Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/Celtic Knot Conference 2024 in Ireland

WMF review and feedback

Hi @OifigeachWMIE and Wikimedia Ireland,

Thank you very much for this proposal and for your initiative in organizing the Celtic Knot Conference 2024. I highly appreciate the time and effort you put into this proposal. I have reviewed your proposal and have some comments and follow up questions:

• Do you have a confirmation for the host city?
• Can you please elaborate on the hybrid component? What will it look like? Do you intend to include recording and live streaming, or do you also hope to facilitate online discussions and engagement (which will require different set up, capacity and facilitation)?
• I want to highlight and appreciate your work and close engagement with * You have many non-wikimedia participants. Perhaps too many. How will you decide who to prioritize? How will you engage with them during and after the conference?
• I see there is no minimum requirement for level of Wikimedia experience. How will you manage those wiki discussions and the overall program with such an audience?
• 45 responses out of 317 is not a lot. Especially for an event on such a scale. Do you have any other indications to base on for the need for this conference?
• Main objectives - as the great diversity of connection and outreach efforts is extremely valuable, I’m afraid the focus is too much on newcomers and awareness and I’m not sure it aligns with the community needs as you presented.
• Can you please point out some of the challenges and opportunities in language preservation and cultural representation you observe?
• You intend to award 49 scholarships out of a total of 180 participants. Does it mean that the rest of the 130 will be local/ self funded participants? It sounds like a very high number if you are indeed hoping that most of them will be self funded or non-wikimedia partners.
• My other concern on the topic is how will you navigate discussions (strategic or technical) with so many non-wikimedians or newcomers.
• Team capacity - looks like you have a great team and are very well experienced. I also want to highlight the great collaboration between WMUK and WCI.
• Learnings - I really appreciate the elaborated learning and evaluation section. Thank you for that! However, it seems that a lot of post event evaluation will be required to track and analyze all these. Do you intend to follow up on all those learning objectives?
• “Fostering collaboration with external partners” - It would be interesting to discuss how do you duplicate these models of work to other minority indigenous language communities. This will be a very impactful learning.

Budget:

• The AV and streaming costs are very high. Was that a need that came from the community? Given newcomers/ wikimedians rate, I’m not sure that is a need.
• Staff costs - are those for full time employees for 6 mounts? It seems like a large expenditure in relation to the overall budget.

Thank you for a very well written proposal. I enjoyed reading it and it is clear there is a very dedicated and experienced team who is devoted to this mission. My main concern is around the focus area and audience. From your proposal and the participants (and scholarship allocation) it feels like you would like to leverage the great work you are leading on partnerships and outreach. But by doing that, it looks like you are losing touch with the community aspect of the event. I have some questions and doubts on whether this is more of an outreach/ awareness event, or if there is a community need, desire and momentum for this event now. Any further thoughts and clarifications on the topic will be appreciated.

When you're able, please respond to the questions on meta and revise the proposal on Fluxx if needed (I have sent the application back on Fluxx so you can edit it, just don't forget to re-submit when you are done). These revisions will be due by March 4, 2024 after which the Conference Grant Committee will begin formal review of the proposal to make the funding decisions.

Best, CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 04:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Replies from the Applicants

Many thanks for going through the assessment of the conference and seeking to understand the concept of Celtic Knot 2024 on a deeper level. There is a lot of background work that has already been undertaken, both in terms of liaising with the venue and with the intended audiences - hence below we are sharing additional information in response to your questions.

We appreciate the questions about the audience and theme of the conference, inviting us to reflect on the focus of the event. Please let us explain further how the concept of the Celtic Knot is based on the unique weaving of various groups together, collaborating on similarities, and being inspired by differences. We hope that this is coming through in the answers below, and welcome further dialogue with you about the conference.

Do you have a confirmation for the host city?

The dates of 25th to 27th of September, 2024, have been confirmed with the Tower Hotel in Waterford City, Ireland. We also updated the event page on Meta to reflect this confirmation.

Waterford is Ireland’s oldest city - a 1.5-hour drive from Rosslare Port, Dublin, and Cork Airports, with strong public transit links via bus and rail services. The venue will provide a well-equipped conference centre and accommodation. It is located in the city and directly across the street from the 800-year-old Anglo-Norman stone round tower, Reginald’s Tower.

