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Name

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"Ambassadors" is the right word. Starting a new WikiProject or project is the right way.

The same code of conduct which governs "online ambassadors" might govern "ambassadors" generally. Depending on scope and more discussion, dropping the "online" part might be appropriate.

This also might not be a WikiProject, as user rights typically are not. There is no WikiProject Administrators, Rollbacker, Bot-operator, or the rest. I think we might be discussing a development of WP:AMBASSADOR. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Ed clarification

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I made a couple edits to the content page (user page?), before realizing that it may be weird for me to be the one to remove mentions of Wiki Ed. So I stopped and will share the rationale here. And for clarification, every time I say "ambassador" I mean "online ambassador". Campus ambassador is a bit different and some of what's below doesn't apply.

I don't really feel like it makes sense to say the ambassadors program exists to support Wiki Ed, rather than just Educators/educational projects (or something similarly general). Wiki Ed wouldn't totally ignore ambassadors, of course, and would welcome classes who also work with ambassadors. But Wiki Ed can't be expected to work with ambassadors. And if an instructor asks about ambassadors I don't think anybody at Wiki Ed would recommend working with one. That's not to say they would discourage them from doing so necessarily. And it's not because of not seeing value in the program. It's because paid staff can provide a consistent and reliable form of assistance that would be less effective should the instructor receive competing advice from an online ambassador, or become uncertain as to who to listen to. And if the instructor goes by the advice of an ambassador and something bad happens, Wiki Ed is still held responsible. When problems add up, it's a huge frustration to the community and can become something of an existential threat to Wiki Ed. As with much of Wikipedia, one of the ambassador programs' strengths and weaknesses is that it's all volunteer. You can't expect to train volunteers to do things in a particular way or follow the same processes, let alone require they be reliable with particular regularity. There have been many ambassadors in the past which have provided less than stellar advice to instructors/students, ambassadors which have gone AWOL at crucial times, etc. Hence, paid staff to make sure people do things according to particular best practices.

Again, not speaking for Wiki Ed here, just trying to set expectations. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:21, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

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Hi all. Glad to see some movement with regard to the ambassadors program. I thought this point made by Bluerasberry was interesting and might make sense to discuss at the outset:

The design of the education program presumes that "education" is a special kind of outreach. In fact, Wikipedia volunteers who do off-wiki outreach always have interests in classrooms and beyond, including editathons, meetups of all kinds, and non-traditional education like adult study groups. Perhaps the concept of "ambassador" should mean any Wikipedian who supports any off-wiki meetup, and is available to set up tools to support those kinds of things.

