Jump to content

Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2017-2018/Final/Programs/Community Engagement/da

Add links
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
This page is a translated version of the page Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2017-2018/Final/Programs/Community Engagement and the translation is 0% complete.
Other languages:

About Community Engagement

The goal of the Community Engagement department is to increase the quantity, quality, diversity, and reach of free knowledge by supporting people and organizations aligned with the Wikimedia Foundation mission and vision. We support contributors by representing them in the development of new technical tools, by supporting community governance and innovations, by implementing trust & safety, by scaling strategic programs, and by making grants to individuals, groups and organizations working on building community and growing content on Wikimedia projects and sites as well as related open knowledge projects. We are committed to supporting under-represented contributors and emerging regions, languages, and communities.

In FY2017-18, Community Engagement has programs within each of the three strategic areas: Reach, Communities and Knowledge. A major focus for us this year is expanding and diversifying participation and content in Wikimedia Projects. Beyond our core commitments, the majority of our programs were developed with this goal in mind. Where possible, core commitments will also be evaluated against this focus, to ensure that it is enhanced whenever possible within every program and action we make.

Community Resources

For more information, see Community Resources/2017-18 Annual Plan

The role of Community Resources is to resource impactful community-led ideas, programs, technologies and gatherings to build and diversify the Wikimedia movement.

Learning and Evaluation

The Learning and Evaluation team (L&E) helps monitor the impact of the work being done across the movement and guides other Community Engagement teams in executing effective grants through ongoing analysis, learning and evaluation support. The team is focused on sharing best practices and facilitating community knowledge sharing, listening to community voices for better decision making through community leader/editor surveys, and fostering collaboration and support to and with Wikimedia Affiliates.

Community Programs

The Community Programs team provides support for program leaders and community members in three particular domains: Education (EDU), Research (TWL) and Cultural Heritage (GLAM). The team supports community leaders through targeted infrastructure, community capacity, and external outreach projects, to improve the environment for community leaders to run successful programs and increase the reputation and impact of the Wikimedia movement.

Support and Safety

Support and Safety serves the Wikimedia Foundation, readers and contributors by providing support on Foundation initiatives with a focus on community consultations, governance, and training, and by addressing trust and safety concerns including around appropriately escalating threats communicated on our projects and helping to safeguard the safety of attendees of Wikimedia Foundation supported events.

Technical Collaboration

Technical Collaboration helps developers to build features in collaboration with our communities. The team supports WMF Product teams, volunteer developers, tech ambassadors, and other contributors willing to get involved in the planning, development, and deployment of software features in Wikimedia. They act as liaisons between non-technical communities and developers, and they organize developer outreach programs and events.

Back to top

Program 1: Resourcing communities

Team: Community Resources, with significant support from Legal & Finance departments and some support from Community Tech. Support from other teams will be needed dependent on Inspire Campaign themes (e.g., Reading, for a campaign focused on New Readers)

Strategic priorities: Knowledge, Communities (See the outcomes and program description for more details)

Time frame: 12 months. Many grant programs & Inspire Campaigns operate cyclically

Summary

Community organizers are an essential part of the Wikimedia movement. We believe supporting organizers and their work is critical for achieving our collective vision. Community Resources provides community organizers access to funding, mentorship, good project management practices, and technical support throughout the lifecycle of each grant. It is through a large ecosystem of services that we empower organizers with the skills and resources they need to grow, diversify, and build the Wikimedia movement.

We have seen tremendous growth and diversification in the last year, since we restructured our grant programs: in 6 months we awarded 258 grants, matching the total number of grants awarded in fiscal year 2014-15 (details). We now support over 40 countries on five continents: 70% of grantees in our new Rapid Grant program are Global South / emerging communities, supporting movement expansion into countries well beyond Western Europe and North America.

However, our current program activity is not sustainable at our current level of staffing. Without additional resourcing - specifically another Grants Administrator and junior Program Officer - we will have to significantly reduce the number of grants funded overall. This will likely result in closing 1 or 2 of our grant programs. While we recognize that the discontinuation of any grant program will negatively affect Wikimedia communities - and that the discontinuation of Rapid Grants would disproportionately affect non-European countries and communities - we cannot continue without additional staffing, nor will we be able to lead the Gender diversity program (described elsewhere).

For more detailed information, see our full Annual Plan page.

Goal

  • Empower and enable community organizers: Ensure community organizers worldwide - particularly our diverse set of leaders - have access to the skills and resources they need to pursue ideas, address the problems they see, and ultimately to grow, diversify, and build the Wikimedia movement.
  • Share decision-making power about movement funds: Provide a transparent, participatory process for disseminating movement funds.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: Knowledge: Through grants, content on the Wikimedia projects is created, curated, or improved. This results in the deepening and expansion of knowledge available through our projects. Previous-year baselines show significant content creation on our project through grants.
  • Outcome 2: Participation and Diversity: New and diverse people are able to join, participate and contribute to our global movement, particularly those voices in the minority - e.g., non-male contributors, emerging / Global South communities.
  • Outcome 3: Leadership: Community organizers (individuals, groups, organizations) take on leadership roles in the movement, at regional, global, or thematic levels.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Run six grant programs. WMF Grant program are run annually on different timelines, and support individuals and organizations of various sizes and needs:
    • Full Annual Plan Grants/FDC - for larger organizations needing unrestricted annual funding over $100K
    • Simple Annual Plan Grants - for smaller organizations needing annual funding below $100k
    • Project Grants - online & offline projects requiring $2-100k.
    • Rapid Grants - projects needing less than $2k, largely to emerging communities
    • Conference Grants - for good quality movement, regional, and thematic conference organizers worldwide
    • Wikimania Scholarships - for community members needing financial support to attend Wikimania, largely to emerging communities
  • Objective 2: Connect grantees to expertise and resources within and beyond the Wikimedia movement.
    • Grant program officers work with grantees to identify areas where the grantee will need support and/or development. For instance: budget management, project or event planning and management, evaluation, volunteer engagement and retention, community conflict, organizational effectiveness, etc.
    • Program officers then work to find people/training within or beyond the movement who can work with the grantee in this area. For example: directly mentoring on event planning, connecting a grantee with a WMF Engineer who can advise on their technical project, recommending a grantee attend Learning Day or another workshop.
  • Objective 3: Build out IdeaLab to support the development of ideas, by creating a space where community organizers can draft proposals, find interested collaborators, and access wider movement resources (e.g., help on how to approach policy change in a specific wiki).
    • Through IdeaLab, run two Inspire Campaigns annually. Inspire Campaigns invite movement-wide idea-building on topics consistent with community needs and our strategic priorities. These month-long events are run twice each year, with one theme directly aligned with a strategic priority (e.g., anti-harassment, new readers), and one theme derived organically from community feedback and activity. Past campaigns have brought in between 200 - 700 participants who have developed between 60-280 ideas to review.
  • Objective 4: Coordinate and support Wikimania, including supporting the local organizing team, securing fiscal sponsorships, and running the Wikimania Scholarship program (which brings ~120 community members to the event, majority from Global South).