This is just one example of the city’s links to its historic past. Waterford boasts multiple museums which are all located within the Viking Triangle area of the city, which is the only dedicated Museum Quarter on the Island and also located across the street from the Tower Hotel. The city has many examples of Medieval ruins and remnants of the old city walls which will be explored in the later afternoons by attendees through the inclusion of all access tickets arranged with Waterford Treasures (who run the Museums Quarter) including a walking tour of the city. Notably, the conference will be taking place during the WikiLovesMonuments photography competition run by WCI which will have a special focus on Waterford-based monuments during Celtic Knot encouraging attendees to explore the City and share their discoveries through Wiki Commons.

An Irish-speaking region (known as a Gaeltacht) is located just 1 hour’s drive from the city too, with its own distinct morphology and linguistic diversity. Waterford also has a dedicated Irish Traveller Community Group - Mincéirí Phort Láirge - who liaise with and represent the local ethnic minority population in the region (and nationally) and promote this integral part of Irish cultural and linguistic heritage through Mincéiroiree a.k.a. Shelta, Gammon or Cant which is protected under UNESCO’s Irish Inventory of intangible cultural heritage.

I want to highlight and appreciate your work and close engagement with * You have many non-wikimedia participants. Perhaps too many. How will you decide who to prioritize? How will you engage with them during and after the conference?

In consideration of previous Celtic Knot Conferences, Wales (2018) and Cornwall (2019), the collaboration and exchange between Wikimedia communities and non-Wikimedia communities, particularly those that are involved in language advocacy, preservation, and promotion, has historically been an integral part of the CK Conference. This mix is at the heart of how language minority communities work - collaboration with various communities is key.

The event objectives for non-Wikimedians is outreach and advocacy, inspiring attendees in ways they can use Wikimedia projects and communities in their language development goals. We will give them materials and contact details to follow up with relevant affiliates. If groups or participants have ideas for collaborative projects, they will be encouraged to engage with affiliates and groups to develop them. Minority language support is a prominent part of both WMUK and WCI’s strategies, which ensures that we have the commitment and capacity to follow up on these potential collaboration proposals.

The conference aims to strengthen language communities within Wikimedia, an important way of doing that is by providing more ways for people to join or support the community.

It is also important that Wikimedians are working in alignment with language advocates - the focus is the work of Wikimedians and showcasing how Wikimedia and the Movement can work with the communities to help strengthen, promote, and facilitate minority language communities in their advocacy efforts. The expected outcomes of this would be the contribution to the sustainability of both the language Wikis and the languages themselves through fostering peer support via networking at the conference. Again this has proved to be effective in achieving these goals at previous iterations of CK. For example, the 2018 CK conference saw the inclusion and support of the Welsh government and language institutions giving weight to the work of Wikimedia within the minority language world. What connects all the prospective participants are the minority languages. Preservation, conservation, and promotion of minority languages is a shared vision and integral goal of Wikimedia language communities (and projects), and the language communities. Again, this aligns closely with the strategies of WMUK and WCI.

The WikiWomen project is already engaged in this crossover; forming relationships across organisations, and getting support from one another. The outcome and lasting impact of this project is to engage with languages (minority and majority) to provide specific toolkits (for schools, educators, and GLAMs) to enable the improvement of the gender gap on different language Wikipedias. The project partners who are involved with this are majority Wikimedians, with added collaboration between language advocacy groups. Having a dedicated session (one half-day) of the conference dedicated to this project will showcase it as a model of how this type of collaborative work can be extremely beneficial. This is why we decided to include CK as the multiplier and launch event for WCI’s role in this project.

45 responses out of 317 is not a lot. Especially for an event on such a scale. Do you have any other indications to base on for the need for this conference?

The figure of 317 came from existing mailing lists across the existing CK community and WMUK and WCI mailing lists; there is likely some overlap in these lists. In terms of response levels, the 45 survey responses represent a significant increase from the last Celtic Knot community survey, indicating a growing engagement and interest from the community. Notably, the Celtic Knot conference has seen consistent growth in participation, evolving from 34 attendees in 2018 to 172 in the 2023 online-only event. This expansion signifies the conference's establishment as a fixture for cultural and language exchange and idea-sharing. Moreover, the response rate of 14% is robust and compares favourably with other Wikimedia events; for instance, Wikimania 2023 achieved a response rate of 19%, even with a survey that opened on the last day of the event and ran for five weeks. This illustrates a level of engagement that aligns well with community survey standards.

Robin Owain, Wikimedia UK’s Wales Manager, has been in regular touch with the Celtic Knot community, providing an online space for editors to share experiences and support each other. At these discussions, Robin raised the prospect of the return of the Celtic Knot Conference for 2024 and the suggestion was warmly received with helpful feedback around the possible content of the programme.

