The conference aims to strengthen both the community and the impact of Wikisource as a global project. 1st international Wikisource Conference, Vienna, Austria, 2015.
In 2020, the Wikisource Community User Group (WCUG) in cooperation with Wikimedia Poland (WMPL, as a fiscal sponsor) are willing to organize the second international conference for the representatives of Wikisource communities and other stakeholders of the largest free digital library.
The last Wikisource Conference was held in 2015 in Vienna. Back then, the international community proved its ability to organize a dedicated forum and took the opportunity to build its first interconnections. After 5 years, the overarching goal for the continuation of that project is to make the next step and find a way for Wikisource to evolve in the upcoming decade. The environment has changed since 2015. New fast-growing Wikisource communities, notably located in the emerging (or reviving) knowledge markets, have appeared. Thus, Wikisource is no longer specific to the Global North. WCUG has grown, too, and a technology gap between the established communities and new ones has widened. In the effect of the strategic process held both in 2017 and 2018-20 we have learnt a lot as well.
That is why we declare now that we strive for a well-mapped environment of coordinated stakeholders and inclusive, well-supported, healthy communities of contributors all around the globe. By contributing to Wikisource, we make sure that our readers have access to written heritage of innumerable local cultures.
At this conference, we would like to offer a special space for the representatives of emerging communities — this is why we are applying for a refund of this specific number of distant international attendees. Wikisourcers will have a chance to present success factors that helped their projects grow. The participants will share best practices of managing their projects. The collaboration with and engagement of new contributors will be featured as well, including a unique, supervised session about "joining our WS as a novice", in order to find and lower entry barriers for the beginners to join us.
Furthermore, Wikisourcers need better technological coordination. Tools and technical insight have been dispersed too much, with insufficient and often personal tool share as the prevailing method of distribution. Strong commitment of the international community will help streamline the development efforts in the right vector and to make sure that locally developed tools are used to the widest possible extent, wherever needed.
Last but not least, Wikisource communities need to discuss their relations to similar third-party projects (like Gutenberg) and GLAM partners. What makes Wikisource unique and what could make it more noticeable and impactful? How to leverage the existing Wikimedia partnerships for the benefit of Wikisource consumers? Wikimedia Polska will arrange sessions with GLAM representatives, including its current partners from an extensive GLAM portfolio, in order to find the most frugal, win-win cooperation possibilities.
The experience gained by WMPL as a result of the previous collaborations with Polish Wikisource and Wiktionary communities confirms that the communities of Wikipedia’s sister projects are efficient in setting directions for their initiatives when given an opportunity to meet in person. Other major conferences do not have such an impact, as Wikisourcers may feel outnumbered and marginalized by Wikipedians or by those who contribute to the Movement overall.
Important details
Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.
What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?
Top issues affecting the community that need to be discussed in person are:
- Co-operation between large and small Wikisources, and long-term strategy to support smaller Wikisource projects
- OCR support and development
- Development strategy for the ProofreadPage extension
- Wikidata support and integration
- Cooperation between Wikisources and other projects / organizations
- How to make Wikisource a strong and worldwide-known "brand"
4th
Capacity development:
Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?
Important skills that people need to learn are:
- Learn best digitalizing processes for various book types, eg. manuscripts, dictionaries, how to deal with watermarks, etc.
- How to create a new tool in WMFlabs
- How to manage existing tools hosted in WMFlabs to make them available instantly and continuously
- Learn about Wikidata integration
- Exchange information about different gadgets used by the communities
3rd
Working groups:
Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?
Some of the projects or activities that need to be, partially or fully, planned in person are:
- Porting gadgets between Wikisources
- Demonstration of training techniques
- Uploading books from various sources to Wikisource
- Consultation, testing, and working analysts/programmers with WSexport
- Wikisource and Wikidata integration in practice
- Organizing a cross-community proofreading campaign
- Improving the Wikisource contest tools
- Organize a worldwide pool of people with knowledge of the software and of the practical applications
- How to contribute and to work together to support Wikisource in social media
2nd
Community building:
Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?