To me that makes a lot of sense. While Wiki Ed doesn't need to be involved in these discussions, since the WMF Education Program does still use ambassadors, we should probably ping AKoval (WMF) before starting work on anything involving major changes. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:17, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I'm also Ryan (Wiki Ed). The use of my volunteer account is intentional. Wiki Ed is not involved with the ambassadors program. I'd like to help out if I can, since I'm interested in Wikipedia and education broadly, but it'll be solely in a volunteer capacity. I might be able to answer some questions about Wiki Ed, but please keep in mind that at no time will any comments made from this account be speaking for or on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation or its staff. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:23, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rhododendrites Thanks a lot for posting. It would be very useful to get regular confirmation from either you or Wiki Ed that if we develop the ambassador concept then we do so in a way that does not create a conflict with Wiki Ed. My thought is that there is lots of room for outreach from the community and a different kind of outreach from Wiki Ed, but because the name "ambassador" has a historical technical meaning associated with the Wikipedia Education Program, that could incorrectly convey that community volunteers and Wiki Ed are trying to do exactly the same thing. Instead, my hope is that community ambassadors can serve a role that is different and out of the scope of Wiki Ed's direct attention. I do not wish to request Wiki Ed oversight or development in community projects, but it would be very encouraging to get Wiki Ed confirmation in grey areas that this community process is developing in a way that does not conflict with Wiki Ed, if there is any doubt.
I anticipate no conflict at all, but I do worry about confusion leading to people wondering if there might be conflict. Thanks for giving comment here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry: I agree there's a lot of room for outreach. Even if Wiki Ed did branch out to support additional types of events (and, to be clear, that's purely hypothetical, not foreshadowing), its mission is about connecting academia and Wikipedia. That omits a huge chunk of GLAM. It also, of course, omits academia outside US/CA. According to this, US/CA only account for 37.6% of pageviews (and 36.1% of edits) on enwiki.
Regarding conflicts, I'm not entirely sure if you're saying this, but should I infer that there may be concerns about my personal involvement with the ambassador program given my connection to Wiki Ed? (for confusion, COI, or some other reason)? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Tokyogirl79, Rhododendrites, and Bluerasberry. Thanks for pinging me in this conversation. As I noted at the ENB, my team is pleased to see this conversation continuing and we're supportive of this community's interest in reviving and reimagining the Ambassadors program. I agree with the point that Wikipedia Ambassadors would benefit not only participants in the global education program but also GLAM programs and other outreach initiatives. We have seen that very often education program volunteers also commonly do other either GLAM-focused or more general outreach about Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Please continue to include us in these discussions. And thank you for the thinking you are doing around this topic. All the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@AKoval (WMF): Thanks for the quick response. I think maybe it would be useful to get your sense of limitations and branding. We certainly wouldn't want to start work on something just to find out there are objections from WMF. What, if anything, would NOT be ok to do with the ambassadors program in your view? Who are the other stakeholders (for example, should WMUK be involved)? Perhaps others in this thread are already up on these sorts of questions, but for me I don't have a great sense of the extent of WMF's purview with regard to the education program. I know that Wiki Ed is the program in the US/CA, but because we're talking about enwiki broadly who are the parties that we should ask to weigh in before proposing any substantial changes (if, in fact, any substantial changes are proposed at all)? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:13, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites:
Thanks for your questions.
  • With regard to branding, any limits would be outlined in the WMF's visual identity guidelines here on Foundation wiki. The education program ambassador logo can be found in the education program's visual identity guidelines here on Outreach wiki. But, if the program evolves to be more broad, then the education ambassador logo might not be fitting.
  • With regard to what, if anything, would not be ok to do in the ambassadors program, that answer is, honestly, not ours to give; that's up to the consensus of this community.
  • Regarding other stakeholders, there are several. Quite a few education programs work on English Wikipedia, in addition to Wiki Ed. WMUK, you already mentioned, but also Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Argentina, Czech Republic, and Palestine, just to name a few.
  • Regarding your question about our role or purview, my team supports education program leaders who do education program work around the world, whether they are independent or affiliated with a chapter or other movement group. We don't prescribe how they do that work, and there are many models currently in practice in many countries. We do not vet or certify or credential ambassadors. Some programs do. That happens at the program level. Whether Ambassadors programs are formal or informal, we see them as useful. And if the English Wikipedia community intends to improve the program and the process on this project, that would be wonderful.
We do think that this a discussion worth having, and it's a discussion that we're happy to participate in as advisors. So please keep pinging me. Take care, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a good thing to define would be the limitations of an ambassador. The gist I'm getting is that an ambassador will do general outreach to GLAM and education related matters. There's definitely the potential here for this to branch out into other areas (ie, businesses and so on), but I think that it'd be best for us to initially focus on a specific, fairly well defined group first. I imagine that the average person will do what many of us have been doing with classes or with things like the CO-OP that @I JethroBT: helped create (pinging him in this discussion since this is something he'd likely be interested in). I'm going to use the general term of educators, but the general gist is that this would be for any group. Here's what I imagine we'd be able to do:
  1. Provide general help (advice, recommendations, editing assistance, providing context or further explanation of guidelines).
  2. Help rescue articles in danger of deletion that are not violating one of the major guidelines. (Stepping in to suggest moving to AfC or userspace or moving it ourselves.)
  3. Be a visible resource for not only educators, but also general editors. Not all educators will know about or use the education program (meaning that the pages and editors aren't clearly marked as such), but if people think that there's a strong chance that educators are editing/creating a page, they can call an ambassador in to help survey the situation.
  4. Help explain policy violations in a way that educators would understand. (This is specifically applicable to copyvio, since what's copyvio on here may be considered slightly more acceptable in an academic paper.)
  5. Help explain differences between an academic paper and an encyclopedia article. (Arguably one of the most common issues with educator articles, leading me to start working on this.)
Here's what we can't do: (Most of these are common sense, but will need to be fine tuned for this project.)
  1. Go against policy. If something is genuinely against policy (threats, rampant copyvio abuse that's clearly unacceptable by even educational terms, etc) then we cannot give the student a free pass because they're a student.
  2. Make the final decision in a tough case, especially ones we're involved in. Small cases are fine. If someone with admin privileges wants to restore an unproblematic article to the draftspace, I don't see that being an issue. However if there are major issues, it has to go through either someone with the WEF, WMF, or an uninvolved admin. (This can be an admin involved with the project, but their involvement cannot pose a major COI.)
  3. Supercede final decisions once they've been made without going through the proper channels. (IE, talking to the applicable admins, WMF, Arbcom, etc.)
  4. Ambassadors are not admins. Some of us do have those privileges, but being an ambassador is not the same thing as adminship.
This will need to be expanded, edited, or so on, but I think that these are some of the biggest things that need to be stated. The ambassador=/=admin thing is one of the biggest ones I can think of, since I can see someone equating the title with a position of power because the title is very official sounding. A well-trained ambassador in good standing may have some extra oomph in an applicable discussion, but their statement shouldn't be seen as a supervote. (Not that admins should do this either, but ambassadors shouldn't be seen as someone who could enforce blocks or do any of the other things that an admin is seen to do.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Help rescue...AfC - From an educator's perspective, AfC can be a nightmare. It's a great service for Wikipedia, but classes are on tight schedule's and need feedback that applies as evenly as possible to all students. Some students who go through AfC may be reviewed much sooner than others, and may get a reviewer who is much stricter or more lenient. Wiki Ed made the decision to create special student sandbox templates in place of typical sandbox templates at least in part to remove the "submit to AfC" part. Granted, ambassadors are not paid staff so probably can't be counted on to provide timely feedback or review student work either, but this seems worth mentioning. A glut of student work going into revolving door mode at AfC is also trying of the patience/energies of volunteers there. I don't actually know if there's a better alternative ... just $.02. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:01, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
if people think that there's a strong chance that educators are editing/creating a page, they can call an ambassador in - love this. At the ENB, there's effectively a process of (1) community member raises issues with students/class, (2) Wiki Ed tries to identify the class/instructor, (2-1a) if identifiable, and in the US or CA, Wiki Ed tries to get in touch with the instructors with the hope of bringing them on board, (2-1b) if identifiable, and outside the US or CA, ping AKoval and try to connect them with people in the education program in their country. Very mixed results depending on where it is. (2-2) if unidentifiable, Wiki Ed and/or members of the community leave messages for students and keep fingers crossed, but typically that's the end. Both of those last two can leave the problem more or less unaddressed. (2-2) is still hard for ambassadors, but ambassadors could definitely help to make it so that any class that can be identified gets help, regardless of where it is. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:01, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Help explain... the various materials Wiki Ed has prepared are, of course, open source and on Commons. Probably worth utilizing to the extent it makes sense to do so. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:01, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, it sure seems like we should probably ping the nearly 50 100 online ambassadors to weigh in here :) Objections? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:27, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhododendrites: Thanks for your insight above - I think great points have been raised by all No objections to pinging any online Ambassador who has been active in the last year? (Just to save the mahoosive ping list) -- samtar whisper 16:41, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites, Samtar, and Tokyogirl79: That seems like a good idea. I have access to Special:MassMessage, so let me know if there is a message you'd like me to deliver to ambassadors' talk pages. I, JethroBT drop me a line 20:41, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Tokyogirl79: Speaking as a volunteer here; I think the defined roles here for ambassador umbrella sound reasonable to me. I do agree with Rhododendrites that AfC reviewers probably do not fall under this role though, if only because they operate under a WP:NODEADLINES mentality whereas there are usually pretty clear deadlines in the contexts ambassadors normally work in, not to mention differences in the quality of feedback received. There's also just not a lot of direct interaction unless the reviewers goes out of their way to do so, and that strikes me as inconsistent with how an ambassador should be engaging with educators or students. One suggestion I have is that another way ambassadors can help is by making suggestions for what articles can be created or improved for a given program/event, as many of us are aware of suggestion tools and easy ways to identify articles that are desired or could use a little fixing. Ambassadors can also suggest tools like Content translation and HotCat for other kinds of editing tasks. I, JethroBT drop me a line 20:59, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the notes about AfC. I was thinking draftspace more in terms of the userspace, although AfC was a consideration. It's definitely not the best place for students, given that I've had someone tell me (I think it was one of you guys?) that the general trend at AfC is to focus on one problem in order to not overwhelm the article submitter - something that's often led to problems elsewhere when I'd decline articles for one reason (poor sourcing, puffery, etc), only for the submitter to get angry because the other people never said it was a problem. I can see their point, but that's always been a really fatal flaw with AfC as far as I can see and part of the reason why some will eventually give up on their articles. Sorry - didn't mean to go off on a tangent about AfC. It's kind of a sore spot with me, considering how much flack it tends to receive. Also, I have no problem with pinging any active Ambassadors. The more the merrier with this. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:57, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adding things from Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors

