Grants:Conference/Celtic Knot 2018/Report

Report accepted
This report for a Conference Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Conference/Celtic Knot 2018.
  • You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
  • You are welcome to Email conferencegrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.



Goals

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Did you meet your goals?


Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
Support contributors to small language Wikipedias to develop their communities and capacity for progress Yes A range of talks and workshops helped teach contributors new technical skills, techniques for community engagement and ways they can raise the profile of their projects.
60 Attendees 55 Attendees We came very close to our target for attendees and the number compares well with last years conference in Edinburgh which attracted about 50 participants. The geographical location of the conference made it too expensive for some to attend - several from Russia and India wanted to come but the Scholarships were not large enough to cover their costs.
Offer 8 Scholarships of up to $560.11 (£400) 7 scholarships of £400 and 5 smaller scholarships of £100 (total of 12) In order to help as many people attend as possible it was decided to offer a number of smaller scholarships, to cover cost of entry tickets/travel expenses rather than offering one more larger scholarship.


Next steps

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Please share a brief update about the status projects, important discussions and/or capacity building that took place at the event.

Activities during the conference 2 months after the conference 6 months after the conference
Strategic Discussions:

Were any significant issues your community discussed at the conference?

For full list of events and activities, please see the conference program.

Issues around Local government support for smaller language Wikipedias, Wiki in Education and issues around maintaining and growing small communities were discussed through group discussions, workshops and presentations.

In Wales there are plans to explore a Welsh language Wikipedia for children - Inspired by the Basque model, presented at the conference. Jason Evans and Aaron Morris are following this up.

Representatives of the Cornish and Northern Sami Wikipedia's have agreed to consider hosting the conference in 2019 - 2020 respectively.

Capacity Development: Please list capacity building sessions or workshops.



  • Robin Owain, Wales Manager for Wikimedia UK. From 1,000 to 100,000 articles - milestones of the Welsh Wikipedia.
  • Mark Trevethan. Cornish language and Wikipedia - finding ways to make Wikipedia work for a small language community
  • Astrid Carlsen - Kickstarting a dead Wikipedia (Sami) – where are we one year after?
  • Léa Lacroix - Introduction: What is Wikidata, and how can we support the minority language communities?
  • Hady Elsahar - ArticlePlaceholder: support the communities and help small Wikipedias to grow
  • Nicolas Vigneron - Translathon: improve Wikidata in your language in a few minutes
  • Pau Cabot - Workshop: create an automatic infobox on your wiki
  • Nicolas Vigneron, Breton Wikisource - Wikimammenn, How to transcribe all the world's books with a small community?
  • Ewan Mc Andrew - Building Bridges Not Walls - Translation workshop.
  • Unconferenced Workshops including Wikisource, Openrefine, Wikidata drop in and Wikidata Infoboxes for your Wiki.
For full list of events and activities, please see the conference program.
  • 50 attendees. As one of the founders of the Welsh Wikipedia and now the WMUK Wales manager, Robin shared his experiences on how a small Wikipedia can be grown with limited resources
  • 30 attendees. Cornish speakers number around 2000, so this was a great incite into how that tiny community are being encouraged to contribute to Wikipedia. Mark Trevethan also agreed to host next years conference following Celtic Knot 2018.
  • 25 attendees. This may have worked better as a discussion rather than a presentation? But great insite into the challanges faced in developing Sami Wikipedia
  • 25 attendees. Wikidata was a very popular subject. Many Wikipedia contributors present new little about Wikidata. They learned how Wikidata can help improve their Wikipedia's, using Wikidata Infoboxes, lists ect.
  • 15 attendees. Again this demonstrated how data can begin to automate the sharing of information in small languages
  • 8 attendees. Feedback was that translation makes contribution more accessible.
  • 15 attendees. Very popular session, which was expanded in the Unconferenced workshops. Helping people get Wikidata infoboxes set up on their Wiki is a great way to quickly add value to articles.
  • 15 attendees. particularly useful for smaller communities with few resources for mass digitisation/OCR
  • 10 attendees. Translation of articles is growing in popularity on smaller Wiki's. It might have been better to make this session compulsory rather than a parallel session.. Participants felt the translation offered a way in to editing for those less confident in the research element of contributing to Wikipedia.
  • 55 attendees (total). Unconferenced sessions (2 hours on day 2) was really popular with lots of sessions planned and running in parallel, to the point where some people missed out on important sessions. More time and less parallel sessions would have been good.
Survey participants 6 months after event -- how many people have used the skills they learned?
Projects or Working Groups:

What are the most important projects that were started or improved during the conference?

  • A number of smaller Wikipedia's including Irish and Cornish were improved by adding increased functionality and new tools to their Wikis
  • Celtic Knot 2019 conference (planning)
  • Welsh Wicipedia for children (considering)
  • Participants with technical knowledge helped other participants to install useful tools and features on their Wikipedias. (no follow up)
  • Representatives sin Cornwall agreed to try and host the conference next year. Planning is being lead by Mark Trevethan, Cornwall Council's Cornish Language Lead.
  • This idea is being pursued by Jason Evans (National Library of Wales) and Aaron Morris (Wici Môn).
Provide an update on projects that were started, or changes that were made as a result of work done at the conference.

