Grants:Project/Rapid/Pixelache Wikimedians-in-residence/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Pixelache Wikimedians-in-residence.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Part 1: Project and impact

1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)

Focus on main activities and results. Try to report some of the key processes and factors that contributed to achieving your outcomes. Imagine you are teaching a newcomer about all that you had to do to develop your project. Share the key dos and don’ts you learned.

The main activity of the project proved to be the production of 3 podcast conversations, published on 21st April 2023, that combine exploratory podcast production, conversational research and reflection ‘residencies’ upon the intersection of Wikimedia practices and contemporary cultural organisations.

A preliminary meeting took place online titled ‘OpenMICwithPixelACHE - research consultation on open archiving practices’ 5th February 2022, for the occasion of the Vorspiel.Berlin programme, which introduced the 5 Wikimedians together with 2 Pixelache members involved in the project, and an open audience event online. However, this event proved to be a overly early start for the project, as the production process of the podcasts actually only proceeded in October 2022, and recordings were completed in February 2023. The podcast series were published on 27th February on Commons.Wikimedia platfofm, but waited until Finnish & Sámi translations were made, with press release published almost 2 months later after post-production on 21st April 2023.

Futhermore, Lead-contributing Wikimedian Z. Blace contributed remotely to Pixelache Helsinki’s ‘Contacts: 20 years of Pixelache’ Symposium at Kiasma Theatre auditorium, Helsinki, on 4th December 2022, connecting with the contemporary and historical reflections of the association.

The main ambition and challenge of the project was to take the example of Pixelache Helsinki Festival as a starting point to ask for how small cultural organisations, and especially those with a media arts background, that once promoted open cultural values but had slipped out of contributing to open-source content and knowledge.. How to get involved again? It was both a critical reflection, and a process to learn about how to engage and do more for the contemporary cause of open knowledge production and curation.

The historical background was described as follows: “Pixelache Festival co-directors Juha Huuskonen & Petri Lievonen invited, in early 2005, a representative of the young Wikimedia Foundation—Florence Devouard, from Paris, France—who came to present to Finnish electronic arts and sub- cultural practitioners, producers, and IT enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and media design students, the new WikiWiki way of open knowledge production. A very early Internet pioneer since the early 1990s, and largely responsible for the early development of Francophonic Wikipedia, it was actually only Devouard’s second public presentation of Wikimedia anywhere; and most probably the first ever public talk on Wikipedia in Finland. Those were participatory platform optimistic days! For the occasion, Pixelache existed also on this brand new platform with a Wikipedia page made in 2005. However, it is still there, largely unedited since. There are no other language translations. It may be seen as a time-capsule of wiki enthusiasm from the mid-2000s. What happened? Why was a pioneering platform and Finland’s longest running media arts & design festival no longer developing together for over 15 years? Where did it all go wrong? Can we all be Wikimedia or Wikidata friends again after all these years?”

Such a back story set up an interesting premise for 1 extended podcast conversation with the named Wikimedian above, Florence Devouard, as well as complement for case examples from other genres of cultural activity, tips and solutions to be explored in the 2 other podcasts, dialogues between Rebecca O’Neill & Toni Sant, as well as Z. Blace & Nikki Zeuner. The audience for these podcasts is a small-scale cultural organisation, association or festival who is new to the Wikimedia ‘Universe’.. Advice for those who follow and develop their own wikimedians-in-residence process is to think about who might be appropriate conversants to learn more, and how to be involved with them. These podcast hopefully help point in directs, as well as give example.

Pixelache Helsinki as a cultural association had changed so much since the 1st generation of active members who invited the pioneering Wikimedian Devouard to present in their festival back in 2005. This author and reporter (Paterson) was part of that early group, but by the time 2022 had came along almost 20 years later, with the company of who may be considered the 4th generation of active ‘members’, there were very few persons from the festival association left who were involved or connected with open source culture or knowledge production.

The aim of our Rapid Grant project was to offer a resource to those newer, younger members of Pixelache association, as well as for those in the local Helsinki, Finnish, and regional media arts scene who may, for one reason or another, had not got to know about open culture or knowledge, nor Wikimedia practices as a contributor, but may be familar already as user and consumer of such materials online.

