Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Pre-hackathon satellite event in Catania, Italy (ID: 22458509)
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Applicant Details[edit]
- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Auregann
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal[edit]
- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Pre-hackathon satellite event in Catania, Italy
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2024-04-01 - 2024-05-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Italy
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Wikimedia Hackathon
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
Although there’s an active Wikimedia community in Italy, we are lacking of a lively, structured technical community, that could address the technical challenges faced by the Italian editors on their projects. By organising a satellite event ahead of the Wikimedia Hackathon in April 2024, we are aiming to:
- Bring together the Italian contributors who have interest and skills in the technical areas of the Wikimedian movement, and offer them the experience of working together on projects during two days;
- Form a structured group that can exchange knowledge and skills;
- Collect and address the needs from the Italian-speaking projects and projects in dialects of Italy (for example: create Lua templates on Sicilian Wikipedia, develop a useful userscript on Italian Wikisource, create an import bot for GLAM projects on Wikidata).
We also want to create connections between the existing technical contributors and like-minded people who are interested in open source development, to offer them to contribute to the Wikimedia ecosystem. We are targeting two groups in particular: the IT and engineering students at the University of Catania, and the Linux User Groups in the region. Running an event that will bring these neighbor communities in the same place, we hope to:
- Create connections between Wikimedians, open source developers and students;
- Involve the University as a partner to encourage students to participate actively;
- Get interest from teachers and researchers who could develop activities around the Wikimedia projects;
- Involve the Italian Linux Society to grow connections between the open source and the Wikimedia activists;
- Form an active wiki + open source network in Catania, and encourage them to contribute to the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, either by joining future onsite Hackathons or contributing remotely.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
The main planned activity is to organise a two-days pre-hackathon event in Catania in April 2024. This event will be hosted at Nict Nact, a coworking space created in collaboration by the University and the Municipality of Catania, dedicated to training young people on digital matters.
The event will take place on a Saturday and Sunday in April. We are currently running an informal survey among the Italian technical community to know which date they would prefer.
We are aiming to host 20 participants:
- 8 technical contributors coming from all Italy
- 8 students or teachers from the University of Catania
- 4 members of the LUG and open source community in the Sicily region
Ahead of the event, we will run the following actions:
- Gather feedback from the Italian technical community about their availability, project ideas and wishes;
- Gather feedback within the Italian contributors about their most pressing needs when it comes to technical features and bugs;
- Get in touch with the University of Catania to explain the project, get their interest and see how their students and staff could participate;
- Communicate about the event and personally invite people to join;
- Define the program and select speakers and workshop leaders, based on the suggestions received during the feedback phase;
- Prepare a simple process to invite technical contributors from Italy to join, and reimburse their travel and accommodation;
- Create a channel so people can start interacting and ask questions (e.g. Telegram group);
- Get the logistics ready (book the space, accommodation and travel).
During the event, we plan to run the following activities:
- Informal networking evening on the first day of the event;
- General presentation of the Wikimedia technical ecosystem to get everyone on the same page;
- Round of presentations of projects, ideas and needs, in order to highlight people’s projects and form working groups (matching session);
- A light program of workshops and discussions, based on the needs identified during the feedback phase;
- Lunch in common and social activities to bring people together (e.g. walk in the city to contribute to OSM and Commons);
- Showcase at the end of the 2nd day to present projects, progress made during the event, and talk about the next steps and how to stay in touch.
After the event, we will make sure that we:
- Keep the discussion channel for the old and new technical contributors to stay in touch;
- Send a light form to the participants to collect feedback and ideas;
- Keep in touch with the University and other contacts that may have emerged during the event, for future projects and partnerships;
- Follow up during the Wikimedia Hackathon in May, for those who travel to Tallin, and make sure that the projects and discussions started in Catania can be continued and presented at the main Hackathon;
- Follow up a few months later to suggest a new meetup of the Italian technical community.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Léa Lacroix (user:Auregann) is based in Catania, and is active in the Movement since 2010. First as a volunteer, then as WMDE staff, and since 2022 as a contractor working with different organizations, she has been organizing various events in the Wikimedia technical ecosystem, including the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023 in Athens for WMF, the WikidataCon since 2017 for WMDE, and various other regional community meetups, most recently in Sicily. For this project, she will serve as the main coordinator of the event, in charge of project management, grant and funds management, logistics, partnerships and communication.
