Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Australia/2018-2019

Questions from SAPG members

Question from Siarus1074 /Kai

I first want to congratulate you on the great work you are doing. You have a wide array of programs and events that you run. I really like what the WikiClubs are doing in the local libraries and the Noongardepedia. I have a few questions:

• Under Support for regional and global events, you mention your a partnership with ESEAP. I was wondering if you could clarify if you are getting funds from ESEAP or requesting funds in the grant or both?
• Under Programs > Metrics you have a bullet point that says "Increase diversity of attendees and applicants for scholarships. Do you have a diverse group in mind? If so, either way, can you share how you plan to accomplish this?
• I am really intrigues by Wikitowns. Are you working at all with Open Street maps with this project?
• Also, in regards to Wikitowns, how do you identify towns to participate? Also, how do you do outreach to the community to recruit them?

I look forward to hearing from you. Siarus1074 (talk) 02:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Siarus I have broken each point out into separate discussions;

Under Support for regional and global events, you mention your a partnership with ESEAP. I was wondering if you could clarify if you are getting funds from ESEAP or requesting funds in the grant or both?

• ESEAP is East, South East Asia, Pacific region of contributors, the group has regular meetups at both Wikimania and WMCONF. 2017 the group decide to hold a regional event in Bali much like other regional events in North America Africa, with the first event being held just this last weekend. Wikimedia Australia was part of the group of affiliates that established this and our treasurer was on the event committee, though WM Indonesia took the lead on making the event happen. For 2019 Wikimedia has committed to hosting the event in October/November in 2019 in Fremantle Western Australia. We will be seeking separate funding for the 2019 event once the committee is formed, and more details are finalised. Gnangarra (talk)

Increase diversity of attendees and applicants for scholarships. Do you have a diverse group in mind?

• Its very difficult for Australians to attend Wikimania and all to frequently its limited to the same few people, this is holding back the WMAUcommunity with a lack of experience, lack of connection, and lack of development in the community to collaborate with the wider movement. These limitations are identified as a high risk to the successful long term development of our community, and as we have frequently experienced when we lose these people we have to rebuild knowledge and relationships that reliant on too few people. Its one the reason why I have worked so hard and continuously to bring events to Australia, we have identified many contributors who have a lot of skills sets that would be enhanced by making collaborative collections. WMAU needs to build not only the depth of knowledge but broader connections to the movement so we arent at continual risk of losing significant knowledge. Besides the risk factor Australia has over 300 Indigenous language communities who's knowledge is all but non existent within the projects being able to also expose those diverse groups to the wider movement benefits us all in sharing knowledge and developing leaders. Gnangarra (talk)

WikiTowns

Wikitowns are a classic example of why experiencng events like Wikimania are so important. I first heard of the Monmouth QRpedia project during a presentation at Wikimania 2012 in Washington, when I returned home I encountered a COI editor from the City of Fremantle. From this I followed up with the person at the City of Fremantle and also connected with a local community group from there we developed the first WikiTown in Fremantle. The next town came via being nominated for a Western Australian Heritage award which meant we were able to talk other groups interested in heritage. From that event I spoke with an interested group and Toodyay developed from there. Over all both towns have extensive historical buildings and reasonable mobile coverage, something many part of Australia doesnt have yet. To develop a wikitowns its take a team/community of contributors willing to work on content over an extended period of time, we have held many local meetups in the two towns, held WikiTakes events, and supported the local events with competitions and workshops. While we have Fremantle and Toodyay as active projects we also have a number of other locations where we are build the relationships, this part of the process happens with our volunteers putting their own tim eand resources into the effort. Wikimedia Australia has recognised the work of the WA Wikiclub and is helping them buy creating a digitization kit to further enable collaboration. The connection with Fremantle is also enabling support for the 2019 ESEAP conference. Gnangarra (talk)

Questions from Philip

Just to follow up on Kai's questions, here are a few more:

