Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

Hey Gregory,

Are you planing to include Portuguese in the list of target languages?

Best,
Paulo

Gregory Varnum  escreveu no dia segunda,
23/09/2019 à(s) 18:32:

> I am not entirely sure how this connects to the topic of the thread.
>
> However, I feel I should note that we are indeed interested in translating
> into other languages, and have been seeking people to help with translation
> of the website and other organization materials:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Organization_communications_translators_group
>
> I do not want to derail this conversation, so will leave it at that and
> encourage you to utilize that page or the website's Meta-Wiki page to
> discuss this further, as this thread seems to be about other topics.
>
> -greg
>
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 9:28 AM Ferdinando Traversa <
> ferdi.trave...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Please note that Foundation website is translated in French, but not in
> > many other languages (including Italian, mine)...
> > I don’t know why they don’t give the chance to translate.
> >
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors

[Gregory Varnum]

I am not entirely sure how this connects to the topic of the thread.

However, I feel I should note that we are indeed interested in translating
into other languages, and have been seeking people to help with translation
of the website and other organization materials:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Organization_communications_translators_group

I do not want to derail this conversation, so will leave it at that and
encourage you to utilize that page or the website's Meta-Wiki page to
discuss this further, as this thread seems to be about other topics.

-greg

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 9:28 AM Ferdinando Traversa <
ferdi.trave...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please note that Foundation website is translated in French, but not in
> many other languages (including Italian, mine)...
> I don’t know why they don’t give the chance to translate.
>
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors

[Ferdinando Traversa]

Please note that Foundation website is translated in French, but not in many 
other languages (including Italian, mine)...
I don’t know why they don’t give the chance to translate.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

I think Florence resumed quite well what I was trying to express. 
It’s not a criticism - its a fact : I would have been happy to chat with her to 
understand the ligic behind the recent rapid grant changes. 
Kind regards,
Nattes à chat

> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 13:14, Florence Devouard  a écrit :
> 
> Sorry to say Jane, but your answer strikes me as being completely beside the 
> point :(
> 
> The issue Natachat was raising is related to funding our local activities, a 
> situation currently made difficult by the new rapid grant system (*) She gave 
> the example of the Art and Feminism, but this is a single example and other 
> projects are also impacted by those changes.
> I do not see how a problem with WMF funding scheme could be solved by talking 
> to other volunteers. I very much doubt Natachat would need Valerie to explain 
> her how to set up and run a local project on gender-gap issues. We are 
> slightly beyond this...
> 
> The bottom line is that the community engagement department changed a LOT in 
> the past few months, with arrivals and departures. And this department is 
> essential for the smoothness of volunteer-run initiatives.
> 
> So yes, it was to be expected that the project leads would have been happy to 
> meet WMF staff to have the opportunity to better understand the changes and 
> the new directions the WMF is heading to.
> 
> Florence
> 
> 
> * in the new system, grant requests for some targetted drive (such as art and 
> feminism or wiki loves) must be made during specific time frame. The idea in 
> itself is not a bad one and could help the grant team to be more efficient. 
> The problem is that the agenda is too tight, which means volunteers have to 
> start activities before they get the financial support and to a certain 
> extent even start the activities before they get the approval of support.
> 
>> Le 16/09/2019 à 08:45, Jane Darnell a écrit :
>> As far as Art+Feminism goes, this project concentrates on biographies of
>> female artists. The English Wikipedia project "Women in Red" is open 24x7
>> all year round and concentrates on biographies of women on English
>> Wikipedia, period. So you can take all of your local Wikipedia questions
>> about A+F to your local WiR women for each non-English Wikipedia, and if
>> there is no overlap yet, I suggest starting your own local A+F/WiR in your
>> local Wikipedia. We should probably start a multi-lingual one for Commons,
>> since it has proven so difficult to get pictures of female artists to
>> illustrate articles about them.
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 8:27 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>> Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for
>>> Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had
>>> questions for her about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems
>>> totally inadapted to volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to
>>> wait a soecific month for Art+feminism and very often the timing has not
>>> been adapted to when the events are actually taking place. For a volunteer
>>> this is way too procedural. We need more flexibility.
>>> We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which
>>> were very important for the gender gap.
>>> So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed.
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Natacha
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a écrit :
 
 Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Henry Wood]

Joseph

I saw no criticism of  a named individual, but of the Foundation.  With
nearly three hundred employees and a budget of a hundred million dollars,
when the Foundation commits to sending a representative to a meeting, it
may reasonably be expected to have the resources to deliver on that
commitment.  Not to do so -- with an airy "Sometimes things don't work out"
-- suggests either a very poor state of internal organisation or, as has
been suggested here, a lack of commitment to the function that it was
supposed to have been represented at.

Henry

On Sun, 15 Sep 2019 at 22:07, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> Before we call out individuals for lack of attendance publicly, I think we
> should remember that both volunteers and staff have lives outside of
> Wikimedia that include children, families and other commitments in life.
> They all come with complications. Sometimes things don't work out. There
> are tens of conferences every year at various scales all over the world.
> Many staff and volunteer board members will have recently just travelled to
> Wikimania and a strategy summit in Tunis. Attendance at these events is
> often to the detriment to people's personal lives to some degree.
>
> So please lets just be careful about how we talk about this and keep the
> above in mind.
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:02 PM Thierry Coudray 
> wrote:
>
> > "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> > contributors*".
> > This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
> just
> > said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> > last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> > Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> > communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But
> it
> > reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> > facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> > Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> > level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> > again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> > reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> > would said it was widely shared.
> >
> > In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> > quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in
> 2019
> > ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> > up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> > year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> > Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> > Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> > conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by
> employees
> > but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> > Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> > French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to
> grow.
> > FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> > languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> > language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's
> population
> > in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
> > attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
> > important languages Wikiconvention.
> >
> > So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
> > Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this
> mailing
> > list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
> > Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
> > meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
> > have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom
> English
> > is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken
> only
> > by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
> > human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other
> english-speaking
> > conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global
> Wikimedia
> > conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
> > Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
> > come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
> > the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal
> of
> > spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to
> overcome
> > differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
> > are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
> > exclusive use of English excludes a 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Florence Devouard]

