Disclaimer. I don't proclaim to be an expert on any of this. It's just my opinion and is a commentary about Australia with which even other Australians may disagree.
- Differences and importance. I'll address these together because I think they are linked. I think within the community there are "shades of grey" when it comes to volunteering. I would say in the Australian community those who engage in "hands on" volunteering in the most demanding roles get the greatest respect. If you fight a bushfire for days on end without sleep or you help wash a drunken homeless man in a shelter, most people think "it's great that they will do that because it needs to be done" but "I couldn't do that" or "I would not want to do it". Whereas being a surf lifesaver (say) isn't seen as quite as deserving of respect, yes, they do save lives from time to time (maximum respect at that point in time), but in between there's also a lot of lounging about the beach chatting up the girls and competing in surf boat races, and whizzing around the beach on a quad bike (lower levels of respect). Whereas if you do fundraising for the same organisations, it's still seen as worthwhile but sorting the second-hand clothes donations isn't quite as demanding as risking your life, and running the charity luncheon fundraiser with the A-listers and celebs is even less undesirable (indeed, actively desirable for the social climber). Yet it's all volunteering for a "worthy cause" but the respect levels are quite different. So where does digital volunteering fit in this scheme of things? Probably pretty low down on the respect-o-meter. Firstly I doubt if most people would even realise digital volunteering existed. But if they were made aware of it, then if you did some kind of digital volunteering such as doing mapping during a disaster (we get lots of cyclones, bushfires and floods here so it is very important to know what road is open, how deep the creek is, where are the power lines down, where are the trapped and the injured), people would think that worthwhile but still not with the same respect as the volunteers who actually go out in the little boats and drag people from rooftops and floating cars or fight the blaze etc, using the maps the digital volunteer provided. Or to put it another way, a digital volunteer generally doesn't risk dying, having to handle a dead body, and nobody vomits/bleeds over them. If we look at digital volunteering in something like Wikipedia or HistoryPin, yes, there is some appreciation but most people probably guess that you do it when it suits you, you do what it suits you to do (i.e. relates to your own hobbies/interests), and can be done in the comfort of your own home. When I do Wikipedia talks and training, people often tell me that they always donate to Wikipedia each year because they appreciate it so much that they want to ensure its continued existence, but rarely do say they appreciate the people who produce the content. In fact, most people seem to completely unaware of where the content comes from. So I don't think there's huge respect for Wikipedians really. Or to put it another way, Australians appreciate someone who would try to save them from the flood more than someone who would argue that their death wasn't a run-of-the-mill drowning at Articles for Deletion. :-) On the Australian respect-o-meter, I think digital volunteering probably sits somewhere between running the charity "op shop" (recycled second hand clothes etc) and the organising of fundraising celebrity luncheons. I don't think any volunteering that involves wearing expensive clothes and carrying a glass of champagne really gets that much respect in Australia. Digital volunteering is probably seen as having similar characteristics to the "op shop" in that there's probably a lot of time commitment, can be tedious and repetitive and doesn't give the volunteer anything much in return beyond a "warm glow" of having done something useful to others. I think most people would think digital volunteering was not a social activity (unlike the "op shop" where there are usually teams rostered on a regular basis and the socialising is often part of the reward for doing the volunteering). I don't think that the non-social nature of it alters its perceived value but I think it might lead to the perception that digital volunteers are geeky loners who don't want/need social relationships. I think I get more respect for my Wikipedia outreach work (Wikipedia edit training etc) than I do for my Wikipedia contributions, perhaps because it is more "helping others" in a face-to-face way, but I actually believe myself that my contributions are more valuable (give once and the whole English-speaking world can benefit). The core characteristic of digital volunteering - using a computer? More seriously, using a computer to create content where the analog equivalent would not be as useful (e.g. hard to copy paper maps and distribute them and keep them updated during an emergency). I don't think being a volunteer who counsels suicidal people in an online chat room would be seen by most people as digital volunteering; the use of the Internet would simply be an alternative to phone or face-to-face. The counselling itself is the core of their volunteering, rather than the means by which they communicate. Similarly I don't think maintaining the spreadsheet for the charity luncheon would be seen as digital volunteering. The core of the volunteering needs to have a "must-be digital" quality for digital volunteering. What should authorities (at various levels) do for digital volunteers? Well, they do very little for volunteers of any kind currently so I am not sure they are likely to do anything different for digital volunteers. In