Grants talk:PEG/ARCHÉ/Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Romania

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A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members who support this request[edit]

  1. Seems to be OK. Well balanced budget. Polimerek (talk) 19:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Concise and clear submission and answers.--MikyM (talk) 21:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. After reduction of "promotional packages" --Packa (talk) 13:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GAC members who support this request with adjustments[edit]

  1. I don't know if this year there will be a WLM, but the program seems to me really flexible to adapt this program for a generic edit-a-thon or a photo contest for Romania. Anyway I suggest to integrate what is discussed in the mailing list of WLM and it means the migration of the database of monuments in Wikidata. This may a good delivery and can improve the project. Nothing to say about the budget, it's aligned with other contests. --Ilario (talk) 07:19, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    considering the WLM competition is scheduled to start worldwide on September 1st, that's is, in less than one month, there are not enough resources to complete a database migration before its start. Also, it would be dangerous to do it while the competition is open (during the month of September). After the competition ends, so from October onwards, it can be worked on to be redy for an eventual WLM 2016. --Nicubunu (talk) 09:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    even though at international level there will not be a WLM contest, we still want to organize it at national level (with all the other things); thank you for your idea, we will try to take them into consideration (as Nicubunu said for an eventual 2016 project) --AlinaRamona (talk) 10:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    there may not be (yet) international prizes on WLM 2015, there are already 20 countries that confirmed participation: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Participating_countries --Nicubunu (talk) 11:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like Illario, I think at this time you are not able to organize WLM 2015 (the page http://wikilovesmonuments.ro/ is about WLM 2014, if I see). I suggest adapt it. --Packa (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

the website had the image of the 2014 participating countries map, which is now updated for 2015, all the rest is valid info. Note: currently the website talks *only* about the activities for which we have secured funding, this is the bare WLM contest with prizes. Other announcement for additional activities are to be added when/if we have the needed resources. We also delayed an official press release until we know with activities will happen this year (depending on funds available) --Nicubunu (talk) 05:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Nicubunu, for quick response. The WLM was *only* :) an example. I find WLM a perfect competition not for acquiring huge number of nice pictures (I have been a member of jury of Czech WLM last year), but for attracting new contributors. So I support it. But I think you applied your submission late. (@AWang (WMF): is it possible to approve it in few days? I am a little bit skeptic.) Moreover I do not think your budget is well balanced. Your total cost of Prize money (USD 950) is lower then cost of Promotional packages (USD 1375). Why? Last year it was contrariwise. This is the reason why my name was in paragraph "members who support this request with adjustments". --Packa (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Prizes are at the same level (in RON) as the previous year, the value in USD changed because the exchange rate. Regarding the promotional packages AlinaRamona is better suited to answer, my understanding is the increase is supposed to also cover the two sub-events: Edit-a-thon and Wiki Weekend. By design the prize values are kept low, because we want people to contribute for Wikipedia, not for the prizes. I hope we are not to late, as according to AWang (WMF) the submission deadline is August 17th (ref: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2015-July/007860.html) --Nicubunu (talk) 15:23, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For the WLM main category, the prizes are at exactly the same level as last year: (2014) 3756 lei || (2015) 3800 lei. Our total prize money was significantly bigger in 2014 because we also organized a "junior" section (it was not as successful as planned, so we didn't put it in this year's budget). This year we want to coordinate more diverse outreach events, that's why we increased a little bit the promotional packages number of units (and consequently the total cost). @Packa: do you still think we have to make some adjustments or is it ok to leave it like this? --AlinaRamona (talk) 12:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, AlinaRamona. I tried to compare it with Czech WLM2014: Czech prize money were about USD 950 and promotional expenses (like your item # 3) about USD 60. I know it is not fully comparable, for instance there was no edit-a-thon in the Czech Republic, but the different is huge. So I think you should make a significant adjustments. --Packa (talk) 09:41, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Following your suggestion we have significantly reduced the promotional packages budget (more than 1000 USD).--Savuleasca (talk) 08:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Savuleasca. (Now supporting, see above) --Packa (talk) 13:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GAC members who oppose this request[edit]

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment[edit]

GAC comments[edit]

Many projects in one[edit]

Hi, and thank you for your submission. I have a questions:

  1. As I understand, you will have several events with separated winners for: photo contest, edith-a-thon contest, Wiki Weekend contests. Why you call all of them Wiki Loves Monuments?
  2. What you need easels for?

