Grants talk:PEG/Amical/FCF-2011

Ni!

First let me say that I am thoroughly in favour of this kind of proposal: direct action with potential to advance our vision, making the most of already existing resources and using this exchange to foster integration of other groups with the Wikimedia Movement.

Still, I would like to ask you to develop some points:

Participation grants

• How many and what profile of wikipedians are you targeting with these participation grants? How will the selection happen? This is very important since it is the bulk of the money you're asking for, and is not discussed at all.

Free Culture Forum

• What do you mean precisely by in parallel with the Free Culture Forum? It is important to understand when are you planning to stage this meeting in terms of the Forum's agenda, and why it does not conflict with it. Is it going to be part of the forum's agenda? Will it take place inside the forum, or nearby? How long will it last? How much of the forum will participants miss to attend this? In short, I assume the target audience overlaps a lot, so it is important for you to explain why people would be ok to attend this while perhaps missing part of the regular FCF, which I'm counting to be great.

Other collaborative communities

• Can you list some of these other collaborative communities you're talking about? Any indication that they're interested in attending this? Are these other communities international, or mostly local? This last issue reflects on the kind of wikipedians you are targeting with the participation grant.

Finally, once you're done replying here, remember to update the grant request as well. :)

Thanks and great job!

--Solstag 05:06, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

A worthy proposal but I agree with the Solstag’s questions - it's important to clarify what audience do you expect (mainly Catalan? Spanish? European? worldwide?) and would like to add a few of my own:

• As far as I understand Associació Amical Viquipedia is an association of Catalan wikipedians. You state as a measure of success of your proposal an "increase of connections between wikimedians of different projects". Are you going to involve wikipedians from Spanish Wikipedia in the event organisation?
• You propose simultaneous translation, which would cost €1000. Do you mean translation Catalan/Spanish or from Catalan/Spanish into English? Why do you need professional translators when there can be volunteers that would be happy to acquire new experience for CV?
• You propose to have 100 - 200 participants and allocate €18000 for fellowships. How many fellowships are you expecting to grant, what would be an average fellowship and how are you going to select Wikipedians for fellowships?

Victoria 13:20, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not going to take part in the discussion of this grant, for obvious reasons. But I would like to remember, without intention of offending nobody :-), that Catalonia is an Autonomous Community of the Spanish State, and there exists a Wikimedia España ... we understand that Amical wants to organize events and it seems to us wonderful that does it, -in fact, we were sure of part of the grant of 20,000 Euros given to Amical by the Fundació Punt cat last year ([[1]]) would use in events but perhaps this is a mistake...- But it had been a nice gesture that you had said something to us on this event, instead of finding out due to the fact that I am a member of the GAC ;-) ... if the grant is approved, we are waiting the invitation to take part in the event, invitation that sure will take place.--Marctaltor 22:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC) (GAC member)

Alina - Clarifications

Hi and thanks for asking! I'm Alina, one of the project leads for Digital Commons and Collaborative Communities event concept, specifically I'm designing the workshop on Participation and Community engagement, supported by Amical and a broader Catalan Community.

Going beyond geo-political organization, chapters and other structures, the nature of this workshop is to get together individuals focused on aspects of community engagement, community health, brainstorming on new ways of increasing a diverse participation in Wikipedia movement and Wikiprojects and strenghten collaboration between communities sharing the same mission.

As stated in Movements Roles, Wikimedia movement is about empowering people, activities and organizations that revolve around Wikimedia projects.