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Hey guys, just letting you know that I've been adding over some stuff from Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors. I figured that this would be a good place to start as far as editing goes, since the material will pretty much still be appropriate to the goals of all of this and we can edit it freely here as needed. I'm going to try to use some of the material from Wikipedia:Education program/Ambassadors if I can fit some information in somewhere as well. I just figured that if we're going to get new editors coming in, it'd be good to have something for them to add to or edit, to give them a general idea of what's going on.

I also changed the wording from WikiProject to just a program, since most of us seem to agree that being a WP wouldn't really fit well in this circumstance. Program might not be a good fit either, but I figure it's a good working title. I'm not going to move this for now, since this is the title everyone's familiar with. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking good @Tokyogirl79:! I think just having it as a program does work better Really didn't expect this level of involvement from everyone when I mentioned on the education noticeboard - it's inspiring that so many people want to get behind this! -- samtar whisper 11:52, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a really good idea! I know that a lot of people would like to participate, but there's not really any sort of place for them to go. I figure that the hardest part will be to set something up that will encompass both the online and campus areas. This is actually something that'll be a good selling point for me later on this year - I'm looking at hosting a booth for Wikipedia at a library conference in Virginia in October. The past two years I've gone I've had a lot of interest in Wikipedia (many of the attendees teach library science at various universities), so telling them that there's a project full of volunteers specifically for GLAM and education related matters would be a nice selling point. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 14:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

IRC

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Quick note on IRC - #wikipedia-en-ambassadors connect and #wikipedia-en-classroom connect seem to left over from when the ambassador program was running. There are a couple of idling users in each (pinging channel OP @Ragesoss and Sage (Wiki Ed):). I've got #wikipedia-ambassadors connect registered should we wish to use it, but I think the pre-existing channels will be good enough -- samtar whisper 15:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GLAM noticeboard?

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Does anyone know if GLAM has a noticeboard akin to the education noticeboard? I'm at the resource section and I can't really see if there's a specific, similar place to ask GLAM related questions. I'm going to tag some of the people who are on the WF's contact page for GLAM (and have been active in the last month), since they'd likely know the answer to this and would probably be helpful in general in this situation. Kevin Gorman, Another Believer, Thelmadatter, Pharos, Missvain, Smallbones. I'm also going to tag Sadads since he'd probably be helpful with this as well. Guys, if any of you know of any noticeboard area, that'd be great. If not, if you have any advice or recommendations in general, I'd love for some feedback for that as well, since many of you have had experience in setting in things along these lines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:28, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar with a noticeboard, but I think it's a great idea. ---Another Believer (Talk) 16:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's any one noticeboard, but talk pages and mailing lists of varying activity. I do think it's a good idea, but I'd suggest that for the purpose of this discussion we (and those you pinged can be part of that we, of course), should determine and articulate a specific goal before this diffuses into reorganizing all glam and education activity across Wikipedia :)
Creating a central entryway into GLAM sounds like a great project, but it's a massive project, and there are so many stakeholders.
Rather than extending to GLAM broadly, maybe we use Bluerasberry's definition of an ambassador as a "Wikipedian who supports any off-wiki meetup". Note, however, that I removed "any" before "Wikipedian" in his quote. I think it is important to be clear that this is a program which people would have to become a part of rather than a something anyone can claim, regardless of their experience with Wikipedia. For such a program to be useful, people have to know ambassadors are competent/experienced. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea of it being any off-wiki meetup. We could also say that the ambassador could serve as someone who would help anyone who needs specialized help as opposed to someone who could get their needs met reasonably enough via resources like the Teahouse or some of the various boards. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:33, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inactivity

