 I can imagine that some people will trickle in. So I will start slowly with a bit of an introduction. My name is Sandra Fokunye and one of the heads I have on is I work part-time as a product strategist for Wikimedia Sweden on a project which I will explain in a bit more length in a few minutes in project four that is related to the Wikimedia movement strategy in which Wikimedia Sweden experiments to start building up a thematic hub for support of content partnerships in the Wikimedia movement. And my side of the work is looking at how we can improve the situation of software in that area, software which is often written and made by volunteers and how we can support this better and make sure that the software becomes more sustainable. And that is also the topic of this session. Just for... And I welcome everyone who is joining now. Welcome, welcome, join us. Just for housekeeping reasons, I am going to put in the chat here in Zoom, the link to our EtherPAT. The EtherPAT is really central to this session in the sense that I really hope that as a group here we will have a lively conversation with each other and also shy people are triggered to put their opinion in there. And so I would really like to use the EtherPAT for group discussion at a bit of typing of IDs and then we can have a discussion afterwards. I will actually start sharing my screen for a short introduction while everyone joins. And I really welcome everyone who is joining here. Hi, everyone. Let me see for sharing my screen. Please bear with me. Okay, there we go. And I'm just going to shuffle around that I still see your face because I like to have a bit of a group feeling. Yes, that's better. All right. So for all the people who just arrived, I'm not sure if you see the previous chats, messages here on Zoom. We have an EtherPAT and I would like all of us to use this EtherPAT for active discussion. In the EtherPAT, you also see some information about the program, about what we will do together here the next 30 minutes. And so in the EtherPAT, you will see a short overview of what the session will be about. I will introduce this session while people trickle in with some context about why we are having this conversation. And then we will have a bit of a group discussion inside the EtherPAT and also with invited people here in the group. Hi Navi, welcome here and good to see you as well. And yeah, as I want to emphasize that this conversation is only the start of a much longer process. So I'm aware that not everyone who should be in this conversation can be here. So we would really like to follow up. I would actually like to encourage everyone who is interested in this conversation, who is here and things like, oh, I'm really interested in this conversation. I want to stay in touch. Please, the first thing you can do in the EtherPAT is type your name here. If you're comfortable doing that, of course. So let's say I am just a participant, I'm typing my name here. And if you want, you can also add your email address. And if you are affiliated with a piece of software or if you are working on a specific project that is relevant, then you can also enter the name of that project. So that's where we can start together. Just type your name here. Of course, I am already listed. If you are uncomfortable leaving your email address, you can after this session also email me and just get in touch with me in private. And then I will also have your contact information. I will now jump to a few short slides just to give some introduction and to warm up the group while people are coming in. In this session, I am, as I said a few minutes earlier, I am representing Wikimedia Sweden. Wikimedia Sweden is at this moment experimenting with how, what can a content partnership hub in the Wikimedia movement look like? And I am here with a specific hat on looking at how can we support software for content partnerships better. I have a few slides with some context. So some years ago, and I know that some people in this group have been really a big part of these conversations or have at least followed them along. We've been having conversations as the Wikimedia movement about where do we wanna be in 2030? What is, what are we striving for as a Wikimedia movement? And various, lots of recommendations and lots of ideas came out of those conversations our movement strategy for 2030. And one of the recommendations has been that we will ensure equity in decision-making, that we will make our decision-making about the crucial things we wanna do more equitables, that we will also establish a global council. That's one of the things that is going on that also start thinking about a more decentralized way of organizing our movements. For instance, with also besides the organizations that we already have with the chapters, the affiliates, also the establishment of regional and thematic hubs. And one of the themes that I am very passionate about personally, that's why I'm here, that's why I'm working with Wikimedia Sweden is Wikimedia content partnerships, glam-wiki partnerships, but much broader than that, Wikimedians collaborating with organizations around the world. And how can we make that work more effective, more sustainable? How can we help people do their work better? And yeah, that's why I'm here. And I think that's why you all are also here because you're interested in that topic. Wikimedia Sweden is actually stepping forward to experiment with doing a thematic hub in this area. And