Grants talk:IdeaLab/WikiSoCal 2017

We'd be very grateful for your questions and comments!

comments from Thepwnco

@DrMel: Hi and thanks for your idea on engaging volunteers and making participation on wiki projects more accessible. I think this is an important area to focus on but would encourage you to continue planning and further expanding on the details of proposed activities. At this time, I think what you are setting out to do may be too large (engaging 1,000 new volunteers seems very ambitious!) and that a more focused approach (targeting fewer people and more tailored to participants' needs) may be more appropriate.

I also have a few questions for you, and I look forward to seeing more details as you further develop this idea:

1. I'm interested to know how your experience with WikiSoCal has influenced the development of this proposal. What have been the major challenges to date with WikiSoCal and engaging/retaining participants? How does this new approach address those challenges? How will events differ from regular, ongoing WikiSoCal meetups?
2. It's great to see that you are focused on collaboration and working with different partners. What are the specific roles of the partners? What activities will they lead and be responsible for?
3. Could you elaborate on how you arrived at your targets for # of new volunteers engaged and retained? Within these targets are you hoping for a particular percentage of representation from specific communities (e.g. Spanish speaking, visually impaired, etc.)?
4. What is the timeline and strategy for completing research related to best practices for volunteer recruitment, training, and retention? Will you be surveying participants, doing a literature review, collecting/monitoring data, or conducting other activities?

Cheers. -Thepwnco (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the great questions @Thepwnco! We want to give detailed responses here as soon as we've got enough time, and we would also welcome talking with anyone who has questions - we'll have weekly Google Hangouts "Office Hours" sessions posted soon that everyone is welcome to pop in on for Q&A.

1. A more detailed report of our activities and challenges in 2016 is posted here: Wiki_Edit-a-thon_Work_Parties/Report. I'll try to answer your other questions better within the proposal asap. The updates we put in yesterday might address many of them.
2. I've just added a short section to the proposal describing how the organizations are working together. Let me know if you have other questions on this you'd like me to address.
3. The goals we've set are ambitious, and yet we have the resources here in San Diego to do so much more than most places and groups could. Especially within our incredible GLAM district in Balboa Park, we have enough venue capacity to hold Inclusive events and activities, without having to cap registrations or reject people's scholarship applications. Since I began editing back in 2004, I've understood that its a complex learning curve. I've trained and supported courses and editathons which have brought more than 1,000 students and other volunteers into their first time editing, but for all the reasons most people here know about, very few are likely to have stuck around. And yet there are 1,000s of people who want to help support Wikipedia's growth and quality improvements, and there are so many more ways to help beyond editing. Between the outreach we can do before October, and the activities we have planned for our October events, we are confident we can bring in at least 1,000 new volunteers who can volunteer in some way to support the wiki movement and one or more of the Wikimedia projects. We have a depth of experience with volunteer program design, recruiting, and retention that we are bringing to support our volunteers in the work they most want to help with.
4. Posted a timeline to the grant proposal yesterday - take a look and let me know what you think? What additional questions would you like us to address?

Thanks you again for the questions - getting community Q&A going again after a period of having heard back from so few is extremely helpful. We wouldn't be asking for so much if we didn't have enough already in place to move forward, and we are prepared to move forward (albeit at a slower pace) even without WMF funding. It's frustrating to spend so much of our own money and time supporting the cause without "fitting in" but if it was easy, it'd already have been done, right! DrMel (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Adding links and endorsement

Hello!

I added the WikiSoCal Meta page but for some reason it shows the code [[User: etc..

I have also added an endorsement since I believe that this project is really important so that all voices can be heard in the Wikimedia projects. We all have different perspectives and all should be included in such important endeavors like the Wikimedia projects.

~Psanchez820~

¡Muchas Gracias, Paulina! So grateful to have you on the team - you're making so much more possible. FYI - Mayors of San Diego & Tijuana were together speaking today about cross border collaborations. "Building bridges instead of walls." We've got options for co-hosting events with Tijuana, with anyone who can't cross still able to participate.

Project Grant proposal submissions due today!

Thanks for drafting your proposal for a Project Grant. Proposals are due today! In order for this submission to be reviewed, it must be formally proposed. When you have completed filling out the infobox and have fully responded to the questions on your draft, please change status=DRAFT to status=PROPOSED to formally submit your grant proposal. This can be found in the Probox template found on your grant proposal page. If you have already done this, thanks for your submission, and you should be receiving feedback from the Project Grants committee in the coming weeks. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Done! Thanks so much for the Q & A so far - please let us know what other questions you'd like us to address. We'll be scheduling weekly Google Hangouts to handle Q&A for anyone who wants to better understand how we're doing what we're doing. We'd be happy to have a lot more volunteers to help! DrMel (talk) 23:05, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements from people Off Wiki

