Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/WikiPortraits Design and Asset Update and Initial Internationalization 2024 (ID: 22671680)/Final Report
Report Status: Under review
Due date: 31 October 2024
Funding program: Rapid Fund
Report type: Final
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[edit]- Applicant username: Arielaortizb
- 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)
Our goal was to internationalize WikiPortraits and recruit people from outside the U.S. to participate. We thought that would mainly involve internationalization of materials for a WikiPortraits studio (banners, handouts), but the demand actually was much more in helping existing WikiPortraits photographers from around the world with credentialing and communications materials. This included letters to press offices, emails to publicists, and creating a list of articles that shows Wikimedia Commons/WikiPortraits images being used in news outlets around the world to demonstrate that Wikimedia Commons/WikiPortraits effectively operates as a global photo news agency.
In addition, to make it a system that other photographers around the world can contribute to, we had to standardize our categorizing system so it is very obvious what our naming and categorizing system is. The most effective way of spreading our work internationally was to do our WikiPortraits panel at Wikimania 2024 in Katowice, which attracted a number of active Wikimedia Commons photographers who were already doing similar coverage. While they are always free to continue to do that, we believe they liked being part of the WikiPortraits brand, and so we made logos and wordmarks for them.
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
Here are the internationalization of the logos and the wordmarks available on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiPortraits_logos
Here are the folder sample credentialing letters for Sundance, Venice, Fringe, SXSW and Toronto, and information explaining how Wikimedia Commons acts as a global film agency for smaller publications around the world (these are usable for other events, and we did a credentialing letter for a photographer in Italy). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WW5RMb_gX_nioWaJ04h7URuZuADRA67d?usp=drive_link
To show that Wikimedia Commons effictively acts as a global photo agency, we also created a spreadsheet of 50+ news articles from around the world that have used WikiPortraits photos, ranging from publications based in Brazil, Japan, Russia, Slovakia, Israel, Poland, Romania, France, Spain, UK, the United States, and Canada, among others. This was necessary to apply for credentialing at the Nobel Prizes, as they only consider news agencies. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AFCTMKZ3alNgjLdYt9qfEetMXNLvqCyMJjzz3mSj64U/edit?usp=sharing
Here are the sample communications materials for emails to films publicists, speakers at events, and for people who had a WikiPortraits Studio email taken. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WW5RMb_gX_nioWaJ04h7URuZuADRA67d?usp=drive_link
Here is our new taxonomy of demographic categories so we can do more metrics-based reporting (women and BIPOC were the first categories to be filled, for reporting reasons, and the others will be filled in a big push) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiPortraits_by_demographic
Photos of the WikiPortraits logos and wordmarks at Wikimania, along with photos of people with the و "waw" https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiPortraits_swag
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
Here are the slides from our talk from Wikimania in Poland to an international audience (we used the internationalized stickers to engage the folks at Wikimania)
We also did a presentation at WikiConference North America, where we shared it with Canadian and Mexican audiences. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WU4yM50eFUH4ThM2hMBycnkG9hYOVURwwZiVJQb3kZ0/edit?pli=1#slide=id.g2cbe13544d8_3_75
This is the newly designed hierachical structure of the WikiPortraits with naming for consistency: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiPortraits
This allows for a simple report to see all our photos. https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorgan.html?&category=WikiPortraits&depth=3&year=2024&month=10
We also created a WikiPortraits by demographics from around the world to allow for reporteding of underrepresented groups. There was a good bit of thought put into this taxonomy (which we designed to include indigenous groups around the world, and also groups that span multiple geographies, like Kurds) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiPortraits_by_demographic
Here is a photo of our existing banners (which have been updated with newer photos than at SXSW, but not made into new ones physically yet until next SXSW) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Banners_printed.jpg
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 | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | 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: With this proposal, in addition to our design and translation outputs, we'll be learning about which communities we can start working with to bring the WikiPortraits initiative to new events and communities.
We found that engaging with national-level chapters is helpful when we needed help with credentialing (thank you Wikimedia Canada). But in terms of photography contributors, it was more efficient to find them from grassroots upwards, rather than for the larger organizations to do a call and reach out to folks.
We also realized that the metadata cleanup is very intense, and that it can’t just be volunteer photographer-driven if you want the photos upon any timely basis, especially with new photographers. As a result, we used part of the grant to pay editors we trained to handle the more tedious parts of getting photos up to Commons, including researching and compiling captions, descriptions, metadata and such.
