Grants talk:PEG/WM CZ/Presentation & Outreach II

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Questions by Polimerek[edit]

This seems to be well planned grant application, especially, that you proved to be able to do it - as judging from your reports from previous "Outreach" grant (Grants:WM CZ/Presentation & Outreach/Report). Just 2 questions:

  1. What exactly two GLAM organizations are you about to start to cooperate?
  2. What exactly 2 events are you about to participate with WMCZ booth?

Polimerek (talk) 10:53, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your kind words :-) Regarding your questions:
  1. In the last year, we've talked with several institutions, and some kind of cooperation was established with two of them: Silesian Museum in Opava and heritage site in Zelená hora. We don't know for sure what will happen in the next year, "getting" two new institutions is our set benchmark of what would make us happy. Currently we're optimistic about Terezín Initiative Institute and The Fine Art Archive.
  2. Most likely 2014 Autumn Book Fair Havlíčkův Brod (as seen in 2012 and this year as well), and either United Islands festival next year, or Book World exhibition if that does not pan out.
--che 09:04, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciation of ongoing geographical outreach[edit]

I would like to positively comment on the fact that WMCZ has recently made several important steps toward a broader geographical outreach within the Czech Republic, mainly with regard to the activities of its board, the development of its member base and the geographical distribution of consultation partners for external organizations. Traditionally, WMCZ has been centered in Prague and much of informal discussion of current development are still going on during the meetups there, but there have been several succesful meetups in Brno (where I live) initiated and participated by WMCZ board members, and after the last one it even seems that a tradition of regular locally-organized meetups has finally been established in this city as well. One of the local active Wikimedians has recently entered the board, becoming its first out-of-Prague member. My own invitation of the annual Wiki conference to Brno for 2014 (which would bring the 6th year of the conference out of Prague for the first time) is a part of the present grant proposal and has been made thinkable of also due to organization and material support that I and local fellow Wikimedians have received from WMCZ during the last year or two. Blahma (talk) 22:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this comment! It adds valuable context. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 19:54, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To correct one of the untruth statements above: Dominikmatus is not the first out of Prague member. The first one was Milda in one of the first boards (also member of Audit Committee before). Also Frettie and Zirland who have been members of the board and currently are members of the Audit Committee, were/are not 100% Prague citizens.
Danny B. 20:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for setting the record straight. Your phrasing makes it sound like there are other untrue statements above. I suggest you either say what they are, or clarify that it was just careless phrasing on your part, if that's the case. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 21:54, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for my mistake above and let me correct it to "first out-of-Prague member in recent history". Apart from the general difficulty of determining "who is from where", further enhanced by the strict data protection rules in place, I could only assert that from my own perspective of a WMCZ member since 2012 and a Wikimedian based in Brno since 2005 where I did not see (though I could have been blind!) any significant WMCZ activities before (my own membership in WMCZ is a direct result of the 25 March 2012 Brno meetup, organized by WMCZ board members who arrived from Prague, and that meetup was then titled "the first regular meetup"). I am not aware of any other factual mistakes in my text above. Blahma (talk) 12:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well I think it is not a good idea to reveal personal information here. As far as it way you Danny, who is sensitive for yours.--Juandev (talk) 01:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Do you thing that informations froms userpages (Pardubice, Třebíč, Brno) are Secret personal informations? JAn Dudík (talk) 22:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Juandev, are you clear like an angel, when speaking about revealink personal informations? Wasn't it one of reasons of Jirka's resigning? 77.240.97.126 15:04, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More general Discussion on WMCZ grants[edit]

see Grants talk:WM CZ/Communities#By-passing FDC --Manuel Schneider(bla) (+/-) 10:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts[edit]

Thanks for the submission. My questions mostly focus on the scope of some of these activities and projects since they emerge only to include specification about some measures of success. Hence, my questions are the following:

  • Can you tell us more about the 2014 wiki conference? When and where you plan to organise this conference? What are the tracks for its programme? Do you have any experience with organising similar events in the past?
  • Can you give us more details about eight Students Write Wikipedia courses because the idea is sound and can be easily implemented in other countries as well? Are these courses some kind of edit-a-thons? Where do you plan to organise these courses?
  • Why do you think it's necessary to purchase a presentation video for your lectures? Where do you plan to give these lectures? If at faculties or schools, isn't it possible to rent the equipment there for the lectures1?
  • Finally, what do you plan to include in the book about Wikipedia? Do you plan to make it a manual on how to edit Wikipedia or to include something else?