Knowledge gained in the process of our preliminary Wikimedians-in-residence conversations, that small, emerging-practice cultural organisations may not have an understanding of practically how to contribute to Wikimedia, where to get support or assistance in representing and sharing their activities on those platforms.

Hence, we hoped to produced accessible knowledge materials, such as audio-based podcasts, towards raising awareness of approaches, strategies and available systems. The ‘Wikimedian-in-residence’ model was identified by Z. Blace as a good means towards this ambition, and that podcasts as a format in particular was under-developed in the Wikimedia knowledge sharing platforms, even though it was a popular format elsewhere online.

Eventually we acheived the following 3 podcasts addressing the following topics in paired dialogues or interviews:

1. Andrew Gryf Paterson, long term member of Pixelache Festival converses in 4-parts with Florence Devouard, Wikimedian in Residence with the World Intellectual Property Organization, former chair of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, and involved in numerous collaborations in Africa. She tells of her experience as an invited guest of Pixelache in 2005, and her wider Wikimedia work then and now. We offer ideas about how creative organisations can develop their Wikipedia presence.

2. Rebecca O’Neill of Wikimedia Community Ireland spoke with Toni Sant of Wikimedia Community Malta, a curator, academic, and podcaster, about his experience in documenting creative practices using Wikimedia projects. We explore how emerging documentation projects of contemporary art collections are formulated to ensure they are interoperable with platforms such as Wikidata.

3. Nikki Zeuner of Wiki Move podcast, and Z. Blace, Wikimedian in Residence at Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, spoke about contemporary culture, civil society organisations, not-for-profit infrastructures, as well as resources and innovation in 2030 Wikimedia strategy. We look into challenges and opportunities for working in global networked media through publishing and participation in the Wikimedia ecosystem.

In summary, our process discussed and reflected upon the long parallel history -20 years- of Pixelache Helsinki Festival and transdisciplinary platform, which in the first decade has promoted open culture, alongside the time when Wikimedia methodologies were developing.. Where have these approaches have overlapped, gone hand-in-hand, and then diverged.

This narrative has been shared in our associational communications, including newsletter and social media, as well as shared with relevant peer networks, as evidenced below, but we recognise that there is much work still to do to improve the connections between small cultural organisations and Wikimedia knowledge-production and sharing culture.

In our project we wished to reconcile this ambition in chime with our own 20 year anniversation and both the 20 year Wikimedia and Creative Commons anniversaries of 2022, but it appears that we, either as an association, network, or likely also as individuals, will be continuing into the future to update our own contributions and represetations to Wikimedia platforms.

In the Finnish context this can happen in concert with the Finnish Media Art Association Network [http://mediataide.fi], their MEHI (Finnish Media Art Histories) project that developed in 2021-2023, and other colleagues within the AvoinGLAM (OpenGLAM) special interest group of Open Knowledge Foundation Finland [http://okf.fi].

2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)

Share links to:

Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.

You can also share links to:

Important social media posts
Surveys and their results
Infographics and sound files
Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects

Project page on Meta.wikimedia.org:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians-in-residence_at_Pixelache

Podcast audio on Comons.wikimedia.org:

Podcast audio on Pixelache SoundCloud accounts:

Press release in English (with downloadable Finnish & Northern Sámi) on Pixelache.ac:

https://pixelache.ac/posts/pixelache-wikimedians-in-residence-2022-podcasts-about-wikimedia-grassroots-cultural-organisations

OpenMic with Pixelache event (05.2.2022):

https://pixelache.ac/events/openmicwithpixelache

MIAAW podcast (09.6.2023) where Wikimedians-in-residence project is discussed on Miaaw.net with Owen Kelly & Andrew Gryf Paterson:

https://miaaw.net/902/wikimedians-auto-archiving/

Internet Archive:

The Podcast with Florence Devouard & Andrew Gryf Paterson was shared in Internet Archive additionally via Paterson’s own account [@agryfp]:

https://archive.org/details/agryfp-pixelache-2023-wikimedians-in-residence-devouard-paterson

Wikidata entries:

