Application or grant stage: approved

Applicant or grantee: Wiki World Heritage User Group

Amount requested: US$25,878.00

Amount granted: US$25,000

Funding period: 1 July 2021 - 31 December 2021

Midpoint report due: 15 October 2021

Final report due: 30 January 2022

Application[edit]

Introduction[edit]

Wiki World Heritage UG (WWH) was initiated by wikimedians interested in the documentation of UNESCO World Heritage sites around the world through Wikimedia projects, especially in countries with no affiliates. It was recognized by Affcom in October 2020.

This user group is a thematic group aiming to cover the world heritage sites around the world. Currently, there are 1121 World Heritage Sites located in 167 States, and while some of these states have already existing affiliates with which we aim to collaborate; many other states are without affiliates and we aim to reach their local communities and ensure that no one is left behind.

Goals and approach

Goals

Ensuring the thorough documentation of WH, especially in countries with no affiliates,
Ensuring the optimal use of the created content on Wikimedia projects.
Fostering collaboration with Heritage institutions.

Approach

Designing thematic projects that target many countries, including those without affiliates.
Finding local partners in countries without affiliates and assisting them to implement the projects.
Creating digital platforms based on Wikimedia projects, allowing the creative use of content

Past funded activities

Although the UG is newly recognized, its board and members, as well as many other members, are experienced Wikimedians that have previously led many successful activities, with financial support from the foundation, affiliates or external organisms, such as:

Project/activity	Grantee from WWH UG	Funder	Amount	Outcomes	Relevant links
WikiArabia Conference	Yamen	Wikimedia foundation	≃42000 USD	Launching the first conference in the Arab region	Article by Wikimedia France / Grant application
WikiKsour	Nassima Chahboun	Wikimedia France	≃1200 USD	+2000 photos of 12 traditional villages in Morocco, and a wikidata-based website	Article by Wikimedia France about the activity / Uploaded photos (Dashboard) / WikiKsour website
MedinaStories	Nassima Chahboun	UNESCO World Heritage Centre	≃7000 USD	96 articles, 1080 photos, and a web application based on Wikipedia	Activity report / UNESCO article 1 / UNESCO article 2

Programs[edit]

Background

Our projects and activities have the following objectives:
Content creation:

Enhancing and promoting content about WH sites and their components in ≃30 countries during 2021.
Designing appealing experiences based on Wikimedia Projects (Creative use of the created content)

Growth and expansion:

Catalyzing the creation of Wikimedia communities in new countries without affiliates, through a project-based approach (6 countries in 2021)
Fostering collaboration with Heritage institutions and NGOs (3 NGOs in 2021)

Priorities

Our priorities for 2021 are:

World Heritage sites that need urgent documentation (sites in danger)
Under-documented components of World Heritage (part of World Heritage ensembles and towns)
World Heritage sites in countries with no Wikimedia affiliates

2021 programs overview

Considering our priorities and objectives, we developed 5 programs for 2021:

Content creation: Whindanger project | Told Cities project | Organizing Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos contest

Growth and expansion: Organizing capacity building sessions | creating a website for the UG and the projects

Told Cities

Description

Told Cities consists in documenting the significant buildings of cities listed as World Heritage on Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The project duration is 5 years. It started in May 2020, as an editathon to document 25 African WH cities, where 500 items were added to Wikidata and 500 enhancd (see repository), and +50 articles were created or enhanced (see Dashboard).
Background
There are 135 historical cities and urban centres listed as UNESCO World Heritage, located in 66 countries, and each city is composed of hundreds of monuments and significant buildings. However, these sites are poorly documented on Wikimedia projects for the following reasons:

Confusion between the city and the historical part listed as World Heritage: E.g. the article about the city of Ghadames mentions that it is a World Heritage site, but in reality, only the old part of the city is inscribed, and it does not have any article on any Wikipedia.
Importance is not given to buildings, but to the fabrics as a whole. (E.g. Out of 1000 monuments and significant buildings that are part of 25 African WH cities, 70% do not have a Wikipedia article in English, and 59% do not have any article in any language).

