Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia Nederland/Proposal form

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Proposal by Wikimedia Nederland to support its annual plan with ~US$446,000.

Program focus: Community and participation, Content

In 2015, WMNL continue to support the online community and work to improve the content of the Wikimedia projects.

We will provide concrete, practical support to editors, reaching out in particular to the communities working on the smaller sister projects (i.e.not Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons). And we are going to support community efforts to improve the working atmosphere on the Wikimedia projects, by providing training and coaching.

The topics 'Nature' and the 'Second World War' are the focus for online and offline activities for a second year. We have found that this focus creates synergy in our work aimed at improving content and bringing in new editors. We will also support community initiatives aiming to remedy the fact that Wikipedia is particularly strong in providing information on topics that are traditionally considered important by men. A highlight in our 2015 calendar will undoubtedly be the international GLAM Wiki conference that we will organize in April 2015.

In 2014 we did a feasibility study into developing an education programme. In 2015 we will do a number of pilot projects to determine whether cooperation with higher education can become a permanent element in our workplan for the future.

To provide the best service to the movement, we will survey members, editors and the general public to get insight into understanding, attitudes, and expectations. The results will provide a framework for communication activities and strategy development for the coming years.

Your requested increase in funding

I understand what you state of an exceptional cost of 40000 Euro for 2015, but want to get more rationale for the requested increase outside this being 36000 (which I calculate to be a 12% increase not 9,6). Your are of course aware that the Board has made a decision that FDC funding should be capped, except in extraordainary cases. And you have an operation that has been running for some years and have a program, while being good, does not for me show anyting so extraordianry that it could moivate this inrease. Could you please expand of your reasoning behing this very big increase?.Anders Wennersten (talk) 09:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Anders, thank you for your compliments regarding our activities. In 2015 we intend to introduce new activities (without slackening on the current ones). Most important: (1) Introduction of a program to influence the social climate on WP (see chapter Community). (2) Education program, cooperation with institutions of higher education (see chapter Content). (3) Carry out a relatively costly survey amongst our members, the editing community and the general public (see chapter Communication). (4) Over the past few years we were successful in reaching GLAM institutions and we really want to extend this experience to new areas of interest, i.e. nature & wild life and World-War II. For this we intend to hire and additional project manager (0,5). I hope that this brief summary gives you some better understanding of our growth plans. As for the figures: € (409,994 -/- 373.344) / 3733 = 9,8%. Kind regards, Grijz (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Questions from FDC staff

Thank you for submitting this proposal for an Annual Plan Grant to the FDC! As the FDC staff, we have enjoyed reviewing it and learning more about the work you’ve done to date, and the plans you have for 2015. At this time, we’d like to know a bit more. Some questions have come up as part of our review, and we have a few requests for clarifications. Please let us know if any of this is unclear.

Thank you for your hard work! Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 00:19, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your questions! We will provide answers to all of them by October 15. Is this OK for your planning? Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 10:22, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Confirming your financial information

Based on your budgeted spend for 2014 your proposed growth rate is 26.38% and based on your projected spend for 2014 your growth rate is 20.53% because you expect to spend 104.85% of the total budgeted. WMNL is requesting a 25.00% increase in FDC funding. This analysis is based on the following numbers:

• Budgeted spend 2014: €356,068
• Projected spend 2014: €373,344
• FDC funds granted 2014: €304,000
• Proposed budget 2015: €449,994
• FDC funds requested 2015:€380,000

It seems like the sum of revenues in Table 5 does not equal €450,000 as stated. Would you please check the numbers there and make corrections using strikethrough as needed?

Corrected. Changed "20.000" to "20,000", it is a thousand separator, not a decimal dot. Now the numbers add up. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 14:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Ad! We appreciate the swift correction. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 21:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Questions

1. What is your strategy around increasing the number of organizations in the GLAM and Education field that are contributing to Wikimedia projects, rather than focusing on increasing content or improving quality?

Many organisations are interested in contributing to Wikipedia, but WMNL staff and volunteer capacity to support them is limited. Therefore we need to be selective in how we allocate resources. We will prioritise a) institutions that can contribute to our thematic priorities (Nature and World War II) and b) institutions that are willing and able to contribute substantial amount of new content over a longer period of time. In both cases, we want to make organisations as self-sufficient as possible, for example by training them in using the Glam Wiki toolset and supporting them in finding experienced Wikimedians as Wikipedian in Residence. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 08:05, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

2. You have done some feasibility studies to identify potential pilot projects in education. What are you expecting to achieve through these pilots? What will determine whether you move forward with any of them?

