but I think the best description of that is the Strategic Direction which we'll link in the show notes. Thanks Sharon, did you have another question?

Sharon:

What are the goals of the movement and why do we need the movement?

Nicole:

That's an excellent question, so the biggest goal for a movement is, I think, the vision like 'every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge' that's what's driving us and that's what's uniting us. And then if we look closer at movement strategy the two goals are basically knowledge as a service and knowledge equity.

Then you ask why do we need a movement, I think this vision and those goals are like mega huge and bold and no single community or affiliate can reach it alone we can only achieve this if we work together and united as a movement and this also goes or especially goes for countries where there is for example political instability or even government oppression against free knowledge and where there's no freedom of speech for example. Then belonging to a huge movement worldwide actually can support individuals who are actually at risk of persecution.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

Thank you so much, I have one more question which I want to know about because people often ask us, who can contribute to the movement strategy?

Nicole:

Yes thank you, so my first my initial response to this would of course be everyone. So everyone basically means the community members, affiliate the Wikimedia foundation, so everyone who's interested. But I think that saying that alone doesn't do the trick. It's the same as when we say Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that everyone can edit, yeah theoretically yes but there are so many barriers. That also goes for movement strategy, it needs to become more accessible and easy for people to understand and contribute to.

Also there needs to be better coordination and connection between the different actors who are now implementing movement strategy in their own communities and organizations so that they again can benefit from learning from each other and each others' experiences and also from their challenges along the way. Is there anything else you'd like to ask?

Sharon:

How to convince people to come on board? So like how do you convince, how do I and all of us convince people to come on board?

Nicole:

I'm going to try and answer that question, also very good question and not such an easy answer. I wish it would be that easy that we just say 'hey come and join us' but I think first of all we need to use movement resources to create a welcoming environment where you can provide onboarding, internet and refreshments for example for people to take part.

And then also take advantage of the train-the-trainer opportunities and resources that are provided by fellow Wikimedians across the globe. You can also always apply for Wikimedia Foundation rapid grants and movement strategy grants to support such activities. This is probably a short answer and not giving all the answers but at least it is a first step in that direction.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

My question goes, how does the movement strategy deal with regional disparities in a practical approach?

Nikki:

The movement strategy itself you know doesn't really deal with anything it's sort of people doing it but the language in the movement strategy definitely addresses and acknowledges and recognizes that we have huge disparities amongst communities. And one of the ways the recommendations try to address that, and these are economic disparities, disparities in terms of internet access, is by saying that if we want to grow the Wikimedia movement in these regions that are experiencing disparities, that are underrepresented right now or that even have been marginalized in the past then then we need to direct more resources into these regions.

And that means money, that means technical assistance, that means going in and better understanding what are the barriers and how can we address them. And you know building software that are better equipped at dealing with the situations in those areas so there's definitely a strong sort of call in the recommendations to doing that instead of investing the money in the global North going to Global South and strategically investing there in people and in technology so these communities that you're talking about that experience disparities can have a better shot at getting part of the movement.

So that would be my answer, it's not super satisfying because it's not like immediate but I think with the language and the movement strategy, for the first time we actually acknowledge that that's going on and that it needs to be addressed.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

This one majorly applies to newcomers and editors from sub-Saharan Africa: How will the movement strategy address the issue of article approval or verification? As some of the admins do not have information about the local context but are still the ones approving the articles.

Nikki:

Yes, thank you for bringing that super important issue up. So movement strategy does not directly address this issue in the recommendations but I think since then we have realized that this is a central problem that more and more people are aware of and that prevents content from emerging communities being shared in the larger Wikipedia versions. It's a little bit of a problem because you know as somebody speaking as somebody working for an affiliate, and Ruby can probably say the same as she is working for the Wikimedia Foundation, it is a little bit outside of the sphere of Affiliates because as Affiliates we do not interfere with Community governance.

You know, we are unable nor are we willing to change who are the administrators. The communities have their own system of governing the projects, so I guess my very unsatisfying answer is that Affiliates should think about how they can facilitate dialogue about this problem. How they can increase awareness and how they can be allies to those people who are experiencing these problems with notability criteria that have been shaped in the global North and by established administrative administrators.

I would encourage you to stay loud and noisy and angry about this issue and you know I can only say as Affiliates or as my affiliate you know we stand by your side but it's going to take a while to make that kind of cultural change. So that would be again my unsatisfying answer but again you know if we say in the recommendations and in the strategic direction that we want to be open and that anybody can join and share their knowledge and notability turns out to be one of the big barriers then we definitely need to address it together.

Thanks Isaac for bringing that up. You can also respond with your thoughts to to my thoughts.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

Yes thank you so much for your answers, as you said we need to really have a lot of dialogue, us making a lot of alarms about the issues affecting us. My question now is how can movement strategy and the movement support activities in remote areas without internet connection? For example in the refugee settlement and other places?

