"Wikimedia has friends". This is I think the most important lesson we've learned at our Wikimedia NYC chapter-in-formation over the past year.
Us Wikimedians are an eclectic and disparate bunch, but when we organize on a local level, some interesting possibilities open up; e.g. Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 1, Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 2 (Wikis Take Manhattan), and Wikipedia Loves Art. This is not so much because of great efforts on our part, but rather that our ordinary experience as Wikimedians gives us the skill-set to enable outside parties to contribute to the projects in unique and exciting ways. As community gatekeepers, we hold the key for institutions who need only a helping local hand to get started in this work.
All Wikimedians should be conscious they are part of a broader movement, the Free Culture movement, itself a kissing cousin to the Free Software movement. And we're not a peripheral part of this movement either, but we are almost certainly the most successful Free Culture project in existence. This is in spite of, or maybe even because of, the fact that the great majority of our workaday contributors are not yet activists on these issues.
This is a movement of many faces, including of course Creative Commons, but the standout for us at Wikimedia NYC has been Students for Free Culture, with their particular enthusiasm and numbers of activists. We have worked with the Free Culture chapters at Columbia and NYU, but there are chapters all over, and likely in your city as well. These dedicated student activists with their weekly meetings are determined to get things done, and to do it all in fun and creative ways. And they are great friends of Wikimedia.
Forming a working relationship with your local Free Culture chapter is a great way to jump-start your local Wikimedia activities. These clubs have always been gracious and open to me and other local Wikimedians, and they have always considered our proposals. These students have an admirable industriousness, and they are always actively looking for new projects. If you engage with them seriously, they are likely to embrace your project and will be glad to work together with you closely, almost as a virtual Wikimedia chapter. Indeed, they are more effective than us Wikimedians on many counts, hard-working, anxious to engage with the broader world, and better activists generally.
I cannot praise these good people enough. And indeed, with Wikimedia NYC we have consciously tried to adapt their activist model for our own chapter-in-formation.
And engaging with groups like the Free Culture clubs can be an important step in laying the groundwork for working with more institutional actors. With our work with great folks at The Open Planning Project, we found ourselves engaged with a group that is halfway in the Free Culture movement, but that also has a broader focus as a non-profit. And recently we've taken a further step toward the establishment in working with the fabulous Brooklyn Museum, a big institution with a progressive heart, that is now making its first steps into the Free Culture world.
(And, if you have problems contacting your local Free Culture chapter, don't be discouraged; usually with a little detective work you can get clued into the right person's e-mail)
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Chapters in 2009
Chapcom has received it's first sub-national chapter application (from New York City), although a final decision is probably not expected until the new year. The WMF board's next meeting in in January, and they are expected to decide on the application from the UK, and maybe the application from NYC if the chapcom can make a decision on it by then.
The UK's application is a little bit tricky because the resolution would require that the old defunct UK chapter be un-recognized first, and then the new chapter be recognized. I don't want to make any guesses about how the board is going to deal with this issue, but the Chapcom approved the measure so it' probably can't be a total wash.
2009 could be the year of sub-national chapters, and already I've heard interest from a number of groups who think that sub-national is the way to go. I'm hearing about renewed interest from India, where an effort to create national chapter was all but abandoned in 2007. I've heard from some people in Canada who say that sub-national chapters might be the way forward for them too, since their efforts at a national chapter have since stalled out.
Are there any other groups I haven't heard about that are pursuing a sub-national chapter?
The UK's application is a little bit tricky because the resolution would require that the old defunct UK chapter be un-recognized first, and then the new chapter be recognized. I don't want to make any guesses about how the board is going to deal with this issue, but the Chapcom approved the measure so it' probably can't be a total wash.
2009 could be the year of sub-national chapters, and already I've heard interest from a number of groups who think that sub-national is the way to go. I'm hearing about renewed interest from India, where an effort to create national chapter was all but abandoned in 2007. I've heard from some people in Canada who say that sub-national chapters might be the way forward for them too, since their efforts at a national chapter have since stalled out.
Are there any other groups I haven't heard about that are pursuing a sub-national chapter?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wikimedia New York City makes a move
I'd like to update you folks on our Wikimedia New York City group, an applicant chapter hopeful to be accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation in representing and coordinating the efforts of contributors and volunteers from the Greater New York metropolitan area, a region home to some 19 million souls, or approximately 7% of the total population of the United States.
