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This Wikimedia Foundation grant has a fiscal sponsor. Wikimedia Österreich administered the grant on behalf of Wikisource Community User Group.

statusFunded
Wikisource Conference 2015
A conference to build up the international Wikisource community
targetWikisource
strategic priorityIncreasing Participation, Increasing Reach
start dateOctober 1
start year2015
end dateDecember 13
end year2015
budget (local currency)24.850 EUR
budget (USD)27.387 USD
grant typegroup
non-profit statusYes (fiscal sponsor Wikimedia Österreich)
creator• Micru
contact(s)• dacuetu(_AT_)gmail.com (WCUG), claudia.garad@wikimedia.at (WMAT), zanni.andrea84(_AT_)gmail.com (WMIT)
organization• Wikisource Community User Group
endorse


Goal

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At the beginning of 2013 Aubrey and Micru started a project to revitalize Wikisource through a global strategy to promote projects from the volunteer community. The idea was to solidify the sparse and little international community around a set of activities that would create a new drive to bring freshness into a project now more than 10 years old.

There were identified a number of problems, both technical and social. Some of the technical problems were approached through a number of Google Summer of Code projects, and for the social part it was attempted to bring people closer together in the conferences that are organized by the Wikimedia Foundation. See: Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_vision

After a year of efforts, the Wikisource Community User Group (WCUG) emerged as a group of 50 volunteers that committed to guarantee the survival of the project and work for it to thrive. However, as the time has passed, it has been clear that these group of volunteers alone cannot guarantee that the project keeps up with the speed of times. There is a huge technological debt that cannot be repaid by the volunteer community alone, who needs assistance from other organizations that can help providing resources to execute projects.

There is the need to empower volunteers both as independent agents of the group that can gather resources from the environment to "make things happen", and as partners of other organizations who might need an insider to also contribute into Wikisource.

So far this task has been mainly carried by Aubrey and Micru and a limited number of volunteers, however after two years of ongoing efforts there is the need both of renewal, and of greater involvement and collaboration with partner organizations like the WMF and Wikimedia Chapters.

The lack of collaboration sometimes springs from the lack of knowledge of how the project works, what are its needs, and also who are the volunteers who are willing to step forward to champion the project in several venues, or to offer assistance leading or co-leading projects to drive change inside the Wikisource community. In our experience, Wikisource users are not actively engaged with chapters or user groups, do not massivily participate in international gatherings (like Wikimania or the Wikimedia Conference): face-to-face meetings like these would be extremely helpful in building relationships between Wikisource editors, thus building an international community. A dedicated conference is in our opinion needed to establish the foundation of such a community.

An international Wikisource conference can serve for the following purposes:

  • empower volunteers who want to run or activate dormant communities (like WS-ES)
  • showcase tools, projects, experiences to learn from one another
  • sit-and-talk with chapters representatives to discuss projects that can be done now
  • create a sense of belonging in the sparse international community
  • transfer the "WSCUg representative role" to more volunteers, brief them
  • invite other possible partners like Europeana, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg
  • invite GLAMs to join Wikisource, as it can be a a very suitable project for libraries and archives

Plan

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The conference will take place at the JUFA Vienna (Austria), from November 20-22 with the Friday being a full conference day. Please find more information about the venue and the event at the conference page.

Activities

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There is a range of possible activities depending on the level of the person attending. The programme of the conference is already being collaboratively discussed by the community in the Wikisource mailing list.

For beginners:

  • Proofread page extension for users
  • Seeking partnerships with archives (group discussion)
  • Differences with Wikipedia, organization of the site

For already knowledgeable volunteers

  • Wikidata for Wikisource, what has been done and what can be done now
  • Mentoring projects as a volunteer, engagement in the user group
  • Running the proofread contest, how to operate the scripts

For advanced users:

  • DIY scanner, how to assemble it (might require to bring or to purchase a scanner from http://www.diybookscanner.org/ or another source)
  • Proofread extension technical (requires a technical presenter)
  • Scripting (requires a technical presenter)

Discussions

  • Renewing the WSCUg promoters
  • Leading projects as volunteers, seeking help and partnerships
  • Talks with external organizations

Leisure activities:

  • Visit an archive or library
  • City tour

Impact

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Target readership

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It is needed the following effort from volunteers for this event to happen:

  • decide which events should happen
  • call for presentations about the suggested topics or Wikisource-themed
  • commitment to try to attend the conference

Fit with strategy

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What crucial thing will the project try to change or benefit in the Wikimedia movement? Please select the Wikimedia strategic priority(ies) that your project most directly aims to impact and explain how your project fits. Most projects fit all strategic priorities. However, we would like project managers to focus their efforts on impacting 1–2 strategic priorities. Examples of strategic priorities can be found here.