Sorry to say Jane, but your answer strikes me as being completely beside 
the point :(


The issue Natachat was raising is related to funding our local 
activities, a situation currently made difficult by the new rapid grant 
system (*) She gave the example of the Art and Feminism, but this is a 
single example and other projects are also impacted by those changes.
I do not see how a problem with WMF funding scheme could be solved by 
talking to other volunteers. I very much doubt Natachat would need 
Valerie to explain her how to set up and run a local project on 
gender-gap issues. We are slightly beyond this...


The bottom line is that the community engagement department changed a 
LOT in the past few months, with arrivals and departures. And this 
department is essential for the smoothness of volunteer-run initiatives.


So yes, it was to be expected that the project leads would have been 
happy to meet WMF staff to have the opportunity to better understand the 
changes and the new directions the WMF is heading to.


Florence


* in the new system, grant requests for some targetted drive (such as 
art and feminism or wiki loves) must be made during specific time frame. 
The idea in itself is not a bad one and could help the grant team to be 
more efficient. The problem is that the agenda is too tight, which means 
volunteers have to start activities before they get the financial 
support and to a certain extent even start the activities before they 
get the approval of support.


Le 16/09/2019 à 08:45, Jane Darnell a écrit :

As far as Art+Feminism goes, this project concentrates on biographies of
female artists. The English Wikipedia project "Women in Red" is open 24x7
all year round and concentrates on biographies of women on English
Wikipedia, period. So you can take all of your local Wikipedia questions
about A+F to your local WiR women for each non-English Wikipedia, and if
there is no overlap yet, I suggest starting your own local A+F/WiR in your
local Wikipedia. We should probably start a multi-lingual one for Commons,
since it has proven so difficult to get pictures of female artists to
illustrate articles about them.

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 8:27 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:


Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for
Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had
questions for her about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems
totally inadapted to volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to
wait a soecific month for Art+feminism and very often the timing has not
been adapted to when the events are actually taking place. For a volunteer
this is way too procedural. We need more flexibility.
We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which
were very important for the gender gap.
So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed.
Kind regards,
Natacha




Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a écrit :

Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

Merci Delphine! Et moi je travaillais donc je n’ai pas pu faire les 
pre-learning days.
Est-ce que ta présentation est en ligne? 
Bien à toi, 
Natacha 

> Le 17 sept. 2019 à 15:14, Delphine Ménard  a écrit :
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I participated in the pre-conference in Brussels this year, to which I was
> invited to give a workshop about grants. I decided not to stay the whole 4
> days because of personal commitments too.
> 
> Mais si tu as des questions sur les grants, je suis là :)
> 
> Best,
> 
> Delphine
> 
> On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 7:04 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 
>> Thank you Katherine,
>> We will be happy to see you in Tunis!
>> Along with other reps of the WMF I hope, with the possibility of booking
>> appointments with :
>> - T
>> - outreach
>> - grant rep
>> - tech rep
>> Kind regards,
>> 
>> Nattes à chat
>> 
>>> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 23:54, Katherine Maher  a
>> écrit :
>>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> Just a quick note that I was invited to Wikiconvention on Friday 9 August
>>> by Wikimedia France. On Monday 12 August (delayed by travel to
>> Wikimania!)
>>> I sent a note expressing my regrets, as I had a family wedding to attend
>>> during that same weekend as the Convention. I also asked at the same time
>>> to be notified as soon as the 2020 Tunis dates were confirmed, so that I
>> or
>>> other members of the Foundation's leadership team are able to plan to
>>> attend (and I have already put those dates in my calendar).
>>> 
>>> Unfortunately, as all volunteers know, sometimes personal/family
>>> commitments do preclude travel. I similarly cannot attend the CEE
>>> Conference due to a personal commitment this year. Sometimes there are
>> also
>>> scheduling conflicts: This year the German-speaking WikiCon gathering is
>>> the same weekend as WikiArabia, and WikiCon North America is the same
>>> weekend as WikiIndaba. This means there's always going to be a sense of
>>> missing something important!
>>> 
>>> I would also agree with what Leila shared. I was very appreciative to be
>>> invited to Wikiconvention, WikiArabia, and WikiIndaba this year. But I
>> want
>>> to respect that not every community feels that it is the place of the
>>> Foundation's ED to participate or speak at their events, and that's
>> totally
>>> fine. I don't think people always need to hear from me, but I am always
>>> very happy to support any event in which I am invited!
>>> 
>>> Katherine
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 2:25 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
>>> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>> 
 Thanks for sharing this Leila! This is of course a useful angle.
 Nattes
 
> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 21:51, Leila Zia  a écrit :
> 
> Hi,
> 
> A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
> community events which may help this conversation:
> 
> As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
> ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
> exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
> local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
> one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
> I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
> fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
> may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
> conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
> I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.
> 
> I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
> local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
> (which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
> staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
> recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
> the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
> in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
> you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
> higher chance to decide to attend.
> 
> To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
> would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
> explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
> suggestion to address this specific reason.
> 
> Best,
> Leila
> --
> Leila Zia
> Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
>  wrote:
>> 
>> Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance
>> of
 WMF
>> staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time
 ago
>> :-)
>> 
>>> On Mon, 16 Sep 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Delphine Ménard]

Hello,

I participated in the pre-conference in Brussels this year, to which I was
invited to give a workshop about grants. I decided not to stay the whole 4
days because of personal commitments too.

