Grants talk:PEG/WM PH/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013

Discussions/Comments

Comments MADe

The 2013 edition already ended, about 6000 images were uploaded in the PH, by 93 contributors. (stats). I'm actually positively surprised by the outcome! I can compare a bit with South Africa, and you guys did a great job following up the competition (Twitter, Facebook, website). So good job to the team!

This grant will probably only be approved by end of the month. I personally think the judging / award session / prizes are secundary to the main goal of the competition: attract new people and support them, get the community involved, get support by external organisations, build the team. It's like organising an event, and only arranging funding when the most important things happened. How does this impact your proposal?

On the financials, and again comparing with SA, I would think the prizes provided ($3500 including certificates etc) will be unreasonably high. I need more information on the award session and the judging session to be able to judge that part of the budget. MADe (talk) 07:30, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

We decided to pend the grant proposal after the upload period to somehow force us not to request $2,000 for promotions which was originally planned. The newspaper ad in 2012 was instrumental in boosting the number of uploaded images. We wanted to utilize social media which reaches just right number of people and are themselves comfortable in uploading images. We learned last year from leading group of Filipino photographers that Filipino photographers in general are lazy to upload their images.

On the part of the prizes, the cash prizes were pegged at that rate as we need to "compete" with other photography contests. I would say the turn our last year could have been greater if the prizes were actually bigger. As photographer friends of the WLM Philippines 2012 winner were not that enthusiastic to join because the prizes were relatively low. There should also be a distinction for the photobook souvenir as we plan to give it only to a select few perhaps the top 3, the others will be for our documentation and the others will be sent to cultural agencies. -- Roel (talk) 13:45, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey Roel, we seem to have a difference in opinion on the prices. If we need to "compete" with other contest, I guess we are not targetting the right people? Btw, I'm not sure on the general price level in PH, can you show examples of similar contests with that kind of rewards?

Can you provide us with a quote for the trophies/certificates/photobooks (seems very high as well).

Lastly, I'm waiting on more information on the award session and the judging (the page Grants:WM_ZA/Wiki_Loves_Monuments an excellent grant request example) MADe (talk) 18:13, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

WLM-ZA presented a very good grant proposal no wonder they hurdled the scrutiny of the GAC easily. While targeting the right people for us is targeting the very good photographers, more than the number of images, we are more interested in the quality of the photos that will be uploaded and just to be honest in my several meetings with photographer groups, the very good ones are lured by the prizes.

We will follow the same judging process we employed last year. There will be a (a) qualification round, to remove non-heritage structures monuments (our heritage law here dictates that structures that are at least 50 years old is considered a heritage monument) apart from those that have been officially declared, these images would also have to pass the technical qualification that they should not be low resolution (b) elimination round where in the top 50 will be selected (c) final round where the select five man jury will rate them according to the criteria set.

Here are the price quote for: Photobook, I cannot provide you though a quotation for the trophies because these are customized and the website doesn't provide the price quotation. You may see our trophies last year [1], just keep on scrolling to the right until you see the Wiki Loves Monuments trophies. As for the prizes for the contests you may want to see: Chamber of Mines, Goethe Institut Photo Contest prize equivalent is more than ours.

Last year we held a formal sit down dinner for our awarding ceremonies you may see the photo documentation here: [2], and we still want to do the same formalities this year. -- Roel (talk) 01:22, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey,

1. I must say I think it is enough to give awards to the three top spots, to give to all the ten is too much.. (especially for contest of 6000 images). Also I think it's waste of money to give to them also certificates that will cost $300...
2. Who you expect will come to the closing ceremony? How many people and who will you going to invite? --Itzike (talk) 15:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

1. Only the top 3 gets trophies the 3 marble obelisk trophies could already cost us $230 more or less. You may see last year's trophies here: [3].
2. The top 50 finalists get invited, though this maybe just entries of 30 people. All the judges (eliminations, final), heritage experts and people from our cultural agency. We have some 10–15 people working in the team plus officers and members who would make early reservations. 60 people more or less will be present. -- Roel (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Summary of comments

Roel, to conclude the current comments, multiple GAC members remain with some questions on a) the total sum spent on awards, and b) extra information on the award session (partially given on this page). I would recommend you to add the relevant information on the judging / award session to the grant proposal, and to seriously reduce the sum spent on awards. These changes will allow for a swift approval.

