Grants talk:PEG/VLevant/WLM International Competition 2014

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC members who support this request

1. --Ilario (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. I am a member of WMIL and involved in this. Abstain. Alleycat80 (talk) 10:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

GAC comments

Hi,

We have now September 20, so there is 10 days to the end of WLM, therefore many proposed activities have just happened (or not), such as coordinating and support for local contest. But of course international level of competition is really needed, as it adds global "taste" to the WML. Regarding budget: I would like to see more precise one.

1. "Professional support" - what does it mean exactly. Some sort of salaries? Do these money were already spent? If yes - provide the details.
2. "Prizes" - how many, what kind of? There is only one mentioned (Wikimania travel) - which is hard to calculate as it strongly depends on who will win it. If for example someone from US - the flight will be cheap, if someone from India - the flight may costs around 3000 USD and eat vast majority of money for prizes.
3. "Calendars" - from my previous experience with it - there was always problem with calenders. They were printed and shipped too late (around March/April) to be of any value as a gift. Calendars are useful at January/February as a gift. Moreover they cannot be used to please local winners or volunteers engaged in organization of the contest, because they must be printed after announcement of international level competition which must be around 1 month after the deadline of announcement of local winners. So I would rather opt to resign from this - and maybe add some money to the prizes instead or rather to print not calendars but rather an album or poster or maybe T-shirts with best pictures?. Anyway - if you are really stick to the idea of calendars: How many of them are you about to print? Are you going to print them in Israel?

Polimerek (talk) 09:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

1. Indeed most is done
2. The main prize is about $2,500 (flight to mexico, and staying there). We would like to give additional prizes international (estimated at another $1,000) - a total of $3,500 international. Two countries requested monetary assistance with local prizes (estimated at $1,500 - which, if not needed, will be used for monetary prizes for the international competition.
3. Calanders - would need some graphical help when creating the calendars - which are ment to be published as PDF and each country may print it whenever needed Deror avi (talk) 16:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Community comments

Tony1 comments

Hi Deror and Yan, thanks for this. Your project start-date was more than two weeks ago. Please adjust this so that your proposal is clearly for funding activities in the future—and with enough time ahead that the WMF can approve, modify, or say no to your proposal, without feeling that this would disrupt everything.

Measures of success: some are good; some are a little vague. These are the basis for benchmarking your report, and for the movement's ability to learn lessons from your project. Your best guesses are sometimes valuable. So ...

• "A better documentation is available for the all important parts of organizing a Wiki Loves Monuments."—this is vague. How exactly do you intend to improve the documentation (were there complaints last year?).
• "At least 90% of the participating countries submitted nominees to the finale"—what was the figure last year, please?
• Could I suggest that the surveys be conducted before mid-2015? Perhaps the WMF's evaluation staff could be contacted for advice on the framing of these surveys.
• There's nothing about raising the quality of uploads or their categorisation/documentation. Raising quality is a WMF priority. I wonder whether you could take a look at the new learning patterns Photographing your local buildings and Improving your building photography: Would these be useful to promote to participants? Would you like more WLM-related learning patterns (if so, on what topics)? Should there be a translation program for these and similar learning patterns? Your views, as the most prominent organisers of photography programs, would be most important. Tony (talk) 09:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

1. a lot of technical rework was needed to be done this year, due to many technical issues. Documentation to support this in the future.
2. To my best knowledge 100%, but this still needs a lot of coordination.
3. This is done locally by many countries participating, but not within the scope of the international team. Deror avi (talk) 16:53, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a vastly smaller budget than last year's, which is welcome (although more detail about prizes would be good). A tried and tested event with quite high impact, this looks reasonable to fund. Tony (talk) 14:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see a commitment to raising quality, and how this might take shape, if we're giving significant funding to this worldwide event. One doesn't expect micro-management in this respect, but the international organisers are in a unique position to point local organisers to ways in which their volunteers might be encouraged to lift quality. This would insulate you from future criticism that it's merely a quantity-is-everything race to upload as many files as possible. Commons shouldn't be a counting bin, and could end up being so in the eyes of some. Tony (talk) 01:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It is my personal believe that monetary prizes (instead of cameras or in kind prizes) raise quality as they encourage professionals to participate. Local groups and Juries may lead in actions to raise quality (as is done in Israel, where we organize photography lessons and tours) but as it is very costly, time consuming and requires lots of preparatory work, it should not be a bar of country from participating if not doing so. Deror avi (talk) 07:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Deror, thanks for engaging, and we do appreciate your bro-bono efforts in this large logistical exercise. Yes, prizes do provide motivation, but I suspect this is at the upper end. A major concern is the average level of quality, and while prizes might be very mild hope for most contributors, to help them with basics that can really improve the average quality would cast a large footprint indeed. My own surveys of contribution profiles in previous years has revealed the divide between professionals (or at least those who are very good at photography, and/or upload a large number of files), and the rest. In many jurisdictions, the top three to five uploaders are contributing up to half of all uploads. So, moving forward as this event evolves over the years, one would hope to see strategies to improve quality applied at a number of points in the pipeline—not just the provision of juries and prizes right at the top. Tony (talk) 11:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thanks for this grant request (even if a bit late!) and your engagement with the discussion. We appreciate that you've stepped up to take on the international component of the competition. Please see our questions below, some of which are follow-ups to those questions raised by Polimerek and Tony above.