In May 2015 we can say that the English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Swedish, and Russian Wikisources were most active communities in the movement. However this doesn’t match the expected size compared to Wikipedia numbers, which points out that there is some lack of knowledge in some language versions about how to use Wikisource. Therefore the goal will be to increase the reach, and participation. It is also expected to influence quality as more techniques and tools will be shared.

Measures of success

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Please provide a list of both quantitative and qualitative criteria that will be used to determine how successful the project is. You will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed. See the PEG program resources for suggested measures of success.

It should be noted that all efforts so far to improve Wikisource have been driven from the volunteer community, therefore it might be important for the movement at large since there is the intention to have a greater involvement of the volunteer community in other issues like technical development.

This conference and the activities that result from it, can be a learning ground to larger organizational changes in the wikimedia movement at large if properly understood and escalated what went well.

Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some global metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

Participation

  • There are more than 7 Wikisource language communities represented
  • The 5 biggest Wikisource language communities are represented
  • >= 60% has experience with Wikisource
  • Every part of the program attracted >= 50% of the target audience size
  • At least 5 chapters providing travel grants

Communication

  • >= 15 news and/or blogposts of Wikimedia chapters or user groups
  • >= 5 news and/or blogposts of participating GLAMs

Visibility

  • >= 1500 unique visitors of the conference blog post
  • >= 500 views of at least 50 photos of the conference
  • >= 50 views of published presentations

Resources and risks

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Resources

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Since the Wikisource Community User Group doesn't have the capacity to organize this event alone, help has been asked from Wikimedia Österreich and to Wikimedia Italia in order to gather the managerial and administrative resources needed. This means that the fiscal sponsorship grant will go to Wikimedia Austria who will manage financial and event management parts of the conference. Both organizations have sound experience in planning and hosting international events: Wikimedia Austria regularly hosts events for the German-speaking communities in the DACH region (DACH = Germany, Austria, Switzerland), the biggest one was WikiCON 2012 in Dornbirn, Austria with approx. 250 participants. Wikimedia Italy hosted the Wikimedia Conference 2013 in Milan and is currently supporting the Wikimania 2016 team in Esino Lario.

The leading group consists of:

Risks

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  • Too few participants: ask for help to chapters to provide travel grants, ask for help to organizers of a previous Wikisource conference, call for participation.
  • Lack of focus: use data from the Wikisource survey to identify areas, call for submissions.
  • Lack of impact: invite key participants that show enthusiasm in the project, community building has an impact that it is difficult to measure.