Ferdinando Traversa (user:Ferdi2005) is a long time Wikimedian based in Bari, another city of Southern Italy with an active Wikimedia community. He recently coordinated the Italian WikiCon in Bari (November 2023). Student in informatics, he joined the Wikimedia Hackathon in Athens in 2023 and is involved in most technical projects in the Italian community: for example, he ran the Wiki Loves Monuments website and database until 2022. For this project, he will focus on internal communication, engaging the Italian technical communities and program design.
Aside of the main two coordinators, we will get support from other community members for specific tasks:
- user:GiovPen, student in engineering in Catania, will provide a direct connection with the University and help us ensure the participation of students and staff;
- user:Sannita, long term Wikimedia contributor, will contribute to the program on topics related to Wikidata and WikiFunctions;
- user:lucamauri, another skilled technical contributor, will contribute to the program on topics related to Wikibase.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
Target participants and communities:
- Technical Wikimedia contributors from all Italy;
- Open source developers from Sicily;
- Students and staff from the University of Catania (IT and engineering).
Engagement with participants:
- Before the event: pre-event survey, communication, personal invitations, open a discussion channel;
- During the event: throughout the program with discussions, social events and showcase;
- After the event: feedback survey, gathering in Tallin, follow-up through the Telegram group.
Follow up with participants:
- Keep the Telegram group active to give updates about ongoing projects and Q&As;
- Share with the broader Italian community about the progress made on technical topics through communication channels (onwiki, Phabricator)
- Carry on the energy during future events at a local or national events (e.g. propose a hackathon space at the Italian WikiCon in fall 2024).
- Documentation and connection with the main hackathon:
- At the pre-hackathon, we will focus on the IRL experience, therefore the workshops and discussions will not be broadcasted or recorded. However, the documentation and slides will be published under a free license;
- Most content and discussions will take place in Italian, and offer the opportunity to grow the available resources about our technical ecosystem in Italian. Since most content will be made available in a text form, one could easily translate it in other languages;
- We will organize a meetup/gathering during the main Hackathon in Tallin to continue working on the projects started in Catania, and present them during the main showcase.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
As the deadline to fill in this grant request was pretty tight, we didn’t create any public page yet - however, we already ran an informal feedback round by contacting ~12 people within the Italian technical contributors individually, to ask them to express their interest and pick which weekend in April would work best for them. We also contacted members of the Italian Linux Society and got in touch with the University of Catania to prepare the ground for the partnership.
In the future and after the grant is confirmed, we will create a page dedicated to the event on Mediawiki.org and link it from the list of satellite events on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2024/Satellite_Events
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Not applicable
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Open Technology
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Geographic
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
Learning and metrics[edit]
- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
- What are the main topics of interest of the Italian technical community?
- What are the main pain points of the Italian-speaking (and dialects of Italy) Wikimedia projects and how can we address them?
- How to create a fruitful partnership between Wikimedia and the University of Catania?
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 20 | |
| Number of editors | 20 | (people who make at least one edit on Mediawiki, Phabricator or contribute to a project on a code repository) |
| Number of organizers | 4 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |
| Wikimedia Commons | |
| Wikidata | |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
Not applicable, as the event is technical, it doesn’t make sense to track content. There will be probably some edits made on Wikidata and WikiFunctions, but at this stage, we cannot commit on metrics.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
Participants: registration list + counting them onsite. Work on projects and documentation: collect the work done during the event on the event page.
Financial proposal[edit]
- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nHmMp0I7Ue_gjeBCVzvAuVdeyJQqemJ2Kq0L5Ae7CUU/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
4560 EUR
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
5000 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
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).