Australia, there is no tax deductibility for expenses incurred in volunteering (a volunteer firefighter generally pays for their own protective outfits and their equipment, large 4WD trucks, is usually funded through fundraising by the volunteer firefighters association). However, many employers will choose to give paid leave (additional to normal leave entitlements) to staff, who are called out to respond to an emergency as volunteers, but not usually for some regular commitment of time at the homeless shelter or for emergency-callout training. Legally most (all?) of our states in Australia have the "Good Samaritan Act" or similar which ensures "that legal protection is extended to ordinary persons who, without the expectation of a fee or reward, assist people in emergency situations". That *might* be seen as extending to emergency digital mapmaking that due to inaccuracy caused harm to someone, but I doubt that the situation of emergency digital assistance been tested in our courts; the legislation was motivated to avoid the public being afraid to assist injured people for fear of being sued if they unintentionally made matters worse (a much more hands-on situation). I can't see it extending to Wikipedia contributions somehow. In my observation, for emergency situations, authorities prefer to engage with volunteer organisations with large numbers of volunteers, clearly defined roles, training programs and some systems of certification in relation to specific skills (e.g. first aid, boat handling, radio operations), and the ability to deploy rapidly. For example, our State Emergency Service is a good example of a volunteer organisation that is deployed in emergencies. http://www.ses.qld.gov.au/about/Pages/What-We-Do.aspx For ongoing situations like homeless shelters, etc, there will often be contractual arrangements with the volunteer organisation based around grant funding of some kind with KPIs, reporting obligations etc. That is, the government generally wants to deal with large professionally-run organisations, albeit composed largely of volunteers. For example, if you choose to volunteer at one of our major hospitals, you will have formal inductions, you will have a roster of regular days for volunteering and you will be dropped as a volunteer if you don't attend enough of your shifts or don't do what you are supposed to get done (it's just too much management hassle to deal with such a volunteer). The expectations are as high as that of an employee (arguably higher as they can't sack an employee as easily as a volunteer). http://www.mater.org.au/Home/Support/Volunteers In Australia digital volunteers are not usually operating within such kinds of organisation or with that kind of rigidity. Nor do I think we have that kind of size of organisation. I've done Map-Ups with Open Street Map, but I've never been a member of anything officially, never been trained, etc. Even the guy who did the local organising didn't seem sure if there actually was an organisation you could formally join. A Map-Up involved turning up at some park in a random suburb, have a BBQ breakfast, parcel out the map areas, drive around making notes of errors or missing things, meet for lunch at a pub, spend the afternoon adding/updating the OSM. Wikimedia Australia has a membership that teeters between 30-60 people spread thousands of kilometres apart, so we don't even get the BBQ breakfast. I can't see any government desiring to engage with either OSM within Australia (not even sure how you would contact it anyway) nor WMAU (at least we have an email address). It's not as if WMAU can round up hundreds of digital volunteers for some purpose. Despite Wikipedia's claim that "Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of 2.35 million, and the South East Queensland region, centred on Brisbane, encompasses a population of more than 3.5 million", I can't get more than 10 people to a Brisbane meetup once/twice a year and I can't find anyone to assist with edit training and nobody has ever certified me as competent to conduct training or make contributions. In contrast the State Emergency Service has 6,000 volunteers trained and ready to rappel down a cliff face or coordinate swift water rescues, and probably with certificates to prove their competency. I am not sure if that answers your questions. But it was a thought-provoking set of questions. Kerry -----Original Message----- From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Julian Fischer Sent: Tuesday, 4 April 2017 8:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Digital engagement / digital volunteer work Hi all, Wikimedia Deutschland is planning a workshop (June 23, 2017) on digital engagement / digital volunteer work. The aim of the workshop is to identify with other stakeholders ("classic" NGOs, Free- and Open-Movement, Volunteers, state authorities) open questions on digital engagement / digital volunteer work that should be answered. Research questions could be as follows: - What is the difference between digital and analog engagement? - What are the core characteristic of digital engagement? - What should state authorities on the national and local level do in order to support digital volunteers? - How important is digital engagement for our society? - ... Is there anybody from the Wikimedia movement who can help us to broaden our German perspective and give us international insides on this topic (e.g. via a ten minutes video message)? Do you know any inspiring study? Cheers, Julian Fischer Head of Volunteer Support Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | D-10963 Berlin Tel. +49-(0)30 219 158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207. _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
