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Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan 2023-2024

Feedback Appendix

From April 18-May 19, 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation shared and discussed its draft annual plan with Wikimedians around the world and across the wikis. Summaries of the annual plan draft were posted in over 30+ community channels, both on and off wiki, in a number of languages. The Foundation also joined four community discussions (three global calls and an in-person session at WikiConference India) to share in two-way dialog with volunteers and affiliates about our joint priorities for the next fiscal year.

Finally, the Foundation hosted five topical discussions: one on external trends and artificial intelligence and four on focus areas of our Product & Technology work. Over 690 people (up ~38%[1] from last year) joined live conversations in 13 (up roughly 217% from 6 languages last year) languages about the plan and over 60 people discussed the plan on-wiki, primarily on the talk page for our Product & Technology work and the talk page for the full annual plan draft. Pageviews on-wiki were up 203% - 34,604 this year vs 17,000 last year. The summary of the plan was translated into 30+ languages (up more than 200% from last year).

Overall Feedback

  1. The focus on Product & Technology, and specifically, workshopping objectives and key results, created valuable opportunities for feedback and clarification between staff and volunteers.
    This year, the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual plan placed heavy focus on our work in product and technology, drawing attention to both the scale of our efforts in these areas as a share of our overall work as well as a specific focus for this upcoming year on the needs of established editors. To this end, we published early-stage draft "buckets" of work areas ahead of the annual plan, followed by draft Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for community input and feedback. This was followed by on-wiki discussions between staff and editors about the language, focus, metrics, and overall approach of our OKRs, as well as targeted focus groups for users most involved in different areas of our planned work. 120 people participated in these deliberations.
    Across Product & Technology discussions (Goal 1: Advance Knowledge as a Service), conversation themes focused largely on clarifying the purpose of individual key results (KRs), as well as identifying possible unintended consequences of the target metrics as they were originally written. General themes and feedback the Foundation received included:
    • Support for the focus on the needs of experienced editors, especially to engage with new editors in a positive way that also decreases overall workload
    • Support for work to increase unreverted edits, especially from editors in the Global South and editors working on gender and LGBTQ+ topics
    • Terminology around describing “editors with extended rights”/who have access to non-public information is complex. We lack language that has shared meaning and usage across wikis for this broad group of contributors
    • Value of building more common tools across Wikimedia projects
    • Continued importance of prioritising Toolforge
    • Need for increased clarity of metrics and analytics
    • Optimism and caution around the role of artificial intelligence
    • Some people felt the work on images and audio should not be deprioritized
    These broad themes, as well as the more targeted recommendations will be incorporated into the approach of the Product and Technology departments over the coming fiscal year.
  2. The Foundation’s outlined priorities are aligned with priorities across the Wikimedia movement.
    These areas include:
    • Growing overall grant funding, even while other budget categories are reduced or maintained
    • Continued investment in regional and thematic hub development and experimentation
    • Continued investment in regional, community-facing staff roles and investing staff time in building long term community relationships
    • Making Wikimedia projects more accessible, including for the visually impaired
    • Focusing on both social and technical challenges related to editor retention
    • Addressing challenges around IP blocks and challenges with mis/disinformation which are especially challenging for Wikimedians in the Global South
    For next year, it was recommended that the Foundation more explicitly seeks out directed feedback on areas of the annual plan that are relevant to the work or expertise of different movement groups, as well as make specific mention of overlaps with other Wikimedia plans and opportunities for collaboration throughout the movement. (More on this in the fifth point.)
  3. The specificity and transparency of this year’s draft annual plan was widely appreciated as an example of the "new" Foundation.
    Broadly speaking, the length, focus sections, and format of this year’s draft annual plan were well received. In particular, volunteers expressed appreciation for the detail of the annual plan, both in terms of the Foundation’s intended activities for the upcoming year as well as publishing detailed information about the Foundation’s operations, compensation practices, budget expectations, and executive salaries. Communities also appreciated the plan’s explicit alignment to the movement strategy process and recommendations.
    Another important practice in this year’s annual plan was its approach to multilingual engagement. The draft plan summary was translated into 34 languages, and the Foundation joined 6 live discussions that featured live interpretation, covering a total of 10 languages. These calls were widely attended, with roughly 510 people who joined to share in the language of their choice.
    Finally, the Foundation heard from volunteers who were glad to see a dedicated, month-long period dedicated to community feedback.
  4. There was discussion about many of the details within the plan ranging from external trends and Foundation details to the four goals.
    Wikimedians took interest in a wide range of topics in the Foundation’s annual plan, and shared both questions and fresh thinking on new topics that they felt were important considerations in our plans for next year. These topics included China, the Foundation’s fundraising model, our carbon footprint, video conferencing tools, the importance of copyright protection, batch upload tools for Commons, machine learning, attracting new users, knowledge equity, technical collaboration, and our regional approach.
    Most of the changes in the annual plan were to fix typography and spelling. These copyedits include changes to the Summary (diff), History (diff), External Trends (diff), Goals (diff), Safety & Inclusion (diff), Effectiveness (diff), and Foundation Details (diff). The Infrastructure page was simplified a little (diff) and the section about regional and thematic programs was clarified on the Equity page (diff). Last, some text was reorganized on the Finances page, and new content was added about grant programs (diff).
  5. Annual planning is an opportunity to engage in collaborative planning with the movement, and learn about priorities from different regions and communities.
    • Wikimedistas Wayuu group shared the work that they are doing in the community and shared the news that on the February 27th 2023, Wikipeetia süka wayuunaiki news was finally born!
    • The Community Wikimedia User Group Haïti shared their contribution workshops on Wikimedia projects, participation in international campaigns and Wikimedia events, and a call for contributions in Haitian Creole.
    • Projeto Mais Teoria da História na Wiki shared part of the 2022 projects and the thematic approach: Gender, Sexuality, Race and Epistemologies of the Global South.
    • Wikimedians in Africa intend to work on issues around misinformation & disinformation, and in particular, to partner with the Foundation in partnering with relevant stakeholders and raise awareness among regional volunteers. They also expressed interest in advancing conversations on hub structures and movement governance.
    • The East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ESEAP) community is looking forward to hosting Wikimania 2023 as a way to build the regional community.
    • ESEAP is also working toward creating a regional hub, starting with forming a committee to launch this work at Wikimania, organising a 2024 ESEAP conference, and strengthening regional contests like Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments.
    • Wikimedia Australia is wrapping up the first year of a three year strategic plan focusing on equity and inclusion, engagement, and capacity building (establishing an office, evaluation, governance practices). They will also be deepening work with partnerships to increase diverse content on the wikis.
    • Wikimedia Indonesia will soon be releasing a five year plan, and this upcoming year will focus on engagement, partnerships, research, and capacity building.
    • Wikimedia Taiwan will focus on GLAM partnerships, legal advocacy, and work with small, native languages to support them in launching their own Wikimedias. They are also implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system with their partners.
    • The WikiSource community is interested in increased support, particularly for implementing Wiki Loves Manuscripts campaigns.

