Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Community Ireland/2019

Structure of WCI

Hi!

Thanks for your application, will be eager to read it in the upcoming days. One thing I wasn't able to find from the WCI meta page or other sources is the structure of WCI. Who is on your board, and what is the current setup? Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 18:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

-- Hi Philip, We are currently a recognised User Group and Limited Liability Partnership in Ireland. Our board is comprised of a Chairperson, Shannon Eichelberger and co-deputy chairpersons Sharon Flynn and Eugene Eichelberger. We are an active user group with bi-monthly meetings and more frequent events. We are an all-island organisation with active allies and collaboration from numerous organisations throughout the country. We have a full time project coordinator to facilitate communications and event coordination. --Geichel (talk) 10:42, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Geichel! :-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 17:30, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

P.S.: Ideally that would be information that's also on your meta page or website because I doubt anyone would find this talk page. ;-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 09:24, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Good point, updated! I think Eugene has plans to update/overhaul the website, but I will look to see if I can address that on there too. Smirkybec (talk) 10:16, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Great, thanks very much :-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 11:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

And maybe one other thing - are the notes of the yearly general assembly published somewhere? Can't seem to find them :-/ Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 11:42, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

We don't currently schedule an AGM. The regular planning meetings are open to anyone. The invitation is public and the meeting notes are published. Geichel (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! :-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 09:33, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Statistics and community of ga.wikipedia

We discussed last year how the number of regular editors on Vicipéid is fairly low and how it's difficult to translate WCI's activities to any increase in regular editors on ga.wikipedia. Considering another year has past, how do you think the development of Vicipéid has progressed? Do you think that a community is forming on that specific Wikipedia? The rise in users with 1-4 edits is encouraging, but at the same time some very active editors seem to have reduced their activity. Do you have an explanation for the current situation?

• Statistics page of 2017-2019

Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 17:44, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Philip, thanks for you interest in our Vicipéid work. Having discussed it with other small language groups at events like the Celtic Knot conference (Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Breton and the work of Wikimedia Norge with Northern Sami), we are following their advice and working more on raising the profile of Vicipéid and awareness of the platform rather than editing metrics. From their experience, this fostered a better relationship with the language community, and we are focused on engendering a sense of ownership of Vicipéid by that community. For the foreseeable future, we will keep this focus and draw on the experience of other minority languages.

Regarding the current metrics, given that the numbers of very active editors are small from a minority language, they probably always will be relatively small. It would be my guess that you are seeing those high level editors slip into the 25-99 edit bracket. As you can imagine the 1-4 edits and 5-24 are workshops and groups of students. The increase in the number of articles is something that the community like to measure, and were pleased to see Vicipéid break through 50,000 articles in the last few months.

I hope that goes some way to answering your question! Smirkybec (talk) 13:50, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Survey

The new survey's only metrics are the number of participants - do you think it would be helpful to gauge how the WCI fits into the picture of the community in the Republic of Ireland as a whole? I.e. add metrics that show that the work of WCI has at least been noticed by the wider community and that the community (readers as well as editors if you have a site notice) thinks that your activities are known and seen as benefical to developing Wikipedia in Ireland? One example of a survey like this would be WMAT's yearly survey. Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 18:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Philip Kopetzky. Thanks for taking the time to read our grant proposal. The number of participants in the survey is the only metric that we have chosen to report on. While the survey has not been developed yet, we will of course include questions on how we are viewed by the community and what we can do to better serve them. Over the past 2 years the main duty of our Project Coordinator was to reach out into the community to raise awareness of our group and Wikipedia in general. This survey will give us an opportunity to gauge the impact of that outreach and adjust it as necessary. It will also give us a chance to specifically reach out to the Irish Language community which is a fast growing user base and a focus of this grant. Sameichel (talk) 08:45, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@Sameichel: Sorry for the late reply on this, preparing for the Wikimedia Summit did take more time than expected unfortunately :-/ Thanks for the clarification, that sounds promising! Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 09:32, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Education and Outreach

I was delighted to read about your Education and Outreach and that you are working with librarians ;) . You mention third level institutions. I am not from the region so can you explain what the difference is in levels and how many levels there are? Is University first level?

Is there a reason you are targeting third level institution? Are they easier to work with? Bureaucracy/ red tape easier to navigate?

Looking forward to your reply. Siarus1074 (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

--A large portion of libraries would be part of the university system. While Ireland does have a public library system, Los Angeles County USA has a population two times the population of Ireland. Public resources will be sized and staffed accordingly. The university systems in the country comprise a significant catalyst for direct communication as Ireland has a high participation rate at third level. While there are many notable institutions and organisation in Ireland, none would have the outreach potential of some of our larger universities. The following wiki page does a good job of explaining the terminology around the education system in Ireland. en:Third-level_education_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland --Warm wishes Geichel (talk) 09:09, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Ireland APG approved in the amount of 43,554 EUR

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 41,478 EUR for 12 months + a 5% contingency amount of 2074 EUR, for a total amount of 43,554 EUR, with a grant term starting on 1 April 2019 and ending on 31 March 2019.

Thank you for your work on this program plan, and for the work you have done in the past year. This plan shows further development of Wikimedia Community Ireland's programs within the new approach started last cycle, geared towards outreach to achieve community growth. We are glad to see that organizations and institutions recognize WCI as a partner they can initiate work with.

While WCI works with relatively small communities, they have shown good progress in the current year in terms of engaging the number of participants they targeted, as well as achieving their goals in terms of content pages. They have realistically updated their targets for next year to build on the current year’s achievements, and also reflect the ways they are evolving their programs. Beyond this, the grantee-defined metrics in their application (number of new volunteer allies, number of new partners) better reflect their emphasis on outreach and institutional partnerships. In the future, we encourage WCI to evolve their grantee-defined metrics to look beyond the number of new partners they are engaging, to better describe the depth and meaning of their partnerships work.

Thank you for providing some additional context about the important role that having paid staff has played in enabling WCI to evolve.

We are particularly interested in: What you will learn from the community survey, and how you will apply this information to increasing the effectiveness of your activities and programs; How your work in using Wikipedia and Vicipéid for digital literacy efforts develops, as well as your work with education partners; The growth of your activities with "allies" and the expansion of your network of “allies” (especially within local libraries), and how this will support the Wikimedia projects in Ireland; Results in your GLAM work, and particularly the use of internships to promote Wikimedia work within GLAM institutions.

Wikimedia Community Ireland is receiving a contingency amount of 5%, which can only be used for unforeseen expenses with prior written approval from your program officer.

We are looking forward to working with you in 2019-2020. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)