Amy, as Irish Language Officer [ILO], has interacted (and does interact on an ongoing basis) with language communities and organisations providing insight into their needs. She is also a member of Irish language community organisations and attended the annual Oireachtas na Gaeilge in November 2023 which attracts upwards of 10,000 attendees each year There she received direct feedback and a lot of interest in the work of WCI and also the Celtic Knot Conference specifically. Through her work as WCI’s first ILO, commencing July 2023, she has already formed relationships with organisations and potential stakeholders, including Government agencies and offices (on both local and national levels), GLAMs as well as Third-Level institutes. These relationships, while in their infancy, are integral to the development of WCI’s work and mission and she has taken much inspiration from WMUK’s work on Welsh Wikipedia, and in particular the work of Robin Owain who has given guidance in the resources and avenues which have been built in Wales which has strengthened Welsh-language Wikipedia through similar collaborative relationships.

Amy is also part of the Celtic Editor’s Group, which is a group of Wikimedians from all over the world who have an interest in Celtic language Wikipedias and associated projects aimed at promoting and developing them in line with the communities they serve. The group has expressed a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about the conference, particularly after not having the outlet in 2023, and are particularly enthused about the refocus on Celtic minority language groups and the hosting by WCI as this is the first CK that will be hosted in Ireland.

There are also two Celtic language and culturally focused events upcoming in April of this year which Amy is planning to attend. The Pan-Celtic festival in Carlow from 2-6 April 2024 and also the Celtic Languages in the Digital Age (CLIDA 2024) hosted by Lancaster University on 9 April 2024 (a workshop dedicated to examining the requirements for future Celtic language resource development looking specifically at resources that have the flexibility to support Celtic languages.)

Main objectives - as the great diversity of connection and outreach efforts is extremely valuable, I’m afraid the focus is too much on newcomers and awareness and I’m not sure it aligns with the community needs as you presented. Can you please point out some of the challenges and opportunities in language preservation and cultural representation you observe?

The survey responses received were from a majority of existing editors and Wikimedians who are also involved in language outreach and advocacy. Many of the responses from the survey mentioned the below points which request support on how Wikimedians can get involved in language advocacy and preservation for under-represented languages through creating partnerships and relationships with official language bodies through Wikimedia projects.

• How to approach and build a partnership with an organisation or state body,
• Best practices to reach out to underrepresented language speakers,
• Discover language advocacy organisations and what they are doing,
• Similar wiki initiatives to get inspired from,
• Similar language community projects to get inspired from
• Onboarding new editors
• How to advocate for your language, its visibility, and rights
• Community growth

The aim is to better enable communities to live their Digital lives through their regional and minority languages.

While the emphasis on newcomers and awareness is notable in the main objectives, it aligns with the identified needs of our community as highlighted in the survey responses. Our outreach efforts include newcomers, the foundation of our objectives lies in the diverse perspectives and expertise brought by existing editors and Wikimedians who are also actively involved in language outreach and advocacy within their wider language communities.

Many of our existing editors expressed a keen interest in addressing language preservation and cultural representation challenges. The challenges encompass engagement in smaller language Wikipedias, the need for tech support and infrastructure for small language Wikis, and recognising the differences between language groups and their unique needs. The opportunities lie in sharing recruitment and onboarding strategies, implementing Wiki Projects in educational settings, inspiring creativity in efforts, and fostering cross-cultural learning.

The list of needs identified, including building partnerships, reaching underrepresented language speakers, discovering language advocacy organisations, and advocating for language visibility, illustrates the community's desire for impactful initiatives. Through the CK conference, and beyond, we aim to empower communities to live their digital lives in their regional and minority languages, addressing the pressing challenges and leveraging the identified opportunities. This is also something that, as the Wikimedia Communities serving the majority of the Celtic Nations, WCI and WMUK are focused on in their strategic plans.

You intend to award 49 scholarships out of a total of 180 participants. Does it mean that the rest of the 130 will be local/self-funded participants? It sounds like a very high number if you are indeed hoping that most of them will be self-funded or non-wikimedia partners.

• Online attendees: 60
  • Consisting of Scholarship Recipients (online): 10
  • Other online attendees: 50
• In-person attendees: 114
  • Consisting of
  • Scholarship Recipients (in-person): 49
    • 2 Irish-Traveller Community
    • 6 Republic of Ireland
    • 2 Northern Ireland
    • 5 Wales
    • 5 Scotland
    • 5 Brittany
    • 5 Cornwall
    • 5 Isle of Man
    • 3 The Basque Country
    • 3 Friesland
    • 8 General continental Europe / other minority language regionals
  • Other self-funded attendees 50 (consisting of self-funded Wikimedians, non-Wikimedians, WikiWomen Project Partners [at least 5], Language Advocacy groups/individuals [local and international] and other interested individuals, academics working on Celtic-language projects, GLAMs, policymakers)
  • Organising team 5
  • Other guests/speakers 5

So just under half of the anticipated in-person audience (47%) would receive some funding from this budget to attend.