So, this activity, started mainly by people in Amical (organization supporting / promoting the wikipedia movement and values), Wikimedian Catalan and English editors and even people from outside Wikimedia (but supporters of Wikimedia values and mission). Anyone interested in those topics is invited to contribute in a constructive way. Bellow, are some specific clarifications:

Fellowship and participants

• There is a number of expected 100 participants but we start with a baseline of 30 - 40 (which are mainly fellowships);
• The fellowships will go to wikipedians around the world interested and active in: community engagement, outreach and participation.
• Participants from around Spain as any other wikipedians are very welcome to join us. There are no barriers or preferences since the participants agree to actively contribute into generating the outcomes and be directly involved in community engagement and participation within Wikimedia. ALL PARTICIPANTS ARE ORGANIZERS :).
• Fellowship money will go specifically to accommodation, flight and catering for 2 days of event.
• Audience will be diverse and global. The main target is learning from others, actively participating through collaborative sessions and going beyond the typical talk and listen conference. Main language is English but as many are not native-English speakers, a core part of the event is respecting other languages and provide a flexibility in communication (part of documentation and web may be translated into Catalan and Spanish).
• For choosing the fellowships we are open to proposals. I had some discussions with people from India chapter, from Kenya community, WM Deutchland and others at Wikimania. Collaboration with Community and Global Development Departments at WMF for choosing the fellows would also be

a solution.

Translation and other expenses

• Simultaneous translation is optional and we will do our best to do it through volunteer participants.
• The same for other additional expenses such as video recording.
• We still consider very important the fellowship funds (is important to get together wikimedians already working on those issues).

Free Culture Forum

• doing it simultaneously with Free Culture Forum is just taking the opportunity to strenghten the importance of free culture;
• also a good way of networking with various artists and activists;
• the dynamics are different, the Digital Commons and Collaborative Communities event being much more oriented to action, design and

direct collaboration (also, Free Culture Forum takes place in a different day).

Other collaborative communities

• Mozilla, representatives of various Linux groups, User Interface designer and web dev. communities, Creative Commons and even communities and individuals from outside Wikipedia and free culture.
• our goal is to having 50% - 60% participants outside from the well known circles of Wikipedia editors, so we could dive into new topics, challenges and issues.

Those are my clarifications for the moment. Let me know if you would like more details. --Alinam 15:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Alina, thank you for your reply :)

I would like you to refine a few things and, as I said, please update the grant's proposal with the additional detail you provide, not only this discussion. In fact, I'd say give priority to update the proposal, and just place a short note here that the proposal has been amended to answer our concerns, replying only when necessary, as the edits should speak for themselves.

Now, here are a few don'ts hahaha... take them lightly ;D

• I don't think video recording should be optional. In fact, I think making permanent useful audiovisual material to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and displayed in the grant report should be a requirement for this grant.
• I don't feel positive about this "but mainly european" focus for the fellowships. Europeans can find ways around travel and accommodation, ridesharing, couchsurfing and the likes, and many will already be there for FCF. What about a focus on bringing in some (North-) Africans and Middle-Easterns? I'm sure the foundation can help with that kind of contact.
• I don't understand how the dates do not conflict with the Free Culture Forum. From what I read, they completely overlap, so what do you mean by "Free Culture Forum takes place in a different day"?
• Do you have any indication that these groups outside Wikimedia are joining the event? Have you discussed this with them already?

Hugss,

--Solstag 00:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Impact vs. cost

This event is certainly mission-aligned and the request is coherent and detailed. Thank you for your work on this.

I am concerned, however, at the proportion of expenditure: spending ~$26,000 on airfare and accommodation at a 2-day event just doesn't sound like a good use of donor funds. We cannot keep flying people around the world so many times a year. We must, for each such event, honestly question the added value of truly global participation in proportion to the required expenditure.

In the case of this event, I am unconvinced that this would not be almost as effective if it is held as a regional or even local event. Arranging some train scholarships for participants from Spain, France, Portugal etc., should be a lot more cost-effective and would still yield a reasonably-wide audience and set of opinions and experiences.

We can, and should, engage globally on questions such as the one proposed as this event's focus, but spending $26,000 for two days of discussion about it is just too much. We can have a (slower and somewhat less effective, sure) online discussion about it for free. Not taking away from the unique energy and opportunity of a live event, we just have to make sure we get good value for our donor money, and this is too expensive.

