Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Community Malta Simple Annual Plan 2022/Midpoint Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2022-07-15T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Midterm
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General information[edit]
This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.
- Name of Organization: Wikimedia Community Malta
- Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Community Malta Simple Annual Plan 2022
- Amount awarded: 36809.64 USD, 32460 EUR
- Amount spent: 4075.83 EUR
Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]
1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?
- Our strategy is based on running a regular program of activities to maintain and grow our community, while providing appropriate support and a reference point for our community members and anyone interested in Malta-related aspects of Wikimedia projects.
During the first quarter of 2022 we hosted Wiki Loves Folklore in Malta for the first time, along with an exploration of Feminism & Folklore. This worked better than we expected in the sense that a relatively significant amount of local interest was generated. The main thing to note from this is that we will make Wiki Loves Folklore (along with Feminism & Folklore) a regular activity in our annual program, developing a stronger local contest for 2023 to feed into the international contest.
Towards the end of the first quarter we also launched Rebbiegħa CEE 2022 (the local edition of CEE Spring). This has been an excellent opportunity for us to maintain engagement with some of the core members of our community (especially regular mt.wikipedia editors) as well as communicate more regularly with Wikimedia colleagues across Central and Eastern Europe, with whom we have a great affinity. This activity continued into Q2 and we're still in the process of evaluating how to capitalize on this activity towards our broader strategy, which includes engagement with Celtic Knot and CEE Meetings.
Hosting a local edition of the Wikidata contest for International Musuem Day was also a highlight of Q2, even though this was not in our original plan. As was providing support for Wikipedia editors at the University of Malta.
Another change involves our decision to host Wiki Loves Earth 2022 in Malta (without a local contest) instead of WPWP. We expect to report on this later on in the year as WLE is still ongoing. Our first reaction, however, is that we are overwhelmed with the positive response.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- Having a non-volunteer person coordinate our activities has made a noticeable difference in ensuring that we keep with our planned program of activities. This has also made it possible for our community to engage with new opportunities as they become available. Examples of this include explorations of ways to support Wikipedia in Education at the University of Malta, engaging with the International Museum Day initiative on Wikidata, and changing our program to include Wiki Loves Earth rather than WPWP for the summer.
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- Covid restrictions dampened our activities during Q1. However, we are confident that things are better now, even if we potentially need to reassess what to do differently post-Covid restrictions. Hybrid events may be a solution but this may pose a capacity challenge in itself.
Sustaining interest from new editors is a challenge for us. This has been an ongoing challenge from the onset, even when running earlier editions of WLM etc., where participation would frequently be fairly high but editor retention always low. This has improved somewhat over the past years and having a regular and consistent programme of events has helped us sustain interest from some editors who actively participate in a consistent manner in some activities that interest them, but are less active in other activities.
The size of our community is also a challenge. This is not likely to change quickly, however, we are very mindful that this can become an obstacle if we're unable to maintain a core capacity, even if we're unable to grow as needed.
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- Our active community members attend regular meetups and we share information and ideas freely regularly with them there.
Our broader community is kept informed through our social media channels, mainly Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The general public in Malta receives information about us through occasional press releases and mainstream media coverage, such as this: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=347634260458711
Members of the Wikimedia Movement are informed about our work during meetings and events, such as Celtic Knot. Here's a presentation we gave in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFNylWE6v
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- By focusing on Feminism and Folklore as well as Art+Feminism we are attempting to address the gender gap directly. This has enabled us to attract more females as new editors.
We make this known at every opportunity we get, thus presenting Wikimedia projects as inclusive and open to all, especially underrepresented groups.
We have also attempted to engage with Ukranians in Malta. This has been less successful. We're not sure why, especially because we have good engagement with Ukranian Wikipedia editors through CEE.
Sustaining interest from new editors is a challenge for us, as is engaging photo contest participants beyond the contests.
Our systematic engagement with the use of Wikipedia at the University of Malta has given us an opportunity to start exploring how we work more closely with students and university tutors. This may also help with broadening our reach in engaging participants.
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- We have identified the following two learning priorities for ourselves:
- 1. We are hoping to learn how to develop a successful chapter and scale up our user group activities accordingly.
- 2. Significantly we need help understanding and implementing core metrics, ideally through appropriate support that makes for realistic targets rather than random numbers.
On the first point we feel that we're making good progress, especially because we're learning how to work with a non-volunteer program coordinator.
On the second learning priority, we've continued to do what we've done before and perhaps our greater need is to find a way to better understand and implementing core metrics.
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- We will take advantage of the relative success of Wiki Loves Earth 2022 in Malta to launch Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 in Malta. WLM is our flagship activity and the one for which we are best known in Malta.
WLM will also help propel us towards evaluating our 2022 program of activities and prepare for 2023, including evaluating what worked best and what may need changing as we plan into next year.
To potentially expand our core community, we've booked a stand at the Malta Book Festival in Nov'22
Part 2: Metrics[edit]
8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Throughout February and March we ran a series of activities that revolved around the general rubric of Feminism and Folklore. These included:
|
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WCM/Feminism_and_Folklore_in_Malta_2022 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Throughout spring (so most of Q2) we focused primarily on CEE Spring. Results are satisfactory even if they can be improved if we can find a way to engage more new editors. | https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Wikimedia_Community_Malta/Rebbieg%C4%A7a_CEE_2022_(2022)
AND https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Spring_2022/Statistics |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | In June we started exploring ways to develop Wiki Loves Earth in Malta. This is an ongoing exploration (until end of July).
Initial results have been very encouraging and we are very likely to include WLE on our annual activity program from next year. |
https://wikiloves.toolforge.org/earth/2022/Malta |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
8b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 35 for Feminism & Folklore (inc. University of Malta students)
7 for Rebbiegħa CEE 30 for Wiki Loves Earth |
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WCM/Feminism_and_Folklore_in_Malta_2022
AND AND | |||
| Number of editors | |||||
| Number of organizers | 4 | Our core organizing team is made up of three people. Throughout Q1 and Q2 we also benefited from organizational support provided by an experience Wikimedian living in our area, who had previously not worked closely with us regularly. | Head count. |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 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 |
9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?
- We had hoped to see Wiki Loves Folklore included at https://wikiloves.toolforge.org
We need a simpler, more unified tool, to collect data to measure results.
10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
- Yes
10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?
- Participation in CEE activities and meetings.
Regular online meetups.
Presentation at Celtic Knot 2022 Conference.
11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.
- Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
- Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.
- Mainstream media coverage/promotion for Wiki Loves Earth:
Presentation about our activities in 2021/22 for Celtic Knot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFNylWE6v
Mainstream media coverage/promotion for Feminism & Folklore: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=347634260458711
Mainstream media coverage/promotion for Public Domain Day: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/celebrate-the-artists-whose-genius-now-belongs-to-all-humanity-denti.925051
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]
12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 4075.83
13. Local currency type
- EUR
14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YLdsK4_u9JqxfjeYp5k8fel4k_ewcpTe74R6b5X7SV4/edit?usp=sharing
15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?
- No
15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.
- N/A
16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.
- So far, it's been largely a positive experience. We may need more robust accounting support going forward, especially to make sure we're able to keep up with invoice payment and expenses reimbursement in a timely manner.