Grants:Project/UG BG/Wikimedia CEE Spring 2017
This project is funded by a Project Grant
| proposal | people | timeline & progress | finances | midpoint report | final report |
Project idea[edit]
Wikimedia CEE Spring 2017 is a yearly event organised by Wikimedians and Wikipedians from the region of Central and Eastern Europe with the aim to support article creation about every country and region in Central and Eastern Europe on every Wikipedia. This correlates with the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." While we will not be changing the contest a lot, because it was so successful last year, this year we will expand it to the whole world, so that people on all Wikipedias are motivated to write about the CEE region. We will also put more emphasis on the quality of the articles rather than sheer quantity.
Wikimedia CEE Spring aims at joining local forces of free knowledge to accumulate and distribute information about history, culture, traditions, and people in every corner of the region to support mutual acknowledgment and understanding and to increase the quantity and quality of free knowledge available about the CEE region globally.
The event itself will take place traditionally from the 21st of March to the 31st of May. During this time period there will be an individual article competition on at least 23 related Wikipedias concentrating on creating and significantly editing articles about history, culture, and notable people of each and every participating country from the region. For more information about the article topics, please consult the structure page.
Local competitions will be organised by local teams and in every community the competition will have a slightly different face to take into account the local context. Contact data of the local coordinators can be found on the contacts page. They are also subscribed to a mailing list at Ceespring-localorganisers
wikimedia.bg. In the last two editions it was proved that most volunteering organisers from the different communities carried on the tasks for the contest until the end. Local teams present lists of articles about their country which they would like to see in every possible language in the world and editors from all other places create and significantly edit those articles, whereby participants can write about any topic, connected with the other participating countries and regions in Central and Eastern Europe.
Although the contest is aimed at active and very active editors, last year 11.6% new editors participated, of which 33% were active after 1 October, 4 months after the contest. We will continue popularising it among non-Wikipedians in the hope that new editors will join CEE Spring and the Wikimedia movement.
Last year we defined our goals better than the year before. We set them too high, but the results (e.g. 34% of all biographical articles were about women) were very impressive. Besides the obvious goal of creating more high-quality freely available encyclopaedic content, we also have aims on the strategic level – closing the content gender gap and further developing the regional cooperation Wikimedia CEE. Our aims have been chosen in a way to not only provide new encyclopaedic information, but also to create high quality information and distribute the articles in a fair way between countries. Wikimedia CEE Spring 2015 and Wikimedia CEE Spring 2016, together with Wiki Loves Earth and 100wikidays were a driving force in establishing Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe as the leading regional cooperation of Wikimedia affiliates in the world and holding this article writing contest yearly provides a possibility to keep this cooperation and strengthen it. Last year, with the contest having international organisers from four affiliates we created a core of people, who were the focal point of communication in the partnership and this year we expanded the international team to members of five affiliates and are building on a good and healthy partnership with the EU digital platform for cultural heritage – Europeana.
Last year 30 countries or regions or languages took part at the contest, more than 9650 articles were created or significantly expanded, 435 Wikipedians participated, 21 of them female. Statistics can be seen in our grant report at Grants:PEG/UG BG/CEE Spring/Report
Goals and metrics[edit]
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Quantitative[edit]
Should[edit]
These goals have been set based on expectations based on quantitative data analysis from the international organising team and last year's results and will be used as a measure of success.
- at least one article with 300 words on average per active editor (>5 edits per month) per participating country (ca. 10.000 in total) on average
- Total number of participants from CEE: 450
- Total number of participants worldwide: 550
- Total number of female participants from CEE: 20% (90)
- Total number of female participants worldwide: 20% (110)
- 35% of all newly created and significantly edited biographies about women
Could[edit]
These goals have been set based on qualitative estimations by the international organising team.
- 10% of the participants in all countries are new users
Strategic[edit]
- Closing the content gender gap (correlates with the quantitative goal about biographies about women)
- Further development of the regional partnership Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe
Qualitative[edit]
- Higher quality of the created and significantly edited articles.
- At least 150 newly created and significantly edited articles about every participating country and region
- At least 250 newly created and significantly edited articles about every topic
Unused metrics[edit]
See Grants:Evaluation/Program_resources/Writing_competitions#Metrics Metrics from the Program resources.