there are really some core values that we want to emphasize that it is an experiment, what we are doing here. We are really open to, and it's really important for us to answer to the needs of the Wikimedia movement. To help others, not replace the work that others are doing because we know that people in the Wikimedia movement are already doing a lot of content partnerships. It's more looking at what is missing, where can we help make do people do their jobs better and not step into on people's feet, but really help people where there are gaps. And so support can be in many different areas. This session focuses on one specific one, which is the technical area software. So various things are going on in the hub and at Wikimedia. There are other sessions also about some other aspects of that work, but in this session, we are focusing on software development. What does that mean, software? All of this has been a little bit fake. For me, software for Wikimedia content partnerships to make it a bit more concrete, that's things like, you know, Pettypan. That is things like software that we use for batch uploading data to Wikidata, batch uploading images to Wikimedia Commons to keep track of statistics, of the impact of our work in this area, visualizing things and all the infrastructure around it. How can we make that software better? We know of cases, you know, where the software, it is, this kind of software is very often developed by volunteer developers, which is amazing, passionate people developing really crucial things. And we actually want to make sure that volunteer developers can and are, you know, encouraged to continue doing this because there's a lot of, yeah, like innovation going on in that area, but how can we make this software also sustainable over the long term? How can we make sure that software stays maintained, that people can keep using it if they find it important, if it's valuable for them? And that has various questions. And in this session, in this discussion, we will only touch upon it very, very superficially and our intention is really to continue talking about this over time. And this is only a starting point, but what can a thematic hub do in this area? What should a thematic hub do and not do? And we will talk about it already a bit in a few minutes. How can we organize this? Who helps to decide, make decisions like which software do we really want to support for the future? Do we need new things? Which software do we also want to sunset? Things like that. How do we decide what to follow? Volunteer developers themselves want and also who pays for things if there's money involved? How does the money flow in? Who is being paid? Who is not being paid? How do we organize all of this? We are really at the beginning and as a movement, let's talk about this and that's why we are together. And I just want to flag. I saw that Jean-Fred is in the room. Hi Jean-Fred. We already have some people who are thinking about this area and that is something I want to encourage further. We have this wonderful blog post by Jean-Fredric Bertelot who has already been thinking about it from his perspective as a volunteer developer contributing to things. And we actually want to encourage more IDs like that and more conversations about all the IDs that are floating. Cool. Let's actually jump to a brainstorm. I want to stop talking myself and I want to give the floor to you, to everyone invited in this group, everyone present here. Let us go back to the EtherPAD. And in the EtherPAD, I have actually put some questions and I thank those who are taking notes. That's awesome. So we have, I will also switch to the slides. I hope that the slides will help a little bit. So listening to my introduction, like, okay, with the Wikimedia 2020 strategic direction, we want to establish thematic hubs that support certain aspects of our work in the Wikimedia movement. If you, yes, I will do that. Thank you. Oh, good. I probably mispronouncing your name, but I appreciate the ping. Yes. If we think about a situation where the essential software that we use for content partnerships batch upload software, software for statistics, software for reconciliation, all sorts of things that people want to do for partnerships. What are the essential things? What is the one essential thing that an organization helping it, like Wikimedia Sweden or another thematic hub, can do, should do, and what should they absolutely not do? I invite everyone to think about that for a few seconds and just type your IDs in here. So I see that someone is already doing. A few people are already typing and I will give the group the opportunity to do that for a few minutes. I will keep an eye on the either bet, what people are typing. And if I see that our IDs are falling a little bit silent, then I will actually come back and we can discuss it as a group. If there are things that other people are saying that you totally agree with, you can just say plus one. So I will do that here as well. I totally agree with keep engaging, growing the community, I plus one that. That also gives us a way to see, oh, these are the IDs that people like a lot. And I see that people are already typing and let's do that together for a few minutes. I forgot to think about waiting music. Oh, well. I will not sing because that's terrible. Let's just imagine that there is the music that you like inspiring you to type here. People are a little bit blocked in thinking about this. I also