Nicole:

Yeah thank you for that question I actually think that this is one of the million dollar questions or something like that because it's so very difficult to answer. And I wish again that we would have like super good answers to all of them. One answer that I can say is that maybe KIWIX is a good option because it is this Wikipedia offline reading and editing that could actually help support activities in remote areas and in addition to that I think also either working together with like refugee support organizations or also with people who are already doing some kind of support that could be an option.

But also maybe I think you might add a little bit of context to Kiwix Ruby?

Ruby:

Yeah so just to add a little bit on the Kiwix offline, so we have been also doing that because we identified that there are some people that are left out because of internet connectivity issues and so we came up with what we call the Kiwix4school project because a lot of schools in Ghana, especially in remote areas, don't have internet educational resources. So this is just really one of the ways that we have been also helping students to access this educational contents from Wikipedia and other open educational resources in school.

This is a project that we've been doing in Ghana for the past two years and this time we're going to extend the impact to other countries in Africa because during the Wiki Indaba conference a lot of community members expressed their interests to learn about how they can also implement similar projects in their community. Because this is Africa, this is the reality and we cannot wait for internet to get everywhere because that means we're going to wait for a long time so this is one of the ways that we are providing solutions.

So be on the lookout for the Africa Kiwix for school mentorship program which aims at mentoring other African communities who are interested in implementing some of that projects, so this is one of the ways as Nikki and Nicole has said,that we can use and explore more open tools and resources and see how we can get this knowledge to them. As part of our careers project we also try to introduce basic knowledge about Wikipedia, the ecosystem, just to get them thinking about it before they get out of school and it's really helpful in trying to lay their Foundation because not many people even know about the fact that they could edit Wikipedia.

I got to know that I could edit Wikipedia in 2019 so you can imagine and there's a whole lot of people who don't even know that they could even contribute or that there's even a community behind it. I got to know everything in 2019 so you can imagine there's still a lot of work to be done in Africa.

Nicole:

Thank you Ruby for actually helping me out here and for providing all that context, that's super interesting also to hear. When we talk about newcomers again what else would be on your mind, what is it that you would like to know, Sharon?

Sharon:

I'd like to know how we can design the movement so it's easy to join for newcomers?

Nicole:

I mean an easy answer to this would be it's in the Strategic Direction because there we say we will break down the social, political and technical barriers that are preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge and that's again a huge and bold sentence but what does it actually mean? So for example to to reduce technical barriers get better at enabling people to edit on their phones actually and improve the user experience overall on people's phones but also of course on the desktop.

And then it mentions 'social barriers' that keep people from contributing to our project so that we create an atmosphere where people can actually feel safe, where we don't allow harassment and where we provide for safety and inclusion, not only online on our projects but also offline, like when we meet at events or at smaller gatherings and meetings that we really increase this awareness and attention to harassment.

It's actually a thing and it keeps people from joining our movement and we really need to do something, or not only something but many things to prevent that. And then one large barrier for newcomers is of course also the language barrier, our movement is very much centered around the English language, how can we be more inclusive and provide for translations and interpretation of course but also what we tend to do, and I'm pointing at my finger at myself too, is to use jargon. So we should try not to use all those crazy like, Wiki internal language and slang, but really try to use language that is more accessible to more people.

Maybe this list is also even longer but I think these are actually really the major things that we can improve, so that we create better conditions for new people to join. I think maybe you know that one of my favorite topics in our movement is governance, and some people don't believe it but yes I love talking about governance and what would be on your mind or what would you like to know about global governance?

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

How can Hubs plan to support?

Nikki:

Yeah thank you for the question around hubs and I mean one thing is of course always money so there are grants available, movement strategy implementation grants, but they are of course also different initiative that offer support in like technical and governance questions from the Wikimedia Foundation.

I think it's not only about Grant support and advice but it's also very much about the exchange between the different hub initiatives I don't even know how many hubs are currently in the process of being piloted, but maybe 10 or even more, and there are so many people behind those hubs and there's a lot of value in their knowledge and in their experience, so we don't have to repeat mistakes over and over again and really learn from each other and built upon each each initiative's experiences. So I think that's really what this support is about.

Likambo Isaac Kangu:

How can I or anybody access information about financial support in the movement?

Nikki:

So I'll take that one and I want to talk about two things: one is the way things are now and then one is the way things might be in the future. So the way things are now is that all the financial resources are being gathered at the Wikimedia Foundation or not all of them but the biggest amount, and the Wikimedia Foundation has grants programs by which they then redistribute some of that money to projects, people and communities that apply for it.