We would compute these global metrics but will not define goals for them
- % increase in contribution rate per participating user as compared to user's contribution rate outside the competition timeframe
- # of participants editing X months after the event: 400
- # of participants who are active editors (5 edits/month) X months after an event: 400
Plan[edit]
The participating communities will be asked to organise as few concurrent contests as possible. This will reduce the number of people not taking part in CEE Spring as a result of investing their time in other contests..
We will continue popularising the event via Facebook and the – what proved a very good idea from last year – multilingual blog www.ceespring.eu. Via the statistics, created on-the-fly from User:BaseBot, social media and the blog we will steer the participating communities so that the goals can be reached. The international organisation team will write texts directed at active Wikipedians and possible new editors.
We wish to use prize funds of 400 Euro per country to help us narrow down the focus of the editors in reaching those aims. By awarding prizes in certain categories we can ensure the writing of articles in the categories, chosen by each local organiser – e.g. there can be prizes for the largest number of articles about women (to close the content gender gap) on different wikis, prizes for the largest number of created articles on every wiki, prizes for excellent and good articles where applicable, as well as prizes for the best new editors on different wikis. The local organisers know their communities the best, so they will be free to choose how they will reach them. At the same time they will have strong international support if they wish to use it.
We also wish 500 Euro for prizes on international level. Last year those prizes were donated by Wikimedia Polska during the contest and were used for the week of Women in Science and Education, which led to increasing the weekly percentage of articles about women from less than 25% to over 35% and changed the momentum.
We put our focus this year on quality rather than quantity. While we cannot measure the number of good, excellent and featured articles, because this distinguishment does not exist on some Wikipedias, we will advise local organisers to have special prize categories for the best articles on their Wikipedia. Furthermore, we will cut the number of articles in the proposed lists of topics from at least 100 to exactly 100, so that those people writing about articles from the lists (53% of the articles edited last year were from the lists) write about more important topics (e.g. Geography of Bulgaria, if it doesn't exist rather than Ivan Vazov).
Wikimedia Austria was chosen by the international organisation committee to be the payment processor for the grant on the international level, based on the large size of the chapter, their experience in handling grants, and the fact that being in the EU would reduce money transfer taxes to some of the participating countries. Wikimedia Austria would process the grant based on the following basic rules.
Rules on international level[edit]
- CEE Spring 2017 is a set of local contests, however internationally coordinated..
- Local contests are organized in a way to select winners before 30 June 2017.
- In order to join the CEE Spring 2017 a chapter, an established or not-established user group:
- selects one person as a coordinator; this person is ready to reveal to the Wikimedia Austria office their full name, contact address and bank account number to be used for money transfers
- prepares the set of rules of local contest and presents them to the international organisers for acceptance.
- prepares (preferably together with their community) a list of exactly 100 articles in exactly 10 categories about their countries to translate/create before 15 March 2017.
- decides about the method of selection of local winners, however it must be clearly defined and accepted by the international coordination committee.
- presents to Wikimedia Austria originals or scanned copies of the invoices, for which they get reimbursed or provide an account in an online shop with a full shopping basket, so that only the payment details need be added by the payment processor. The shop must be capable of providing an invoice.