Team capacity - looks like you have a great team and are very well-experienced. I also want to highlight the great collaboration between WMUK and WCI. Learnings - I really appreciate the elaborated learning and evaluation section. Thank you for that! However, it seems that a lot of post-event evaluation will be required to track and analyze all these. Do you intend to follow up on all those learning objectives?

In consideration of the feedback and comments we have reduced the Learning Objects on the Flux Application to four main objectives and have reassessed our metrics to focus more on the quality of the conference and attendees' experience.

The Wiki Women Erasmus+ Project launch will play an integral role in fostering collaboration between minority language groups and external partners in the Context of the CK. The key aim of this project is to provide a template and guide on how to collaborate with external partners. A major outcome of the Wiki Women project has been the creation of a set of toolkits that can be used by teachers, students, and GLAMs to proliferate the project in their own context.

A key vision of this engagement is making progress towards bridging the gap between small language Wikis and corresponding organisations. The project has successfully brought together GLAMs, language advocacy organisations, and educational institutions with Wikimedians to elevate minority languages on Wikipedia. Providing avenues for collaboration and assistance has proved to be a fundamental part of supporting those languages.

The toolkits that will be launched at the Conference will be made available so that any language community or Wikipedia group can take the resources on board, and make them their own by translating them to suit their needs. The Wiki Women resources launched at the Celtic Knot have the potential to be an empowering stepping stone that will provide minority language communities with a tried and tested way to engage with educational institutions and thus onboard a new generation of Wikimedians.

Can you please elaborate on the hybrid component? What will it look like? Do you intend to include recording and live streaming, or do you also hope to facilitate online discussions and engagement (which will require different set up, capacity and facilitation)?

• The Conference will primarily be an in-person event, with hybrid components to increase accessibility and reach.
• Ahead of the conference, we will host online meet-up satellite events for any interested attendees who will not make it in person.
• Interaction will be made possible via a dedicated Telegram channel and also social media. * This will allow both in-person and remote attendees to interact and engage with the programming. There will also be the possibility of presentations or workshops/tutorials from remote presenters.
• In-person programming will be live-streamed via Zoom Webinar and this will also be recorded and made available after the conference.
• Documents and resources from the conference will be made available online as an archive of resources, toolkits, etc.

Budget The AV and streaming costs are very high. Was that a need that came from the community? Given newcomers/ Wikimedians rate, I’m not sure that is a need.

I have the quotation document for this detailing the cost (outlined below) - this will be for streaming and recording the programming to a high quality and also includes amplification of sound during the programming for in-person participants. We received direct feedback from the community requesting a hybrid component of the event to be available as not all will be attending in person. We want to ensure that the conference is of high quality even when experienced online. The AV costs are based on the quotation from the company that is affiliated with and recommended by the venue. We did reach out to other companies for quotes, however, they were unavailable for the dates requested. As demonstrated below, the majority of the cost is associated with providing staging, visuals, and sound to run the conference in person, with the addition of the Webinar service which is an added extra contained within their general conferences package. While the below cost may appear high, the standard of the service provided as well as the general cost of this type of service in Ireland for similar events is a good and competitive price. The added benefit of engaging with an experienced and professional team who are familiar with the venue and can seamlessly take care of these technical on-site aspects will allow the organisers (who are a small team) to focus on running the conference and to be focused on attendees and programming.

The initial quotation breakdown was as follows: €1,845.00 per day (incl. VAT @ 23%) Price includes delivery, set up and collection as well as all necessary cables & connectors. Insurance's, Health & Safety statements are available on request from the company.

Included Items:

• Audio
  • 4 x Speaker PA System
  • 1 x Podium Mic
  • 3 x top table mics
  • 2 x radio mic
  • 1 x Di box
• Staging
  • 1 x Podium (stainless tri lite truss)
• Visuals
  • 1 x 5,500 ansi iumen NEC projector
  • 1 x Screen (by Hotel, included in hotel's costs free of charge)
  • 2 50" TV (at pillars - also incl free of charge and provided by hotel)
  • 1 x 2-camera Kit & HD visual mixer
  • 1 x connect to house screens
  • 1 Frontline AV Zoom Webinar package
• Technicians
  • 1 x Technician Day Rate

In respect of the cost of goods and services for the delivery of the event in Ireland, it is worth noting that Ireland was reported as 46% above the EU average for goods and services last year. While we understand that, comparatively, the costs seem high another reason for holding the conference in Waterford is due to the cost being significantly lower, on average, to accommodation and venue costs when compared to Dublin.