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: Participation:
    • 50,000 participants engaged through WMF grants
    • 10,000 new editors engaged through WMF grants
  • Milestone 2: Diversity:
    • 70% of grants awarded to emerging / Global South communities (contingent on staffing)
  • Milestone 3: Knowledge:
    • Over 500K Wikimedia pages will be created or improved (contingent on accessibility of grants programs)
  • Milestone 4: Leadership:
    • Grantees take leadership roles in the movement. Through access to idea support and funds, we have seen many organizers in the movement build leadership through the grants program, after or as a result of their grant-funded work. We specifically work to ensure diversity of our grantees, with KPIs on gender and emerging communities/global south. We also seek to ensure grant applicant satisfaction and are interested in tracking the number of returning grantees, as well as other indicators like the number of non-male organizers, and number of grantees who become organizers for the movement in new ways beyond their initial project.
Back to top

Program 2: Gender diversity

Teams: Community Resources, Community Tech, and Support & Safety in conjunction with Research, Global Reach/Partnerships, and Communications

Program lead: Alex Wang (Community Resources)

Strategic priorities: Reach, Communities, Knowledge

Timeframe:

  • Research and surveying: 6 months
  • Pilots = 12 months
  • Total = 18 months

Summary

Lack of gender diversity on Wikimedia projects, in terms of both contributors and content, has severe ramifications on our ability to serve our mission. Based on the incomplete data we have, we know that only 13-23% of our contributors on the Wikimedia projects are female, and we know nearly nothing about the participation rates of other genders.[1] There are many reasons for this imbalance and many initiatives across our movement to address the issue. However, we do not currently have a comprehensive understanding of the work that is being done across the movement to address this, the challenges women and other genders in our communities face, and what cultural, policy, or technical interventions could support an increase in gender diversity.

We will build this understanding through research, surveys, and interviews of both movement contributors and those outside of the movement. We’ll use that research in combination with community conversations to prioritize and pilot projects with 1-2 communities over the next 12-18 months. These projects could be admin trainings, support for policy change, the creation and implementation of safe spaces, mentorship models, or tools. It could also take the form of a more formalized and facilitated knowledge-sharing network for volunteers working in this area. We currently do not have enough information or community input to know what the possibilities are. This next year will be focused on obtaining that information and sharing it as broadly as possible.

Long-term goal

By working with the community to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the work being done to increase gender diversity on the Wikimedia projects and the landscape more broadly, we will be able to support more effective interventions (tools, trainings, knowledge sharing, policy change, etc.) that will lead to an increase in diversity in participation on our projects, likely leading to increasingly diverse content as well. Increased diversity of content and contributors improves the quality of the Wikimedia projects, impacting readership, the relevance of the information we share, and community health.

Back to top

Goal 1: Map gender diversity work

Map gender diversity work to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the work currently being done to increase gender diversity on the Wikimedia projects

Lead team: Community Resources, with significant support from volunteers. Ideally, to conduct the interviews, we will contract a volunteer who is more familiar with gender diversity work and leaders in the community.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: Volunteers actively working to support gender diversity across the movement are aware of and understand what their peers on the Wikimedia projects are currently doing and planning in their communities. The way people are interacting with the Wikimedia projects on and offline is changing quickly. Volunteers have voiced significant challenges in not being able to know what others are doing, what are best practices, and how they can share information.
  • Outcome 2: We create an effective platform and process for sharing updates, best practices, experiences, materials and other knowledge, and we implement a process for management and facilitation of the platform. This information sharing leads to more effective projects, less “reinventing the wheel,” enhanced collaboration, and a greater sense of solidarity.
  • Outcome 3: The community has key research questions answered and data needed to develop pilot interventions. The research and data is shared across the movement.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Focusing on the last year and upcoming plans, conduct interviews with gender diversity champions across the movement. Understand who did what types of activities (and the specific tactics that did or did not work), what were the outcomes, and what have been the impacts 3-6 months after. Also reference previous work in this area, for example, the 2013 Gender Gap Strategy.
  • Objective 2: Present data and preliminary analysis from interviews at the upcoming WikiWomen Summit July 5-8th in Mexico City.
  • Objective 3: Based on mapping and interview phase, prioritize challenges or outstanding questions that have not yet been addressed and require additional data or research to determine possible activities or interventions.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone/Target 1: Data from interviews of community leaders from various language communities/projects presented at the July WikiWomen Summit (Q1)
  • Milestone/Target 2: Next steps for a knowledge-sharing process decided on at the WikiWomen Summit. Platform and process piloted by Q2.
  • Milestone/Target 3: Research needs identified, prioritized and scoped by Q2.
Back to top

Goal 2: Pilot interventions

Pilot interventions in 1-2 language communities/projects to improve gender diversity

Lead team: Community Resources, with significant support from teams TBD (based on what the pilots are)

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: 1-2 language communities/projects pilot either one or a series of interventions to improve gender diversity. The pilots result in a measurable increase in gender diversity of content and/or contributors or decrease in systemic bias on the projects.
  • Outcome 2: Pilot outcomes are communicated broadly. Pilot methodologies are shared across the movement in a way that can be remixed and used by other groups.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Based on Segments 1 and 2 (mapping of current work and conducting research on prioritized questions), as well as discussions at the WikiWomen Summit, agree on pilot priorities. This will take additional community consultation to understand which communities have the appropriate conditions to implement a pilot.
  • Objective 2: Conduct pilots with 1-2 communities by the end of Q4. Pilots could focus on training, outreach and communications, partnership development, tools, policy change, etc.
    • For example, we could work with an interested community to build strategic partnerships with organizations that are primarily working with women to increase awareness and readership among women and girls in the Global Reach team priority countries. This pilot could serve as a model for other communities.

In terms of tools development, the work of the Community Health Initiative will certainly support gender diversity. If successful, community leaders will be better trained and better equipped to prevent and resolve incidents of harassment, ultimately resulting in a healthier communities. These healthier communities will be a more pleasant and nurturing environment for new contributors to participate. The Gender Diversity pilots could include testing tools developed under the Community Health Initiative or new tools scoped this year and then developed in 18/19, depending on the capacity of the Community Tech team.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone/Target 1: Pilots determined by the end of Q2.
  • Milestone/Target 2: 1-2 pilots conducted Q4/Q1. Analysis and next steps for program determined. Q1/Q2 of FY18/19.

Proposed timeline

Tid Aktivitet Teams
FY16/17 Q4 (March-June) Map activities from past year CR, contractor to do mapping
FY17/18 Q1 (July 5-8) WikiWomen Summit in Mexico City
  • Present mapping
  • Identify needs, platform, process for knowledge sharing
  • Discuss outstanding research/data needs. Prioritize.
 CR, Research, Global Reach, Community Tech
FY17/18 Q1 (July-Sept)
  • Develop knowledge sharing platform/process
  • Develop research proposal(s)
 CR, Communications, Research
FY17/18 Q2 (Oct-Dec)
  • Conduct research
  • Implement knowledge sharing platform/process
  • Develop pilots based on mapping/research
 CR, Research, TBD
FY17/18 Q4 (Jan-March) Pilot CR, TBD
FY 18/19 (April-June) Pilot CR, TBD
Back to top

Program 3: Community Capacity Development (CCD)

Team: Community Resources

Strategic Priorities: Communities

Time frame: 12 months for phase one and then, based on evaluation, perpetually. Each individual capacity-building initiative is expected to take between 2 and 12 months, depending on the complexity of the capacity.

Summary

There are certain community capacities all thriving communities need developed.  Some Wikimedia communities have under-developed capacities, or have plateaued and aren't developing a particular capacity.  This past year, the Community Resources team successfully piloted a program where WMF usefully assisted particular communities to build specific capacities and to "level up".

Building on the pilot's demonstrated impact, and modestly scaling up the budget, this program aims to identify capacity-building opportunities in different emerging Wikimedia communities and to craft effective projects to build them in a sustainable and cost-effective way.