We've just filed our application with the Chapters Committee, and this presents some special issues, as we are the first sub-national group (excepting perhaps Hong Kong) to seek to organize as Wikimedians at this level, as well as the first applicant chapter of any sort in the United States. We hope that we can work with the members of the Chapters Committee, as well as Andrew, Erik, and Kat on the sub-national chapters working group, to come to answers for the unanticipated questions that may arise during this process.
The occasion for application is the completion of the draft of our bylaws, and the concurrent organization of an interim board for our group.
I thought I should also give a little background on our group, and what our activities have been. I think it is important that have not been merely biding our time waiting on the Chapters Committee to help us (though that help is greatly appreciated), but have made genuine efforts to reach out to our local community and prove ourselves as an organization. We have done this outreach though a series of events, including bimonthly Wikimedian meetings at Columbia University, but importantly also in several events reaching out to non-Wikimedians, and in budding contacts with fellow local cultural groups and institutions.
In particular, we have been strengthened by our partnerships with the Free Culture Columbia and Free Culture NYU student groups, as well as the local non-profit The Open Planning Project, in organizing the photo scavenger hunts "Wikipedia Takes Manhattan" and "Wikis Take Manhattan" (see video) in April and October of 2008, and we hope to hold similar events in future.
We are also currently partnering with the Brooklyn Museum, a leading local art museum with a distinctly progressive view on the world, in our successor "Wikipedia Loves Art" photo event, scheduled for February 2009, and which is now also being extended to museums in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and London. We also have many other project ideas on our plate, and it is my hope that with our joining the international club of Wikimedia chapters we can move on to bigger and better things yet.
We've just filed our application with the Chapters Committee, and this presents some special issues, as we are the first sub-national group (excepting perhaps Hong Kong) to seek to organize as Wikimedians at this level, as well as the first applicant chapter of any sort in the United States. We hope that we can work with the members of the Chapters Committee, as well as Andrew, Erik, and Kat on the sub-national chapters working group, to come to answers for the unanticipated questions that may arise during this process.
The occasion for application is the completion of the draft of our bylaws, and the concurrent organization of an interim board for our group.
I thought I should also give a little background on our group, and what our activities have been. I think it is important that have not been merely biding our time waiting on the Chapters Committee to help us (though that help is greatly appreciated), but have made genuine efforts to reach out to our local community and prove ourselves as an organization. We have done this outreach though a series of events, including bimonthly Wikimedian meetings at Columbia University, but importantly also in several events reaching out to non-Wikimedians, and in budding contacts with fellow local cultural groups and institutions.
In particular, we have been strengthened by our partnerships with the Free Culture Columbia and Free Culture NYU student groups, as well as the local non-profit The Open Planning Project, in organizing the photo scavenger hunts "Wikipedia Takes Manhattan" and "Wikis Take Manhattan" (see video) in April and October of 2008, and we hope to hold similar events in future.
We are also currently partnering with the Brooklyn Museum, a leading local art museum with a distinctly progressive view on the world, in our successor "Wikipedia Loves Art" photo event, scheduled for February 2009, and which is now also being extended to museums in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and London. We also have many other project ideas on our plate, and it is my hope that with our joining the international club of Wikimedia chapters we can move on to bigger and better things yet.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Chapters November Update
Here's a quick update about the current world of chapters.
- The new Wikimedia UK group is really moving along well now, and are making great progress. They have weekly meetings on Tuesday at 20:30UTC in #wikimedia-uk and #wikimedia-uk-board on freenode. They've been in close contact with Chapcom, and are on their way to becoming a chapter soon.
- The group in New York city is doing really well also and had a large meeting last weekend that, unfortunately, I was not able to attend. Kat did, however, and gave them lots of new information and answered a few questions. The ardent observer will notice that the current draft of their bylaws includes not only the state of New York, but also New Jersey and Connecticut as well. Looks like this could be shaping up to be a true "Wiki Northeast", especially if they grew any larger. There are fledgling groups both here in Philadelphia and in Boston who might do well to be added to this larger whole.
- Chapcom added a few new members a while back, among them Michael Bimmler (formerly an advisor to the committee) and PrivateMusings. PrivateMusings was added to the chapter as a "communications advisor", in hopes that he could increase our communications with the outside world and manage some of our processes. Both of these two have been doing amazing work, streamlining our processes and helping to keep the committee organized. These aren't the only new additions we've added lately, but there has been a lot of confusion and delay in getting our other appointees confirmed, so these two are the only ones who have had a chance to do anything with the committee. Anyway, things are looking up!
