Hubs/Dialogue

Participants in an online Hubs discussion on January 2021.

The Hubs Dialogue is a series of meetings with Wikimedians who are planning future hubs around the world that was used to produce a findings summary. The results will be discussed at the Hubs Global Conversations on 12 March 2022, along with the next steps in launching hubs

The Dialogue was organized by the Wikimedia Foundation's Movement Strategy and Governance Team. The goal of the 'Hubs Dialogue' is to help understand the perspective, needs, and expectations of those working on hubs.

Goals

Reconnect with everyone working on hubs.
Meet them in their diverse contexts.
Understand their perspective, their needs, and their expectations.
Consolidate a report to surface alignment and map out differences.

Join

If you are working on a hub or planning it (see: the active hubs), and you would like to join the conversation, please contact the Movement Strategy and Governance Team using the following email address:

strategy2030@wikimedia.org

Participants

Name of the potential	Interviewed persons	Interview date
WikiArabia	Farah, Bachounda, Ahmed Hamdi, Anass, Adel, Nanour	February 21
Capacity Exchange Network	Nikki Zeuner	February 22
Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU	Anna Mazgal, Dimi Dimitrov	February 22
Wiki Education	Frank Schulenburg	February 22
East African	Douglas Ssebaggala, Winnie Kabintie, Anthony Mtavangu	February 23
Iberocoop	Anna Torres, Pepe Flores, Evelin Heidel	February 23
ESEAP	Butch Bustria, Alex Lum, Rachmat Wahidi	February 24
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)	Gergö, Kiril Simeonovski, (Klára Joklová)	February 24
Language Diversity	Astrid Carlsen, Jon Harald Søby, Mali Konstad Brødreskift	February 25
Volunteer Supporters Network	Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska, Raimund Liebert	February 25
Bangla Wikimaitree	Shabab Mustafa, ~~Bodhisattwa~~, Tito Dutta	February 28
WikiFranca	Adelaide Calais, Dominique Eliane Yao Sigan, Georges Foudoup	January 03
Wiki Loves Monuments	Ciell	February 03
Content Partnerships	John Andersson, Eric Luth	February 03
Africa Wiki Tech	Abigail Darko, Harriet Henry Bayel, Patience Owusu Ansah	April 03
Lusophone	Lucas Piantá, Chico Venâncio, Érica Azzelini (WMB) + Paulo Perneta (WMPT)	April 03
Wikiproject Med Foundation	James Heilman	April 03

Timeline

1 - 10 February Preparation - Setting everything up for the Hubs Dialogue	11 - 20 February Outreach - Contacting the Wikimedians working on or planning Hubs to start conversations	11 - 28 February Conducting conversations - Having structured conversations with each group	1 - 7 March Reporting back - Consolidating and publishing a report	8 - 12 March Announcing the results - Get back to everyone involved, highlighting the findings and next steps

Plan

Value Proposition

Alignment - Creating a coherent overview of convergence and divergence.

Contextualization - Understanding the needs and expectations in their particular context.

Enablement - Feeling of connection and support for everyone working on hubs.

Approach

Reach out - Define the groups and establish contact. Create the space for bidirectional connection.

Converse - Conduct a designed conversation to surface information. Keep it rooted in the context.

Report - Consolidate a report. Ensure closing of all the feedback and input loops.

Design Considerations

Facilitation - Tackling complex issues is burdensome. We need to design for incremental steps.

Focus - There is a lot of ground to be covered. Tangible results can only be achieved with focus.

Flexibility - People are in different stages of planning. We need evaluation, iteration, and adaptation.

Questionnaire

During the conversations, communities will be asked the following questions:

Topic	Questions
Purpose	1. What value do you expect in bringing the hub's idea to your community or group? A. How do you expect that it would create that value? 2. What problem(s) is the hub solving? A. Where do(es) the problem(s) come from?
History	3. Were there past experiments similar to “hubs” in your community? A. If so, what happened to them? B. If so, what are the top lessons learned from the experiments?
Present	4. What is the current stage of your “hub” idea/plan/project? A. Key organizers - people to include in the conversation B. Short overview of the work done already (can be a link) C. Self-assessment of the progress in planning (1 to 7)
Future	5. What are the things that need to be clarified before you can continue working on your hub project? A. What guidance do you need? B. What work do you need to do? C. What support do you need?
Context	6. What sets your community apart from others? A. What are some unique barriers in your community or target group? What structures or conditions make your mission specifically harder? 7. What is the unique opportunity that the hub would create for your community? A. What new activities/projects/ideas will you be able to work on after you seize them (i.e. once there is a hub)? 8. What is the opportunity that the hub would create for other communities? A. What new activities/projects/ideas will others be able to work on after you seize them (i.e. once there is a hub)?