Goal

By inviting our communities to self-assess their different capacities according to suggested guidelines, we will create and maintain a community capacity map, helping to surface recurring needs and developing trainings and materials that will reach broader audiences.

By stepping in to build specific capacities in specific communities that are stalled or struggling in those capacities, WMF is assisting those communities to overcome development obstacles and resume organic growth and development.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: Community Capacity Map: A set of well-described community capacities are mapped (i.e. assessed) across communities and (separately) affiliates, allowing decision-making and planning by WMF, affiliate networks, affiliates, and communities.
  • Outcome 2: Community Capacity Development: specific capacities are built, cost-effectively, in specific communities, in ways that are sustainable (i.e., continue to yield, and ideally multiply, after capacity-building project ends).

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Community Capacity Map:
    • Develop draft list of capacities and assessment guidelines, publishing it on Meta and soliciting feedback and refinement by community
    • Settle on the list and guidelines for the FY, and invite communities and affiliates to self-assess.
    • Analyze map and identify clusters of opportunity for capacity-building; share results publicly and solicit feedback and collaborative planning (e.g. an affiliate network might want to pick up a capacity-building opportunity, i.e. not everything depends on direct WMF action)
  • Objective 2: Community Capacity Development: based on the Community Capacity Map, the CR team will work with communities and affiliates to identify and evaluate potential projects to build specific capacities in specific communities or affiliates.  Having selected promising and cost-effective projects to undertake in partnership with selected communities/affiliates, the CR team would produce and project-manage a capacity-building project, sometimes with the help of other WMF teams or outside contractors.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: Community Capacity Map list and guidelines finalized.
  • Milestone 2: Community Capacity Map populated with self-assessments by >50% of chapters, >25% of WUGs, >50% of >10K article Wikipedias, Commons, Wikidata, top 10 and Multilingual Wikisource.
  • Milestone 3: At least three capacity-building opportunities are identified and launched based on the CCM.
  • Milestone 4: Concluded capacity-building projects are evaluated and reported on.
Back to top

Program 4: Community leadership development & mentoring

Team: Learning & Evaluation, with dependencies on Community Resources, Programs, Support & Safety, Technical Collaborations, Communications, Advancement (possibly), Legal (possibly)

Strategic priorities: Communities

Timeframe: 12 months for its annual cycle

Summary

Community mentors are the primary drivers for our websites and the Wikimedia movement. They initiate ideas, contribute content, and design events that create new momentum for our movement. As an essential component for long-term movement sustainability, building better pathways to community leadership is critical.  In 2017-2018, we will continue to support the development and recognition of peer mentors in communities – doing this through investment in strategic opportunities for the development of regional and thematic mentors and further developing our  capacity development and knowledge-sharing infrastructures.

This program involves events and staff support for capacity development and learning for community development programs and initiatives. Through learning and collaboration events and learning products, the Community Engagement department coordinates across the foundation and our worldwide communities to leverage high-potential opportunities for capacity development with communities on critical learning needs.  Learning events take place within special community convenings or alongside existing community events.

Goal

Bolster community leadership development through peer leadership academy: In 2017-18 we will continue to support scalable training and peer exchange styles of learning events and products in order to develop community leadership and peer mentoring.

By supporting strategic learning online and at international, regional, or thematic events, we will enable healthy program and community development. Through developing leadership and peer mentoring, and support for better managing movement learning resources, we promote the use of evaluation for learning and improved decision-making to better Wikimedia projects and communities.

Outcomes

  • An increase  of community leaders’ knowledge about program and community development strategies, best practices, and available resources
  • Further development of community leaders’ evaluation and community/programs leadership skills
  • Better connections of individuals & groups across communities and with the Wikimedia Foundation to facilitate engagement in our learning community

Objectives

  • Objective 1:
    • Learning Day Events:  By the end of FY17-18, support 300+ community leaders’ engagements in direct leadership development activities. More specifically, we aim to:
    • Organize pre-conference events for over 100 community leaders to engage in training and peer mentoring on critical learning and resource topics for core programs and community development strategies.
      • The community continues to need professional development support in the area of program design and evaluation, and it would be much more costly for them to seek it out externally; aligning our training with an existing convening is a cost savings of over $100,000 per year and, because they are already planning to attend the convenings to which the trainings are attached, can allow for more participants to join the workshops and exchange sessions focused on capacity development. This effort empowers community leaders to develop and conduct their own programs and related evaluations in a self-sustaining path toward impactful programming
    • Collaborate to provide community development and evaluation learning resources and workshops at regional and thematic conference events as requested by community leaders, dependent on budget.
      • By equipping community leaders with information, this effort empowers community leaders to own learning and evaluation and to develop and conduct their own programs and related evaluations in a self-sustaining path toward impactful programming.  When we teach evaluation at existing conferences, we save 90% of convening costs.
  • Objective 2:
    • Learning Products: New L&E Portal Resources:
    • Learning Day Workshop Kits:
      • The capacity development that happens at regional conferences is very similar to development that takes place at Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania. We frequently get invited to conferences to host workshops like those at Learning Days.
      • While only a few people from local communities can attend international events, we can capitalize the training of those who do and empower them to host the same workshops back at home. This small project seems like an achievable way of increasing the reach of Learning Day workshops and content, since we already have the workshop kit format and two workshop kits already developed, as well as trained community members to carry-out these workshops at their events.  With more kits based on our most popular workshops added to the set, we will better enable the deployment of  regional mentors to regional and thematic conferences at which the content is requested.
    • Evaluation Curriculum:
      • Often our program leaders do not know what they need to know about evaluation, which leads to frustration and, in a best-case scenario, staff and community resources spent on explaining on an individual basis.  (In a worst-case scenario, evaluations are skipped or done incorrectly.)
      • This project will work to build a more accessible evaluation curriculum, with clear explanations of what evaluation knowledge a program leader needs to know for different programs at different levels of program complexity. This isn’t creating new content, but chunking and curating existing content in a systematic way, scaffolding for learning at different levels, using templates as a standard format.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: Maintain or grow peer-mentoring engagement with community mentors leading as presenters or peer collaborators in 80% or more of Wikimedia Foundation-sponsored Learning Day events and workshops at existing movement events; and scale learning and evaluation teaching and best practices through community leadership in order to expand reach through community mentors and provide specific development supports for learning, evaluation, program design and management, and community listening.
  • Milestone 2: New L&E Portal Resources: In 2017/2018 the Learning & Evaluation team will adapt two additional Learning Day workshops into train-the-trainer kits that community members can use to host Learning Day workshops at regional meetups. (This year the aim is to develop workshops on Program Design and/or Logic Models.) The team will also curate a set of simple start guides for designing common program evaluations at various levels of complexity.
Back to top

Program 5: Learning products: Community Engagement Insights

Team: Learning & Evaluation, with dependencies on all departments and teams across the Foundation who wish to survey communities through this mechanism

Strategic priorities: Communities

Timeframe: 12 months for its annual cycle

Summary

Over the last several years, there has been an increased demand for survey data across the Foundation and major hurdles for teams to conduct community surveys on their own.

Goal

Community Engagement Insights aims to use surveys to increase the Foundation's understanding of communities' needs as well as gather data that measures the outcomes of Foundation's work.

