Grants talk:Project/Rapid/UG GLAM Macedonia/Lectures and Edith-a-thons

Concerns about the honorarium

Thanks for the submission. I support the idea and endorse the project but strongly object the approval of the item on paying honorarium for the people working in the partnering institutions, which apparently accounts for 48% of the total amount requested. My suggestion is to cut the item from the budget and merge the grant proposal with the one requesting awards for students in the same project that is approximately worth the amount for honorarium. I would like to support my view with the following arguments:

1. Lectures, workshops and edit-a-thons about Wikipedia in Macedonia are not a novelty and similar events with significantly lower budget and fairly convincing results have recently taken place. For example, two volunteers from Shared Knowledge made a partnership with the architectural design centre Arhipunkt on the holding of a two-day event about Wikipedia in April 2016, which was successfully organised for a budget of ~55 US dollars (48.78 euros) and resulted in the participation of 23 new editors who created 41 new and improved 8 existing articles. The employees of the architectural design centre were volunteering during the whole event (the workshop on the first day and the edit-a-thon on the second day).
2. Paying monetary compensation for people employed in the institutions sets a highly unfavourable precedent for all future partnerships in the country. If employees from one institutions have ever received honorarium for doing something related to Wikipedia, then it is highly probable that the other institutions would request the same. Since the members of Shared Knowledge are working on extending partnerships that will result in activities involving people from the partnering institutions engaging voluntarily, this might severely threaten our working model and trigger adjustments that will unnecessarily increase the cost of project and thereby decrease efficiency.
3. Even if we agree that monetary compensation should be paid undermining the first two arguments, paying 120 US dollars (108 US dollars after taxes) per a two-day event is simply too much for a country in which the average wage is 327.78 US dollars per month. To make a comparison, the monthly net-wage of Shared Knowledge's Chief Project Manager, who works on many programmes with different projects, is ~ 450 US dollars (400 euros).

I urge the WMF grantmaking team (AWang (WMF), KHarold (WMF) and Wolliff (WMF)) to take into account my concerns when evaluating this request. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:51, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

As one of most active editors on Macedonian Wikipedia, this project that include paying people from institutions to organize and "help Wikipedia" is completely wrong concept and I`m afraid that will have consequences towards whole community and other organizations that work for promotion of Wikipedia in Macedonia (such Shared Knowledge).

1. Paying honorarium to people from institutions is completely wrong according my opinion, especially this sum of money, as Kiril already said above, where monthly wage in Macedonia is much smaller. This example will be used from another institutions, so I`m very afraid that this example will be used from every person in Macedonia, that Wikipedia pays huge money for spending just couple hours for "providing books and materials" and "other logistics". Also, this is insult to every volunteer, every editor in Macedonian Wikipedia, that will spend from their free time to correct articles from this edit-a-thons, and in the same time some "organizers" will earn half of their salaries.
2. In Macedonia already had similar projects, part of annual grant of Shared Knowledge, with much less expenses. I`m coordinator of Community in Macedonia, and until today we don`t spent for edit-a-thon more than 50 euros, including Arhipunkt (lecture about Wikipedia and whole day edit-a-thon in duration of eight hours).
3. Another grant for awards for students, that includes also and "Food and refreshment for monthly meetings of the jury and organizers" is also unacceptable for me. First, this sum is not explained, and is unnecessary.