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Conference[edit]

Track: cz only 2009, 2010, 2011,2012

+ schedule for this year: 2013

2014: At the moment we have some internal discussion, that making the conference more international next year could be even better, so we are thinking if it is possible to connect somehow conference with CEE meeting. Brno is close to Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava... --Limojoe (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The idea for organizing the 2014 wiki conference in Brno is a reaction to the invitation of Masaryk University rector's office for WMCZ to participate in the celebration of the university's 95th anniversary to be celebrated throughout 2014. A GLAM-like partnership between the university and WMCZ is currently being established and the university is willing to give space to WMCZ and Wikimedia in its publicity activities in relation to a wikiproject that aims to produce articles about the university's most important personalities, with support from the university's alumni society and aided by materialed contributed from the university archives. Two articles about the start of the cooperation: [1] and [2]. As for organizational capabilities, WMCZ has the experience with organizing 5 previous years of the conference; I (main person behind the cooperation with Masaryk University and based in Brno) have organized numerous events for the Esperanto community over the last 10 years, both large and small, local and international, the 2009 International Youth Congress of Esperanto in the Czech Republic whose organization I supervised being the largest (1 week, 343 participants from 41 countries, joint invitation by 3 national organizations and an organizing committee of 24 people); as far as Wikimedia movement is concerned, I've participated in 2 Wikimanias and have written the successful funding grant for the upcoming 2013 CEE meeting to the International Visegrad Fund; additionally, also people from the alumni society, who regularly organize events and have regular cooperation with the university, are willing to help. Blahma (talk) 21:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Students Write Wikipedia[edit]

Students Write Wikipedia is a Czech branch of Wikipedia Education program, so we're basically just implementing program that was working in other countries. At the moment the courses are running at three Czech universities (Charles University in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, and Mendel University in Brno). --che 21:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Presentation video[edit]

The presentation video is not intended as part of lectures for Students Write Wikipedia, which are supervised by real-life volunteers from our community; it's a separate project, intended to create something that will speak by itself, that can be distributed to schools and shown by teachers who might not have much experience with contributing to Wikipedia. --che 21:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional clarification regarding the proposed video from cs:User:NoJin:
Video should serve several purposes –
  1. general introduction to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons (2 min, dynamic browse through selected topics, computer software converting browsing into video)
  2. presentation of the Czech chapter of Wikipedia and running projects (5 speakers, live in studio, 1 min each)
  3. short course of editing and uploading of pictures (computer software converting browsing into video)
  4. possible additional benefit - video will be made in a professional studio by students and supervised by experienced lecturers. We hope to start a long-term cooperation.
--che 22:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Book about Wikipedia[edit]

The book has already been written (by several Czech Wikipedians), and includes not only "technical" information on how to edit, but also descriptions of processes in the community, explanations of guidelines, licensing, and so on. This part of the grant only deals with distribution, i.e. buying a hundred copies at a discounted price from the publisher and giving them out to schools and libraries. --che 21:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your extensive answers. Now it's clearer to me.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedium[edit]

