Grants:PEG/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 – Macedonia Organizing Team/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2013-14 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
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Compliance and completion[edit]

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
Answer YES or NO.
YES
Is your project completed?
Answer YES or NO.
YES
Did you use any of the grant funds?
Answer YES or NO.
YES

Activities and lessons learned[edit]

This section describes what the grantee did, and what the grantee learned from implementing the project. This section should be useful to others implementing similar projects and is an opportunity for the grantee to reflect on the project's performance.

Activities[edit]

Official logo of the project
Video tutorial about the project with brief introduction on the uploading process on Wikimedia Commons
Provide a detailed list of activities performed to complete this project, descriptions of these activities, and the amount of time spent on each activity. This section should also include a list of participants, or a link to pictures, blog posts, or videos from the project or event.
The main activities performed during the project are the following:
  • Meetings of the organising team. Several meetings between the organising team and the people hired to work on the project were held during October. Contracts were signed with: Igor Sazdovski and Gordana Stojkovska (organisers), Zoran Mechkarski (video tutorial), Daniel Kraljevski (web hosting, web design and maintenance), and Dana Uzhevsla (advertisement and publicity). All of these people were compensated for their efforts with the amounts projected in the budget. Kiril Simeonovski and Snezhana Shtrkovska were also involved in the project's organisation by their participation in creating the rules and guidelines as well as their on-wiki work during the project.
  • Selection of jury members. The jury was constituted by the organisers on suggestions from the community. Its members included: Vladimir Veljanovski (academic professor of photography), Dimitar Tanevski (tourist guide), Zoran Ivanovski (amateur photographer) and Igor Kuzmanovski (amateur photographer and Wikimedian). They were introduced with the project at a meeting held on 30 October 2013, at which they signed contracts for their participation as members of the jury. Igor Kuzmanovski was not able to attend the meeting and the contract with him was signed few days later. All of them were compensated for their efforts as projected in the project's budget.
  • Taping a video tutorial. A video tutorial explaining the essentials of the project along with some basic introduction to the uploading process on Wikimedia Commons was taped in the beginning of November. The video file is available on Wikimedia Commons uploaded under the free licence CC-BY-SA 3.0.
  • Creating official website. The domain for the official website named "www.wlch.mk" was registered on 31 October 2013. The web hosting services along with the web design of the page were provided in the first days of November and its content was maintained during the competition.
  • Promotional activities. The project's promotional period started in the beginning of November quickly after taping the video tutorial, completing the design of the official website and providing all necessary information about it. A fun page with the name "Вики го сака културното наследство" (trans. Wiki Loves Cultural Heritage) was created on Facebook, which was later updated with all the news and important information concerning the project, while the project was also promoted through the page "Википедија на македонски јазик" (trans. Macedonian Wikipedia) which counts more than 30,000 followers. Besides Facebook, articles announcing the competition were posted on some of the country's most popular media and Internet portals.
  • Operating period of Wiki Loves Cultural Heritage 2013. The competition officially started on 7 November 2013 and lasted until 7 December 2013. The main activities during its operating period were monitoring the process of uploading photographs, fixing the problems reported by some of the participants or other people who have observed them and responding on the multiple questions regarding the project. It's worth noting that many of the participants came up with questions about the project and most of the time during the competition was actually spent on replying to them.
  • Categorisation and sorting The days after the end of the competition were spent in categorisation and sorting of the photographs uploaded by the participants. Categorisation of all uncategorised photographs was necessary to conclude the final number of photographs that had to be later reviewed by the jury, while their sorting helped rate the most prolific contributors in the competition.
  • Review of the photographs by the jury. The process of reviewing the photographs uploaded during the competition was made on 18 December 2013 and it took around 10 hours until the five best photographs were selected. The time necessary to sort the photographs by their uploaders and rate the most prolific contributors took about four days.
  • Award ceremony. The Award ceremony for the competition was held on 25 December 2013 in Skopje. It was attended by app. 50 people including the organisers, prize winners, Wikimedians and participants.
Notes: All the images uploaded in the competition can be found in this category. For general navigation, please visit the project's main page on Wikimedia Commons or project's official website.

Lessons learned[edit]

What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects? Consider the following questions and respond with 1 - 2 paragraphs.
What went well?
Most of the activities relating the competition went well without any serious problems, but the thing that we especially appreciate is the change of the project's name and scope. Wiki Loves Monuments as a photographic competition has only limited scope as it only focuses on taking photographs of historical monuments and heritage sites; it does not include the possibility to take photographs of cultural heritage in any forms and thereby does not tell the whole story. On the other hand, Wiki Loves Cultural Heritage allows its participants to take photographs of cultural heritage without any limitations and also includes other forms of tangible cultural heritage (e.g. dishes, outfit, tapestries, historical working tools and other elements of the country's tradition) as well as intangible cultural heritage (e.g. crafts, dances and traditional practices). Since a project with wider scope has the potential to generate photographs of more different objects and can be thereby linked to a greater number of articles, we also support the opinion that this variant of a photographic competition better fits with the mission and goals of the WMF and would have not yielded the same results if we didn't have the chance to change its scope.
What did not go well?
The grant request was initially submitted to support organising Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Macedonia, but after we were prevented by the organisers of the international content to do it later than September, we decided to change its name and widen its scope which was approved by the WMF.
What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?
One of the things that we'd like to implement when organising a similar project is having group photographic haunts and "uploadathons". The term was coined to refer to a specific meetups intended to provide mass upload of photographs by the attendants.

