Discussion Room/3

The Discussion Room is a space for open and facilitated discussions at Wikimania that are actually about the content projects. Participation of the audience in the session is critical, because there are no speakers, and there is no expert panel!

Round table discussions involve the audience!

You can find a full overview of the discussion topics on the Discussion Room main page. Please note: there is limited seating available, and we're not saving any seats! Please be on time, but feel free to join during the midway break between two discussions.

Basic facts

Discussion topics this session

• 3a Wikimedia Commons - Needs and wishes for the perfect Wikimedia media database
• 3b Including large content donations in our projects: how, and under which conditions?

Notes

3a https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/2015-discussionroom-3a

3b https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/2015-discussionroom-3b

Facilitator of this session

(to be determined)

Length of this session

40 minutes + 40 minutes (with a 5 minute break in between)

Approach

Each discussion targets specifically online Wikimedia projects, it lasts 40 minutes and it starts with a short 5 minutes introduction.
To set the tone of our discussions, we have three rules:

1. Focus on YOU. We are interested in discussing and triggering individual action, things people can personally do and change to improve our Wikimedia projects. We trust the discussion can be much more interesting if we do not focus on what others should do ("the others", Wikimedia chapters and Wikimedia Foundation).
2. Be constructive and polite. Disagreements animate discussions and they can allow us to unfold all issues related to a topic. Let's avoid personal attacks, let's consider that we have different backgrounds and let's aim at making everybody comfortable in sharing their legitimate point of view.
3. Be short and on topic. Let's create space for everyone to express his/her opinion.

Wikimedia Commons - Needs and wishes for the perfect Wikimedia media database

Description: Wikimedia Commons is loved and hated by many. While it fulfills a great need, and is one of the major projects in the Wikimedia family besides Wikipedia, it is also infamous for its atmosphere and dedicated copyright discussions. In this session we will, like last year, collect major problems with Wikimedia Commons (that could theoretically be solved by the community), and spend some time discussing how they compare and interact. How could we make Commons more into a welcoming place, what can be improved upon?

We had the same topic in the previous year - and will compare the outcomes as well with last year.

Objective: Identify major points of improvement in Wikimedia Commons, in a constructive manner.

Including large content donations in our projects: how, and under which conditions?

Description: There have been many instances of content donations, mostly processed through the Chapters or groups of Wikimedians that care about the content of the particular collection. In this discussion, we would like to take a step back, and take a look at the overarching question: should we actually accept all large content donations? Should that decision up to a 'coalition of the willing' or the community at large? Under which conditions should we accept them? And should all different types of content be approached in the same manner? Is there a difference between text and image donations? And how can we optimise the impact of such donations, and implement them effectively in our projects?

Objective: Get better insight in whether how content donations should be approached as a matter of best practice.

Interested attendees

1. ...