• Community support
  • You mention Noongarpedia in your proposal, but it's not mentioned in your budget as far as I can see. Does that mean that this project is run by volunteers without the need of financial support? What are the goals to "further develop" Noongar Wikipedia? Are these goals focused towards content, technical upgrades or user base?
  • One of your metrics is "At least one successful Australian presentation" - I guess this refers to Wikimania, as mentioned in your budget? Has the presentation been accepted? What do you expect from your Wikimania scholarship recipients in terms of reporting back to the Australian community and how do you select them in the first place?
  • The Volunteer Support Programme is budgeted with 2000 AUD - which percentage of that are you planning to spend on camera equipment? Do you lend the equipment to the volunteers temporarily? What does "designed for maximum flexibility and responsiveness" mean in your day-to-day work?
• Outreach and engagement
  • You mention a Wikisource conference - is that something you are organising, or is the contest merely centered around it?
  • In your budget you mention "judges expenses" for each photo competition - are those expenses for face-to-face meetings or something else?
  • Metrics for the competitions sound reasonable - since both goals are below the results of last year, I guess you're expecting a decline in participants and number of pictures? Have you thought of any activities/improvements to make the photo contests more appealing?
  • How do you plan to measure the two metrics "Speaker requests to WMAU" and "Success of content competitions"?
• Chapter governance
  • You mention travel costs for board members/office bearers to travel to other affiliates. What are you trying to achieve with this?

Finished my set of questions, thanks for your patience! :-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 18:52, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Response to Philip

• Community support
  • You mention Noongarpedia in your proposal, ...?
    • Yes that is correct there isnt any direct funding planned in the proposed budget, what there will be is support via the WA WikiClub community and activities, support through the volunteer support program(VSP), in kind support from other collaborations, or has been the case for the last 3years expenses have been funded by collaborative partners or myself directly. The immediate goals are to improve the use of language, expand on content, build and restore the noongar contributing community following a some disastrous comments from the language committee when the proposal to leave the incubator was formally requested. We did in an earlier iteration of the budget allow for specifically attending Indigenous conferences to share the Noogarpedia work and develop further opportunities, but along with development of Wikitown tools and other efforts we removed those from our budget leaving WMAU to continue to rely solely on the generosity of our community to fund those activities out of their own pockets. Gnangarra (talk)
  • One of your metrics is "At least one successful Australian presentation" - I guess this refers to Wikimania, as mentioned in your budget? Has the presentation been accepted? What do you expect from your Wikimania scholarship recipients in terms of reporting back to the Australian community and how do you select them in the first place?
    • Selection for Capetown is based on information provided by the WMF scholarship people as to who, like Montreal we'll have a list of expectation for the attendees to engage with WMF staff and other movement committees on various subjects, last years focus was on the Affiliates meetings, WLM discussions, and the WMF strategy development. Given that the grant process is later than expected a public presentation isnt expected now, though we will expect to provide information to the ESEAP group on the progress of 2019 event. Gnangarra (talk)
  • The Volunteer Support Programme is budgeted with 2000 AUD - which percentage of that are you planning to spend on camera equipment? Do you lend the equipment to the volunteers temporarily? What does "designed for maximum flexibility and responsiveness" mean in your day-to-day work?
    • VSP is for multiple project support including the camera equipment program. With camera equipment the costs involved in owning and lending equipment is prohibitive given the variety of equipment people could need, the various brands, the incompatibility of those brands, and the cost of moving the equipment internally in Australia. Previously our focus has been on assistance in purchasing with WMAU funding a portion of the overall cost for contributors who have a proven track record of photographic contributions. Though we have recently identified a national hire company and will encourage contributors to hire for project specific purposes. Logic still dictates that if a person wants to purchase an item via shared cost the long term benefit of contributing to that cost can be more effective than the paying for short term hire. Each case is considered on its merit, the past contributions of the individual who applies. Designed for maximum flexibility and responsiveness is exactly that, the VSP is designed that every request is based solely on the merit of the proposal. We have chosen not to limit the possibilities because Australian community has so many inspirational contributors that we wouldnt want to exclude new ideas by defining the VSP solely on past ideas. Gnangarra (talk)
      • Thanks for the explanation - so in essence WMAU is / has been subsidising photographer's purchase of new equipment, with the photographer deciding on when and where to use it based on their interests? How has this been working out for WMAU in terms of pictures uploaded and pictures used in Wikimedia projects year over year? Philip Kopetzky (talk) 11:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
        • With one exception all of those who have received assistance have continued to contribute media files. The exception was an application for $200 about 7 years ago the users primary activity was scrapping Flickr, such case are now excluded from consideration, that user has also moved on from the Wikimedia community. Gnangarra (talk)
          • I don't doubt that most have continued contributing media files, but my question was more geared towards WMAU having a system in place to measure this each year? Or do you count every new media file upload on Commons by that user as a file supported by WMAU? Philip Kopetzky (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
            • The eligibility of the Camera Equipment Program is based on past performance because we expect the applicant to have met the necessary requirements rather than plans to do something in future. Gnangarra (talk)

Follow up Questions from Kai

Thank you for your speedy responses. I have a few more questions.

