Grants talk:PEG/TMorshed/Bangla Wikipedia 10th anniversary/Report

Comments from WMF

Thank you Tanweer Morshed for writing such a detailed and thoughtful report, and for all of the work that you and other volunteers have put into organizing the events included in this grant. I am sure that other program leaders will benefit from reading about many of the lessons you have learned and outreach strategies that you used, particularly around using pre-event surveys and planning effective photo contests. Please answer the questions below so that we can learn more from your project.

1. What kind of skills were taught in the sessions on contributing to Wikipedia processes using mobile devices? Do you have any recommendations for other program leaders or Wikipedia Zero partners who want to plan similar programs?

We have demonstrated contributing to Wikipedia using mobile devices in several sessions. We first showed the participants to use Wikipedia effectively using mobile devices. We suggested them to use the Wikipedia app. Then the participants were taught about contributing to Wikipedia through their mobile devices. We showed them that they could hit the "edit" button on a article and then on the next page that follows, anything could be written to expand, edit or enrich articles. Furthermore, we showed them how to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons using mobile devices and use those photos for illustrating Wikipedia articles. We'd like to recommend other program leaders to keep things simple while teaching people to contribute to Wikipedia using mobile devices. And participants must be taught at first to use Wikipedia comfortably using mobile devices before they begin contributing. Tanweer (talk) 17:48, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

1. Were there benefits or drawbacks to working with Grameenphone on the divisional workshop? Did each session follow the same format?

The workshops that were sponsored by Grameenphone had some drawbacks from the perspective of Wikimedia volunteers. People contribute to Wikimedia projects voluntarily. But the ambiance created on those divisional workshops carried a great deal of promotional and advertising content on behalf of Grameenphone. We do not consider such ambiance fruitful and compatible with a Wikipedia workshops. Apart from that, the sponsor had made a decision of keeping the number of participants not more than 50. So we couldn't allow more participants even though in some workshops, we found more people interested to attend. That was because there were snacks, lunch and tshirts for every participants. The benefit that we found is that, we didn't have to manage the supplying foods and tshirts and other things related to event management, because Grameenphone had already assigned an event management company to handle those things. Tanweer (talk) 18:09, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

1. It is wonderful that you have collected usernames from all of the events. Have you used these to follow up with participants? You can use the Range contribs tool to quickly see the editing behavior of a list of usernames, and follow up with new users who have made some edits after the events. https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/rangecontribs/
2. In the school program you note that students competed for the opportunity to participate in the Patgram event. Did you see a difference in the level of engagement during and after the event with those students?
3. You note that there was a survey about Wikipedia before each school program. How was the survey information used? Would you recommend using surveys to plan school programs, and if so, do you have tips for how to do these surveys?

The surveys were intended to get an idea of how knowledgeable the students were about Wikipedia. In some cases, we found that they hardly know about Wikipedia, let alone contributing to Wikipedia. In those cases, we focused on effectively using Wikipedia for their benefit. This included, giving an overview about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and showing them ways to gather required information as comfortably as possible. In some cases, we found that students were already somewhat knowledgeable about Wikipedia, so we showed them some simple ways to contribute to Wikipedia. We recommend using surveys in school programs, but that isn't a necessary if the organizer already have a idea of the participants' level of knowledge about Wikipedia. The survey can be made using simple questions asking them whether they use Wikipedia and how much they know about it. What sources do they usually use to gather information etc. Tanweer (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

1. One observation in the lessons learned section is that there need to be more awareness programs than editathons, likely because your pre-event surveys show that very few people know that Wikipedia is an editable encyclopedia. Have you considered whether it would be effective or possible to host editathons or learn-to-edit workshops after awareness programs?

We organized events in some areas where there wasn't any Wikipedia related events ever held. People from areas outside major cities in Bangladesh, have hardly any knowledge about using and editing Wikipedia. That's why we found that, some sort of awareness programs might be necessary to educate them about Wikimedia projects, before organizing any editathons and training workshops. Tanweer (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

1. Do you have a strategy or ideas for ways to get more volunteers to begin organizing events?

It was one of the critical problems that we faced while organizing the programs. In areas where we had no volunteers, we contacted university students to help us organizing programs in their university. In this way we could manage organizing programs in some areas, where we hadn't organized any events before. Some of the newly volunteers were, whom we engaged in organizing events, were those who were selected as top contributors in the editathons. So this type of article writing contest or editathons might be arranged, to get interested individuals or contributors. Then they might be contacted asking them for volunteering if possible. Tanweer (talk) 19:47, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Metrics

It is fantastic to hear that Bangali Wikipedia has grown so much over the course of this year, both in terms of editors and articles. It would be good to know how much of that growth can be attributed directly to people who participated in these programs.

1. The report mentions that user names were collected at every event. Please get in touch with Amanda Bittaker, who is testing a new tool that will make calculating global metrics easier. This tool should help you identify how many new users from these programs became active editors, and how much content was contributed as part of these events.
2. In the global metrics table it says that 2500 articles were added or improved as part of this grant program, can you clarify how you determined this number?

Share your knowledge

It sounds like you have learned a lot of important lessons about how to plan effective photo contests.

1. Would you please add your suggestions about promoting the contest on social media and to professional photgraphy groups in the Promote photo contests learning pattern .
2. Your ideas about making clear rules and upload instructions would be really good to include on this learning pattern about how to create an effective event page.

Thank you again for all of your hard work on this project. We are very excited to hear how much Bengali Wikipedia has grown, and look forward to supporting your community to continue to flourish. Congratulations on completing such a complex and successful project! --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 01:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Report accepted

Thank you for posting responses to our questions. Would you be willing to add some of the lessons you have learned to learning patterns so that other project organizers are sure to learn from your experiences? The insights you shared about working with Grameenphone, teaching editing on mobile devices, using surveys before doing talks at schools, and finding students to help organize events in towns where you do not have volunteers are all great ideas that I hope other leaders in the movement will adopt. Please hold on to the remaining 171898.40 BDT while we make a decision on your new request for for Wikipedia 15 Celebration. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi KHarold, Thanks for the support. I'll be adding some of the important lessons to learning patterns within a few days. Tanweer (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2015 (UTC)