As the planned date draws near, I encourage you to re-think this request and ask for much more modest support from the WMF. Ijon 17:11, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Step out as Project Lead - Alina

Hi Asaf, I totally agree with your view (as discussed at Wikimania)! As for participants, I agree about having a few from Africa / Middle East as Solstag suggested, but in a small group focused on problem solving rather than talks. After various discussions with the other organizers, I arrived at the conclusion that we don't share the same vision about the event. But still, I believe that events with a focus on increasing Participation are needed (being at small or regional scale). I already announced before the other Project lead, now I also announce here that I'm stepping out. Thanks for all! --Alinam 18:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Alina, I hope we see you again in a future grant request. Meanwhile, we await the input from this grant's new overlords ;-) --Solstag 10:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Revised version incorporing inputs and suggestions - plus updated on late developments

Dear Solstag and all! I hope you are happy and fine. Thanks everybody for the commons and suggestions. Please see new version of the Grant after reviwing it on the base of the inputs and feedbacks in the discussion page and updating it in regards to the progresses and developments of the event organization. Please look to the new version. More suggestions are also welcome. Have a nice day! On behalf of the organizational team, --Lilaroja 13:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello Lilaroja! I see you've reworked the proposal, hope that wasn't too much hassle :) Hm.. I feel that my concerns about this grant have been addressed. One important thing that is evidently implicit, but wouldn't hurt to make explicit, is that all multimedia material will be made available to Wikimedia Commons.

Now, about Asaf's concern regarding the scale of the event and the precedence of regional versus global events... I see some of the adjustments respond to this, in particular the adjusted value of the request, still one question comes to me... is your plan that the invited participants to this event also take part in the Free Culture Forum? I think the Free Culture Forum is sufficiently interesting and significant that having more worldwide and local Wikimedians there would weight in favour, and perhaps should even be pursued, at least as an option and with a strong suggestion to the participants.

So, these are my thoughts for now!

Abraços, --Solstag 19:18, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Why budget on human power is allocated so high, can you plz elaborate this--Mayur ^{(talk•Email)} 06:35, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Importance of international attendance vs. cost

If we take out the airfare and accommodation costs of international attendees from your budget, we are left with 1850 EUR, or ~$2500, asked from the WMF, for other expenses. The WMF is happy to support this event by that amount. With the international attendees, the cost rises to ~$13750 -- more than five times as much; I would like to see some convincing arguments for the value of spending so much money on bringing international attendees to this event (do you have specific attendees with unique backgrounds in mind, or is it just for the principle of maximal inclusion?). Without such arguments, I can't say I am convinced these extra $11,000 would be well spent. Ijon 20:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Answering questions and embracing suggestions since the last version

Dear Solstag, Mayur and Ijon:

I hope you are fine. Thank you for your suggestions and comments. I try to answer them one by one.

Solstag questions

One important thing that is evidently implicit, but wouldn't hurt to make explicit, is that all multimedia material will be made available to Wikimedia Commons.

This comments is a bit confusing. In the version submited on 3:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC) (previous to Solstag comments) there was explicitly mention that in the Outcomes: "Online publication & resource How to manual on digital commons: participation engagement, sustainability formulas and over all free culture networking: It refers to a final resource which systematize the knowledge generated at the event and beyond on the working lines the event adressed. It will include links to useful audiovisual material from the event to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons." For us this in " " refers to what you are requesting. Or did we understand wrongly and you mean something else?. Please clarify so we can make sure we take your suggestion in proper consideration.

Ok, I must have overlooked that last sentence, as that is indeed what I meant. I wasn't looking for it in the description of the manual, I was expecting some separate statement, but this is clear enough. Thanks :) --Solstag 05:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

is your plan that the invited participants to this event also take part in the Free Culture Forum? I think the Free Culture Forum is sufficiently interesting and significant that having more worldwide and local Wikimedians there would weight in favour, and perhaps should even be pursued, at least as an option and with a strong suggestion to the participants.

Participants to the Free Culture Forum are invited and welcome to the Building digital commons, and viceversa. The thematic, audience and approach are complement each other, but are not the same; so it is realistic to expect that many (but not all) the participants will cross-participate in the two events. Does this answer your question or do you mean something else?.