• You caught me as the coffee was kicking in :D Gnangarra (talk)

About increasing diversity

• I understand you need more participants in your community to build depth and knowledge. I am really interested in the work you mentioned about the indigenous language communities. Can you share a bit more about your plans to outreach and/or invite more people from the indigenous communities into WMAU? Siarus1074 (talk) 18:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Building the relationships is the most important Noongar work has taken 4 years to get where it is, we are talking and building those relationships with other communities though we working with groups who been severely oppressed and whos culture and knowledge has and continues to regularly be appropriated for the benefit of others rather than the communities of origin. This type of work requires long term efforts which makes it a poor metrics measurable of short term funding cycles. Our plans are to continue on the development of Noongarpedia expanding the use of language in the nys.wikipedia. We do promote this work as being one in which the language community themselves controls their own development, dependent on their cultural needs. WMAU does encourage and support their work while also inviting them to experience our wider activities and encourages those contributors to take up roles within WMAU. Gnangarra (talk)

About WikiTowns

• What you shared is comprehensive and I appreciate that information. How WikiTowns is growing seems organic and benenfited from travel to conferences. I just wanted to follow up and ask the question again. Is WikiTowns at all working with Open Street Maps? Wikidata? Siarus1074 (talk) 19:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • WikiClubWest has worked with the Open Street Map community and we do have some members who in both communities, while we havent done any formal collaboration WCW has hosted workshops and Freopedia sites are on Open Street Maps. Our work with WikiData is more extensive, Free Knowledge Portal is qr code utilising the permanent links of wikidata items to rather than the original qrpedia links, FKP is backwards compatible to that system. The work from this came about following discussion with WMUK post WMCONF in 2017 about the future development of qrpedia. WMAU also plans to develop a mobile appthat uses these codes to provide links to WikiVoyage articles and itineraries, to wikipedias, to commons, wikisource. We also are looking into developing course, and worksheets in Wikiversity/Outreach for schools to access a digital excursion and lesson within the WikiTowns. Gnangarra (talk)

Follow up to Gnangarra response to Philip about Noongarpedia

• One of your metrics goals is to increase diversity. You mentioned in a response to me earlier indigenous communities was apart of that. However, I am confused why scholarships to Indigenous conferences would not be on your proposal which would help expand Noogarpedia and build community and capacity. Relying on the generosity of members seems to contradict your metric goal a bit.
  • Is that a steady stream of income for this project?
  • What if the members are not supportive of the project and funding wanes?
  • Can you provide a bit of history about Noongarpedia and what lead to the decision not to include support to Indigenous Conferences to expand the project?
    • WMAU started building its plan and budget as we did we recognised the value of being part of the GLAM community, on an adhoc basis we had people attend conferences as speakers and do workshops. This year we are stepping up that WMAU is sponsoring the Australian Society of Archivists conference in September bring Andy Mabbett out as a keynote speakers, additionally we have w:Leonard Collard and w:John Hartley (academic) to talk on the Noongarpedia work. Additionally WMAU is running two workshops in the preconference days. While Andy is in Australia he'll also speak at the Australasian Research Management Society conference and run a workshop there. Its bit off topic back it serves as background in who we came to the decision you ask about. What we have done in consultation with the WMF funding team we have consolidated our efforts into one item of attending a GLAM conference so we havent really dropped the plan just recognised that we already committed out of current funds to do this that we should limit our additional efforts from looking to be at multiple conferences to being at just one, that one will be decided on based on potential impact rather than just predisposing ourselves to it purpose. Gnangarra (talk)

Increasing diversity in WMAU leadership

• Do you have people that identify as being from indigenous communities in leadership in WMAU?
  • If not, do you have future plans as apart of your "increase diversity" metric to support those from diverse backgrounds such as indigenous communities into leadership positions in WMAU?

  - If yes to the above question, please explain your plans.

