Grants talk:Conference/Wikimedia Korea/WikiConference Seoul 2021

WMF comments

Dear Motoko (WMKR) and the WMKR team,

Thank you for submitting this proposal! Especially in these times, we are very happy and grateful to see communities taking on the challenge of adjusting to the new realty and finding creative ways to host and organize events.

I reviewed your proposal, and have some follow up questions and comments to share.

Community input

• I'm afraid 6 responses to the survey is really not much and might be hard to judge and prioritize based only on that. Did you had any preliminary discussions with the community regarding the event? Do you have more indications that the community is interested?

In any case, it's better to keep the survey live so you can get more responses in the meantime.

• I see the event itself is a one day event, but you also mentioned having a 3-4 day edit-a-thon. Do you wish to have the edit-a-thon as part of the conference? Can you please elaborate?
• I'm missing some more details about your objectives and desired outcomes. What will indicate that you have achieved your goals? What kind of change and impact are you hoping to see after the event?

Plan

• We are very happy you want to host an in-person event! We see great value in such gatherings and we are happy for the opportunity to get some sense of 'normality' in our current situation :) According to the Risk Assessment documentation you have sent us, your Risk Severity score is 'Green' and it means you can safety host the event. Please make sure your Risk Assessment is still relevant and there are no changes throughout the planning process and right before the event.

Please also make sure to follow the guidelines we have for in-person event during COVID-19.

Participation

• I see you are targeting both skilled Wikimedians and non-wikimedian individuals and you will do that by having 2 sessions. I think it's doable but you should also be aware of the challenges. Usually, when having an event with both experienced Wikimedians, and newcomers, it's hard to make the newcomers fully engaged but also welcomed and part of a wider community, and at the same time, to answer the needs of the more experienced community. Plus, it's harder to reach out to completely newcomers to attend such event. You will need to work on designing 2 separate sessions that will answer both needs with the frame of mind of combing them somehow and make them all feel a part of something bigger. We can talk about it more in the future, but I just want you to be aware of the challenge.
• WMF support - Our Fundraising and Partnerships teams mostly working on global scale so unfortunately I'm not sure they will be able to help with local fundraising. But we can provide more information on best practices for outreach and creating partnerships.

Thank you again for this proposal and for allowing this opportunity and platform for engagement. Please let me know if you have any questions. Best CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 13:08, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Replies

@CAlmog (WMF): Here are our answers to your questions.

• I'm afraid 6 responses to the survey is really not much and might be hard to judge and prioritize based only on that. Did you had any preliminary discussions with the community regarding the event? Do you have more indications that the community is interested?

  We extended our survey's deadline and display it on Korean Wikipedia's sitenotice. Four more respondents answered the questions. We will revise the community input table.

• I see the event itself is a one day event, but you also mentioned having a 3-4 day edit-a-thon. Do you wish to have the edit-a-thon as part of the conference? Can you please elaborate?

  If we would host the edit-a-thon, it would be a follow-up event. In other words, we won't hold the edit-a-thon as part of the conference. We don't decide whether it will be in-person or online.

• I'm missing some more details about your objectives and desired outcomes. What will indicate that you have achieved your goals? What kind of change and impact are you hoping to see after the event?

  One of the event's main goals is to provide an open space to discuss Wikimedia relevant issues and solve them. For example, some users asserted that Korean Wikipedia community had been inactive and suggested to revise the project's main page as the first step in our conference two years ago. The suggestion had an huge impact on the project's activity level. Another main goal of the event is to share useful knowledge for Wikimedia users. Last year, we invited a news reporter who is professionalized in fact-checking.

  Through a series of online events, many opinions were suggested last year. Especially, many users thought Korean Wikipedia needs new confilct-solving process and up-to-date discussion interface. We hope the topics are discussed intensively and solutions are suggested in the event.

• I see you are targeting both skilled Wikimedians and non-wikimedian individuals and you will do that by having 2 sessions. I think it's doable but you should also be aware of the challenges. Usually, when having an event with both experienced Wikimedians, and newcomers, it's hard to make the newcomers fully engaged but also welcomed and part of a wider community, and at the same time, to answer the needs of the more experienced community. Plus, it's harder to reach out to completely newcomers to attend such event. You will need to work on designing 2 separate sessions that will answer both needs with the frame of mind of combing them somehow and make them all feel a part of something bigger. We can talk about it more in the future, but I just want you to be aware of the challenge.

  We are aware of the challenge you mentioned. In our conference, keynotes usually cover general issues such as fact-checking and free knowledge movements, which new comers can easily understand. After the keynote session, we will divide the program into two sessions. The first one will be for skilled users, where participants can discuss Wikimedia specific topics. The second one will be for new comers, where they can receive simple training to improve Wikipedia article's quality.

Motoko (WMKR) (talk) 17:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Grant approved

Hi Motoko (WMKR) and the WMKR team,

Thank you for your work on the grant request and responding to our comments. I’m happy to tell you that we've reviewed the final proposal and are happy to support it! You received an email last week with more instructions and next steps. Please let me know if you have any questions. I will circle back soon to schedule our first meeting. Looking forward to working together! CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Request for delay of the event

Due to severe Covid-19 outbreak, we decided to delay our conference until November 6. Please, apporve it. Motoko (WMKR) (talk) 11:03, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Motoko (WMKR) Your request has been approved. We urge you to exercise caution and plan the next steps as per the local regulations. THasan (WMF) (talk) 13:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Also noting here that the new grant end date is 31 December 2021 (was 30 November 2021), and the new final report due date is 28 February 2022 (was 1 January 2022). Thank you -- JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 19:39, 5 October 2021 (UTC)