Meeting:2024 AGM/President's Report

Amanda Lawrence

15 September 2024

This has been another huge year for Wikimedia Australia as we embarked on year two of our three year Strategic plan supported by 3 year funding (2022-2025) from the Wikimedia Foundation. The Strategic plan is based on three pillars: Engagement, Equity and Inclusion, and Capacity Building.

Belinda Spry will provide a more detailed report of WMAU activities over the year so I in my report I will just highlight a few key areas that the Board has focussed on over the past 12 months.

Engagement

Engagement and partnerships within and beyond Australia is a key goal in our strategic plan and over the last year WMAU has supported members to participate in two Wikimanias – in Singapore 2023 and Poland 2024, as well as Wikidata Con 2023 in Taiwan and the ESEAP Conference in May 2024 in Malaysia.

It was a significant milestone to have Wikimania in the ESEAP region last year and it was wonderful to meet so many colleagues from across the region there. This was followed up with the ESEAP Conference in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia in May this year, consolidating the ESEAP Hub activities and fostering ongoing connections and capacity building across the region. WMAU supported our members to attend these events as engagement with the Asia Pacific, and beyond, is a key part of our strategic plan. We look forward to continuing to support the ESEAP Hub as it develops.

This includes working with our good friends in Aoteoroa New Zealand on a range of projects and capacity building activities.

WMF Berlin Summit and Movement Charter

As President I attended the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin in May 2024, along with Belinda Spry, Executive Officer, supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. This is the last time the Summit will be held in Berlin, with a new model and organizing team taking up the mantle of planning and hosting this conversation amongst Wikimedia organisations from now on. Thank you to Wikimedia Deutschland for their generous hosting over many years.

The focus of the summit was discussing, debating and finalizing the draft the Movement Charter and plans for a Global Council and it was wonderful to meet people from across the world working on community building for the Wikimedia movement. The final Movement Charter that was produced for voting on by the community had many appealing aspects in terms of supporting greater diversity, equity and distributed decision-making, and clarifying the role of movement organisations such as Affiliates and Hubs. However it also had many unknowns and presented many concerns for the Board and in the end we could not endorse the Charter as proposed. As noted in our submission with our vote we are committed to the values and principles of the movement charter and look forward to working with the Wikimedia community on next steps.

Engagement with a range of organisations and partnerships across Australia is also fundamental to our approach, extending our reach, bringing in new editors and communities of interest, and supporting mutually beneficial projects and activities through our funded projects. More information on past project partners and this year's funding round is here.

Indigenous consultation

Following on from our work with the Jumbunna institute looking at protocols for description and access to Indigenous knowledge on Wikipedia, in 2023 WMAU commissioned a research project led by Distinguished Professor Bronwyn Carlson from Macquarie University to undertake consultation with Indigenous communities on their experience and perspectives on engaging with Wikimedia.

Thank you to Prof Bronwyn Carlson and her team at Macquarie Uni for undertaking an important study and producing a ground breaking report which was published this year: “I really like Wikipedia, but I don’t trust it”: understanding First Nations peoples’ experiences using Wikipedia as readers and/or editors. Macquarie University.

The report provides much needed insight into how First Nations people read and edit Wikipedia and providing recommendations for us to work through over the next 12 months. To support this, as part of our capacity-building, the Board has also been undertaking AIATSIS training this year. We have also supported a range of Indigenous projects through our annual project funding program which has proven to be an extremely effective way of expanding the reach and impact of our WMF funding, building partnerships and inspiring new ideas and new contributors.

Advocacy

As a very large online platform (VLOP), Wikimedia projects are impacted by a wide range of policies and legislation from all over the world including Australia. We therefore need to take a proactive role in articulating what a model of public interest knowledge infrastructure and online community building looks likes and what kind of legislative environment it requires, in contrast to the large commercial platforms.

WMAU Board members and staff worked with the WMF legal and advocacy team in 2024 to make a submission to the Australian government’s Online Safety BOSE reforms. Our concerns with the bill focused on key points:

Protecting public interest projects
Privacy and anonymity as cornerstones of a vibrant internet
Safeguarding decentralised and community-led content moderation
Protecting child rights through effective internal mechanism and community participation

We also worked with a global team to publish an open letter calling for three key commitments that we would like to see in the final version of the United Nations Global Digital Compact, which we believe are fundamental to realizing a version of the internet which is open, global, interoperable, inclusive, and grounded in human rights.

Protect and empower communities to govern online public interest projects.
Promote and protect digital public goods by supporting a robust digital commons from which everyone, everywhere can benefit.
Build and deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to support and empower, not replace, people who create content and make decisions in the public interest.

You can find out more on the WMF Advocacy page.

With Australia taking a proactive approach to online safety as well as following many models coming from the EU, it is important that we maintain an awareness of information and technology policies and respond where feasible and effective to issues that impact Wikimedia projects and digital public goods. This is an ongoing area in which I believe WMAU can play a critical role in building alliances to support the free knowledge movement in Australia and beyond.

WMAU Membership

Membership numbers have increased slightly from last year with 76 current members.

Thank you to all the WMAU members for your ongoing commitment to WMAU and the Wikimedia movement and to all those everywhere who support knowledge equity and a caring, sharing and peace loving world.

Thank you to the Board and Staff

This is my fourth and last year on the Wikimedia Australia Board. I would like to give thanks to the 2023-2024 Board members for their time and expertise: Bunty Avieson (Vice President), Peter Neish (Treasurer),Kelly Tall (Secretary), Elliott Bledsoe, Jeremy Ludlow, Tom Hogarth and Emily Mierisch. In particular I would like to thank Peter Neish who took on the role of Treasurer with a thoroughness and dedication for which I am extremely grateful. I would also like to thank outgoing Secretary Kelly Tall for her support and good humour.

I would like to congratulate and welcome new Board members: Shravan Rao, who has kindly jumped straight into the Secretary role, Kassi Hays as an Ordinary member, and Elliott Bledsoe as the new President. Thank you to you all for contributing to the smooth running and success of Wikimedia Australia.

It has been a wonderful experience to be involved with the organization over the last four years as it has grown from a committee with no staff to an organisation with a team of 3. I am extremely very grateful for the hard work and commitment of Belinda Spry, Executive Officer, Alice Woods and Alison Smith.