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Wikimedia LGBT/2024-07-07

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This online video conference is open to all participants of the LGBT+ User Group, and is intended as an opportunity to discuss shared interests, opportunities, and challenges. The meeting will include User Group administrative and governance updates, community discussion, and open presentations.

  • Date: Sunday 7 July, 2024
    • Meeting time: Sunday July 7 at 17:00–18:00 GMT/UTC+0 (10:00–11:00am PT; 1:00–2:00pm ET). Find your local time here
    • Chai time: 30 minutes following main meeting devoted to informal socializing and impromptu breakout discussions
  • Location: Zoom meeting

The meeting will have an entry lobby, please reach out on the Telegram group if you are left waiting. The Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct will be followed for this meeting.

The meeting will have simultaneous interpretation between English and Spanish. Please let us know (on Telegram or when you register your name below) if you need interpretation into another language and we will try to accommodate this.

Expected attendees

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RSVP here!

Agenda

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  • notes
  • Events and announcements
    • Wiki Loves Pride: results of the activities in English and Spanish community
      • Metrics, media coverage, human impact, prizes
    • Wikimania 2024 in Poland:
      • LGBT+ user group activities during first week of August (gatherings, talks during the event, communications plan)
    • Anyone have other events to promote/announce?
  • Governance updates
  • Community discussion
    • What have you been editing on Wikimedia platforms?
    • What recent challenges have you faced to participating in Wikimedia projects that you'd like to discuss?
    • How can the User Group help you achieve your goals?

Share + Discuss Ideas and Proposals

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(Please add any specific Wikimedia projects/events/activities topics you'd like to share with the group as a lightning talk or open for discussion)

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Chai Time! (After-meeting informal chats)

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Tea, Turkish style
A tea cabin in Sreemangal, Bangladesh

Getting to know each other and having fun is an important part of why we exist! Following the meeting, there will be a half hour of unstructured time, where the meeting room will stay open for people to chat and form any proposed breakout rooms.