I want to specifically acknowledge that it's awkward for me atm to be the person adding off-wiki endorsements, especially from my advisors, notable friends and colleagues, and especially the glowing testimonial I just got from Zimbardo. But very very few of my professional peeps have wikipedia accounts and cannot easily post their own comments on any wiki page, so they have asked me to post their comments for them. Once more of our team is back from travels and other commitments, I'm hoping be able to hand this off. I've got to admit, having such high praise from my "notable" heroes is very personally validating. I hope their votes of confidence go well here toward showing the real possibilities our incredibly ambitious projects have. We're moving forward no matter how much support we get, but the support of the WMF community will certainly make it easier to scale up our activities, outreach and impacts! DrMel (talk) 20:19, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017

Hi, thanks for your attempt to increase community involvement. I remove your message from this overly generic talk page which doesn't seem appropriate for a grant notification; one strategy that is commonly used is to notify the people who would most directly be impacted by your work. --Nemo 16:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2017

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2017 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through 4 April 2017.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2017 begins on 5 April 2017, and grants will be announced 19 May. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments from bluerasberry

I have talked with DrMel and the WikiSoCal team by phone and online. There are a number of highly experienced Wikimedia contributors in San Diego and also a community base of new and would-be users in South California whom I think would benefit from community events and usergroup support, if anyone were able to provide it.

Here is what I see that works about this grant proposal:

1. There is a history of Wikipedia community engagement and events in San Diego
2. Some members on this team had a knock-out success in being essential to negotiate the donation of the venue for WikiConference North America. Having a history of soliciting a donation valued at USD 30,000 plus is a great start to community engagement.
3. The plan for this grant are the usual sorts of things for which Wikimedians request grant funding, like community events, starting institutional partnerships which themselves bring in funding and resources, and having a plan to collect the sort of data requested in the global metrics process

Here is what is unorthodox and challenging for the Wikipedia community to evaluate when supporting grant funding:

1. The amount requested, USD 100,000, is more than what other, more developed Wikimedia community organizations have been able to manage effectively. Wikimedia New York City, for example, has about 100 annual public events organized by 50+ established Wikimedia contributors. It also has its own institutional partnerships. Despite being more established, the community there has only been able to manage $70,000 in project for 2016-17. Wikimedia DC is about the same as WM NYC. It would take substantial supporting evidence to make the case that a less experienced group with less participation could manage more resources wisely than a more established group.
2. The grant request is formatted in a way that is outside the box for how the Wikimedia community usually evaluates grants. More could be said, but briefly - this project includings community events, institutional partnerships, and a conference. The Wikimedia community typically encourages groups to apply for grants for each of those things separately. The rationale for this is that considering more and smaller projects separately is less work both for the organizing team and grant reviewers than having one larger and more complicated grant.
3. This grant application currently has less evidence of group collaboration than is typical for Wikimedia community groups. Although a range of collaborators and advisors are named, the Wikimedia community evaluates grant requests and is best able to make evaluations with participants who communicate on-wiki. Also, the stakeholders in the grant should be clear about who is responsible for the grant's success. For the institutional partners, for example, having a statement of any organization's commitment including the resources they will consume and contribute would be useful. Having an institutional partner give a statement saying, "We are fully committed to make XYZ work, and we will put the name of our institution behind this project..." would clarify who is bringing what to the negotiation.

Just to be realistic: on a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is a project which cannot be funded and 100 is a project which can, I would rank this proposal around a 10. It has lots of good ideas but it is lacking too many of the elements which the Wikimedia community expects to get easy community endorsement. Probably it would be easier to re-write as a series of smaller projects than to develop as a program of this size, especially considering the emphasis on demonstrating a history of understanding the grant reporting process with regard to the global metrics. While user groups can themselves set their own goals, everyone is asked to demonstrate a history of reporting global metrics when making a grant request of this size. There are any number of ways to advance this conversation to make changes to go forward. If I were to signal one way forward which I think is most likely to lead to grant funding through this mechanism, it would be for more people involved with the grant to post here in an on-wiki conversation to acknowledge how this grant request is different from a typical one and how they decided that these projects are the most likely path to minimize failure and maximize success.

I really appreciate the contributions of the San Diego Wikimedia community and everyone who has volunteered to coordinate the volunteers there in community events. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed analysis and kind words! Without the feedback last year on our previous IEG grant proposal, we didn't know how to answer the unasked questions. And we very very much appreciate you, too - your insights, all the time you've given us for Q&A, and the pointers and links youve shared have been instrumental in getting WikiSoCal to the capacities we're at now.

