Grants talk:IdeaLab/Populate Wikipedia's Days of the Year with links to more women

Welcome to the Women in Days of the Year Project![edit]

Thanks for stopping by, we hope you join us!

How we can go about this[edit]

Jessamyn had the idea that we could take some set of days, see how many items are about men and how many are about women. My idea was to gather information on notable women and add their important dates to days of the year if they aren't there already. There's no reason we can't do both, or another thing altogether.

Proposed Schedule of Activities[edit]

I propose initially a six month project, in which we analyze a month of days one month, then edit those days the next month.

It would look like this:

April: Analyze May, gather information on notable women.
May: Edit May, analyze June
June: edit June, analyze July
July: edit July, analyze August
August: edit August, analyze September
September: edit September, analyze progress, report. If there's momentum, analyze October and extend the project.

The Days of the Year have strict criteria for inclusion of notable people and events. However, there are other ways to note events and people in particular months of years, as there are numerous ways that dates are cross-referenced in Wikipedia.

What's needed

Volunteers

We have people who have volunteered for research, one who has volunteered to help walk people through editing, and a couple(?) who have already started editing.

Organizing

~~The project doesn't have enough people to need a community organizer, but one may be needed soon to keep in touch with the volunteers.~~ I've started contacting those who have expressed interest and am reaching out via other avenues to recruit existing and new editors. I've put details on the grant proposal page.
Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2015 (UTC) Information[reply]

We'll need to coordinate and liaise with the Womens' History Project. We need notable women with their births, deaths, and notable achievements in list forms so that editors can easily make changes and report progress
We'll also need the analysis of the days of each month for before and after comparisons

Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 20:05, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Useful Links[edit]

First is the WikiProject Guide. It has a lot of good information on how projects are coordinated and what goes into a project.

WikiProject Council/Guide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide

These are projects directly related to what we're doing:

Wikipedia Project Days of the Year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Days_of_the_year

Wikipedia Project Women's History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women%27s_History

Example Date: April 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1

Typically listed:

Events
Births
Deaths
Holidays and observances

Example Year: 1969

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969

Events
Births
Deaths
Nobel Prizes

initial thoughts and feedback[edit]

@Natalie Bueno Vasquez: Hi there - this is a very interesting idea, and as was pointed out, one that seems feasible given the low risk/high visibility nature of the work. I'd love to see the idea fleshed out with more details, and encourage you to consider developing this idea as a grant proposal (by clicking on the "Expand your idea into a grant proposal" button on the grant page). -Thepwnco (talk) 21:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Thepwnco: Thanks! We're starting to get some volunteer interest, and some folks are already editing. My next step is to see if I can get data on edits done, and as one of the volunteers suggested, set up a calendar. - Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 20:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Natalie Bueno Vasquez: wonderful! Just a reminder: the deadline to submit/finalize grant proposals for this round of funding is March 31 - happy proposal-ing! -Thepwnco (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility confirmed, Inspire Campaign[edit]

This Inspire Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for the Inspire Campaign review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review begins on 6 April 2015, and grants will be announced at the end of April. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at grants(at)wikimedia.org.

feedback and comments from Thepwnco[edit]

@Natalie Bueno Vasquez: hello again and congratulations on having your grant proposal confirmed as eligible for review! It seems to me that the success and sustainability of this project relies on the development and organizing of a network of editors specifically dedicated to the task of updating days of the year. I see that you have project management experience but am wondering to what extent have you been involved with online community organizing? I'd also love to see more details (maybe a timeline?) about the outlined activities of recruitment, organizing people and data, and liaising with related projects. cheers. -Thepwnco (talk) 22:56, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Thepwnco: hello to you and thank you! My online community organizing experience is fairly limited; most of my organizing has been in person or via email or phone when people in remote locations have been involved. I, too, noticed a lack of detail in my plans for recruiting and organizing. I should have that more fleshed out tonight or tomorrow. Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I'm a little confused about: reading up on projects on Wikipedia, the flow seems to be that you list your project in WikiProject Council proposals, and then do the organizing of people and data on the talk page for the proposal. Once there is enough momentum, then it is moved to active WikiProjects. Most of the editing that I have been doing has been on the proposal page, and communications with potential volunteers has been scattered on talk pages and the original ideas page and this page. Should I be also putting up the activity that's been going on on this page?

