Grants talk:IEG/Writing Week Cultural Heritage

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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.

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Nice idea!

I like this idea but I guess I am a bit confused about the outcome. If the money is just to run the contests and to arrange the thankyou sessions, doesn't this seem too offputting to Wikipedians who hate to come to meetups? What is the difference between this proposal and the writing weeks that have already taken place? It would be nice if an IEG project were to result in some solid tooling such as a storybook how to arrange a writing week. I am thinking of things like how to inform participants, how to select articles to reward, how to setup a points system, how to find sponsors, how to measure and communicate results, where to keep the archive so people can use it as a use case for a writing week on that subject, etc.--Jane023 (talk) 13:57, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

What money could be spend on: Experienced editors can edit online. We don't need meetings for that. The meetings are not aimed at experienced editors. The meetings are there to get people who are offline to get a first introduction. Moreover the main purpose of the meetings is not to edit, but to have a moment where media can meet Wikipedians. That way they can publish about Wikipedia and the attention will get us new editors. The money will be mostly spend on travel. However, it is for a large extend not for participants to travel but for people who want to volunteer to be at meetings and help new editors. The participants "reward" mostly will be in the form of letters send to them. Politicians or directors of organisations can thank people by sending them a signed and personal thank you letter or a certificate (almost no expense, pay for it themselves). I indeed want some editors to be thanked in real life. But I agree this is not what everyone wants, and very expensive (if you want to include all the world). So a large part of the money will go to voluteers in order to organise meetings. To cover their minor travel expences. And only a smaller amount of people (1-10) will be at an award ceremony (which is expensive to travel to).

Local projects: To arrange a good writing week you need a project on the Wikipedia language version itself. Meta is too far for regular editors to come. Once we have a local project and local organisers, the next writing week becomes easier. I think that a global writing week project on meta could help with this. By organising a global week, we can start local projects and we can start everything up. I agree in the long term you will need sponsors. But first you need something to show to sponsors. We need to organise a writing week with support of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that sponsors can see the effect of a global writing week.

What I hope for the future: I do not think the IEG project should result in a story book. Instead it should result in meta and local projects. Maybe even a usergroup for Writing Weeks, so that we can have an organisation. An organisation can create a continued effort. For example, instead of each writing project individually looking for sponsors, the usergroup can find sponsors and writing weeks can simply be started without online organisers having to worry about finding sponsors at all, it is already taken care of.

Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 19:13, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Writing Week Cultural Heritage

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?	6.4
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	5.1
(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?	4.7
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	3.9
Additional comments from the Committee: Content ingestion is great for Wikipedia, especially on cultural heritage. We have tried for years to find ways to integrate more usage of Wiki Loves Monuments photos on Wikimedia projects, and this is one way to do that. Global editing campaigns (such as Art+Feminism) have significant impact potential in principle. However, the proposal does not present a credible plan for actually organizing such a campaign. This proposal fits with Wikimedia's strategic priority to increase volunteer retention and engagement. It would also oversee a lot of new content creation. Generally speaking I think the "writing week" idea has potential for online impact but this proposal does not offer enough details. It also seems to have too large a scope to be executed successfully. It also does not seem very sustainable. To me, it does not make sense to fly randomly selected volunteers around the world to meet with museums instead of building off the many existing relationships the movement already has with cultural heritage institutions. Yes, this is coming from the Dutch project that gave us Wiki Loves Monuments, and I am sure they can deliver. The proposed measures of success are focused on media and government attention rather than impact to the Wikimedia projects. While these are not necessarily inappropriate goals in and of themselves, they may be unsuited to a project aimed at increasing content quality. The risks are quite high given the amount of funds requested and the lack of community engagement. I don't see a real commitment to the necessary community organizing and project management an initiative such as this would require in order to be successful. Some measures of success are provided (notably, 2,000 to 10,000 new/improved articles) but it's unclear how they will be achieved. They have experience and can replicate this for other projects. The budget is superficial, and no rationale is provided for any of the listed travel expenses. There is not much of a plan, and user should seek to get rid of his ban first. Not enough information is provided. I think the scope is way too big. Focusing on one writing week and city/region with 1-2 museum partnerships seems more realistic, particularly if it had the support or interest of local editors. I have several concerns about the ability to execute. I am involved in WLM and it's a hard activity to achieve without the experience and strong support by local communities. What I don't see in this proposal is how to involve local communities. I believe there is support, just not among people who feel comfortable writing on Meta. There is no specific target community, or communities that have been notified, and currently no endorsements. I would like to see more community notification and endorsement for a project with high impact in communities like this. It looks like a great idea, but I doubt if it is necessary at this time. I'm wondering if Writing Week Denmark or something like this requires this level of funding? Otherwise I would question its purpose. Definitely! My understanding is that the applicant sees this proposal as a network building project (similar to the Art+Feminism grant) for the writing week theme. I think this could be of value at some point but at this time it seems premature. The applicant does not seem to have the experience or connections to build the processes, documentation, and other infrastructure that would allow for the writing week project to grow or be replicated in various cities/countries. Good initial idea, but a confusing plan. It needs more development at the moment. This proposal has great potential but I have concerns regarding the budget, which would be almost entirely be spent on travel, and the mentioned breakdown is imprecise. Please fix this. I also believe chapter involvement is vital here but I do not see it mentioned.

-- MJue (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 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.

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