Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wikimedians of Los Angeles Event Funding (ID: 22989175)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Blervis
- 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)
I'm a group leader of a Wikimedia User Group (submitted to the Affiliation Committee).
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
I am an organizer with the Wikimedians of Los Angeles User Group. I assist with planning and hosting events. I am also assist with San Diego Wikimedians User Group events.
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wikimedians of Los Angeles Event Funding
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-04-11 - 2025-10-11
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
United States of America
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos
- 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)
The Wikimedians of Los Angeles (WikiLA) user group is dedicated to building a community of Wikimedians in the greater Los Angeles area, increasing the total number of Wikipedia editors, expanding public awareness of movement goals and objectives, bringing knowledge from cultural and academic institutions onto Wikipedia, increasing coverage of Southern California-related articles, adding images to commons, and increasing the depth and breadth of coverage across whatever Wiki projects our members are interested in.
WikiLA was active before COVID, but the pandemic put a stop to most events and activities. We are currently rebuilding our user group by putting on more events and bringing in new members. One of our major barriers to this has been funding. Up until now, our primary organizers have been paying for events out of pocket and with the generous assistance of other Wikimedia affiliates in the United States. By getting our own source of funding we will be able to put on more, higher-quality events, furthering our mission to improve all Wikimedia projects in the Los Angeles region. Events we have put on and plan to host in the future include edit-a-thons, social meetups, cultural talks, and joint events with local cultural institutions. Our 7 events over the past year have brought in new editors and members of WikiLA, with an average attendance of about 20 people, with some reaching up to 40.
- 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.
We plan to continue putting on the same type of events we have previously supported, but enlarge them in scope and frequency. Workshops/edit-a-thons will remain our primary focus alongside more social meetups to provide a strong community for editors in Los Angeles. Some of our past events are detailed below:
User Group: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Los_Angeles
Workshops/Edit-a-thons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Wildfire_Edit-a-thon_at_the_Ebell_of_Los_Angeles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Wildfire_Edit-a-thon_at_the_Hammer_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Manhattan_Beach_Edit-a-thon
Social Meetups:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMLA_Spring_2024_Meetup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Wiknic2024
Joint Events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Angel_City_FC_WoSo_Edit-a-thon_2024
We are planning for at least three additional events over the next six months:
We have already worked with Pasadena Heritage, a local historical society, to set up the third of our Wildfire-related edit-a-thons in late April: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/Wildfire_Edit-a-thon_at_Pasadena_Heritage. Funding for this event would help us purchase refreshments, assist with attendee transit to the event. There may be more installments of the Wildfire edit-a-thon series based on demand, several other area historical societies have expressed interest.
In May we are planning a joint event with San Diego Wikimedians to take pictures of the soon(ish) to be demolished Santa Monica Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Los_Angeles/Santa_Monica_Airport_2025. Funding would once again help cover refreshments and transportation but also help secure an event space - especially if we cannot find a partner with their own access to space.
Finally in June we are planning another annual Wikinic. Funding would go towards purchasing supplies and refreshments, as well as securing event space if needed.
Receiving funding will allow us to be flexible with putting on events - without a baseline of funding it is difficult to plan events. Do we need to find someone willing to volunteer their space or do we have some ? Is there budget to pay for attendee public transport/parking to make it easier to come? Getting grant funding would allow us to be more creative in event planning - we have a lot of incredibly cool things in our backyard and we would like to put on a more unconventional event with a nontraditional partner. Getting grant funding would allow us to become more concrete in these plans and put on more interesting events than what we are currently able to do on a shoestring budget. Our recent Hammer Museum edit-a-thon was particularly well attended - including by members of the media (https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/wikipedia-wildfire-edit-a-thon-landmark-history) - and another event of similarly high profile would do a lot to spread awareness of our group and Wikipedia's mission as a whole. Spreading awareness and growing the movement is our primary goal in putting on physical events with WikiLA.
- 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.
Our current team consists of four main volunteer organizers. We all take turns contributing and assisting as we can to planning and assisting with events. Besides myself these members are
Julie Farman
user:JSFarman
Josh Lim
User:skyharbor
Alexandria LaRue
user:Kylara
While the above four members are our primary staff, we are a growing organization and welcome anyone else who is interested in getting involved with WikiLA.
- 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)
Our target participants are current Wikimedians and the general public residing in Southern California; primarily Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura counties. Our editing events typically consist of an introduction to Wikipedia editing and then guided editing time. Experienced editors walk around to assist newer editors and create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We utilize the WMF Labs dashboard to track edits and editors during events. For keeping up between events, we have a mailing list, discord, Facebook and Instagram to maintain contact with editors, and we provide this information on handouts at events to encourage attendees to stay involved.
- 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.
The core organizers of WikiLA have discussed this proposal and we have mentioned our pending application at our last few meetups. I am also involved with the San Diego Wikimedians user group - our geographically nearest affiliate - and have discussed this with them in an attempt to better coordinate events within our region. We have also discussed this with members of Wikimedia DC and Wikimedia NYC. With our own funding we will be better able to work with these other groups as well as more closely support editors in our region.
- 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)
Age (recency)
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Age (diversity of age groups)
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
We hope to learn more ways to strengthen community connections to sustain editor engagement. Our primary objectives at WikiLA are increasing the number of editors, increasing existing editors' sense of community, and serving as the LA area's Wikipedia resource.
Some questions we’ll explore include: Editor growth: What strategies are most effective in recruiting and retaining new editors? How can we best help new editors get comfortable with their first edits at edit-a-thons so that they will continue to edit? Community: How can we build a stronger sense of community among editors in the greater Los Angeles area? How do in-person events impact contribution levels? GLAM: How can we best work with cultural and academic institutions and create mutually beneficial events? How can we best help editors translate these opportunities to on-wiki contributions? We'll continue to explore holding edit-a-thons on recent events, and holding events at cultural and academic institutions, and learn what we can do to best serve our commitments to editor growth. As we gather feedback and analyze participation, we’ll refine our event strategies and improve our introductory guide to editing to better support new and returning editors.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | We hope to have at least 50 unique participants across all our events. We will almost certainly surpass this, but want to be conservative. We have already seen significant numbers of new editors attend our events, some young and still in high school, some old and many years retired, and everyone in between. By providing events with existing editors, newer editors can become more confident in their editing abilities and learn how best to contribute. |
| Number of editors | 30 | We currently have around 10 experienced editors that have attended more than one of our events. We are slowly growing and gaining more members. Between new and existing editors we think this is a reasonable number. |
| Number of organizers | 4 | See above description of organizers. |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 60 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 30 |
| Wikidata | |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
We currently have edited around 20 articles edited per edit-a-thon. Many of these are by new editors, and we usually have at least one new article per edit-a-thon. Additional contributions may benefit other projects/language Wikipedias. We do our best to help editors find what they enjoy most about editing.
- 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)
The WMF Dashboard - https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
2500 USD
- 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.
2500 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).