What is the importance of this program for our strategic plan?
This program meets 2 of our top priorities:

Documenting the under-documented types and components of World Heritage.
Documenting World Heritage sites in countries with no Wikimedia affiliates (+25 for this project)

Key activities for 2021

Co-organizing editathons:
- Organizing Wikipedia and Wikidata editathons in collaboration with local partners (mainly local UGs)
- Organizing training sessions for local partners about the editing skills needed for the project implementation (E.g. Wikidata training session for Wikimedia Tanzania)
- Organizing Wikipedia and Wikidata editathons in collaboration with local partners (mainly local UGs)
- Organizing an international contest to ensure the translation of created articles into several languages (especially UNESCO official languages).
Catalyzing photography tours:
- Creating repositories of buildings to help the local partners in identifyig the elements to be photographed (E.g. Stone town repository for Wikimedia Tanzania photography tour)
Enhancing and leveraging content on Wikidata:
- Adding and improving the items of significant buildings
- Generating maps, timelines an statistics, and centralizng them on a wikidata-based website (see details in the website program section below)

SMART goals of the overall program

Ensuring thorough documentation of 135 cities listed as UNESCO World Heritage
Ensuring the access of Heritage professionals and activists -that are not used to Wikimedia projects and tools- to the created content (especially graphs and statistics generated from Wikidata)
Enabling the creation of an offline digital application for each city (based on Kiwix)
Fostering collaboration between Wikimedia communities and heritage institutions in 66 countries,
Catalyzing the creation of Wikimedia communities in +25 countries without affiliates (7 countries in Africa for instance) through this project-based approach

2021 goals

Organizing editing workshops and training sessions in 20% of the target countries (target projects: Wikipedia, Wikidata)
Ensuring the translation of created articles into at least 3 UNESCO official languages
Ensuring the coverage of all the 135 sites on the website

Metrics and targets

Number of countries in which editing workshops will be organizedː15 (22% of the total countries), including 5 countries without affiliates.
Number of articles to be created: 450 (30 per country)
Number of wikidata items to be enhance/created: +700 (5 buildings per site for the 135 sites, and +20 buildings per site in the countries where we will organize the workshops)
Number of new users: +25 (+5 in each country without affiliate)

Whindanger

Description

Whindanger (WH in danger) aims to promote and raise awareness about UNESCO World Heritage Sites in danger, through ensuring the documentation of these sites on Wikimedia projects, fostering the access Heritage activists and professionals to the created content, and organize the activities during relevant international events to increase visibility (E.g. World Peace Day for WH sites in danger because of armed conflicts).
Background
There are 53 World Heritage Sites, located in 31 countries, inscribed by the UNESCO in the Danger list. Every year, many of these sites know drastic changes and lose some parts of their components. Furthermore, almost 50% are located in countries without local Wikimedia Affiliates and are poorly documented. Therefore, these sites need urgent documentation before more parts are lost.
What is the importance of this program for our strategic plan?
This program meets 2 of our top priorities:

Documenting the World Heritage sites that need urgent documentation.
Documenting World Heritage sites in countries with no Wikimedia affiliates (around 15 for this project)

Key activities for 2021

Co-organizing editathons:
- Organizing editathons during 3 relevant events in collaboration with local partners (World Environment Day, World Peace Day and European Heritage Days) in at least 4 languages (mainly UNESCO official languages).
Encouraging photo uploads:
- Organizing Whindanger photography contest in countries with no Wikimedia affiliates (3 editions).
- Coordinating with existing Wikimedia affiliates to add special prizes to WLE and WLM.
Collecting testimonies:
- Collecting 3 min self-recorded videos of heritage professionals in the target countries. The videos will be compiled and published on Wikimedia Commons.
Enhancing content on Wikidata:
- Ensuring the full coverage of the 53 sites on Wikidata
- Promoting and valuing the created content through building a website that encompassesː Maps, timelines and different graphs generated from Wikidata, access to Wikipedia articles in different languages, and access to photos and videos on Wikimedia Commons. (see details in the website program section below)

SMART goals of the overall program

Ensuring thorough documentation of 53 World Heritage sites listed by UNESCO in the Danger list.
Ensuring the access of Heritage professionals and activists -that are not used to Wikimedia projects and tools- to the created content (especially graphs and statistics generated from Wikidata)
Promoting the movement among Heritage professionals and activists in 31 countries; which will foster interactions between Wikimedia communities and heritage institutions and lead to future collaborations,
Catalyzing the creation of Wikimedia communities in +10 countries,

2021 goals

Implementing the project in 50% of the target countries (editathons, photography contests and gathering video testimonies), including all countries where WH sites are in danger because of armed conflicts (6 countries)
Ensuring the translation of created articles into at least 3 UNESCO official languages
Ensuring the coverage of all the 53 sites on the website

Metrics and targets

Number of target sitesː 35 (66%)
Number of target countriesː 15 (48), including 3 countries without affiliates
Number of photos to be uploaded: +1500 (+40 per site)
Number of articles to be created/enhanced: +350 (+10 articles per site in several languages)
Number of Wikidata items to be created/enhanced : +175 (+5 per site)
Number of video testimonies: +30 (+2 per country)

Organizing Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos

Description

Many articles about World Heritage sites do not have photos and the WPWP campaign is a good opportunity to improve these articles.