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I think that something that should be discussed at some point is what made the original program inactive. I know that there were people who were interested in the program, otherwise there wouldn't be people still interested in relaunching it. However, were there any other issues that led to its demise? I figure that the best way to ensure that these same issues don't catch us up is to try to identify them as early on as possible. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it really comes down to a need for leadership and a decline in demand with the bulk of classes on enwiki being supported by Wiki Ed. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:56, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is a difficult issue to discuss, and different stakeholders would have different perspectives. I would say the cause was instability in the paid staff support for the program. The program was originally a special project of the WMF, then managed by Wiki Ed, then re-assigned in part to WMF permanent staff in part, then abandoned by all paid staff. Paid staff asked for a role, but in my opinion, there are ways that the community can operate a project without paid staff.
If the project is re-developed, instead of tying any particular duty to paid staff, I would prefer to scale back the program to make it permanently viable for management by volunteers. When paid staff want to provide a service, then they may, but no one should be allowed to make sweeping promises that require steady perpetual funding unless they legally agree to provide steady perpetual funding to some entity that would manage it.
Overall - the Wikimedia movement is maturing to understand what should be done by volunteers and what might be done by paid staff. I advocate that the ambassador project keep a volunteer community structure and volunteer consensus leadership. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ambassadors @ Art+Feminism?

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I mentioned this page indirectly at the Wikipedia15 event in NYC last weekend and felt like there was a lot of positive reaction to the idea of reviving the ambassador program as coordinating support for off-wiki events. Yesterday, as I was posting the meetup page for an WP:A+F event I'll be helping out with, I realized that might make for a good target date for us to get something set up -- so that I, and many other Wikipedians who will be involved, could attend as "ambassadors" (or whatever we end up calling them). Granted, I'll actually be at the event, so it would really fudge the categories "campus" vs. "online", but even if it doesn't make sense for me there will be plenty of others helping as unofficial online ambassadors those days... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals for going forward

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@Tokyogirl79 and Samtar: I still want to talk with you both but have not been able to put it together. I want to check in with you both about these ideas. Please confirm or oppose any of them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Move to WP:Ambassadors

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I would like to move this to WP:AMBASSADORS. This proposal is well developed enough. I would like to mark the educational page for ambassadors as historical. It is abandoned and has been out of date for 2+ years. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep this a volunteer project

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Propose to keep this a community volunteer project. Institutions are welcome, but community consensus is first. Right now there is no leadership or hierarchy, and none planned for foreseeable future. Rights are managed by a community process as with other userrights. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecation of one of the ambassador userrights

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I would like to deprecate one of the "ambassador" userrights. There is "campus" and "online". Neither of those really make sense for what we are discussing, but whatever the case, one should go because I see no ability to manage two sets of rights with two processes, two rulesets, etc. If we like, we can introduce the unused userright again after establishing rules for one of them and finding a use for a second one. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping the userright

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There are rumors that the Wikimedia Foundation is considering removing the extension. I have no idea what to think. The ambassador program can use these designations or not, but if the use of them is not formalized soon, then I think it is possible that the option for using them may go away. The userright is two things - a trackable designation and access rights to use some tools which I think are obsolete and not worth using, and which I think no one has used for months. I like the trackability and if we want to keep that, then I think now would be a time to speak up. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I JethroBT Check User_talk:Tokyogirl79/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Online_Ambassadors#Future_of_ambassador_discussion_on_meta_-_comment_by_16_February for a page in which WMF staff say that the extension will be wound down. There is other evidence. Also, thanks for coming here. You have institutional knowledge of the Coop. Could I ask you to introduce that project briefly here, and say just a little about how what you learned from that could guide an ambassador program? The Co-op program answered some key questions and I would like to talk to you. I think you must have some inside information about wiki volunteer organization which probably no one else knows. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:46, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ambassador as "volunteer who does off-wiki communication" in Wikipedia's name

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This might be controversial - I would like to solidify the concept of "ambassador" into a registration system for volunteer Wikipedia contributors who regularly communicate with others about Wikipedia using off-wiki processes. That might mean people who organize meetups, GLAM outreach, classroom outreach, or anything else. Right now, the discussion is about what kinds of help they give or do not give, but historically in the ambassador program, a lot of the ambassadors were not even Wikipedians. The system was used to track who was speaking off-wiki about Wikipedia, whether they understood what they were doing or not. A lot of people who organize Wikipedia outreach events do so quite innocently, and many people who are comfortable teaching others to edit Wikipedia themselves do not know how to make Wikipedia accounts and have never edited.