Pikseliähky|Pixelache 2005 in Meta.wikimedia.org|Commons.wikimedia.org|fi.Wikipedia.org:

Social media posts:

Facebook

16.6.2021:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/28593749522?multi_permalinks=10160054493054523

02.2.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid02EhfXu9xg4mmRe1GpwH98E2RrnBe w6pBNbyjaeD9gwn5cv3zzeovoxeLDMSaxtkELl

06.3.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid02KH3dYsc7qvBTBPkQKJTz3nLMvsP1yHAbNXYNc4DZex9cePZ1gfPNTXY5iQhdEAbxl

https://www.facebook.com/groups/pixelaching/posts/10161606384729523/

10.3.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/360776620709181?multi_permalinks=5983114141808706

https://www.facebook.com/atteqa/posts/pfbid02xAUKFuDxmFykfwBgNU2Vc3sXWJQi2oTSjYJPbmLAEdMNUN8i9iBDtZfTDMfMYUpMl

24.4.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid0pCd6r3ME7vGekF3d1peZjHnFMsD61BHQGTGYbzqbyMEXmtcfj6bTfdKQmSmZaWAkl

25.4.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/posts/6084394011608379/

13.6.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid02zaUk1io2w2Foaj2dkdNUGyt6Rkg5DwMn32KJ7fWrmrBik6esXjC5bgDgVdUYYEhPl

https://www.facebook.com/groups/avoinGLAM/posts/6283480158438768

06.7.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid0EpDeLY9KCbtqpYY4dL5VkKUR49wp9USFdYXzQdYcaoVfGRKd2dtxFVg5JsQZMdqhl

10.8.2023:

https://www.facebook.com/agryfp/posts/pfbid0UwBhzLuF3RPYcJSR2XbnJC8BjbGe5yhg29hu7CnsRSyxxoCT9bSmgaXaMM75gKpLl

https://www.facebook.com/pixelache/posts/pfbid0358LAJbsdiQVPgt4td6iZTp2U494g8RA5mQVJa2itCGqPL8iMu4EHT5iCeMNtnFY7l

https://www.facebook.com/groups/pixelaching/posts/10162036729834523/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/kaupunkiaktivismi/posts/2572586566227601/

Twitter:

22.11.2022: https://twitter.com/pixelache/status/1595083983523831808

24.4.2023: https://twitter.com/pixelache/status/1650496423593426948

07.5.2023: https://twitter.com/pixelache/status/1655150692061921280

Reposted @Anthere: https://twitter.com/Anthere/status/1651955777370742892

Reposted @WikiAfrica: https://twitter.com/wikiafrica/status/1655890843646009344

Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)

The 3 podcasts produced are the main materials and resources as a result the project.

3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)

Tip: This section is intended to help you reflect on how you are achieving your goals and some of your ongoing challenges. It is not intended to be a judgment of your work, but rather a joint reflection.

Our efforts during the Rapid Fund period have helped to...	Rating
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups	Not applicable to your fund
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community	Neither agree nor disagree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups	Agree
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives	Strongly agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors	Neither agree nor disagree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers	Agree
G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement	Strongly agree
F. Other

Part 2: Learning

4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)

Tip: Read your initial learning questions and see if you have been able to answer some of them with the information you have collected. Share some of the answers to these questions.

This is a great opportunity to say how you will apply your learning for your future work. What decisions will you make based on what you have learned? What might you continue to do or expand? What might you adapt or stop doing altogether based on this?

The process of undertaking this project was a big learning curve in being introduced to Wikimedia platform and organisational culture from the perspective of a producer of knowledge rather than a consumer.

Despite the steep learning curve, the main contributing producer (Paterson, user:Agryfp) aims to continue engagement with Wikimedia platforms in the future, setting a leading example for others in Pixelache and similar associations, with a plan to experiment with the use of Wikibase in 2024. This continuing work will be done in the context of AvoinGLAM/OpenGLAM special interest group in Finland, and with Paterson joining Open Knowledge Foundation Finland hallitus 2024-2025 as a representative of AvoinGLAM group.

