2022:Present and future

Page about the present and future of Wikimania 2022 online. Read more and feel free to contribute! ❤️️

Many of these notes apply primarily to an upcoming online Wikimania, but could be useful in a live Wikimania as well.

Historical context

In 2021 part of the community raised some concerns and possible solutions for Wikimania online 2021 (most of the problems were related to Free and Open Source and privacy).

In 2022 some of these problems have been mitigated, some were present as well. So we will try to help explaining where are the problems this year and what are the possible solutions. Partially related, trying to be more heard on these issues, we are trying to open the Wikimedians for software freedom user group.

Problems and solutions for Wikimania 2022

Topic	Problems	Available solutions	Accepted replacement in 2022
pheedloop.com	Problems affecting participants as default: Proprietary JavaScript executed on browser web Active user tracking Third-party dependencies Third-party cookies Advertising dependencies Transfer of visitor's data to other companies in real time GDPR concerns about Google Analytics Partial list of these resources: addevent.com cloudflare.com doubleclick.net g2crowd.com google.com google-analytics.com gstatic.com jsdelivr.net facebook.net maps.googleapis.com rawgit.com stripe.com stripe.network zencdn.net ...	These are all valid solutions - just pick one or propose more: Contact "pheedloop" sales to get a quote about removing proprietary resources, especially third-party proprietary JavaScript minified resources like Google Analytics and resources to other companies not related in any way to the core of a conference like Wikimania 2022, including advertising trackers, user trackers and embedded payment systems. Provide workarounds to do not require any interaction with pheedloop for people caring about software freedom, and/or privacy, and/or digital rights. So, do not adopt pheedloop as the primary platform for Wikimania 2022 since it's not possible to guarantee confidentiality of information (since browser information goes straight to Google, Facebook, etc.).	none
meet.google.com	Problems affecting participants as default: Proprietary JavaScript executed on browser web Active user tracking Connections to Google Advertising dependencies GDPR concerns about the whole Google Workspace	These are all valid solutions - just pick one or propose more: Check with Google sales or whatever to see if you can participate with a traditional phone (probably yes but not so documented) to provide a valid workaround without requiring proprietary software. If possible, please document this information as the default option (note: it's not necessary to be "the only option", just please suggest it as "the default"). Adopt Jitsi Meeting gratis Wikimedia Meet paid: just pay a provider (search "Jitsi Meeting provider" - then asking to have no trackers) More people needed? Just stream to a social. It's very easy with Jitsi (no technical) Adopt BigBlueButton gratis: ask to a Wikimedia Chapter Wikimedia Italia (info@wikimedia.it) ... paid: just pay a provider (search "BigBlueButton provider" - then asking to have no trackers)	Jitsi Meeting
https://global.callin.studio/	Problems affecting participants as default: Proprietary JavaScript executed on browser web Active user tracking Connections to Google Minified and obscured HTML and JavaScript Advertising dependencies GDPR concerns about the whole Google Workspace Platform not working on lot of configurations Platform not supporting both webcam and screen sharing	These are all valid solutions - just pick one or propose more: Whatever is the platform, the link should be shared to the speakers at least 6 hours before the start of the conference. Since there was support for Jitsi Meeting in 2022 (well-tested and Open Source), proactively propose it by default.	none
https://youtube.com	See same notes from: 2021:Present and future

Situation compared to previous year

Label

• ❌: Situation not improved since last year.
• ⚠️: Situation apparently not improved since last year which deserves clarification.
• ✅: Situation improved since last year.

Here some checklist points from the last year document 2021:Present and future:

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❌ COPYRIGHT-1 · Respect other-people copyright

• The community released presentations under libre licenses but were sent in streaming and uploaded on YouTube under variations of "all rights reserved".
• On the Wikimania Channel most video descriptions are also blank. Although there are technological restrictions in YouTube, This is not a good faith attempt to respect community's copyright
• The community released at least one presentation under the Wikipedia license (Creative Commons BY-SA). The problem is that YouTube does not support this license. It is not selectable.
• YouTube applies Digital rights management on videos and this is not allowed by the Wikipedia license as default.

