Grants talk:IEG/Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, $350.

Comments regarding this decision:
We're looking forward to supporting this social media initiative in China and learning along with you!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Questions? Contact us.

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Build an effective method of publicity in PRChina

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weakest 5=strongest
Potential for impact
(A) The project fits with the Wikimedia movement's strategic priorities	4
(B) The project has the potential to lead to significant online impact.	4
(C) The impact of the project can be sustained after the grant ends.	4
(D) The project has potential to be scaled or adapted for other languages or projects.	3
Ability to execute
(E) The project has demonstrated interest from a community it aims to serve.	4
(F) The project can be completed as scoped within 6 months with the requested funds.	5
(G) The budget is reasonable and an efficient use of funds.	5
(H) The individual(s) proposing the project have the required skills and experience needed to complete it.	4
Fostering innovation and learning
(I) The project has innovative potential to add new strategies and knowledge for solving important issues in the movement.	3
(J) The risk involved in the project's size and approach is appropriately balanced with its potential gain in terms of impact.	3
(K) The proposed measures of success are useful for evaluating whether or not the project was successful.	3
(L) The project supports or grows the diversity of the Wikimedia movement.	4
Comments from the committee: Proposal sounds reasonable and interesting. Wikimedia culture is yet to penetrate deep into strategic locations of Asia like China. This project would act as a pilot in understanding the online preferences of the Chinese population. Might also help in building a strong Chinese Wikimedia community. Goals as well as how to achieve them seem realistic. Innovative approach, however Weibo is a government run service, and can be shut down. If the community account gets verified, it further increases the risk of government interference. Although we wonder how they will translate followers to readers or editors, in this particular case, even making Wikipedia known to the general Chinese population would be a step forward. Suggest measuring pageviews of the articles they promote every day to see if they significantly peaked.

200 USD/year?

What is this using for?--Edouardlicn (talk) 03:19, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

6 months or 2 years?

Hi, and thanks for this submission! One of the eligibility criteria for IEGrants is that the funding request is for a 6 month project. It sounds like you are looking for funds that will be used over the course of 2 years, is that right? If so, that would make this project ineligible for this kind of grant, but you might consider looking at another type of funding via WMF Grants. Please let me know if I'm interpreting your proposal correctly. Thanks! Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Siko, thanks for reminding. I just changed the plan from 2 years to 6 months to make it eligible. And thanks for providing information about WMF Grants. Please let me if anything I can do.--AddisWang (talk) 02:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update :-) Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Verification

Hi! Can you talk a bit more about verification? If you plan to verify as the Chinese Wikipedia Community (and I appreciate why you are doing that, thanks for being clear!), what exactly would be needed from the WMF end to support this? Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I found another page for details. Since I'm not the Staff of WMF, I need "An Authorization Letter for maintaining the Weibo account with Company’s seal or legal person’s signature" and a copy or a photo of "The Company Registration Documents" at the end.--AddisWang (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't that then by default make the account verified as something WMF-official, rather than as something owned by the Chinese Wikipedia Community? Google translate isn't doing the best job on that Weibo link for me, but it looks like if we verified we would be giving corporate certification, which tells Weibo that it is a WMF account, not a community account. Or do you see the distinction being that WMF would simply say "yes, these volunteers represent Wikipedia, we're verifying that this account is run by volunteer admins of Chinese Wikipedia"? If the committee recommends we fund this, we'll need to do some due diligence with WMF legal and communications about the verification piece, so that's why I'm trying to understand the implications at this point. You don't need to post your answers on my talk page too, by the way, I'm watching these pages :-) Thanks for responding so quickly! Siko (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I've checked with WMF communications and legal and they do not believe WMF will be able to provide verification, unfortunately. Here is the reason:

All chapter/community/volunteer oriented twitter or social media handles managed by volunteers have been created by those groups and are maintained solely by those groups. If WMF was to provide a seal or corporate confirmation of any sort (even certifying that the account is volunteer-run), this presents a risk because we can then be held accountable for anything done or said on the account, including if an account was hacked etc. WMF cannot approve or verify a social media account on behalf of a group of volunteers or contributors at present - particularly if it means maintaining that approval with a third party.

Sorry to be the bearer of disappointing news! That being said, it sounds like your project budget was not really intended to be used for the verification, but rather for engaging the community that you connect with via this Weibo account. So, given that, I am wondering if you believe your project can still continue as planned and be successful without WMF-assisted verification? Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Siko. Yes I had bad feeling when I got the information. I can understand the WMF policy which is the reason I try to avoid the issue happened in maintenance. According to the data of the account, we attract at most 30 followers everyday. Which is six months will be 3600. With the prize I mentioned in the plan, it will work for attracting thousands people to follow us. But the boom will not gona to happen. I'm sure we can achieve a lower level of success without verification. Depends on that, I will change the criterion of the application. But I'm not sure should I remove the verification part from the plan or just keep it. Thanks!--AddisWang (talk) 00:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Increasing advertising for Wikipedia

Sounds like a reasonable idea. So verification is needed. I am not exactly sure what is needed for this?

Also with respect to "At least 60% of funding (120 USD) will be used for merchandise as the prize" What kind of merchandise are we talking about? Wikipedia related merchandise? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:40, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Here is another page for details, which said I need "An Authorization Letter for maintaining the Weibo account with Company’s seal or legal person’s signature" and a copy or a photo of "The Company Registration Documents".

We focus on the merchandise from the Wikimedia Shop. But since it's expensive (compare with the price in China), if we get permit from WMF, we might consider to get some custom-made postcard or other localized merchandise like tees or stickers. --AddisWang (talk) 14:59, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Update

Based on suggestion from Siko and realistic estimates we did last several days, I'd like to change the budget from 200 USD to 350 USD for make sure the success of the project. All details will be updated in the plan page.--AddisWang (talk) 02:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for updating to incorporate these details, Addis, I think this is a good improvement. Siko (WMF) (talk) 06:17, 22 March 2013 (UTC)