Key activities for 2021

Organizing a WPWP edition dedicated to World Heritage aticles in different languages, in coordination with WPWP international team.
Adding photos to Wikidata items of World Heritage sites and components
Categorizing uncategorized photos of World Heritage sites

SMART goals of the overall program

Improving the articles about World Heritage Sites in several languages.
Improving visual content (photos) about World Heritage sites on other Wikimedia projects
Catalyzing the interest of the global Wikimedia community to World Heritage

2021 goals

Improving the articles about World Heritage Sites in at least 6 languages.
Improving wikidata items about World Heritage sites
Organizing and enhancing Commons categories of World Heritage sites

Metrics and targets

300 photos added to World Heritage articles.
Improvement of 175 Wikidata items without photos
Catgorization of 100 photos

Capacity building

Description

In order to advance towards our strategic direction we need to build different capacities and skill sets for our members and local partners.

Background

In order to explore what the are capacities that we need to build, we shared a survey with our members and we identified a list of topics for which we need to organize training sessions. We would like to make these sessions available for all the wikimedians by recording them and uploading them on Commons and Youtube.

What is the importance of this program for our strategic vision?

This program allows us to ensure the good implementation of our projects that need the use of several tools and editing skills on several Wikimedia projects, and catalyze the imagination of our members to create ne projects.

Key activities for 2021

Organizing training sessions for the group members about query tools, editing tools and activities organization tools (sessions calendar)
Recording and publishing the organized training sessions (Meta page - Youtube channel)
Creating how-to guides that summerizes all the elements learned in the training sessions (E.g: steps to run a Wikidata query + examples of customizable queries related to World Heritage)

SMART goals of the overall program

Improving the capacities of our members and all the interested wikimedians of our movement.
Creating sustainable resources: Training sessions recorded and how-to guides available under CC licence

Metrics and targets

11 recorded training sessions available on Commons and on Youtube (under CC licence).
3 pdf how-to guides that encompasses the 11 tools learned during training sessions, divided into 3 categories: Editing, Query, and Activities organizing, to be available on Commons and on the website.

Wiki World Heritage Website

Description

Building a group website that encompasses: group presentation and activities, resources (how-to guides and material related to World Heritage on Wikimedia), interactive wikidata generated content for each of our projects (maps, timelines, statistics,graphs, access to articles), and customized upload buttons for Wikimedia Commons. We would like to build pages for the two projects Told Cities and WHindanger (and for future projects) in order to promote the content related to WH sites and show differnet ways of using it. For instance we would like to have a page where we can show the timeline of a given world heritage city, when the different buildings composing this city have been built. This timeline will be populated using Wikidata (see example).

Background

Besides increasing the group visibility and helping us to reach out to new potential partners, this website will enable the main target audience of our content (Heritage professionals, students and activists) to benefit from the created content and to enrich it, as this category of people does not have the technical abilities to make queries on Wikidata and generate graphs and statistics. In fact, while a huge amount of information is added to Wikidata, only few people can really benefit from it: those who know Wikidata and have an excellent mastery of it (and hence have the ability to make complexe queries). Therefore, it is important to create a platform that is friendly to non-tech users, that allows them to benefit from Wikidata (without being obliged to master SPARQL for instance).

What is the importance of this program for our strategic plan?

This program will be of tremendous help to achieve 2 of our objectives:

Ensuring the optimal use of the created content on Wikimedia projects.
Building strong partnerships with relevant international and regional heritage institutions, through increasing visibility.

Key activities for 2021

Designing a requirement document (arborescence, graphic identity)
Coordinating with the web development agency.
Generating content from Wikidata (maps, timelines, graphs and statistics using the query service) to integrate to the web site.
Creating campaigns, categories and templates on Commons for photos upload via the website.

