User blog:TimmyQuivy/Introducing Fandom's New International Wiki Representatives

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce to the Fandom community our new International Wiki Representatives. In an increasingly interconnected era where the internet has allowed fans to discover entertainment properties and games from the far reaches of the globe, it’s become vital that fans can create content about what they love regardless of language or location. Today, about 20% of Fandom’s global traffic goes to non-English wikis, spread across dozens of languages.

Throughout the years, Fandom has provided support for various tools to our top members of these non-English communities, such as localized Community Centrals administered by native-speaking users, the support-focused International Volunteer Team, and the content-translation focused Wiki Language Brigade.

What the International Wiki Representatives do
As we pledged at the start of this year, we are continuing to grow our Community team and this new group of International Wiki Representatives is one of those goals fulfilled - official support for our non-English communities. The group is modeled off of our English-language Wiki Representatives, but with more of a focus on trust and safety. Specific focus areas include:


 * Maintaining the Community Central in each supported languages with an official Fandom point of contact
 * Direct contact and outreach between International Wiki Representatives and the top communities in their respective language
 * Strong focus on moderation in top languages, areas of the site that English-speaking Community team members often aren’t able to support as easily as a native speaker

Unlike the International Volunteer Team, International Wiki Representatives will not be focused on building non-English content. That is something we are exploring new ways of investing in with other projects.

The supported languages in this new program are: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Polish, and Brazilian Portuguese. Other languages may be added as they continue to grow - the above languages represent every language that account for at least 1% of Fandom’s visits.

The one exception to this is support for Russian language communities. The method we use for working with Wiki Representatives of all languages is blocked due to the Russian Federation’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the resulting economic sanctions and cut ties. We are hopeful that this tragic war comes to an end soon and that we will be able to support our Russian community members with an International Wiki Representative presence in the future.

Who are the International Wiki Representatives?
Our International Wiki Representatives have all partnered with Fandom in volunteer capacities in the past. They are expert users with years of experience on the platform and are highly-respected in their respective language communities. Now, I shall allow our new team members to introduce themselves!


 * Bitomic (Spanish) - Bitomic has been around over the last years getting spoilers from his favorite series and videogames just to keep wikis up-to-date. You can find him most times over-engineering solutions to simple problems (his words, not ours).
 * SacredOwl (Spanish) - When SacredOwl decided to join Fandom, he was just really looking for a place to write his own Bleach Fanfic. Little did he know he was going to become an admin on such wiki about a year later. He loves to communicate using gifs and catchphrases from RuPaul's Drag Race.
 * Mattheus Leonardo (Brazilian Portuguese) - Matt first joined Fandom in 2013 at the Portuguese MLP Wiki. Since then he has taken great pleasure in helping improve Fandom in any way he could. He joined SOAP in 2016 and became a Helper later the same year. He enjoys video games, especially simracing.
 * .krowl25 (Brazilian Portuguese) - He joined Fandom in October 2012 and likes pretty much anything from animations, gaming, comics, etc. He prefers to work most with the technical part and assisting users in general but can also help with content too, if needed.
 * KuroUrufu (Italian) - KuroUrufu first joined a wiki back in August 2015, began editing and never stopped. He visited every Italian wiki at least once and you've almost certainly seen him around your favourite Italian communities.
 * Rail (Polish) - Rail's a nerd who's been wandering around since early 2017. He's interested in all kinds of technical aspects that relate to wikis as well as science, music, technology and many, many more!
 * GerritH (German) - Gerrit made his first wiki edits back in 2011 and has been a fan ever since. He likes long walks in nature, cozy bars and a good book. His favorite franchises include (but are not limited to) Star Wars, The Witcher, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Monster Hunter, and Mario Kart.
 * Juliepersonne (French) - Juliepersonne is a fan of TV series, music, and musicals. When she first joined Fandom in 2012 it was all because of the great community spirit on Wiki Glee. Then when she was reached out to become a member of the French ConVol Team (and later a helper!) she discovered the bigger community that Fandom has to offer. She likes to help on various wikis even if the topic doesn't interest her.
 * 米斯蒂娅 (Mystia) (Chinese) - Mystia joined International Volunteering Team in March 2021. He mostly focused on helping maintain the ZH Community Central. He also wrote some simple applications in Python. As an ACG (games especially) lover, he plays Genshin Impact and Arknights very often.
 * Luqgreg (IWR Tools) - While Luqgreg is a native Polish speaker and has plenty of community experience, his main role on the IWR group will be on building tools to help build consistent experiences between languages. Because different volunteers throughout the years have various levels of technical experience, some of the core request pages on various Community Centrals are very different. In addition to helping tidy those up, Luqgreg will also focus on tools that allow for more staff automation and making qualify of life improvements to how our Fandom/Gamepedia Discord server operates.

With the addition of International Wiki Representatives, we’re also happy to announce that Marc-Philipp, who has been with Fandom supporting our International Volunteer Team for the last twelve years, will be the official leader of the International Wiki Representatives as a Community Manager on our Community Safety team. The International Volunteer Team and other groups that focused on non-English support will be sunset throughout the rest of this year, which we talked to the IVT about a few months ago. Any gaps in coverage will be filled with further focus on this group of International Wiki Representatives, and any user is of course welcome to continue helping out on their local Community Central just as they can on any other wiki!

As the year goes on, we’ll continue to showcase this group and the respective language communities that Fandom has to offer. Until then - adios, arrivederci, au revoir, adeus, auf wiedersehen, zegnaj, and zàijiàn (再见/再見).

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