The complementary podcast with ‘MIAAW’ (09.6.2023) with fellow Pixelache Helsinki member Owen Kelly was an important reflection and evaluation on the importance of cultural organisations like ours to engage with Wikimedia platforms in the future.

5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)

Tip: Unexpected factors are a great way of learning and adapting. Share some of the things that happened differently from how you had planned and some reflections about why this may have been the case. What did you learn that will be helpful for future processes?

The challenges or problems of the Pixelache Wikimedians-in-residence project and it’s development was mostly due to it’s drawn out schedule temporally, the distributed nature of the workgroup, and the lack of finances towards it’s production from within the receiving association.

The project was designed in Autumn 2021, awarded in January 2022, initiated as a conversation between the 5-6 persons nominated as ‘Wikimedians-in-residence’ in February the month after. Due to the unavailability of one of the pre-nominated Wikimedians, and as 5 Wikimedians-in-residence were from outside the Pixelache association, 1 additional was added (Andrew Gryf Paterson, user:Agryfp) as a conversant with Florence Devouard, to discuss the particular memory of Pixelache Festival 2005, and issues related to Pixelache in particular.

To be honest, Pixelache members, including the main contributing producer and reporter (Paterson, user:Agryfp) did not manage to get enough of a handle or experience other than a basic one, as the wikimedia work was undertaken by the collaborative Wikimedians in the collaboration. This arguably was due to the distributed nature of the project, with a focus on podcast production, and the other wikimedia work was orientated on publishing of the audio on platform. With more presence together, we could have arranged more presence-based learning of wikimedia platforms, and a dedication on guided introductions.

Furthermore, due to the lack of resources and personnel available with the Pixelache association, congested and precarious work schedules among the lead proponents of the project (Paterson in Pixelache, Blace as guest initiator of the process), the production process of the podcasts did not begin actually until October that year, interviews recorded in December 2022 and January 2023, then group communications work, final meta-data gathering, and the ‘intro- outro-’ spoken-word audio recordings between Paterson, Blace and O’Neill made in February 2023. Lastly, post-production of the podcasts took place in February-March, towards their publication in April 2023. Furthermore, extensive sharing of social media by Pixelache association related to the podcasts did not take place until August 2023. One or two payments were also delayed pushing the project envelope even further. The reporting is now made in December 2023, almost 2 years after the project was awarded.

To be frank, and clear, the project was never intended to be extended over this long period and contributes to it’s failing in exchange or reach in audience. Volunteers, short contracted workers, and even part-time salaried producers in small cultural associations are often overworked and underpaid. Many involved in production may be freelancers, who need to focus on other paid work that has more tight deadlines or pays sooner.

In the case of Pixelache Helsinki as the receiving grant, the lead contact (this author of report, Paterson) was not a salaried producer in the association, and the Rapid Grant did not include funds for this role. Minimal contract-based work was paid by Pixelache to compensate the post-production & publishing process only, but not the early project design, communications or facilitation of the project with the others involved.

The project started 8 months late mostly for this reason, due to other Pixelache projects needing to be completed first by the lead contact. However, once the interviews were conducted between the identified Wikimedians-in-residence involved, the project proceeded rather quickly. Due to the geographically dispersed participants of the process—the ‘Wikimedians-in-residence’ were actually only virtually ‘in-residence’, not based in the same country or location—the format of remote podcast interviews was rather productive. Audio was used from recorded Zoom video-calls, while the ‘intro- & outro’ spoken-word recordings that bracket the podcast interviews / conversations were recorded together in presence.

For a Rapid Grant, it is recommended not to extend the process over more than 6 months including reporting time, unless there are supporting funding within the receiving organisation for a longer duration, as it can be difficult to pull together all collaborators, resources and attention to the project.

6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)

These podcasts, when published, were uploaded to meta.wikimedia platform as audio files, and syndicated also to Pixelache’s SoundCloud account, and then embedded in the one main blog post & press release materials. There was also a feature in newsletter in August 2023 to another registered Pixelache network-list than just the social media platforms.

The blogpost shared in the Finnish media arts context, and local & international Wikimedia social media groups.

Part 3: Metrics

7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)

In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.