Within the next few days we will be doing an extensive update to the current proposals to address the questions and concerns we've gotten from you and the other reviewers we've been talking with. We have thousands of hours (and dollars) invested in the wiki movement so far, and would rather work to support our shared visions, in whatever manner we can, than to give up when it gets difficult. This is the most important work many of us have ever been a part of. DrMel (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Updates complete, with a lot more clarity and a request for a lot less money (from $100k down to $30k). Many thanks for the detailed feedback and ongoing encouragement, couldn't have gotten to this point without you! With such an extensive rewrite, I'd very much appreciate having you review what's there now and post you additional question, comments and concerns here. An endorsement would also be really really helpful. Thank you! DrMel (talk) 05:38, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Brief comment from Pine

Just want to more or less +1 Bluerasberry's comments above. I acknowledge the high potential in the SoCal region, but I think the amount being requested is far too high for this stage of the region's development. I have other concerns but in the end I agree with Bluerasberry's proposal that this single grant proposal should be subdivided into a series of smaller projects with more specific goals and smaller budgets. Those smaller projects may collectively form a whole that is "greater than the sum of its parts". I would like to see WikiSoCal start with modest resources and develop a track record of success over several years. That path is slower at first but it is also much lower risk, and after my experiences with Cascadia, I am particularly mindful of questions about sustainability. I'd like WikiSoCal to be a long-term and sustainable success. Regards. --Pine^✉ 07:10, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Pine for posting your feedback, and sorry to take so long to acknowledge it! Very helpful and you should see massive updates since you last reviewed it. In particular, we dropped the grant request from $100k for all the wiki activities we are working on, down to $30k for the most critical and immediate activities we've got coming up.

We would be very happy to get another review from you, and an endorsement if you like what you see. We also hope you'll be able to come back to San Diego this year! I'll also be up in Seattle in August and would like very much to try meeting up again. The face-to-face connections really do make a difference... DrMel (talk) 05:29, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments from the Team

Thank you all for your feedback! We have made revisions to our idea and hope that we can continue to work with the Wiki community to create accessbility to quality information. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to dicuss them on our talk page. EB90 (talk) 01:02, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank YOU, Jules, for the help supporting these projects and all your work on getting this proposal to this stage! Couldn't do it without you. <3 DrMel (talk) 05:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Helaine (Wiki Ed)

I have removed my name from this proposal as an expert advisor. I whole-heartedly agree with the mission of improving Wikipedia's accessibility, but I was not consulted about my participation beforehand. As a blind person, I also think the proposal does not address significant technological hurdles that currently make it challenging for the visually impaired to readily contribute to Wikipedia - e.g. the incompatibility of the VisualEditor with screen readers and the challenges in viewing differences between revisions. I think that technological improvements must go hand in hand with outreach efforts. I hope that accessibility becomes a high priority for the Wikipedia community and wish the proposal luck.Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Helaine, many apologies again for not having gotten you a version to review sooner! Loved being able to get your input when we met in SF in February, but failed to checkin as we drafted this to make sure listing you as an advisor would be ok. Wanted to send you a link last week, but got sick and ended up only finishing the revisions a couple days ago.

I also want to address your concerns: with the partnerships we are developing with senior leadership and staff at American Foundation for the Blind and San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind, we have wonderful resources for directly addressing the user interface needs our blind and disabled volunteers face. We also have a lot of new options for supporting the wiki movement beyond editing, to be more inclusive of people who are not comfortable or able to yet get through the wiki editing learning curves.

very much appreciate your encouragement, perspectives and recommendations! Who else do you think we should be connecting with?

DrMel (talk) 04:17, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Grant Review From Phil Zimbardo

Lane, Jethro and/or Jules: could you help address Zimbardo's comments here? He didn't have a chance to review and send feedback before April 4 deadline. We aren't in a position where we should or have time to edit back anything there, but could/should we make the changes he's requested to the links to his wiki page and the nonprofit organization he founded and represents here (heroicimagination.org)?

From: Philip Zimbardo

Sent: Monday, April 10, 2017 9:47:52 AM

Subject: Re: Grant app to Wikimedia is live

hi Mel,

from florence Italy where I am about to give several lectures after keynoting Tedx Roma on sat -- i have carefully read your entire document

very impressive📣🔔

but way too much information

readers will get lost

need some how to trim it

or arrange vital info

then supplementary stuff

clearly labelled

hero project link

leads to my wiki

and again too much info way beyond HIP

please just give hip web site with its focused info

You are doing an amazing job!

bravo!!! (Email communication from Phil Zimbardo to DrMel April 10) DrMel (talk) 17:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@DrMel: Adding links where appropriate seems like a sensible change to me, so that shouldn't be a problem. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

WikiSoCal 2016 $750 Grant Report

In 2015, after 10 years of wiki volunteering work without any contact inside, I applied for a tiny grant to support food costs for 3 editathons in San Diego. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/User:DrMel/Wiki_Edit-a-thon_Work_Parties

Then a lot of stuff happened. It was complicated and confusing. But we have so much mutual purpose and potential that we can't not keep going!