Mais si tu as des questions sur les grants, je suis là :)

Best,

Delphine

On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 7:04 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thank you Katherine,
> We will be happy to see you in Tunis!
> Along with other reps of the WMF I hope, with the possibility of booking
> appointments with :
> - T
> - outreach
> - grant rep
> - tech rep
> Kind regards,
>
> Nattes à chat
>
> > Le 16 sept. 2019 à 23:54, Katherine Maher  a
> écrit :
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Just a quick note that I was invited to Wikiconvention on Friday 9 August
> > by Wikimedia France. On Monday 12 August (delayed by travel to
> Wikimania!)
> > I sent a note expressing my regrets, as I had a family wedding to attend
> > during that same weekend as the Convention. I also asked at the same time
> > to be notified as soon as the 2020 Tunis dates were confirmed, so that I
> or
> > other members of the Foundation's leadership team are able to plan to
> > attend (and I have already put those dates in my calendar).
> >
> > Unfortunately, as all volunteers know, sometimes personal/family
> > commitments do preclude travel. I similarly cannot attend the CEE
> > Conference due to a personal commitment this year. Sometimes there are
> also
> > scheduling conflicts: This year the German-speaking WikiCon gathering is
> > the same weekend as WikiArabia, and WikiCon North America is the same
> > weekend as WikiIndaba. This means there's always going to be a sense of
> > missing something important!
> >
> > I would also agree with what Leila shared. I was very appreciative to be
> > invited to Wikiconvention, WikiArabia, and WikiIndaba this year. But I
> want
> > to respect that not every community feels that it is the place of the
> > Foundation's ED to participate or speak at their events, and that's
> totally
> > fine. I don't think people always need to hear from me, but I am always
> > very happy to support any event in which I am invited!
> >
> > Katherine
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 2:25 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> > wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks for sharing this Leila! This is of course a useful angle.
> >> Nattes
> >>
> >>> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 21:51, Leila Zia  a écrit :
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
> >>> community events which may help this conversation:
> >>>
> >>> As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
> >>> ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
> >>> exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
> >>> local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
> >>> one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
> >>> I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
> >>> fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
> >>> may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
> >>> conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
> >>> I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.
> >>>
> >>> I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
> >>> local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
> >>> (which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
> >>> staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
> >>> recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
> >>> the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
> >>> in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
> >>> you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
> >>> higher chance to decide to attend.
> >>>
> >>> To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
> >>> would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
> >>> explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
> >>> suggestion to address this specific reason.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> Leila
> >>> --
> >>> Leila Zia
> >>> Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
> >>> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
> >>>  wrote:
> 
>  Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance
> of
> >> WMF
>  staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time
> >> ago
>  :-)
> 
> > On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl 
> >> wrote:
> >
> > Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities
> with
> > more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent
> anyone
> > to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

I love the idea of “This
Month in Diversity” although I dont like the word “diversity” 
Nattez 
> Le 17 sept. 2019 à 10:29, Jane Darnell  a écrit :
> 
> This
> Month in Diversity


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Jane Darnell]

Thanks for your clarification! Yes of course it is difficult to keep up
with changing WMF rules regarding funding (or reporting). I know in the
past we have run into problems trying to stay aware of all the ins-and-outs
of these things in the Netherlands chapter and for chapters with
sub-sections distributed far apart it must be very hard to do. Your
question seems to be why these WMF funding/reporting changes are made, and
though I don't know the details I assume from past experience that this is
all done to simplify the work done by the WMF in such a way that they can
better support the chapter work by simplifying and streamlining their
workflow. It's nice to read that the most common grant requests are still
flexible and can be requested each month: editathons, photo walks, etc.

It's a good idea to have an Outreach person appointed at the WMF for
diversity and I think we have all been happy with the work done by Alex
Stinson for GLAM. I don't think we have ever had a person for the
Gendergap, but there is a diversity project out on Meta now with a very
long title for this (sorry, can't remember it and I am not a Meta person)
and this is probably where a WMF appointment should be. I am not up to date
with the whole Meta-Outreach discussion and as far as I can tell Outreach
is nowadays mostly just for "This Month in GLAM". Maybe we need a "This
Month in Diversity" or something like that, with input from all workgroups!