With the pilot projects we want to determine whether both the Dutch Wikimedia community and the Dutch education sector are ready to enter into a productive partnership. On the side of the Wikimedia community, and WMNL in particular, we need to find out whether we have the capacity in terms of staff and volunteers to facilitate these type of activities. Also, we will have to see how the Wikipedia-editors respond to a possible influx of less then perfect new articles and edits. On the side of the education sector we want to explore whether it is possible for them to integrate Wikipedia-editing in the curriculum. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

3. You write that Wikipedians in Residence are becoming more self-supporting. What role will you play advising the institutions and liaising with the community? For example, do you provide training on the GLAM wiki toolset? Do you connect Wikipedians in Residence to the institutions? Are the institutions funding the positions themselves?

We have already organised workshops on the GLAM Wiki toolset this year, and plan to continue this in 2015. We will also make other training available to institutions, depending on their particular needs and demands. We organise and host a regular meeting of all Wikipedians in Residence to share lessons learned and promote cooperation and synergy.

WMNL does not fund Wikipedian in Residence positions. We do support grant applications from institutions to grant makers in the Netherlands.

We also assist institutions in developing profiles for Wikipedians in Residence and, if asked, participate in the selection process as an advisor. We announce vacancies for Wikipedia in Residence positions to the Wikimedia-community. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

4.In 2015, you will experiment with setting up editing groups in volunteer organizations. What role will you play in this? Have these organizations approached you? How will you prioritize your support?

We will help the volunteer organisations by providing initial training in editing Wikipedia, also we want to provide 'easy to do' task lists to help the volunteers get into editing, for example list of articles to be added improved on their topic, images or data that can be added to improve articles. Active and experienced WMNL volunteers will also act as mentors to the editing groups.

We are reaching out to volunteer organisations active in our two thematic priority areas. We do this after making an inventory of which organisations are out there, and assessing the chances of a successful partnership (e.g. are they focussed on compiling and processing knowledge/data, do they have a large membership, are they well organised?) Preferably we contact them via Wikipedians/Wikimedians who are already active in these organisations. If that option is not available, a WMNL staff- or board member will make contact. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

5. What are the activities involved in Improve content concerning Nature & Wildlife and World War II, and how they will led to the results you expect?

We will use the full range of activities available: content donations, writing competitions, editathons. We are following lessons learned by other chapters and the information shared via learning patterns and PED and will include more online activities in our programmes than previously. Also our philosophy will be that there is no such thing as a stand-alone activity: a content donation must be linked to a writing event, for example. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 08:51, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

6. We understand you will conduct a feasibility study on software development. What conversations do you plan to have with the community around the potential role you could play in this area?

If the Dutch volunteer community is not interested in becoming involved in software development, the chances of developing successful activities are almost nill. We know that some of our most experienced volunteers are active and knowledgeable in this field and have good connections with WMF engineering department. In theory, there is potential. The feasibility assessment is basically a structured dialogue with the community. This will take place both online and via irl meetings. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 08:37, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

7. You provide the target of “retention of new editors on NL Wikipedia will increase by 5%” for your Community Support program. Do you have some baseline numbers on editor retention to offer, to give us more context for what you are trying to achieve?

In our previous editathons editor retention was below 2%. These are 2013 data as we have steared away from editathonsn as a method for recruitment this year until we had figured out a way to make it at least minimally successful. It would have been better if we had written 'retention will increase to 5%". Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 09:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Link to English translation of annual plan 2015 added

I have added a link to the English translation of our upcoming annual plan in table 2. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 06:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the update, Sandra, this change is approved. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 17:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Gender gap and diversity

Hello, and thank you for the work that you all do for the wikimedia movement. I enjoyed reading about your past and proposed projects.

I think that is great that this year you were more successful in launching a program to address the gender gap. And I see that you have listed a set of projects that you plan to do with some participation goals related to addressing the gender gap.

One thing that I noticed was that you didn't mention through the the proposed plans any specific goals related to integrating women into the community or chapter. Where you were specific with numbers in your goals, you didn't break out a number of women that would be involved. I think that doing that for each project and program would help you stay focused on bring in women in all capacities in the community.

As an example, you say, "Convene annual Wikimedia Nederland Conference in November 2015 that will draw at least 150 visitors, of whom 40 are first time attendees."

It could help if you thought about what would be a measure of success for women attending the Wikimedia Nederland Conference and spell that out, too.

Also, I'm wondering if you have any idea of the impact that the gender related projects will have on content. Are you aiming for either a qualitative or quantitative change in article content? Have you thought of any measures that will show that the content is enhanced? It would be helpful to use this approach to evaluate the success of the projects rather than just participation statistics because improvement in content is the primary goal.

Thank you for reading my questions and suggestions. Again, I'm glad to see that the gender gap project is getting under way this year. FloNight (talk) 19:23, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you're looking forward to November 2015 with an estimated (?) number of visitors. Look at 2014 first. 151.40.193.214 09:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

151.40.193.214, thanks for asking for clarification. I pulled out one real example from the proposal that used specific targets. I'm not more interested in it than I am the other events. FloNight (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Flonight, for taking the time to read and comment on the WMNL proposal. We really hope that our gender-gap will take off in 2015.

