Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2012-2013 round1/Wikimedia Deutschland e.V./Progress report form/Q2

Receipt of this report

Thank you, Pavel and Wikimedia Deutschland, for submitting a complete progress report for 2013 Q2 on time. We look forward to reviewing it in detail in the coming weeks.

Initially, we have two very minor questions about the report:

• We noticed that you did not complete the question regarding CHANGES in the first section of this reporting form. Is this because there were no changes from plan in the second quarter to report?
• Also, we noticed that the link to "WMDE report for June 2013," which you helpfully provided is still a red link. Is that because the monthly report for June is still pending completion at this time?

Thank you in advance for clarifying these two points before we proceed with reviewing this report in detail!

Please continue to monitor this discussion page for our comments and questions, and contact us at any time if you have any questions or concerns. We will be in touch later today to notify you any changes to your eligibility status that may have resulted from the submission of this timely report. Best regards from FDC staff, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Dear Winifred, I'm answering on behalf of Pavel as he is on vacation:

• Regarding the changes questions: In Q2 we haven't introduced any changes to the budget. As we mention at the end of the financial part, an adjusted budget (and plan) will be prepared and submitted to the Supervisory Board of Wikimedia Deutschland for approval in Q3. The adjusted budget will present any necessary budget adjustments resulting from Q1 and Q2.
• The link to "WMDE report for June 2013" is indeed red but will be blue by tomorrow at latest. This is just a translation issue, the June report itself has been available in German since July 3, 2013. We are sorry for this delay! --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this report

Thank you for this report. We greatly appreciate the changes you made to the report as a result of our comments last quarter. We know preparing a report on this scale is not easy, and we recognize the coordinated effort it takes for an organization conducting this scale of programmatic activity to produce a quality report.

We encourage all entities to also read the staff summary of this quarter’s progress reports in addition to these comments.

Warm regards, KLove (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Appreciation

• Thank you for your observations about your success in working with local actors to leverage improved community support mechanisms. Congratulations also on your improved response time to inquiries through the appointment of two student employees.
• We appreciate learning about how you engage with the communities in an open dialogue in which you welcome criticism, especially as global projects are introduced. Thank you for identifying some of your key challenges around working with your communities. These are challenges we can learn from and we look forward to learning about how you successfully adapt your strategies in the future.
• Congratulations on the funds you raised for Wikidata from Yandex!
• We value the insight into WMDE’s process for creating this report. We appreciate your care and attention to this process.
• We are excited to see the focus on diversity and look forward to learning more about how this work moves forward in future reports.

Congratulations! KLove (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

We would like to learn more

Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions about this report. KLove (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

(1) We appreciate your developing materials in both German and English that may be well-utilized by the broader movement, including your brochure on creative commons licences, the educational materials you plan to publish this quarter, and your GLAM brochure for institutions. We look forward to seeing these materials used within your community and by others. Do you have any plans in place to track their use within the movement?

Thanks, Katy. For the online versions, we can of course track the downloads on Commons and wikimedia.de, but since they are freely licensed they are spread throughout the internet. We do not intend to accumulate all those numbers and track the very "use" within the movement. For the printed material, the tracking is even harder and we doubt that this can be done with reasonable effort – especially for the relatively small number of hardcopies per publication. We focus on promoting both versions, online and offline, via our diverse communication channels, sharing them on conferences (internal and external events) and happily send them to volunteers or other movement affiliates to distribute them amongst their communities. Warmly, --Nicole Ebber (WMDE) (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing, Nicole! We'd be very keen to hear more about how and where you see these being used, and what you see in terms of impact of these brochures. Again, thank you! KLove (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(2) In Table 3 you indicate more information about the program to ‘increase motivation’ is included below in the programs sections, yet the information about this objective appears incomplete. Please share with us more information about the current status of this program and why you expect its budget to be underspent.

A volunteer from the German community started an initiative with the same goal (“Non-administrative conflict solution”). In order not to start a parallel, competing initiative we have put our project “on hold”. --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update here; it is helpful to know this. Many thanks, Kasia! KLove (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(3) Kindly share any links to your survey work on the gender gap on Wikipedia, in case others are interested in learning about your survey’s methodology and its results.

• This working paper summarizes the first phase of the project "Wikipedia diversity". At the moment we can provide the german version, but we will communicate the english version soon: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arbeitspapier-Wikipedia-Diversity_V05.pdf
• Presentations "Wikipedia Diversity", Prof. Dr. Ilona Buchem (Beuth University): http://de.slideshare.net/ibuchem/wikipedia-diversity-25097396, http://de.slideshare.net/ibuchem/e-society-presentation
• Poll „Wikipedia Gender Diversity“: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.de/forms/d/1DooN_x-j4wbQMSfwtpk3cmB8kbn_aA3RReWW8PsBUFM/viewform
• Wikimedia Diversity Conference hosted by WMDE, WMNL, WMUK, WMF: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference --Nils Weichert (WMDE) (talk) 12:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Nils Weichert (WMDE), thanks for sharing these links! It is great to see more about the work you are doing in this area. I really enjoyed the presentation by Dr. Ilona Buchem at Wikimania. Please do share the link to the English version of the working paper once it has been completed. Many thanks! KLove (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

(4) Please tell us a bit more about your statement on the Education and Knowledge program: “We need to pay closer attention to changes in how we work with volunteers. Such changes should always provide concrete options for volunteer involvement.”