Notes

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  1. Events and announcements
  2. Wiki Loves Pride: results of the activities in English and Spanish community
      1. Metrics, media coverage, human impact, prizes
      2. Spanish contest: Mes del Orgullo en Wikipedia.
      3. 250 $ in prizes: 1st place 100, 2nd 50 and 3rd 30. 4 prizez of 20 $ cortesy from Wikiacción Perú, Wikimedia España, Wikimedia VEnezuela and Wikimedia Argentina. A pack of merchandising courtesy from Wikimedia Mexico.
      4. 225 paticipants https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mes_del_Orgullo/2024/Participa
      5. More than 260 articles published https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:LoQueEnlazaAqu%C3%AD/Plantilla:Art%C3%ADculo_orgullo_2024&limit=500
      6. ~50 participants published articles and annex
      7. more than 700 photos in the Subitón Orgullo 2024 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaign:Subit%C3%B3n_Orgullo_2024
      8. The final results wil be publish last week of July
      9. 5 parallel activities
      10. 1 YouTube sesion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iV0iy4M-MU
      11. Coverage: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_discusi%C3%B3n:Mes_del_Orgullo/2024#Aparici%C3%B3n%20en%20medios
    1. Wikimania 2024 in Poland:
    2. LGBT+ user group activities during first week of August (gatherings, talks during the event, communications plan)
    3. Anyone have other events to promote/announce?
  3. Governance updates
    1. Funding approval: Wikimedia Community Fund: Sustaining Wikimedia LGBT+
    2. Implications, internal organizational structure of the LGBT+ user group, projects
    3. please start sharing the news that Wikimedia LGBT+ will have an open call to hire an executive director
    4. the group does not have anyone in particular in mine for this position
    5. there is not yet a job specification text; some things have changed since applying for this grant about a year ago and now receiving it, and we have to revise the needs
  4. changes with hiring staff
    1. Wikimedia LGBT+ has a long history of stability and being able to oversee high profile events around the world
    2. having staff is a big change and will require the organization developing in many ways
    3. staff will give consistency to reporting and basic organizational administration
    4. one goal of staff is to increase the availability of non-English language support services, which have been impossible to reliably offer through long-term all-volunteer organizing
    5. wish for programming
    6. collaboration with experts on anti-LGBT+ discrimination
    7. consider the example of the high-profile Polish holocaust Wikipedia articles which got scrutiny from media and researchers
    8. we could review LGBT+ content in this way as well as there is no one else able to do this
    9. consider the French Wikipedia anti-LGBT+ challenges which Wikimedia LGBT+ addressed recently
    10. this included Wikimedia LGBT+ writing an open letter
    11. this included multiple Wikimedia chapters with French speakers having conversations among themselves
    12. Wikimedia Foundation Trust & Safety declined to offer support to Wikimedia community
    13. that staff team speaks for itself, but Wikimedia LGBT+ was disappointed in their lack of action
    14. perhaps community issues like this are out of scope for WMF T&S; in any case, their support is insufficient to establish basic protection for LGBT+ people
  5. Wikimania 2025 Core Organizing Team (COT)
    1. Discussion about LGBT+ community participation during Wikimania 2025, which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya.
    2. Winnie Kabintie in the Nairobi Wikimedia chapter presents with Sandra Aceng and Michael Maua
    3. the team promised an inclusive Wikimania
    4. Greg Varnum from Foundation Movement Communications team also here to help field questions and relay notes to others organizing Wikimania 2025.
    5. Q: Can we have a written statement of what protection the WMF is promising to LGBT+ people attending Wikimania 2025?
      1. Greg acknowledged request
      2. Greg: We can look into that. What would you imagine a “promise” would mean and what would be included?
      3. Some suggestions that came up in earlier conversations with the UG were around how to ensure people who are visibly queer can travel safely to the venue(s) without using public transport and transiting passport control, for example
      4. Funded protections. Like additional secure provision on transport and accommodation type. Funding is an easy metric.
      5. Greg: I think we can outline our commitment and what we are working on and trying to set up. It is hard to “promise” how people attending the event or from the area will behave. So I would not want to give people false hope that we somehow have more ability to control others than we do. But we could outline what we as an org can do and what our expectations are of our attendees.
      6. Wikimedia LGBT+: Yes do that and send us a document please
      7. Greg: I can talk with the internal team about that. Cannot promise exact timeline yet as some folks are out on personal leaves and do not want to exclude their input or rush them to return. But we will look into that. Yes.
      8. Owen: I think it is also useful and important for the Foundation and the COT to be clear about things that y’all cannot promise. It is useful to know, for example, that some people perhaps should not attend. That is still useful information 🙂
    6. Winnie: we will organize safe transportation among the airport, hotel, and conference venue. The conference venue is in a neighborhood which is safe and easy to access
    7. Freddy: We will have LGBT+ attendees who are visibly queer and who stand out as targets for attack in places which are unsafe. Many of the proposed safety measures are caging queer people by putting them in private buses, keeping them in hotels, and secluding them from the full Wikimania experience. Many of us feel that the Wikimania organizers are not taking into consideration how the organizers are expecting queer people to change themselves to attend this conference.
    8. Michael: Nairobi is an international city and has a queer culture. One difference that we expect is that in this city, public display of affection of any kind whether gay or straight is frowned upon. It is not in the sense that it is dangerous, just that the culture expects to not see such things publicly.
    9. Winnie: We do not have all of the answers. We are trying to make the event as safe as possible.
    10. comment: white men from wealthy countries are safer to travel than other demographics. There is no public offer of protection to people who experience harms. The WMF and conference organizing team right how is making plans to promote prevention, but we do not currently have information about what the response will be to anyone who experiences harm.
    11. Greg: And we will have robust virtual participation for people who for whatever reason are not able to attend in person.
    12. Lane: Have participation options in previous years been robust? Will there be the same options, or significantly better options? LGBT+ gets asked for online participation options a lot
  6. Update on French Wikipedia situation
    1. Comments on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee
    2. there was an election to seat some coordinators
    3. the election did not identify enough people to have quorum
  7. Wikimedia LGBT+ and the LGBT+ community do not have comments on the Movement Charter
  8. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist presents WP:NOQUEERPHOBIA
    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_queerphobia
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Your_Friendly_Neighborhood_Sociologist
    3. There are already civility rules on Wikipedia
    4. This essay applies those civility rules to the common types of harassment which queer people experience
    5. This could be localized and translated
    6. Other news: English Wikipedia consensus ruled that the Telegraph newspaper is unreliable for its coverage of trans topics
    7. this was desired by many LGBT+ Wikipedians
    8. Other news: English Wikipedia's coverage of trans topics have been influenced by a researcher named James Cantor
    9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Drafts/Disinformation_report
    10. the LGBT+ community agrees that this person is anti-LGBT+
    11. he had a transphobic theory explaining transgender identity which was influential in anti-LGBT+ political movements
    12. this person was also an English Wikipedia editor who engaged in misconduct for years
    13. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist asks
      1. Was the usergroup aware of Cantor's editing during his tenure?
      2. If so, did the usergroup attempt to intervene? (And if aware but you didn't intervene, what was the motivation?)
      3. How does this situation reflect broader issues with Wikipedia's handling of queer issues
    14. This entire situation is remarkable because a very famous person in anti-LGBT+ activism was actually editing Wikipedia in ways that other Wikimedia reviewers deemed to be misconduct
    15. Owen: can you please email these questions to the board? I was unaware that this person edited Wikipedia, and although I recognize the name, I was not aware of the extent of this person's influence in society and Wikipedia
    16. Owen: In general, I think Wikimedia editorial processes fail queer people and minorities. If there were a failure here, then I think that is more of a systemic problem that affects all people who experience such problems, and not that our system is exceptionally biased against LGBT+ people.
    17. Rima H: I was not aware. If we know his username, we can track his contributions using various wiki tools. We'll be able to see what he has edited and whether it is generally reverted or not. Edit: Reading the draft article now.
    18. comment: Queer editors tactically avoid challenging lobbyists on wiki. I would recommend they never do, due to the likelihood of being banned or topic banned yourself. Policy doesn't support you.
    19. Freddy: Not aware either
  9. Freddy: we got some great pride pics uploaded this year, I particularly like this one from the pride parade in Ecuador taken by a drone: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orgullo_Guayaquil_2024_-_Orgullo_LGBT%2B_Ecuador_(20)_(cropped).jpg