Grants:Project/Rapid/Juandev/Wikiexpedice: Mlada Vozice/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2018-19 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Juandev/Wikiexpedice: Mlada Vozice.
• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
• You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Overall we are very happy with the fact we met our goals. On the other side, Wikiexpedice: Mlada Vozice was time-consuming for the organizer so we hope we will find ways in the future, how to make its organization less time-consuming.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
4 participants	7 participants	More people participated due to the fact, we had the capacity for them and due to the fact, some people arrived on other days. Higher amount of participants as the higher outcome achieved for each of the following targets could be explained as follows. We had a Wikidata query of villages without images. But due to the fact, the method is not for a hundred percent correct we thought there will be slightly more villages without images. So we have decided we need two teams for about 3,5 days. Then we wrote a proposal for this grant and proposed also the target outcome. But when we checked Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons, we realized there are many more villages, which need to be photographed. In the beginning, we had a list of about 1200 settlements in the area. Looking at their articles and Commons' categories, we could decide, whether they need to be photographed or not. In many cases, there were villages, which had photographs, but only of wayside shrines, nothing from the village itself. These villages were also selected as unphotographed so finally, we had more than 360 unphotographed settlements. That was too much for one expedition and thus we came back three more times. This brought us to a higher outcome than we had expected before.
3000 uploaded photos	5900+ uploaded photos	See the explanation above. (Wikimedia Commons' category with all created photographs.)
25 % of photos used in Wikimedia projects	42 % of photos used in Wikimedia projects	The percentage of photos used in Wikimedia projects is higher as we focused on adding photographs to Wikidata items also. The usage of photographs excluding Wikidata would be 31 %.
80 newly illustrated Wikipedia articles	277 newly illustrated Wikipedia articles (635)	Newly illustrated Wikipedia articles here means newly illustrated settlements (see this discussion), so talking about articles on all language mutations, where we deployed our photographs is 635. The number is much higher due to the fact explained above. For example, our effort also brought photographs to 262 Wikidata items. (See these tables as an overview of sites photographed each day, with links to Wikipedia/Wikidata/Commons and the status of photograph deployment.)
95 % of the selected region is covered by images	94 % of the selected region is covered by images	This goal was not completed due to the fact described in the first line – shortly to many unphotographed settlements. The list of unphotographed settlements from the area is publicly displayed (including map) and the community will be notified and encouraged to photograph it. There is also a possibility to cover some of them as a part of Photoworkshop, which will hold place nearby in September 2019.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?
  • Shortening the time for upload worked well and the vast majority of files were uploaded on time. In the past expeditions, participants had even more than six months to upload it, which was causing problems e.g. with reporting and recruitment for new expeditions. So at this time, I have decided to shorten the time to two months and it worked.
  • We have started to use clapperboard, known from the film. As everybody takes hundreds of photographs every day, we need a way to sort them out on the computer fast to directories by villages. But it's difficult to remember in such amounts, where was the end of a new village. Thus from this Wikiexpedition, we use the clapperboard or stop image (e.g. participant make a picture of a fist) to notify himself/herself, that there is the end of one village. This is combined then with the list of villages as they were photographed on each day.
  • This year we also tried to buy printed tourist maps and highlight those villages, which needs to be photographed and it worked well. In the past expeditions, we were creating and printing maps by ourselves, which is a time-consuming activity. With this method time needed for the preparation could be significantly reduced.
  • Regarding the maps, we have divided the area by sectors and each team was receiving one sector a day. This reduces overlapping if there are more teams on the expedition.
• What did not work so well?
  • We haven't attracted local participants, even we were in contact with one club of photographers in the area. The reason might stay in the fact our Wikiexpeditions are highly elaborate which creates a barrier in participation for people from outside the movement.
• What would you do differently next time?
  • One of the biggest problems of this expedition was the fact, that some people haven't uploaded their files on time, haven't created categories on Wikimedia Commons or haven't placed their pictures into Wikipedia or Wikidata. Our recommendations on how to process such amount of photographs slightly worked, but slightly. One day for upload and deployment didn't work at all as all participants had excused themselves from arriving. It motivated them to work on the set, but again slightly. That's why the most amount of this work was done by the grantee and it took him about 200 hours. Doing Wikiexpedition this way in the future is not possible for the person who has to go to work, take care of a house and family. Thus for the future, we will try some ideas on how to fix the problem:
    1. Discuss this problem with the community and use the ideas from such discussion in practice.
    2. Exchange those, who are not able to do their tasks, by those, who are able (we have two methodologies, which provides a fast way to process images to WMF projects).
    3. Specify clearly how the file on Wikimedia Commons should look like, what kind of metadata should have - ease this as much as possible. Set for every participant minimal usage of files in WMF projects.
    4. Provide again the written guidelines of our methods for fast processing of hight amounts of files.
    5. Provide training on how to process a high amount of photographs to WMF projects.
    6. Develop new software to faster identification, description, and distribution. For upload, we have multiple ways of upload, but none of them provide enough automate power to faster photograph processing. Thus user Juandev paired with developers and discuss the development of the new tool. The idea is actually designed and possibilities are researched.
  • We had also trouble to find proper accommodation in the center of our region. Thus for the next time, we have decided it will be better not to organize Wikiexpedition during public holidays like Ester as it is expected that everybody is traveling to the countryside.
  • In this expedition we are experiencing problems, due to the wrong estimate of unphotographed villages and one of the goals for hight percentage coverage of the area. Thus for the next time, it's better to do dataset filtering before the project preparation and/or grant request.
  • Just shortly after Wikiexpedition Mlada Vozice, we had organized Wikiexpedition Lower Silesia in Poland supported by Wikimedia Poland. As prevention of the burnout of the project organizers, the idea is to organize fewer projects and/or give each one more time and/or leave more time-space between each project.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