Could you make a clear statement about the impact you see in producing and printing Wikimedium? It is a significant portion of the budget (NB: I just changed CZK to EUR in the proposal, because the total suggested that is your cost. If this is in fact incorrect, please revert and correct the total, both in the table and at the top of the request), and I question its actual value for our mission. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:25, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the amount in the budget was actually in EUR, thank you for fixing that.
The impact we see in printing Wikimedium is that we can give people something physical to read, something that will remind them that there is something more behind the website they know -- a living community building a trove of free knowledge. I mostly think of it as an leaflets on steroids. A laeflet gives you basic information, but it's not something you can read through. Regarding the impact: we've recently started to track number of stuff we give out at events (as it's also a simple way to find out how many people stopped by our booth), and at this autumns Havlíčkův Brod exhibition, we gave out 248 leaflets (that's a total number of various types), 141 memory games, and 35 prints of Wikimedium. While I don't know what exact impact these prints made on minds of people who took them, I belive we can say for sure that they are interesting for some part of visitors, and assume that significant part of people who voluntarily took them also learnt something about the happennings in the community. I belive getting familiar with the community makes you more likely to contribute, and I also believe having a printed magazine makes you more likely to read its contents than getting a PDF link somewhere in an e-mail. --che 12:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, exactly. As the editor-in-chief of the Wikimedium, I see its value especially in printing it and giving to "unknown" people. I mean - it is not its only purpose (we know the members of community and "known" "friends of Wikimedia" do read it). While the standard means of communication usualy targets at people that are already interested in Wikipedia, Wikimedia and/or our activities (Facebook fans, blog and official web readers, Wikipedia "Village Pump" page or Meta page...), they are very limited when one tries to use them for events with personal contact with general public, and only leaflets can serve this way, but they are not so colourful and up-to-date in their content. So - this is not the main purpose of Wikimedium, but Wikimedium is the main tool for this purpose. --Okino (talk) 13:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, neither of these responses offers any evidence, or even realistic expectation, for how this would have impact. The intent is clear, but I remain unconvinced that this is a good investment of funds. A leaflet can't possibly be expected to be more effective than in-person outreach, and we have recently been acknowledging (at last) that even those, when done on a single-session basis to a general audience, have no or negligible impact.
I would therefore ask you to remove this item from this proposal; if you agree, I would be ready to approve this. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 21:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit we have no hard data on impact of Wikimedium, and it makes complete sense to demand it. However, before we cut it from the proposal entirely, we'd like you to consider one alternative that would preserve one of secondary benefits of Wikimedium we consider important, and also allow us to gather data for informed decisions in this matter.
The alternative is to scale back Wikimedium prints to only one issue instead of five (i.e. the total expenses for the magazine would be 450 EUR instead of 2250). We would synchronize this issue with our conference, which would allow to include special section about its presentation, and also highlight winners of this year's Wiki Loves Monuments competition. Therefore, we'd also use Wikimedium as follow-up material for conference attendees (per our intentions above), and provide some promotion and "glory" to WLM, as well as sponsors of both events. In the magazine, we would include a link to a survey (with a few prizes to make it attactive to fill in), which would give us some data about how many people actually read the contents and who they are.
Would such a solution be acceptable to you? --che 20:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is acceptable. I'm glad to see this creative approach. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 02:31, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reminder: I'm waiting on WMCZ to update the budget (and total) to reflect this, before I approve the grant. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Updated, finally. We were in a bit of a rush because of the conference, preparation of the survey, and so on. The upside of this is that the current budget not only includes only one Wikimedium issue, but is based on the actual printing costs, which turned out to be significantly lower than our original estimate. --che 14:34, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WLM 2014[edit]

