Wikimedia Conference 2011/Documentation/Movement Roles

1206 "Introduction to movement roles": http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Schedule#Introduction_to_Movement_Roles ), see also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project

Presentation of Movement Roles Group

Introduction and Approach

1209 Two facilitators on stage and 5 people. Arne Klempert (akl) speaking

1210 Slide “clarify roles and responsibilities” of entities groups and people

1210 akl: who had a look at meta page? About half

1211 akl started last year, ongoing topic, roles are unclear, structured approach since oct 2010

1211 slide: names of workgroup-members (18 people). not to make work, but to facilitate public discussion. members in room stand up: as far as I see: 14

1212 akl: weekly open IRC-meetings.

1213 akl: reached out wiki,meta, mailinglistst, surveyed “peer” global ngos.

Core Topics and Questions

1213 akl: quick run 3 topics: roles matrix, accountability, new models

1214 now Delphine (nota) speaking

1214 nota: need to know what roles exist, need to know what entities exist, result: matrix comprehensive set of roles, organisational building blocks, complexity

1216 nota: need to go into much more details what actually exists. Matrix is on meta.

1216 slide: need help: list of “who”, responsibility table, working group sessions?

1217 nota: Realized: pretty much can do anything.. so tried to see who is actually responsible. Like to go away from “everybody does everything”, show people place where they can get an answer.

1218 nota: gathering as much data as possible.

1219 nota: putting together a survey

1220 discussion “we have lots of surveys”

1221 nota: had difficulties to get some feedback. Probably we are going around asking some questions the next three days.

1222 Samuel Klein (sj): survey online. There are two surveys, please fill out at least one.

1222 lyzzy: accountability

1222 ly “seems to be a bit more difficult than other topics”

1222 slide: why A important? What are groups and entities A for? Whom they are A to? What are priciples that enable A?

1222 ly: “very very slow discussion, hope we get much more input”

1222 sj: tomorrow afternoon A-working-group-session

1223 SJ and galio on stage “new models”

Focus on informal groups and their relation to WM

1223 galio: groups that do not qualify as a chapter. Identify new model for wikimedia groups other than chapters. Define more clearly what chapters are and what they do.

1224 sj: “informal slide” - informal groups → informal WM associations - > incorporation → particular interest: partner organization, general: wikimedia chapters

1225 TV camera is set up

Example: Catalan Interest Group

1226 partner organizations eg. MediaWiki or “promote catalan language and culture”

1226 galileo: chapters

1228 galio: example: catalan interest group, not catalan chapter (overlay w/ WM Spain, catalan chapter would be responsible for all projects), no hierarchical difference to chapters but a functional one.

1228 sj “we hope from every chapter there will be at least one who shares thoughts”

1229 room: can you talk more about exclusivity point? Said: chapter has exclusivity in a geographical area. e.g. how would work catalan and spain?

1229 sj: yesterday discussed, chapters by default working with government in that country, but e.g. group for physics would talk with phyiscal union.

1230 galio: if catalan government is involved, entity would be wikimedia spain.

1231 akl “we have not yet a real thought through answer”. Exclusivity comes with responsibilty to work with partner organisations.

Discussion

Engaging informal groups

1232 jon (not an editor, helped other NGOs): find multiple ways to get people to engage, how to find as many possible ways to engage,

1232 jon: lesson from other organisations “make it easy for people to engage in their own way as possible”

1233 WMF1: both organization and associations will benefit from foundation-support (grants, ad-hoc-permission to use trademarks for specific purposes).

1234 MovementGroup1: my personal opinion: see this in way where no entity as a gate. keeping function in regard to another entity (applause)

1234 canada: new to this process, just starting a chapter, trying to understand relationships. “are you encouraging these groups to work with chapters first?” or are groups working with WMF creating confusion?

1235 sj: what are you describing is different

1235 cdn: e.g. quebec would stark french language project, would be working with WMF oder us?

1236: galio: first: association committee (former chapter committee) at WMF, groups are encouraged to work with chapters. Chapters are the only one to take part in fundraiser. See if they want to form French canadian chapter or a cultural organization.

1237 cdn: see this as canadian organization,

1238 sj: WMF only grants some tools.

Figuring out the structure of movement roles

1238 WMF2: wants to stress how important this group is. Which will also one days influence you and your work. Important to think about it. “what happens with our organization in the next 5 years or 10 years”. Similar thinks like catalan can happen in Denmark, can happen anywhere. This is way it is really, really important to think about these problems.

1239 WMF3: “this is hard. Figuring out how to structure for the next 100 years.” no organization gatekeeping, inclusion is really, really important. “why does it help to accomplish our mission.”

1241 nota: practical work, if you have 3 wikimedia-organisations who all go to a museum, “do we want to speak with 20.000 different voices. Exclusivity is a tricky word. Have to make sure people recognize who is talking.”

1242 nota: if we are inclusive, we also should be collaborative. Groups will have funds and contacts that chapters don't, but this is true the other way around too.

1243 isreal: economic perspective. “limited funds, various players” for many this is a move to more free.market-way. e.g. underperforming chapter and partner-organizations can get along well. “moving from a monopolistic socialist economy to a more competitive driven community.” when 3 different organizations go to a museum, maybe this is positive

1245 nota: there are funds/partnerships where chapters will never have access too, partner groups will have. See competition not as big. “in theory you are right”, but mainly makes playing-field much broader.

1246 WMF4 (from NL): cdn seemed to have problems with bigness, one side of canada nad the better. “the more local the better”, if 15 people in a village start wikimedia, you should encourage, let's see how this problem arrives.

1247 john: 2 principles from other organisations: (1) one project should never let another project fail (2) obligation to inform.

1248 WMF5: can hear people get exited in room. Stage: please edit on meta.

Relationsship between Chapters and Informal Groups

1249 philippines: what is if chapter has already specific mission when another group forms to do the same and goes to WMF? For example: chapter wants to promote languages, and language-group forms.

1250 nota: let's come up. Not first-come-first-served, but who has a reason.

1250 phil: should they be encouraged to contact chapter

1250 nota: if you don't meet these people anyway, there is a serious communication-problem. “take your wiki-ways and talk to them. If there is a conflict talk to them,

1251 akl: Question: who is actually doing the job best.

Criteria for partner organizations (informal groups)

1252: south africa: is there any criteria for partner-organizations?

1252 sj: idea behind partner organizations is similar to chapters. Public criteria, discussion to make this a much more open process. Development of criteria will improve over time. Today we don't encourage people to do this, process will start interesting process.

1252 Lunchbreak.

1254 Krieger: is movement roles just about informal groups or is it a bigger topic?

Lunch. Continue 1345 with editor trends.