Three things about Wikimedia that even experienced Wikimedians might not know

Anton Protsiuk,

Wikimedia Ukraine/Ukrainian Wikipedia

Intro

About me

• Main job: head of programs at Wikimedia Ukraine — leading a team of ~7 staff members and contractors (since 2021)
• As volunteer, I’ve been an editor and administrator of Ukrainian Wikipedia since 2012-2013
• Internationally — CEE Hub (member of the inaugural Steering Committee; now an advisor); Wikimania; ED group member

About this session

• The idea is to help people understand the WM movement 1% better
• You might be in a wrong place if you’re completely new to the movement OR if you are a grizzled 15-year veteran. If you’re somewhere in between, this will hopefully be interesting.
• I’ll be as informal and direct as possible; not formally representing any organization or entity :)

Plan

• Three parts — how not to reinvent the wheel; making sense of who’s who in the Wikimedia movement and who makes decisions; how to follow what’s happening.
• For each of the segments, I’ll:
• ask a few questions to the audience;

online participants are welcome to respond in the chat

• do a mini-presentation;
• suggest a small exercise.

How not to reinvent

the wheel

“Since the wheel works as expected and it needs no further improvement, to reinvent it would likely be a waste of time and effort”

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• [[en:Reinventing the wheel]]
• Pearson Scott Foresman, public domain

How do you keep up to date with what’s happening in other communities?

The movement has been around for 25 years, and a lot of stuff has already been done by someone. Before creating a new process, it's useful to spend 10 minutes looking for previous examples.

But, for a movement built on collaboration, we’re not great at collaborating across internal knowledge

If we’ve lived up to some 2030 strategy recommendations, it’s not this one :)

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• [[meta:Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Manage Internal Knowledge]]
• Riesenspatz, CC BY-SA 4.0

For the reason you can see on this slide, I won’t recommend this or that knowledge sharing database – only a few general life hacks

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• xkcd, CC BY-NC 2.5

Life hacks (1/3)

For Meta (or, for that matter, almost any other website, Google search works better than “native” search

Life hacks (2/3)

Generative AI (with access to web search, preferably an advanced model) works even better

Life hacks (3/3)

• The first two pieces of advice will get you so far — use them first, but then remember that the ultimate best search engine is a human
• Ask in a Telegram chat or in a mailing list; reach out to someone who’s done this before — most people love when they are asked for advice :)

Any other life hacks you can add?

Exercise: find a random fact about the Wikimedia movement that took place in 2009

Everyone is invited to do the exercise, and a few people are welcome to tell everyone what they’ve found. If you’re online, please write in the chat.

Who makes decisions

in the Wikimedia movement

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Raise your hand (or send “+” to the chat) if you are…

• Part of an affiliate
• An employee/contractor of the WMF
• A user with extended rights onwiki

To simplify, the movement includes three major groups — communities, the Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates

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There are also hubs and other topics we could talk about but won’t for the sake of time

Communities

• Volunteers who build and maintain Wikimedia projects — e.g. English Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons,
• Everyone* can join with no formal barriers or application process
• Communities create and moderate content, adopt their own policies (within the general frameworks); have their own governance

Wikimedia Foundation (1/2)

a.k.a. the Foundation / WMF

• A non-commercial organization incorporated in the US with global staff and board
• Its functions (roughly):
• technical — servers, cybersecurity, product development;
• legal protection of Wikimedia projects (+trust&safety; +advocacy);
• supporting and developing communities, including through recognizing and funding/helping fund affiliates;

Wikimedia Foundation (2/2)

• Its functions (continued):
• communications — to communicate the movement’s vision in this increasingly hostile world;
• fundraising — to fund everything mentioned above;
• operations to support everything mentioned above (finance, HR etc.)

Affiliates (1/2)

• Organizations that help advance the movement, often within a specific country / geographical region
• Independent organizations, not part of the WMF (but rely on it for recognition, funding, and other support)
• Some are large incorporated organizations with professional staff, some are smaller groups of volunteers

There are ~185 affiliates — 40 chapters, 2 thematic groups, 143 user groups

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• meta:Wikimedia movement affiliates
• Effeietsanders, public domain

Affiliates (2/2)

• Functions:
• Primary — supporting local communities (e.g. with networking events); outreach and recruiting new volunteers (trainings, educational programs etc.); helping with content enrichment (contests/campaigns); communications & partnerships
• Sometimes — international activity (international campaigns/conferences); advocacy; their own fundraising

Quirks of power (1/2)

The movement doesn’t have a strict power hierarchy typical to governments or commercial companies. Some examples:

• Within communities — functionaries don’t have a lot of formal authority but still wield informal power (administrators: “janitors” or powerful community leaders?)
• The WMF holds enormous power in the movement but it’s checked by communities, especially English Wikipedia

Quirks of power (2/2)

• Affiliates don’t formally govern their respective communities but still have a lot of impact shaping them up
• From experience, affiliates have more power when the community is smaller (i.e. Wikimedia Norway’s influence over Norwegian Wikipedia(s) is much bigger than that of Wikimedia UK on English Wikipedia)

We don’t have enough time to untangle all of this, so my goal has been to just offer an initial framework and get you thinking about this.

Exercise: write down three decision makers that hold direct power over your community

Everyone is invited to do the exercise, and a few people are welcome to tell everyone what they’ve found. If you’re online, please write in the chat.

How to follow

conversations

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Raise your hand (or send “+” to the chat) if you regularly follow…

• VIllage pumps
• Telegram chats
• Discord servers
• Mailing lists

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For conversations, there’s a formal layer (RFCs / discussions onwiki) & informal conversations that help shape up the former (offline events like this one; mailing lists/Discord/Telegram)

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Some basics to keep up

• Watchlist your local village pumps
• Globally — sign up for Wikimedia-l & new Diff posts
• But beware lots of emails — I categorize them as “updates” so the main inbox isn’t cluttered
• If you have more time, check Discord and Telegram. These specific spaces aren’t always advertised widely – it’s fine to ask your peers.

A few thoughts

• Each venue has distinct norms and stakes. On-wiki comments are permanent, searchable, and quotable years later; chat messages are ephemeral. Match your message to the medium.
• Take some time to read archives (especially since onwiki & on mailing lists they are permanent) — you don’t have to start posting actively from the very beginning
• It’s also fine not to spend a lot of time on this and just focus on making your contributions :)

Anything you can add?

Exercise: write down three channels you already follow & one you’d like to start following

Everyone is invited to do the exercise, and a few people are welcome to tell everyone what they’ve found. If you’re online, please write in the chat.

Thank you!

My contacts to stay in touch:

• anton.protsiuk@wikimedia.org.ua
• @protanton on Telegram
• “Anton Protsiuk” on LinkedIn & Facebook

Q&A