1. Which of the activities under "support for national organizers" and "set up and run the international contest" have been compeleted? It is a good idea to promote the learning patterns mentioned by Tony (and the importance of quality in general) in the social media campaigns (if there is still time). I see the WLM Twitter account has been active, but not Facebook.
2. What professional support has been given so far? Is the budget for this to compensate people for their time? If yes, whose time and for what support?
3. Prizes: What is the break-down of the additional prizes ($1,000)? How much for first, second, third, etc.? What will be the criteria for awarding the prizes? Last year there were special prizes in the Asia and Arabic category. Will their be special prizes again this year? Do you know yet if the two countries requesting prize support have confirmed their need?
4. Jury: How will the jury be selected?
5. Calendars: Polimerek's question regarding the impact of the calendars is an important one. If you are just creating a pdf, why is there a budget of $2,000? We don't think you can rely on local organizers to have the resources to be able to print and ship calendars themselves. We would suggest either creating a pdf with no funds and possibly adding funds to the prizes instead of creating a calendar.
6. Survey: We agree that a survey should be done more immediately after the competition. We are happy to help support with the survey if needed.
7. Will this be a grant to an individual (Deror) or to a group (2 people -- Deror and Yan)?

Looking forward to your responses. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

1. Two local groups requested assistance in prizes. Other support is done continuously but no funds are required.
2. See above. The budget is only to assist as mentioned above and not to compensate people for their time.
3. First prize - $2,500, Second $ 700, Third $300 (If local countries will not need the funds, this amount will be given other places (additional money may be required to pay for the flight and board in Mexico, in such case the additional fund will be added to the first prize). We have approached last year's sponsor of additional categories and request sponsorship for this year as well, but he did not reply. Having said that, it would be great, if money is left within the approved budget to give a special prize for image from Asia or Africa.
4. The Jury has been selected (all volunteers). We have approached several chapters requesting their assistance as well as Jury members from last year. We have also approached some professionals suggested by several chapters and wikipedians, aiming to have a jury which is geo located diversified and gender diversified (quite a problem - almost all women approached refused to partake), and also jury which is partly proffesional and partly wikipedian, in view of the goals of the project. I believe we have succeeded in doing so.
5. Indeed.
6. A group of organizers (Deror, Yan, Romain, Darya and Ido) (I am not sure I understand this question). Deror avi (talk) 18:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Just one more comment - At this late stage it is believed that the graphics for calenders will be probably cheaper, and in which case we can use the money to print posters of the winners to be presented in next year's wikimania (as was done in previous years) within the requested budget. Deror avi (talk) 18:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Deror avi. I don't think I completely understand. Instead of printing calendars, you are suggesting to use that budget to print posters of the winners for Wikimania 2015? Would these just be posters of the top 10 (?) to display? If yes, please adjust the budget accordingly. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Let me clarify - we need to pay a graphical person to design the calendar. We will send a PDF around (and print very few calendars) - this should cost about $250 - $400.

As to the remaining funds - It is my understanding that the cost of printing quality 10 images and shipping them (to or out of mexico) is about $1,000 so no adjustment is needed, but if funds are not required, they will be returned. Deror avi (talk) 07:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for postponing a grant report

Dear all, it was a great contest this year and we are still collecting the data that is required for the report. Since we are still experiencing a delay in data collection we would kindly appreciate postponing the due date for the report until April 1st. thank you --Vic59 (talk) 11:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. This is approved.Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

We need an additional postponement until June 1st (reasoning sent to Alex by email). Deror avi (talk) 19:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)