SMART goals of the overall program

Increasing the group visibility to create collaboration opportunities with heritage institutions
Providing a “non-tech friendly” platform that enables heritage professionals and general public to access to statistics, maps and timelines generated from Wikidata. It's very important to show how the content from Wikidata can be used. Showing use cases of how to use content from Wikidata will promote the content and motivate people to understand the importance of adding and improving the content on Wikidata.

2021 goals

Creating group presentation pages: The group, the movement, partners, resources, 2021 highlights
Creating Whindanger pages: Project presentation, Maps, Timelines, Statistics
Creating Told Cities pages: Project presentation, Maps, Timelines, Statistics
Creating statistic pages: see examples on Wikidata Wikiproject World Heritage
Creating customized photo upload buttons for the target sites of Whindanger and Told Cities

NB: for the upload buttons, the user will have just to choose a site from the list and the displayed button will lead to the upload page on Commons with all necessary fields prefilled (licence, description, category, etc.), as to the timelines and maps, the user will also have just to choose a site from the list, and the query result will be automatically changed.

Metrics and targets

10 pages for group and movement presentation (community, activities, 2021 highlights)
2 pages for resources (How-to guides, different articles related to heritage and Wikimedia)
3 projects presentation pages (Told Cities, Whindanger, WikiProject World Heritage)
188 interactive maps and 188 interactive timelines (135 for Told Cities and 53 for Whindanger)
40 different statistics (10 for Told Cities, 10 for Whindanger, 20 general statistics)
188 photos from Commons, and customized buttons upload to allow the website visitors to donate photos to Commons
Available in 4 UNESCO official languages (2 other languages to be added next year)

Grant Metrics Reporting[edit]

Required. Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Needs Request[edit]

Optional. The Community Resources team would like understand the best way to support the success of your programs and organization in general. If you have any requests or needs you have related to your programs, organizational operations, or other needs below under the appropriate section, please describe them here. You may instead e-mail simplewikimedia.org to reach your program officer if you prefer.

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For example, requesting guidance or expertise from Wikimedia Foundation staff on GLAM- or Education-related areas.

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No requests needed[edit]

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Midterm report[edit]

Program story[edit]

WHindanger project has been a journey of experimentation and mutual learning, given that we are leading it in several countries with no Wikimedia affiliates nor informal communities: Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen. Therefore, besides the implementation of our activities, we are initiating the creation of new Wikimedia communities in these countries.
Our highlights during this reporting period are:
-Libya: the online editathon organized on the World Peace Day (September 21st) is the best memory for WHindanger’s team members! After an intensive “training of trainers” program about Wikipedia editing and editathons organization, watching the 5 volunteers that received the training moderate the editathon in all confidence was the best reward that we could have! (WHindanger section on Scene's website)
-Afghanistan: “Turning the crisis into an opportunity” is the outline of our experience in Afghanistan! In response to the new challenging political situation, we expanded the scope of the photography contest in Afghanistan to include all monuments and sites, and engaged actively with Afghan photographers on social Media platforms. Furthermore, the mobilization of interntional heritage NGOs for Afghanistan allowed us to build a new partnership with ARCH International.

Program Progress[edit]

WHindanger

During this period, we were able to implement the project activities in collaboration with 8 partners in 7 countries: Afghanistan, Guinea Conakry, Indonesia, Libya, Tanzania, Yemen, and finally Iraq, which was not initially included in the 2021 program, but we were contacted by Liwan Heritage Organization for collaboration.
In Indonesia, Guinea Conakry and Tanzania, activities were implemented by the local Wikimedia Affiliates (Editathon and special prizes in WLE in Indonesia, and photography tours in Tanzania and Guinea Conakry).
In Libya and Yemen, a training of trainers program (ToT) was developed in order to equip local volunteers with the necessary skills to organize an editathon and assist participants, and photography contests were organized in collaboration with our partners. In Libya, the ToT was successfully completed and the editathon was organized, while in Yemen, the ToT is still ongoing, due to electricity problems in the country.
In Afghanistan, the training of trainers has not yet started due to the current political situation, but the photography contest was launched and expanded to include all Afghan Monuments. The prizes of this new category will be funded by the budget requested for the video editing tools.
Finally, in Iraq, a photography campaign was launched.
For more details, please check the “WHindanger” section on our Affcom activity report (Pages 17 to 20) and the WHindanger monthly reports and programme.