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Two new chapters
Business between the Chapcom and the Board have been a little bit slower lately, because the chapcom liason to the board, Frieda, has recently resigned. I haven't heard yet about whether there will be a replacement for this position (which I hope there is). I also haven't heard yet whether any of the new Chapcom members have been approved by the board. Prior to getting this approval, I'm not going to announce here who all has been added to the chapcom.
We have heard news that two new chapters have been approved: Indonesia and Brazil. Congratulations to organizers of both chapters! We at chapcom aren't resting on our laurels though, we have two other chapter applications in the pipeline right now. Also, we know the board was supposed to have talked about the whole concept of subnational/regional chapters, and I don't know how those talks turned out either.
I guess what I'm saying, the short version, is: Congrats to Indonesia and Brazil, and we need to wait to hear some kind of announcement from the board to know what else is going on.
We have heard news that two new chapters have been approved: Indonesia and Brazil. Congratulations to organizers of both chapters! We at chapcom aren't resting on our laurels though, we have two other chapter applications in the pipeline right now. Also, we know the board was supposed to have talked about the whole concept of subnational/regional chapters, and I don't know how those talks turned out either.
I guess what I'm saying, the short version, is: Congrats to Indonesia and Brazil, and we need to wait to hear some kind of announcement from the board to know what else is going on.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Delphine, Goodbye and Hello
Foundation-l received a message today that Delphine, the Chapters Coordinator for the WMF is stepping down from her position. In her three years, she's overseen an explosive growth in the number of chapters there are.
She's not leaving us entirely, however. She is going to remain an active WMF volunteer and a member of the chapcom. In her message she talked a lot about a "reboot" of the chapters situation, and I'm very interested to hear all the ideas she has. I've been feeding her a lot of my ideas (I'm a radical liberal when it comes to chapters), but she's been in a position where she couldn't always feed hers back. Now, I'm hoping that we can get some real creative energy and enthusiasm together to make cool things happen.
One thing that I've been pushing for personally, sometimes alone in the dark, is the idea of a more freeform idea of what a Chapter can be. Heretofore, Chapters have been tied to Nations, you could have a Wikimedia Italia for instance, but not a Wikimedia New York. For many years, this is what seemed to come naturally to groups, and it's what the Chapcom/Board have been suggesting. Now, however, things seem to be changing.
People in the USA are organizing at a local community level. We have an overarching presence in the USA in the form of the WMF board, what people are increasingly interested in doing is on-the-ground activism. People are actually wanting to walk into a library, or university, or government building and say "I'm from the WMF, I want to partner with you to bring open content to the people". People want to collect donations, not only of money, but of time, talent, and content. Local groups that can meet each other face-to-face and can walk down the street to conduct business in person are the kinds of groups that are forming, be they the wikiwednesdays in Portland, or the Wiki takes Manhattan in NYC.
The USA isn't the only example either. Organization in Canada has cooled off substantially from where it was three months ago, and even the people who most ardently supported a national chapter then are talking about provincial and even metropolitan chapters now. It's hard to organize with people over email and phone and IRC, it's much easier to generate enthusiasm when you can meet people face-to-face. Those aren't my words either, but are words that i've heard from several people on the wikimedia-ca mailing list.
In a different region of the world, Delphine and I both heard some very impressive and convincing arguments from Catalonians who are spread out across several countries in southern Europe. They're talking about forming a chapter through 4 or 5 countries, two of which already have national chapters in place that would be overlapped! How do we reconcile the idea of a national chapter when it forces together people who are separated by geographical and lingusitic barriers, but deny chapters status to groups who are very close regionally and all speak the same language?
The board, we have all heard, is looking to discuss the idea of regional and sub-national chapters at their next meeting, and I sincerely hope that they think on it long and hard. If wikis have taught us nothing about volunteerism, it's that people can't be forced to do something they don't want to do, and that people are going to pursue things that maybe we hadn't intended. If people want to organize in a particular way, and if that way is natural and efficient for them, that's the way they're going to do it. If we tell the Canadians "it will be a national chapter or no chapter at all", then I them for the foreseeable future that it will be no chapter at all. If we tell the catalonians that they must join Wikimedia France or Wikimedia Italia, or they must somehow overcome the problems facing a Wikimedia Spain, it is likely that all the Catalonians will not participate and will return home dejected and disenfranchised. If we tell the Americans that all their organizational efforts have been wrong, and that they are completely barred from those two seats the board promised the chapters could select, there will be hell to pay.
