Grants talk:Project/Rapid/ Wikimedia Community User Group Malta/Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in Malta

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Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)[edit]

Hi Nevborg and thanks for your proposal for this WLM event in Malta to document government-recognized cultural sites. Here are my comments and questions on your proposed event:

  • You've set a strong rationale for documenting these cultural heritage sites, especially regarding Valletta's UNESCO World Heritage Site status, and upcoming cultural events in 2018. Thanks for describing this basis for the event.
  • Could you provide a link to your previous WLM event you mentioned in your project plan? What are you doing differently this time based on the outcomes of the last WLM event?
  • The goals you've set for content integration on Wikipedia projects seem a little low to me; with an estimated 1000 photos, would it possible to set a goal closer to 100 photos? (i.e. roughly 10% of photos integrated into projects)
  • What is your plan for the series of workshops and editathons? Where will these take place, and who will be leading them? What will you be teaching at the workshops?
  • Given that one of your goals is to recruit new contributors, will you plan to look at how many new editors and photographers will participate in these events?

Let me know if I can clarify any of my questions, and I'll be happy to do so. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Replies[edit]

Hi I JethroBT (WMF), thank you for your feedback and comments. Allow me to reply to your questions in the points below:

  • Links to last year's WLM event are here: WLM 2016 in Malta landing page,List of eligible monuments, and WLM 2016 in Malta winners. Last year we mostly used the landing page and our user group's social media channels (primarily Facebook) to promote the event and communicate with participants, but we would like to expand on this for this year's contest through streamlined sponsored posts that will direct online traffic to a single channel (e.g. a WLM Facebook event page, for instance). As last year was the first time we organised the contest, there were many lessons that we learnt along the way, particularly in terms of communicating with participants and potential audiences before, during and after the contest. To avoid certain issues that we faced last year, we will ask new users to register an email address upon creating a Wiki account, as we had some difficulties contacting new users who submitted photos but did not register an email account.
We also learnt many other lessons in terms of the quality of content that was submitted. Although a number of high-quality images were submitted during last year's contest, we are hoping to further increase the quality in this year's edition. We believe that the increased promotion and greater prizes will further entice professional and semi-professional photographers to submit entries.
  • The main challenge related to content integration for photos is related to the local context and the relatively poor coverage of local heritage sites on Wikipedia. Although many of the entries we received during last year's contest were of great documentary value, there were relatively few existing Wiki articles related to the sites documented. So integrating the photos into articles must also be accompanied by a parallel process of article creation for many of these sites. This presents a challenge to the small, but growing, user base in Malta, and it is the main reason why WLM in Malta will be accompanied by a series of workshops and editathons (see below) that will seek to make use of the photos submitted to spur on further engagement. We hope to reach the suggested target of 100 photos through these workshops, however we set an initial conservative estimate because of the challenges highlighted above.
  • The workshops and editathons will be held at the premises of Spazju Kreattiv. Spazju Kreattiv is one of the largest public cultural entities in Malta, and is Malta's National Centre for Creativity, with premises in a prime location in Valletta. We (Wikimedia Community User Group Malta) have an ongoing collaboration agreement with Spazju Kreattiv, who are main partners in WLM Malta. They will be led by myself and other members of Wikimedia Malta. The goal of the workshops and editathons are twofold: (i) to teach basic editing skills to new users; and (ii) to integrate photos submitted to WLM Malta into relevant articles or to create articles related to some of the images submitted.
  • Yes this will be monitored continuously throughout the contest and in the aftermath. We will also be monitoring the number of people with a very low edit count (e.g. those who created an account to submit a photo in WLM 2016 but have not engaged further throughout the year), as we believe that this is a very important potential user base that is as yet untapped.

I hope these replies address your questions. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you would like any further clarification or information. I remain at your disposal. Thanks --Nevborg (talk) 10:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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