Learning

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Conferences and events do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well at the event?
  1. Partial Scholarships helped increase the number of participants we could support.
  2. Securing a high profile guest speaker (The Minister for the Welsh Language and lifelong learning) helped generate interest in the event.
  3. Adding an unconferenced session gave participants the opportunity to set their own agenda and proved very popular.
  4. We hosted an evening social event with cultural activities like a Welsh Choir and Breton Dancing lessons, which helped highlight the importance of cultural diversity on Wikipedia.
  5. Two days was definitely needed in order to cover the range of topics people wanted to discuss.
  6. Local volunteers ushered participants between rooms and directed them to lunch.
  • What did not work so well?
  1. Travel to Aberystwyth proved difficult for some (Trains were delayed due to heatwave)
  2. We offered tours of the library (a last minute addition) at the same time as the unconferenced sessions. This ended up meaning people had difficult choices to make, and some missed sessions they wanted to attend - or the tour, which was added to the itinerary at the request of participants.
  • What would you do differently next time?
  1. More funding for scholarships would have helped us increase the cultural diversity of the conference, and would mean more small language Wikipedias could be represented
  2. Less planned presentations to make more time for Workshops, discussions and spontaneous sessions.
  3. Host the conference somewhere with better Transport links.

Financial documentation

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This section describes the grant's use of funds

Budget table (Grant expenditure)
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Notes
1 Scholarships (a) Small scholarships for transport, accommodation and Conference entry Per person 7 £620.75

£323.74

£387.94

£248.9

£400

£371.15

£355.89

3499.43

(£2708.37)

US Dollar Small scholarships of up to £400 ($560.11) to cover Ticket costs, 2 nights basic accommodation and flights/train tickets. Scholarships were awarded on receipt of proof of purchase for travel and accommodation. One recipient was awarded more than £400 at the discretion of the organizing committee, using residual funds, once all other recipients had made their claims in full.
2 Scholarships (b) small scholarships for transport and/or Conference entry Per person 5 £89.83

£50

£100

£100

£100

568.30

(£439.83)

US Dollar Small scholarships of up to £100 ($140.03) to cover Ticket costs, and /or limited travel costs. For travel, proof of purchase was required.
Budget table (other expenditure)

Below are other expenses for this event. All these expenses were payed for using revenue from ticket sales. Apart from the Grant (for scholarships) and ticket Sales (everything else) the event had no other source of funding. National Library of Wales absorbed any costs over and above the income from ticket sales.

Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Notes
1 Food and beverages Lunch and 2x hot drinks and snacks, and water for day 1 Per person 60 25.35

(£19.62)

1520.93

(£1177.20)

US Dollar Estimated number of units required was correct. But cost per head was lower than estimated in grant outline (30.91)
2 Food and beverages Lunch and 2x hot drinks and snacks for day 2 Per person 60 25.35

(£19.62)

1520.93

(£1177.20)

US Dollar Estimated number of units required was correct. But cost pre head was lower than estimated in grant outline (30.91)
3 Translation services Providing simultaneous En > Cy translation for a small number of presentations Per hour 3 45.22

(£35)

135.66

(£105)

US Dollar Under budget due to less hours and lower hourly fee than quoted.
4 Venue Room hire for day one cost per room 3 Free Free US Dollar National Library of Wales kindly agreed to give us the space for free
5 Venue Room hire for day one cost per room 3 Free Free US Dollar National Library of Wales kindly agreed to give us the space for free
6 Ticket fees Tax (20%) and commission (5%) on ticket sales per full price day 1 Ticket (£50/$70.01) 43 17.50 752.5 US Dollar Commission Fees from National Libraries contracted ticketing system.
7 Ticket fees Tax (20%) and commission (5%) on ticket sales per full price day 2 Ticket (£50/$70.01) 43 17.50 752.5 US Dollar Commission quote from National Libraries contracted ticketing system.
8 Ticket fees Tax (20%) and commission (5%) on ticket sales per concession day 1 Ticket (£25/$35.01) 12 8.75 105 US Dollar Commission quote from National Libraries contracted ticketing system.
9 Ticket fees Tax (20%) and commission (5%) on ticket sales per concession day 2 Ticket (£25/$35.01) 12 8.75 105 US Dollar Commission quote from National Libraries contracted ticketing system.
10 Social event

Venue & Buffet

(package)

Evening buffet for 50 people at nearby venue per person 50 15.5

(£12.00)

697.67

(£540)

US Dollar The National Library agreed to use ticket sale profits to fund an evening social event for all conference attendees on Thursday July 5th


Summary of funding

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission):

$13556.28

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission):

$4480.91 (£3200)

Total amount spent on this project (this total should be the total calculated from the table above):

$12539.41 (£9705.50)

Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project:

$4067.73 (£3148.20)

Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? List them here.

Ticket Sales (see table above). National Library of Wales absorbed any costs over and above the income from ticket sales.
Remaining funds
Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of 51.80 GBP.

Are there any grant funds remaining? YES

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

$66.93 (£51.80)

Anything else

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Thank you for supporting this important event!