I got quite surprised by expectations for WLM 2014 in this submission. The chapter expects 5000 new photographs. In 2012, the first time Czech Republic participated, about 17000 photographs were uploaded. It was huge success. This year organizers were critized on wiki because of nearly no communication, promotion and preparation, yet 6426 photographs were uploaded. Yet the chapter expects another decline in uploads. I don't know how much was spend this year in total, I found only 15000 CZK (~600 EUR) for prizes. Still I would expect plans for growth when asking for grant money, but it looks more like the chapter plans to let it go off with the least effort posible and to call it successful project. --Reaperman (talk) 23:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Current WLM spending is public just like every expense of our grants, in this case it's ticket 297 in grant tracker. Projected budget is 15000 CZK, 1678 CZK was spent so far. As with every program activity, organization of Wiki Loves Monuments is done by volunteers in their spare time. If anyone wants to participate in our efforts with more ambitious goal than currently proposed, we'll be happy to look into possible cooperation. --che 21:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Reaperman, lets help with the organisation of WLM 2014. You can contact the organisers, I think they will appreciate as the community will do your help.--Juandev (talk) 05:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I found only ticket 428 before, you helped so much. To the point, in short, the chapter believes it needs twice the budget to keep another decline of new photographs under 23% after quite unsuccessful year (compared to the first year and development of uploads in other countries). Quite strange.
Time to time I add some information to the monument lists (and hence improve them), that were created in 2012 for WLM, are one of its foundations, and till this day most of them are still far away from describing them as satisfactory. And there are people, usually not connected to organizers, doing much more than I do. It's thanks to them that on wiki isues are continuously solved and organizers can concentrate on competitive part. I think all of us will be very happy to see your active cooperation in improving this part of WLM as well. --Reaperman (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can speak only on my behalf, but since I was main organizer, I should take responsibility for this. It is very easy to explain one of the reasons for this year´s decline - I was seriously ill for more than half of year. We already decided that I will not continue next year, so the measure of success should be more likely explained by others, on the other hand in my opinion there should be higher pressure on quality of images + targeting on not yet photographed objects.--Limojoe (talk) 23:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Last year is something that happened this or that way and it is not a point in my comment at all whose fault it was or wasn't, it's not important here. The important thing is whether organizers actually want to do better next year when they ask for grant money. The submission indicates they are satisfied with even worse. --Reaperman (talk) 00:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There were people wanting to help, but nobody from chapter was communicating about it, there were some enhancement requests for more than half year before start, but no response. If you have sponsors, please try to organize it only wiht sponsor and if next year is more successful, try to ask for donation for 2015. 77.240.97.126 15:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually ticket 428 is filed in a special tracker section which was used by Limojoe to sort out usage of corporate donations. 297 is the one which deals with grant financing of WLM 2013. Regarding comparison of the budgets -- if you look into WLM 2012 ticket, you'll realize that while total amount covered by the P&O grant was 8509 CZK, we also got 65855 CZK in donation from Česká Spořitelna.
The thing with WLM targets is as follows: Limojoe will not be continuing next year. Frettie has volunteered to handle the competition for 2014. We asked him to propose some targets, he said 5000 pics seems sensible to him. So, to answer your concerns: I don't think we should necessarily be pressing for growing numbers in every way, especially if we also want quality images and have a finite number of monuments to cover. Secondly, I find the notion that we must always have upwards-pointing graphs to receive any kind of grant support rather silly. A competition that will gather 5k pics of monuments and promote contribution to Wikipedia is a success in my opinion. I don't think I'm in position to press our volunteers for more. --che 10:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can understand that Frettie doing it for the first time doesn't want to overshoot the expectations. You definitely don't have to aim for upwards-pointing graphs – but on the other hand you are asking for someone else's money and in that case it is your responsibility to prove those money will not be used inefficiently, be volunteer or not. Five thousand surely looks great as absolute number but put in relative numbers it's not so great as I demonstrated before. So you should explain it properly. Now you are talking about quality (are not WLM competition principles already quite quality-centric?) and coverage of yet undocumented objects (which would probably overload organizers more than anything else) but there is not single word about that in the submission. How do you plan to achieve it? What are your measures of success in those fields? --Reaperman (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal "offers" an absolute number of photos and contributors for given budget. That's how things work. I don't know of any detailed plans at the moment, and I don't consider them necessary given the fact that the format of WLM is pretty much set across whole world by now. If you deem the proposal unsatisfactory based on previous years which burned people out to the point they won't be participating in the future, you are certainly free to do so, but I don't see much room for improvement in current state of things, you and don't seem to offer any solutions either. --che 11:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Evaluation by the GAC[edit]

GAC Members who read the grant request without comments[edit]

GAC Members who approve this grant request[edit]

  1.  Klaas|Z4␟V11:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC) I don't care if Danny is right or not To get more people from Czech republic Brno, Prague or wherever is a good idea in my opinion[reply]
  2. Polimerek (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GAC Members who oppose this grant request[edit]

GAC Members who abstain from voting/comment[edit]

  1. --Packa (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2013 (UTC) as a member of WM CZ and "user" of Presentation & Outreach grants[reply]

Updated Grant Budget[edit]

As requested, we have reallocated EUR 175.38 in remaining funds from the previous Presentation & Outreach grant to this current grant. The grant budget total for this grant is now EUR 8,051.38.

Interim Report Past Due[edit]

The interim report for this grant is now past due. Plesae provide us with an update on the status of the report and let us know if you have any questions about submitting it. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We've lived under the impression that the report is due the end of June. Sorry about that. We'll start working on it right away, in the meantime let me post a quick summary of what has happenned according to our expenses:
  • Vojta Dostal did a presentation of our chapter and Student Write Wikipedia on a meeting of "Wikiskripta", which is a project working on collection of digital learning materials for medicine faculties. (Thatapparently cost about 2 EUR.)
  • We've negotiated donation of 384 biology-related photos by Josef Reischig, under CC-BY-SA license. [3]
  • The chapter has participated on Children's day in the beginning of June, presenting our projects to children and their parents. Currently there is some info about that in a Czech blog post.
  • Apart from that there are tickets for a GLAM trip to Jihlava (discussions with local galleries, photographing of statues and architecture), printing business cards for our members, and participation in the upcoming Museum Night in Silesian Museum in Ostrava.
--Petr Novák / che 07:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi che. Apologies if there was confusion around the interim report due date. Thank you for the brief update. It is fine if you send the interim report by 30th June. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we I should have kept closer eye on the deadline. You'll have the report by 30th. --Petr Novák / che 08:05, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The report has been posted to Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Presentation & Outreach II/Report2014-1 --Petr Novák / che 16:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]