[Wikimedia-l] Re: Sharing more details about the Equity Fund

[Nadee Gunasena]

Hi all,

We realized we had shared the wrong date for the Equity Fund Office Hours.
Lisa's email initially said these would be Monday, June 13 - that should be
Monday, June 14. Sorry for any confusion - Updated times below. You can
also find these details and  more information on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund


   -

   Monday, June 14 at 0100-0200 UTC meet.google.com/myf-zcaw-ubg
   -

   Monday, June 14 at 1500-1600 UTC meet.google.com/dzu-edej-wva

ᐧ

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:15 AM Lisa Gruwell  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I’m excited to share more information about the Wikimedia Foundation’s
> Knowledge Equity Fund.
>
> The Equity Fund is a pilot initiative that came out of the commitment the
> Foundation’s leadership team made in June 2020 [1] in the wake of global
> protests against racial injustice. Our goal was to create a grant-making
> fund with an explicit focus on addressing barriers to free knowledge
> experienced by Black, indigenous and communities of color around the world.
>
> This is a $4.5 million USD fund to address racial inequities that impact
> the work of free knowledge. It was created to provide focused grants to
> organizations that are advancing knowledge equity, one of two key pillars
> of our 2030 strategic direction of becoming the essential infrastructure of
> free knowledge. Specifically, the fund is meant to support organizations
> working to address the racial injustices and barriers that prevent
> participation in free knowledge.
>
> We allocated funds for the Equity Fund at the end of the Foundation’s
> fiscal year last June. [2] It took more time than we expected to share our
> plans for this pilot program, as we’ve been navigating the operational
> and logistical issues of creating a new type of fund. Over the past
> several months since the Equity Fund was first announced, Foundation staff
> and volunteers have been meeting to discuss the goals and the details of
> the Equity Fund, and we finally have more to share.
>
> The Equity Fund will be used to support local and international
> organizations that don’t currently qualify for grants funding from the
> Foundation, such as external organizations that can help advance our
> mission and are not working directly on wikiprojects. We recognize that the
> work of knowledge equity is work that we as a movement cannot do alone. Our
> projects can only do so much when, for example, academic and mass media
> representation of marginalized communities remains insufficient, which in
> turn limits citations and primary sources for us to build from.  Through
> Equity Fund investments, we wish to create an ecosystem of partners,
> collaborators, and grantees working on knowledge equity that will benefit
> the movement. This could include journalism projects to increase content
> about underrepresented regions of the world, or scholarship and research
> initiatives that are focused on expanding academic understanding of
> structural barriers to knowledge and potential solutions.
>
> The Equity Fund is separate from the grants that are available for
> community groups and the ongoing Grants Relaunch [3]. It is a new pool of
> funds that we can use to directly impact knowledge equity, and specifically
> barriers due to race that prevent access and participation in free
> knowledge.
>
> We are currently working to identify the first grant recipients for the
> Equity Fund.  The Meta page for the Equity Fund [4] includes more
> information (the members of the Equity Fund Committee, the five specific
> focus areas we will be investing in) and next steps. We are also currently
> looking for recommendations on organizations for grants - you can visit
> Meta or fill out this survey [5] if you have organizations that are already
> doing this work and would be a good fit.
>
> Lastly, we do want to emphasize that this is a pilot. There are a lot of
> open questions that have been raised by community members that we are still
> figuring out, on topics such as ensuring investment in global organizations
> and inclusive definitions of racial equity. We welcome additional questions
> as the project evolves from this early stage. We’re answering questions on
> Meta, so please join us there. We will also be hosting Office Hours in the
> coming week:
>
>-
>
>Monday, June 13 at 0100-0200 UTC meet.google.com/myf-zcaw-ubg
>-
>
>Monday, June 13 at 1500-1600 UTC meet.google.com/dzu-edej-wva
>
>
> This is an active step towards addressing the barriers that perpetuate
> knowledge gaps on our projects and prevent participation in free knowledge.
> We’re excited to try this new pilot and share our progress.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Lisa Gruwell, Janeen Uzzell, Tony Sebro and the Equity Fund Committee
>
>
> [1]
> https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/we-stand-for-racial-justice-49c31afbabca?source=collection_home---4--6---
>
>
> [2]
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Announcing an academic conference on Wikipedia translation

[Mark SHUTTLEWORTH]

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Many thanks for your messages and apologies for the slow response.