  • • We do encourage every one to become members of the chapter, under the laws of incorporation in Australia only members can be on the committee. When we have had casual vacancies we approach people encouraging them to take up roles. Yearly we required to elect a committee at that point people are encourage to nominate for positions, personally I have approached people I believe would be leaders to nominate and I know that many other members do the same as thats part of the process. I know that in other jurisdictions its possible for non members to be brought into the leadership committee or board to fill specific needs and further collaboration unfortunately we dont have that aspect. Gnangarra (talk)

Looking forward to hearing from you. Siarus1074 (talk) 20:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Questions from Chinmayi S K

Dear Wikimedia Austalia,
Thank you for your proposal.
I have a few questions about your programs. Please feel free to answer inline

1. I see a $1140 spending on your software/subscriptions could you please elaborate on why you would need this expense and a provide a break up for it ? In my Opinion that is too huge an amount considering there are free software alternatives.
   1. its a complex series of systems some of which arent replacable by free versions, we require accounting software that enables reporting to Australian Tax Office on a quarterly basis, we previously had emails provider via a service provided this freely unfortunately a change in the funding of their servers and failure of a server we had to shift to a google service. The legacy of that, the speed at which the server failed our need to immediately secure working environment for accounting, member register, webpage, voting software meant we had to go with commercial providers. Currently we working on getting free services via status as charity but those boxes require a lot of ticks along with many hoops jumped through. Hopefully we'll have reduced that figure over the next 12 months until we are able to ensure compliance with the necessary data retention and tax requirements we need to budget for the costs involved. Gnangarra (talk)
2. I see that you are flying in committee members for regional events ? Are there no committee members available locally ? Why is this necessary ?
   1. Australia is the size of the United States we committee members in Alice Springs, Perth, Melbourne, and Wagga Wagga there are no committee members in other centres. Only a committeee member can act on behalf of the chapter and GLAM while happy to work local people value thefact that a committee member makes the effort to visit, as does the local community. From a committee perspective it helps us to identify people we should be encouraging to become more involve as well who to support, lets us experience community dynamics and discuss in a more relaxed atmosphere what people are working on and planning. Its also valuable in build relationships within the committee that alleviate some of the negative interpersonal impersonal aspects that can unintentionally come through with keyboard communication, the regularly also meets via skype every 2 weeks. Gnangarra (talk)
3. Please Elaborate on the Indigenous conference and who would attend this ?
   1. there is an annual Indigenous conference held every year last year 3 people from the Noongarpedia project self funded their attendence in Cairns, our plan is to support someone from the Noongarpedia community to attend the conference, speak about the work and offer a workshop, Ideally that person should also be a WMAu member who is there to build opportunities for WMAU. Gnangarra (talk)

Regards --Chinmayisk (talk) 22:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions for your evaluation plan (note from WMF staff)

Hello, WMAU colleagues! Thank you for this application and for responding to the questions of the committee members here in a timely manner. Putting an APG application together for the first time certainly isn't easy. The advice and suggestions I provide here are with an aim to give you the opportunity to improve your application before a decision is made.

In my assessment, the objectives and metrics you have presented here are weak. Many of the metrics you have defined are not specific enough to be metrics, in some cases it is not clear how the metrics relate to your objectives, and often it is not clear how you will be measuring each of your objectives. I have offered you some specific feedback below.

When looking at your high level grants metrics targets provided in the worksheet, the targets you have provided do not seem to align to the amount of funding you are requested. (What I mean precisely is that the amount of funding you are requested seems very high with respect to what you plan to achieve, at least within those narrow quantitative categories). This means it is especially important for you to better articulate what it is you do plan to achieve that goes beyond these grants metrics, and why it is important. This is the function of your program objectives in your application.

For each of your objectives ask yourselves:

1. Why is this objective relevant or important?
2. How will we know if we are achieving this objective?
3. Is this objective logically linked to the program activities described here?

For each of your metrics ask yourselves:

1. Is this something that can be measured? If not, how can I improve this metric so that it is measurable?
2. What objective does this metric relate to? If none, why are we including it? Otherwise, how can we make that clear?

Here is some specific feedback about your objectives and metrics.

Objectives (Community support):

• To support and strengthen the engagement of the Wikimedia community in Australia — What does this mean? Strengthen the community how? How will you know this is happening?
• To increase the diversity of participants participating in online and face to face activities, in terms of gender, region, language, and topics/sectors of interest. — Your objective is to increase diversity. What is your baseline?
• To build community capacity — What does this mean? Capacity to do what? How will you know this is happening

Metrics (Community support):

• Number of events increased over 2017 total: Total of 20 event reports in 12 months — What will this tell you about whether or not you are achieving your objectives?
• Details on attendees at those reports - names, number of attendees, interests in the Wikimedia projects which can be utilised later for future programs, details of their participation. — What will this tell you about whether or not you are achieving your objectives?
• Increased diversity of attendees and applicants for scholarships — This is not a metric. What type of diversity are you tracking and how?
• At least one successful Australian presentation — What does this measure? Why is this relevant?