A last practical question; 5000 of the 6000 images were uploaded by a single uploader. Is he eligle to win multiple awards for his images?MADe (talk) 18:36, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

a) total sum spent on awards — ₱126,000 ($2,930) is the total of the prizes to be awarded, only the Top 3 will be given a photobook. In 2012 the total allocation approved for prizes is ₱136,400 ($3,247), lowering it down further may create an impression that this year is less prestigious.

b) add the relevant information on the judging / award session — I'll go update the grant page for the judging details.

d) For the multiple awards, multiple pictures of one monument only counts as one. -- Roel (talk) 01:20, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I've reduced the cash prizes by 13%. -- Roel (talk) 14:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments ZeaForUs

For me $7000 for 6000 pictures is too much. The savings MADe proposed are reasonable. BTW, I'd prefer to see a request before a project starts, better for everybody, right?  Klaas|Z4␟V:  12:10, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Using a ratio of cost to the number of images gathered might not be a good analogy, as WLM-ZA gathered 6,400 images despite a $27,000 budget. We have 92 participants, while WLM-ZA has 89, and our data size is 33.8 TBytes compared to WLM-ZA's is 19.0 TBytes. If one were to base the amount to the number of images gathered, I'd say we did it for just a quarter of the amount of WLM-ZA. With regard to the delay of the budget proposal I have answered Tony1 below about it. -- Roel (talk) 13:20, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Benchmark from Aegis

Just to provide some numbers from my home turf: 2012 edition in Poland (ca. 51,000 pictures - number 1 in the Wikimedia world despite of being a not-the-most-populated-with-official-monuments country) had a budget of over $6,000, of which AFAIK only ca. $4,000 was spent (planning for more and spending less is a custom in WMPL). Rewards for the participants made less than $2000. This year we more than doubled the budget to ca. 14k USD, with more spendings on staff (two part-time contractors), and the rewards of ca. 3k USD total. Our stats page gives almost 48k uploaded pictures this year, comparing to >6k in South Africa and the Phillipines. Our funding comes in 100% from donations raised by WMPL.

Not knowing local circumstances (real purchase parity, cultural differences) it is hard for me to judge whether your rewards are too high or not. They seem to _not_ be outrageous - the total sum of rewards seems to be in line with WMPL - but the effect is inferior (but then again - is it a question of "less-things-to-make-a-photo-of", bigger spread of monuments and population or it would be better to focus more on advertising or the organizational side). More benchmarks wanted!

And of course, please make your grant requests before, not after... aegis maelstrom δ 16:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Just to clarify, Wiki Loves Monuments is additionally supported with our outreach programme: showing the good quality prints of WLM pictures in public places in various parts of a year, which is funded with a different budget. This outreach may (and should :) ) have some supporting effect on overall popularity of the competition, which is very hard to measure. aegis maelstrom δ 16:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I greatly appreciate the input and Poland has been very successful in almost all fronts of the project. We don't have the capacity yet to fund raise. As I explained below the circumstances that prevented us from submitting before the project. We're making sure that is avoided next time.

We do hope we can do a caravan of the winners of the contest. Especially in Cebu and Bohol which was struck last Tuesday (Oct. 15) by a 7.2 M earthquake which reduced into rubble several cultural heritage monuments.-- Roel (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Awards / Prizes

This is suggestion based on own experience from similar event:

When WMCZ organized the article writing contest "Prizes for enhancing of the Czech Wikipedia" we had sponsors to donate either money for or prizes themselves. We tried to keep the prizes as much tight to "writing on internet" and "books and encyclopedias" as possible (netbooks, keyboards, mice, office software, vouchers for buying books etc.) and first three winners in each category got the special prize - a unique glass piece I've designed and let made for quite a cheap price (I can't remember exactly, but it was about 15 USD a piece including nice black box and VAT).