Right now, this ambassador page is talking about the scope of what ambassadors do, and imagining ambassadors as a sort of friendly experience Wikipedian who helps with outreach. That is a nice idea, and those kinds of Wikipedians ought to be supported, but I am not sure that is a source of problems. Experienced Wikipedians typically either do not cause problems, or if they do, they manage to fix them. I do like the idea of this project giving a "panic button" for support in public relations, like when somehow an event gets positive or negative media attention. It is fairly common for anyone Wikipedian who is active off-wiki to get media attention however modest they may be. I imagine the ambassador program as a support system for being off-wiki. That is sort of what "ambassador" means - someone who represents a community to those outside that community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm undecided on this one. This one may be harder to track since it'd rely heavily on those users coming to the the project and listing themselves. I like the idea of this and the below option is a natural progression of this one, but this would require some wordsmith-ery to really get down. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:13, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose [as I understand what's written]. a few things:
  • campus volunteers includes many inexperienced editors. online volunteers are almost exclusively experienced. Looking through the list at Special:OnlineVolunteers, Belinda and S.mereu are the only users I see there who have less than 1k edits, and most have many more. I think part of the point of this is to ensure people "get it right" or otherwise succeed in whatever the project is they're undertaking
  • I wouldn't be opposed to changing the wording of the scope, but "volunteer who does off-wiki communication" strikes me as too broad. "Wikipedians willing to help out with off-wiki events" covers things that share the same skillset. "off-wiki communication" includes academics who write papers, people who run the Gamergate-related wikipedia blogs, anyone who would like to be invited to talk/raise their own profile, etc. Going to my point above, that's going to be problematic especially if they're not necessarily experienced Wikipedians. Would we exclude people at WMF whose job it is to do communication about Wikipedia, but who do not support off-wiki events as such? I think that maybe if it were framed as support for off-wiki events and became better known, it might evolve into the sort of thing you might intend naturally by presenting a most restrictive list of people who identify as people who like talking about and helping out with Wikipedia.
  • Finally, by widening the scope that much, I worry that this will be a maintainable program. Maybe start with support for off-wiki activity and see how it goes first?
  • There might be a separate project there about a Wiki-PR office :) (kidding with the name, but not kidding about the idea). Not exactly the same, but related is meta:Public speakers, which also looks to be self-selected.
  • Sorry for the rambling response. TL;DR - (1) I do think it should be limited to experienced Wikipedians, (2) this description as I understand it seems too broad — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:31, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Rhododendrites Everything you say is fair and is what almost everyone expected of the last runs of the ambassador program.
I am not entirely sure what I think.
The major problem that I see with your idea of "ambassadors" being known as experienced Wikipedians is that since ~2011 the several million dollars USD that has been invested in the concept has never been able to recruit even a handful of people to volunteer in the "experienced Wikipedian for outreach" roles. There might be a group of people with online ambassador userrights, but I am not aware of anyone getting use out of either the rights or the title. If we did polish the role and somehow get a userbase of volunteers who wanted the "online ambassador" role as it has been imagined, then I anticipate that only tension will result. Wiki Ed staff, Wikimedia chapter staff, Wikipedians in Residence, and commercial consultants are now filling the role of "experienced Wikipedian to engage institutions in the context of an ongoing committed relationship". If there is to be an "experienced Wikpedian as Wikipedia ambassador" role, then I would like to see that role differentiated from what is now being managed by paid staff. The biggest barrier for volunteers in the "online ambassador" role is that institutions are very demanding, compel their contact to act quickly, and they demand commitment. Those things can only be asked of paid staff. It is confusing both to volunteers and institutions to try to apply that sort of role outside the context of paid work. I wish to avoid modeling Wikipedian ambassadors as unpaid people who do what is typically done by paid staff. My perspective is that paid roles do work almost entirely unlike what volunteers choose to do. When institutions expect to have support from experienced Wikipedians, I think they should expect to pay money. I would rather make the ambassador program a place that supports all volunteers.
I do not like the terms "campus ambassador" and "online ambassador". Because they both use the term "ambassador", people have thought that the concepts were related. From the beginning the terms were designed to mean completely unrelated concepts. It was a horrible and harmful naming precedent that brought no good and a lot of confusion. Wiki Ed and others supported a uniform process for reviewing eligibility for either role, and that never should have happened, because the criteria for one role was totally different from the criteria for the other. The roles are not complementary, they almost never have been used together, and at least 90% of the people with either campus ambassador or online ambassador status have no idea what either mean. Almost everyone with these user rights never uses them once, and I expect that 90% of the people who have them have never used them twice.
"Off-wiki communication" might be too broad, but restricting this to events is too broad also. The kind of "off-wiki communication" that I want is more like "Wikipedia data provision and metrics interpretation to non-Wikipedians". Academics who right papers are a major stakeholder group in the concept of "ambassador", because the base userright in the ambassador program is metrics reporting for impact tracking. This is what the education extension did and the primary function of Wiki Ed. "Gamergate blogs", in the sense most gamergate respondents (on all sides of the controversy) have a volunteer base seeking metrics and are also stakeholders attempting to do amateur research. That is not unique to gamergate - many activist communities looking to Wikipedia do amateur metrics tracking and they all need better support.
I would like to talk more, perhaps with several people at once, to come to better terms about how much can be requested of volunteers and whether "ambassadors" should be a volunteer role. I do not know what I think. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Add meetups

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I would like to say that ambassadorship is appropriate for anyone who organizes Wikipedia meetups, whether online or off. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance on metrics

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I think this should be the heart of the ambassador program. https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/

This is a dashboard for tracking groups of Wikimedia contributors. The ambassador may create an event and invite participants to sign their name here. From that point, the dashboard tracks who is participating, what articles they edited, how many words they added, how many files they uploaded, and how many pageviews readers are giving that content.