I just meant that you should take an active role in explaining to each participant about the additional opportunity to participate in the FCF, so they can adjust their travel dates and accommodations to that end. --Solstag 05:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Mayur questions

Why budget on human power is allocated so high, can you plz elaborate this

The human power is covered both by Amical Viquipedia and Institute of Goverment and Public Policies. The WMF has not been requested to cover human power (please see budget). There are two type of human power: First type, logistic and organizational support (2000 euros), this is cover by Amical Viquipedia on the base of a grant-ship. The first two months developed by Alina Mierlus and the last two months by Mariana Gavre. Second type, content elaboration and action research human power (3000 euros), this is covered and it reflects the dedication of IGOP researchers. With this event we aim to create a dialogue between research and action perspective, and address very cutting edge questions. In this regard, the methodology and content to be worked at the meeting is the result of a consistent work by researchers with a deep involvement in the issues. Here research refers to two aspects:

• At the event will be presented a research on maping digital commons and a research on sources of subtainability for infrastructure online (developed at the IGOP).
• Preparation of the materials and facilitation the elaboration of the event outcomes. This refers to review of the state of the art for each topic, collection of more relevant sources and systematization of materials, and development of a survey among participants before the event.

Ijon Questions

I would like to see some convincing arguments for the value of spending so much money on bringing international attendees to this event

The event is international in scope. Transversally international, the scheme is not bringing international attendees to a local event. The design, argumentation and development of the list of participants (and here also refering to participants beyond wikipedians/wikimedians), the agenda and goals, and the language employed was and is done from an international perspective. We had been working on it for past 5 months, which at this stage sound unlikely to us to put it as just take off the international part.

(From previous comments) I encourage you to re-think this request and ask for much more modest support from the WMF.

We reorganized the event in order to embrace this suggestion. To be noticed that the financial cost asked in the current version is half of the previous version.

If we take out the airfare and accommodation costs of international attendees from your budget, we are left with 1850 EUR, or ~$2500, asked from the WMF, for other expenses. (...) With the international attendees, the cost rises to ~$13750 --

Not all the participants are internationals. The airface and accomodations costs also include wikipedians in Spain.

(do you have specific attendees with unique backgrounds in mind, or is it just for the principle of maximal inclusion?).

Yes. Please see the section on wikipedians/wikimedians attendees: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Amical/FCF-2011#1.29_Wikipedians.2Fwikimedians We list specific profiles of wikipedians and specific people we consider are important for the full filling of the event (to mention them (Abbas Mahmoud (Wikipedia Swahili) who has experience in users projects in the schools and small scales wikipedians; Castelobranco and/or Thomas da Souza (Wikimedia Brasil); Amir E. Aharoni (from Wikimedia Israel and Language Committee (which could contribute in small scale wikipedians); Milos Rancic (Wikimedia Servia and Language committe); from Wikimedia Germany: Alice Weigand (who participated in previos Fcforum events and expressed interest in the celebration of this event), Mathias Schindler, Denis Barthel, and/or Angelika Adam (promotors of Wikimedia Academy and research on Wikipedia); and, Wikimedia Italy organizers of the Festival of digital freedoms (http://www.libertadigitali.org/), with similarities with the goals of this even. Additionally, we considered to make also sure there was representation from the WMF and the board. In this line, we considered the profiles of Community Department (such as Zack Exley, who expresed interest to attend previous Free culture forum editions), Dario Taraborelli (Senior Research Analyst) and Erik Zachte (Data Analyst) could attend the event and would be of great contribution. Plus, Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, and Wikimedia board (such as Samuel Klein, who has expresed interest to the role of Amical Viquipedia and previous Free Culture Forum editions).

Do you consider it would make sense to reduce the participation from the WMF in order to reduce the costs?

Initianlly (mainly considering the hight cost of participants from other continents), we were more focus on attracting European participants; however, in order to embrace the suggestion by Solstag (See above on edit from 00:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)) about going beyond Europe and bringing in some (North-) Africans and Middle-Easterns, we modified our proposal to include grants for participants from other continents, and try to find an equilibrium between then with one person per other continent.

