Grants:Project/Rapid/Black Lunch Table
Black Lunch Table is a United States-based Wikipedia outreach program which has continually since 2014 has invited contributors to develop Wikipedia content of interest to the African diaspora. This particular proposal seeks funding to support Wikipedia editathons in North America in 2017.
Project Goal
[edit]Choose one or more of the following goals. You can add or delete goals as needed.
- Add or improve content for notable visual artists of the African Diaspora who are deficient on Wikipedia
- Encourage existing editors to spend time focusing on these articles for artists of color
- Recruit new editors
- Recruit new editors of color
- Increase skills for existing editors
- Provide an encouraging social environment to learn the correct ways to edit Wikipedia
Project Plan
[edit]Activities
[edit]Tell us how you'll carry out your project. Be sure to answer the following questions:
1. Are you doing one editathon or training or a series of editathons or trainings?
We are planning a 9 editathons around North America through April that focus on improving articles about visual artists of the African diaspora.
2. How will you let your community know about the event? Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.
We have posted notifications on the portals for WikiNYC, AfroCROWD mailing list as well as our own mailing list, facebook and meetup pages, asking for support to volunteer to be mentors to new editors during the editathon series and attend to edit. We have been running our editathons for over a year now and this is our first application for support although we have received outside grants in the past. We have always been successful at finding volunteers, bringing new people to Wikipedia editing and improving our articles.
3. Do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?
Yes. We have two experienced editors on Black Lunch Table project and always reach out to local editors to join us.
4. Do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?
Whenever possible (at libraries or universities) we provide computers. When that is not available we are clear that the participants need to bring their own laptops. We provide a selection of hard-copy books that are relevent to our scope. We provide a 40 minute training workshop and one-on-one help to participants to make sure the quality of our contributions are high and will stick. We also provide useful tutorial links and contact information for their continued use after they leave us.
5. How will you engage participants after the event(s)?
We send welcome messages and thank you notes to each participant and encourage them to reach out to use with any question. We encourage them to continue researching and building their editing skills. We ask for email addresses if participants would like to join us in the future. We monitor their contributions just to make extra sure they are quality.
6. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?
We have a little evidence of our prior work here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Black_Lunch_Table/Event_Archive
Impact
[edit]How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets:
- Number of events: 9
- Number of participants: 180
- Number of new editors: 150
- Number of of articles created or improved: 45
- Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events): n/a, since our project travels, each event is unique.
Resources
[edit]What resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).
We have at least 1 advanced Wikimedian who will attend all the events, four of the events will have 2 experienced wikimedians and two events will be in NY and supported by WikiNYC volunteers. We have of two event planners, one part time assistant and 3 online mentors. Host institutions also collaborate on event planning and recruiting local editors and participants and providing a free venue. Library staff, when applicable, will help us with resources.
What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.
- Food and drink = $150 x 9 events = $1350
- Miscellaneous supplies = $100 (name tags, printing cheatsheets, tracking cards etc.)
Total: $1450
Endorsements
[edit]Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!
- Support. Heather has been doing amazing grassroots outreach in an underserved community, Visual artists of the African diaspora. She is working within the community, and has found a consistent methodology for editathons as they support addressing gendergap and diversity on Wikipedia. I have provided administrative skillsharing but this consistent, great effort is all Heather. I am glad to see this grant request. It's important that Wikimedia support this outreach. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 16:02, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
- Strongly Support. Heather has been doing very good work, strategically partnering with existing community initiatives as needed (AfroCrowd, A+F, WMNYC, etc) but absolutely capable of rolling solo. This is a very modest request for the scope of the outcomes. Check out her talk at Wikipedia Day for some context. Theredproject (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
- Support This program has been repeatedly successful since 2014 in recruiting editathon participants in New York City. I would like to see the outreach model expanded. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:45, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
- Afrocrowd supports this grant request. We have held a few editathons in partnership with the Black Lunch Table and we believe the foundation's support will help foster spreading the virality of editathons that bridge the multicultural gap beyond New York and to other cities. We think this grant will be a worthwhile investment and look forward to contonued collaboration with the Black Lunch Table. -- Aliceba (talk) 03:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
- Support. This is an excellent and successful program that has reliably involved many community artists and activists. With enough support it can grow even more. I look forward to hearing about this series. Mozucat (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)