Outcome

  • Outcome 1: In 2017-18, we will implement Community Engagement Insights for the second time. In 2016-17, we developed and distributed the first survey to editors, affiliates and volunteer developers. We also laid the groundwork to have a process that can be replicated each year. The data gathered will help the foundation measure various aspects of Wikimedia, such as demographics, behaviors, and opinions related to: (1) the movement as a whole, (2) Wikimedia projects, (3) Wikimedia affiliates, (4) Wikimedia programs, (5) Wikimedia software, and (6) Wikimedia Foundation programs, products, and services. The data gathered will be analyzed to support team decisionmaking and may be shared publicly upon privacy review.
    • Through our activities in this year’s survey, we anticipate (a) increasing completion and response rates, (b) improving our understanding of the survey environment within Wikimedia for smoother delivery of this year’s survey and those of future years, and (c) gaining a better understanding of data that may be needed by select Wikimedia community audiences (affiliates, researchers, editors)  to increase survey support to those audiences.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: CE Insights uses a proposal-based process, in which teams at the Foundation submit a list of questions to be included in the survey. These proposals are reviewed, improved and then added to the survey. Staff from across the foundation support the delivery of the survey to community audiences. L&E will work with departments and teams within the Foundation to solicit these questions and improve upon them with clearly communicated criteria, deadlines and time commitment expectations. The data we gather will be shared internally with the Foundation as well as with communities.
  • Objective 2: This year L&E seeks to improve and expand upon the CE Insights survey. For the 2017-2018 CE Insights survey, we will use exploratory research about survey infrastructure to determine what improvements can be made to the CE Insights survey distribution system. We will also conduct exploratory research about survey needs and capacities among select Wikimedia community audiences (affiliates, researchers, editors).

Milestones

  • Milestone 1: In 2017-18 we aim to increase completion and response rates by at least 10% (Overall response rate from 2017 is [TBD]).
  • Milestone 1: The CE Insights survey will be complete and data compiled and published in May 2018.
Back to top

Program 6: Learning infrastructures: Wikimedia Resource Center

Team: Learning & Evaluation, with support from across the Foundation

Strategic priorities: Communities

Timeframe: 12 months for this annual cycle

Summary

“As a community we are great to organize world's knowledge but we suck to organize our own knowledge”  Kippelboy, 8 February 2016

Whether it is being able to find the right data or community response or learning what resources exist to guide you through planning your next Wikimedia event, improvements in our learning and exchange systems are needed to better guide our movement in repeating what works, avoiding common points of failure, and accessing the right information, at the tight time. This program involves staff and contractor time to investigate and design improved systems for data collection, reporting, and knowledge sharing. We will map and prioritize community needs for improved learning and exchange.

Goal

To better connect communities to (a) information about Wikimedia Foundation and movement initiatives and activities and (b) access to peer-guidance and peer mentorship.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: To maintain and further develop our shared systems to better connect communities to critical foundation and movement opportunities and resources for learning, development, and support.
  • Outcome 2: To create systems to better connect community members to others that may be peer mentors as well as to community developed learning and development resources and opportunities.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Wikimedia Resource Center: To improve the curation and navigability of movement learning resources for programs and community engagement and to maintain and develop further the community leaders’ knowledge about program and community development strategies, best practices, and available resources, Learning & Evaluation staff will guide the Wikimedia Resource Center to the next phase of development.
  • Objective 2: Peer academy: Develop basic infrastructural supports for connecting people to community-developed learning resources and mentors as an expansion of the Wikimedia Resource Center..

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1:
    • The Wikimedia Resource Center is added as a link from the Main Page / sidebar of Meta Wikimedia
    • Identify and add key navigation patterns and resources for 2 program types: GLAM initiatives and Education.
    • Community members submit a minimum of 5 resources to the WRC.
  • Milestone 2:
    • Develop a user template for the WRC that anyone can use to add their profile on the WRC.
    • Develop a way of filtering search of program leaders by categories to be determined.
    • Add a minimum of 20 program leader profiles to the WRC
    • Support at least 5 opportunities (could be within the same event) where experienced program leaders can mentor other peers in movement conferences.


Back to top

Program 7: Community programs infrastructure

Team: Education, The Wikipedia Library, GLAM

Strategic Priorities: Communities, Knowledge

Timeframe: 1-3 years

Summary

Each of the programs supported by the Community Engagement Programs teams have critical dependencies on software within the Wikimedia projects and on external applications of collaborators and partners. Supporting targeted development of technologies that support these programs bolsters the ability for community organizers to effectively implement their desired activities which expand knowledge within our projects.

Goal

Improve the ability of program leaders to implement programs and of prolific contributors to access resources through targeted technical interventions.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: EDU:
    • The Programs and Events Dashboard will facilitate the planning, execution and evaluation of education programs globally (available for every project and in each language);
    • program leaders will be able to quickly replicate previous courses and invest less time in tracking, and have quicker access to realtime contributions from their cohorts of users;
    • the Wikimedia Foundation will have increased access to both quantitative and qualitative outputs from global programs, which can be aggregated to tell a more cohesive story of impact;
    • Data will be more up-to-date and take less time to compile and use.
  • Outcome 2: TWL:  The Wikipedia Library Card Platform (available on on Labs is a centralized web application for signing up and receiving access to free publisher resources, making our partnerships more useful and efficient for editors. The Wikipedia Library Card Platform will include a) centralized signups; b) proxy authentication; c) bundled access; and d) integrated search and discovery of our 60+ partners content. This allows signups through a single platform to provide quick applications and reviewing. A majority of access will now be possible directly through the Library Card website, without having to go to or through each partner’s separate website and login. Further information can be found at the Wikimedia blog
  • Outcome 3: GLAM:  Integrate the needs of heritage partners and other programmatic stakeholders into the development of Structured Data on Commons (further described in the cross-departmental program.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: EDU:
    • Orient education program leaders in using the Programs and Events Dashboard to manage and track their work;
    • Mine the Programs and Events Dashboard for global education program outputs and report global aggregates on a quarterly basis;
    • Work with internal and external engineers to maintain the tool, fix bugs in a timely manner, and consider future development that is requested by the community.
  • Objective 2: TWL:  Already delivering access from its phase 1 rollout year, the next year’s focus is expanding the Library Card platform in phases 2 and 3, adding state-of-the-field proxy and search features. Proxy will allow editors to authenticate into publishers like JSTOR using their Wikipedia username through OAuth. Search will make those 80,000 journals individually discoverable at the article level. Additionally we will add the Wikipedia Library Card Bundle, which will give any editor who meets account age, edit count, and recent activity criteria automatic access to certain partners. This expanded access covers about 25,000 editors.
  • Objective 3: GLAM:  GLAM stakeholder engagement and developing partnership case studies and documentation for modeling that identifies both technical and social needs.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: EDU:
    • At least one recorded video session to orient global program leaders in using the Programs and Events Dashboard;
    • 90% of global education programs adopt the Programs and Events Dashboard to regularly organize and track their work;
    • Increased usage of the Programs and Events Dashboard QoQ;
    • Depreciation of the MediaWiki Education Extension
  • Milestone 2: TWL:
    • The Library Card Platform will improve current signup speed from 3 weeks on average to 1 week for all regular (non-proxy, non-bundle) signups, improve signup speed to 2 days for proxy signups, and make bundle signup access instantaneous. By end of the year, 100% of our partners will be available through the platform; 50% should be using proxy access; and 10% participating in the bundle.
  • Milestone 3: GLAM:
    • Develop a group of representatives for at least 8 major GLAM institutions or GLAM networks (DPLA, Europeana, ICOM, IFLA, etc) ready to test, and provide feedback and advice on structured data on Commons, so that GLAM stakeholder needs are integrated into the development plans of the Structured Commons infrastructure.
    • Develop at least one workshops or set of training materials that can be used to upskill existing community members and GLAM partners in using structured data from the Wikimedia Community.
Back to top

