Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/WikiArabia 2024 Conference Grant Request
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Applicant details[edit]
- A. Are you applying as a(n)
Wikimedia Affiliate (chapter, thematic org., or user group)
- B. Full name of organization presenting the proposal.
Wikimedians of the Levant User Group
- F. Do you have an account on a Wikimedia project?
Yes
- F1. Please provide your main Wikimedia Username.
User:Mervat
- F2. Please provide the Usernames of people related to this proposal.
Nedhal Jarrar: User: Freedom's Falcon Farah Mustaklem: User: Fjmustak
- G. Are you legally registered?
No
If you are applying as an individual or your group is not a legally registered nonprofit in your country, we require that you have a fiscal sponsor.
- I. Fiscal organization name.
Kiwix
Objectives and Strategy[edit]
- 1. Please state the title of your proposal.
WikiArabia 2024 Conference Grant Request
- 2.1. When will the event begin? Please enter the event start date.
2024-09-19
- 2.2. When is the last day of your event?
2024-09-21
- 3.1. When will you begin preparing for your event?
2023-05-01T00:00:00Z
- 3.2. When will you expect to complete your last event payment?
2024-09-30T00:00:00Z
- 4. In which country will the conference take place?
Jordan
- 4.1. In which city will the conference take place?
- 5. Is it a remote or in-person event?
In-person event
- 5.1. What will be the total number of participants at the event? (including scholarship recipients + organizing team + other guests + self funded guests) (required)
100
- 6. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope.
Regional
- 6.1. If you have answered regional, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
WikiArabia is a regional event, where 90% of the participants will be members of the Arabic community and the Arab region-centric user groups.
- 7. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has.
Meta: https://w.wiki/37t X: https://twitter.com/WikimediaLevant/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaLevant
- 8. Do you work with any thematic or regional platforms such as WISCom, CEE, Iberocoop, etc.
Yes
- 8.1. Please describe what platforms and your work with them.
WikiArabia. We work closely with user groups and volunteers from across the Arabic speaking region, participating in regional conferences and collaborating in different projects such as editing contests, photo contests, and others.
- 9. Please describe the target participants for this event.
Most of the target participants are contributors to Wikipedia and the sister projects. They are required to benefit from the discussions and share their knowledge and experience. Some of those participants will present different topics based on the direction of the conference.
Locally, we’ll send invites to most active members of our user group, as well as special guests to attend specific topics, e.g. teachers and student to attend the Arabic Language day, from the group who will (to be) participate in the “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom” program (planned in March 2024).
We’ll invite some guests to discuss topics related to knowledge, documentation, equity, Arabic Language affairs, among other topics.
- 10. Please provide the link to the event's page if you already have one.
The following questions (11-14) will refer to the Community Engagement Survey which is required in order to submit a proposal. Here is the survey form that you can copy and use (if the link does not work): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ieEI8EFf2vxjD9wN_h8-srYeRCp4fhSp7_1_wiR2jh8/edit. This survey is required to access a Conference grant.
- 11. How many people did you send the community engagement survey to?
500
- 11.1. When did you conduct the survey, and for how long?
The survey was published on Jan 19th, 2024, we will keep it open for a month. It was sent via email as well as posted as a banner on the Arabic Wikipedia main page.
- 12. How many people responded to the survey?
65
- 13. What are the main objectives of the event?
>>> Gather active community members together in one place to meet and discuss different topics and issues related to the Arabic wikipedia, Arabic community. For 3 days, all participants will get a great chance to network, collaborate, discuss initiatives and share experiences. >>> Gather as many members of the Levant UG as possible to meet and collaborate. Members are located in 4 main countries as well as in different countries of the world. This will be the first ever event that gathers members in one place. >>> Start important discussions for the first time in the Arabic community, including the impact of AI on the content, encyclopedic documentation of heritage and role of wikipedians in preserving heritage, Arabic language affairs, editing and free knowledge in general.
- 14. Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve these objectives?
>>> Networking. >>> Open discussions (requested). We will allow spaces in the schedule for participants to talk to each other, to admins, to organizers, to partners, to WMF staff. >>> partnering with each other, specially user groups, initiating practical ideas, turning ideas into projects. >>> learning from each other and from guests and WMF staff about how to be more engaged in the wider movement projects, discussions, and collaboration
- 15. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context)
- 15.1. In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge. (optional recommended).
One of the main focuses of the conference will be language, where we will open discussions related to serious Arabic language aspects such as dialects, Arabization of terminology, best practices in writing good Arabic content. Other important topics related to content to be focused on will be tools (such as translation tools, navigation tools, bots, WikiFunctions, etc.) in addition to the impact of AI.
- 16. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Open Technology
- 17. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities?
Gender Identity, Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Age
- 18. Do you intend to invite or engage with non-Wikimedian individuals or organizations? If so – can you explain your intention for this outreach?
Yes; the conference is a great chance to outreach to entities and institutions that focus on knowledge areas that intersect with ours. This includes educators, who may help initiate education programs in their workplaces, GLAM institutions such as Shoman Public Library (one of the biggest in the region), ACOR, and ICOMOS. We aim at giving participants from those entities to speak and listen to us, in order to derive initiatives that benefit our common missions. We have relations (either personally or partnerships) with the targeted entities, so reaching out to them is planned, yet we may need some help from the WMF’s partnerships team to form official invitations to such conferences.
- 19. What will you do to make sure participants continue to engage in your activities after the event?