Objectives (Outreach and engagement):

• Increase awareness and participation of new individuals and organisations — Increase awareness of what? Increase participation in what? How will you know this is happening?
• Establishment of two new collaborative partnerships — Why is this important?
• Participation in global content competitions and wide promotion in Australia — Why is participation alone an important achievement?

Metrics (Outreach and engagement):

• Number of new accounts generated through outreach events — Yes, this is actually a metric :)
• Two new collaborative partnerships — Why is this relevant? What does this tell you about your objectives?
• Speaker requests to WMAU — Why is this relevant? What does this tell you about your objectives?
• Success of content competitions — This is not a metric. How will you know if the competitions are successful?

Note I am not addressing the governance section, as governance is not a program. We will of course take into account your plans in that area and the budget required to achieve them. We agree it is very important :)

We recommend that you direct your attention to improving your objectives and metrics over the next few days, to give your grant the best chance for approval. We are happy to follow up if you have further questions about this topic or our recommendations.

Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 05:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Simple APG committee recommendation

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: Wikimedia Australia is a new Simple APG applicant requesting 47,950 AUD for 12 months. We recommend funding WMAU at 33,750 AUD. Since WMAU already has sufficient reserves, we do not recommend a contingency in this case. Specifically, the committee recommends the following changes: reduce funding for Wikimania 2018 and F2F Committee Meeting and eliminate funding for office bearer learning, and indigenous conference. We appreciate that WMAU has included a plan with clear descriptions of their activities and with roles assigned. WMAU’s activities are loosely grouped into two thematic areas, but these program groupings seem to include a diverse array of activities that do not all seem closely related. While WMAU emphasizes diversity as a goal in this plan, and we are glad to see them measuring it, we could not see a link from the activities described here to the results WMAU is attempting to achieve in this area. Similarly, we do not see that the budget tracks well to this theme. We also appreciate that WMAU is taking positive steps to focus to achieve more impact in the coming year, including a focus on community building, and we think they have the potential to achieve improved results. However, the presented grants metrics targets are extremely low, and not enough additional context is provided in the program objectives to make the case for impact. We think it is possible that these very modest targets are inaccurately low, or that the value of their work is not well-captured in these targets. Yet, we are are concerned with the lack of specific objectives or quantitative or clear qualitative targets in this proposal to balance out these low targets. From reading the plan, it is not clear what exactly WMAU plans to achieve and how they will know if they are achieving it. We like that WMAU has reworked its budget to be more in line with what is expected of an APG proposal, but we cannot find the link between some of the expenses described here and WMAU’s plans to achieve measurable results. More work needs to be done to develop the programs and understand their costs in order for WMAU become more effective. While the travel costs for committee members to attend state activities do pertain to a reasonable outcome in a context where travel within the country is very expensive, this model may not be sustainable in the long term. We see this kind of investment as one-time funding that would require putting structures in place in order to make this kind of travel less frequent, and handing over engagement and organisation to local volunteers once they are activated and/or developing virtual support materials for local volunteers. Accordingly, we urge WMAU to reduce the scope of their program and travel activity in order to test out some of these more expensive approaches before they seek further funding. This is why we recommend WMAU maintain their core expenses and continue some program activity with a reduced scope. We recommend that WMAU reduce their emphasis on “Support for regional and global events” and travel to international events, and instead focus on activating and supporting their local communities, which will be a difficult and expensive endeavor in and of itself. We also suggest that WMAU focus travel within the country on the areas that will be most impactful. While we appreciate that WMAU is exploring doing more work with indigenous communities, more thought is needed before investing significant funding in travel to support these efforts. Work in this important and sensitive area requires people with expertise working in indigenous communities, and transparency is needed around processes for working with them. How Wikimedia Affiliates work with indigenous communities is something that will also need to be addressed as part of our movement strategy and / or WMF’s funding strategy. This should be explored before further investments are made in this area. We hope that WMAU’s strategy of combining outreach to different target audiences and efforts to support already active community members results in more growth in their communities and better outcomes in the long term, but we think more time is needed to understand whether these approaches are leading to better outcomes, before they are funded at the level requested.

Strengths identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

Concerns identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

On behalf of the committee -- Alleycat80 (talk) 13:27, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

WMF decision

Approved. 33,750 AUD for 12 months. Please submit a revised budget for approval by 5 June. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)