Grants talk:PEG/Romaine/WLM BeLux 2014/Report

I would like to request to use remaining funds for other mission-aligned activities, as described here.

1. The amount of 407,72 EUR is to be used for travel costs for Wikimedia related activities in Belgium.
2. There are various upcoming and already made appointments with cultural institutions for collaborations with Wikipedia/Wikimedia, various organisations and conferences for Wikimedia and Wikimedia Belgium. This is for example for travel(s) to meetings related to the EU policy project, to meetings with cultural institutions and other organisations we like to do projects with (like donating images and texts, doing edit-a-thons, photo contests, Wikipedian-in-Residence projects, etc), to meetings of Wikimedia Belgium, to conferences like FOSDEM (conference) to promote Wikimedia, for organizing Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Belgium and Luxembourg, and more.
3. Start: 1 January 2015 until no later than 31 December 2015.

Romaine (talk) 15:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Romaine. Thanks for the reallocation request. Since Wikimedia Belgium has a grant proposal currently under review, it would be better if the above activities are added to the open request. Since this grant was to you as an individual, we would request that you send the remaining funds back and the new activities would fall under the direction of the chapter. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Report comments

Thank you for the report and congrats on a successful Wiki Loves Monuments! Please see our comments/questions below:

1. It's great that you had 111 new contributors! If there was no media coverage, how do you think they learned about the contest? Mostly on-wiki outreach? Social media?
2. Have you done any specific post-contest follow-up with the participants to encourage them to continue participating in chapter activities? If not, do you have plans to do this?
3. What partner organizations did you work with and how did they support the contest? Are they interested in partnering on other activities?
4. Thank you for the great learning pattern!
5. Regarding the Global Metrics, the link in the grant report provides more information on what the metrics are, how to measure them and what tools to use. #5 and #6 don't apply to a photo contest. For #4, you will need to use the Glamorous Tool to see how many photos from the contest have been used in articles. Using the tool, I found that of the total number of images, 925 distinct images have been used in articles (40% of all photos in the category Images from WIki Loves Monuments 2014 in Belgium), and the photos have been used 1,149 times. This is a VERY impressive percentage of photos in use! Did you do anything in particular after the contest to get the photos used in articles?
6. In terms of the reallocation request, as said above, please return the remaining funds. The activities outlined are included in the current grant request from Wikimedia Belgium.

Looking forward to your responses. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello Alex Wang,

1. Wiki Loves Monuments heavily relies on the CentralNotice banner that has been shown above Wikipedia and Commons. Most of the participants upload photos because of this banner, which is for all countries the case. When the CentralNotice is off, site admins directly notice a very strong drop in the number of visitors of the website and participants. Besides the CentralNotice we have used social media, on-wiki messages and publication about the contest by our partners.
2. During the contest we have made people aware of the future Wikimedia Belgium. Afterwards we have send an e-mail to all the participants about the prize ceremony, and we included also some information about the founding meeting of Wikimedia Belgium, how someone can become a member, and a link for more information. Further we have at this point no plans, but maybe such can change in future.
3. The partners also published about it on their website about the contest. We had as partners:
   1. Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, which provided us a free space for the prize giving ceremony, a drink and snack afterwards and prizes for the winners.
   2. Flanders Heritage Agency (VIOE), which provided us prizes for the winners.
   3. Brussels Capital Region, which provided us prizes for the winners.
   4. Creative Commons Belgium, which provided us some materials to use.
   • Creative Commons Belgium is certainly interested in supporting other projects in future, as Wikipedia/Wikimedia is the largest user of the licenses. The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage is working on an image donation for Wikipedia. Of the other two I have no information available, as we haven't budgeted funds for live meetings afterwards (in Belgium still the best way to build trust and work together with organisations).
4. Organizing a Wiki Takes... is in practice more difficult, if you do the preparations for the first time.
5. It is easy to get lost in all the documentation and paper work, certainly if English isn't the native language and you do not have the best health situation. Also it is not easy to find tools to retrieve statistical data, a problem I notice with multiple projects. We still have the infrastructure of the past years active, in what a bot checks if an image is used in the lists of monuments if it has a monument identifier on the file page. We have some users who are actively working with those lists. Also I have myself added many of the images to the lists. Also to improve the categorisation of the images on Commons, users have been active. But I do think this is a long term activity, which I also do myself together with others.
6. The money is save waiting in the account for being processed.

Greetings - Romaine (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

PS: Thinking about our contacts with partner organisations and evaluating many of my/our activities, the key issue why Wikipedia/Wikimedia has a Gendergap can be found in the situation that women in general like to have more social contact than only being active alone with the computer. If I look into activities like edit-a-thons I organised the past years, there is no Gendergap as at least 50% is female, but often even more. Romaine (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed responses Romaine. We agree that the new Global Metrics are not the easiest to navigate, but we are working on updating some of the instructions based on your feedback (and a few other folks that have submitted reports recently). It's great that you have so many female participants in your offline activities! I agree that women generally like to be social and engage in person, but I think the issue is complex and there are lots of other challenges for women contributors. Hopefully the Inspire campaign will surface new ideas to address these diverse challenges. Once we have received the remaining funds, we can approve this report. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:14, 2 February 2015 (UTC)