Peer Support Program for Polish Wikipedia Administrators: Reflections from the Second Edition

A Project Grounded in Real Needs

In Polish Wikipedia, administrators have always played a crucial role: responding to vandalism, helping newcomers, closing discussions, and handling conflicts that can become emotionally charged. While these tasks are essential, they often come with long-term exposure to stress, criticism, and the challenge of acting in unclear or sensitive situations – all while volunteering time and energy. Many of the Polish admins have held their roles for over a decade, often without having devoted spaces to reflect on their work and challenges.

Recognizing this, Wikimedia Polska has been running a dedicated support program for administrators. The second edition, which took place between June 2024 and April 2025, was shaped by lessons from the first. We focused on strengthening resilience, improving communication, and creating space for honest conversations – not only about Wikipedia-related challenges but also about what it means to carry long-term responsibility for a community.

You can read more about the project in “Peer Support Program for Polish Wikipedia Administrators: Report”. The following post shares insights from the whole initiative – highlighting what worked, what could be improved, and how investing in the well-being and skills of admins strengthens the broader Wikimedia community.

Learning Together: Skills and Solidarity

The program combined in-person and online elements, so let’s begin with the event that anchored it all, before moving on to the webinar series, feedback, and lessons for the future. This event was the Admin Camp held in mid-November 2024, an in-person weekend gathering that brought Polish Wikipedia administrators together for learning, discussion, and connection.

While the venue’s suburban location made travel a bit more complicated for some participants, it also offered a peaceful, natural setting – complete with a swimming pool, sauna, and jacuzzi – which turned out to be a surprisingly effective backdrop for both deep conversations and well-deserved relaxation. The event successfully brought together 25 admins for three days of intensive learning and informal exchange.

Workshops focused on fighting disinformation, improving communication, and giving feedback. They were led by external experts but developed in close cooperation with the Wikimedia Polska team and the admin working group, which helped ground the sessions in real Wikimedia needs. Participants appreciated both the format and content – particularly exercises that allowed them to reflect on their own habits and roles within the community.

At times, discussions during the sessions went beyond the planned content and touched on broader questions – like how to welcome newcomers or communicate more clearly on Wikipedia. While time constraints didn’t allow all of these to be fully developed, their emergence showed the strength of the format: it helped participants feel safe enough to voice thoughts that often remain unspoken. For future editions, we plan to build in more time for these conversations.

Webinars: Lessons in Engagement

To ensure broader access to the program, we also organized a series of online sessions, including topics on stress management and upcoming technical changes (like temporary accounts on Wikipedia). While some webinars had lower attendance than expected – and several participants noted that topics around stress felt repetitive – the sessions still offered valuable takeaways for those who joined.

Just like with the in-person event, we tailored the content of the webinars to the specific needs of the admin community, working closely with invited trainers as well as volunteers from the administrators’ group to ensure relevance and practical value. Finding the right coaches took some time – we wanted to work with people who not only understood the topics but could also relate to the unique realities of a volunteer-driven, online community. In the end, our efforts paid off: the trainers expressed real appreciation and gratitude for the chance to work within the Wikimedia environment. Their work was also well evaluated by the participants, who appreciated both the content and the way it was delivered – practical, respectful, and rooted in real-life situations admins often face.

Another key lesson here was about the format: admins told us they prefer more interactive, case-based sessions over abstract lectures, and that post-session summaries or slides would help make the content easier to revisit. This feedback is already shaping our planning: in future rounds, we aim to share training materials in multiple formats, and possibly explore asynchronous formats as well.

From Challenges to Community Building

Some challenges also helped open new conversations. For example, the closed nature of the Admin Camp was questioned by some in the wider community. Although the discussion around it was at times heated, it prompted reflection about transparency and accessibility.

This is something we’ll continue to work on. Options we’re going to take under consideration are: including publishing summaries of future sessions and adapting the formula to involve more people – for example, by organizing open discussions for editors on topics relevant to the whole community, not just administrators.

Despite the occasional difficulty, the feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. Nearly all expressed interest in participating in such a project again, and many reported feeling more connected to other administrators than they had before. What was underlined in many responses to the final survey was the fact that this round created stronger ties – which, in itself, is a key outcome. The admin role can feel isolating; therefore, being reminded that others share your experience matters more than it might appear at first.

What We’ll Keep – And What We’ll Expand

Based on this experience, we’ve identified several elements worth keeping:

• Collaborative planning with the admin community.
• In-person meetings that allow for both structured training and informal exchange.
• A mix of soft skills and technical content, grounded in the realities of Wikipedia.

At the same time, we’ve seen areas where there’s room to grow:

• Providing more flexible formats for online content.
• Reserving space for community discussions during in-person events.
• Considering more open and inclusive forms of future events.

Above all, this project confirmed something we suspected from the start: supporting admins isn’t only about providing tools or training – it’s about acknowledging the human side of their work. Giving space for reflection, exchange, and peer support strengthens not just the individuals involved, but the whole Wikimedia community. If you would like to share your thoughts and discuss the topic further, feel free to contact me directly by email: malgorzata.gramatnikowska@wikimedia.pl. Thank you so much for your time!