It's going to be interesting to see what all Delphine really has to say about all these issues, and what ideas she has for how a "reboot" will occur. I doubt she'll agree with me on everything, disagreement is the price radicals like myself have to pay. However, I can tell you that things will change, even if slowly and incrementally. Let's all hope that change is for the better.
She's not leaving us entirely, however. She is going to remain an active WMF volunteer and a member of the chapcom. In her message she talked a lot about a "reboot" of the chapters situation, and I'm very interested to hear all the ideas she has. I've been feeding her a lot of my ideas (I'm a radical liberal when it comes to chapters), but she's been in a position where she couldn't always feed hers back. Now, I'm hoping that we can get some real creative energy and enthusiasm together to make cool things happen.
One thing that I've been pushing for personally, sometimes alone in the dark, is the idea of a more freeform idea of what a Chapter can be. Heretofore, Chapters have been tied to Nations, you could have a Wikimedia Italia for instance, but not a Wikimedia New York. For many years, this is what seemed to come naturally to groups, and it's what the Chapcom/Board have been suggesting. Now, however, things seem to be changing.
People in the USA are organizing at a local community level. We have an overarching presence in the USA in the form of the WMF board, what people are increasingly interested in doing is on-the-ground activism. People are actually wanting to walk into a library, or university, or government building and say "I'm from the WMF, I want to partner with you to bring open content to the people". People want to collect donations, not only of money, but of time, talent, and content. Local groups that can meet each other face-to-face and can walk down the street to conduct business in person are the kinds of groups that are forming, be they the wikiwednesdays in Portland, or the Wiki takes Manhattan in NYC.
The USA isn't the only example either. Organization in Canada has cooled off substantially from where it was three months ago, and even the people who most ardently supported a national chapter then are talking about provincial and even metropolitan chapters now. It's hard to organize with people over email and phone and IRC, it's much easier to generate enthusiasm when you can meet people face-to-face. Those aren't my words either, but are words that i've heard from several people on the wikimedia-ca mailing list.
In a different region of the world, Delphine and I both heard some very impressive and convincing arguments from Catalonians who are spread out across several countries in southern Europe. They're talking about forming a chapter through 4 or 5 countries, two of which already have national chapters in place that would be overlapped! How do we reconcile the idea of a national chapter when it forces together people who are separated by geographical and lingusitic barriers, but deny chapters status to groups who are very close regionally and all speak the same language?
The board, we have all heard, is looking to discuss the idea of regional and sub-national chapters at their next meeting, and I sincerely hope that they think on it long and hard. If wikis have taught us nothing about volunteerism, it's that people can't be forced to do something they don't want to do, and that people are going to pursue things that maybe we hadn't intended. If people want to organize in a particular way, and if that way is natural and efficient for them, that's the way they're going to do it. If we tell the Canadians "it will be a national chapter or no chapter at all", then I them for the foreseeable future that it will be no chapter at all. If we tell the catalonians that they must join Wikimedia France or Wikimedia Italia, or they must somehow overcome the problems facing a Wikimedia Spain, it is likely that all the Catalonians will not participate and will return home dejected and disenfranchised. If we tell the Americans that all their organizational efforts have been wrong, and that they are completely barred from those two seats the board promised the chapters could select, there will be hell to pay.
It's going to be interesting to see what all Delphine really has to say about all these issues, and what ideas she has for how a "reboot" will occur. I doubt she'll agree with me on everything, disagreement is the price radicals like myself have to pay. However, I can tell you that things will change, even if slowly and incrementally. Let's all hope that change is for the better.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Chapters-Related News
A few news items to point out to people:
- Chapcom has decided on it's new members from the pool of applicants. I won't say anything here because the WMF board still has to approve our appointments, and I'm trying to get personal confirmation from all acceptees that they still want to be part of the committee.
- Delphine has posted that she's stepping down as the WMF's chapters coordinator, but she's staying on as a member (in what specific capacity I have not yet heard) of the chapters committee.
- We have Chapters applications in the pipeline for Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Norway. Hopefully at least some of these applications will be decided upon and sent to the board for confirmation within the next few days. We like to send them to the board in batches, so we are waiting on a few details to get more of them ready for confirmation.
- The NYC group is moving ahead at full speed. I have offered for Pharos to post an update here about it when he is ready, and I'm looking forward to that very much, as I'm sure many other US wikimedians are too.
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