Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe WikiPortraits Initiative (ID: 22681019)/Final Report
Report Status: Under review
Due date: 30 October 2024
Funding program: Rapid Fund
Report type: Final
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[edit]- Applicant username: SuperHamster
- Organization name: N/A
- Amount awarded: 5000
- Amount spent: 5000 USD, 5000
Part 1: Project and impact
[edit]1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
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WikiPortraits was able to successfully get credentialed as media for Edinburgh Festival Fringe (it was a relatively straightforward application and approval process!). Kevin Payravi and Jennifer 8. Lee were the main WikiPortraits organizers on the ground, who were already attending the event as part of the Goodside community's presence at Edinburgh to provide housing for performers. We tapped into that community to recruit additional volunteer photographers, including Zachary, Bryan Berlin, Sriya, and Kate V. These photographers became first-time contributors to the Wikimedia Commons through this initiative, with Bryan and Sriya continuing to volunteer for WikiPortraits events after Edinburgh, including shooting the New York Film Festival.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a unique experience for us compared to other events we've covered so far this year. The event is nearly a month long, with over 3,500 unique shows throughout. While there are a good number of already notable performers and shows at Edinburgh, the majority are more of rising performers who are at Edinburgh to get their show on the map. As a result, as the month goes on and reviews come out, you start getting a sense of what's popular and what has the potential to make it big. Prioritizing what to photograph is a mix of researching for already notable performers, as well as keeping eyes open and ears listening for what shows are "hot" and should be covered.
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Throughout the month, our volunteer team worked to identify photo priorities. Our prioritization was a mix of several factors:
- Already notable subjects with Wikipedia articles.
- Subjects that don't yet have a Wikipedia article but should, or otherwise are on a path to become notable.
- Subjects from the Global South and other communities underrepresented on Wikimedia projects.
- The venue the performer is in (each venue is unique in terms of lighting, seating, and approval of photography).
For photographing shows, we sometimes simply showed up with a ticket and a camera, and most shows/performers were fine with us taking photos. We also did contact venues and performers to schedule particular times to attend and take photos, but this was a rather time-consuming process through which we didn't always hear back or get approval. We did become regulars at one of the venues who was quick to respond and support us (Summerhall). For next year, we'd like to continue establishing relationships with particular venues to streamline our coverage.
During the Festival, we found that the 2024 Edinburgh International Book Festival was also happening. We spoke with their staff and were able to attend a few talks and photo calls to take photos of ten authors. Next year, we would likely put more resources towards photographing the Book Festival alongside Festival Fringe as they have neatly scheduled photo calls where WikiPortraits got to shoot alongside the local press.
For Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we covered roughly 50-60 shows that consisted of ~150 individuals (some shows had multiple performers, up to 12). For the Edinburgh International Book Festival, we photographed 10 authors between photo calls and talks.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Our photos can be viewed on Commons at Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
We primarily use the GLAMorgan tool to track usage of our photos across Wikimedia projects. For Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024:
- We have uploaded 424 files (this includes multiples photos of the same subject, including crops)
- 50 of these photos are currently used on Wikimedia project articles (Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikiquote).
- Used on over 10 language versions on Wikipedia
- Used on articles that gather an estimated total of 500,000+ views a month consistently.
- Our most-viewed photo in October 2024 was this photo of Emma Sidi on her English Wikipedia article, which received 155,000+ views.
- Our lowest viewed photos are extremely stubby articles that get maybe only 2-3 views per month on Arabic and Farsi Wikipedia.
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For Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024 (which was not a focus but an addition to our efforts):
- We have uploaded 18 files
- 8 of these photos are currently used on Wikimedia project articles (Wikipedia and Wikidata).
- Used on 4 language versions on Wikipedia
- Used on articles that gather an estimated total of 90,000 views per month.
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
For this run of WikiPortraits in Edinburgh, we did not create any particular training materials or guides, since this engagement was simply photographing events.
We did train several first-time contributors to Wikimedia, including how to upload their photos to the Wikimedia Commons, and how to add them to Wikipedia and Wikidata. This was a hands-on in-person training.
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
[edit]4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: This project — in conjunction with our film festival work at Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes film festivals in 2024 — helps to build a repeatable and scalable template for experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers to get press credentials at well-established cultural events. Fringe is largely different from our previous events in that it is live performance, versus a film festival or a conference with speakers. It is also a longer event, so we can potentially rotate photographers in and out.
Our intent with this, compared to our previous projects, is to elevate the Wikipedia presence at global-level events. If logistics allow, we may also explore holding edit trainings or Wiki explanations for people who are in Edinburgh, including agents, performers and managers.
Historically, volunteer Wikimedian photographers are not plugged into the media infrastructure that is built around credentials. Given the support of credentialing letters, we hope that the press office decision makers of these global caliber events will become more receptive to having Wikimedia photographers participate, as it only serves to amplify the cultural impact of their events across the many language wikis.