When we published images of this prize, we've got feedback in the form of: "I don't care about netbook or any other hardware, nor office software, nor vouchers or any other prizes, but the glass is the reason I am going to participate, because I really want it!"

Why am I mentioning this - Prizes for winning competitions do not have to be overwhelmingly expensive to please the receivers. Something original, not available anywhere else but for this occassion, may have bigger value than usual though expensive thing.

I would encourage you to think about prizes in this context too...

— Danny B. 14:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Very nice idea! I've been thinking of proposing something like that in my home Chapter and now I am even more motivated. I think you are right that uniqueness has its own value. What is more, Wikipedia etc. is a strong brand too so such a material sign of gratitude or achievement can be highly, highly valuable for some people. aegis maelstrom δ 09:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Those are great ideas, thanks for sharing them. I'll be glad to share them to the members of our chapter.-- Roel (talk) 14:44, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC Members who approve this grant request

1. I'm all for granting this request, it seems worthy - although I agree with Tony1 that a grant proposal should not be submitted during the actual grant program. I leave it to the Grants and Events team to make sure it doesn't happen again... NLIGuy (talk) 14:24, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
2. --Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 10:19, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

GAC Members who oppose this grant request

1. At this time. I definitely see benefit in this project, and with over 6000 images uploaded to commons, there has definitely been a strong result here. However, as MADe noted, nearly 5000 of the total images was uploaded by one editor, with the next highest at just under 500, with the remainder uploaded by 90 different people combined. That's fine in itself, but I am concerned that the cost of prizes is too high and more modest awards/prizes could be provided. I need further clarification on the catering for the awards ceremony - from my interpretation, the top 50 would be invited? With 92 participants, this would include catering for some that have uploaded three images. If this is not the case, I would appreciate clarification, and while I don't want to downplay the achievements made here, I think it would be more suitable to perhaps offer more modest awards to the top three entries with a simpler awards ceremony. Steven Zhang (talk) 12:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Kindly see comment below -- Roel (talk) 11:23, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

1.  Klaas|Z4␟V:  09:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC) agree with Steven

GAC Members who abstain from voting/comment

1. I am part of the organizing team, I recuse myself from participating except to answer GAC questions. -- Roel (talk) 06:07, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Tony1

Hi, looks prima facie worthy, but first can you tell us why the application has been made in the middle of the project. On principle I'm not in favour of retrospective claims. Tony (talk) 13:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I think I cannot do anything about your rejection of what you'd see as a retrospective claim. But we do know we should have submitted it even before the project commenced, we were busy getting the chapter into compliance and it was not only until Oct. 1 that we got back again into compliance. Another thing is, that we made the application in the middle of the project to force the local team to utilize social media in order to promote it. The strategy worked, but I know the original plan to have US$2,300 for promotions would have a greater impact as shown in 2012. With zero money at hand, there was no recourse but use social media to promote the project, as Treasurer of the chapter too I don't want us to develop a habit of spending a good amount on money on advertisements. -- Roel (talk) 14:52, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts

Thanks for the submission Roel. For me your grant request seems to be worth supporting, but could you share some of the insights of this year's competition. What are the things that went better and what those that went worse compared to the previous years? Can you also give information about how much of the amount requested has been actually spent and thereby should be reimbursed with the money from this request? Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I would say somehow that we've established credibility after holding the event last year. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines which officially declares what are cultural heritage monuments has been impressed by our list and some details that have been put to it. And is looking at even hiring me to do a documentation project of the various sites for them, especially those that still have to be officially declared. This was a major breakthrough after we found it difficult to even obtain an endorsement from the National Commission on Culture and the Arts last year for the project. If I may also add, the largest photo contest in the Philippines generated some 4,000 images, the 6,000 images obtained has broken this record. Participants were more aware of how to upload in Commons than last year, we received far fewer e-mailed questions regarding it. As for the amount spend to date, it's about $465 more or less. -- Roel (talk) 14:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Response to Steven Zhang