Regards, --Violetova (talk) 22:50, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  1. there is a single contest, the Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) photography contest, all the other activities are to promote it. Edit-a-thon is a gathering where WLM participants (or potential participants) can learn how to contribute to WLM. Wiki Weekend is a trip where people will take pictures for WLM and will contribute them to WLM, its purpose is to bee a social activity to strenghten the community. there may be some small prizes during the Wiki Weekend, but only as a fun way to encourage people to submit their images to WLM as soon as possible.
  2. at the end of the WLM contest, there will be a photo exhibition with the winning images and probably some winners from the previous years. the photos needs something to be put on and we have easels from the previous edition, but those are fragile and some may be damaged. We will need a few to complete the set. --Nicubunu (talk) 05:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Community comments[edit]

Budget and others[edit]

Hi. What follows is a very long rant regarding the proposal. At times, it will seem like harsh criticism regarding the team's performance, but I prefer to look at it as a honest feedback on the points that I know did not work so well last year and could and should be better this time around.

The budget does not learn enough from last year's experiences:

  • item 8 (photo prints) are under-valued. 45 RON seems more appropriate.
  • there is no item for postal costs for sending diplomas and promotional packages to winners that cannot attend the exhibition live; including it in the prize of the package reduces the value of the prize themselves
  • the number of banking fee items is too low. I would suggest at the very least the following 30-33 items (which do not leave any place for error):
    • 2 incoming fees
    • 15 outgoing prizes
    • 2 transfer for wiki-weekend
    • 2 transfers for edit-a-thon
    • 3 transfers for prints
    • 2-3 transfers for promo materials
    • 1 for easels
    • 1-2 for the vernissage
    • 2-3 for the conference
  • the edit-a-thon does not have a budget for location. Where do you plan on holding it? Please keep in mind that you will need (very) good internet access and perhaps even a couple of computers

Also, other non-financial items that caught my eye:

  • you talk about VLSO, but in the budget you request funds for OSGEO. Are you going to do both presentations?
  • you talk about "target readership", but do not have targets regarding the number of article/text to be added. Perhaps "target audience" would be more appropriate.
  • I see no activity pertaining to clarifying the license issue, which was the single most discussed item at last year's awards ceremony. My suggestion is to plan for some time during the offline activities for this talk. Also, a guest blog post by last year's winner might help reach some photographers.
  • What do you base your estimate of 6000 new images on?
  • Your offline events should be announced to the community in due time (at least 2 weeks in advance, even more if you have the details set-up).--Strainu (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]


  • The budget was constructed thoughtfully and thoroughly based on last year's experience (actually all figures were estimated having 2014's figures in front of our eyes):
    • in my opinion, the exhibition costs are not under-valued (3000 RON | 750 USD); most probably, for prints (pictures and brochures) we will use the same supplier and if prices will be higher than estimated, we have the "buffer" amount from line 10 - here we estimated that aprox. 15 easels from last year are broken, but, if necessary, we can recicle some parts of them and use the saved money for prints
    • indeed, there is no item for postal costs, but they are included in "promotional packages"
    • the banking fees are not very expensive; if necessary, we will cover some of them from the Ixia sponsorship
    • regarding the Edit-a-thon, as Nicubunu said, the location will be PlotShop in Bucharest (as usually, they will charge us only for water, coffee etc. and they will provide the venue for free)--AlinaRamona (talk) 12:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Andrei (Strainu), thank you for your input. We will try to schedule some time for the "licence issue" during the offline activities - for example, the Edit-a-thon idea came when we realized that most people don't fully grasp those notions. Also, we will try to announce to the community all the events in due time, but we also rely on personal networking.--AlinaRamona (talk) 12:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Offline activities[edit]

I've just noticed that you have not considered any prizes for "the best picture from the Wiki Weekend" (if you remember, we have discussed this would be a good idea in the 2014 post-mortem). Also, if the edit-a-thon will not be just a upload-a-thon, you might consider having a prize for the best article pertaining to a historic monument (as part of the traditional writing contest of the Romanian Wikipedia).--Strainu (talk) 11:58, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We totally forgot the idea of rewarding the best picture from Wiki Weekend. Thank you very much for reminding us. We will consider that, and also we will think about the special prize for the writing contest.--AlinaRamona (talk) 08:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WMF comments[edit]

Hi Nicubunu and AlinaRamona. Thank you for this detailed grant request and your participation in the discussion thus far. We have a number of additional questions and look forward to your responses.