Some of the participants noted the following:
- Attracting new editors and technically skilled users to Wikisource
- Experience, tools and information exchange between communities
- Develop better Wikisource editing and administration workflows
- Build metrics to identify that a new contributor became a regular contributor
- Increasing content quality in Wikisource
1st
Survey analysis:
How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?
The survey has been sent via wikisource-l mailing list and MediaWiki email to users who declared interest in the Conference in the earlier survey, also a dedicated Telegram group and Scriptoria of most active Wikisource projects were places of contact. We received 35 responses.
Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 goals?
The community consensus can be summarized in two main goals: 1. Exchange social and technical experience between language communities; and 2. Work on technical issues, like digitization, new tools, and better integration with Wikidata
Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?
Technical experience exchange requires on-person meetings between members of different communities during or after some presentations or as dedicated editathon-like sessions.
Social experience can be shared by the participants during panel discussions or face-to-face talks.
Resolving of technical problems requires meetings with tech-savvy users, eg. experienced users from other communities, or from other projects, like Wikidata.
Fifty Wikisource editors met at the first Wikisource Conference in 2015. The event helped empower the community and shape the future of the project.
1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?
Since 2015, when the first Wikisource Conference took place, many Wikisource communities have grown and new Wikisource projects have been established (going from 50 projects in 2015 to 71 in 2019). During the Wikimania 2019 Conference, Wikisource editors representing their local communities reached a consensus that many problems on Wikisource require international coordination and that there is a technology gap between "old" established Wikisource projects and "new" fast-developing Wikisource projects with growing communities.
2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?
The 2020 Community Wishlist Survey had prioritization of 5 Wikisource initiatives in the top 5 results. A lot of development will be delivered after investigation on some advanced features such as inter-language link support via Wikidata, migration of Wikisource-specific edit tools from gadgets to Wikisource extensions, a new OCR tool, etc. Several local Wikisource projects have integration of advanced features that are seen missing in many other editions. We will be discussing the gaps, the next steps, and future initiatives at the conference.
3. Please list the priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?
The last conference in 2015 started discussions on prioritizing the impact of the Wikisource project for its readers and the conversations started on how the project can be made user-friendly; also, new technical features were developed to make local Wikisource projects function smoothly. For instance, the following technical priorities were identified:
Integration of OCR (w:en:Optical Character Recognition) software third-party services (e.g. from Google), especially for Indic languages
Full support for RTL (Right To Left) languages
Visual Editor in Page namespace
Among these priorities, the Wikisource community, with the assistance of developers, has been able to make progress on a number of features, including an Indic OCR tool that is currently deployed in more than 12 language Wikisource projects in South Asia. New language editions and communities are joining the Wikisource effort, such as Hindi Wikisource that launched in 2019.
4. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what key lessons were learned, and what would you like to improve on?
Setting the exact conference date early was found to be a mistake for various reasons. The time we have declared is only an estimated conference date, which can be moved a week or two back or forward.
Engaging an external facilitator did not work as expected. We plan to find facilitators among community members, Wikimedia chapter staff or WMF staff.
The previous conference had no parallel sessions which limited the options for the participants to engage in different areas of interests around advancing Wikisource project. We will try to ensure parallel tracks with a diverse program so the contributors with different perspectives and experiences can share and learn in multiple areas of interest.
We are not naming the precise venue because WMPL is in the process of negotiating a long-term event agreement with a major Polish hotel chain. We are at the stage of examining offers from the Accor and Louvre chains. The example hotels offered for us are Warsaw Golden Tulip/Campanille complex and Ibis Warsaw Old Town. Both are located in the city center. So, while we cannot declare at this point in which of the examined venues the event will take place, we can say that there is a possibility of getting lower accommodation prices than those put in the grant budget. The amount we are applying for is a safe amount (average for Warsaw and included in the offers that we are looking through) and there is no risk of not meeting the budget. We will pick a venue in early February so we will know the precise amount and location long before the event and will have time to prepare accordingly.