have put some more specific questions below. If you like, you can have a quick read of those questions and see if they inspire you for more specific answers as well. There's still a lot of activity here, which is great. I see that most people have very positive IDs, which is good. But also let me remind you if you think about things that thematic hope should definitely not do when they support content partnership software, please also put them there. That's also be negative. That's, it's really good for everyone to know what are definitely, definitely don't. I am also seeing that some people are putting plus ones behind IDs, which is great. That helps us to see which things are most important to this group here. So please do that as well. I think we will go on a few more minutes until I see that the typing stops a little bit and then we will regroup and talk together. I see things that I find really interesting. This is great. Also, IDs that I didn't have before. It's really nice. Sure, maybe some people have arrived quite late. So I will post the link to either, but again, I hope people are even adding answers to the specific questions. Wow, excellent. You're awesome. You're fantastic, all of you. Thank you. This is cool. Thank you for, thank you very much. I see that people are still typing. I would say also in the interest of time we now have 13 minutes left for this session. Let's continue typing for three minutes for people who will watch this recording. Afterwards it will be like people are typing and then either that's interesting. Let's type for three minutes more and then I suggest we kind of finish the typing session and we go back to a group discussion. And in that group discussion, there are some people in this session who I explicitly invited to be part of the conversation. We have Revital from Wikimedia Israel. Wikimedia Israel works on the Glambiki dashboard which is a tool for statistics for Glambi collaborations. We have Navino Evans and we have Eugene Egbe who have been working on a very nice tool called the ESA tool for tagging images on Wikimedia Commons. Let me see, we have Jean Frédéric Bertelot who is a very active thinker in this area, also a volunteer developer who helps us think through things and has blocked about this topic. And I would like especially to ask these people to also maybe give some comments on what has been said here. But I also want to say, yeah, everyone who wants to comment upon something, feel free to unmute yourself and speak up. And if you have a question or a comment you want to make, let's use also the raise hands feature of Zoom so that I am aware and the other people in the room here are also aware that people want to speak up. Don't be shy, feel free to speak up everyone. In the meanwhile, I see a call, I already see two questions in the chat. How many paid developers are currently working at the tools you collected in the tool list or in general at Wikimedia projects related tools? That is a really excellent question and I actually do not know and that is probably something we should be counting as well. I think looking at the lists and just eyeballing it very quickly, I do think if you would count all the paid developers for all these projects and some I don't know, maybe POS is also some paid people, I have no idea actually, I don't know it. Maybe three, four, FTEs totally, most of them are really volunteer tools or have been built just through a grant for a few months on a paid basis and then afterwards, yeah, there has been no payment anymore and there has been some low maintenance of the tools. At the best in that situation, it has been built by a paid grant but then no more paid support. Some of these are really, really hardcore volunteer tools so no one is working on them on a paid basis like all the Magnus tools, et cetera. But that's an excellent question and I think it's a really good one. When I continue building these tool lists to make sure that everyone is clear about it, it's not the final list. I think that's one of the things to keep track of like are there people being paid or have people being paid to do these things or are they purely volunteer based? And I see that there is a question from Butch who put up his hand in the chat. Butch, if you wanna speak up and ask your question, feel free to do so. Hello. Hi, I'm just sharing my experience before because during the movement strategy recommendations process during our meeting in Bangkok, I believe it was 2019, we are asked about how do we do with partnerships and one Wikimedia told us, why don't we have a central location wherein people can suggest ideas and or probably post something there that they're looking for a resource tool or person who could help them with their particular need. For instance, they need to automate statistical data probably rather than relying on meta, which is a jungle, probably we should have some sort of some automation like a market place like an Amazon sort of or an Alibaba sort of a place wherein people can just using their phones or their computers, just use it and someone will reply with that matches on their needs. I'm hoping that there will be some party or group who will develop this web interface. And you're specifically talking about something online, a place online like a forum where that feels a bit like a marketplace that's where people ask questions and gets help doing the things they want to do. Yes. Some sort of like that or a combination of both