Getting a metrics report is a fundamental requirement for institutional partnerships. GLAMS, schools, and all organizations want this. WMF requires this to fund Wikimedia chapters. The Facebook and Twitter industries revolve around reporting who uses content posted to those platforms. I think that establishing the ambassador program around an offer to provide off-wiki communication about event reports would greatly influence the direction of all relationships that all organizations have with Wikimedia projects. Getting these reports may or may not be connected with any understanding of wikipedia. Lots of organizations host good events without having a single experienced Wikipedian support them at all, but something that wikipedians and non-Wikipedians alike cannot easily do is access the kinds of metrics reports that are industry standard for other online engagement platforms. These reports and the associated software have sort of been the basis of the ambassador program. Right now there is no documentation of the Wiki Ed dashboard anywhere, and I think it should be done here. An "ambassador" is one who turns on this tracking system for a given event, and who communicates off wiki to help meetups or institutions use it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have to admit that I've visited this page (although I've seen it in edit summaries), but it looks like it's definitely more up to date and easier to look at than the stuff on here. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:14, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a good opportunity to ping Ragesoss, an ambassador who I imagine would have some thoughts about this page in general, and who might be able to share some [unofficial] thoughts about this. Do you know about any plans/limitations for the outreachdashboard that might have negative (or positive) implications for building into a program like this? Feel free not to comment about the dashboard if there's no way to do it unofficially :) but your thoughts on the rest of the page would be particularly useful given you're another person who goes far back (i.e. farther than me) with the program. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:37, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update of sorts

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Hey, just letting everyone know that this is still a thing, since everyone seems interested. I know that getting together is still an issue, so I think that it might be best for just a couple of us to do a face chat and get things started, then go from there. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Tokyogirl79: Hello, yes, still interested! You may have noticed my editing has dropped off here recently - I've been working on some of the behind-the-scenes technical stuff. Through this I've come across the Education-Collab team on Phabricator - might be worth a read? I'll go over some of the proposals here and weigh in, though at a quick look I support everything going on. Hope everyone is well -- samtar whisper 10:35, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Future of ambassador discussion on meta - comment by 16 February

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Sorry for not sharing this sooner. see meta:Program Capacity and Learning. @Tokyogirl79 and Samtar:

That page is not exactly discussing the ambassador program, but it is sort of the community notice that the education extension might be turned off soon. That might remove the associated userrights - I am not sure. It is also a talk to present the Wiki Edu dashboard, which I use as the successor software to the education extension.

The entire page is a discussion about functions which the old ambassador program has been imagined to manage. They do not use the word "ambassador" but all the base concepts are there. Perhaps you would like to read and comment.

I still want a phone or video chat sometime. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This project could manage another userright - account creator

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I just assisted a colleague, Daniel Mietchen, in getting the "Wikipedia:Account creator" userright. All admins have this right and all admins can give this to others. "Account creator" allows a Wikipedian to make accounts for other people while logged into their account. This is an essential userright to have for anyone who hosts events, because Wikipedia only allows 6 accounts to be created for an IP address every 24 hours unless additional accounts come from an "account creator".

At WP:RfA historically there has been almost no discussion about whether Wikipedia administrators should be critiqued for public speaking, event hosting, or being an in-person representative of the Wikimedia community doing de facto public relations. Still, admins control this userright by default. If there is an in-person Wikipedia event, and if no one has this userright, then the event is capped at 6 new editor registrations.

Daniel, for example, has given hundreds of in-person Wikipedia presentations over the past 10 years. See his application for this userright. By default, he can have it if he requests it every time he does a presentation, or if he has an affiliation to the Wikipedia Education Program as an ambassador.

It has always been awkward that "ambassadors" need "account creator" rights, and that the processes are not well linked. Suppose we revive the ambassador program as described here. A discarded power that is lying unused is moderation over who gets "account creator" rights, and therefore, who the Wikimedia community designates as fit to host events with more than 6 new users in attendance. If we revive the ambassador program, we could re-write criteria to assign "account creator" rights. There is almost no regulation of this right now, and the regulation that does exist does not match the risk of giving the right or support the people who do get access to this tool. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • That sounds like a pretty good idea and one that offline ambassadors would very likely need, if they're going to a school or organization to hold an event or speaking engagement. I'm still interested in this, but I got sort of overwhelmed this semester with school. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • As someone who regularly processes WP:PERM, two notes on accountcreator: (1) We normally turn around requests very quickly, so planned events should never be an issue. (2) Experienced editors that are in "good standing" (used loosely here - e.g. no blocks, bans, etc) with the community that are running a series of events have been granted these permissions even if not part of a classroom program. — xaosflux Talk 22:04, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Event page setup - a potential ambassador process

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When the ambassador userright was created, its function was to permit access to tools from the education extension which allowed the creation of meetup pages for classes.

The concept of "ambassador" could still be made to mean "person who sets up a meetup page" for any kind of wiki-event, either online or offline.

I live in New York. We are discussing what kind of process we should use for our meetups. I was thinking - all Wikimedia chapters do this different ways, and the ambassador program did this still another way. What common characteristics do they all share?