1. If the venue is more than 1 hour away from a major airport or transportation hub, how will participants travel to the event venue?
Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport is conveniently connected to the centre by a railway line and a bus line. WMPL will provide volunteers who will meet the participants at the airport and help them get to the venue. This worked well at the 2017 CEE Meeting in Warsaw. The railway station is located in the city center, with subway, bus, and tram lines connecting it with the rest of the city so getting to the venue from it will require only a walk or a short ride.
2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?
The venue will be located at the hotel.
3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?
Yes
4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?
1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.
The target is active Wikisourcers (or Wikimedians-at-large interested in Wikisource) willing to engage in this event and share their knowledge and experience. We also hope to have geographically diverse and representative members of the Wikisource community. Scholarships will be allocated to favour this but of course it will depend on who applies.
2. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?
The attendees will be asked to communicate with their local communities, both in advance to gather local issues and concerns and afterward to share what they learned from this conference. Reports are also expected so they can be linked in the WCUG annual reports.
3. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.
We definitely think that WMF staff presence at this conference would be mutually beneficial. Obviously the following names are just suggestions.
Technical people may be especially useful as the Wikisource has huge importance for Community Wishlist Survey (5 proposals out of 5 in 2020), we thought about people like Danny Horn, Toby Negrin.
In addition, GLAM and/or Community people could fit the goal of this conference (Ben Vershbow, Sam Walton).
We plan to offer scholarships to most of the attendees : ~35, including 20 targeted at recipients outside of Europe, 10 targeted at recipients in Europe, and 5 for Polish community members. We count on other chapters to provide additional scholarships. We had contact with Wikimédia France related to the funding of some French-speaking participants and we are discussing similar support with other chapters.
2. What expenses will the scholarship cover?
The scholarship includes the costs of travel (flight costs + tickets from the airport to the venue), visa (if needed), food, conference package, and accommodation.
3. How will scholarship recipients be selected?
An international scholarship committee will be in charge of the selection. Applicants will be selected based on their participation, experience, and involvement in Wikisource or related projects. Particular attention will be paid to diversity, representativity, and inclusiveness.
Before the event, Wikimedia Polska will offer an optional online training to the speakers and moderators (WMPL started doing this before its events). This will not only help increase the quality of the program offered to the participants but will also give the speakers an opportunity to hone their skills which will be helpful to them in their other wiki activities and events. Those trainings will be beneficial both to the overall qality of the conference and that of the individual participants.
Wikisource community is active and engaged and able to make the best of the meeting
In 2015, the Wikisource community organized (with Wikimedia Österreich as a fiscal sponsor) a successful international conference in Vienna. The event was aimed to empower the volunteers and discuss the future of Wikisource. Those goals were met, proving that the Wikisource community has the capability of making the most of live meetings and using them to broaden their capacity. The UG is active and engaged which indicates that community members will be able to use the meeting to grow.
The results of a preconference survey conducted to check the interest in the event indicate that there is a very diverse group interested in participating (both in terms of gender, geography, project/community size, etc.). Also, rather high rate of responses for both preconference and community engagement survey and the member / editor engagement in conference-related discussions at the mailing list show that the community is willing to engage strongly and actively in shaping the event.
Since Wikisource UG does not have the capacity to hold the administration and logistics of the conference, WMPL will assume the role of the fiscal sponsor. WMPL has a lot of experience in organizing events and conferences. Every year it holds two major meetings (Wikimedia Polska Conference and Winter Retreat) gathering about 60-100 people each. In 2017, it organized CEE Meeting gaining both experience in holding an international event and a group of engaged volunteers willing to support such an endeavor. Poland is also a home for a very active Wikisource community. WMPL has experience in supporting the sister-projects communities, (only) Polish Wikisource and Polish Wiktionary - for those two projects Wikimedia Polska holds a joint annual conference since 2017: Źródłosłów.