wherein there is someone who is offering help like I'm offering my Saturday time to teach you about quick statements then people will sign in with that tool. Yes. I'm actually gonna type your suggestion. I have the impression that that is this suggestion here that we have in the Etherpad rights, a marketplace where people post requests and offer capacity building. And I will add your comments there also a tool where people can offer their knowledge, help, et cetera. I want to add to that that Wikimedia Sweden's already also thinking in that direction they are building a help desk for content partnerships. I'm not sure if there's already ideas on doing that online in some sort of forum or marketplace setting but it is definitely good to keep track of that and see if that fills your needs. And if you have ideas about that, I'm very, very certain that Wikimedia Sweden, the people who are working on the help desk will be super happy to hear your feedback and comments. Thanks for that. Thank you for adding that comment and it is actually also an addition to one of the suggestions here. When I look at four or last six minutes at the various things that have been suggested, let me look at the ones that are plus one a lot. We see keep engaging and growing the community. Does someone want to answer to that or did someone suggest that specific one or do they feel very strongly and want to say a few words about that? I think also what are you specifically meaning by community is that specifically the developer community helping the helping that community to stay lively or is it more broad like a community of users? If no one speaks up, that's also totally fine but I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that that is highlighted. Another highlight that I see and I actually see it's old but there's Eugene who raised his hand. Eugene, go ahead. All right, I just wanted to share more light on engaging the growing communities. Yes. Particularly from Africa, I think that more and more responsibility is given to African developers. I think that if there is a lot of work done around GLAM in Africa, then the developers in those communities should be engaged more because I think most of the tools we use are not specific to the realities that we face in Africa. So if we can concentrate this energy around the specificities or the realities in Africa to be tools that are specific to these partners or these organizations implementing these GLAMs, then you'll be really good. Excellent. I am just quickly making a note of your comments here. So I hear you say that you would like both, I think, engagement for the community, help for growing the community for the GLAM partnerships themselves but also for the developers working on it. Am I correct in hearing that or? Sure, sure. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, I will leave it to others to respond because I'm also moderating here. Another thing that I see coming back and I totally agree with that. I want to cluster a little bit. I see here that we want better documentation, learning resources, master classes, train the trainer certificates. I totally agree with that. I know myself that someone already said here, like the master is META. I think one of the recommendations or at least we've talked a lot about in the movement strategy about better documentation in general for the movement and maybe more centralized, maybe documentation that is easier to find, easier to translate and that is definitely something. I can imagine that a hub like this would play a role in. I see a hand from Alicia. Alicia, go ahead, take the phone. Yeah, thank you. A lot of the work that I do at Wikimedia Sphere is working with GLAMs who want to have content partnerships with the Wikimedia movement. And we are really seeing this shift in that GLAMs don't just want to get their stuff uploaded to commons and so on, but they actually want to develop in-house expertise and they want to develop their own long-term strategies and continue contributing to the platforms on their own. And this has really been quite a big question especially with working with GLAMs, like explaining here are all the different tools, here are all the different user scripts, here is Smitha, here are people discuss and here are all the different pages that you have to read up on. And here's all the pages with documentation that a lot of people have developed in parallel or not at all. And I often get the impression that GLAM people expect a nicer package to learn from because they want to invest their time into it. I recognize that very much. I see in the group that we also have Michelle from Wikimedia Netherlands and Wikimedia Netherlands, for instance, is also working on documentation specifically for GLAMs. So I made a note of that if people want to add things there, then please do. We are almost running out of time but the EtherPAT I think is a fantastic resource that we can come back to later. I just want to quickly say, we will follow up on this. So as I said in the beginning, if you want to stay in touch, please leave your email address or email me because this is just the start. This EtherPAT is gold and we will follow up on it. I want to focus on getting the most out of this group. So I see that Navinon has raised the hand and I want to give you the floor, Nav. Thank you. Yeah, it's just a quick thing really, just to say from my perspective, the major, major thing that is a bit problematic is this idea that