Program 8: Community programs capacity

Team: Education, The Wikipedia Library, GLAM

Strategic priorities: Knowledge; Reach

Timeframe: Ongoing, with targeted timelines for outcomes

Summary

Given our core movement dedication to the principle of empowering people across the world, our communities take key leadership roles in driving many of our critical programs and in building content. They need resources to succeed in these areas -- information on how to build and execute educational programs, how to succeed in outreach to GLAM institutions -- and easily accessible reliable library resources on which to base their contributions. With approaches tailored to the audiences of each program, the three Community Engagement program teams provides direct support to the prolific contributors and community program leaders who implement projects and spearhead collaborations throughout our communities. We support community leaders who may lack knowledge to implement programs well and contributors who lack resources to edit effectively. Education and GLAM teams ensure that community leaders are equipped to learn from the existing wisdom within the broader community and more effectively reach their target outreach communities. Wikipedia Library puts resources directly into the hands of the most prolific Wikipedia contributors, building their capacity to create content. Combined, these three groups supply services to help communities most efficiently increase the quantity and quality of knowledge within Wikimedia projects.

Goal

As a result of support activities, program leaders in Education and GLAM will more effectively implement outreach and content-building programs, while prolific contributors will have improved access to educational resources, leading in all three groups to an increase in quality content on our projects.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: EDU:  Program leaders are supported to plan, implement and evaluate high quality education programs in their local contexts, either directly by education team staff, experienced peer mentors from the community, or a combination thereof. We hope this results in quality at the programmatic level and also in the form of contributions and learning in the classroom.
  • Outcome 2: TWL:  Contributors to Wikipedia’s content rely on access to reliable sources as a cornerstone of Verifiability. Wikipedia Library expands the number of leading publishers providing free access to educational resources, increasing the number of sources available for expanding and improving content. This directly equips our most dedicated editors with a knowledge-base that supports their content-creation work and expands their capacity for building the projects.
  • Outcome 3: GLAM:  Program leaders can find support for planning, implementing and evaluating different GLAM partnership tactics. Through this coordinated body of shared knowledge from GLAM-Wiki staff and experienced program leaders, emerging communities and new community leaders in existing communities can increase the effectiveness of their programs, in turn increasing the embeddedness of Wikimedia projects in GLAM professions.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: EDU:
    • Provide responsive support to global program leaders;
    • Facilitate peer mentoring opportunities for members of the Education Collaborative; prioritize program support for pilot programs in emerging communities;
    • Facilitate learning exchange at pre-conference (Wikimania, Wikimedia Conference) sessions and regional conferences (WikiArabia, WikiIndaba, IberoCoop, CEE)  for program leaders;
    • Review our current offering of support materials (brochures, toolkit, learning patterns) and make updates based on best practices and other input from experienced community members;
  • Objective 2: TWL: Our main work involves contacting partners who will agree to donate access, setting them up with proxy access on the library card platform, and providing them regular metrics reports to encourage continued partnership--including joining the Bundle.
  • Objective 3: GLAM:
    • Integrate GLAM workflow mapping into existing documentation on meta and outreach, to improve availability and effective discovery of community program documentation.
    • Reorganize and rewrite existing GLAM documentation on Outreach and elsewhere for high-flexibility program models based on emerging GLAM-Wiki case studies.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: EDU:
    • Serve at least 100 program leaders with individual or group consultations;
    • Increased peer mentoring of global programs through the Education Collaborative;
    • Renewed co-created annual goals with the Education Collaborative that prioritize focus of the group of experienced program leaders;
  • Milestone 2: TWL:
    • Add 10 new partners to our 66 existing publishers, 4 of them non-English
  • Milestone 3: GLAM:
    • Integrated and functional GLAM Portal into the Wikimedia Resource Center that provides access to GLAM-Wiki documentation and best practices for appropriate audiences (experienced program leaders, new program leaders, and GLAM allies).
    • Develop case studies on at least 4 new tactics used by the GLAM-Wiki Community that model new or different approaches to GLAM outreach
Back to top

Program 9: Community programs institutional and professional outreach and partnerships

Wikimedia’s brand transcends the impact our projects have on readers: international professional communities are directly affected by the projects’ educational activities and mission. The Community Programs team strategically works with international communities that have scopes beyond the capacity of local program leaders, to facilitate broader reach and community through awareness building and strategic alliances.

Goal: Increase awareness and readiness among targeted professional communities to collaborate with the Wikimedia movement.

Strategic priorities: Communities; Reach

Team: Education, The Wikipedia Library, GLAM

Timeframe: Ongoing, with targeted timelines for outcomes

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: EDU:
    • The perceived value of using Wikipedia and the sister projects as a teaching tool increases, and Movement-aligned partners also advocate for the use of these platforms inside and outside the classroom;
    • At least 3 new pilot programs are planned and implemented by community members interested in investing their outreach efforts in education programs;
    • The value of investing resources into education programs is made more visible to community and other movement stakeholders
  • Outcome 2: TWL: Our Library network outreach has 3 targets: library conferences and (inter)national associations, the global #1lib1ref campaign, and the Wikipedia Library User Group & 22 independent language library branches. These efforts will result in more librarians participating on Wikipedia, greater acceptance of Wikipedia within the library field and library education, and a stronger collaboration between Wikipedians and librarians.
  • Outcome 3: GLAM: OpenGLAM is increasingly spreading throughout the cultural heritage sector, both in its importance to linked cultural heritage data and the broader opportunities that digital heritage offer. This activity will intimately associate Wikimedia projects and the movement with this broader effort.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: EDU:
    • Represent education outreach activities at Movement and Partner events, with help from Wikimedia community members, focusing on the value of Wikimedia projects as a teaching tool with mutual benefits for learners, educators and open knowledge;
    • Co-manage social media accounts with members of the Education Collaborative on Facebook and Twitter;
    • Lead Education Collaborative members in exploring new methods of outreach to external educational audiences
  • Objective 2: TWL:
    • We’ll continue our alliance with IFLA -- the most global library body -- which as a result of our engagement last year officially endorsed library engagement with Wikipedia worldwide.
    • We’ll double-down on the #1lib1ref campaign with extensive engagement including emails, social media, mailing lists, blog posts and an in-person event kit.
    • Nurture the growth of the Wikipedia + Libraries Facebook group, now up to almost 700 members, into a usergroup. The usergroup will capture the interest and excitement around distributed participation and convert it into collaborations run by volunteers under a central banner.
    • To energize our 22 global branches and their respective regional outreach, we will have two global coordinators working to connect community library leaders and ramp up their activity and outreach.
  • Objective 3: GLAM: Develop relationships with large body networks of heritage organizations, including ICOM, UNESCO, ICA or others, that can scale existing community efforts. These relationships include developing better outreach materials ready for scalable use across the movement.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: EDU:
    • Education Newsletter published on a monthly basis with contributions from the education community;
    • Outreach to regional education networks through conferences and meetings on a quarterly basis, with support from local community;
    • Make resources and other information easier to find on our portal (on Outreach), especially for non-technical and new audiences;
    • Map national and organizational learning standards to activities that use Wikimedia projects as an educational tool.
  • Milestone 2: TWL:
    • Attend and present at IFLA global conference in Poland
    • Double the size and impact of #1lib1ref in terms of participants, citations added, and social media reach
    • Nurture the launch of the Wikipedia Library Usergroup and organize its first 50 members
  • Milestone 3: GLAM: Develop working relationships with at least one more external networks that scale the impact of local community GLAM-Wiki outreach. Through these networks, implement at least one strategic campaign or program that increase awareness of the growing importance of Wikimedia projects in the GLAM sector.
Back to top

Program 10: Training modules

This project builds on SuSa’s ongoing efforts to provide training for volunteers who deal with harassment reports on our projects, and at Wikimedia-related events. It addresses a lack of training around harassment issues in our movement, and provides a set of best practices to follow. Working with our newly completed Events and Online Harassment training modules, SuSa will work to get these trainings into the hands of the people who can benefit most - our events organizers and volunteer functionaries and admins. SuSa will also support the future creation of new modules through easy-to-use documentation on how to integrate content into the training platform.