  1. One of your targets from last year was achieving 25% of all images used on Wikipedia pages by the end of 2014. At the time of your grant it was 20%, were you able to achieve this? Since you were using a different tool than we typically use (Glamorous), please let us know. Glamorous showed 14% used upon report submission and 14.79% used to date.
  2. Please include targets for the percentage of images used on Wikimedia projects. This metric is useful because it helps us measure the quality level of the photos as well as the level of success of the editathon and writing contest.
  3. One important metric last year was the number of different or new monuments covered. We would like to see this metric used again. It's important to continue to push for coverage of new monuments instead of covering the most easily accessible ones. It's great that the Wiki Weekend will again focus on an area with little coverage.
  4. Last year, one of the challenges from the Wiki Weekend is that there were too many people taking photos of the same monuments. The organizers wrote about the need to spread people out more. Please let us know if you have developed a strategy for doing this.
  5. We're happy to see that following the Wiki Weekend, you will organize an editathon to teach people how to contribute. It is still a good idea to do an upload demo/training for the Wiki Weekend participants during that weekend (perhaps in the evening?) in case they do not come to the editathon since that was a problem last year.
  6. Have the participants from last year's competition continued to stay engaged in Wikimedia activities -- uploading to Commons or writing articles? What plans do you have to continue to communicate with participants after the competition is over?
  7. The budget includes a special prize for the writing the contest, but there is no information about the contest in the grant proposal. Please provide more details on how it will be advertised and organized. We do think it is a good idea to have an associated writing contest, as this promotes integration of photos on articles as well as increases the number of articles about monuments. We support Strainu’s idea to have a prize for the best article pertaining to a historic monument and appreciate all his guidance on this proposal.
  8. Please provide more details on what the promotional packages include.
  9. What will the exhibition brochure be used for and who will it be given to?
  10. It's a shame that 15 easels from last year's exhibition are broken. If you're planning on doing more photo competitions and using them for future events, then please be sure to invest in higher quality easels that will last longer. Please also confirm that any equipment purchased will be offered for use by the entire community.
  11. If the request is approved, we will need to know the quantities you would like of stickers, globe pins, and pens (please see the Wikimedia store for more details) and will need you to email us the exact address and phone number for delivery.

Please let us know if you have any questions about the above. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some answers where I do have competence:

  1. the stats from last year were produced by Strainu (who is taking a break this year from WLM). Still, he is the best suited to answer here.
  2. .
  3. .
  4. I am also waiting myself for the Wiki Weekend plan, where Savuleasca and AlinaRamona are in charge.
  5. Definitely, we talked about an upload session or a demo on the Saturday evening of the Wiki Weekend. This depends on the location and Internet availability (see the previous item) and computers availability (an important number of the participants may not bring laptops on a field trip). Worst case scenario, we will be limited to a talk and a demo session.
  6. The Edit-a-thon is specially designed to address part of this problem: people participating with photos only rarely contribute to articles. The plan is to show not only how to upload pictures to Commons, but also how to add pictures to Wikipedia article.
  7. the writing contest is not part of WLM and is not organized by our team (again, Strainu is usually involved with it and can have a better answer). In the past years we simply awarded a special prize. --Nicubunu (talk) 11:08, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You may find my answers below :

