Melbourne Meetup 33 took place on 3 May 2017 during the visit of Katherine Maher, Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation, for Melbourne Knowledge Week. Katherine presented the opening keynote for Melbourne Knowledge Week on Monday at 7.30pm).

Date: Wednesday 3 May 2017

Time: 5.00-6.30pm Presentations and strategy session facilitated by Wikimedia Australia committee and Katherine Maher, Wikimedia Foundation

Venue: Blue Room, Multicultural Hub, Level 1, 506 Elizabeth Street Melbourne

6.30pm Social activity

• Pub meal at own expense The Last Jar, 616 Elizabeth Street Melbourne - 5 minute walk, or
• Join the Rescue Dinner at the Queen Victoria Markets, and support Melbourne Knowledge Week.

• What we know about the future: The world in 2030 - Society in 2030 - Education in 2030 - Technology in 2030

• Our movement and ecosystem: Our movement today - Organized groups today - The Wikimedia Foundation today

• What do we do today in the movement?: Movement activities - Movement finances - Social movements

• Why are we part of this movement?: Motivations of contributors - Motivations of readers - Motivations of donors

• A living movement: How we're evolving: Trends in contribution - Trends in content - Trends in readership - Metrics

Jon Lawrence from Electronic Frontiers Australia outlined the rationale for the proposed Fair Use campaign, and the banners scheduled for display to Australian readers from 18 May 2017. It is predominantly an awareness campaign, leading up to the release of the Productivity Commission report on copyright - to be tabled in next session of Parliament. The call to action is a request for Australians to contact politicians and urge adoption of fair use. The campaign will link to an external page with contact details for local members and additional information on the campaign. There is a History of Fair Use proposals in Australia page for briefing on this issue.

Members were pleased to welcome Katherine Maher, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation and introduced themselves. Katherine outlined the Global Movement Strategy process and set the scene for looking ahead to 2030.

Strategic priorities and current issues raised by participants included:

Diversity and inclusion of all groups

• recording Indigenous languages, not just Australian languages - Pacific Islander and African languages have shared issues
• overcoming barriers for language groups
• funding outreach for awareness activity in areas of major content gaps, eg Papua New Guinea
• increasing the influence of women in the movement
• continuing focus on inclusion of all kinds

Article quality

• integrating the academic community including students, to build content quality
• building effective ways to teach people to edit
• spreading the word about wikidata in broader open data community, and spreading the work
• working on structured citations

Technology and interfaces

• uploading content to Commons has to be easier, especially from mobile
• easy editing on mobile devices is essential
• the articles for creation process is a cultural roadblock

Community health

• prioritising the campaign of niceness
• communication channels that facilitate members of the community finding out about and connecting with local/geographic and topical groups
• addressing cultural issues masquerading as technical issues

• How can affiliates be better empowered as public advocates in their region?
• Where are key partnerships that would help address scale issues and geographic challenges?
• How to get increased awareness of the chapter and more off wiki engagement locally
• How to prioritise our limited resources - human, time & money?