Project goal and measures of success[edit]

This section should reference the project goals and measures of success described in the approved grant submission. See Grants:PEG/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 – Macedonia Organizing Team/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 to review the goals and metrics listed in the approved submission.

Project goal[edit]

Provide the project goal here.
The implementation of the project had the following goals:
  • to increase the number of freely licenced photographs from the monuments and cultural heritage in Macedonia;
  • to promote the cultural heritage of Macedonia through the photographs uploaded during the competition;
  • to improve quality of content on the Wikimedia projects by providing images to the articles;
  • to support creation of new articles about monuments and cultural heritage in Macedonia;
  • to encourage active participation of photographers in the competition and simulate the creation of similar projects.
Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 paragraphs.
All of the goals mentioned above were achieved on various degrees. Some of them were even outachieved because the goals listed above were firstly set for Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Macedonia. The increased number of freely licenced photographs and the promotion of cultural heritage can be evidenced through the uploaded photographs during the competition, the improved quality of content through the use of these photographs in different articles, the creation of new articles through the activity on the Wikimedia projects, while the last goal was only partially achieved because it is expected to have long-lasting effects on the future photographic projects.

Measures of success[edit]

List the measures of success exactly as provided in the approved grant submission, and evaluate your project according to each measure listed there.
We didn't define specific measure of success since this was our first project of this kind. However, the other similar projects in other countries can be used as proxy to measure the results from this one.
Provide an overall assessment of how your project went according to these measures.
The project yielded the following numerical results:
  • 4,915 photographs uploaded;
    • 612 photographs disqualified;
    • 4,303 photographs accepted;
  • more than 1,000 different objects photographed;
  • 200 participants registered;
    • 60 participants uploaded at least one accepted photograph;
    • 4 participants uploaded at least one photograph with none accepted;
    • 136 participants did not upload any photographs.
Comparing the project with other photographic competitions organised in other countries this year and given the differences in population, area and number of eligible objects to take photographs from, we consider that the project was fairly successful.
If you were to plan a similar project, would you measure it differently? If yes, please explain how.
These measures of success look fine and we plan to use them as a good starting point to measure our similar projects in future.

Impact[edit]

This section ties this project to Wikimedia's broader goals, and shows what the project accomplished.

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic goals? Please answer in 1 -2 paragraphs and include specific measures of impact such as the number of readers or editors reached by a particular project, or the number of articles edited or improved.
Stabilize infrastructure
Increase participation
Improve quality
Increase reach
Encourage innovation
The project has its major impact on improving the quality of content on different Wikimedia projects resulting in hundreds of articles across different Wikimedia projects which already use photographs uploaded during the competition to illustrate the content. It also impacts on increased reach and participation through the advertisement of the project and the number of new users on Wikimedia Commons. We can also point out that the project itself is innovative as the first photographic competition with such scope.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures[edit]

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

Documentation[edit]

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "No".
Yes

Expenses[edit]

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.
These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses.
Note that variances in the project budget over 10% per expense category must be approved in advance by WMF Grants Program staff. For all other variances, please provide an explanation in the table below.
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Actual cost per unit Actual total Budgeted total Currency Notes
1 Posters posters with the logo and the awarded photographs m2 7 28 196 196 EUR
2 Pens decorated pens with the logo of the competition unit 100 0.114 11.4 15 EUR This amount is without logo, only pens. Logo is listed below in section 11.
3 Notebooks decorated notebooks with the logo of the competition unit 50 0.70 35 35 EUR This amount is without logo, only notebooks. Logo is listed below in section 11.
4 Name tags name tags for the organizers unit 15 0.13 1.95 3.75 EUR We received a EUR 1.80 discount, and so came in under budget
5 Certificates certificates for the awarded photographs and jury members unit 20 0.68 13,60 10 EUR We had a EUR 3,60 up of the budget
6 T-shirts / Tea cups Tea cups with the logo and awarded photos of the competition unit 35 4 140 140 EUR We realized than 14 T-shirts are not enough, but don't have budget for more, so decided to get 35 tea cups with logo for the same total price
7 Catering catering served during the Award ceremony n/a n/a n/a 300 300 EUR
8 Prizes prizes for the best photographs and best contributors n/a n/a n/a 1,300 1,300 EUR
9 Compensation for jury members compensation for the participation of jury members person 4 100 400 400 EUR
10 Project management compensation for the organizers and their expertise for completing specific tasks n/a n/a n/a 1,500 1,500 EUR
11 Incidentals Expenses that are not projected in the budget but occurred n/a n/a n/a 100 100 EUR This item includes: food&Beverages for jury day 1 (24 EUR); food&Beverages for jury day 2 (35.5 EUR); taxi for jury (4.5 EUR); stickers with logo for pens and notebooks (25 EUR) and second web-site hosting due to changing the name of the competition (11 EUR).
Total 3,998.00 3,999.75 EUR


Total project budget (from your approved grant submission)
€3,999.75
Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if the WMF grant is your only funding source)
€3,999.75
Total amount spent on this project (this total should be the total calculated from the table above)
€3,998.00
Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project (this total will be the same as the total amount spent if the WMF grant is your only funding source)
€3,998.00
Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? List them here.
We received additional non-financial support.

Remaining funds[edit]

Remaining funds have been used or will be used for other approved mission-aligned activities. This use has been requested in writing and approved by WMF.
Are there any grant funds remaining?
Answer YES or NO.
YES
Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)
€1.75
If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.
Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.
We intend to submit a new grant request.