Wikimedia Northern Europe/Workspace/Wikimania 2019 meetup minutes

A meetup of Wikimedians from the Northern European community held a lunch meetup on friday the 16th at Wikimania to discuss the coming Northern Europe Meeting in Estonia. Matthias took minutes and any errors are entirely his fault . Feel free to correct any mistakes. InsaneHacker (talk) 14:54, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Persons present

The list of participants is based on the names I managed to jot down in my notepad after the meeting and does not currently show everyone in attendance. Feel free to add yourself if you were in attendance or adjust the way your name is presented.

Ivo Kruusamägi, Eva Lepik, Märt Põder, Heikki Kastemaa, Stryn, Edgars, Finn Årup Nielsen, Steen Thomassen, Matthias S.L., Sparrow (麻雀), Jaakko, Axel Pettersson, Taaki, Teemu Leinonen.

Minutes

Introduction

Ivo welcomed everyone to the meetup and announced that the next Northern Europe Meeting in Estonia will be held from October 4–6.

Summary of last Northern Europe Meeting

Axel gave a brief summary of the last Northern Europe Meeting in Stockholm.
The last meeting was fairly loosely organized. It utilized an Open Space structure and invited a maximum of 5 members from the local affiliates or communities. There seemed to be a good mix of volunteers/community members and staff from the participating groups. The feedback regarding the amount of participants was positive.
Some of the planned projects worked, others are in progress, and some dropped or failed. The Open Space-format seems to work pretty well, but will perhaps work better when guided from what was discussed at the last meeting.
It can be difficult to have larger meetups because on the current grant structure.

Planned setup for next meeting

Ivo explained the planned setup for the next meeting in Estonia.
The next meeting will aim for the same amount of participants as last time (up to 5 people).
The plan is to split the participants into two groups.

One group, which will be building on the last meeting, will consist of experienced volunteers/organization staff. The focus of this group will be asset mapping and figuring out communication between the various regional groups.
The other group will be for newcomers. Splitting them into their own separate group will allow them to be introduced to the movement and come up with new ideas in a space separate from the established volunteers.

Ideas for topics etc.

Märt asked for input on topics that the attendees would like to discuss at the meeting. As mentioned previously, one of the topics will be asset mapping.
Taaki suggested collaboration on the copyright directive and copyright in general. Märt noted that copyright is already in consideration as a topic along with asset mapping and communication.
Teemu suggested a focus on recruiting the "next generation", eg. volunteer recruitment and retention. Märt and Ivo noted that this is the focus of the newbie group, and that participating groups should make an effort to reach out to newcomers in their community to come.
Ivo noted that regional groups will have to cover getting to Estonia, which should also allow for the regional groups to plan in a way that is practical to them, while costs in Estonia will be covered by them.

Misc.

The method of reaching out to the various communities was discussed. Taaki mentioned that last time, the Lithuanian community did not participate despite an invitation on their village pump. Axel raised the question of whether the best way to find participants was via chapters/affiliates or through fora like the village pumps. Matthias argued that it was most practical through affiliates, but that affiliates should make an effort to reach out to people who might not otherwise know about the event and get them to come.
Ivo raised the question of whether the current group of countries/geographic areas should be expanded. Matthias did not think it would be a problem if other areas wished to join, so long as it wasn't completely geographically nonsensical for the "Northern Europe label". Märts clarified that the question was about actively reaching out to other communities, for example some of the Russian ones. There did not seem to be any objection to this.
Märts noted that pan-region projects can be a good way to maintain communication between regional groups. Ivo noted that the overarching goal of the next meeting is establishing cooperation and communication between regional groups, this can be achieved in multiple different ways. Finn raised the possibility of a monthly video chat between key persons as a way to keep communication and cooperation going. Matthias noted that there is an assymetry between the affiliates and communities in how many resources they can devote to things.
Ivo encouraged everyone to propose projects for the meeting. Even if they are not picked up, they establish which people are interested in which areas.
Märts raised the issue of what the "result" of the meeting should be. Should we just document minutes, make action plans like last time or something else entirely?
Teemu asked whether the Saami community is represented in the Northern Europe community. It was noted that Kimberli Mäkäräinen from Wikimedia Suomi, who is involved with the Saami languages and communities, was present at the last Northern Europe Meeting, but other than that, they haven't been represented. Axel asked whether a Saami user group exists. Matthias noted that, according to Kimberli, the Northern Saami Wikipedia is mostly dormant, so the existence of a user group would be unlikely, but that another minority language group, the Faroese, have a decently active Wikipedia.
With regards to recruiting new participants etc., Sparrow highlighted the German community's program for young editors.
(Name missing) noted that outreach to the Albanian community would probably have to be broader than just the Wikipedia community there.

The meeting concluded toward the end of the lunch break.