Resources[edit]
Template:Wikimedia CEE Spring 2017 Participating Countries and Organisers
Further resources[edit]
Risks[edit]
Risk matrix[edit]
| Risk | Number | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Simultaneous organisation of other article writing contests | R1 | The simultaneous realisation of further article writing contests could lead to reduced participation, which would lead to the reducing of the number of created or significantly edited articles, as well as to lower quality articles. |
| Burnout of organisers | R2 | Due to the high intrinsic motivation project organisers could overestimate their energy and get burned out. This could lead to a missing local organiser or more work for the international coordination team. |
| Pulling out of organisers because of other obligations in their chapter or user group | R3 | Chapters and user groups could pull off their staff or volunteers because of unplanned more important tasks. This could lead to a missing local organiser or more work for the international coordination team. |
| Lack of financing of prizes | R4 | Lack of financial rewards would make it harder for organisers to channel the efforts of participants in direction of the goals of the project, e.g. a number of excellent and good articles, number of articles, even distribution of articles and closing of the content gender gap |
Risk probability[edit]
Risk probability was estimated on the scale “very low - rather low - rather high - very high”
| Risk | Probability | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | rather low | very high |
| R2 | rather high | rather low |
| R3 | rather low | very low |
| R4 | low | rather high |
Measures[edit]
| Risk | Preventive measures | Corrective measures |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | Participating chapters and User Groups will be asked at the beginning of the project to not organise simultaneous article writing contests, because CEE Spring is a project of regional importance. This will reduce the probability that the risk enters. | The coverage of the contest via Facebook and the international multilingual blog will be used to direct the attention of the participants in direction of CEE Spring. |
| R2 | Whenever possible responsibility will be split among a group of people, so that too much pressure is not being put on single persons. | New local and international organisers can be recruited during the project. This happened last year, too. |
| R3 | Chapters and User Groups will be informed about the amount of time their staff and volunteers would need to invest during the project. | New local and international organisers can be recruited during the project. |
| R4 | The Grant Advisory Committee will be presented a well created grant proposal | Chapters and User Groups will be asked to search for local sponsors and find immaterial ways to express their appreciation for the participants |
Budget[edit]
| Item | Cost by unit (€) | Number | Total (€) | Total (USD) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prizes on international level | 500 | 1 | 500 | 530 | For special prizes at international level, e.g. thematic weeks about important neglected topics |
| Prizes on local level | 400 | 25 local budgets | 10.000 | 10.675 | 25 budgets for local prizes, handled by Wikimedia Austria for purposes of this grant according to the rules above (some chapters and user groups can decide to use their own budgets for buying the prizes; APG funded affiliates will buy the prizes from their own budgets). Until now 19 participants have registered for the contest, but our experience from last years tells us that there will be latecomers and we plan with 6 further local budgets. We will not transfer money between local budgets and will return unused funds.
Funded by the international grant will be Wikimedians of Albanian Language UG, Azerbaijani Wikimedians UG, Wikimedians of Bashkortostan UG, Wikimedia Community Belarus, Bosnian Wikipedia Community, Wikimedians of Bulgaria UG, Wikimedia Hrvatske, Esperanto kaj Libera Scio, Wikimedia Community UG Georgia, Wikimedia Community UG Greece, Wikimedia Magyarország, Wikimedians of Latvia UG, Shared Knowledge, Wikimedia Polska, Wikimedians of Moldova and Romania, Wikimedia Russia, Wikimedians of Republika Srpska, Wikimedia Slovakia, Wikimedia Community UG Turkey. Funded by their own budgets will be Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimedia Austria, Wikimedia Serbia, Wikimedia Ukraine. |
| Bank transfer costs and risk | 30 | 25 transfers | 750 | 800 | 20 money transfers to various countries in various local currencies. The typical cost for transfer is around 30 EUR. If some of the money is not used we will return it. |
| Overall | 11.250 | 12.005 |
Total amount requested[edit]
Up to 11.250 Euro (12.005 USD)
Additional sources of revenue[edit]
Non-financial requirements[edit]
- One or more blog posts on the international Wikimedia blog (http://blog.wikimedia.org).
Community notification[edit]
You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talkpage, mailing list. Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?
- A list for Wikimedians of Central and Eastern Europe: wmcee-l@tools.wikimedia.pl
- Wikimedia CEE Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1535273526719763/
- CEE Spring Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/WCEESpring/
- Meta page of CEE Spring: Wikimedia CEE Spring 2017
Endorsements[edit]
Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).
Support A very successful project that deserves further funding! --Tobias1984 (talk) 11:44, 18 February 2017 (UTC)- Support The biggest wiki-contest in the region, was a big success in almost all participating languages last year. --Gikü (talk) 23:11, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
- Support CEE Spring is a very successful regional project that encourages people from all countries of the region to write about each other. Funding would be very helpful to support emerging communities who do not have APG grants (yet) but who are willing to organise this contest at their local level, thus we would like to support them by providing prizes to their local winners. This would create a level playing field for all communities in the region, no matter their status as an affiliate — NickK (talk) 12:42, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
- Support as others.. --Hubertl (talk) 10:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