7.1. Number of participants (required)

6 participants (online):

Z. Blace
Andrew Gryf Paterson
Florence Devouard
Nikki Zeuner
Toni Sant
Rebecca O’Neill

plus 3 outsourced services (audio identity, post-production, translation):

Sumugan Sivanesan
Miia Laine
user:Yupik

7.2. Number of editors (required)

2 persons:

Rebecca O’Neill
Z. Blace

7.3. Number of organizers (required)

2 persons:

Andrew Gryf Paterson
Raisa Veikkola (Pixelache financial administration, staff)

7.4. Number of created and edited pages to Wikimedia Projects (required)

Wikimedia Commons: 6
MediaWiki: 1

8. Other Metrics results. (required)

In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.

Sorry, do not understand how to satisfy this part of the report.

Further advice is welcome.

9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? This could include things like a lack of time or resources, or the expertise in your team to collect this data. It could also include difficulties with particular data collection tools. (required)

Yes

If yes,

9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)

Tip: This is key to understanding some of the challenges you have collecting quantitative or qualitative data and how the Foundation can better support these efforts.

Yes, unfamiliarity with the Wikimedia platform for reporting, audio files being prioritized lack of images in production process, and delays in production and reporting have meant that less documentation has been integrated into the report than planned.

It would be useful to have a dialogue with regional Rapid Grant coordinator on how to improve to report, and the different expectations involved.

Part 4: Financial reporting

10. State the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)

4373,20€

11. State the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)

Use the Oanda converter and use the conversion rate for the date when you are submitting this report.

Note: You are not required to send or upload documentation of expenses (scanned receipts) unless we specifically request them, but you are required to maintain this documentation for a period of four (4) years after the end of your grant as we may need to request it at a later time.

$4999,91

12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)

We recommend you use the template provided or the format you used to present your initial budget. Remember to share access to the files with us.

Please find with report file here.

12.1. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

As required in the fund agreement, report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that any changes in your budget must be:

consistent with the Wikimedia Foundation mission,
be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and
otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

The changes in budget allocation from application to actual expenses deviated in the following manner:

The expenditures were given in Euros, rather than the pre-designed amounts in US Dollars. This helped to adjust for VAT or Employer taxes in Finland included in the figure, but meant that all costs were higher than planned.

user:Yupik participated not as a Wikimedian-in-residence, but as a translator of the press-release into Finnish and Sámi languages.

As 5 Wikimedians-in-residence were from outside the Pixelache association, 1 additional was added (Andrew Gryf Paterson, user:Agryfp) as a conversant with Florence Devouard, to discuss the particular memory of Pixelache Festival 2005, and issues related to Pixelache in particular. In this way, Paterson became a listed ‘Wikimedian-in-residence’ conversant, and given a modest fee as the others were given (300€). This compensated for very limited producer work remuneration.

Wikimedians-in-residence Florence Devouard, Rebecca O’Neill, Toni Sant, user:Yupik all decided to donate their fees to Wikimedia projects of their wishes.

Due to illness, Z. Blace did not travel to Helsinki in December 2022 for the Contacts: 20 years of Pixelache Helsinki Symposium, but contributed remotely instead. No costs were incurred, that were then redirected later to a visit to Berlin [see next item]

With most of the project produced remotely, it was decided at the end to gather 2 of the Wikimedians-in-residence (Z. Blace, Rebecca O’Neill) plus the Pixelache producer (Andrew Gryf Paterson) in Berlin where the 2 Wikimedians were gathered in February 2023. This incurred accomodation costs, per diems and travel costs.

Communications costs were diferent than anticipated, and examples of Open culture/art+science fanzines by Pixelache Helsinki & Hackteria were printed at the end of the project rather than in December 2022 as originally planned for the Contacts: 20 Years of Pixelache Symposium. These will be used to assist future AvoinGLAM discussions about open-licensed materials and the transferability of fanzine materials to Wikimedia platforms.

13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund? (required)

No

14. Final confirmations (required)

14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement? (required)

Yes

14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? (required)

You must be in compliance with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement. In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United State Internal Revenue Code ("Code")? (required)

In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable, nonprofit, educational purposes.

Yes

15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)