Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/GLAM Wiki:The Culture, Heritage and Wikimedia Conference 2023

WMF review and feedback[edit]

Thank you very much for this proposal. I was very happy to learn about Wikimedistas de Uruguay's intention of hosting this conference and am also happy for the GLAM Wiki conference to be hosted in Latin America for the first time! There is no doubt that many affiliates and groups in the region has contributed so much to the development of GLAM activities, community, partners and content over the years. So it is definitely a worthy proposal.

I also very much appreciate the focus on the Global South perspective and experience. This will provide an important context to the understanding of how different GLAM initiatives act in different spaces and cultures.

I have reviewed your proposal and had a few clarifying questions and comments:

Accommodating non-wiki partners is indeed crucial for this type on event, but you will need to well facilitate it and insure a welcoming and engaging environment for the newcomers. For example, the GLAM Wiki tools you are planning to prioritize would be great for non-wiki partners, but you will probably need to provide a lot of wiki context and possible an intro to wiki training.
Can you please clarify the participants breakdown? You indicated 160 as the total number of participants, but I also see a total of 75 scholarships (full, partial and remote) with only 60 of them being in person. Who are the remaining 100?
The remote component of the event - can you please elaborate on which part will be remote and how will you facilitate it? Generally, I strongly do NOT recommend a hybrid version. It is extremely difficult to facilitate an online and in person spaces at the same time. In most cases it will be on the account of the online participants who cannot keep the level of engagement as the in person participants; it is very complicated to allow voices to be heard 'as loudly' as the offline, and you will have to invest many resources (human and financial) to monitor discussions in a fruitful way and to professionally facilitate. Online events have many benefits and advantages, but require a high investment to do it right. A poor facilitated hybrid event can have a major impact of the overall success of the conference. This is a result of many learning over the past 3 years. If by 'remote participation' you mean to livestream session - that is ok and can be done on a lower level of investment. And in this case, you will also won't require online scholarships as everyone can watch the sessions in their own time.
As to the remote scholarships of 200 USD each - we do not recommend this form of scholarships. Meaning cash funding for general expenses. If you think data package is needed - you can pre purchase those, but we do not encourage general remote scholarships, especially without a way to insure engagement of online participants. And regardless, 200 USD seems a bit too high.
"if time permits, we will have a scholarship committee" - please note that if scholarships are granted, you MUST have a scholarship committee, criteria and process. I will be happy to provide you with best practices if needed.
WMF support - we will be happy to support you on all the needs you have mentioned but please note that T&S support will not be accommodated by the foundation. You will need to assign T&S representatives (those can be community members; paid UG staff: organizing team) and we will share with them the T&S resources and training needed.
I really liked your intention to document challenges and potential solutions.
Metrics goal of 30 non-wiki speakers - it seems a bit high. Are you sure it's a realistic number of non wiki speakers? I personally think that 70 non-wiki participants is also quite high, but you know your connections better so I leave it to you.

Budget

I know that the travel item is always the highest, but you budgeted 78,000 USD for 60 people, but half of them will be from the region. are you sure that is a right estimate? I assume regional flights will not cost as much as international flights. So I find the 1,300 USD default cost per scholarship recipients to be a bit high.
the Technical support also seems a bit high from my experience. Are you working with a quotation from a specific vendor?
Have you calculated food and beverages during the event for all 160 people?
We highly encourage to limit SWAG to more environmentally friendly goods (such as stickers and low cost items). I recommend re-thinking the SWAG costs, especially given the total requested amount.

I really enjoyed reading your proposal and appreciate the time and thought you have put in it. But more than than, I admire your approach to a wider GLAM Wiki perspective that take into consideration not only our non wiki partners and the impact of us being more intentional and proactive allies, but also your work in bringing the GLAM Global South perspective to the front stage.

I will say though, that the requested amount is high. Especially given the number of participants. It means that there is a possibility that we will not be able to support the full amount. I recommend revisiting the budget, try to work with updated quotation and see if there are any other self funded or in-kind resources that you might have available. I will also reach out to our partnership team to see how can they support this on their end.

Looking forward to hearing from you. CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 02:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to review & feedback[edit]

Hello Chen, thanks for your comments.