Finally, additionally, to this specific people/profiles we are having in mind, the grants will be distributed following a selection process and given people interested to attend the possibility to apply for the grants (even if they were not among the list of profiles we inittially considered) on the base of the arguments why they are interested or could contribute (see selection procedual).

In sum, we are aware on the volume of the costs; but on the base of embracing having transcontinental participants, it is difficult to imaging a shorter costs to cover them (we calculated the costs based on the lower fly and accommodations rates or options).

I hope this contribute to clarify your questions. Otherwise, please let us know any further suggestion or change to take consider or explain forward.

Please let me know if the process could be facilitated or speed up by a IRC chat.

Thank you in advance. Have a nice day! --Lilaroja 04:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

About this, let me share my view. The Free Culture Forum has been prolific in generating documents that work as guidelines for action in the digital reality, which have received a reasonable amount of attention (disclosure: I have been using these myself in classes about remix culture, here in Brazil). This event seems like an attempt to bring that work, now, to the realm of digital commons and social production. From this perspective, I do agree with the organizers about the international nature of the event, and that the presence of wikimedians is beneficial to both the quality of the resulting product and the returns that the Wikimedia Movement may expect from it.

I do agree, however, that such a manual could be produced collaboratively online, and I hope it will at least be continuously updated like that. But I also see a valuable opportunity in bootstrapping it and linking its life cycle to the FCF process. Perhaps, in light of this, a reasonable request for the WMF to fund it in its current form should be that this manual be produced or at least later deployed to Wikibooks, so it can evolve within that wiki through future editions of the forum.

Cheers, --Solstag 05:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Recalcule the budget on the base of the last suggestions

In order to embrace the legitimate worry, that Ijon has particularly stress, in terms of the high cost of the event. Here we include a recalculate of the budget on the base of: 1) Maintaining the international participation of wikipedians/wikimedians, which for us is an important and essential factor of the event. 2) Maintaining a variety of the international participation which help to address the question of approaching participation from different scales cases and from different contexts. 3) But, being more selective on the international participation. This refers concretely of keeping the scholarship for international participants that we have a strong interest in (on the base of the contribution they would give to the event - as augmented above and in the grant for each of the case), and taking off the grants to other continents or places where we do not have a specific interested profile. 4) Furthermore, the representation from the WMF and board is suggested to be reduced from 4 scholarships to 1 also looking to reduce the costs of the event. However, for us keep important that the representative to come commit him or herself to report and connect the event with the work of the Community, Data analytics and Research work at the WMF and the board.

In this regard the scholarship participation would result as follow:

• Africa: Abbas Mahmoud (Wikipedia Swahili) who has experience in users projects in the schools and small scales wikipedians.
• Latino-America: Thomas da Souza (from Wikimedia Brasil) but as he is based in London, the costs counts like a European trip.
• Middle East: Amir E. Aharoni (from Wikimedia Israel and Language Committee (which could contribute in small scale wikipedians)
• East Europe: Milos Rancic (Wikimedia Servia and Language committe)
• West Europe: 1 person from Wikimedia Germany(Alice Weigand (who participated in previos Fcforum events and expressed interest in the celebration of this event), Mathias Schindler, Denis Barthel, or Angelika Adam (promotors of Wikimedia Academy and research on Wikipedia)); and, 1 person from Wikimedia Italy (organizers of the Festival of digital freedoms (http://www.libertadigitali.org/)).
• WMF representative: 1
• Spain: 5 grants. Including members of Wikimedia Spain (Such as Felipe Ortega (Wikimedia Spain and reseracher specialized on dynamics of participation in Wikipedia) and Amical Viquipedia/Wikipedia Catalan which are not based in Barcelona.

Still, even if this is the profiles we consider are the most relevant one to engage for the event; we want to garanty that other people that we initially are not considering have the possibility to take part. In this regard, we will do an open call for applications to the scholarship and give the possibility to other wikimedians/wikimedians to apply to the scholarship, and select them on the base that they provide good arguments on the contribution and inputs they consider they would give to the event goals.