On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 7:02 AM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi Jane,
> Thank you for your answer, but I think I did not make my point clear
> enough given the answer you made.
> On the francophone wiki there is not “local WIR”. There are a few sister
> projects like les sans pages of which I am the founder (so people might
> turn to me  for questions) or ateliers femmes et féminismes, Wikimatrimoine
> ect. I think we view WIR as a sister project, not as an umbrella. We would
> like equal access to ressources, finance and management, which is why it is
> important for us to have WMF reps at our regional events. Local chapters
> are great, but it’s not the same. I have tried to go to as many
> international events as possible, because this is where you learn about the
> politics and new tools and financing possibilities. I could not go most of
> the time because our project was very successful. and nearly every two week
> two there are events and because I have a family too, and limited finances.
> So yes, having a person representing outreach would have been great. I
> think we need T and Outreach to be there, with the possibility of booking
> appointments.
>
> I was writing about rapid grants not questions about wikipedia, saying
> that local reps are worried about the way rapid grants have been designed
> with timing to apply according to themes.
> See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn
> What was great about rapid grants was:
> -flexibility : you could ask for funding anytime and receive it within 3
> weeks (now you have to apply between the 1rst and 15th of each month and
> decision is made one month after)
> - for certain themes you can only apply at certain time in the year making
> it very rigid. No doubt volunteers will miss lots of opportunities because
> of this.
> IMO the major asset of the rapid grants, flexibiiity and speed to adapt to
> volunteers fluctuating engagement is now gone. Why?
>
> I copy and paste below the new rules. I was wondering why this new ruling
> is in place as it seems to some volunteers very complicated and rigid as
> opposed to the last system.
> I was wondering if the advice of volunteers was taken into account.
>
> You must submit your application between the 1st and 15th of each month.
> Please plan to make your applications accordingly, so you will have a
> decision about your grant within the timeframe you need to plan your event.
> Decisions will be made by the 15th of the following month.
> In the months specified below, we will prioritize support to contests and
> campaigns. These months will be solely dedicated to different contests
> throughout the year:
> August: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Monuments
> September: only receiving proposals for Awareness Grants(campaign)
> December: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Africa
> January: only receiving proposals for Art + Feminism (campaign)
> March: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Earth
> Outside the months specified above, proposals are welcomed in all other
> categories: edit-a-thons, contests, photowalks, general promotion
> campaigns, and video campaigns. We will also consider proposals outside of
> these categories, such as software development.
> I hope I have clarified a little what I meant, which is basically that WMF
> is so useful that until regional hubs are set up if they are, we need them
> more present at our events.
>
> Kind regards,
> Natacha
>
> > Le 16 sept. 2019 à 08:45, Jane Darnell 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

Thank you Katherine,
We will be happy to see you in Tunis!
Along with other reps of the WMF I hope, with the possibility of booking 
appointments with :
- T
- outreach
- grant rep
- tech rep
Kind regards, 

Nattes à chat 

> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 23:54, Katherine Maher  a écrit :
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Just a quick note that I was invited to Wikiconvention on Friday 9 August
> by Wikimedia France. On Monday 12 August (delayed by travel to Wikimania!)
> I sent a note expressing my regrets, as I had a family wedding to attend
> during that same weekend as the Convention. I also asked at the same time
> to be notified as soon as the 2020 Tunis dates were confirmed, so that I or
> other members of the Foundation's leadership team are able to plan to
> attend (and I have already put those dates in my calendar).
> 
> Unfortunately, as all volunteers know, sometimes personal/family
> commitments do preclude travel. I similarly cannot attend the CEE
> Conference due to a personal commitment this year. Sometimes there are also
> scheduling conflicts: This year the German-speaking WikiCon gathering is
> the same weekend as WikiArabia, and WikiCon North America is the same
> weekend as WikiIndaba. This means there's always going to be a sense of
> missing something important!
> 
> I would also agree with what Leila shared. I was very appreciative to be
> invited to Wikiconvention, WikiArabia, and WikiIndaba this year. But I want
> to respect that not every community feels that it is the place of the
> Foundation's ED to participate or speak at their events, and that's totally
> fine. I don't think people always need to hear from me, but I am always
> very happy to support any event in which I am invited!
> 
> Katherine
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 2:25 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks for sharing this Leila! This is of course a useful angle.
>> Nattes
>> 
>>> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 21:51, Leila Zia  a écrit :
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
>>> community events which may help this conversation:
>>> 
>>> As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
>>> ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
>>> exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
>>> local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
>>> one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
>>> I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
>>> fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
>>> may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
>>> conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
>>> I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.
>>> 
>>> I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
>>> local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
>>> (which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
>>> staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
>>> recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
>>> the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
>>> in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
>>> you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
>>> higher chance to decide to attend.
>>> 
>>> To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
>>> would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
>>> explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
>>> suggestion to address this specific reason.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Leila
>>> --
>>> Leila Zia
>>> Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
>>>  wrote:
 
 Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance of
>> WMF
 staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time
>> ago
 :-)
 
> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl 
>> wrote:
> 
> Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with
> more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone
> to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the
> communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the
>> same
> applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging
> communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering
> knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't
> think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense
> that when sending employes across half the planet they check before,
> what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what
> benefits their attendance bring to the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

Hi Jane,
Thank you for your answer, but I think I did not make my point clear enough 
given the answer you made. 
On the francophone wiki there is not “local WIR”. There are a few sister 
projects like les sans pages of which I am the founder (so people might turn to 
me  for questions) or ateliers femmes et féminismes, Wikimatrimoine ect. I 
think we view WIR as a sister project, not as an umbrella. We would like equal 
access to ressources, finance and management, which is why it is important for 
us to have WMF reps at our regional events. Local chapters are great, but it’s 
not the same. I have tried to go to as many international events as possible, 
because this is where you learn about the politics and new tools and financing 
possibilities. I could not go most of the time because our project was very 
successful. and nearly every two week two there are events and because I have a 
family too, and limited finances. So yes, having a person representing outreach 
would have been great. I think we need T and Outreach to be there, with the 
possibility of booking appointments. 

I was writing about rapid grants not questions about wikipedia, saying  that 
local reps are worried about the way rapid grants have been designed with 
timing to apply according to themes.
See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn
What was great about rapid grants was:
-flexibility : you could ask for funding anytime and receive it within 3 weeks 
(now you have to apply between the 1rst and 15th of each month and decision is 
made one month after)
- for certain themes you can only apply at certain time in the year making it 
very rigid. No doubt volunteers will miss lots of opportunities because of 
this. 
IMO the major asset of the rapid grants, flexibiiity and speed to adapt to 
volunteers fluctuating engagement is now gone. Why? 

