Grants:Project/Rapid/WM UY/Uruguayan Culture Editathons/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 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/WM UY/Uruguayan Culture Editathons.
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.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

The three goals that we set were:

Recruit new editors and teach them the skills and values of Wikipedians.
Deepen collaboration with other civil society organizations.
Add and improve content about two topics that are not well represented in the Spanish Wikipedia: Uruguayan cinema and Afro-Uruguayan culture.

We are happy because the three goals we had set have been met. Throughout the two editathons, 16 new editors have approached. We will keep in touch with them to try to get as many of them as possible to continue editing Wikipedia over time.

We have also confirmed that the editathons serve to strengthen links and collaboration with other organizations. This helps to spread the importance of free culture and of Wikipedia as a fundamental pillar of it. While with Creative Commons Uruguay and with the Centro Cultural de España we had previously worked together, this was the first time we collaborated with ACSUN, and the experience was great, given that they provided the place for the editathon, provided bibliography, contributed old magazines published by them to digitize, and called members of the Afro-Uruguayan community to participate in the editathon.

We consider that the editathons contributed to fill a gap in important issues of Uruguayan culture, such as local cinema and the culture of Afro-descendants. Unfortunately, there is very little information on Wikipedia about Afro-Uruguayan culture, which is due to biases that are largely analogous to those that exist in relation to gender. Access to specialized bibliographic sources helped a lot to create articles about artists, activists, publications and organizations of Afro-descendants. However, there is still much ahead to cover the huge gaps on this issue, which is why we plan to continue working with ACSUN and other Afro-Uruguayan organizations.

As an additional outcome, ACSUN joined GLAM in Uruguay to release and make available some materials written and published by them.

Finally, the editathons contributed to strengthen the Wikimedia Uruguay chapter, since they generated opportunities for the members to meet and work together.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
2 events	2 events	We have made the two events that we planned: the Uruguayan Cinema Editathon and the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon.
20 participants in each editathon	18 participants in the Uruguayan Cinema Editathon and 20 participants in the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon	The attendance was adjusted to our expectations.
10 new editors in each editathon	5 new editors in the Uruguayan Cinema Editathon and 11 new editors in the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon	The collaboration with the Afro-uruguayan institution ACSUN in the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon helped to attract more new editors.
20 articles created in each editathon	22 articles created in the Uruguayan Cinema Editathon and 21 articles created in the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon	The creation of articles was in accordance with our expectations.
5 repeat participants	8 repeat participants	Most of the repeat participants are Wikimedia Uruguay members.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

Alliances with other organizations worked well. In particular with ACSUN, it was very important to hold weekly meetings with them throughout the month prior to the event, as it strengthened trust and coordination.
It also worked well to collaborate with the local chapter of Creative Commons, which shares with us the values of free culture.
Another thing that worked well is to provide food during the editathons. In previous events, it was necessary to interrupt the editathon to go to lunch. In these editathons, people could serve tasty food and drink during the event.

What did not work so well?

We expected more coverage in the press on the editathons. We must improve our media communication strategy.
In the Uruguayan Cinema editathon, we did not manage to get editors who were experts in cinema.

What would you do differently next time?

Although for the Uruguayan Cinema editathon we contacted with institutions related to the cinema to reach the specific community, we did not establish a stronger collaboration. In future opportunities, we should, as far as possible, organize the editathons together with expert organizations in the area, in order to gain access to more bibliography and have the participation of experts.
To cover the wi-fi connectivity of the Afro-Uruguayan culture editathon, we had foreseen the purchase of a wireless modem that was expensive. However, we later discovered that it was much cheaper to buy data credit for cell phones and share wi-fi through access points. Luckily we discovered this more cheaper and successful strategy before the editathon. We will follow this same strategy in upcoming events, which saves costs.

Finances

Total budget

1610 USD

Unused funds available from a previous grant

8419 UYU = 291.51 USD (exchange rate = 28.88)

New grant funds requested

1318.49 USD

New grant funds received

Funds received by bank transfer: 37,566.46 UYU = 1300,78 USD

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Category	Item description	Total cost (UYU)	Total cost (USD)	Notes
Food and drink	Snacks and drinks for the Uruguayan Cinema Editathon	2500 UYU		Afternoon snacks
Food and drink	Lunch for the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon	5200 UYU
Food and drink	Snacks and drinks for the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon	1294 UYU		Snacks and drinks to complement the lunch
Bibliography	Books to use as sources of information in the editathon of Uruguayan Cinema	5420 UYU		11 books
Connectivity	4G mobile data credit	520 UYU		Data credit to 4 mobile phones, to provide connectivity in the editathon of Afro-uruguayan Culture through access points
Cheatsheets and Wikimedia Uruguay merchandising	60 editathon cheatsheets, 1000 Wikimedia Uruguay stickers, 200 Wikipedia pins and 30 Wikipedia cups)	15939 UYU
Facebook advertising	1) Cinema of Uruguay editathon: promoted event (38.59 USD), 1 promoted post about the editathon (35 USD). 2) Afro-uruguayan culture editathon: 2 promoted posts about the editathon (40 USD), advertising of the Wikimedia Uruguay page (35 USD)		148.59 USD
Unpredicted expenses	Bank transfer fee	1036.35 UYU		Bank fee of the grant transfer
Unpredicted expenses	Bank account maintenance fee (September)	110.20 UYU		Maintenance fee of the bank account created exclusively for the Wikimedia grant
Unpredicted expenses	Taxi	180 UYU		Taxi to move kitchen utensils to the Afro-uruguayan Culture Editathon
Unpredicted expenses	Batteries	50 UYU		Replacement of one keyboard batteries
Total	Exchange rate: 28.88	36540.83 UYU = 1265.26 USD

Remaining funds

Remaining funds have been used or will be used for other approved mission-aligned activities. This use has been requested in writing and approved by WMF.

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds: 9444.63 UYU = 327.03 USD

We would like to use the remaining funds on Wikimedia Uruguay hosting and domain. In the coming months, we will have to face the costs of renewing the domain wikimedia.uy and the hosting of our website.

Renewal for 3 years of the domain wikimedia.uy = 75 USD
Renewal for 2 years of the Hostgator "Baby" hosting plan for the Wikimedia Uruguay website = 262.80 USD
Total = 337.80 USD

We can put the extra money (10.77 USD) from the funds of Wikimedia Uruguay.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Editathons pages

Posts on the Wikimedia Uruguay blog

Media coverage

Festival libre (La Diaria)
Editatón sobre cultura afro (La Diaria)
Convocan a editar contenido de Wikipedia sobre cultura afrouruguaya (El Observador)