it's really, really fun to develop the tools in the first place and volunteers love to do that and they maybe like to add a new core feature and make it do something really fancy. But then the really boring bit comes afterwards which is like maintaining it, coming to fix it when there's a problem in the future, maybe some stuff changes technically and you have to go and update the security. And all of this stuff is just not, there's not time to do it and there's not the energy to do it. And even Magnus, like he responds to what he can but he has this huge list of outstanding requests for really important features for different people and he doesn't have the time to do it. And if he does have time he wants to do something that's fun for him, obviously. So for me, it feels like particularly supporting obviously Magnus, but anyone who develops these tools and really highlighting the most important tools and the ones that are really used by everyone and the things that everyone really wants them to have and to just come on board and support them with some ongoing sort of paid work, like the quick statements and these really essential tools that so many people use. So I feel like that's the major thing that's maybe missing and would be really nice to see more of. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have seen this quite recently with Patti Pan developed by volunteers. Volunteers have their own lives, they have their own priorities. And when stopped working, it turned out that a lot of glams depended on it to do their uploads. And like fortunately, we were able to have one of our colleagues to help out and bring it back up. But that really made it very, very clear that this is a weakness in the tools ecosystem. Yeah, thanks for that. And I am actually also curious to hear what volunteer developers, more volunteer developers find about that. I've often heard Magnus himself say, I love creating tools from scratch and thinking, like inventing new tools. And then I'm totally fine with others picking it up. He does not want to be paid himself at all, not because he hates being paid, but just because he has a different job in his life. I actually want to hear more in the future about other volunteer developers as well, like what do you find acceptable and not where, at what points when a tool is seen as really important, what form of collaboration do you appreciate? How do you feel about being paid or not? Because that's also a sensitive thing in our movement. Like some people do things for pay and that's in my personal opinion totally fine. Some of our best tools have been created also in a paid position. I think that's also for me part of the conversations we need to have after this. I don't hear anyone from the organization telling us that we need to stop. So I'm just continuing here until someone says you need to stop this session. If people want to go, of course, feel free to go, but I quickly just want to go to some other comments that have gotten me the pluses. We do not want to depend on Magnus Montz because free time to fix problems. No, that's correct. Yeah, Magnus is fantastic and he is extremely helpful and he has been really crucial to the Wikimedia movement. And yeah, let him do whatever he likes to do and let other people help to do whatever he does not like to do. And same goes for other volunteer developers. Let me see, do we have a really good thing to finish this session? I have absolutely not been able to read all the input here. So if someone has a last comment here I would encourage you to say so. Maybe one thing I am now on the spot thinking about. We, of course, also have a very mixed situation. We have tools like the ones created by Magnus Monska himself that have been totally volunteer-driven, but then we also have tools like the one that Wikimedia Israel is working on that is basically supported by an affiliate. Wikimedia affiliate is building it or several affiliates are building it and are maintaining it. It is in a bait position done by bait developers. And also there Wikimedia Sweden does not want to get in the way. It is great that also affiliates, organizations take initiative in doing things. And I think it's really good that we find also a way where we stay in touch very well about these things and we help each other. But if affiliates, if groups are really willing to do things then they should be able to do that. And we should support each other and find a way to do that as well. I see the message that we need to wrap up. There was a last hand from, I think Alicia again if you still have your famous last words. Yeah, I was looking at the tasks that would be good to be taken over by a formal organization such as us. And I see documentation, documentation, long-term maintenance and prioritizing what should be developed. These are the things that I'm not as glamorous to do if you are a developer and you like developing code tools but then to actually write good documentation that requires a different set of skills to make it all cohesive and available to different target groups. So that is a very good point that I will be taking away from this. Totally. Thank you, cool. Last hand from Eugene or was that still your old hand up in the air? Sorry, we're gonna have to finish. Oh, I'm sorry. It's for the next session. Thank you, everyone. But let's be in touch. Please leave your contact info and we will talk about this more. Thank you very much organizers, technical team. Thank you.