I think Steven Zhang has oversimplified the number of people that will be attending the awarding ceremony. Not everyone gets to attend the awarding ceremony. The members of the jury can attend, more of than not, local custom dictates to allow them to bring a companion, we have 8 of these independent jury, some were in the preliminary jury while some are in the final jury. We have about 20 to 25 people working in the team, including volunteers (PAs) and performers, these alone brings the total to 41, plus we are opening a few seats for officers/members of Wikimedia Philippines. And that figure does not include the participants yet only the Top 50 finalists are invited, last year one participant flew 360 miles from Cebu all the way to Manila just to attend the awarding ceremony and won't we allow him not to bring a companion too? It's against Filipino custom not to allow one to "sit down and eat" especially if their companion is inside. If one were to visit a Filipino home, for certain you'll always be asked "have you eaten?" I forgot to include 2 or 3 VIPs from our national historical and cultural agency.

I guess it's worthy to mention that Pinoy Photography ("Pinoy" is slang for Filipino), the largest photography group in the Philippines who were initially skeptical of a photo contest requiring participants to upload their entries, commended us last year as they were surprised that we surpassed 1,000 entries when they can't event come close to that number when asking their participants to upload their images online as they find Pinoy photographers lazy to do so. They initially suggested to set up a venue so we can upload the entries of the participants for them, something that is not congruent to WLM contest rules. I guess one has to understand that one country cannot be compared to another. A country like the Philippines where internet penetration is only at 30% cannot command the same turn out as Poland, we're big on social media but not exactly on free online culture, so breaching the 1,000 mark is already an achievement enough in our country. Canon organizes the largest photo contest in the Philippines and they have mustered 4,000 photos, but they know they can't have as much entries if their contest is online, a Canon marketing executive told me that last year.

More than the pictures, one must dwell in the quality of images uploaded and we have improved the photos that we have in our list of monuments. -- Roel (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Terms for Approval

Thank you for engaging in the discussion so far. We would be prepared to fund this project under the following condition:

• The amount is further reduced to a total of $6500 (or 280,000 PHP). It seems to me there is sufficient buffering across the different budget items to allow WMPH to figure out how best to achieve this reduction.

WMPH is also reminded that it is not good practice to seek funding for projects already underway with commitments already made. We expect this not to repeat, and we do not find the explanation given -- of attempting to pressure your own organization to work harder -- good practice either. Certainly, the focus on promotion via social media over paid advertising is desirable, and seems to have worked, but better means need to be found to achieve that within WMPH then by artificially creating necessity-by-scarcity.

If the condition above is acceptable to WMPH, please amend the proposal and we will proceed with approval. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 21:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Terms accepted. Total project allocations have been reduced to ₱ 280,000 ($ 6,515). We will make sure from hereon to avoid applying while the project is already underway. -- Roel (talk) 00:03, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Report past due / Provisional approval

Unfortunately, WMPH is currently out of compliance and not eligible to receive any more grants until the report for Grants:WM_PH/Philippine_WikiCon_2013 is submitted. This report was due within 60 days of the completion date listed on the approved grant submission of 31 July, or by the end of September 2013. This new grant should be considered provisionally approved until the report is submitted and WMPH is back in compliance. We will post a note here when this is resolved and we are ready to move forward with sending the grant. Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 04:08, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Report past due

We understand you are still drafting your report. Please let us know when you expect to submit this report. In the mean time, please note carefully that you or your group will not be eligible to receive any funding from WMF until this report is submitted and accepted, and any remaining grant funds are returned. We look forward to learning more about the results of your project when your report is submitted. Thank you! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2014 (UTC)