Grants talk:IEG/Just For The Record network and materials

Welcome!

We are looking for your feedback, comments and support! Lfurter (talk) 09:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

April 12 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

@Lfurter, Sarah magnan, Léonie Butler, and MMelvaer: The deadline for Individual Engagement Grant (IEG) submissions this round is April 12th, 2016. To submit your proposal, you must (1) complete the proposal entirely, filling in all empty fields, and (2) change the status from "draft" to "proposed." As soon as you’re ready, you should begin to invite any communities affected by your project to provide feedback on your proposal talkpage. If you have any questions about finishing up or would like to brainstorm with us about your proposal, we're hosting an IEG proposal help session tomorrow on April 12th from 16:00 - 17:00 UTC on Google Hangouts.

I'm also happy to set up an individual session tomorrow if needed.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 22:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for review and scoring. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period (through 2 May 2016).

The committee's formal review begins on 3 May 2016, and grants will be announced 17 June 2016. See the round 1 2016 schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at iegrantswikimedia · org .

@Lfurter, Sarah magnan, Léonie Butler, MMelvaer, and Cathsign: Hi folks, just wanted to swing by and comment on a few aspects of the project for clarification and suggestion:

• I wanted to bring your attention to a couple of resources related to the banners found on articles (sometimes called article maintenance tags). There are some existing tags pointing out different kinds of bias present in articles, and it's worthwhile to check these out in terms of crafting a new maintenance tag to bring attention to gender biases in article language.
• Relatedly, the English Wikipedia contains a Manual of Style that contains some recommendations on preference for gender-neutral language. You could consider expanding this section as a part of this proposal.
• The goal of creating a new editing guideline related to recognizing and addressing gender biases is one avenue by which you could bring awareness of this issue to editors, but it's important to be aware of what is required to create a new guideline on the English Wikipedia. The process can be a pretty high obstacle, however, because a high degree of community consensus is required to implement new guidelines (or substantially change them). This is usually done through a Request for Comments (RfC) that is very widely publicized to the community over a month or two. This process is further complicated by the subject matter; folks may disagree with what represents a case of gender bias in an article, and as such, creating a guidelines that folks agree with will be challenging. Some may also contend that a new guideline isn't needed because an existing guideline covers it already. I say all this not to discourage you from taking this route, but to make you aware that a considerable level of community engagement will be required, as you'll be creating and revising this new guideline with the editing community. You are also bringing in experts on the subject, which is a great idea, and will likely to set a strong foundation for new guidelines on gender bias.
  • An alternative approach to this is to form a working group, usually called a WikiProject, focusing on these particular issues related to gender bias in article content. No community consensus is required to form these kinds of working groups, and they can set their own initiatives and goals (as long as they are editing in a manner inconsistent with existing policies/guidelines).
• On the budget, line items #1 and #2 both appear to fund project management work, one by itself, and the other as a part of a larger group of tasks for this project. Could this be clarified?

Overall, I'm very happy with the proposal and appreciate the comprehensiveness of your activities, particularly that you are endeavoring to address this issue both from an events approach and a best practices approach. Thanks for the submission. :) I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Just For The Record network and materials

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	7.2
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	7.0
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.3
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	7.0
Additional comments from the Committee: More diversity, especially via 1-on-1 coaching and contact, is always welcome. I have read the project several times but I am still unclear about its impact. This proposal builds on an already successful project and has the potential for major impact, especially in the realm of unifying a lot of the various gender gap projects on Wikipedia. It also has potential for impact in proposing to create guides that can be used after the grant period. Looks like a nice plan for reporting. I very much like the focus on quality rather than quantity! I think this project has major potential for innovation and learning. My only concern is that the measures of success listed on the proposal are relatively vague. I completely understand the need for qualitative work on the gender gap from within the Wikipedia community. However, I do think the applicants could provide more specific measures of success. Looks like the participants have the necessary experience. Not clear the connection with the PEG. This project seems very well thought out and the participants clearly have more than the necessary skills and experience to make it happen. Support looks solid and includes some chapter members. It would support diversity but there is not a clear plan and analysis to focus the efforts. The participants are very much involved with the Wikipedia community and have plenty of community support. Go for it! I have several concerns about diversity and gender gap. In some countries (i.e. Iran) communities experience the opposite a gender gap in that there are fewer male contributors than non-male. Many activities are provided, but the best way to proceed is to identify the problems and to address the solutions. In my opinion this seems to be a very expensive project, and would probably be more appropriate for a PEG as a whole. Proposal may be too ambitious; I would suggest starting at a smaller scale first. Why not use Wikimedia Labs, which would not require domains, servers, programmers etc. I am unsure why separate funding is needed for graphics design or the number of artists involved in this proposal. I feel this would be more suited for a local chapter to sponsor. I'm excited to see what this project can bring!

--MJue (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the IEG Committee

Round 1 2016 decision

This project has not been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding, but we hope you'll continue to engage in the program. Please drop by the IdeaLab to share and refine future ideas!

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee would be glad to further support the work of the team of applicants behind Just For The Record. They appreciate the underlying aims of your proposal and the significant strides you made in response to the first round of feedback to increase the clarity of your project plan. However, the committee had concerns about funding the specific outputs identified in this proposal. Banner templates and guideline pages represent a kind of policymaking that editors on Wikipedia create to direct other editors. The committee agreed that IEG is not well-placed to fund policymaking efforts on Wikipedia. This is work typically done by volunteers and it could damage WMF's trust with the community to fund such efforts unless there was a clear indication of broad community support for it. It could undermine the effectiveness of the policies and guidelines that result from your work, which might be perceived as a top-down mandate, rather than a community-led initiative. Consequently, the committee believes that the project described in this proposal would be better carried out through volunteer engagement with the community.

Next steps:

1. Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
2. Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
3. To reapply with this project in the future, please make updates based on the feedback provided in this round before resubmitting it for review in a new round.
4. Check the schedule for the next open call to submit proposals - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in a future round.

Questions? Contact us.