I copy and paste below the new rules. I was wondering why this new ruling is in 
place as it seems to some volunteers very complicated and rigid as opposed to 
the last system.
I was wondering if the advice of volunteers was taken into account. 

You must submit your application between the 1st and 15th of each month. Please 
plan to make your applications accordingly, so you will have a decision about 
your grant within the timeframe you need to plan your event. Decisions will be 
made by the 15th of the following month.
In the months specified below, we will prioritize support to contests and 
campaigns. These months will be solely dedicated to different contests 
throughout the year:
August: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Monuments
September: only receiving proposals for Awareness Grants(campaign)
December: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Africa
January: only receiving proposals for Art + Feminism (campaign)
March: only receiving proposals for Wiki Loves Earth
Outside the months specified above, proposals are welcomed in all other 
categories: edit-a-thons, contests, photowalks, general promotion campaigns, 
and video campaigns. We will also consider proposals outside of these 
categories, such as software development.
I hope I have clarified a little what I meant, which is basically that WMF is 
so useful that until regional hubs are set up if they are, we need them more 
present at our events. 

Kind regards,
Natacha 

> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 08:45, Jane Darnell  a écrit :
> 
> As far as Art+Feminism goes, this project concentrates on biographies of
> female artists. The English Wikipedia project "Women in Red" is open 24x7
> all year round and concentrates on biographies of women on English
> Wikipedia, period. So you can take all of your local Wikipedia questions
> about A+F to your local WiR women for each non-English Wikipedia, and if
> there is no overlap yet, I suggest starting your own local A+F/WiR in your
> local Wikipedia. We should probably start a multi-lingual one for Commons,
> since it has proven so difficult to get pictures of female artists to
> illustrate articles about them.
> 
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 8:27 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 
>> Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for
>> Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had
>> questions for her about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems
>> totally inadapted to volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to
>> wait a soecific month for Art+feminism and very often the timing has not
>> been adapted to when the events are actually taking place. For a volunteer
>> this is way too procedural. We need more flexibility.
>> We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which
>> were very important for the gender gap.
>> So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed.
>> Kind regards,
>> Natacha
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a écrit :
>>> 
>>> Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
>> 
>> 
>> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Katherine Maher]

Hi all,

Just a quick note that I was invited to Wikiconvention on Friday 9 August
by Wikimedia France. On Monday 12 August (delayed by travel to Wikimania!)
I sent a note expressing my regrets, as I had a family wedding to attend
during that same weekend as the Convention. I also asked at the same time
to be notified as soon as the 2020 Tunis dates were confirmed, so that I or
other members of the Foundation's leadership team are able to plan to
attend (and I have already put those dates in my calendar).

Unfortunately, as all volunteers know, sometimes personal/family
commitments do preclude travel. I similarly cannot attend the CEE
Conference due to a personal commitment this year. Sometimes there are also
scheduling conflicts: This year the German-speaking WikiCon gathering is
the same weekend as WikiArabia, and WikiCon North America is the same
weekend as WikiIndaba. This means there's always going to be a sense of
missing something important!

I would also agree with what Leila shared. I was very appreciative to be
invited to Wikiconvention, WikiArabia, and WikiIndaba this year. But I want
to respect that not every community feels that it is the place of the
Foundation's ED to participate or speak at their events, and that's totally
fine. I don't think people always need to hear from me, but I am always
very happy to support any event in which I am invited!

Katherine



On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 2:25 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thanks for sharing this Leila! This is of course a useful angle.
> Nattes
>
> > Le 16 sept. 2019 à 21:51, Leila Zia  a écrit :
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
> > community events which may help this conversation:
> >
> > As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
> > ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
> > exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
> > local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
> > one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
> > I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
> > fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
> > may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
> > conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
> > I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.
> >
> > I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
> > local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
> > (which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
> > staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
> > recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
> > the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
> > in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
> > you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
> > higher chance to decide to attend.
> >
> > To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
> > would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
> > explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
> > suggestion to address this specific reason.
> >
> > Best,
> > Leila
> > --
> > Leila Zia
> > Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
> >  wrote:
> >>
> >> Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance of
> WMF
> >> staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time
> ago
> >> :-)
> >>
> >>> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl 
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with
> >>> more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone
> >>> to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the
> >>> communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the
> same
> >>> applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging
> >>> communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering
> >>> knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't
> >>> think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense
> >>> that when sending employes across half the planet they check before,
> >>> what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what
> >>> benefits their attendance bring to the particpants of the conference.
> >>> Cheers, Gereon
> >>>
>  Am 15.09.2019 um 20:02 schrieb Thierry Coudray:
>  "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> >>> contributors*".
>  This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
> >>> just
>  said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

Thanks for sharing this Leila! This is of course a useful angle. 
Nattes

> Le 16 sept. 2019 à 21:51, Leila Zia  a écrit :
> 
> Hi,
> 
> A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
> community events which may help this conversation:
> 
> As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
> ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
> exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
> local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
> one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
> I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
> fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
> may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
> conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
> I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.
> 
> I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
> local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
> (which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
> staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
> recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
> the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
> in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
> you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
> higher chance to decide to attend.
> 
> To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
> would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
> explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
> suggestion to address this specific reason.
> 
> Best,
> Leila
> --
> Leila Zia
> Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
>  wrote:
>> 
>> Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance of WMF
>> staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time ago
>> :-)
>> 
>>> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with
>>> more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone
>>> to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the
>>> communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the same
>>> applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging
>>> communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering
>>> knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't
>>> think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense
>>> that when sending employes across half the planet they check before,
>>> what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what
>>> benefits their attendance bring to the particpants of the conference.
>>> Cheers, Gereon
>>> 
 Am 15.09.2019 um 20:02 schrieb Thierry Coudray:
 "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
>>> contributors*".
 This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
>>> just
 said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
 last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
 Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
 communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But
>>> it
 reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
 facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
 Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
 level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
 again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
 reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
 would said it was widely shared.
 
