Talk:Fundraising and Funds Dissemination/Survey

Jury

A small question before make my list of questions: When you talk about "jury", are you talking about GAC? Béria Lima ^msg 11:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Béria. No, I'm not talking about any particular jury that currently exists -- in part because I don't want to assume that a survey respondent is familiar with current processes. The goal is to get input not just from people who have already got experience applying for Wikimedia grants, but to get input from anyone who might potentially in future want to apply for a grant. So the idea is to imagine how we would want to build something, if we were to do it from scratch. I don't have any preconceived ideas about what that might look like: that's the purpose of the survey. Thanks. Sue Gardner 13:29, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Burden?

It is often useful to work out the burden for surveys, often in terms of how many minutes on average it would take to fill out. With this in mind, the current draft is a bit long and has some open free text questions that might difficult to fill in and thereby put some off from trying. The tricky bits of why someone applied for funds and the summary could probably be changed to a simple request to link to the online version of their proposal or the associated outcomes (which is normally a requirement of all such grants). --Fæ 13:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fæ. I hear you on too many questions. I think there are probably lots of areas of fruitful inquiry that are currently missing too, which means likely some existing lower-priority questions will need to be pared away. Can you (or anyone) nominate some questions you think won't yield much useful information, and we can start paring down a bit? I would be fine with you or someone creating a new section at the bottom of the page for 'questions nominated for deletion,' and moving stuff down to it.

I disagree with you though about open free text questions: I think they are fabulous. When I was at the CBC I did an annual reader survey that got about 8K open free text answers each year, and I read them all. I found that enormously valuable for helping understand the context for people's answers and getting some qualitative flavour in addition to the numbers. I read all the write-in comments for the image filter referendum as well, and found it very useful too. So, I like open free text :-) Thanks, Sue Gardner 13:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoops sorry: also, Fæ. I do think we would want to make the open free text questions skippable, and label them as such. Because yeah, some people do not want to take the time to write a detailed response. Sue Gardner 13:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that some level of open text is useful for all sorts of reasons. I'd like to reiterate the burden point again, it would be nice to see the survey intro give an estimate along the lines of "this survey should take around 10 minutes to complete" so before someone starts they have an idea of how tricky it is going to be. Cheers --Fæ 16:51, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Demographics etc?

Hi Sue, great to see this taking place, especially as one who applies for and values grants through WMF, and as someone studying these type of subjects for my masters. Also glad that you're taking the option of open free text (re: above with Fae), but I think by now you know I'm quite a fan of it also!

I was curious if you'll be asking any demographic information? I have, along with you, tried to push the grant program to women within the community, many who are often unaware that it even exists. While I assume most applicants are male (based on gender gap statistics), I'd just like to know more about those who are visiting the grant pages, browsing, thinking about applying, successfully applying, etc. It'd be nice to know if people think there are other ways we can promote the grant systems better as well. It often seems if you're not on a mailing list like say, internal-l, or you're not active on Meta (and most people aren't), you're unaware. I.e. - I was unaware that individuals were able to apply, I only thought it was for chapters until I got back from Wikimania. Also, will the survey be inquiring about Wikimania grants? (I know Jesse did a survey recently - and it seems plenty of folks apply for grants for that, but so few apply for *these* grants). Thanks! SarahStierch 14:43, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sarah. Actually I hadn't considered asking for demographic information, and you're right, it's probably a good idea. If you had a reasonably complete set of demographic questions in your recent gender survey (I assume you did, but I can't remember), can you copy it over to the article page here? Also yes on 'other ways to promote grant systems.' I think the best way to surface that information might be to pull people's input from Mani's last editor survey: I remember she asked how people got information generally (e.g., village pumps, mailing lists, and so forth). So the easiest way to promote anything to editors would likely be to use those existing paths. There is also of course a distinct question, which is how to promote to non-Wikimedians, if we wanted to aspire to give money to e.g., Creative Commons chapters, the FSF, Open Street Maps, and that kind of thing. Thanks. Sue Gardner 14:55, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding in a rough sketch of demographic questions. In my survey it was a little chaotic - I had people fill in their age, and provide more information than I think we will need here (i.e. sexuality). For age I utilized SurveyMonkey and the University of Wisconsin for the method in regards to the others. I don't think we need anything too detailed, but it would be interesting to know the "job" situation for those applying. Perhaps Mani (and team) can provide some input as well. I do think it'd be really great to someday have a grant program for organizations and programs that meet with our mission - talk about dissemination of knowledge! SarahStierch 16:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Just noticed that the Editor's Survey didn't ask specific question of "race" or "identity". I'm going to leave that out for the time being, dealing with an international community - it could become really complex (like my survey - I gave 16 options for this). Not sure if it's necessary. SarahStierch 16:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

While I don't necessarily think it is a bad idea to have a demographic breakdown of the grant recipients, I do think it is not as important to the current issues we're trying to deal with. How funds are raised and disseminated have no logical relation to who makes a request or not, while demographic information is always important to have around, it also lengthens the survey with questions that were previously asked (several times). I would be in favor of removing them but I can see the other side as well, your call Sue.