Goal: To promote the use of existing, and creation of new, training modules, and work to integrate them into community processes.

Strategic priorities: Communities

Team: SuSa (Lead), Community Resources, Technical Collaboration

Timeframe: 12 months

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: Event organisers will go into their events with a basic understanding of how to handle difficult situations and know how to get additional help when needed.
  • Outcome 2: More functionaries and admins will have training around harassment and be better equipped to handle cases when they arise.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Work with Community Resources and Technical Collaboration to get event grantees and technical spaces event organizers to take trainings and provide input for improvement
  • Objective 2: Work with our functionary groups and arbitration committees to find appropriate places and opportunities for new members of those groups to take the online anti-harassment training module
  • Objective 3: Compile and publish documentation on how to make a new training module. This will allow contributors to build new content on the training platform and expand training to other areas beyond harassment.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1: 75 contributors view and complete events module; 50% of new event grantees and hackathon organizers take training
  • Milestone 2: 100 contributors view and complete harassment module; module is linked to project pages on at least 5 projects. Community discussion started on formal incorporation to onboarding process for new admins and functionaries by end of year.
  • Milestone 3: Communities informed of on-wiki step-by-step documentation for creating new training modules. Presentation at a major conference (WMNA, Wikimania, or Wikiconference) teaching contributors how to make their own modules.
Back to top

Program 11: Community collaboration in product development

Team: Technical Collaboration (mainly the Community Liaisons subteam), product owners and lead developers in Product and Technology, Team Practices Group

Program Leads: Quim Gil, Toby Negrin, Victoria Coleman

Strategic priorities: Communities -  Increase communication and transparency with and between our communities and across Wikimedia affiliates

Timeframe: 12 months to consolidate this transition. After this period, the new way of working should become a regular workflow

Summary

Wikimedia communities and individual volunteers still struggle with following and participating in the Foundation’s product development activities. On the other end, many Foundation teams working on product development still struggle with their community engagement activities. In practice, only a very small and committed portion of volunteers are able to follow and have a good view of the Foundation’s plans and ongoing projects. The Community Liaisons (CLs) have been helping to bridge this gap.

As part of the previous Annual Plan, CLs started to organize their support to product development teams more flexibly than before, focusing on Product goals. However, this setup still left the Technology department out of CL’s scope, even if some of their teams also work in projects requiring community engagement. CLs and product managers are also driving the creation of the Technical Collaboration Guidance (TCG), a compilation of best practices for inviting community involvement in product development. One lesson learned was that the TCG was best applied to projects that had adopted these best practices since their inception.

After these initial steps, now it is time to standardize the CL support to better serve Product and Technology goals and to harmonize community engagement practices across product development teams. The TCG offers a starting point that is expected to improve as we apply these best practices and we learn from the consequent results.

Goal

The goal is to increase the awareness and participation of Wikimedia communities in our product development projects. A higher quantity and diversity of participation through our planning and development process will result in a better common understanding, a better collaboration, and better products.

A requirement to achieve this goal is to offer to our communities a simple and predictable way to stay informed about and to participate in our product development projects.  For this, our current reliance on CL support will be increasingly complemented by harmonization of community engagement practices across Product and Technology teams.

This shift will be based in these principles:

  • CLs will continue to be regularly involved in product planning, having resident specialists appointed to the different areas.
  • CLs will be directly involved in the most complex goals and tasks, as agreed on a regular basis with Product and Technology product owners.
  • All projects will take the TCG as a set of base recommendations to be adapted to their specific needs and circumstance

Outcomes

Lead team: Community Liaisons

  • Outcome 1: P&T's most strategic goals get full support by CLs;
    • Communities are a real partner, members are satisfied, more interested in technical collaboration activities and even proactive.
    • Lack of community involvement and satisfaction is no longer a factor preventing smooth rollouts and goals' achievement;
    • P&T teams' outputs fully adhere to TCG best practices, whenever applicable;
  • Outcome 2: CL support scales better across Product and Technology, also in projects without CLs directly assigned, and by having information necessary to successfully do basic community outreach all Product and Technology teams will more easily be able to update communities directly on lightweight communications that do not require CL intervention.
  • Outcome 3: TCG is adopted by Foundation teams, communities, affiliates and third parties' technical contributors;
    • Projects can run their basic community engagement activities with TCG and related docs

Objectives

  • Objective 1: Support P&T teams in their path of adoption of TCG best practices (based on needs, via advice, or coaching, or a more stable embedding) and with current, ongoing projects;
    • Start applying current TCG draft systematically to new projects.
  • Objective 2: Develop internal processes (for example, a protocol to request CL support) to clarify terms of engagement, roles and responsibilities, and for a smarter triage of incoming requests.
  • Objective 3: Improve and finalize TCG based on P&T and community feedback; compile documentation (or create additional one) as a supplement to TCG, for teams that need or want practical, structured how-tos; compile and share list of adoption use cases, successes and misses.

Milestones/Targets

  • Target 1: CL coverage:
    • At least one resident CL is allocated in every Product audience team, involved in product planning activities.
    • Product and Technology management teams have one CL assigned each, involved in relevant planning activities.
    • 100% of Product and Technology goals involving CL support developed through these co-planning activities are resourced.
    • Beyond team goals, 100% of support requests submitted to CL by Product or Technology receive a response within a week.
    • Beyond team goals, 80% of support requests accepted are resourced within three months.

Zero unanticipated clashes with the communities related to goals or tasks where CL support has been committed, or where TCG best practices have been followed by the Foundation teams. CL will ensure that development teams are aware of potential and emerging points of conflict.

At least three wiki projects requesting beta features and early deployments (where applicable).

Top 25 wiki projects in terms of active contributors have at least one active tech ambassadors and one translator identified (could be the same person).

  • Target 2: Degree of satisfaction of teams receiving CL support or using TCG documentation is recorded via surveys and/or interviews as “Very satisfied”.
  • Target 3: Major community collaborations are rated as "good" by volunteers through surveys, to verify whether TCG expectations on best practices were met.
Back to top

Program 12: Onboarding new developers

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T164084

Team: Technical Collaboration (mainly the Developer Relations subteam) will lead this program.

Strategic Priorities: This program addresses the two top Reach strategic priorities: “Improve our understanding of how and why our users come to and stay on our projects so we can better serve their needs” and “Increase frequency of use and number of users by adapting user experience to their needs”.

Timeframe: 12 months to change the current trend, and 12 more to consolidate the new trend.