 In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
 quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in
>>> 2019
 ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
 up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
 year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
 Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
 Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
 conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by
>>> employees
 but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
 Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
 French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to
>>> grow.
 FYI, French is 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Leila Zia]

Hi,

A different angle for looking at the question of WMF staff attending
community events which may help this conversation:

As a staff member (and acknowledging that my position is none of the
ones Thierry called out in their first email on this thread), with the
exception of a few community events, I very much hesitate to attend a
local community-run event unless the specific community, or at least
one person from that community, has specifically invited me or told me
I should consider attending. There is definitely some feeling of
fear/self-consciousness on my end about entering in a place where I
may not be welcome, where I impose my presence to others, or entering
conversations where my expertise may not be valued/considered because
I'm carrying a history which may or may not even be really mine.

I'm sharing my feelings and the way I think about whether to attend a
local event or not here not to ask for empathy in my specific case
(which is btw, always welcomed:) but to say that there may be other
staff members like me, especially those who have joined WMF more
recently, who may be in the same boat. My recommendation would be for
the local communities to signal to the specific people which they want
in their meetings that they're welcome to attend. At least this way
you will know the person has felt invited/welcomed and will have a
higher chance to decide to attend.

To be clear: I'm not saying WMF not attending this specific event
would have been addressed by the above. I don't know. I'm just
explaining one of the reasons this may have happened, and providing a
suggestion to address this specific reason.

Best,
Leila
--
Leila Zia
Principal Research Scientist, Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:20 AM Philip Kopetzky
 wrote:
>
> Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance of WMF
> staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time ago
> :-)
>
> On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl  wrote:
>
> > Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with
> > more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone
> > to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the
> > communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the same
> > applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging
> > communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering
> > knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't
> > think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense
> > that when sending employes across half the planet they check before,
> > what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what
> > benefits their attendance bring to the particpants of the conference.
> > Cheers, Gereon
> >
> > Am 15.09.2019 um 20:02 schrieb Thierry Coudray:
> > > "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> > contributors*".
> > > This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
> > just
> > > said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> > > last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> > > Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> > > communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But
> > it
> > > reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> > > facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> > > Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> > > level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> > > again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> > > reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> > > would said it was widely shared.
> > >
> > > In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> > > quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in
> > 2019
> > > ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> > > up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> > > year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> > > Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> > > Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> > > conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by
> > employees
> > > but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> > > Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> > > French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to
> > grow.
> > > FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> > > languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> > > language used for communication for more than 8% of the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Philip Kopetzky]

Gereon, you clearly forget the whole Mediaviewer saga and attendance of WMF
staff at the following WikiCon in Cologne ;-) But that was a long time ago
:-)

On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 01:53, Gereon Kalkuhl  wrote:

> Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with
> more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone
> to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the
> communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the same
> applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging
> communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering
> knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't
> think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense
> that when sending employes across half the planet they check before,
> what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what
> benefits their attendance bring to the particpants of the conference.
> Cheers, Gereon
>
> Am 15.09.2019 um 20:02 schrieb Thierry Coudray:
> > "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> contributors*".
> > This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
> just
> > said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> > last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> > Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> > communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But
> it
> > reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> > facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> > Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> > level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> > again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> > reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> > would said it was widely shared.
> >
> > In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> > quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in
> 2019
> > ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> > up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> > year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> > Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> > Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> > conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by
> employees
> > but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> > Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> > French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to
> grow.
> > FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> > languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> > language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's
> population
> > in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
> > attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
> > important languages Wikiconvention.
> >
> > So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
> > Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this
> mailing
> > list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
> > Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
> > meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
> > have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom
> English
> > is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken
> only
> > by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
> > human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other
> english-speaking
> > conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global
> Wikimedia
> > conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
> > Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
> > come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
> > the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal
> of
> > spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to
> overcome
> > differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
> > are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
> > exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.
> >
> > So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
> > I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
> > should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no
> other
> > member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Diane Ranville]

Hi Gereon;

"German communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the
same applies to the French language communites."
=> Well, no. The situation is different because the WikiConvention
Francophone is half African. African french-speaking affiliates are not
strong, they are medium-sized or small User Groups, often struggling. And
French-speaking Africans are left out of events like WikiIndaba because
they don't speak English... so they actually never get to see the WMF.
Also, as far as I know, the German community is way better established, has
a lot of employees and has way stronger ties with WMF on a regular basis.
And German people generally speak better English so they can access more
information, go to Wikimania, etc.

Now I'm not sure about what should be done, but I just wanted to challenge
this comparison because the communities are in fact very different and face
very distinct challenges.

