Grants talk:PEG/Olaf Kosinsky/European Parliament

GAC member status for this application

No objection

• Ok with thisMayur ^{(talk•Email)} 04:11, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Objection

• As it currently stands. Tony (talk) 00:49, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
• Until the questions posed by my GAC colleagues are properly addressed by the applicant. Craig Franklin (talk) 11:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC).

Waiting for more details

• Kirill Lokshin ^[talk] 01:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments from KTC

I like the general idea, but I do have a few comments & questions:

1. The submitted plans are for 30 participants, 44% of member states doesn't have chapters, yet budget is to support only 6 (20%) non-chapters supported participants?
2. Increasing female participation is great, but not if the idea is "come and do the make up, while we men do the serious work of photography and articles writing."
3. What was the various chapters response when the idea was discussed at DC?
4. I'm slightly concern of what expectation MEPs would have in taking part by being told "we'll write about you / your parliamentary work" and Wikipedia maintaining its principles of neutral point of view in any such resulting articles.

-- KTC (talk) 07:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

1. I plan with 10 participants from Germany and Austria + 6 scholarships and 14 participants from member states with chapter
2. The idea is NOT "come and do the make up, while we men do the serious work of photography and articles writing.". Pardon the misunderstanding. In the Bavarian parliament were 5 females, 3 photographers and 2 for the Make-Up
3. The idea has been very well received.
4. We do not write the articles. We want to explain how Wikipedia pages are written and what rules there are.

--Olaf Kosinsky (talk) 15:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments

First, what does this mean? "the 754 we are going to invite the 754 members" Tony (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I would venture it is a typo for inviting the 754 members of the European Parliament? --Bence (talk) 11:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• "October–December 2012/January–March 2013: As a preparation for the project we are going to contact the parliamentary administration and the eight parliamentary parties and personally explain the aims of our project. We are also going to contact the “chapters” in the member states in order to support our project (WMDE for example is going to provide technical equipment, background, lights, camera etc.)"

I'm puzzled as to why there are two contiguous month-ranges.

• January–March 2013: After this phase of preparation ...

I'm confused. Which first phase?

• April–June 2013: As a preparation for our project we are going to organise and attend a preparatory photo-taking workshop in May or June 2013 for a weekend.

This will be in the building in Brussels? Who will be the photographic subjects (presumably not MEPs who volunteer to go first)?

• "Authors will be present to write articles about the parliamentary work of the MEPs."

Why do WP editors need to be present to write the articles? Does this violate the "no original research" policy (certainly of en.WP)? What methods would they use, and why can articles not be written using the usual sources for BLPs? There's no mention of language(s) and translation.

• What indication is there that the MEPs will play ball? What arrangements will there be for scheduling the photo-sessions? How long will each take? Who will take the photos? Are they a professional photographer? Will the results be as good as WMDE's outputs of photos of German Olympians?

I do have a feeling that this project could be conducted, probably with better results, with a lean and hungry methodology and without the crowd. Sounds too much like a social get-together/short vacation.

Tony (talk) 10:59, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Some comments

Thanks for the submission. For the similar project carried out in the local parliaments in Germany I heard last year and it sounded like a great idea to me. When I see the results from the specific activities in the Bavarian Parliament, it makes me feel that the potential of this one is promising as well. But sill I need some clarifications regarding its scope and budget. My questions are the following:

1. Do you think that the countries with local chapters and organized groups of Wikimedians outside the European Union can contribute to the realization of this project? You have table that lists the member countries of the European Union, probably because the members in the Parliament come from these countries. But what the other countries with chapters can do to enrich the project?
2. Do you have any rough numbers on the members with no articles and photographs at Wikipedia and the number that should be created and taken? This is important because includes the actual work that should be done.
3. What will happen when the members of the 8th European Parliament will be elected and the other people will sit in the seats? Do you plan to continue with the similar activities and request for another grant to support the new project? Do you consider the possibility to make the project periodical after the changes in each of the parliaments included? This can help to maintain the importance of the project and can freely make an impact to the other countries to start think up of its implementation.
4. Do you have any predictions on the acceptance of this project by the employees in the EP and the members? You mention that the contacts have to be started by October 2012, which means that you're already in contacts with them. Have you already received any positive response for now? Can you figure out the general expectation among the people in the EP about this project?
5. Can you detail some information about the expenses for the workshop in the budget? According to the quantities given, I suppose that the expenses are for one person who will stay in a hotel for two nights. But where the organizer have to come from in order to have 300 euros for his travel?

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Please reduce success parameters

• This is one project where the key result areas should be critically reduced to ensure that the proposed project is not panned later for not being successful on attempting to achieve more than what is necessary here. The critical focus of the project is in getting portraits of respective individuals. Therefore, the project should purely be assessed on the number of portraits obtained.
• The target of getting x% portraits of those EU members whose portraits we do not have, is of course commendable. But a better description of objective would be to simply give a straightforward number driven objective divided into, say, three success parameters. For example, the project would be considered as having:

a. been above expectations if we obtain greater than 'x' number of portraits

b. met expectations if the number of portraits obtained falls between 'x' and 'y'

c. not met expectations if the number is below 'y'

• My third suggestion is, irrespective of whether a member of parliament already has a picture on Wikipedia or not, take his portrait again and count it as a successful portrait than just focusing on those whose portraits have not been taken yet. This will ensure we have fresh portraits and a larger archive to choose from.
• I know you've been involved earlier in such projects. What is the audit process that will ensure that all portraits taken using this project's funding will be handed over us? Is there a possibility that after giving a specific number of pictures to the project, the remaining are used by the project members?

Thanks.Wifione (talk) 03:01, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Two questions.

Hi Olaf, very interesting project. I have two questions.

• There is some involvment of the Parliament in the project or any agency of the EU related in the project? It would be desirable to find a linkage for a possible co-funding of the project.
• I'd like to see more broken down the process. Photos will be taken first, and each participant will commit to writing the article in the same days, or after the event? In what language will be written the articles? Regards, --ProtoplasmaKid (talk) 23:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

A few questions

A few questions:

1. What level of support, if any, will the individual European chapters provide for this program? In particular, do you anticipate receiving additional funding (beyond the amount requested in this application) from the chapters? If so, how much?
2. What is the purpose of the travel to Brussels and Luxembourg? I assume this is not part of the actual photography expedition, but there is no mention of this travel in the list of activities.
3. Could you please provide a breakdown of anticipated attendees, both by role (photographer, author, support, etc.) and by country of origin?

Kirill Lokshin ^[talk] 01:12, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Just ask them - a much cheaper approach

I think much cheaper aproach leading to obtaining pictures of EU MP would be just to send their secretaries the letters asking to release their pictures under free licence in order to use them for their bio-s in Wikipedia. We did such an action in Poland with our MP's and the response was around 65 %. This is just a cost of one person empoloyed for such a task for several weeks or you can try to find a volunteer and just equiped him/her with internet and phone :-) I expect similar effect with this photo-session project, I mean roughly 50-60% of EU MPs may agree to be photographed, the rest rather disagree. Moreover many MP would prefer to provide their pictures instead of being photographed by amatours with no control over effect. Polimerek (talk) 12:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)