Summary

Wikimedia is a top Internet project and also one of the biggest free software projects. However, Wikimedia doesn’t score high as a destination for free software developers. This problem connects with the Wikimedia Foundation strategic priority about understanding how and why our users come to and stay on our projects to better serve their needs, focusing on the developer audience. It also connects with the Technical Collaboration team strategy.

The Technical Collaboration team wants to work with the Wikimedia technical community to bring a new wave of developers to our projects. With the quantity and diversity of technologies and software projects Wikimedia comprises, reaching out to new developers and onboarding them is currently a daunting task. There have been many discussions and small initiatives aiming to improve the developer experience for newcomers, but they have been scattered, lacking support and a strategy. In order to address this problem, a coordinated effort is needed.

Goal

Our goal is to achieve a sustained increase of new developers contributing to Wikimedia projects, clearly departing from the current stagnant trend. For this, we will focus our developer outreach in selected projects ready to receive new contributors, helping them to improve their documentation, support, and activities for newcomers. We will explore new groups, new geographies, and new approaches to increase the diversity of our technical community and respond better to the technical needs of our movement and our users.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: An understanding of how and why new developers start contributing and stay or leave, focusing on selected areas geared toward newcomers. Starting on September 2017, community will have access to a quarterly report of our developer outreach activities including metrics and trends.
  • Outcome 2: A learning environment and growth paths for newcomers willing to complete a first task. There will be regularly updated, clearly identified best entry points for newcomers among all Wikimedia software projects which will be promoted in our developer outreach activities. The MediaWiki.org homepage and other key pages will better serve newcomers, connecting them with the selected projects, as a result of small and continuous iterations.
  • Outcome 3: Increasing onboarding and retention of new developers and those who recently joined through the Wikimedia Hackathon and the hackathon in Wikimania. During FY2017-18, these two events will be geared towards onboarding local developers and supporting existing developers willing to level up their participation in the Wikimedia technical community.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: A quarterly report to understand how and why new developers start contributing and stay or leave, focusing on selected areas geared toward newcomers. Starting in September 2017, we will compile and publish a quarterly report of our developer outreach activities including metrics, trends, lessons learned, and recommendations. This report will inform all our work related to this program.
  • Objective 2: We will create a learning environment for newcomers, including growth paths to gain experience and build their personal network in the Wikimedia free software project and movement. This objective requires updates to the MediaWiki.org homepage and other key pages for newcomers, offering them the information they need (in simple English and translations) to find a suitable project and work on a first task. It also requires support channels where newcomers can get help.. These updates will be organized through small, continuous iterations.
  • Objective 3: We will produce a list of selected projects ready to become best entry points for newcomers. For this, we will set quality criteria for identification of good first tasks, documentation, support, and future plans. This selection is expected to include Wikimedia Foundation technical goals welcoming contributors and suitable Community Wishlist projects.
  • Objective 4: Conduct research into how to increase diversity of volunteer developers. With targeted research, we hope to increase both the number and diversity of our volunteer developer community. Research areas will include evaluating programs, events, activities, groups, and media which we might join or partner with to meet these goals. We will look into how to take advantage of Wikipedia’s popularity and large base of readers and donors.
  • Objective 5: Support developers and organizations willing to reach out to specific groups and geographies. We will invite Wikimedia organizations and Wikipedia Education Program members to partner in developer outreach activities in or around their communities, thinking of their own interests and potential benefits.
  • Objective 6: Organize the Hackathon in Wikimania 2017 and the Wikimedia Hackathon 2018. Each event will reach out to local developer groups and will offer activities for newcomers. We will invite a good representation of the best newcomers to the Wikimedia technical community and the best participants in previous local or regional Wikimedia developer meetups. Community Wishlist and Developer Wishlist projects will be promoted as much as possible.
  • Objective 7: A calendar of developer events where Wikimedia should participate in order to find new developers and improve collaboration with upstream projects we rely or other mission/technology aligned free software projects.

Milestones/Targets

  • Milestone 1:
    • A Developer Outreach report is published quarterly, on time to inform Wikimedia Foundation’s quarterly check-ins.
    • The first report is published in September 2017.
  • Milestone 2:
    • A list of software projects recommended for new developers is updated on a quarterly basis, based on their ability to provide mentors, good entry-level documentation, first tasks, and a roadmap.
    • The list should always include projects related to Wikimedia Foundation goals, the Community Wishlist, and the Developer Wishlist.
    • These projects define the scope of the Developer Outreach report and related metrics.
    • These projects are easy to find by new developers willing to get involved through MediaWiki.org, Wikimedia developer events and our developer outreach programs (Google Summer of Code, Outreachy, Google Code-in…)
  • Milestone 3:
    • Through small and continuous iterations, the MediaWiki.org homepage and the pages under the “New contributors” category are updated in order to become informative and inviting to potential new developers.
    • The core information is available in the main languages spoken in emerging communities.
  • Milestone 4:
    • A report explaining Wikimedia’s developer outreach activities (through programs, events, activities, groups, and media) and including recommendations to increase the number and diversity of new developers contributing to Wikimedia.
    • This report addresses these questions: Can we find untapped or underexploited pools of developers through? Which partnerships should we aim for in the free software and free knowledge movements, and among other groups aligned or compatible with the Wikimedia mission?
    • The report also explores the potential use of Wikimedia brands, projects, and campaigns to better attract new developers among readers.
    • This report should be elaborated with the support of other Community Engagement teams, Communications, New contributorsTechnology, Product and Advancement, who will review it before its final publication.
  • Milestone 5:
    • Wikimedia affiliates and Wikipedia Education Program partners are informed about our developer outreach strategy and activities, and are invited to get involved, with specific information on opportunities and benefits for these organizations.
    • This call should emphasize developer diversity and new geographies, especially in emerging communities.
    • At least three Wikimedia affiliates and one Wikipedia Education Program partner will commit to organize developer outreach activities as a result of this call before June 2018.
  • Milestone 6: These targets are common for the hackathon in Wikimania and the Wikimedia Hackathon:
    • Logistics in place for a hackathon of 2-3 days for ~200 people.
    • New and junior developers are offered a variety of activities to meet new people, work on a task, and get involved in a project.
    • Hackathon web page includes main themes, community wishlist and developer wishlist recommended projects, and activities for newcomers.
    • Outcomes and actions are showcased at the end of the event and are compiled in a systematic way for better evaluation and followup.
    • Six months after the event, at least 10% of the newcomers have been retained as contributors in the Wikimedia technical community.
  • Milestone 7:
    • Before the end of 2017, a public calendar reflects the developer events where Wikimedia should participate in order to find new developers and to improve collaboration with upstream projects we rely or other mission/technology aligned free software projects.
    • Participation in these events is discussed within the Wikimedia technical community with the goal of identifying speakers and topics, and to coordinate activities in case that several people plans to attend.
    • These discussions inform travel budget decisions at the Wikimedia Foundation and Travel And Participation Support funding requests.
Back to top

Department-wide program: Community Committee and Functionary Support

Strategic priorities: Communities

Team: Learning & Evaluation; Support and Safety; Community Resources

Timeframe: 12 months

Summary

In many critical areas of broad, specialized movement support, the Wikimedia movement relies on formally or informally constituted bodies to achieve many well-established tasks. These groups have been entrusted with critical functions, generally with a high commitment of activity, a high level of organization, and invested with a great degree of trust. They provide critical infrastructure for the governance of Wikimedia (the Affiliations Committee; the Election Committee). They represent community in the distribution of funds (the grants committees, including the Funds Dissemination Committee). They organize large numbers of international volunteers in critical, complex workflows (the OTRS administrators). They protect the integrity of our projects and the safety of our users with powerful access tools (Functionaries, including Checkusers, Oversighters and Stewards). Although their functions are disparate, they are a key component of our Wikimedia projects and a very visible model of the crowd-sourcing approach that is so fundamental to our movement’s governance. To assist them in their success, Community Engagement has regular ongoing commitments to offer them varying types and degrees of staff support.

