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At the beginning of August, the international community of Wikimedians came together for Wikimania, its annual volunteer-organized conference – a big celebration of free and open knowledge and the people creating and maintaining Wikimedia resources. This year’s Wikimania theme was “Collaboration of the Open.” It was the first time many stakeholders working with or for the open movement were invited to participate in the conference program. As a part of the movement whose achievements we strive to preserve, Open Future was there – organizing a side event, participating in and leading sessions, and connecting with Wikimedians, the Wikimedia Foundation, its partners, and collaborators.
Our presence at this year’s Wikimania was centered around two key issues: advocacy for the Knowledge Commons and AI’s impact on the Commons.
Alek spoke about AI and the Commons in a panel called “Wikimedia & GenAI: a 360 movement panel one year later,” arguing that to democratize AI and protect its assets, Wikimedia should collaborate with independent LLM builders. He also reiterated the threat that generative AI poses to the maintenance and ongoing cultivation of the Commons and mentioned our work on conceptualizing a more systemic approach to solving the problem. The panel was also an opportunity to talk about changing attitudes towards AI and the Commons, as well as the specific issue of copyleft in the context of AI.
The Common(s) Cause pre-conference event, which we organized with Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Wikimedia Europe, focused on collaborating on a shared advocacy agenda for the Knowledge Commons. Over 55 participants attended the event.
Such collaboration needed to start with reconnecting and outlining a shared context for the conversation: mapping existing initiatives, strategies, threats, and opportunities. The second part of the event dived into four more granular, break-out sessions: on Principles for regulating AI for the Commons (a session led by Creative Commons and Open Future), “Community-led model” and Digital Public Goods parts of Wikimedia Foundation’s Global Digital Compact Open Letter (led by Wikimedia Deutschland), A Progressive Agenda for Digital Public Infrastructure (led by the Open Knowledge Foundation), and Green Technology and Open Climate (led by Jan Ainali, a Wikimedian and a consultant for Creative Commons).
The panel discussion building on the event, which took place on Day 4 of the conference, recapped the highlights and reiterated the importance of collaboration on shared advocacy strategies between organizations and between organizations and activists. In the panel, Rebecca Ross (Creative Commons), Anna Mazgal (Wikimedia Europe), Patricio del Boca (Open Knowledge Foundation), and Alek discussed their organizations’ approach to advocacy work as well as their ongoing advocacy initiatives.
A report to be published this September will detail the findings and next steps resulting from the event and the panel.
Alek and our fellow Melissa Hagemann also led another session, one highlighting work on new paths for knowledge-sharing advocacy conducted by Open Future with Budapest Open Access Initiative and SPARC Open. This project builds upon “Shifting Tides,” a report analyzing the current issues facing the open movement, which Open Future published over a year ago – and focuses on a new advocacy strategy for organizations working on knowledge sharing. The session featured lessons learned from online convenings on challenges to knowledge sharing, such as surveillance and the erosion of privacy, AI’s use in research, data extraction, and platformization. It also highlighted the need for an equitable approach to advocacy, which the session’s participants reiterated.
You can learn more about this year’s Wikimania and find links to all the recorded sessions by browsing the conference’s program.