Of our 424 uploaded files, roughly 130 of them are of BIPOC individuals (this is a very rough statistic as both numbers include multiple photos of the same individual, groups of people, etc.). Many performers were of course from the United Kingdom and the United States, but we also photographed people from Hong Kong, Singapore, Kenya, Mexico, India, South Africa, Ukraine, Australia, and more.
Our photos' usage and quantitative impact on Wikipedia (~500,000 views per month) is lower than most of the other celebrity-fueled festivals with tens of millions of views a month, but we are pleasantly surprised that we can get half a million views monthly from only 50 photos used so far, and expect that number to grow as more of our photos get added to more wikis.
While our top-line numbers are orders of magnitude more modest compared to our other covered events, Edinburgh is significant in that the photos we are uploading are often the first freely-licensed photo, or first semi-professionally shot photo of these performers, so it becomes the leading photo for that individual. This is in contrast to the worldwide film festivals, where we are more often adding or updating an already existing set of photos of, say, Meryl Streep or George Lucas.
We believe Edinburgh is valuable and important for documenting up and coming artists around the world in a scalable and efficient way, and for growing active Wikimedia contributors. And we now have an understanding of how Edinburgh credentialing works, we will likely place more of a priority on performance groups, especially dance and music, from around the world, as they are ones where we can more likely receive requested press tickets. In addition, we have noted that groups supported by their government’s cultural departments tend to be already notable (at least within their country), so we can use that as a first filter when choosing which performances to cover. Also, those tend to be more visually spectacular to photograph.
For the notable individual performers, the most time- and cost-efficient strategy may be to subsidize tickets to the most famous, such as Hannah Gadsby, where it’s hard to get press tickets. In exchange for the subsidy to people who already have tickets, we request that they take photos and upload them to Commons.
From a time efficiency perspective, we discovered that the showcases, which often bring 6-12 performers in one show, are the most productive way to use a photographer’s limited schedule.
We believe Edinburgh is a great event to have a long-tail impact on WikiPortraits and Wikipedia more generally. First, it’s a great festival to recruit new photographers to Wikiverse, since it’s nearly a full month long and more accessible festival. Thus we can get less experienced photographers and get them official credentials (vs. Cannes/Venice/TIFF, where you have to prepare months ahead to apply). Also, each photo is less high stakes and less competitive than working on a red carpet line at Venice, so we are more willing to take risks on newer photographers.
Next, Edinburgh is a fertile ground for new article creation. A number of the performers have enough press references from Edinburgh and other reviews to pass the notability bar. So the photo catalyzes the creation of the article, either by our own team, or other editors we know. For examples, we made an article on Chris Turner (comedian) while at the Festival, after he told us he was jealous his wife had one but he didn’t!
We ultimately recruited at least 5 editors through Edinburgh Festival Fringe and put them through Jake Orlowitz’s Wikimedia Immersive Training program.
Given WikiPortraits current scale of Rapid Grant budget, we did not have enough mental bandwidth to do public engagement events on top of photography, but we definitely see how we could. For example, we could just advertise a regular weekly session. Since many people at Edinburgh are tourists looking for things to do between shows, we can run photography events and teach audience members in Edinburgh how to upload photos from the shows they attend. We can also have editors engage with performers about how Wikipedia works, the requirements for articles, etc.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
When we got our press credentials, we expected to have easier access to shows across the board (as is often the case at other events) than we did, in large part because press tickets are not centralized.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe is an open-access event with many independent venues and shows. Press credential more or less just gave us access to a spreadsheet of all the shows and the contact information for those shows. It was then up to us to contact each individual venue or show and schedule a performance to shoot. This process takes a good amount of admin time, and venues were not always quick to respond nor receptive to having their events photographed. What we ended up doing was identifying venues who were receptive to us (like Summerhall) and primarily working with them for special press access to their events. Otherwise, we simply purchased tickets to attend shows and take photos as audience members. This largely worked, but some venues and shows had strict no-photo policies, and it was not always easy to get good seats to get good photos.
Knowing this, for next year, our key learning is to have much more administrative support, to coordinate with performances and venues ahead of time to schedule press access to events.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
We've uploaded our 400+ photos on the Wikimedia Commons in Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, some of which have gone into illustrating Wikidata and Wikipedia articles.
Our work here goes into our broader efforts in communicating WikiPortraits with the community, including presenting at Wikimania and WikiConference North America 2024, as well as helping organize Wikicurious - Capturing the Moment with Wikimedia New York City and AfroCROWD User Group.
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 200 | 150 | We originally estimated we'd be able to photograph 200 individuals, but this number ended up being a challenge as, unlike some press engagements, we couldn't float in and out of shows to take photos, and many shows only feature one individual. As mentioned above, our focus for next year may include prioritizing shows that include a number of performers (e.g. stand-up showcases and dance performances), as well as working closely with a few select venues to get better access to events. |
| Number of editors | 8 | 12 | |
| Number of organizers | 6 | 6 | Payravi and Lee served as main organizers with three additional photographers, as well as a remote editor helping plan shoots and organize metadata. |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 35 | 1 | 79 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 200 | 442 | 0 |
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
5000
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
5000
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Upload the financial report
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A