I've discussed the situation with my colleagues and everyone agrees that we
could certainly consider waiving the fee in the right circumstances, and
we've updated the conference website (https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/)
to reflect this. I haven't yet made a rapid grant request but I'll
certainly follow that up, and I'm also wondering if that suggestion that
Anne made earlier was still possibly on the table? Unfortunately it would
be difficult to reschedule the conference at this stage to allow an
application via the Conference Grants round though.

Anyone with an interest in translation on Wikipedia would be very welcome
to submit a paper proposal. The Call for Papers assumes that paper
proposals will be research-based but I think it would be really excellent
to have contributions from practitioners as well, and if we have enough we
could for example dedicate a session to them. I also think the opportunity
that the conference could potentially give for stimulating exchanges
between practitioners and researchers would be very exciting.

Best regards

Mark

On Wed, 2 Jun 2021 at 21:59, Oby Ezeilo  wrote:

> Hello Mark. Wonderful idea. I am Oby Ezeilo of The Igbo Wikimedia User
> Group in Nigeria, Just want to ask, if we are to join online do we need to
> pay the same amount?
> Regards
>
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 2:21 PM Chen Almog  wrote:
>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> If you are willing to consider postponing the event just a bit, to
>> January, you can also apply for the upcoming Conference Grants round. The
>> deadline for submission will be in early September.
>>
>> I'm happy to help and answer any questions.
>>
>> Chen
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2021, 16:16 Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>
>>> This looks lovely, thank you for organizing it Mark.
>>> You can submit a rapid grant request
>>>  for support for
>>> online participation.
>>>
>>> This seems like something of interest to developers of Translate
>>>  + Content
>>> Translation  +
>>> translatewiki , the
>>> current WMF language & translation team
>>> , and the
>>> people working on Lexicographical data
>>>  in
>>> Wikidata :)  You might want to explicitly invite some of those networks.
>>>
>>> SJ
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 1:48 AM Mark SHUTTLEWORTH 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Dear friends and colleagues

 Further to my message at the end of last month and the queries that one
 or two of you made, I'd like to notify you of the following:

 1. the conference will now be 100% online
 2. the deadline for submission of proposals has been extended to 30th
 June 2021

 Full updated details and Call for Papers can be found on the conference
 website at https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/.

 Best regards

 Mark Shuttleworth

 On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 at 12:13, Mark SHUTTLEWORTH 
 wrote:

> Dear friends and colleagues
>
> Please permit me to publicise an academic conference that we're
> holding at Hong Kong Baptist University on 15-17 December 2021.
>
> The conference will be an ideal forum in which to discuss research
> methodologies, issues of collaborativity, theoretical frameworks that have
> proven valuable for the study of Wikipedia translation, the use of
> Wikipedia in the translation classroom and by translation professionals,
> and the nature of Wikipedia translation and how it differs not only from
> other more traditional types of translation but also from other newly
> emerging types. While the conference's main focus is interlingual
> translation within the online encyclopaedia, we are also interested
> in research into the multilingual Wikipedia that makes no explicit
> reference to translation issues.
>
> The conference will be online, face-to-face or mixed mode, depending
> on prevailing circumstances. Please see the conference website at
> https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ for full details and the Call
> for Papers.
>
> I hope to see some of you there!
>
> Mark
>
> Professor Mark Shuttleworth 夏致遠
> Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies
> Hong Kong Baptist University
> Phone: +852 3411 6641
> http://www.tran.hkbu.edu.hk
> https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/
>

 --
 Disclaimer

 This message (including any attachments) may contain confidential
 information intended for a specific individual and/or purpose. If you are
 not the intended recipient, please delete this