Budget

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Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Project budget table
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Notes
1 Venue Friday, Saturday, Sunday Rooms/days 2x3 250 1.500 EUR 60m2/80m2, including projector, flipchart etc.
2 Dinner Dinner on Thursday, Friday, Saturday Participants/days 50x3 12,80 1.920 EUR Buffet: soup, main course, vegetarian option, salads, dessert
3 Lunch Lunch on Friday, Saturday, Sunday Participants/days 50x3 12,80 1.920 EUR lunch buffet: soup, main course, vegetarian option, salads, dessert
4 Coffeebreak Coffee/ tea snacks on Friday, Saturday, Sunday Participants/days 50x3 9,50 1.425 EUR Snack sweet or salty, tea, coffee, water
5 Travel Flights/trains scholarship holders Europe 1 participant 5 250 1.250 EUR Travel to Vienna by train or airplane
6 Travel Flights scholarship holders oversea 1 participant 10 1.000 10.000 EUR Travel to Vienna by airplane
7 Travel Flights/trains self-paying 1 participant 35 250 8.750 EUR Travel to Vienna by train or airplane
8 Travel Public transport in Vienna scholarship holder 1 participant 15 16,5 247,5 EUR 72 hrs - Ticket for public transport in Vienna
9 Travel Public transport in Vienna self-paying 1 participant 35 16,5 577,5 EUR 72 hrs - Ticket for public transport in Vienna
10 Travel Airport transport by train scholarship holder 1 ticket each way per person 15x2 2,4 72 EUR
11 Travel Airport transport by train self-paying 1 ticket each way per person 35x2 2,4 168 EUR
12 Accommodation Single rooms room/nights 25x3 60 4.500 EUR
13 Accommodation Double rooms room/nights 5x3 80 1.200 EUR
14 Accommodation for scholarshipholders Triple rooms room/nights 5x3 96 1.440 EUR
15 Leisure Visit a Christmas market 1 participant 50 3 150 EUR one mulled wine for each participant
16 Leisure Austrian State Archives 1 participant 50 2,5 125 EUR guided tour to the Austrian State Archives
17 Leisure Party 1.000 EUR Venue and 1 or 2 drinks p.p.
18 Print material, welcome package 1.000 EUR design, banners, programs, bags, pens etc.
19 Additional hours WMAT administrative assistant 10 additional hours of administrative tasks and event management for three months Hours/months 10x3 60 1.800 EUR Administration, visas, scholarships
20 Unforeseen 1.000 EUR
SUBTOTAL 40.045 EUR
Total cost of project
40.045 EUR
Total amount requested from the Project and Event Grants program
24.850 EUR (This comprises the conference costs without travel costs of the so-called self-paying participants. These are participants who will have their travel costs paid by their local chapters or interested other (GLAM) institutions which we assume will mainly be from Europe. The Wikisource community survey showed that there are also interested participants from the U.S., Asia and Africa and emerging communities where there are no chapters/organizations with budgets that can support these volunteers. For these participants we calculated 15 scholarships (5 from Europe and neighbouring countries and 10 from overseas) that will be covered by the PEG grant.)
Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this project, and amounts funded
We might be eligible for a small subsidy by the City of Vienna (approx. 500 EUR). We will also try to negotiate reduced prices for some of the leisure activities.

Non-financial requirements

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See a description of non-financial assistance available. Please inform the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) of any requests for non-financial assistance now.

Requests for non-financial assistance, if any
Help with the PEG procedure and feedback.

Discussion

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Community notification

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You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talk page, mailing list. Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

We are already discussing this application in the Wikisource mailing list. As the proposal is officially published, we will ask interested users to announce the conference in their Wikisource Village Pumps.
We already discussed this project in person at Wikimania with several chapters, but we will officially announce it in the chapters mailing list as well.
Moreover, we will mess message all the users of the Wikisource Community User Group.
Social media pages (as the Wikisource official page) will be used. We will ask the WMF and Chapters to spread the message via their communication channels (Twitter, Facebook, mailing lists).

Endorsements

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Do you think this project should be selected for a Project and Event Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