I drafted a Wikimedia NYC policy proposal. Check it out at

After WM NYC tests this, if it works, this could be a process managed by the ambassador program. There is a lot of text there, but here is the summary:

  1. Anyone can host a wiki meetup, but...
  2. if they want to claim an affiliation to a group project like a chapter or online community, they have to make a meetup page...
  3. and meetup pages have to be categorized so that the group project can find the record of the event.

The major reason to associate a meetup with a group project is to gain access to the benefits of being part of a group, whatever those might be. This relates to the "ambassador" proposal discussed here because it imagines that any group can have "ambassadors" which assist anyone in the setup of meetup pages. The ambassador part comes in because meetups are public-facing somehow, as opposed to internal WikiProjects.

A premise behind my doing this was that this had not been done before. So far as I can tell, meetups have not been documented before. I would like to group the legacy classroom meetups with all kinds of meetups, and categorize them together in some ways with "ambassadors" curating all these sorts of events. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:40, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Shameless bump

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— Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:24, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rhododendrites I still care. If there is a meta:WikiConference USA this year then I think at an in-person meeting a lot of the tough questions could find consensus in a small group. If about 5-10 people could really agree with each other and make a proposal, then that kind of solidarity ought to be enough to go forward with a new process. There is a new development - the WMF just hired a "GLAM Wiki" coordinator. This person is planning to do GLAM - whatever, fine - but there is no GLAM without a partnership between Wikipedians and an institution, and GLAM is only a subset of the many sorts of institutions that want Wiki partnerships. Whatever Astinson (WMF) does in this role will advance the idea of general partnerships with schools, government agencies, research institutions, non-GLAM publishers, and fields outside the arts generally. I think that his work output supports what we are discussing here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:35, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry and Rhododendrites: Sorry I didn't weigh in earlier: I don't have a particular stake in this discussion, and my experience in the early version of the Campus Ambassadors model was that it was not a very compelling way to organize as a group -- and didn't solicit enough supporters from the community to begin with -- a big part of this the: "Ambassador" role was too broad in scope (could be almost anything). I personally find the range of roles developing around GLAM: (Wikipedia in Residence (capacity), Wikipedia Visiting Scholar (access), and the Interns model TWL piloted (contribution) to be much clearer, in terms of setting expectations for the partner -- across the movement, this is typically the greatest issue -- giving partners clear expectations about how volunteers work, and when its more appropriate to try some other role. Really, I want to know which roles are actually operating right now, and hope to encourage greater documentation of that activity, to make sure that we aren't loosing valuable knowledge about what worked for partnership + Wikipedia roles, and what didn't. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 09:58, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Astinson (WMF) Can you share project pages or the wiki accounts of participants in either the visiting scholar or inter programs? I suppose that I do not understand either.
Feel free to watch this page if you like. I think there are quite a few people and groups who need a reformed outreach model. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:34, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry and Astinson (WMF): Well, Alex is better able to speak to how Interns fit in, but that line between Visiting Scholars and WIRs is a helpful one for me, anyway. The idea of a VS is for an educational/cultural institution to provide an experienced Wikipedian access to research resources to use in the improvement of a particular topic area on Wikipedia. The topic area is often quite broad (e.g. Wehwalt works on "historical" topics, which has included coins, presidents, and novels) but can also be more specific if it works for both parties. It's an unpaid, remote position and doesn't really extend beyond editing Wikipedia and perhaps reporting on those improvements to Wikipedia (a blog post, presentation, or somesuch). A VS shouldn't be required to run events, work with students, train faculty, consult with archivists, etc. (the things Alex usefully calls building "capacity" [of the institution to work with Wikipedia]). In the US and Canada, VS is run by Wiki Ed, but it sounds like interest elsewhere is increasing (there's one in Wales right now, for example). For institutions, I think WIR and VS are a natural complement to one another. One makes an impact on public knowledge and increases the impact of your collections by using them on Wikipedia; the other works with faculty, staff, students, librarians, archivists, etc. to do, more or less anything else other than editing directly. There's obviously some precedent for WIRs editing directly, so I don't want to claim to be defining that sort of position -- just the way some of us are talking about them in order to simplify communication, outreach, and program management. One thing I'd really like to do with VS is bring it to academic associations. They have a more direct stake in the state of their field's public knowledge and have resources to dedicate to it (perhaps to provide a trip to a conference for a VS). The resources the VS would have access to would be less than working with an academic library, but (a) associations often have sizable journal catalogs, probably accessible with less bureaucracy, and (b) there would be a greater focus on networking and being part of the disciplinary community. We'll see. :)
I will almost definitely be at the Wikiconference, which in case anyone hasn't seen yet, will be in San Diego this October.
Alex, just to clarify something: this ambassador revival initiative (or whatever it is) has been much more focused on online ambassadors than campus ambassadors. Don't know if that's what you meant. The idea that seems to be getting some traction is that of an ambassador as Wikipedian who helps with off-wiki events (whether classes, edit-a-thons, or something else). Given the Wiki Ed content experts, there's less of a need for ambassadors working with students in the US and Canada, but still a need elsewhere, and there's currently no good general resource for people to turn to for other sorts of events unless you live near a chapter or are participating in a major event like A+F. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:29, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry: BTW I will be at Simons tonight if you want to talk more about this. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:29, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: See you tonight. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:56, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The whole idea of WP:TWL/I was to bring a middle ground between "expert Wikipedian who teaches GLAMs how to do work" (WIR) and "innocent GLAM person who just wants to get editing and promoting a collections content". If you look in the library scholarship, there are somewhere between 50 and 100 published articles about digital collections staff or student hires at organizations adding links to Wikipedia, to systematically share their collections. This kind of editing is very promotional, but is an impulse we regularly train staff to avoid in GLAM outreachet: the Interns curriculum uses the education programs strategy for learning editing, with more clear directions on how not to do promotional or COI editing. The best examples of this working well has been User:EVDiam, User:Jwolf2, User:Filterkaapi71 and User:Amcdougal who participated in our first couple pilot groups. They all took the editing to be much more productive than an average student editor, and several have gone on to be more involved in GLAM. Beyond a pilot though, in my role with the Wikipedia Library, its not something that I have sufficient time, energy or scope within our international focus to diversify and expand. We developed it as a side project (like Visiting Scholars), to capitalize on the networks in the library community and see if we could take a well documented practice in the libraries community, and turn it into a viable outreach strategy (afterall, if libraries want to improve the references on Wikipedia, we should encourage them to do it -- just not as link spam). I hope that helps, 14:32, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As for online ambassadors: I am not convinced that there is a big enough body of folks who can have the active patience, time, and energy for following groups of outreach communities agnostically (whenever we need support). When we did online Ambassadors the first time, I (as User:Sadads) spent a bunch of time watching student contributions, responding to changes, and not knowing if they would meaningfully follow my advice (or even receive it). I have had much more success advising new editors who I stumble upon with my watchlist, and already have 150-300 edits -- they are the folks that already have gotten past the "new editor" hurdles, and frequently are motivated enough to respond to feedback, and to apply it several times (instead of taking it as one off advice). Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:35, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New draft of scope and duties