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 8:45 AM Jane Darnell  wrote:

> As far as Art+Feminism goes, this project concentrates on biographies of
> female artists. The English Wikipedia project "Women in Red" is open 24x7
> all year round and concentrates on biographies of women on English
> Wikipedia, period. So you can take all of your local Wikipedia questions
> about A+F to your local WiR women for each non-English Wikipedia, and if
> there is no overlap yet, I suggest starting your own local A+F/WiR in your
> local Wikipedia. We should probably start a multi-lingual one for Commons,
> since it has proven so difficult to get pictures of female artists to
> illustrate articles about them.
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 8:27 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
> wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for
> > Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had
> > questions for her about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems
> > totally inadapted to volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to
> > wait a soecific month for Art+feminism and very often the timing has not
> > been adapted to when the events are actually taking place. For a
> volunteer
> > this is way too procedural. We need more flexibility.
> > We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which
> > were very important for the gender gap.
> > So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed.
> > Kind regards,
> > Natacha
> >
> >
> >
> > > Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a
> écrit :
> > >
> > > Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Jane Darnell]

As far as Art+Feminism goes, this project concentrates on biographies of
female artists. The English Wikipedia project "Women in Red" is open 24x7
all year round and concentrates on biographies of women on English
Wikipedia, period. So you can take all of your local Wikipedia questions
about A+F to your local WiR women for each non-English Wikipedia, and if
there is no overlap yet, I suggest starting your own local A+F/WiR in your
local Wikipedia. We should probably start a multi-lingual one for Commons,
since it has proven so difficult to get pictures of female artists to
illustrate articles about them.

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 8:27 PM Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for
> Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had
> questions for her about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems
> totally inadapted to volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to
> wait a soecific month for Art+feminism and very often the timing has not
> been adapted to when the events are actually taking place. For a volunteer
> this is way too procedural. We need more flexibility.
> We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which
> were very important for the gender gap.
> So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed.
> Kind regards,
> Natacha
>
>
>
> > Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a écrit :
> >
> > Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
>
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Caroline Becker]

All of the people you wished were there
_Who was invited ?
_Was it before or after the days of the conference was choosen ?
_What accomodation was given with the invitation ?

Le dim. 15 sept. 2019 à 23:07, Joseph Seddon  a
écrit :

> Before we call out individuals for lack of attendance publicly, I think we
> should remember that both volunteers and staff have lives outside of
> Wikimedia that include children, families and other commitments in life.
> They all come with complications. Sometimes things don't work out. There
> are tens of conferences every year at various scales all over the world.
> Many staff and volunteer board members will have recently just travelled to
> Wikimania and a strategy summit in Tunis. Attendance at these events is
> often to the detriment to people's personal lives to some degree.
>
> So please lets just be careful about how we talk about this and keep the
> above in mind.
>
> Regards
> Seddon
>
> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:02 PM Thierry Coudray 
> wrote:
>
> > "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> > contributors*".
> > This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've
> just
> > said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> > last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> > Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> > communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But
> it
> > reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> > facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> > Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> > level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> > again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> > reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> > would said it was widely shared.
> >
> > In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> > quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in
> 2019
> > ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> > up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> > year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> > Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> > Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> > conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by
> employees
> > but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> > Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> > French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to
> grow.
> > FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> > languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> > language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's
> population
> > in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
> > attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
> > important languages Wikiconvention.
> >
> > So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
> > Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this
> mailing
> > list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
> > Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
> > meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
> > have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom
> English
> > is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken
> only
> > by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
> > human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other
> english-speaking
> > conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global
> Wikimedia
> > conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
> > Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
> > come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
> > the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal
> of
> > spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to
> overcome
> > differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
> > are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
> > exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.
> >
> > So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
> > I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
> > should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no
> other
> > member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
> > given the part of French language in the WM projects ? Perhaps 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Gereon Kalkuhl]

Since 2010 we have the WikiCon for the German language communities with 
more than 300 attendants. I don't remember that the WMF has sent anyone 
to these conventions. And why should they? It's all in German, the 
communities are established and have strong chapters. I suppose the same 
applies to the French language communites. The WMF visits emerging 
communities, to learn about them and to help them by transfering 
knowlege. They visit the CEE meetings, they visit Wiki Indabas. I don't 
think that the WMF is neglecting big communities, it rather makes sense 
that when sending employes across half the planet they check before, 
what benefits the conferences have from their attendance and what 
benefits their attendance bring to the particpants of the conference.

Cheers, Gereon

Am 15.09.2019 um 20:02 schrieb Thierry Coudray:

"*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors*".
This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've just
said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But it
reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
would said it was widely shared.

In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in 2019
... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by employees
but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to grow.
FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's population
in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
important languages Wikiconvention.

So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this mailing
list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom English
is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken only
by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other english-speaking
conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global Wikimedia
conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal of
spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to overcome
differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.

So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no other
member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
given the part of French language in the WM projects ? Perhaps no Foundation
Board or high level member speaks French or feels she/he speaks good enough.
But with more than 220 attendants at the FWC, it would have been easy to
find volonteers with a good level of English to provide simultaneous
translation in discussions with other non-English speaking participants or to
translate conferences.A higher-level representation would have helped the
Foundation top level to gain 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Joseph Seddon]

Before we call out individuals for lack of attendance publicly, I think we
should remember that both volunteers and staff have lives outside of
Wikimedia that include children, families and other commitments in life.
They all come with complications. Sometimes things don't work out. There
are tens of conferences every year at various scales all over the world.
Many staff and volunteer board members will have recently just travelled to
Wikimania and a strategy summit in Tunis. Attendance at these events is
often to the detriment to people's personal lives to some degree.

So please lets just be careful about how we talk about this and keep the
above in mind.