Before I go deeper into every point of your message, let me see if I can explain the bigger picture as to why this conference is so urgent and relevant to the movement. As you might know, the last GLAM Wiki Conference was in 2018 – almost five years ago. This has never been planned as every other year conference, but rather an every 3 years conference.

GLAM collaborations are one of the major sources of multimedia content donations, and at least 70% of affiliates identify GLAM as part of their strategies (alongside with Education, per Jessica’s Stephenson report). Right now, despite GLAM collaborations being such a huge and important part of the work of affiliates, we’re in the current situation:

Some of the most critical tools for file uploads are broken or hard to use, and despite some efforts made by Sandra Fauconnier with Open Refine (based on a Wikimedia Foundation grant), this is an area where we still don’t have good solutions to provide GLAM institutions for batch-upload of multimedia files. We need a dedicated space to discuss this topic in person and create better and more interconnected strategies. This is the #1 reason why we made so much emphasis on documentation.
Tools for metrics (that GLAM institutions need to report to their bosses and be allowed to carry on with the collaboration with Wikimedia) are also starting to fail.
Differences across GLAM institutions in different geographies means that we have a very disparate set of technical and community challenges; for example, the lack of an usable Commons app that allows for uploading from a cell phone, etc., among many other challenges, means that only institutions that have resources, technical prowess, and patience, can meaningfully engage with our community (and they still have to be very committed to the process). We need to have a global conference than can help us understand and work towards reducing some of these differences.
On that note, the differences in the technical skills, language barriers, among many other factors, are still one of the most burdensome challenges that communities in the Global South have to face when trying to develop these types of partnerships. That’s the reason why most of these communities have focused on “Wiki Loves…” type campaigns, and that’s also the reason why we’ve decided to add to this proposal the name of “The Culture, Heritage and Wikimedia Conference 2023”. Why? Because this will not only be about GLAM partnerships, but about all the other ways in which we work with culture & heritage across the movement, including campaigns.

Overall, the main problem we have is still that despite all the efforts that the Culture & Heritage Team at the Wikimedia Foundation and the GLAM Wiki community are doing, there’s still no-one on the Product & Development team taking on the task of designing a “bigger picture frame” that allows us to build at least a few agreements on what this community needs to have meaningful partnerships with one of the largest multimedia & knowledge contributors to the movement. Even if that alone wasn’t enough – these partnerships have provided resources, spaces & venues for events, edit-a-thons, etc., capacity building, and overall knowledge sharing. It’s critical that we can reconnect after 5 years of not being able to gather together, particularly in a moment where most of our tools are failing.

Here are some of the pages that are documenting some of the faces that this space is facing right now:

To the point then of “we might not be able to fund the full amount”, then unfortunately that means that we will lose the global perspective. We can accommodate to a smaller event – make it more regional and only include “the Americas” (Latin America & the Caribbean + North America), but it’s very hard to go an extra mile for additional funding, given the short time frame for organizing the conference overall (and considering some of the limitations of finding funding in this part of the world). We were already expecting to have to do some fundraising to cover for expenses that aren’t included in this budget, such as social gatherings & a small party (none of which is guaranteed yet).

I also want to point out that part of the requirement to submit this proposal is to have a venue secured – we went through a significant effort to secure the School of Communication at the UdelaR, in part because we thought there was agreement on the need to make this conference happen, and it would be a significant harm on our relationship with our partner if we had to significantly downsize the conference.

Moreover, what worries me the most is that the urgent challenges that this community is facing won’t get properly addressed if we’re unable to bring in the attention (and help) of upper management. We were expecting to not only invite Maryana to this conference, but after talking with her at Iberoconf, she suggested we might also want to invite Selena Deckelmann as a way to bring her on board with the needs of this community. While this is not dependant on funding, we do believe that we need to have several people in the room to have this conversation.

Clarifying questions and comments

Accommodating non-wiki partners is indeed crucial for this type on event, but you will need to well facilitate it and insure a welcoming and engaging environment for the newcomers. For example, the GLAM Wiki tools you are planning to prioritize would be great for non-wiki partners, but you will probably need to provide a lot of wiki context and possible an intro to wiki training.