  1. It is very important to support other wikimedia project other than Wikipedia --Touzrimounir (talk) 11:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
  2. It's wonferul that such a project, with lots of GLAM ramifications, could see the day! This would bring more concertation on common goals as well... --Ernest-Mtl (talk) 20:02, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  3. It is necessary for communities or affiliates to be activate, and an opportunity for individuals to champion the activities of the Wikisource Community in their locations. Also a perfect opportunity to train enthused but novice users on how Wikisource works and what they can make off it for their communities. Flixtey (talk) 23:52, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
  4. --Manojk (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
  5. I have wanted to see a Wikisource conference for some time and I am happy to see it is happening. harej (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
  6. Great opportunity to give Wikimedians a chance to know more about Wikisource and also contribute Rberchie (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
  7. This will have a great impact on the future of Wikisource. If i get the opportunity, i would like to attend it. Satdeep Gill (talk) 12:32, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
  8. There is a real need for a internation wikisource events. Cdlt, VIGNERON * discut. 09:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  9. Wikisource is of course a tiny project compared to Wikipedia, but a very active and structured project (Wikisource User Group, volunteer-based development of the software). We already use intensively all the tools offered by Internet to work together (Wikisource mailing list, multilingual Wikisource website...). But now, I believe it would be useful to meet together. Unfortunately Wikisource is not well represent at Wikimania, Wikicon and hackathons. One reason is it specificity : Wikisource use intensively a specific Mediawiki extension and it is developed entirely by volunteers. Even statistics and metrics are specific! We should meet together to talk about the development of the software, what should be Wikisource in 2020, what are the consequences of the develompent of the mobile on our project. Some editors and some chapters have build partnership with GLAMs. What are the results, the pitfalls. We should also discuss about the impact of Wikidata on Wikisource, the question of the decline of the deutsch project... I will stop here my enumeration but I've got a lot of ideas for this conference. Pyb (talk) 11:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  10. Of course! Yann (talk) 12:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  11. Yes, Wikisource is a Wikimedia project with a laudable stability in participants and depth in coverage. For example here is the trend chart for active editors on English Wikisource: For similar charts on other languages see this overview. Erik Zachte (talk) 12:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
    Wikistats report on trend in active editors on English Wikisource
  12. It would be a very good occasion to empower the Wikisource community and, hopefully, to allow this small sister project to grow. Tpt (talk) 14:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  13. I would most definitely support the event occurring. The Wikisource is a true crosswiki community and there are some important matters for the community address, and the WM2014 meeting and the flourishing of Wikidata have truly identified issues that need concentrated efforts of our community. So much opportunity to develop great ideas. Also the scope to interest developers to work on matters specific to the broader WS community would be enhanced by such a conference. [Shame it is so so so far from where I live.]  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  14. Per Pyb. Edhral 19:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  15. yes, need to grow membership, given potential influx of pubmed documents; need to work on UX. Slowking4 (talk) 01:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
    Very good points, and with projects of @Maximilianklein and Daniel Mietchen: to get other open access published docs into play, it would be valuable to see whether they have components to contribute.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
    I'd certainly welcome some more hands-on time with experienced Wikisourcians around these issues. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 03:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
  16. Definitely support. --Accurimbono (talk) 06:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  17. Great! After a long wait, Google has released almost-accurate OCR software for more than 20 Indic languages and created a new hope for Indic Wikisource Projects. It is a good time to develop and outline strategies and implement them for the improvement of these Indic Wikisource projects. The conference can be a great place to start with. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  18. Per Touzrimounir. Yiyi (talk) 09:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  19. I think this is a great idea! --Cortesi (talk) 11:08, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  20. totally support. I do hope that new ideas will emerge, especially in the areas of cross-language activities (I start to fell that the language-based edition is reductive), new tools to speed up the work, rapid import from other surces, relationship with OTRS team... Alexmar983 (talk) 12:03, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  21. Very important for GLAM too and boosting libraries committment to wiki projects. --Virginia Gentilini (talk) 14:54, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  22. would be really great! we do need more events of this kind to get awareness out there and share experiences and good practices. --Pietromarialiuzzo (talk) 15:01, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  23. Per Touzrimounir. --CristianCantoro (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  24. Yes it is important to grow Wikisource community and to increase GLAM projects. --EusebiaP (talk)
  25. Wikisource has a huge growth potential! Ricordisamoa 13:49, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  26. It would be great to organise this event, in order to increase our Wikiworld. --Pign8 (talk)
  27. --Kopiersperre (talk) 13:01, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
  28. Per all above: great project ! Pymouss Tchatcher - 20:39, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
  29. --Psychoslave (talk) 21:11, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
  30. I think a general meeting would be very welcome, no doubt about it. In my experience, while great ideas and wonderful skills can come from volunteers and a bottom-up strategy, it is hard that a big impact and a durable project can be assured without the share of knowledge and the negotiating power of a self-conscious, translational community. I am glad to see the proposal also mentions the possibility to invite members of other networks and institutions (such as Europeana). Seeing how this has worked out with GLAM WIKI, I think such kind of outreach is fundamental to get not only visibility, but also support and collaboration for future actions. So I endorse this proposal and I especially highlight the importance of a meeting to let the world know more about Wikisource Ste.caneva (talk)12:48, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
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