Staff costs - are those for full-time employees for 6 months? It seems like a large expenditure in relation to the overall budget.

The WCI part of the grant (€24,000) would cover costs for administering the grant as well as cover Amy and Sophie working on it part-time for the 6 months of the project (1 full-time equivalent between the two people) including the Irish State income taxes which are required to be paid by the employer. Amy is currently a part-time employee as an Irish Language Officer (with 16 hours per week) which for resource allocation would be 1 day per month to work on the conference organising. Additional resources (approx 42-60 hours) are available from the Erasmus+ budget. The WMF Conference fund as above would be increasing Amy’s hours for the duration of the 6 months for the conference, boosting her capacity to become the lead organiser, giving 100 days between Amy and Sophie towards the conference organising in addition to the WikiWomen fund and a 1-day per month allocation for Amy’s ILO role resources.

Wikimedia UK’s staffing (€12,000) covers approximately 45 days contributed across the team, including programme coordination, management, communications, and finance.

I see there is no minimum requirement for level of Wikimedia experience. How will you manage those wiki discussions and the overall program with such an audience? My other concern on the topic is how will you navigate discussions (strategic or technical) with so many non-Wikimedians or newcomers.

To address the diverse levels of Wikimedia experience among conference attendees, we are strategically planning the program to feature some simultaneous sessions catering to different proficiency levels. While more experienced Wikimedians can participate in advanced programming discussions, we will run parallel 'Intro to Wiki' workshops to accommodate newcomers. This dual-track approach ensures that attendees can choose sessions aligned with their experience and interest levels.

Additionally, we recognize the importance of creating an inclusive environment for networking and knowledge sharing. To foster interaction among participants of varying experience, facilitated discussions and networking activities will be incorporated, encouraging Wikimedians to engage with others outside their immediate circles. Our experience in delivering conferences, coupled with a keen awareness of the need for diversity in session content, positions us well to navigate discussions and programming that cater to both seasoned Wikimedians and newcomers. This is something that has proven successful at previous iterations of CK which have shown that non-Wikimedians and Wikimedians can learn from each other which has proven to be mutually beneficial.

As part of our commitment to inclusivity, we are considering pre-conference online sessions and resources to provide foundational Wiki knowledge, enabling attendees with limited experience to familiarise themselves with the basics before the conference begins and also adding to the hybrid elements for those who cannot attend in person.

Some examples of activities which are under consideration:

• Panel Discussions with Q&A
  • Panels featuring experts from diverse backgrounds, allowing cross-pollination in collaboration of ideas, insights and strategies.
  • Open Q&A sessions allow newcomers to ask questions and engage with experienced panellists.

• Lightning Talks and Poster Sessions:
  • Brief presentations followed by Q&A.
  • Provides a platform for Wikimedians to share projects and for newcomers to ask questions.

• Themed Social Events:
  • Social gatherings with themes related to Wikimedia projects and Celtic cultures, e.g. encouraging engagement in the Wiki Loves Monuments Photography competition during the historic walking tours mentioned above, traditional dance lessons (host regions focus), (WikiLovesFolklore / WikiLovesHeritage linking in with cultural exchanges e.g. traditional Celtic music and storytelling from each nation, language workshops (Indigenous Gammon/Cant & Irish language from local Gaeltacht area)
  • Encourage casual conversations and networking in a relaxed setting at the Gala dinner and during mealtimes.

• Discussion Tables during Meals:
  • Designated tables for specific topics during meals.
  • Participants can join tables based on their interests, promoting diverse discussions.

• Collaborative Online Platforms:
  • Utilise online forums or platforms before and during the conference.
  • Dedicated spaces for discussions, introductions, and collaboration.
  • Dedicated co-working & Edit-a-thon Space with Mentorship Opportunities
  • A dedicated space will be set up for editing and writing, here experienced and less experienced/newcomers can mingle and learn from each other.
  • Pairing experienced Wikimedians with newcomers for informal mentoring.
  • Scheduled meet-ups or dedicated spaces for mentorship discussions.

Thank you again for the feedback and clarifying questions giving us the opportunity to share further details with you on our plans for Celtic Knot 2024. OifigeachWMIE (talk) 16:30, 4 March 2024 (UTC)