I also urge the WMF grantmaking team (AWang (WMF), KHarold (WMF) and Wolliff (WMF)) to take into account my concerns when evaluating this request, and I repeat myself once again, this request will put at risk whole idea about Wikipedia in country, where we all try to encourage more people to use Wikipedia. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion paying any amount of honorarium to people from those institutions could set a rather expensive standard of "buying" the institution's will to host any activities related to Wikipedia. What would the employees in other institutions ask for when being approached about any of the Wikimedia related projects in the future if the rumor gets out that Wikimedia pays employees in institutions for participating in projects?--Sazdo (talk) 20:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I find this arrangement unacceptable. Not only does it contravene the principles upon which we have been building our projects, but is an affront to my own struggle as Programme Manager to build volunteer-based collaborations with institutions and groups, in awaking the spirit of social responsibility and community participation in our country. The objective reasons for disapproving with this method were already comprehensively explained by per comments by Kiril Simeonovski, Sazdo and Ehrlich91 above. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 16:49, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Violetova, it is great to hear that you are part of a new user group, this sounds like an interesting project. I have not spent a lot of time reviewing the proposal yet, and cannot offer feedback yet but I wanted to respond to questions about funding honorariums that have come up on the discussion page. Indeed, we cannot approve honorariums to pay for people's time to organize editathons or other events since those are usually activities done by volunteers. It sounds like you will be working with GLAMs and other organizations who have paid staff - are they willing to allow staff to plan these events during their work time? If not, you may need to recruit volunteers to help plan events, or plan fewer events based on the amount of time that people can volunteer. We also ask that you submit just one Rapid Grant request for this project, as Kiril has pointed out, you can replace the honorariums in the budget with awards for students. Please let me know if you have any questions. Once you have combined the two requests and made any changes relating to the number of events or volunteers involved we will review the request and post feedback. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi KHarold (WMF) and thank you for your suggestions. About the honorariums for GLAM employees, we decided to give them, because the GLAM employees will have to spent more than one week of their time, but not during their work time. The amount was calculated similar of Kiril's example: employee of Shared Knowledge gets 400 euros for 4 weeks (a month). More than one week effort is around 100 euros, which is not a big honorarium for the persons who has to really spend their free time on this project (to find a school willing to participate, probably has to ask several; to negotiate date and time - with school, with institution and with us, Wikipedians; to provide books and materials which will be used in the "hands-on" session; to speak with management in their own institution on how to perform everything, and to arrange about certificates to the students who will participate on workshop; to contact with us as Wikipedian organization, etc. ). In some places, we don't have volunteers to start anything, so we will lose potential collaborations. Note that Wikipedian's time and effort will not be paid, as Wikipedians are used to give lecture, help on workshop or check the articles on-line as volunteers.

I have to say that this will not be a practice for the future, because, if the Wiki Club is active after lectures and workshops, we, Wikipedians, will continue to work with the students. If not, we will not try this approach again. The reason Shared Knowledge members wrote that the other institutions will know about this payments and will not collaborate without be paid, is out of question, because, in the same time, we are starting this October Wiki Club in the Museum of Macedonian struggle in Skopje, asked by them to do so. No one will be paid there. What we need for that our first Wiki Club, are awards for student, we want to give them monthly. To organize one lecture and edit-a-thon once in a year, without have active editors out of participants after, requires no honorarium for inside person, I agree. But we are trying to establish Wiki Club or Wiki section in 8 institutions. If three of them become active, we will be very happy and consider that as a big success. Regards, --Violetova (talk) 01:58, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

@AWang (WMF): @KHarold (WMF): @Wolliff (WMF): I am astonished at the impudence shown by Violetova when she compares my volunteer effort with the same work that is to be done by others for pay. Are my volunteer efforts of no significance? Is it all about the money? Should I be asking for funds to be willing to work on Wikipedia? Is it necessary to pay fees (called 'honorarium' in her text) to people who, according to Violetova, are ready to enrich the Macedonian Wikipedia? If any such requested fees for approved, this will mean that my work was in vain and that it is not appreciated, thus showing that we, the volunteers working with passion for the sake of knowledge, have been the fools all along. Let me state this: if these fees are approved, I intend to suspend my volunteer work in Education and not be taken for a fool. Thank you, and I hope that my concerns will be taken seriously and duly heeded.

P.S. If Violetova needs help to learn how to do volunteering work, I am more than ready to help her. --Инокентиј (talk) 20:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Honorariums were not mean to be paid for Wikipedians and/or teachers at all. To be Wikipedian and teacher in the same time, is a big advantage, as you are, Инокентиј, and I cannot agree more with you that your work and similar activities are not to be paid. Teaching your own students for Wikipedia and organizing Wiki Club are two very different activities. We all appreciate your efforts with you students, but according to your comment, it seems like you didn't read the grant proposal careful. Anyway, the honorariums are moved out. Regards -Violetova (talk) 14:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)