So there are pages on meta, if you type into meta grants then you'll get to the grants portal and you can see the different types of grants that are available for different types of projects and some of them are you know, they're small Rapid grants and they're very easy to apply for and you can get pretty quickly you can get money as a user group to run some activities.

So for example if you want to do newcomer events or you want to to do an Edit-a-thon or a hackathon those types of things, you can fund with these rapid grants. There's also bigger grants if you have larger projects that are directly related to movement strategy, there are movement strategy implementation grants, so there's a whole variety of things you can access so that's the way the system is working now.

And in the future you know you were asking about hubs earlier, in the future for example one of the functions that hubs could take on is regionally distributing money and so you know like we said earlier putting more of the decisions about how money is used with projects to take on at the regional and local level. I want to point out another resource because you were asking about, support and support is not just money but support is also you know getting peer support from your fellow Wikimedians and that's really hard to do on meta because meta is like this huge array of resources and information, a lot of it is outdated, it's not being curated.

So one of the movement strategy projects that is happening right now is called the Capacity Exchange and that's not going to be on meta but it's a platform so it has a meta page from which you can access the off meta platform and the idea there is: I need something, I need to know how to do a certain thing, I want to see how other people organize, I need some instructions, I need somebody to hold my hand and walk with me for a while until I figure this stuff out.

On the capacity exchange you can find other Wikimedians who are willing to help and then there's also another project called Let's connectthat is very similar where you can also connect with other Wikimedians for support. So I think those are things that are being developed right now and in the future hopefully you know resources will still be easy to access but won't be necessarily grants, but there'll be more redistributing funds to the communities that need them. And then you know finding the people that can support you and it could be somebody outside of Africa you know, you could find a buddy or a peer that can support you it was maybe from Latin America or some other place.

So I think these are things are developing and since we're about to wrap up I want to just make one plea or one statement which is you guys are joining the movement, you're new to the movement at a time that is very very crucial for our movement and you're joining it at a time where lots of change is happening and there's a chance for you to affect that change, it's a chance for you Isaac to go and say these are the issues that refugees are dealing with, these are the things we need so that we can be part of the movement and you can shape things because right now we're in the implementation phase of the strategy.

It's not like you're coming to movement and everything is set and you have to learn how stuff is done you can shape how stuff is done so that would be my plea to all the newcomers. Be bold, ask for stuff and connect with other other Wikimedians to make this movement what it needs to be. So we kind of went through all the questions we had and we hope that this conversation helped you guys get connected with movement strategy and get maybe a little bit excited about how you can shape it. Anything you guys want to add to wrap up this episode? Ruby, Isaac, Sharon? Any final thoughts you want to share with us and our listeners at this time?

Ruby:

Just like Nikki, Nicole and everyone else said, we have a very useful movement strategy, let's all support it, let's all be innovative in the way that we approach it, let's see how we can bring these conversations in our local communities and encourage more newcomers to get along with it so that we can all find the solutions that we're looking for and we can all build the future that we are looking for together.

Sharon:

Also to add to that, I've got a lot of information about the movement and I'm already on-board so I'll bring a lot of people on board, try to explain to their understanding so they will also be excited to join us on Wiki.

Nicole:

I mean my final words would be like huge thank you to our guests and also plus one to what Nikki just said: like how can we encourage people to be bold and join the conversations really? We are sitting here in our comfortable seats, having contributed to movement strategy for so many years and what can we actually do to connect people better with movement strategy and understand also on our side what the actual challenges and blockers and barriers are.

Nikki:

So that is a wrap of the eighth episode of WIKIMOVE! Thanks for listening, it was a little different today, Nicole. So, well, we are starting interestingly in the new year and we'll definitely do some different things this year and make it maybe a little less nerdy and a little more interesting also for new people in the movement.

Nicole:

WIKIMOVE is a production of Wikimedia Deutschland and its Movement Strategy and Global Relations team. Eva Martin pulls all the strings in the background so Nikki and I can create the excellent content, or basically the three of us can together create that excellent content. Our music was composed and produced by Rory Gregory and is of course available under a cc license, CC BY-SA on Wikimedia Commons. And a huge thank you to a wonderful guest Sharon, Ruby and Isaac. It's really been a pleasure.

Nikki:

We'll release new episodes every month again this year and we hope that new ideas are born from the conversations in WIKIMOVE and that couple collaborations get kick-started. Please visit our WIKIMOVE meta page to react to our podcast, connect with other listeners and subscribe to always be notified of our new episode releases. If you want to be added to our newsletter list please send us an email at wikimove@wikimedia.de. If you missed our previous episode check it out on our meta page and you can also contact us at wikimove@wikimedia.deto continue this discussion and share your suggestions for next episodes.

Nicole:

Goodbye, ciao for now, Tschüssi.