As now I see @Mali_Brødreskift_WMNO around (hi!), could you share more about the progress so far for this Forum? How can other interested Wikimedians help with this? I also see some people from the Steering Committee and translators for this project as well – hi @Shahadusadik @Oscar_WMF @Iyumu @Robertjamal12!
(ICYMI, there will be another event regarding thematic Hubs later this month for Wikimedians to share experiences and learn from each other: Global Conversations on Hubs on June 24, 25, and 26! )
3 Likes
Hi @RamzyM_WMF !! Yes, we are in the first phase of the research now, we have selected the communities and prepared the interview guides. We will do some trial interviews this week, and then we have two months more or less for the group interviews to take place. This will be organized by people that ar part of or close to the communities.
I am sure there will be many things we can have support from other Wikimedians with. I also wanted to inform you that we are opening up the Steering Committee to observer members as well. Currently Wikitongues and Wikimedia UK are observers, that means they participate in meetings, but if we come down to a vote it will be only the steering committee that will have voting rights. If it is interesting for you or others to join in on some meetings and take part in the discussions, please let me know!
There will also be a lot of translations going on when the interview processes start, we will be more spesific on the langauges as we progress 
Thanks for the reminder for the global conversations in june! 
10 Likes
I’m curious about the communication channels used by the promoters of the hub. How are you communicating? As in which platform(s) you are using and which language(s). Also whether people have to be client English speakers to be involved in the hub or not.
(I have the same curiosity for all the hub projects and in fact for all Movement Strategy projects. Since you are already here, I could ask your first.) 
1 Like
Hi @Qgil-WMF! Good question about communication. So far we have been focused on preparing for the interviews, and we are just about to start communicating more. This is really a challenge, to balance getting work done, and communicating what we are doing to a wider audience on a regular basis. Communication always takes much more time than expected, and it is harder to prioritise when we have many other tasks more important for the progress of the project.
We use the Langauge Diversity Meta-page to give updates on progress directed towards Wikimedians. Then we will use Diff to write articles that are easier to share with Wikimedians and beyond. And we are also about to set up some social media channels to see if that can help us keep up with a more informal communication that can keep people easily updated, and also make us reach further beyond Wikimedia.
As for the languages, right now we are using English. But, we certainly have to find ways to make sure people can interact without having to know English. For the interviews that will be done as a part of the research project, they will be performed by people close to or in the communities in the local language and then translated to English afterwords. We have not come that far in discussions in the Steering Committee, but, I find this platform quite inspiring! It will be interesting to see how it will be evaluated by others.
I look forward to read what others do and their experience in communication in relation to Hubs!
5 Likes
Voy a tratar de ampliar la respuesta de @Mali_Brødreskift_WMNO 
para comentar que también utilizamos Telegram para coordinaciones internas del grupo. Ciertamente, la comunicación es en inglés en los espacios que tenemos (no podríamos coordinarnos de otra forma), y en mi caso considero esto un problema que precisamente debería tratar de derribar esta iniciativa del Language Diversity Hub.
Además de iniciativas como este foro, la posibilidad incondicional de interpretación para quién lo necesite es fundamental para poder avanzar una iniciativa así. Pero en cualquier caso yo solo soy un portavoz, ahora mismo, en la fase de entrevistas me he colocado la tarea de conocer a otras comunidades de la región (además de la wayú) para saber más sobre su situación en relación con la Wikipedia y como podemos apoyarles.
3 Likes
Thank you @Oscar_WMF ! I totally forgot Telegram, which indeed is the platform we use the most for internal communication. And since the conversation then has to be in a common language, everything there happens in English - and therefore unfortunately already excludes someone from participating.
Maybe we can use this Forum to overcome that an get even more people involved! I am quite excited to follow conversations around here in all sorts of languages!
5 Likes
Exciting news! Congratulations to everyone involved!!
3 Likes
Hi all! I see that we have started the conversation on the Language Diveristy Hub, without really introducing it in this forumt. I wanted to see if I could explain the idea behind this hub clearer.
The hub builds on the network created by the Language Diversity group on Meta and Telegram. With the LDH we want to create a formal network that can
(1) provide support for new language versions,
(2) facilitate collaborations among communities within and with resources outside the movement, and (3) provide a platform that can lift the voices of the smaller communities so we together can make Wikimedia a better place for all.
For now we are in the research phase, and with the Movement Strategy Implementation Grant we will be documenting the experiences on Wikipedia for contributors from 13 different language communities. With this research we will both get valuable documentation, but also experience in collaborating as a global, thematic hub.
The communities have been selected on criterias such as activity level, size of the community of contributors, and how long since the Wikipedia was launched. We have aimed for a geographical variation and also interviews with both active Wikipedia versions and versions still in the incubator.
The idea of this hub was launched last year after the Arctic Knot Conference and a Steering Committee was put together to start shaping the idea. The Movement Strategy provided a clear opportunity to explore the idea in the shape of a Hub. When setting up the Steering Committee we also aimed for diversity in geography, gender, experience and roles in the movement. It was in the Steering Committee meetings the idea for the research project grew, and we are really excited to see it moving forward.
As already mentioned in others posts here we are collaborating with Wikitongues on another small-language related Movement strategy implementation grant. It is really exciting to see how we already are creating bridges between groups and contributors.
We are very interested in getting in touch with you who are involved with small languages within Wikimedia. It is interesting to know both what kind of resources you would like a hub like this to provide to you, and what you can share with the Hub. Do you have a project, and would like the Language Diversity Hub to be involved somehow? Please get in touch with me, or someone else from the Steering Committee.
The challenge with a Language Diversity project is ironically enough, the language barriers. Hopefully this forum can reduce those barriers, and make it even easier to have a good flow of communication between even more of us!
On a side note: I will be heading on holidays now, and the same is true for my colleague @Jon_Harald_Søby_WMNO . We might be a bit slow on responding, apologies for that! I generally will check my E-mail and Telegram (username: malibr) every day, but I might take a few days to respond.
BTW Telegram also offers automatic translations, so feel free to write to me there in your own language too!
Looking forward to connecting with you!
5 Likes
Thank you Mali for this update!
If at any point this project wants to have or try an own subcategory in this forum (public for everyone, also private if useful for core contributors), you only need to ask.
(The same goes for any Movement Strategy project.)
2 Likes
Acabo de encontrar este vídeo sobre o Language Diversity Hub. Muito bacana ser possível acompanhar o andamento do projeto assim. Compartilho aqui para quem quiser dar uma olhada. 
5 Likes
Thank you @TCappelletto_WMF for sharing the link to this. As a language enthusiast looking to work on language documentation projects, this aligns greatly with my interests.
3 Likes
I want this topic to stay visible, since it is provides major data on a major resource for the wiki community.
(I want to reassure our hard-working admins that I am not planning to make a habit of bumping threads arbitrarily, capriciously, or on a mere whim. this specific thread seems highly substantive. thanks!)
2 Likes
In case you missed it live at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub: Status and preliminary research results session is now available on YouTube, featuring @Shahadusadik and @Jon_Harald_Søby_WMNO:
5 Likes
Nice one. Looking forward to the good results this project have got to offer. Congratulations
1 Like
2 posts were split to a new topic: Request to create a Language Diversity Hub category