Yes, we are planning to run the conference in such a way that allows for beginners to have some context. Since we do have very urgent matters to discuss, in some cases we will work with the program committee to allow for just blocks of conversation with moderation instead of the traditional presentation format. We want to make sure that we’re making a good use of our time, and that means that we will need to cater to different audience needs. We’re aware of this.

Can you please clarify the participants breakdown? You indicated 160 as the total number of participants, but I also see a total of 75 scholarships (full, partial and remote) with only 60 of them being in person. Who are the remaining 100?

Since we expect this to be an international conference, there are people that can either self-fund, fund their participation through a Wikimedia affiliate, or through their employer (if they happen to work at a GLAM institution). Aside from those cases, we also expect to have people from Uruguay actually attending the conference; we’re working with partners from the country to give most of their GLAM workers the day off to attend the conference. We are putting 160 people as a tentative number, but we think that we can accommodate 180 if we see there’s a lot of interest. Not all participants need a scholarship to attend the conference.

The remote component of the event - can you please elaborate on which part will be remote and how will you facilitate it? Generally, I strongly do NOT recommend a hybrid version. It is extremely difficult to facilitate an online and in person spaces at the same time. In most cases it will be on the account of the online participants who cannot keep the level of engagement as the in person participants; it is very complicated to allow voices to be heard 'as loudly' as the offline, and you will have to invest many resources (human and financial) to monitor discussions in a fruitful way and to professionally facilitate. Online events have many benefits and advantages, but require a high investment to do it right. A poor facilitated hybrid event can have a major impact of the overall success of the conference. This is a result of many learning over the past 3 years. If by 'remote participation' you mean to livestream session - that is ok and can be done on a lower level of investment. And in this case, you will also won't require online scholarships as everyone can watch the sessions in their own time.
As to the remote scholarships of 200 USD each - we do not recommend this form of scholarships. Meaning cash funding for general expenses. If you think data package is needed - you can pre purchase those, but we do not encourage general remote scholarships, especially without a way to insure engagement of online participants. And regardless, 200 USD seems a bit too high.

I will just answer these two together – we never planned for a hybrid event; we wanted to just do a livestream. We can cut off the remote scholarships from the budget.

However, I just want to clarify that the 200 USD is the amount that was provided for Wikimania, so we don’t think that’s too high if you consider that the idea was to allow for people to put it into different needs (it could be data packages, but it could also be childcare services).

We have adjusted this accordingly in the conference proposal.

"if time permits, we will have a scholarship committee" - please note that if scholarships are granted, you MUST have a scholarship committee, criteria and process. I will be happy to provide you with best practices if needed.

Understood. Then can I suggest that for the next cycle of grant requests for Conference Grants there’s a review on this question? If there’s already an established process that includes a committee, then it’s not necessary to ask questions about how we’re going to give scholarships. This sounds like a standard procedure.

We have adjusted this accordingly in the conference proposal.

WMF support - we will be happy to support you on all the needs you have mentioned but please note that T&S support will not be accommodated by the foundation. You will need to assign T&S representatives (those can be community members; paid UG staff: organizing team) and we will share with them the T&S resources and training needed.

Understood. Then, same as above: please note in the questions that “T&S support can not be accommodated by the Foundation, we can only provide you resources and training”.

We have adjusted this accordingly in the conference proposal. We have also added a request for some people from the Product & Development team to come to the Conference.

I really liked your intention to document challenges and potential solutions.

Thank you!

Metrics goal of 30 non-wiki speakers - it seems a bit high. Are you sure it's a realistic number of non wiki speakers? I personally think that 70 non-wiki participants is also quite high, but you know your connections better so I leave it to you.

Maybe I should clarify that what we mean by “30 non-wiki speakers” is more people that are in the “in-between”. For example, GLAM professionals that are keen to our community will approach us, so they are this type of hybrid people that navigates both communities.

However, we have decided to change this metric for the purposes of reporting, even when we think we will be able to reach it.

Budget

I know that the travel item is always the highest, but you budgeted 78,000 USD for 60 people, but half of them will be from the region. are you sure that is a right estimate? I assume regional flights will not cost as much as international flights. So I find the 1,300 USD default cost per scholarship recipients to be a bit high.