Communities and individual volunteers also made several suggestions about how the Foundation could strengthen engagement and support this year:

  • The Latin America and Caribbean communities asked for clarity and reassurance around the respective roles and ways of working together for affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation in fundraising
  • Using more videos, infographics, and other visuals in addition to short, summary text to make communication in the Wikimedian movement more accessible
  • Importance of the Foundation coordinating with local affiliates before signing on to any open letters
  • Need for greater on the ground support for Wikimedians being persecuted by authorities because of their work on the projects

Statistics

On-Wiki Material

Page Pageviews
Main annual plan draft pages (total) 30,935
Main annual plan draft talk page 1,652
Maryana's Annual plan update & Selena's listening tour letter 480 + 490
Other on-wiki pages 1,047
TOTAL 34,604 (up 203% from 17,000 last year)

Live Discussions

Date Discussion Participants (estimate) Interpretation
February Community Affairs Committee, "Conversation with the Trustees" 60 ES
March 23 Artificial Intelligence in Wikimedia 100 ES
April 26 Global annual planning 88 FR, PT, ES
April 27 Global annual planning 111 AR, FR, PL, RU, SW
April 27 Workflow improvements for “moderators” focus group (stewards and committees) 16 none
April 28 Wikiconference India 180 HI, UR, PA
April 30 Global annual planning 70 ZH, JA, ID
May 3 Workflow improvements for “moderators” focus group (Commons users) 12 none
May 4 Workflow improvements for “moderators” focus group (open) 17 none
May 5 Future audiences 16 none
May 18 Community Affairs Committee meeting, "Conversation with the Trustees" 30 None requested

Translation & Interpretation

Language counts include those still in progress.

  1. ↑ Some data incomplete

Engagement

Wikimedians have the opportunity to collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation on-wiki until 19 May and in various live discussions. This collaboration will inform the final content of the Wikimedia Foundation annual plan for the financial year that runs from 01 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.

Annual Plan summary slides. Other languages: (ar, zh, fr, hi, pt, uk, id, es, ru, sw, ja)

Live Conversations

These conversations offer an opportunity for members of the Wikimedia Movement to share their plans and intentions for the coming year with the Foundation and one another, as well as to learn more and offer suggestions about the Foundation’s annual plan.

Community members are welcome to attend any of the live calls that are convenient for them. If you would like to attend a call and interpretation is not available in your preferred language, please email movementcomms(_AT_)wikimedia.org and we will arrange it for you.

  1. March 23 at 18:00 UTC open call on Artificial Intelligence in Wikimedia. (completed)
  2. April 26 from : Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation. Interpretation will be available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.Meeting link Add to Calendar (completed, recording)
  3. April 27 from : Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation. Interpretation will be available in Arabic, French, Polish, Russian and Swahili. Meeting link (completed, recording)
  4. April 28: In person Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with WikiConference India. A video recording of this event and notes will be shared here when available. (completed)
  5. April 30 from : Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation. Interpretation will be available in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. Meeting Link Add to Calendar. (completed, recording)

Focus group conversations

As well as the above general conversations, the WMF Product & Technology department is hosting some small focus group conversations. These are each focused on discussing a specific part of draft "objectives and key results" document with a group of people who would likely be affected by that OKR. These include:

Note, these conversations are not intended to be comprehensive in their coverage. If participants approve, notes and/or recording of the meetings will be made available. Feedback from anyone on any of the OKRs is still welcome on the relevant section of the draft's talkpage.

On-Wiki

A summary version of the annual plan will be posted locally in multiple languages on various Wikipedias. The full version with accompanying translations will live on this Meta-Wiki portal. You can collaborate with us on both local talk pages and here on the Meta-Wiki talk page until May 19. We will add links here to where the content has been posted as they become available.

The Product & Technology department has also published its draft "objectives and key results" document, and is seeking feedback on that talkpage throughout April and May.


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