  1. Strainu please help us with a realistic percentage and we will include it in the grant proposal.
  2. I don't know how to compute the percentage of images used on Wikimedia projects, but it is a very good idea to have this as a measure of success. If anybody can help with a suggestion, I will include it in the grant proposal.
  3. We hope that more than 6000 new images will be uploaded and at least 500 different monuments will be covered. We will try to encourage participants to cover new monuments, instead of focusing on the most easily accessible ones.
  4. For 2015 Wiki Weekend we plan to split the participants in teams. Each team will receive a list of monuments to be photographed. We also hope that the prizes ("the best picture from the Wiki Weekend" and another special prize) will have a positive impact.
  5. Nicubunu is responsible for the demo session during the Wiki Weekend
  6. As far as I know, we didn't follow how and when the participants from last year's competition continued to contribute. Thank you for the suggestion; this year, after the competition is over, we will encourage contributors (via FB page and/or website) to stay engaged in Wikimedia activities.
  7. The associated writing contest will be advertised in September. We hope that our friend Strainu’s will guide us and will be part of the jury in order to award the 2 special prizes for the writing contest.
  8. The promotional packages may include personalized - WLM 2015 in Romania - t-shirts, key-chains, stickers etc. depending on price variation on the date of order.
  9. The exhibition brochure will be given to the participants at vernissage and will present all the winning pictures.
  10. We estimate that 15 easels from last year's exhibition are broken (or not in such a good shape), but we don't know for sure. The amount of money put on this category is like a "buffer". ARCHE Association use and used the easels for some events, and we plan to offer them to any open data activities organised by us, by our partners or by anybody in the community.
  11. If the request is approved, I will e-mail you the exact quantities and the address (+phone number) for delivery. --AlinaRamona (talk) 13:30, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You should take the matter of calculating statistics, including dedicated scripts, upon yourselves - after all, you will still need to compute them for the 2015 edition and there is no web tool for ro.wp (except perhaps catscan). The details on calculating the global metrics requested by the WMF are at Grants:Learning & Evaluation/Global metrics. You will need to adapt them to WLMRO's particular situation, as well as your specific metrics.
For 2014, a quick look in Glamorous show 100 more commons images used compared with the 2014 report, or 1.2% increase. Again, the number does not include images uploaded to ro.wp.
Regarding question 7, I'm not sure what do you mean by "the writing contest is not part of WLM". The fact that I organized it pretty much by myself, taking advantage of the ro.wp general writing contest, does not exclude the fact that this year it falls on the remaining team to organize it. I'm sorry, but I doubt I will be able to provide more than occasional guidance.
If you feel you don't have the expertise, it's much better to just give up on the writing contest. Keep in mind that giving money as prizes always raises a lot of discussions and even fights on wiki. You will need to keep an eye out on all the relevant talk pages and mediate those fights before they escalate (in this context, mediate usually means cutting the Gordian Knot and taking hard decisions).--Strainu (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As you can see in our grant request we didn't plan to hold a writing contest on our own, it was added following one of your suggestions above. But I guess you are right, the probability of having quality articles added during the Edit-a-thon is low, the event is targetted more at new contributors. I'm inclined to think we better drop the writing contest from the Edit-a-thon completely and then if there is a general ro.wp writing contest just provide there a couple of prizes for articles about monuments. Alternatively, at the Edit-a-thon we can offer instead prizes for photography work (like number of pictures uploaded, number of pictures added to articles or such, in which case we may decrease the prizes value) and stay close to the WLM mission as a photography contest. Honestly, I don't want myself to get into the wiki fights which appear to happen linked with the ro.wp writing contest, I am proud we didn't had any fight related to the photography contest in all those previous editions --Nicubunu (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nicubunu and AlinaRamona. Thank you for your responses. I have a few follow-up questions below.

  1. We would recommend you set a target of 25% photo use by the time your report is due (1 March 2016). This is an ambitious, but still achievable target. You can calculate the number of distinct images used on wiki projects from any category and the total number of uses using the Glamorous tool. Strainu -- I'm not clear why you say above that it does not include rowp. When I run the tool, it shows that 1,178 of the photos from last year are used on Romanian Wikipedia. Is there another issue with the tool that I don't understand? Please let me know.
  2. Please confirm that one goal is to cover 500 new monuments. If this is achieved, do you know how many monuments in Romania will then be covered (number or percentage)?
  3. Having a plan for following up with participants is important. Social media and mailing lists are a great start. Since you will have all their usernames, you can also use Wikimetrics to check their editing activity over time. Please check out this tool and let us know if you have questions.
  4. If the team doesn't have the capacity to run the writing contest, we agree it's best to take it out. We'd encourage you to give a simple prize (like a t-shirt) to the person that adds the most number of photos to articles at the editathon or create a prize category for this in the overall contest.
  5. Please let us know what the benefits were of attending and presenting at OSGEO last year? It does not seem necessary to present annually, but let us know what the rationale is for this line item.
  6. Who are the packages given to specifically and for what purpose? We appreciate you have reduced the costs, but the number of packages (55) still seems very high especially since you are also asking for WMF to send the team merchandise.

