2025:Program/Community chatter and vital decision spaces – exploring communication hubs across language versions
Session title: Community chatter and vital decision spaces – exploring communication hubs across language versions
- Session type: Roundtable
- Track: Community Engagement
- Language: en
This roundtable explores central communication hubs across various Wikipedia language versions, depending on participants’ backgrounds. Drawing from insights from the German community, we navigate talk pages, village pumps, and other platforms to analyze centralized spaces for communication and decision making. Insights into community dynamics and best practices for maintaining these hubs are shared. Whether seasoned or new to the Wikiverse, participants engage in a discussion on how communication shapes collaboration in Wikipedia's multilingual ecosystem.
Description
Join our roundtable discussion as we embark on a journey to uncover the central communication hubs within various language versions of Wikipedia. We will share some insights from a survey among the German community with over 1,000 participants to start the conversation. Together, we'll navigate through the intricate network of talk pages, village pumps, and other dialogue platforms, examining the presence or absence of centralized communication spaces in different language communities. Through collaborative exploration and shared experiences, participants will gain valuable insights into the dynamics of community interaction in local communities and across language barriers. We'll delve into the challenges and opportunities of establishing and maintaining these hubs, sharing best practices along the way. Whether you're a seasoned editor or new to the Wikimedia community, this roundtable offers a unique opportunity to deepen your understanding of how communication spaces shape collaboration within Wikipedia's diverse language ecosystems.
- How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?
The session is very crucial to the event theme: In order to be inclusive, especially for newcomers and not so experienced contributors from any background, a community needs transparent processes on how decisions are made and where discussions on community issues take place. With transparent processes a community can be sustainable because discussions and decisions are not repeated unnecessarily, thus reducing volunteer resources.
- What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?
Everyone can participate in this session
Resources
Speakers
- verena
- Having a background in project management and communication, I am interested in methods to organize and support collaboration processes. Since 2016 I am a staff member of Wikimedia Deutschland and I am still excited about the Wikimedia Movement and proud to be able to support it. As Head of Community Growth & Relations I work closely together with the German Wikimedia communities. In our team we focus on community growth with outreach, activation and onboarding activites.
- martin
- Martin Rulsch is communications advisor and project manager for communities & engagement at Wikimedia Deutschland. He supports local Wikimedia groups in their self-organized community rooms, connects volunteers on a global level and conducts survey on Wikimedia projects. In his volunteer time, he does administrative tasks like fighting global vandalism and supports community governance and communications at various places.