I like the idea of setting quantative targets for participation/involvement of women in all community activities, not just those specifically related to gender gap. We have baseline-data for attendance at many community events in 2013 and 2014 (including gender) so it would be fairly straightforward to set additional targets and monitor. As the anonymous contributor listed above pointed out, the 2014 annual conference has yet to take place (November 1) - and includes a session on 'women and wiki'. We hope this will encourage more women to become involved in our gender gap activities.

As to monitoring impact, we want to monitor both qualitative and quantative impact (i.e. content added as well as content improved). For content added or improved during (or as a direct result of) editathons or online writing competitions this is relatively easy to do. It is more complicated to assess whether there is an improvement in content as a result of more women editing overall. We are thinking of monitoring key parameters, such as number of biographies of women, topics from womens-history. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 08:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland , that all sounds good. It will be really useful to incorporate a variety of gender related targets and measures into your overall activities. I look forward to seeing your ideas. :-) FloNight (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Impact of GLAM Wiki Conference 2015

You have noted that the (tentative) budget for GLAM Wiki 2015 Conference, which you will host, is included in the APG at the request of the WMF, and that it accounts for approximately 10-11% of the growth in your proposal. Does that mean that you anticipate your request for 2016 will be for FDC funding that is not increased, or potentially lower, than your request for 2015? Risker (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely, Risker. We are not planning for 20% growth every year and are a bit uncomfortable that because of GLAM Wiki 2015 our current request is this high. We do not yet have a well-defined scope for our 2016 work plan, but the underlying principle for our planning is steady and sustainable development of WMNL and not rapid expansion. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your response, SRientjes. It occurs to me that specific, one-time projects like this would probably be better off with their own specific funding that *isn't* included in the non-restricted funds application (i.e., should be a special restricted grant), and that it might be easier for the chapter/affiliate to manage it if the funding was packaged in that way. Risker (talk) 02:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Editor survey

The editor survey can be very useful when performed "close to the heart" so to say, so I'm looking forward to it. Do you also plan to include formerly very active, now-inactive editors? We saw on it.wiki that the bulk of decline in editing activity is made by the disappearing of few hundreds very active users, so it's feasible in principle to talk with all of them in a way or another. --Nemo 08:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for this question, Nemo. When we did the survey in 2013 we called on editors to participate via a site-notice, so formerly active editors would have been excluded automatically. I like the idea to make a special effort to include them in the survey. It would provide very valuable information on what discourages editors, and how they might be motivated to return. Thanks for this suggestion. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Please justify

Out of all 11 proposal your proposal is seeking highest amount of money. Please justify.

Thank you for you comment. I think you are mistaken: WMNL is not seeking the highest amount of money of all 11 proposals. You can find an overview here. However, we are requesting a considerable amount of funding. As explained in our proposal, this is in part a result of the fact that WMNL will be hosting GLAM WIki 2015. This is budgetted at €40,000. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 08:36, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Questions from Risker about participant metrics

I realise that the chapters and affiliates have not really been asked to produce consistent participant metrics to date, so it is understandable if you have to give estimates for some of these metrics. When responding, please identify if the data you are providing is verified (e.g., a maintained membership database) or estimated.

1. How many members do you have? If you have different categories of membership, please give subtotals for each category.
2. How many individuals volunteered for/participated in an activity sponsored by your organization so far this year, excluding special events like WMF-related conferences/Wikimania? (Please let me know what kinds of activities you're including.) Approximately what percentage of these volunteers are also chapter/affiliate members?
3. What percentage of the individuals who have volunteered for or participated in your organization's activities in the past year are also active Wikimedians, or became active Wikimedians after participation? (Activity could include content contributions or administrative contributions on any project, developer contributions, committee membership, etc.)

Thanks for any information you are able to provide. Risker (talk) 04:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this question, Risker. We have been working hard to get more insight into participant and output metrics related to WMNL activities. Below you will find a table that is also included in our report on the third quarter of 2014. I think it provides answers to many of your questions. Please let me know if you need additional information. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 09:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Facts and Figures	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Events organised by WMNL	4	14	8	-
Community initiated activities/events supported by WMNL	9	5	3	-
Participants in all events	125	196	79	-
External partners involved	7	12	9	-
New WMNL members (total as of 10/30/14 = 246)	15	5	10	-
New volunteers	5	5	5	-
New editors registered		94		-
Content added (articles written improved, images added to Commons etc)	227	6514	7320 = 5000 words in Wiktionary 800 images to Commons 1500 videos to Commons 20 articles written/improved	-

Changes made at the request of WMF

At the request of WMF, the costs of organising GLAM Wiki 2015 (budgetted at €40,000) are no longer part of the APG request, but will become a separate PEG-request. Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland (talk) 11:56, 6 November 2014 (UTC)