• Transport: USD 554
  • These finances we spent on transportation on and from the event, and then as a part of the project from village to village. We were traveling by car and those who cannot come by car as they were living elsewhere than car owners used public transports.
• Accommodation: USD 263
  • Accommodation of 5 participants for 3 nights in BB in Pacov. Other visits were one day or the accommodation was provided by friends for free, so there was no need to spend money on that.
• Food: USD 193
  • As per grant request participants can use 50 CZK per day to cover their breakfast and another 200 CZK for one hot meal. Each participant was responsible for his/her alimentation. Costs for food also include refreshments for work together day, because all participants have canceled their participation just on the day and refreshments were already bought.
• Other: USD 22
  • Finally this item printed tourist maps. Use this item to cover proofreading of various texts, was found as complicated due to the fact, these texts are created out of the grant run. In the case of press releases, we have decided not to do them as we found out no interest from local media if the activity, which does not allow local participation in wide. We only released news to the wiki community.
• Total: 1032 USD

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

We have 56 USD retaining and we would like to keep them as we are planning to request funding for other activities shortly after.

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of US$54.35 (after conversion from EUR).

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Wikiexpedition: Mlada Vozice had also other benefits for WMF projects then described above. This covers:

• for Wikipedia:
  • links to Commons' categories
  • deployment of photographs to other articles and lists, then of the settlements
• for Wikimedia Commons
  • links to Wikipedia from categories (stored on Wikidata)
  • gallery creation for one village (Commons' main namespace)
  • caption and structured data filing (partly)
  • some crops created online for specific illustration
• for Wikidata
  • taking photographs for Wikidata items missing illustration
  • added photographs
    • further description via qualifiers if needed
  • added links to Wikimedia Commons' categories
  • new items creation
  • (with Wikimedia community) we had written a query, which can be used in the Czech Republic for creation of datasets for Wikiexpeditions
  • identification of streets on photographs and their deployment to proper Wikidata items
• other
  • spreading information about Wikipedia and advocating it for those, who were interested in our activity
  • providing some images for a research project on Czech Wikiversity
  • kml/gpx file/map of non-photographed villages available to others to continue in our effort
  • developed a new method to ease and faster photograph processing to Wikimedia Commons and their deployment
  • integration of new wiki photographer
  • beginning of a new upload tool development

With the end of our granted project, our work does not end and it covers the following activities:

• we improve file description (English) and fill structured data
• we add missing coordinates
• we present our work to Wikimedia communities via the report in their mother tongue, on Facebook and on meetups
• discuss the problems of this Wikiexpedition and try to find out a solution
• discuss the proposal for the new tool
• prepare for another Wikiexpedition