With all of this social activity online, Wikipedia could be described as a social network of sorts: for example, different parts of the Wikimedia movement have developed offline or in-person methods of working together. Sometimes this takes the form of informal meetup groups, where folks get together for beers, coffee, editing activities or photo scavenger hunts. Increasingly this organization happens in the form of more formal working groups focused on outreach and participation campaigns, and community organizations formally recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation as representatives of a local community, called affiliates.
Though participating as an individual in the Wikimedia Community has a low threshold for entry, doing more than common content contributions necessitates a certain kind of organization and relationship between contributors. For formal organizations, such as libraries, wanting to not just contribute small amounts of content, but to take advantage of and participate in the Wikimedia community, navigating the community and culture of the Wikimedia projects can be complicated. Working with affiliates or at least finding an individual Wikimedia contributor to help interface with other experienced volunteers lowers the barrier for participation in the community, allowing the Wikimedia-experienced partner to provide community expertise while the organizational partner brings their knowledge and network.
Historically communities of Wikipedia editors have grown up organically and independently, with little intentional cohesion. However there are increasing efforts, around the world, to grow local editing communities around specific interest groups, volunteer groups, and educational initiative into more formal organizations, called “affiliates”. Wikimedia affiliates principally come in two major types: user groups and chapters.[1] Both of these organization types function as conduits for building relationships between local volunteer communities and potential partners and collaborators, including libraries.
In certain parts of the world, Wikimedia communities have formed relatively strong Wikimedia affiliates, called chapters, which are non-profit organizations -- many of which are in Europe -who represent the aims of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia projects, and the local Wikimedia community, and frequently have small professional staffs that provide different kinds and levels of support to the local communities. Many of these organizations have formed in response to the need for formal support of partnership with educational or heritage organizations, but they also provide other kinds of support for those communities, from organizing events to
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- ↑ Though there is also a “thematic group” option -- non-profits without a geographical scope, but rather a thematic scope. However, there is only one such organization in the world (Amical Wikimedia in Catalonia). For more information about the structure of each of these movement organization models and their governance structure, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Models