Proposal page: Women In Days of the Year 73.162.229.144 17:34, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! You can actually create a new WikiProject any time; the Council proposal process is a suggestion (and an opportunity for feedback), rather than a requirement. However, in this case I would hold off on creating a new project until you're certain that you will continue with this work. For example: if you don't plan to move forward on this idea unless you're funded, it's probably best to wait until the funding decision is made before you create Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Days_of_the_Year or whatever. In the meantime, I think you're smart to reach out to related projects, like days of the year and womens' history. You may have to do more of this kind of outreach "grunt work" to get a response: it looks like you haven't yet been able to solicit much community feedback on your Council proposal talk page. If you would like more input from active English Wikipedians on your proposal, I suggest you post a new thread on the main WikiProject Council talk page and ask specific, concrete questions there. That page seems to be fairly active and I suspect you'll get a response. Sometimes the trick is just to go where the people are, rather that wait for them to come to you ;) Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Populate Wikipedia's Days of the Year with links to more women[edit]

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?	6.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	5.8
(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?	5.4
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.6
Additional comments from the Committee: There is some potential for online impact depending on whether the editors who get involved with this work/WikiProject are able to create and sustain an active network. Little evidence provided that the project could be sustained or scaled. Really like this idea and think it has the potential for online impact. It would certainly increase gender diversity in terms of content.. Great example of a low-overhead, high-impact proposal that could have a subtle but real impact on the Wikipedia project, moving from the pages to the culture itself. Since it's entirely online, its impact would be primarily online, filtering to offline. It's also easily scalable to other languages. There is pretty good plan for community engagement in the form of recruitment of editors, though it's unclear how many editors the grantee intends to recruit. Would like to see a lot more engagement with existing WikiProjects and communities. Scope needs more definition - understand the activities but this project could potentially go on forever and there are no clear metrics in terms of how many entries the group is hoping to add. Budget seems very large - and because so much project management is required, it seems unlikely that the project can be sustained once the grant is over. A better approach might be to organize a series of in-person editathons or 'sprints' for a fraction of the budget provided. Concerned about the proposer's lack of online community organizing experience, which is essential to the success of this kind of project. Would like to see more quantitative metric (such as "Number of articles created against number of improved articles"). Has a lot of potential but needs more development. Would like to see a lot more community engagement and some very clear plans of action as well as measures of success.

Inspire funding decision[edit]

This project has not been selected for an Inspire 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!

Next steps:

Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
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.
Check the Individual Engagement Grant schedule for the next open call to submit proposals or the Project and Event Grant pages if your idea is to support expenses for offline events - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in the future.

Questions? Contact us at grantswikimedia.org

Responding to feedback[edit]

Thank you for the opportunity and for the detailed feedback on this proposal. I've learned a lot so far in my interactions with other editors and with the feedback given previously.

There is pretty good plan for community engagement in the form of recruitment of editors, though it's unclear how many editors the grantee intends to recruit.

I was unsure that there needed to be a set number of editors in the project total or at a given time. The people that I interacted with generally have seen this as a "when I have a little time" or "when the fancy strikes" kind of thing. This was the thought behind having different roles spelled out on the project page, along with a list of women to be added. From reading other project stories, I understand that having a minimum of 6 (preferably 8) editors active is needed to keep a project's momentum going; is this what you were looking for?

Would like to see a lot more engagement with existing WikiProjects and communities.

What does this mean? I posted on the talk pages and got very little response. Do I need to be more insistent on obtaining a response, or was I simply on the wrong pages?

Scope needs more definition - understand the activities but this project could potentially go on forever and there are no clear metrics in terms of how many entries the group is hoping to add.

I agree, this can be framed either as an open ended project or as a time limited project with set goals. If it is going to have set goals, there will first need to be a comprehensive analysis of the DOY pages' ratio of men to women. This has been the biggest challenge. I understand that Wikidata/Wikibase may have some data on how biography pages are gendered, but at this time the only way to make a count is to go through a day's page and count by hand.

At the same time, there is currently a discussion on the DOY project talk page about how many people to include and what standards should be used to include someone. This has been a contentious discussion for some time. I offered some input, but as near as I can tell it has been ignored.

The safer prospect may be to make this an open ended project, perhaps using sprints to analyze and then edit a few days' worth of pages. This will require a lot of research and coordination beforehand to make sure that edits aren't immediately rolled back.

Budget seems very large - and because so much project management is required, it seems unlikely that the project can be sustained once the grant is over. A better approach might be to organize a series of in-person editathons or 'sprints' for a fraction of the budget provided.

Agreed.

Concerned about the proposer's lack of online community organizing experience, which is essential to the success of this kind of project.

Online community organizing activities don't seem very different from real life organizing, except it is via online communications. I looked for advice in the Learning Patterns pages but found little help. Are there other resources?

Would like to see more quantitative metric (such as "Number of articles created against number of improved articles").

The above example might not apply to this project, as there are a set number of pages and the object is to add more links to these pages. I understand that this could be a page improvement, but are there other measures we could be using?

Again, I am grateful that the committee found this a worthwhile project, and that it is interested in seeing it succeed. Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 17:04, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]