Each year, we also have special projects related to one or more of these teams. This year, we will be collaborating closely with several of these groups with targeted activities and interventions to help them better perform their disparate roles. With several others, we will be refining our own service commitments. The work we will do with the groups in question (details below) will be different, appropriate to their individual and current needs, but will focus around the same broad themes: better practices to contribute to healthy, diverse communities.

Goal

To support community health and diversity by working with several key committee and functionary groups (as set out below) to (a) evolve their own practices, directly and indirectly improving diverse representation of communities within the movement, (b) clarify and improve their access to Wikimedia Foundation support, ensuring more even distribution of staff resources, and/or (c) raise awareness of their fields of work to encourage more international participation.

Outcomes

  • Outcome 1: AffCom & Affiliate Partnerships: Learning & Evaluation will energize and enable the AffCom to support affiliate development through facilitation support and administrative support for affiliate recognitions and renewals, proactive compliance monitoring, and supporting the derecognition process when necessary. We will help AffCom further develop in leadership capacity, working, with some added administrative support, to properly monitor affiliate development through their reports and to support the committee to design and advance cohort strategies to help support the onboarding and healthy development of new user groups. Specifically, we will work to design some social infrastructures for connecting leaders across new user groups to provide AffCom guidance and collegial support one another as they develop as new organized groups. In addition, in 2017/18 the staff liaisons will support the committee to review affiliates strategy and models in line with the movement strategy process and to develop clear expectations, protocols, and responsibilities for effective AffCom internal leadership for movement partnering, reporting, and storytelling about our affiliates network.
  • Outcome 2: Arbitration Committees, Checkusers, OTRS administrators, Oversighters and Stewards: These international groups have assigned staff liaisons within the Wikimedia Foundation’s Support and Safety team to offer them ad hoc support for emerging issues when major programs are not being conducted. However, access to Wikimedia Foundation support is not even across all groups, particularly where language barriers and cultural distance have prevented the organic development of working relationships. By the end of this fiscal year, each group will have clarity on its assigned liaison and an effective method for reaching out. Non-English Arbitration Committees will be aware of avenues of staff support, including the opportunity for regular consultation.
  • Outcome 3: Election Committee: The standing Election Committee has a self-stated goal of improving elections processes in this elections off-year so that the next election cycle will function more smoothly and with greater diversity. They will achieve this, with Support and Safety team assistance.
  • Outcome 4: Grants Committees: Participatory grant committees ensure a diverse group of movement stakeholders are represented in funding decisions. As a result there will be shared responsibility, increased community engagement throughout the grants process, and trust built. For more info on this program’s goals and outcomes, see Resourcing Communities.
  • Outcome 5: Ombudsman Commission: Increased visibility into the work of the Ombudsman Commission amongst our international communities will result in a more broadly diverse pool of candidates from which the group may be constituted, thus increasing opportunities for representation across the movement and improving awareness of the OC as an avenue of support for volunteers.

Objectives

  • Objective 1: AffCom & Affiliate Partnerships: Staff support to the AffCom workflows and developing improved connections and support for Affiliate Partnerships. Provide staff support to the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) and affiliate partners. Learning & Evaluation will work with Wikimedia Foundation affiliates, giving them guidance on applications, learning, and reporting. In FY17-18, we will continue to improve support to the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) for proactive compliance monitoring while continuing consultative support to WMF annual plan grantees and affiliates for evaluation, design, and community listening strategies.
  • Objective 2: Arbitration Committees, Checkusers, OTRS administrators, Oversighters and Stewards: Support & Safety will provide efficient and effective response support to outreach from these groups of functionaries to deal with emerging project and global issues or to assist in locating necessary and available resources from staff. In addition, monthly meetings will be held with Wikimedia Stewards and, if requested, quarterly meetings with Arbitration Committees. International Arbitration Committees will be advised of the availability of this service, and there will be outreach to ensure that groups are aware of their liaison support. Impromptu meetings may be assembled depending on need and staffing availability.
  • Objective 3: Election Committee: Support & Safety will support the new Standing Election Committee in their first “off year” without an election in their planned pursuit of internal and external consultation on election process and procedures. The committee itself will drive this development, but Support & Safety will initiate conversations early in the calendar year and coordinate attention to the issue to ensure timely development of next steps.
  • Objective 4: Grants Committees: The Community Resources team recruits for, appoints, supports elections for, trains, facilitates, and oversees five participatory grant committees. These grant committees (Simple Annual Plan Grants, FDC Annual Plan Grants, Project Grants, Conference & Event Grants, and Wikimania Scholarship Committee) contain 60+ community members who make or inform recommendations or decisions, or perform specific community functions. The Community Resources team designs and stewards process and timelines to ensure effective action from volunteer groups, creates and coordinates inputs to committee decision-making, facilitate discussions to make recommendations, and regularly share knowledge and good practice to inform decisions.
  • Objective 5: Ombudsman Commission: Trust & Safety will begin early outreach to communities beginning in Q1 to familiarize communities with the committee and its functions and to encourage potential candidates to consider applying during the annual selection process, in an attempt to inspire more diverse candidates from across the movement to ensure the broadest representation possible.

Milestones/Targets

  • AffCom:
    • Maintain quick response time: Throughout FY17-18, maintain initial staff review and response time of five business days or less for new affiliate applications to AffCom.
    • Maintain mentoring and consultation support: Throughout FY17-18, maintain mentoring and consultation support for learning and evaluation for annual plan grants including, grantee SMART target consultation, survey and learning supports, proposal review, and technical consultation, review, and development support to program evaluation systems
    • Increase AffCom engagement and support to affiliate partnerships: In FY17-18, work to leverage AffCom as community leaders and mentors along with our existing service to bolster support for Affiliate Partnerships.
  • Arbitration Committees, Checkusers, Election Committee, OTRS administrators, Oversighters and Stewards: In FY17-18, SuSa will ensure that each served group is aware of staffing availability and our service level commitment. Outreach to international Arbitration Committees to survey their needs and build connections will begin in quarter 2.
  • Grants Committees: Recruit for and orient new community committee members, collect and analyze data for, and facilitate decision-making sessions for five committees several times a year, depending on needs of each committee.
  • Ombudsman Commission: In Q1, the Trust & Safety task force of SuSa will begin outreach to functionary and user groups to increase awareness of the Ombudsman Commission and to begin encouraging diverse applicants for the November election process at events and through outreach to diverse mailing lists. In November 2017, SuSa will launch the search for the 2018 commission and hopes to see a 30% increase in non-European and gender diverse applicants.
  1. ↑ The 2010 UNU-MERIT survey was opt-in and found that less than 13% of Wikipedia contributors were female. The 2013 Benjamin Mako Hill survey, “The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimate”, estimated the proportion of female U.S. adult editors was 22.7%, and the total proportion of female editors around the world to be 16.1%.
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Programs/Community_Engagement/da&oldid=27858822"