This statement is part of the report on educational activities. The aim of the report was to analyze both the strengths and weaknesses of the activities undertaken to date, and to evaluate the resulting conclusions. As a summary of all educational activities conducted from 2010 until the end of 2012, the report focuses both on the projects’ concepts and implementation and on their parameters and infrastructure. The conclusions are intended for general use and should be taken as prompts for further thought and action. Strengths and weaknesses are weighed up and presented with a healthy degree of self-criticism, serving as a good basis for measures to improve quality and organizational development processes and to provide inspiration for further discussions. The conclusions have been summarized in six key points. One of these points is “voluntary work”.

• Report "Educational activities 2010-2012": https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Deutschland/Report_on_educational_activities_2010-2012
• Summary of the report on educational activities https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Deutschland/Report_on_educational_activities_2010-2012_summary --Nils Weichert (WMDE) (talk) 12:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your responses. Thanks for taking the time to explain more in depth. Warm regards, KLove (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

(5) Would you please link us here to the information about the new format you developed, ‘Women Edit’? Thank you!

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzerin:Silvia_Stieneker_%28WMDE%29/About_Women_edit

http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/08/27/women-edit-wikimedia-laedt-frauen-zum-mitmachen-ein/ --Nils Weichert (WMDE) (talk) 12:42, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting these links. KLove (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

(6) Please expand on some of the changes you identify in your financial report, but do not explain in your narrative report. We understand some plans may have changed or activities are planned to start later in the year, but it would be helpful if you would provide a little more detail on the status of these projects here.

• Encouraging participation

The EU funded project Silberwissen will be completed in the 3rd quarter and is calculated to have an overall expenditure of approx. 55 000 Euro. Furthermore in the 3rd quarter we have started a series of events called “Women Edit” and many other participation formats will take place (editathon, networking meeting). These costs will arise in 3rd and 4th quarter. --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Free access to state-owned works

In the second quarter of 2013, a large share of our work regarding the copyright status of state owned work went into research and fact finding. We decided to focus on the aspect of monetary issues including the income situation and the exploitation of such work mainly for two reasons: a) this is a topic where data is available on in public administration and b) it is assumed to be the most prominent objection against altering the copyright status of such works, fearing the loss of needed income. In Q2, we presented the current state of our research and policy option to the re:publica conference in May 2013 (http://www.slideshare.net/presroi/der-urheberrechts-yeti-2,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVnDp6zKGpk).

We realize that the topic of copyright status of government works is similar but independent from the topic of access to such information. The difference is crucial: The latter can be achieved with freedom of information legislation or open government data acts. We therefore took part in several hearings on such issues. In two cases, WMDE was asked to deliver an expert opinion on ongoing legislation regarding freedom of information and open data. Expert opinion was delivered by WMDE to the committee on freedom of information offices that later released a statement on Open Data requirements and spoke out in favour of free licenses for all such data. WMDE was invited to the subcommittee on legal matters of the German Federal ministry of the Interior in bug fixing a German open government data license that was previously incompatible with key freedom requirements.

Spending in Q2 was lower than anticipated as our activities did not create external costs in this quarter. With the effort done in Q2, we are much more capable now to present proposals for adjustment on this topic in Q3. This legislative proposal is meant to be very specific on copyright status and avoids to blur the line into neighbouring areas of legislation such as Freedom of information, public sector information, open government data or provisions against the state on market interference. The output format will be a draft bill following procedural, formal and stylistic requirements from bills in parliament proposing a change in the German national copyright law. We expect the total cost from outside legal counsel to be in line with our previous estimations. --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• RENDER

We have estimated the travel costs to be a bit higher than they actually were hence the expected difference to the planned budget at the end of the year.--Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Public relations

The Communications Department faced a series of organisational and structural challenges throughout the year hence many positions remained unfilled. Many centrally planned expenditures have been taken over by the respective departments.--Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Evaluation

The second position in the team was filled much later that we have planned and the conceptual work took more time than expected. This is why we had to postpone the implementation of the evaluation software and hence the so far underspending. --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• House of free knowledge

We have not acquired the external funds and the project will not be pursued. --Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Change of role of the association

Our approach to cause a change of role by simply adapting it led to extensive discussions with the community on various occasions. This was very instructive, though unplanned, we have experienced that this is more a learning-by-doing issue. In the course of the communication and support for several other projects, we got a better understanding of how to interact..--Kasia Odrozek (WMDE) (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing these updates; it's helpful to put this all in context. Cheers, KLove (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions for future reports

• WMDE has a number of partnerships with like-minded organizations. We are interested in learning more about how you define partnerships, what the aims of these partnerships are, and how you prioritize them internally (considering the amount of work they may require).
• We recognize WMDE’s leading role in EU policy work and continue to observe your progress in this area with great interest! We hope you will share more information about the successes and challenges of this program in future reports.
• We encourage WMDE to be even more frank in sharing its challenges and especially in sharing information about why some projects may not have gone according to plan.

Thank you for taking these suggestions into account. Sincerely, KLove (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)