Thanks for your replies! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alex, Glamorous does not keep track of images uploaded to ro.wp, only images uploaded to commons. Please review last year's report, especially the comments in this section, where I mention we also have 102 images used in articles that were uploaded to ro.wp.-- (talk) 18:34, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), here are some of my answers:

  1. If my colleagues, especially Nicubunu think that 25% is achievable, we will set it as target.
  2. Yes, our goal is to cover more than 500 new monuments.
  3. .
  4. .
  5. In the grant proposal we mentioned that we intend to present our work at one of our partner's events (@ After VSLO or OSGEO seminary). Last year Strainu represented us at OSGEO, and our exhibition was exposed in Timisoara. This year, we received informal invitations to be present at both events mentioned above, but we don't know for sure where to go.
  6. We estimate that 55 is the right number of promotional packages: 10 winners + 25 wiki weekend participants + 15 edit-a-thon participants + 5 extra-packages. The main object we want to make this year is a 2 sided key-chain (with WLM and Wikipedia logos) and we will use it as a promoter of our work.--AlinaRamona (talk) 20:54, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AlinaRamona. Thanks for the responses. We would still like to understand better the rationale and benefit for attending the partner events. Did attending last year's event lead to more partners for this year's competition? Or more participants? In terms of the promotional packages, we are ok with this line item. Typically, for participants in a wiki weekend or editathon we only provide a small gift/prize for the top participants. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Alex Wang (WMF). The people behind the OSGEO seminary were close to our team before and we didn't aim explicitly to enlarge the number of partners. Strainu was there in Nov. 2014 and we hope to see the impact of his presentation in this year's results. But the main objective - and this year we expect to be the same - was and is to present our work and the winning pictures (exhibition) to the maximum people possible. In my opinion, mixing online Wikipedia activities with an achievable number of real-life events has a lot of benefits.--AlinaRamona (talk) 10:01, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AlinaRamona. Thanks for the explanation. My understanding is that there will then be three exhibition events: 1.) Presentation at OSGEO with a display of the winning photographs; 2.) Preview exhibition funded by another funder; and 3.) Awards ceremony and main exhibition that will stay up for 2 weeks -- presumably the venue will be free. Please confirm. Additionally, the cost of the brochures is very high. We ask that you remove this from the budget or consider a cheaper option. Otherwise, we are happy to move forward with approval. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Alex Wang (WMF). There will be two exhibition related events: 1) vernissage of the exhibition and an awards ceremony and 2) presentation of our work (exhibition included) at one of our partner's event (@ After VSLO or OSGEO seminary). If the venue (main exhibition) will not be free, we will cover it from IXIA sponsorship and we will shrink other vernissage costs (i.e. catering). As requested, we removed the cost of the brochures from the budget. Thank you for everything and keep in touch!--AlinaRamona (talk) 16:39, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From my point of view, it is an absolute requirement for the main exhibition to have free attendance. It would be against the Wikipedia spirit to restrict access --Nicubunu (talk) 17:59, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Covering a few points left open by AlinaRamona

  1. If we achieve (or exceed) the target of a total of 6000 images uploaded. then i feel a target of 25% photo use would be over-optimistic
  2. using data from https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proiect:Monumente_istorice#Statistici 500 photos of new monuments would increase coverage from ~24.9% to ~26.6%. While low, this is still impressive compared with any other similar database in the country.
  3. we will come with a plan for following-up with participants. We do have social media accounts where we receive good feedback during the contests, but very little for the rest. I will take a deeper look at Wikimetrics.
  4. I was going to propose a new idea about the writing contest: drop it entirely or just give a small prize instead and redirect the prizes to another area, which can me more rewarding for the contest, and here I can think about three options: a) two or three prizes for the people with the largest number of images uploaded in the WLMRO contest - the justification is we had in the past years super-uploaders (with thousands of images) which where unhappy to not receive any prize (unfortunately, they didn't have pictures worthy of top 10). The initial thinking of the team was not encourage low-quality images, so we didn't plan prizes for quantity. b) two or three prizes for the people who, during both September and October, add the largest number of new Wikipedia articles about monuments using WLM images. That can be a big help for the photo usage target, the risk is to have people running bots to create stub articles, but that's better than no articles. c) middle ground with one prize for top image uploads and another for top new monument articles created. Will talk with the team about it. -Nicubunu (talk) 08:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nicubunu. Thanks for the responses. I would suggest the second option since you're correct in worrying that a prize for the most number of uploads does not tell us much about quality, which is by far more important than quantity. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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