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I just wrote a new description or iteration of the ambassador role. I am posting here to check in about others' interest in merging the concepts. I would like to meet anyone interested for voice or video chats by phone, Google Hangouts, or Skype. Please see

Key characteristics of this iteration
  1. Ambassador defined as someone who coordinates a Wikimedia development project with any group or organization off-wiki
  2. Ambassador is a point of contact both for off-wiki group and Wikipedians, and should communicate between the two
  3. Ambassador would be the one responsible for reporting results of events, if there is to be reporting at all
Concepts from the Tokyogirl79 draft which I removed from the one I wrote
  1. Online limitation - I do not distinguish online/afk outreach
  2. Mentoring and basic Wikipedia training - I say get that elsewhere, and limit the role to communication and reporting
  3. Requirement for Wikipedia experience - The requirement is communication for a project, but not necessarily understanding of editing
  4. Centralized application process - I recommend that ambassadors affiliate with any in-person Wikimedia group of their choosing rather than centrally with the ambassador program
  5. Deprecation of Wikipedia Education Extension user rights - these have not been used since about 2014, so time to halt them
Unresolved issues from this talk page
  1. There is a general desire that ambassadors do more roles, or take more responsibility. Some people might ask for more generally.
  2. The Wiki Ed Foundation was sort of managing ambassador roles two years ago. They abandoned almost all of what they are doing, but not everything, so there would be some initiative in taking control over what is left. I do not think it would be controversial to take control over the legacy of this because they are going in a different direction.
  3. Previous emphasis was on education, and there are other stakeholders in education, but I would like to leave that issue hanging. I would like to dissociate the ambassador concept from education and move it into mediating all off-wiki projects seeking on-wiki engagement.
  4. There is demand for basic Wikipedia training. I think this issue is so big and complicated that I prefer to not touch it. If it is addressed, then I wish it could be addressed outside the ambassador program, because the problem is far greater in scale than a small ambassador program.
  5. Ambassadors can potentially make lots of referrals for support. Common targets of referral are to AfC, help guides, GLAM tools, and a range of other things. Looking over what might be done, I think this also is to complicated to address in the beginning. I would like to have something viable without sorting all these resources. There are other projects which might address these things, and an ambassador program could plug into those other projects and guides if they come to be developed after some years.
  6. There are quite a few related projects which are sickly - if there were a new ambassador program, they could be deprecated as replaced. The problem is that a new minimal ambassador program would not make all the promises the old programs made. I think that is okay, because old programs failed on a lot of claims anyway. All of these have been dead since 2014 -
    1. Education noticeboard
    2. Education extension tools
    3. Education extension userrights
    4. certain GLAM documentation on ENWP
    5. certain meetup documentation on ENWP
Philosophy of this model

I imagined the least that an ambassador should do to be successful, and tried to describe that. For a project to have success, this is what I wanted -

  1. Wikipedia ambassador has to be empowered to officiate the start of an event, and invite people to it
  2. If something goes wrong, the ambassador needs to be a communication channel to allow either the off-wiki group or the Wikimedia community to complain or halt the project
  3. I wanted the ambassador to hold evidence of project outcomes.
  4. I wanted it to be possible for the ambassador to represent either side - wiki people to off-wiki groups, or off-wiki to wiki

The most complicated thing that a Wikipedia ambassador might do is actually understand Wikipedia, so I left "understanding Wikipedia" out of this. I was thinking that actual Wikipedia experience might be overrated, because so many events already happen with coordinators who know nothing about Wikipedia. The skill set for organizing projects seems to be not entirely related to the skill set for participating in event activities. For that reason, I cut Wikipedia experience out, and wanted to emphasize communication as the major duty.

Thanks for your attention. Thanks for everyone who has participated in this discussion. I have changed my mind a lot of times reading and re-reading everything here over the past months. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:14, 1 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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