Before: We will do intensive communication, promoting the pillars of the conference, and attract those who are interested in participating to focus on the identified pillars. During: To reduce distraction, lack of focus, or inability to choose the appropriate discussions and presentations, we prefer not to flood the conference days with repetitive and impractical interventions. Rather, we will make every effort to formulate a more specific agenda that includes topics that are important, attractive, and diverse at the same time. After the: We’ll distribute survey to collect the feedback about each participant’s experience, their comments, areas of enhancements, and action items participants are supposed to work on. In the case of action items, we will put a follow-up plan. We will also publish a report and recommendations that the community can look at to decide if the outcomes were fruitful and if they would like to start any related work individually or with the participants.
- 20. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of THREE options that most apply.
Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Manage Internal Knowledge, Identify Topics for Impact
Logistical Aspects[edit]
- 21. Do you have any proposed venue for the event?
Not yet, but we are planning to organize the event in the same hotel were participants will be accommodated. We are comparing prices to decide if we can go out of Amman, e.g. the Dead Sea.
- 22. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?
Yes
- 23. How many scholarships would you like to offer?
Around 70, including members of the UG
- 24. What expenses will the scholarship cover?
Full scholarship: Flights (for external invitees), accommodation, food and beverage, transportation from Amman’s airport to the venue and vice versa, Visa fees, swag Partial scholarship: accommodation, food and beverage, swag Day participants: food and beverage, swag
- 25. How will scholarship recipients be selected?
Two committees have been formed, composed of members of the Wikimedians of the Levant UG, who are not only active in editing, but also active in different user groups and in the community discussions. They will select the participants and submissions based on different criteria, such as the value that the grantee can bring to the conference (Will be a question in the participation request), and how active the grantee is.
- 26. In which ways can Wikimedia Foundation staff support your event onsite?
We need someone (more than one) to answer questions related to the general work/plans of WMF, we need support explaining technical tools and running technical discussions.
- 26.2. Do you intend to invite any WMF staff members to your event? (please note that all WMF staff travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the foundation). Please indicate what is the limit number of WMF staff members you would like to welcome at your event.
Yes, at least 5 persons, including Maryana, staff from the Communication, partnerships, technical, and community affairs. There is no limit on the number of staff present. All are welcome.
- 27. Please outline the roles and responsibilities of the organizing team for the conference.
- Operations team (3 members) :
the directors of the Wikimedians of the Levant UG (Mervat, Nedhal, and Farah) Responsibilities: Calling for volunteers, e.g. scholarships committee Grant Request and related discussions Community Survey Logistics Project Plan Project execution with help of the other roles identified in this table Hiring a conference organizing company Intensive followup Reporting
- Scholarships and attendance Committee (5 members)
Responsibilities: filtering the scholarship and attendance requests based on predefined criteria that they will work on with the directors
Will also participate in designing the submissions schedule.
- Communications (1 person)
Responsibilites: to act as a channel between the organizing team and the participants. This person will draft messages, receive comments and questions and make sure every person is connected. Communication channels will be identified.
- Coordinator of the event’s pages on Meta (1 person)
Responsibilities: design the pages of the event on meta, update them as we go. Some work might even be needed after the conference, like publishing reports
- 28. Do you have plans to co-organize the event with other Wikimedia communities, groups or affiliates?
No
- 28.1. If yes, can you please explain how you are going to co-organize the event and what responsibilities each partner will have.
- 29. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these?
The current war is risky and may have a negative impact on the event; participants may not feel comfortable coming to a hot-zone.
- While we hope for peace and stability by the time of the conference, this is beyond our control.
Prices may rise after we get an approval on this grant request, specifically hotel and flights.
- We will add a buffer to the proposal to cover any potential increase in prices.
Possible visa issues for some participants.
- We will work as early as possible with the scholarship recipients and invitees and prioritize those who require advance visas to minimize the number of people that will not be able to attend due to visa rejection
- 30. Friendly space policy - Please add the link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.
We will use the default WMF friendly space policy https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Friendly_space_expectations
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]
- 31. What do you hope to learn from your work organising this conference?
Organizing conferences is such an interesting, yet hectic work. We experienced this previously, but we aspire to raise the level of the outputs and what participants can present, learn and share. This is a collaboration learning experience, there is something to learn on every single day of the preparation journey. I myself - Mervat - would like to strengthen my ability to manage a project from all aspects including managing the time, people, and budget.
- 32. Main open metrics
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | We would like to include a diverse group of Wikimedians from the Arab World and those who work on Arabic language projects by bringing them together to learn about what's going on in the movement and to establish new partnerships across the region. | 100 |
| Number of formal sessions | While we believe WikiArabia is a great venue for people to come together and have informal discussions about various topics related to free knowledge and Wikimedia projects, we feel that having a well curated program with a session structure that will enable the largest number of people to participate is necessary. | 24 |
| Gender balance | We will strive to have a gender balance in attendance, sessions, and organizing team. | 50 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Financial Proposal[edit]
- 33. What is the amount you are requesting from Wikimedia Foundation? Please provide this amount in your local currency.
92155
- 34. Select your local currency.
JOD
- Requested amount in USD
- 129979.1 USD [note 1]
- ↑ a b The following amount in US dollars was calculated by Wikimedia Foundation staff using the fixed currency rates. This amount is approximate and may not reflect the actual currency exchange rates on the day of submission or distribution. If the application is funded, the funding will be sent in the recipient’s local currency.
- 35. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gdSf2GP6skBD5AUn0Kckt7kyCqDaNlXQQGW0iaV6a9g/edit?usp=sharing
- 36. Do you expect to receive funding for this conference from other organizations to support your work?
No
- 36.1. If yes, what kind of resources are you expecting to get?
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
- Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Endorsements and Feedback[edit]
Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).