Yes, this is the right estimate.

First, I want to point out that the cost for travel is actually lower per unit item than what Wikimedia Argentina is estimating for their Conference; the main difference is in the amount of scholarships to be granted, and how they’ve decided to communicate their budget (with no breakdown as to regional/international), but I’m assuming that “international” also includes regional.
Our estimate is an average – there are flight tickets that are going to be well over 1,300USD (i.e., those that will be given to people in Asia). That’s the reason why we left a comment on the budget with estimates from a few capital cities to Montevideo (i.e., a flight from Mexico to Montevideo is around 1,000-1,200 USD). Also, we did a search on a commercial platform, not through a travel agency, where sometimes costs vary.
Traveling inside the region is not as simple as it seems. There are some communities that are emerging in the Latin American region that don’t live in capital cities. For example, both Wikimedia Argentina & Wikimedia Colombia are working with indigenous communities that have a lot to bring to this event (per my comment on how this is also about campaigns and other ways of representing cultural knowledge), that don’t live in a major city, and that they would require traveling inside country to the capital or the nearest airport, to then take a flight to Montevideo.
Flight tickets have increased after the pandemic.

the Technical support also seems a bit high from my experience. Are you working with a quotation from a specific vendor?

We have made some adjustments to that item in the budget. We are working with some quotations for some of the items, but others have required more time. We were afraid of falling short but we went a bit overboard.

Have you calculated food and beverages during the event for all 160 people?

Yes. Also, I want to note that Uruguay has a strong peso (unlike other countries in Latin America), which means it is an expensive country in comparison to other countries in Latin America (link 1, link 2). However, it is relevant to do it here because there’s a lot of accumulated capital around the overall GLAM Wiki & broader Open GLAM collaboration that we can bring to the event.

We highly encourage to limit SWAG to more environmentally friendly goods (such as stickers and low cost items). I recommend re-thinking the SWAG costs, especially given the total requested amount.

We understand, but as I said, Uruguay is an expensive country (i.e. the cost of living in Montevideo is 107% higher than in Bogotá, to name a place that recently held a conference). We can provide environmentally friendly items (that was our intention). We can only adjust so much of the budget, so we are providing a new number. However, I do want to point out that more reduction in this budget will make our event look very poor in comparison to what i.e. Iberoconf had to offer, and this is in part due to country differences in relationship to the USD. Uruguay is not a cheap place, even if it’s located in Latin America, and I’d appreciate more understanding of our context.

However, based on your comments and because we do want to make this event happen, we’ve reviewed and accommodated the following items on the budget:

Reduced the amount of scholarships (from 60 to 50), and reduced all the corresponding items to 150 participants.
Reduced the amount for technical support at the conference.
Removed remote scholarships.
Reduced the amount for swag (from 40 to 30 USD).
Our fiscal sponsor has agreed to make a cut on the organization’s fiscal sponsorship fees to make sure that the event takes place.
Accidentally, we realized that we hadn’t calculated for people to arrive at the event the day before, only estimating for 3 nights of accommodation. We have fixed this mistake, adding an extra night.

This means that even when adding this cost, we’ve made a total cut of 39,760USD to the grant proposal. We can’t make any more cuts, and while we can try to fundraise some money, this is the minimum amount to make this happen. I’d appreciate that you can take into account the relevance of this conference, its global impact for affiliates and across Wikimedia projects, and the fact that this is the only conference in the movement we have to specifically discuss GLAM Wiki collaborations & culture & heritage campaigns and activities, and that it only happens every three years, with over a 5 year now pause due to the pandemic. Scann (WDU) (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from Obuezie (talk)[edit]

This is a good proposal that will draw great minds and ideas together towards a greater productive in various wiki communities. I endorse this proposal.

--Obuezie (talk) 06:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Endorsment from Ngostary2k (talk)[edit]

I warmly applaud this proposal and the excitement that goes with it. I am particularly happy with this proposal as it borders on our current program of outreach, awareness and community engagement in Nigeria. This is huge for us because the learning from this will open more knowledge and strategies that will translate into Wikimedia projects. --Ngostary2k (talk) 09:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]