Grants talk:PEG/WM ES/Wiki Loves Earth Spain and Portugal 2015

GAC members who support this request

1. Clear and reasonable. I'm also glad that the project spreads in countries which did not participate in the past.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
2. I support this request Violetova (talk) 13:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
3. Appreciate the energy put-on to prepare this grant request. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 08:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
4. See no problems after careful reading Polimerek (talk) 08:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
5. I support this project rubin16 (talk) 19:00, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. I'm a board member of WM Portugal, so I'm abstaining from voting in this! Béria L. de Rodríguez ^msg 09:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

GAC comments

flickr

As I understood from the project, the photos will be uploaded to Flickr and then all uploaded media will be transferred to Commons. Why not ask users to upload to Commons directly? In such a way we will get new users who will be familiar with the upload process and won't give new users to Flickr rubin16 (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

rubin16: Not exactly. Pictures can be uploaded both to Commons directly or to Flickr (and then transferred by a bot to Commons). We have worked this way in Wiki Loves Monuments Spain and it has provided very good images to the contest. It is preferrable that Flickr users can upload pictures they way they always do, than making them go to Commons and learn a completely different way of uploading pictures, because we would surely lose great participants only due to this change. The goal is making participation as easiest as possible. Flickr won't gain new users, Flickr participants are already registered. --Kadellar (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to add something. There is a lot of great material in Flick, where thousands of talented photographers have uploaded millions of pictures for years. The public we are targeting with the Flickr option are especially those who have been gathering material suitable for WLE and in an easy and quick way would like to share it and participate in the contest. Actually, all they have to do is adding the protected space identifier, if not already included, and adding the pictures in our Flickr group. Both actions can be done with a bulk change and in a few minutes.

One more fact: in last year's WLM in Spain 23000 pictures were gathered, 10000 of them came from Flickr. I cannot believe that all those pictures would have got a free license and found their way to Commons without the Flickr option. I have to say also that it took a lot of effort to upload all those pictures from Flick in Commons in a proper way, but we do firmly believe that it is worth it and does add value to Commons instead of being a hurdle. Thanks for sharing your concerns. Poco a poco (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thank you for this grant request! It's exciting to see WMES and WMPT coordinating on Wiki Loves Earth. We have a few remaining questions on the grant request:

1. Please clarify how the two chapters will be coordinating the competition. Is it one competition or two? Will the prizes be awarded as best photo overall or per country? Is it 5,000 photos per country or combined?
2. Including a writing contest is a great idea and we're happy WMES had such success with this model for WLM last year. The number of articles you improved/created was really impressive -- 2,079! In comparison, the metrics for WLE-related articles are quite low, at just 150. Can you please provide more information on how you came up with this metric? Similarly, the metrics for # of photos seems low given two countries are participating.
3. We're hopeful you can secure some partners. Many chapters have received good support for prizes and photography workshops from photography clubs or equipment providers.
4. How many people do you expect at the award ceremony?
5. The certificates seem much more expensive than for WLM 2014.
6. How many people do the travel expenses cover?
7. Where would you give out the stickers and leaflets? We're not sure these will contribute much to the impact of the contest.
8. We are able to provide some merchandise, but the current request is a bit expensive. We are not clear on how the prizes are allocated. Please clarify if you would like to send merchandise for those that are already receiving the top awards or if these are separate awards? We can send t-shirts, but the rest of the items are too expensive or difficult to ship (mugs).

Looking forward to your responses. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello Alex. I'll try to explain my best and we did some changes in the proposal (less budget, less items and more pictures and articles expected). I answer each question individually:

1. Actually, Wikimedia Spain is leading the activity with the collaboration of Wikimedia Portugal. For that, Wikimedia Spain members who work in this project have a Telegram group for a fast communication, the mailing list of the chapter and our internal wiki. We talk with Wikimedia Portugal members by e-mail in this early stages. If a wider communication would be needed we'll look for an additional channel. For example, Wikimedia Spain members have a IRC meeting this Sunday to talk about WLE and we invited the volunteers of WMPT. It's only one competition but with a little bit different promotion in Spain and Portugal. So, the prizes are for the best pictures from both countries (#1-10), but at the same time, we have to provide 10 pictures from each country for the international contest (in case it would be organized). We have two different promotions because we work in two different countries (2 sites, messages in several languages). So, the target is 5,000 pictures combined.
2. Organizing a contest for every language is very exhausting for volunteers and in this project we plan to launch the writing contest only for Iberian languages (while we hope to launch a new one for September like last year), and the list of items to work in is shorter. This is the first time we organize this contest in Spain and in Portugal and we don't know how can be the reception, but it is clear that we cannot expect in the Iberian languages the same amount of edits as worldwide. Maybe we are being a bit conservative here, but we are not expert son how to evaluate and predict metrics. We increased to 250, but, which one do you suggest us? About the # of pictures, as we said before, this is the first time this contest ir organized in both countries. This could be an extra to get more pictures, but, how can we evaluate this? The figures last year vary from one country to another. For instance, in Germany were uploaded c. 14,500 photos, while during WLE were 35,000. But in Macedonia were c. 11,000 for WLM and 12,700 for WLE, or 2,600 in WLM in Serbia and 800 in WLE in the same country. Or 1,400 in WLE Netherlands. So, the amounts vary a lot from one country to another. Spain and Portugal had good figures in past WLM editions, but this is not a guarantee for a new contest. Which amount do you suggest? We change the total amount to 7,000 (5,000 in Spain and 2,000 in Portugal)
3. We hope that. But we want to underline that everybody in Wikimedia Spain (and Portugal) is a volunteer, whereas other chapters have employees that can dedicate time and do actually professionlly work to look for a partner. We have initiated contact with some companies and do expect results, but there is no final agreement yet that we could announce.
4. Apart from the 12 attendees we would help with traveling cost (see below), we expect 5 more WMES members from Madrid area and 10 more unplanned people.
5. In case we have to send certificates abroad this is more expensive ([1]), so only 2 € could not be enough for the stamp, envelope and printing. This is a lesson learned from last year. But, in case the money will not be spend, we don't use it. It's only to be sure that the volunteers should not pay them. However, we changed this from 5 to 3 € per certificate.
6. It depends a lot of where they are from (we don't know where are the winners from). The prize of a train ticket varies a lot. For example, a ticket from Valencia or Bilbao to Madrid could cost twice of triple the cost from Valladolid to Madrid. But we hope at least ten people. In the transportation budget for the prize ceremony with a budget of 1000 EUR we expect to cover 12 return train tickets (approx 80 EUR each) from different places in Spain. We added a comment in the budget table to make it clear.
7. We want to give stickers and leaflets in other events such as edit-a-thons, talks or workshops. The impact is not only for this year. A sticker provide us publicity when the people use it. But we recognise that it's a bit high, so we changed it from 300 to 100 €.
8. For photo contest: the t-shirts are for every winner (1-10 in each country and the participant who uploaded pictures from most items), but hoodies were only for the winners without prize and also for the jury. We canceled them, but raised the amount for gifts for the jury from 20 to 40 € instead of 20 € plus the hoodie. The total cost is now lower.

For writing contest: we planned to give something to the winners. The amount of item were optional. We've change them. Please, let us know if that could be possible or not.

Thank you for your questions and please, tell us where and how can we improve it. --Millars (talk) 21:10, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Millars. Thank you for the thoughtful responses. In terms of metrics, we understand it is difficult to create metrics for a new contest and what you've come up with is reasonable. This year will be about setting baselines for future Wiki Loves Earth competitions in Spain and Portugal. All the other responses are clear and this grant is approved. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Question to WMF

Hello. Some questions for the grants administrators, @AWang (WMF): and @KHarold (WMF):. We are preparing the grant report for tomorrow.

• The first question is if we could have some extra days to finish this report and also Grants:PEG/WM ES/Wiki Loves Monuments Spain 2015/Report.
• The second question is if we could reallocate some money. We did not spend all money of the grant (about 1700 EUR of 3400). We reduced the amount of prizes and also we did not spend money in some areas. However we (WMES) paid some hotel nights for winners and some volunteers to attend the awards ceremony. The amount is listed in Grants:PEG/WM ES/Wiki Loves Earth Spain and Portugal 2015/Report and it is 498.65 EUR.
• We did not used the 21 t-shirts for photo contest winners, but instead we don't have any prize for the winner of the writing contest in Spanish languages. Could we buy something?

Thanks --Millars (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Millars. Thank you for the update. It is fine to use some of the remaining funds to cover hotel nights for the winners/volunteers and for an award for the writing contest. We will make a note that you will submit your report soon. Can you please give us your expected date? Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello AWang. I have a lot of work these weeks, so, it could be possible April 17 as a date to have the reports, or is it too late? --Millars (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Millars. April 17th is fine. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)