The Signpost

Special report

Wikimania 2018

Wikipedia is because we are

Group photograph of attendees at Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town
Group photo of the Wikimania 2018 attendees in Cape Town

A wholly thematic conference this year, Wikimania in Cape Town focused on the African continent, coinciding with celebrations recognizing the birth of Nelson Mandela a hundred years ago.

"Two things: there's a need for African knowledge and perspectives to help inform and build a better, stronger Wikipedia, both in English and other international language versions of Wikipedia as well as in their own language", says Douglas Scott, president of Wikimedia South Africa, while talking to anchor Rene Del Carme of CGTN America in Cape Town at the conference venue. "The second one is for us, as an existing community of editors, is how can we be more inclusive but still maintain the ethos that we have of trying to present a neutral point of view, fact-checking, all that sort of stuff – basically, be a better encyclopedia. But we can't be a better encyclopedia without a diversity of opinions and voices in our community."

Animated global heat map depicting significant expansion of Wikidata item coverage, particularly outside of North America, Western Europe, and China
Expansion of Wikipedia's coverage worldwide from 2014 to 2017 as determined by Wikidata items
Image by Denis Schroeder (WMDE)

"The challenges in Africa are mostly lack of infrastructure for Internet and affordability of Internet, inability of people to be able to access Internet-enabled devices", Felix Nartey, the 2017 Wikipedian of the Year, tells Del Carme. "Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. Everybody can edit it and nobody gets paid for editing Wikipedia; however, the spirit of volunteerism – that is not embedded in our culture."

The CGTN America news segment is published on their website and available on YouTube.

Focus on the Foundation

With no fewer than 31 Wikimedia Foundation employees making presentations (some of them several), and many more attending, it would not be too great a leap to assume that the conference once more is a staff event focused on the work of the Foundation. This is in contrast to what one would assume and expect it to be: an event driven by the unpaid volunteers who provide the content, maintain the projects, organise the events, and select its scholarships and programmes. Of the 79 slots in the official programme, 22 were filled by the Foundation – that's nearly 28% (not far from a third!), with one employee alone occupying no less than four of the available slots with topics as diverse as:

Nevertheless, they were well-presented and were facilitated by a seasoned and routined public speaker. Four presentations in the timetable were given by the German Wikimedia chapter, as well.

During or shortly after the conference, the Wikimedia Foundation paid for an advertorial in the Daily Maverick.

Photograph of James Alexander smiling during Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City
James Alexander,
Manager of Trust & Safety
Photograph by Joe Sutherland

Friendly space

  • "Don't photo me!"
  • "Don't touch me!"
  • "Don't look at me!"
  • "Don't talk to me!"

  • "Go away!"

An unfortunate incident involving a well-known, well-liked, and enthusiastic volunteer organiser caused a storm on the Wikimania public mailing list. The actual details have not been released and probably never will be, but the volunteer – banned from further activity by James Alexander, manager of Trust & Safety – was sufficiently concerned about the extent of his punishment to post his experience on the mailing list.

Large infographic detailing various information about the Support and Safety Team, such as its structure, scope, members, and contact information
Infographic presenting the Wikimedia Foundation's Support & Safety Team (c. 2016) and the broad areas of their work (click here to enlarge)

The vast majority of comments came out strongly in support of the volunteer, but by some 20 or 30 emails later the discussion had mutated into a call for a variety of warning badges or stickers to be worn by conference attendees. Suggestions range from the stickers to limiting the use of cameras to authorised photographers. The exchange continues.

Under the directorship of Jan Eissfeldt, Trust and Safety (T&S) serves the Wikimedia Foundation, contributors, and the public by providing support to Foundation initiatives with a focus on community consultations, governance, and training. Formerly called Support and Safety (SuSa) and Community Advocacy, the team addresses trust and safety concerns – including threats communicated on our projects – and helps ensure the safety of attendees at Foundation-supported events. It comprises a team of no fewer than nine employees and is also responsible for conduct at Wikimania.

As of publication, the organisers have not released any attendance figures.



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What is the purpose of the quote(?) at the start of the 'friendly space' section? Richard Nevell (talk) 08:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The example of Asaf's talks show that simply counting the number of talks given by Foundation members says nothing about whether it's a community or Foundation conference. Asaf's talks were of very broad interest to the community. Two of them were technical talks about how to get the most out of WikiData (I attended them, and they were excellent), and the other two were about community building. The talks presented at the conference were selected by a team of community members based on their perceived relevance to the theme of the event, without any reference or, as far as I know, knowledge, about whether the presenter is on the WMF staff or not. --Slashme (talk) 18:37, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Slashme, this was far from the first, and likely not be the last article in the long history of The Signpost suggesting that Wikimania is top-heavy in WMF participation - both from the management and organisation as well as the number of presentations. Probably, at a rough guess, 10% of the attendees are, or have been WMF employees. Note also, that I did not criticise Asaf's performances. I will not dwell on your position as a founder, and/or director of Wikimedia S.A. or the heavy presence of Wikimedia Germany. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:52, 14 October 2018 (UTC).[reply]
I'm just a member of Wikimedia South Africa, and haven't been on the board for about 5 years. --Slashme (talk) 08:05, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

















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