  → YouTube is a problematic platform, should be discouraged, and not adopted as the main platform

  → In the meantime, as bona fide mitigation, make sure that community presentations, when released on YouTube, has correct credits in the description

❌ DIGITALRESTRICTIONS-1 · The DRM are a problem

• The license of Wikipedia is the Creative Commons BY-SA. This license does not allow DRM (digital rights management).
• The community released presentations under Creative Commons BY-SA but this license does not allow restrictions, like download restrictions or DRM from YouTube.

  → YouTube is a problematic platform, should be discouraged, and not adopted as the main platform

  → In the meantime, as bona fide mitigation, make sure that community presentations, when released on YouTube, has a link in the description to a version without DRM (for example, Wikimedia Commons)

❌ HUMAN-1 · Reduce necessary data

• In 2022, most participants registered their email in the proprietary platform Pheedloop just to see the program or view videos, but it was not really necessary to just see both of them.

  → It would have been more appropriate to clarify this either on the Meta page or on the Pheedloop page, since Pheedloop has some interest in collecting emails, but Wikipedia does not work that way and should not encourage this behavior in online events.

❌ HUMAN-2 · Stop asking sexual orientation

• In the post-Wikimania 2022 survey there are questions about people's sexual preferences that can be linked to their email addresses and other personal metadata.

  → In some countries, like Afghanistan, homosexuality is punished with the death penalty. To be inclusive, don't ask this information in a questionnaire that also ask email address (or any other personal metadata that can link to a real person).

  → It's not a good idea to ask for sexual identification. If really needed, better to have a completely separated survey (without asking e-mail etc.)

❌ HUMAN-3 · Explain what is mandatory or optional

• Pheedloop explicitly asked first name, last name and email addresses - and only optionally a nickname - of participants.

  → This is exactly the opposite of what Wikimedia projects try to do: first and last name should not be asked (optional).

  → If the first and last name could be filled in with fictional information, it had to be clarified.

  → In some countries it is illegal to enter a false name and surname, so it's not possible to expect participants to be bold and go for this possibility on their own.

  → If the platform does not allow you to remove the "(*)" on name and surname, just add an useful note (example: "feel free to set a fictional surname" or "sorry if this field is mandatory for technical reasons, just add a random character" or something like that to avoid collection of real name and surname for no reasons).

❌FLOSS-0 · Participation must be allowed with Free/Libre software

• The requirements in Wikimania 2022 festival technology guide said "Google Chrome" and no other free/libre browser web like Firefox or Chromium.

  → While it makes sense to focus development on just a few browsers (e.g. latest LTS of Firefox and Chromium); putting a message from the official Wikimania 2022 conference, telling anyone "only use Google Chrome - but contact us if you cannot", is not acceptable. The same statement is perceived in this way: "if you are a Wikimedian and so if you care about freedom, please go away - but contact us if you care".

• The default streaming platform was YouTube that has proprietary JavaScript and Digital Restriction Management (DRM). No intentions to try a free/libre streaming, for example on PeerTube v3+.
• ✅ This year it seems it was possible to use Jitsi Meeting that is free/libre software. Thank you!
• ⚠️ Unfortunately, some speakers received a link to a proprietary platform called global.callin.studio as default. Some others received a link to "Zoom" that is proprietary as well. Somebody received the link ~35 minutes before the start of their talk, so for them there were no possibility to adopt Jitsi Meeting.

PUBLIC-5 · Watch and reply talk pages

• ✅ There have been improvements in the watch of the discussion pages. Thank you! For example there were users who asked questions about the protection of their personal data and got an answer before the event started.
• ⚠️ On 24th, February 2022 a volunteer sent to the COT and to a WMF staff member an independent technical support quote from an European software house with expertise in free/libre services. The quote was sent back without any comment about content or price or reasons (example: the COT decided it was not important to invest in free/libre solutions, etc.)

Anything more? Please contribute to help future editions! Thank you!

See also

• 2021:Present and future - same but for the previous year