Regards
Seddon

On Sun, Sep 15, 2019 at 7:02 PM Thierry Coudray  wrote:

> "*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking
> contributors*".
> This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've just
> said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
> last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
> Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
> communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But it
> reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
> facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
> Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
> level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
> again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
> reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
> would said it was widely shared.
>
> In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
> quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in 2019
> ... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
> up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
> year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
> Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
> Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
> conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by employees
> but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
> Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
> French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to grow.
> FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
> languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
> language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's population
> in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
> attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
> important languages Wikiconvention.
>
> So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
> Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this mailing
> list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
> Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
> meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
> have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom English
> is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken only
> by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
> human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other english-speaking
> conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global Wikimedia
> conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
> Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
> come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
> the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal of
> spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to overcome
> differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
> are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
> exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.
>
> So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
> I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
> should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no other
> member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
> given the part of French language in the WM projects ? Perhaps no
> Foundation
> Board or high level member speaks French or feels she/he speaks good
> enough.
> But with more than 220 attendants at the FWC, it would have been easy to
> find volonteers with a good level of English to provide simultaneous
> translation in discussions with other non-English speaking participants or
> to
> translate conferences.A higher-level representation would have helped the
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l]

Thank you Thierry. To be honnest a few of us were really waiting for Valerie 
D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement because we had questions for her 
about the new rapid grant funding agenda which seems totally inadapted to 
volunteer’s need in terms of flexibility. One has to wait a soecific month for 
Art+feminism and very often the timing has not been adapted to when the events 
are actually taking place. For a volunteer this is way too procedural. We need 
more flexibility. 
We had other questions regarding the departure of several people which were 
very important for the gender gap. 
So ... Some of us were disappointed indeed. 
Kind regards,
Natacha 



> Le 15 sept. 2019 à 20:02, Thierry Coudray  a écrit :
> 
> Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,


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[Wikimedia-l] "The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors"

[Thierry Coudray]

"*The Foundation does not care so much of the French-speaking contributors*".
This harsh sentence is the translation of a statement in French, I've just
said in a conversation a week ago at the Francophone Wikiconvention held
last weekend in Brussels. The statement may seem excessive, because the
Foundation does things for the Francophone community as well as for other
communities (and its website is fairly well translated into French). But it
reflected my feeling, shared by my three interlocutors, all non-French,
facing that no Foundation high-level members were present to this
Wikiconvention: no executive director, nor members of the Board, nor any
level-C staff. In an another conversation, where the subject came up over
again, someone said this absence was offensive. I do not know if it
reflects the majority of attendees feelings but with varying degrees, I
would said it was widely shared.

In 2017, for the Francophone Wikiconvention in Strasbourg we had a very
quick visit of Katherine Maher, in 2018, a simple video message and in 2019
... nothing. At the same time, the Francophone Wikiconvention has stepped
up with ever more participants, always more countries represented. This
year, it brought together more than 220 Francophones, Algerian, Belgian,
Beninese, Cameroonian, Canadian, French, Guinean, Ivorian, Swiss and
Tunisian contributors, and I may forget some, with varied and enriching
conferences and meetings. A huge success, very well organized by employees
but also by several volunteers, who dedicated time and energy. This
Wikiconvention and the projects and achievements submitted have shown the
French-speaking Wikimedia community vitality, which will continue to grow.
FYI, French is foreseen, thanks to Africa, to be the most rapidly growing
languages in the next twenty years and will be the mother tongue or the
language used for communication for more than 8% of the world's population
in thirty years' time. But my reaction would have been the same if I had
attended an Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili-speaking or any other
important languages Wikiconvention.

So yes, this Wikiconvention is not in English. Fortunately, not all
Wikimedia meetings are in English. In a previous discussion on this mailing
list about the question of whether or not it is appropriate to continue
Wimania, one of the participants argued that unlike other Wikimedia
meetings, anyone could attend Wikmania. It may be obvious for those who
have English as a mother tongue or for Northern Europeans for whom English
is almost a second mother tongue but this is false: English is spoken only
by a small minority in the world, less than one human in six. So only one
human in six or seven could attend Wikimania or any other english-speaking
conferences or meetings (the case of the vast majority of global Wikimedia
conferences). I do not deny a common working language usefulness but a
Wikiconvention in French, as I hope other languages ones will be more to
come soon, allows all non-English speaking Francophones to participate in
the Wikimedia movement and above all, help them to meet our common goal of
spread freeknowledge.The movement talks a lot about its efforts to overcome
differents gaps (gender, LGBT,...) and it's rightly pointed, these topics
are important. But it simply forget the language gap and the almost
exclusive use of English excludes a very large majority.

So why no high level Foundation members in Brussels ?
I was told that Valerie D'Costa, the new Chief of Community Engagement,
should initially be there but finally told she will not. But then, no other
member could then replace her and why only one Foundation representant
given the part of French language in the WM projects ? Perhaps no Foundation
Board or high level member speaks French or feels she/he speaks good enough.
But with more than 220 attendants at the FWC, it would have been easy to
find volonteers with a good level of English to provide simultaneous
translation in discussions with other non-English speaking participants or to
translate conferences.A higher-level representation would have helped the
Foundation top level to gain more insight into Wikimedian French-speaking
community and enabled this community to have a direct access to the
Foundation, like in Wikimania. That would have helped bridging the gap
between these "two worlds". Because this gap is real. In the 2011 Finance
Meeting in Paris, during workshops where a Board member was in each
group (Jan-Bart
de Vreede for mine), me and another non english-speaking chapter head (she/he
will recognize her/himself) had made the comment that we had the impression
in our relation with the Foundation of "*colliding with an Anglo-Saxon wall*".
I notice that despite more Foundation staff diversity in recent years,
French speaking organizations would probably still have the same feeling
and clearly many French-speaking wikimedians feel that gap.

It is sad that the Foundation, which is very demanding with