Grants:Project/Rapid/Flávia Varella/Contest Theory of History

Improve content in Theory of History.
Engage existing editors and encourage them to continue contributing even during the post-contest period.
Recruit new editors (professional historians and non-professional) to Wikipedia and other future projects.
Training established and new editors in source code, editing system, and wiki-pt’s internal policies.
Introduce Theory of History on Wikipedia project to existing and new contributors of wiki.

Project Plan[edit]

Activities[edit]

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. Be sure to answer the following questions:
1. What content will the contest focus on, and why is it important to your community?

To provide quality articles on theory of history. Wikisul has been developing a strong programme in this field of research in the past two years. This contest is important to our community because the quality of the entries - when they exist - are very poorly written and with superficial coverage.

Furthermore, as the contest’s topic is an academic one, we expect to engage the university community in and out of Wikipedia, straightening the cooperation between them. A type of cooperation that produces results in the long term and far beyond the area of history.

We are also planning six webinars during the contest to help and engage new and current users.

2. How have you let relevant Wikimedia communities know about this proposal? You are required to provide links to on-wiki pages to inform these communities about your proposed work. Examples of places where this can be done include community discussion pages, affiliate discussion pages, or relevant project talk pages.
You may also provide information about external social media channels you may be using.

We have invited all the participants in the last two years of the Project Theory of History on Wikipedia to join the writing contest by posting invitations on their user talk pages: Alexandre Fiori, Danielly Campos Dias, Sarah Pereira Marcelino, Neusinha35, Igor Lemos Moreira, Alebasi24, Hedestad, Vítor Medeiros Costa, Parzeus, Geruza S., Henrique Luiz Voltolini, Lara Lucena Zacchi, Leonardo Reis, Marcos Gomes, Sayyidhussein92.

We have published information about the contest on the Village Pump of Wikipedia in Portuguese.

We also have sent an invitation on the official Portuguese Wikipedia channel on Telegram, with 217 members.

3. How will you let participants know about the contest? In what ways will you be communicating with them?
For example, these can include on-wiki spaces, social media channels, mailing lists, messaging apps, or physical/online gatherings.

We will send emails about the contest to our mailing list and to Brazilian Society of Theory and History of Historiography mailing list. We will use massmessages to invite others wikimedians. We will also promote it on our Facebook page and on Brazilian Society of Theory and History of Historiography Facebook page, of which I take part of the Executive Committee.We shall also use banners to increase the awareness of the contest on social medias.

4. How will you judge the contest and award prizes?
Note: Grantees, judges, and other contest leaders are ineligible to receive prizes. Grantees who are serving as judges may not receive gifts through grant funding.

Contest participants will be responsible for choosing at least one and a maximum of four entries they will work on. We will provide a list of selected entries on the main contest page. We will create an outreach dashboard page to the contest.

We will request support from two well-known members of the Brazilian Society of Theory and History of Historiography who are experts in Theory of History and will judge the entries’ content quality. On the other hand, we will request support from two experienced Wikipedians to judge entries' technical quality. Both of these groups will be part of the judges’ team, together with one Wikisul member. Judges will analyze the writing inputs taking into account eliminatory and classificatory criteria.

Eliminatory criteria are i) compliance to Wikimedia standards, especially concerning human right and non-discriminatory texts; (ii) the integrity of the information provided on the contest page, regarding the contributions made; (iii) originality of the produced content, i.e., not be a translation of other wiki’s entry; (iv) minimum technical standards required by pt.wiki.

Classificatory criteria are (i) number of contents added or improved on Wikipedia; (ii) selection of trustable sources to elaborate the original input; (iii) grammar and readability; (iv) well-organized, minimalistic and up-to-date wiki code; (v) relationship with the pt.wiki community (if there was an edit war, how it was managed, if there were blocks, etc.); (vi) number of articles promoted to featured and A-class articles.

To avoid overburdening the judges, we tried to focus on more objective criteria for the classificatory analysis, and those that do not fulfill them enough won’t be deeply reviewed to be able to compete for the prizes (for example, adding a translation, using dubious sources, or making serious grammar mistakes). There will be fourth meeting with the judges: one before the contest start to explain your guidelines and solve doubts, another one during the contest to begin the evaluation process and a last two after the end of the contest to discuss the winners. All meetings will take place in an online platform in private.

Prizes in gift cards will be given to the top 5 scorers. Contest stickers (contest, Wikisul and Wikipedia 20 years) to the top 10 and judges.

To sum up, our timetable is:

Disclosure of the contest: 07/01/21
First meeting with the jury: 07/15/21
Beginning of the contest: 07/19/21
First webinar: 07/19/21
Second webminar:07/26/21
Third webinar: 08/02/21
Fourth webinar: 08/09/21
Second meeting with the jury: 08/11/21
Fifth webinar: 08/16/21
Sixth and last webinar: 08/23/21
End of the contest: 08/30/21
Third meeting with the jury: 09/06/21
End of the extra time to nominations: 10/25/21
Fourth and last meeting with the jury: 10/29/21
Delivery of the prizes and gifts: until 11/30/2021

5. For photo contests, what is the strategy to get images used on projects?

It is not a photo contest.

6. Are you running any in-person events or activities? If so, you will need to complete the steps outlined on the Risk Assessment protocol related to COVID-19. When you have completed these steps, please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool below:

No.

7. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?

We have been editing topics on theory of history in the Theory of History on Wikipedia project. However, because of Covid-19 we couldn't keep our activities, which are mainly in person. As the lockdown situation has passed one year, we think that it will be important to do some activity to not let the flame die out!

Impact[edit]

How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more:

Number of participants: 100
Number of articles created or improved: 200
Number of possible featured articles: 6
Number of possible A-class articles: 8

Resources[edit]

What resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

Our project will be an online experience, so the only resources needed are an online video conference tool for instructions, webinars and judges meetings, besides the awards to be given to best-qualified participants. We also need human resources as reviewers and evaluators, which we will have as volunteers from Brazilian Society of Theory and History of Historiography members, Wikisul users, and Wikipedia editors.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.

Prizes for the top five: USD 500 ($250/$150/$60/$30/$10)
Graphics designer for making promotion online, and images to be used in the relevant contest pages and prizes: USD 200
6 food gift vouchers for the six advisors in the six webinars USD 60
25 food gift vouchers for webinar participants with children: USD 125
Total amount: USD 885,00

Endorsements[edit]

Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 18:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Igor Lemos Moreira (talk) 09:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Lechatjaune (talk) 16:58, 25 June 2021 (UTC)