On February 8, 2017 we were finally able to submit our final report on the $750 2015-16 PEG grant that had launched WikiSoCal at the beginning of 2016. We knew that, until this report was complete, we could not successfully apply for new funding.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/User:DrMel/Wiki_Edit-a-thon_Work_Parties/Report

On April 6, we got this back from Alex Wang, who has been our grant administrator on just this tiny PEG grant.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:PEG/User:DrMel/Wiki_Edit-a-thon_Work_Parties/Report

We've submitted documentation for the expenses and receipts, discussed how to answer Alex's very thoughtful questions, and will be posting our answers to those questions as soon as possible so that this little bugger can be officially and finally closed. Yay! Only a gazillion things have happened since we applied in 2015 :-) We believe that, while the first grant application was for a tiny amount, what we were able to do over the past year demonstrates the incredible possibilities for adding fuel to the wiki movement, working with San Diego and WikiSoCal people and resources.

Questions? Excited? Hoping to see each of you visiting San Diego when timing allows, and inviting everyone to join us for the fun here and online! DrMel (talk) 15:31, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Endorsement fix please?

Marina was using my laptop at our monthly wikithon on a Saturday, and her endorsement looks like it came from me. Lane or Jules, could you edit and pull my name off the one from Marina from saturday? Thanks! I'm overwhelmed by the votes of confidence and so so so glad people can see that what we are doing is on path for enormous impacts. Challenging the status quo with experiments and adaptations. And welcoming everyone who wants to join in our fun!! DrMel (talk) 01:16, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Round 1 2017 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Aggregated feedback from the committee for WikiSoCal 2017

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	4.3
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	4.6
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	5.3
Additional comments from the Committee: The project seems aligned with some points in the strategic priorities. Fits with strategic priorities to increase inclusivity and accessibility (especially with regards to planned engagement with the visually impaired/blind individuals). It’s difficult to assess the online impact because specific targets around participation are not provided. Additionally, so many activities are proposed and partners mentioned that it’s difficult to understand what the priority is. The preamble seems to be good, but the outcomes are not clear. The only possible fit with strategic priorities and impact potential is local community building. Other than that this proposal has no SMART goals, it's impact is next to impossible to evaluate. Too ambitious: six learning patterns seems pretty high for an outreach / partnership agreement. I see evidence of big thinking and innovation, but also a lack of focus. Ideas like service learning programs, development of learning patterns, and user interface support are mentioned but not expanded upon. I worry that the grantee is proposing too much. Too much high cost to develop what is basically a partnership They seem to propose some innovative approaches, but these approaches are hardly understandable. We cannot measure success as metrics are not realistic. Budget needs more details. For example, what is the breakdown for the development of partnership programs (hours and hourly rate)? In terms of scope, the budget was decreased from $100K to $30K based on comments on the talk page, but I believe the level of activity has remained the same and seems too ambitious. Half of budget is for "Development and management." The budget is not realistic at all, impossible to say what exactly is to be accomplished. It's a pity that this proposal is poorly written despite having a lot of good volunteers in the area. I don't appreciate the fact that they added an advisor without asking her beforehand. Has a lot of support. Many different partnerships are proposed. At least one individual was added to the project without consultation. Evidence of interest in supporting diversity and providing a more inclusive environment for editors and volunteers. Good community support. It has identified too many target communities (like all blind Americans), although they seem to have a good support from a local Southern California community. I see it as a great opportunity to grow the idea, but I don't feel comfortable with the previous step (PEG request) and the grantee, because I see a lack of interest to do a good report, and the expected outcome (learning pattern) is valuable knowledge for the movement: if it's poorly presented/written, the idea is lost and the effort is in vain. Another point: how is growing the idea and the requested budget amount, because the majority of the budget is to pay someone to undertake some outreach activities (I count less than 10). The budget seems vague to justify the requested amount. I am still quite confused about what exactly is being proposed - however, I think the grantee is very enthusiastic and passionate about contributing to Wikimedia projects and I agree with comments on the talk page that identify the need to first start with modest resources and later build to larger projects. For that reason, I'd be willing to support partial funding for 1-2 specific activities. Perhaps the requested $3000 for running recurring edit-a-thons/meetups would be appropriate? I like the idea but cannot pinpoint at this moment what level of impact it will create or the need for this project. While it is a grant proposal with good intentions (to include blind people in the Wiki projects), I don't think that Wiki projects will have a significant benefit. Plus, expenses are too high. Reduce the budget. This is a clear "no" for me. This seems to be a good group, but they should clearly identify what they want to do and what they want to achieve before applying for a grant. I don't see how we can find such a vague proposal.