Last, adding Wikidata items for subjects who are notable or “near notable” en masse is extremely burdensome, and too much to ask new photographers to do until we figure out an easier system or tools. As a result many of our near notable people we have photographed on red carpets and in studios do not yet have Wikidata items to go with the image we have of them. Linking the photos and Wikidata items, we believe, helps these photos surface in search results. This is one of the bigger challenges right now for us for maximizing impact of our photos, as it means many of our subjects, especially from underrepresented groups, can’t get into the structured data in Wikimedia.
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)
Even though we checked our translation for WikiPortraits in Polish over email with one of the Polish Wikimedians in email (WikiPortrety!), when we gave instructions to the designer, we mistyped it in Whatsapp. (No excuse). We know now to send the text to a designer in an email, and never type a translation from scratch, especially on a mobile device.
We were surprised a bit that people don't want just the sticker of their own language, but sometimes they wanted a whole "set" of WikiPortraits logos in different languages. This makes us think that we should perhaps make them smaller and do sheets. Also the most popular internalized logo was an Arabic و (waw), so we learned we should overweight those when printing. We learn that you can never anticipate what demand will be for stickers from Wikimedians!
We also love that we formed international WhatsApp groups of photographers from the U.S., Spain, the Netherlands and Germany, and now we can share the tips and tricks, as well as ask for advice. We would love to grow this group for new countries (India!).
As mentioned in the learnings, we were surprised how slow and cumbersome it is to add Wikidata items in bulk. We tried Cradle and it took a long time to add things, to the point where we think the tool is broken or we are using it wrong. Coming up with a solution is outside the scope of this grant.
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 actually did our presentation at Wikimania and WikiConference North America and offere to make our materials available for anyone who needed, including credentialing letters, email templates and our list of WikiPortraits photos being used around the world.
We should have done a better job of capturing the interest in the Wikimania room so we could reach out to countries where we would want folks, not just wait for people to reach out to us after the presentation. I would have done a systemic way for people to leave us their info (QR code)
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 | 500 | 750 | This is a large number because it includes includes number of people who got stickers distributed, mostly at Wikimania and also WikiConference North America. It also includes the number of subjects whose photos benefited from metadata work, cleanup and uploading. We still need to add Wikidata entries for people. |
| Number of editors | 3 | 10 | We ended up actually engaging many more editors through our WikiPortraits presentation in Wikimania Katowice and ended up creating more logos for them, including Italian and Spanish. This is on top of the very engaged German editors, and our Canadian (English!) and some Swedish.
We also used 3 people who helped with the backlog of metadata for more inexperienced Commons photographers. |
| Number of organizers | 5 | 4 | Andrew Lih
Kevin Payravi Harold Krichel Jennifer 8. Lee |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |||
| Wikimedia Commons | 50 | 200 | 150 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | Made WikiPortraits logos customized for 18 of the puzzle pieces on Wikipedia globe.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the very popular one was the Arabic و waw. We would make more of those stickers next time. | |||
| 5 | Wordmarks:
| |||
| 50 | Number of publications from around the world that used our Wikimedia Commons materials (all from WikiPortraits photographers, and most from WikiPortraits events). This was used to share with Nobel Prize to see if Wikimedia Commons acts as a global photo agency.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AFCTMKZ3alNgjLdYt9qfEetMXNLvqCyMJjzz3mSj64U/edit?gid=0#gid=0 | |||
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)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14rFoY3ldv0puX1VNJcU3XCr6dyWMXwnZtxR_obB3K14/edit?gid=1745469823#gid=1745469823
We shifted from our original proposed budget (which was design heavy), but kept the in the spirt of internationalization across the Wikimovement.
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)
We actually spent more time making customized WikiPortraits logos for different writing systems and wordmarks in each language, largely on the demand of people who wanted to contribute, and from Wikimania demand for stickers. (People often wanted whole sheets to have a set!)
So we are pushing off some of our other design elements, such as updated templates. We can use older ones for now.
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)
For this internationalization grant, we shifted from our original emphasis, which was design- and translation-heavy to sharing resources and templates from WikiPortraits to other regions in the Wikimovement. They are in English in large part because the press offices and film publicists operate in English.
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A