5) Finally, again, it is in the core of this event to advance seriously (with a combination of research and experienced knowledge) in our understanding of the issues of the agenda and this to result in specific outcomes that can be transmitted and shared with other people that did not take part in the event (people organizing the event (such as Mayo Fuster, Joan Subirats and Marco Berlinguer has a long experience of extracting outcomes from events that if needed can be reported in detail). This is an important dimension for us. In this regard, we would like to stress again the resources we are putting in order to make sure the event starts with an elaborated framing of the work (developed before the event a systematization of content and developing research to adress the questions of the agenda - both aspects being already in place) and in terms of a rich and of quality work of the outcomes resulting from the event (more in concrete the "How to manual on digital commons: participation engagement, sustainability formulas and over all free culture networking", and the documentation of the event" (again both to be made available to Wikimedia Commons.) In this systematization process, many other wikimedians/wikipedians will be contacted and consulted (such as to answer the survey), even if they do not participate physically on the event. Possibilities to participate virtually (though IRC and social media) will also be provided.

Resulting budget on the base of this reductions:

• The costs of traveling, catering and hosting has been recalculated on the reduction of scholarships presented above. With a reduction of the ammount requested to the WMF grant programe (total reduction: 6167.1 dollars) going from 13743.63 dollars to 7,576.53 dollars.
• The estimation of the trip cost was calculated with www.edreams.com.
• The hosting cost was calculated considering that we estimate to be able to host at least half of the international participants with non-cost solutions.
• With this current budget, WMF would be contributing a 35% of the total costs of the event organization.
• We aim to reduce the costs of the event as much as possible. If the final costs is lower, it would be re-transfered to the WMF.

td p { margin-bottom: 0cm; }p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }

<col width="97*"></col> <col width="40*"></col> <col width="36*"></col> <col width="39*"></col> <col width="43*"></col> <tbody> </tbody>

	Amical	IGOP	Require grant	Total
Human power (organiser and facilitator)	2000	3000		5000
Space rental		900		900
Catering			800 1000	800 1000
Video recording and editing		Provision camera	500	500
Simultaneous translation	Volunteers
Materials for participants, merchandising and materials for supply		150	350	500
Participation travel grants for Wikipedians (17 12 grants)
Africa			615	615
Asia			650	650
Latino America			1000	1000
Middle East			370	370
East Europe (2 1grants)			200 x 2 = 400	200 400
West Europe (2 3 grants)			200 x 3 = 600 x 2 = 400	600 400
Spain (5 grant)			100 x 5 = 500	500
WMF 2 1 staff representative from USA and 1 from Europe			750 + 750 + 200 = 1700	750 1700
1 WMF board representative			600	600
Travel for non-wikipedians		4000		4000
Participants hosting cost (6 participants x 3 nights x 60 euros/night)			1080 1980	1080 1980
Total (in Euros)	2000	8050	5565 10065	15615 20115
Total (in Dollars)	2,759.57	11107	7,576.53 13743.63	21443,1 27469.35

--Lilaroja 15:37, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

New version of the grant proposal

Please see third new version of the grant proposal after inserting last comments and feedback. Thank you, --Lilaroja 01:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no further comments regarding this proposal. For the reasons I have expressed above, which are reinforced by the most recent reconfigurations and clarifications, I fully support it and recommend its approval.

As the amount requested is still above the last official "offer" from the WMF, I am implicitly suggesting that the foundation be more generous with this request. Besides the diversity of participant composition and of funding sources from the start, and the concrete results both in terms of outreach significance an expected product, the additional support is also justified by the issue of gaining proximity and promoting international Wikimedian presence within the FCF process, even if not necessarily the forum itself, since the forum is becoming an increasingly relevant arena for like-minded people around the world, many of whom have still not been welcomed to the Wikimedia movement. --Solstag 00:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Grant report

The grant report has been provided (date Dec 1st 2011): http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Amical/FCF-2011/Report

--Lilaroja 02:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)