2019/Lunch Meetup C - WikiLGBT+

LGBT+ User Group - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT%2B/Portal

LGBT+ <ailing List - https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/lgbt

Telegram: @wmlgbt - https://telegram.me/wmlgbt

Jeffrey Keefer (User:FULBERT) facilitated the meetup, which had a total of 18 participants.

Lane (User:BlueRasberry) is taking minutes. These will be publicly available on the Wikiconference page and also on the Wikimedia LGBT+ home page. Sign up there, join the list serve, and consider joining the monthly video call.

In April 2020 there will be a Wikimedia LGBT+ conference to address big organizational issues, such as addressing misconduct and improve scope of coverage. To make organization happen more efficiently it is helpful to highlight th

Brandon Sullivan, I am from Jamaica. I have been editing Wikipedia for 4.5 years. It has been a long journey to get a voice and representation in the Wikimedia community, especially being from the Carribean, which is underrpresented in the region. It is encouraging to see a group of editors who openly identify as LGBT+. In Jamaica there is discrimination and the LGBT+ community grapples that every day. It is encouraging to see this community meet.

I am Tiara. I work with Brandon. I live in LA but I am from Trinidad.

I am Hannah. I am from the United States. I work for the the International Astronomical Union. I spend half my time in the Netherlands. I do inclusive astronomy program and work with Women and LGBT Astronomers. In my role I also have to face LGBT+ discrimination. I am also hoping to bring some Wikipedia stuff into the awareness of Astronomers. 

I am Joe. I am from Kentucky. I have been hanging around the Wiki LGBT+ English project for a while. I am happy to help out any way that I can.

Sherwin - I am doing Public Policy in the Wikimedia Foundation. If

I am Bruce from Seattle. I can lend a hand if anyone needs help addressing a troll or harasser. 

Reno Mackenzie

Another Beliver

Ryan Mendenhall

TJ (User:TJMSmith)

Jeffery - Wiki Loves Price is an annual event.

This year there was also a photo context called Wiki Loves Love which was collecting photos of love. For this event a group of people came to the project to complain saying that certain depictions, including of LGBT+ love, were too political and biased for a publicly promoted photo project. While the LGBT+ community was discussing how to respond, somehow some Wikimedia administrators responded to requests to take the project down. When issues like this come up it is helpful to get LGBT+ community comment to advocate for LGBT+ programs. 

Ben: Do we have information about how represented the LGBT+ community is among Wikimedia editors? Also, what information do we have about content gaps in LGBT+?

(asking around - we do not have the data - maybe anyone could casually report anecdotes to lead to a more organized reporting of data?)

Jeffrey: As we organize as a community we can prioritize certain activities, and sorting out our content and gaps is one goal. There have been talks about what LGBT+ topics we should translate. There have been programs like Wikipedia for Peace, which has included LGBT content themes and sought to promote mutlicultural planning for content development.

AB: About 5 years ago someone did a soft-launch of a project called "Wiki Loves Pride". In June in the united States it is Pride month. To prepare for this event someone sets up an annual program page, suggests any topics for development, and anyone can list newly created or improved articles. Every year I get emails that are horrific saying that the program is horrible and participants will go to hell. Along with these threats people write in saying how much the program means to them and asking how they can help. Some people write from other countreis where LGBT+ activism is prohibited, and it is hard to know how a United States volunteer can support people globally in participating. Wiki Loves Pride brings in lots of new users. Some of them go on to English Wikipedia WikiProject LGBT Studies. When people on Facebook talk about Wiki Loves Pride, some people say 

Hannah: For LGBT+ biographies often do not mention that a person is LGBT+. I speak Russian, and often when I see LGBT+ status on an English Wikipedia article and try to post this to the Russian language biography. Soemone removes this.

AB: When I invited all the Wikimedia affilates to participate in Wiki Loves Pride, for example, the Ukrainian affiliate organization made a formal rejection of the invitation. This could be because certain individuals are opposed to LGBT+ support, or it could be that the organization has a legitimate political need to reject such things in order to sustain itself. It is not easy to talk these things through.

(Victor Grigas takes photo - is it okay? Yes!)

AB: Does anyone have a harassment stories 

TJ: I originally got started in Wikipedia through the Women in Red program. That program does have quantifiable information. It seems easier to track that because it seems less controversial. Hannah, when you were talking about scientist representation, or Ben when you were asking about data, that is a need in our community. In Wikidata when anyone puts in sexual orientation this requires a citation. For historical figures it seems like we ought to be able to read between the lines, such as when there is documentation about same sex couples seeming to be together, but from those times and places we do not have a way in Wikidata to publish this.

Mehr - Yes, and sometimes people dismiss this as a misinterpretation.

TJ: Whatever the case, we need to have some advice on how to address this situations. I hear that the percentage of female editors is less in Wikipedia. When I look around this room it seems like our LGBT+ participation might be all right.

Jeffrey: These are all good projects for anyone to do. With all of these projects there is room for anyone to report results, and there is also room for people to do any sort of new project. How should we do tagging, updating, reporting? Should we do taggin?

Timothy Wood: I talked with Jonathan Morgan, a researcher at hte Wikimedia Foundation, who said that it was problematic for us to ask editors about their own demographics for things like sexuality, because it might be stigmatizing. But is anyone aware of whether we have information about the content gap for LGBT topics, as opposed to the editor gap? This are things that Wikiproject Women in Red track very well. 

TJ: Is everyone familiar with Women in Red? This is an outreach project to increase coverage of women in Wikipedia. We could model our own outreach efforts after this.

Jeffrey: We have 18 people here now. At the last Wikimania we had 2 LGBT events with good participation at each. We need to have a better way to track our events. 

Sherwin: The Samaritans is a suicide prevention group based out of the UK. This group approached the Wikiemdia Foundation to collaborate in developing Wikipedia's media coverage about suicide. This organization has expertise in advising how media organizations can cover suicide responsibly. Suicide is contagious, and there are right responses to it. Also this organization can advise communities in how to respond to suide.

Jeffrey: can you please link to this organization in the notes?

Carlin: I am from the UK and they are the biggest. They have ads everywhere and are well known.

Jeffrey: scholarships for the Wiki LGBT+ conference open soon. Apply if you think you fit. The conference also needs volunteers to set the program, review scholarhip applications, set the theme, get appropriate representation, and publish more about what it means to be an LGBT+ orgnaization in the Wiki space. We only hav eanother 15 minutes to talk and hopefully we can use this time to get some ideas of what kinds of calls for comment we should request.

Esther: I have a questions about wikidata. Do we have other models for best practices for putting in information?

TJ: ethnicity, race

Lane (Wikidata gender thing, and LGBT+ thing)

look up CritCat on twitter, many people talk about this

Timothy Wood: There is a work around for the issue of gender/sexuality information in Wikidata. The categories themselves are also linked through WD across projects. So the category for LGBT activist would be linked across languages, and you can pull pages using petscan according to category, rather than relying on the information in each individual WD entry. 

Anohther B: There is also a Wikdiata LGBT+ community. Consider Sasha Velour. This person is born male, they have  drag persona which is female, and they identify as gender queer. We really need people who can join this discussion. There is an ongoing discussion about this. 

Carlin: Do we have model items and gold standards for how to present a person, organization, etc in Wikidata? What are the key value pairs which we should copy? 

Sounder 

Imzadi1979 Michael

GreenMeansGo Timothy Wood

Ellie McMillan LVNDR_Menace

from Rita Mae Brown

Hale Polebaum Freeman

Willams College

Mehrdad MPourzaki WMF

Nikitag94