Also, Hi Sarah, this wiki is my home. Nice to make your acquaintance. Theo10011 17:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Some demographic information like gender and country of residence are probably a good idea… but when you start getting beyond that, there are all sorts of other issues that come into play. Education, race, orientation can have different meanings across cultures. If you're an Indian in India, that has a different cultural meaning than an Indian in Australia or the United States or Kenya. Education levels also differ from country to country, and how terms are understood also change. Some places have great expectations and levels of participations than others. Some countries basically deny that homosexuality exists, and in other countries there is a more acceptance and greater fluidity in those definitions. I think the data points would be interesting for education, religion and orientation, but only for comparisons inside national or regional populations instead of across groups. (Are women in the USA more likely to get grants than American men?) --LauraHale 21:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

What grant-making programs currently exist in the movement?

Please list below any grantmaking programs that you know about in the Wikimedia movement. It would be great to get the official name (if there is one) for each program, who currently funds it (multiple groups are okay), and a link to its main descriptor page if there is one. Thanks Sue Gardner 15:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I know a few chapters have similar grant making processes. Off the top of my head, I think WMUK, WMDE (with WMF), WMFR have similar programs, I am not sure but WMPL and WMCH also might have some variations. A lot of chapters, actually mostly those that fund-raised in the last year, make small grants that might or might not resemble the grantmaking programs model. Regards. Theo10011 17:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

WMAU makes grant. I believe small grants are less than $200 AUD. --LauraHale 20:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Indonesia is part of grant making organization with total of 1 million US dollar, it aimed to support community media.

• Link to press release 1
• link to press release 2,
• link to press release 3
• link to the ciptamedia page Siska.Doviana (talk) 02:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

If you have links for those programs, I would love them :-) Thanks. Sue Gardner 21:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Grants Program (WMF) Ijon 01:16, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Participation Grants Program (WMDE and WMF) Ijon 01:16, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The Wikimania Scholarship Program Jwild 06:38, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Incorporating into a feedback process

I think it would be a good idea to solicit Asaf and the GAC on this. They can send out the questionnaire as an addendum to the submitted reports to be filled out by the recipients. I also think they might have useful insight on how the previous grants were dispensed or approved which might be integral to the survey. Theo10011 17:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Theo. The audience for this survey isn't people who have received grants in the past. The audience for this survey is both past grant recipients (from all grantmaking bodies) and also potential grant recipients -- ie., people or groups who might want to apply for a grant. So, it wouldn't make sense to send it out as an addendum to the grant reports. Having said that, I would love to get Asaf and GAC member comments and input :-) Thanks. Sue Gardner 21:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Helpful questions from editor survey

I am just moving this over from the main page, because I think it fits better here on the talk page. Sue Gardner 03:55, 6 December 2011 (UTC) I thought the following questions from the editor survey might be useful in formulating the questions. If you need any help or further information, I would be happy to help. Manipande 22:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Below is a list of tools you can use to communicate with other editors. Which of the following tools, if any, have you used in the PAST MONTH to communicate with other editors? (Please choose all that apply.)

(Percents are based on data from the editor survey, April 2011)

• 60% User-page discussions
• 30% Email
• 20% Village pump
• 12% Social networking websites such as Facebook
• 11% IRC
• 9% Instant Messaging services such as GTalk and Yahoo Messenger
• 6% Foundation-l and similar mailing lists
• 4% Micro-blogging websites such as Twitter
• 2% Wikimedia Foundation blog
• 1% Planet Wikimedia blog
• 29% None of the above

What? Is that question a or suggestion? that makes no sense without context.

Also, your heading and comment belong on the talk page, Mani. I will move them if no one objects. Theo10011 23:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Theo, you can certainly move it to discussion page, it is more appropriate there. I am a little unclear on why you think there is no context. This is ONLY a suggestion, the question needs to be tweaked since it is not directly related to the topic. Manipande 01:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Mani there is a single question there, you mentioned "questions". Then you added actual results from the survey, I am confused if you meant to suggest that question along with those options for this survey or you thought that information in your results was relevant? Thanks. Theo10011 16:47, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that Sue and Mani have been communicating in regards to this. Thus, I don't think it's anything needing to be worried about. SarahStierch 17:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I asked Mani to give me this data. The purpose of it isn't to be a question in the survey: the purpose is just to find out how best to market a survey to editors. I could use the sitenotice I guess, but that seems like overkill, so I think I will probably end up using EdwardsBot or something like that. Sue Gardner 01:30, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

As the owner of EdwardsBot, MzMcBride would be delighted to help, I'm sure. Let me know if you need his or any other bot, or a site notice for that matter. Regards. Theo10011 02:19, 13 November 2011 (UTC)