pre-conference survey to check the level of interest in the event
providing a good number of scholarships especially for participants outside of Europe who may not have resources to get to the event
asking chapters to provide scholarships for attendees from their communities
Visa problems
WMPL team has experience in helping with visa from organizing the 2017 CEE Meeting
starting registration early so that participants can have enough time to take care of all formalities
Lack of interest in the event
informing communities about the event via different communication channels (mailing lists, Telegram group, Facebook, mass messages, etc.)
personal messages to community members
creating an interesting program meeting actual community needs
The number of answers in the pre-conference survey and community engagement survey show that there is high level of interest
Scope of program not meeting actual community needs
international program committee representing diverse communities
actively looking for speakers who can respond to community needs
Financial risks related to currency changes or ticket prices changes
WMPL will negotiate with the hotel to get lower than average Warsaw hotel prices
travel coordinator actively engaged in buying tickets early and in good prices
960 euro allocated for unforeseen expenses in the grant
Uneven level of presentations and speakers or moderators
before the event, WMPL will offer an optional online training for speakers and moderators (the same as the one Wikimedia Polska offers our community before our conferences) to strengthen their skills for this and future events
Average flight costs based on information from esky and estimated travel origins. We predict 10 flights from Europe (about 1200-1400 PLN per flight) and 20 flights from outside Europe (about 3800 PLN per flight). Travel origins predicted based on community activities and preconference interest survey. We predict additional scholarships from other chapters.
Visa fees (Schengen Visa = 80 euro for most countries or 35 Euro for some, including Russia or Belarus)
1.3
Other visa-related costs
per project
1
1,000
1,000
232.60
232.60
0
For additional visa-related costs (postage fees for sending documents between countries, translation fees, travel costs of traveling to embassies etc.) + some reserve for paying for accelerated visa procedure for 1 or 2 emergency cases
1.4.
City transport
per person
30
30
900
209.34
209.34
0
Estimated cost of transits via public transport from the airport to the hotel
1.5
Domestic travel by the organizing team, volunteers, and participants from Poland
per person
10
200
2,000
465.20
0
465.20
Covered by Wikimedia Polska
1.6
Travel coordinator/travel agency
per month
3
2,500
7,500
1,744.50
1,744.50
0
Taking care of travel arrangements (with the support of the volunteer team)
2.
Accommodation
29,100
6,768.66
6,768.66
2.1.
Double rooms in the hotel (for three nights)
room/night
25x3
300
22,500
5,223.50
5,223.50
0
People needing accommodation: scholarship recipients, invited speakers, organizing team, volunteers
2.2
Single rooms in the hotel (for three nights)
room/night
5x3
220
6,600
1,535.16
1,535.16
0
3.
Catering
30,450
7,082.67
7,082.67
3.1.
Coffee breaks
participant/day
70x3
40
8,400
1,953.84
1,953.84
0
Coffee, tea, water, sweet and salty snacks including vegan/vegetarian options
3.2.
Lunch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
participant/meal
70x3
50
10,500
2,442.30
2,442.30
0
Soup / starter + main course
3.3.
Dinner on Friday and Sunday
participant/day
70x2
50
7,000
1,628.20
1,628.20
0
Salad + main course
3.4.
Dinner on Saturday
participant/meal
70
65
4,550
1,058.33
1,058.33
0
Local Polish cuisine
4.
Venue
4,200
976.92
976.92
4.1.
Venue rent
room/day
2x3
700
4,200
976.92
976.92
0
Two conference rooms (big room + workshop/hackathon room) available for three days
5.
Other expenses
16,550
3,849.53
3,849.53
232.60
5.1.
Conference gifts and badges
packages
70
60
4,200
976.92
744.32
232.60
Notebooks, stickers, badges etc. 1000 PLN donated by WMPL
5.2
Prints, roll-ups, equipment rent, etc.
per event
1
600
600
139.56
139.56
0
5.3
City tour
tour
1
300
300
69.78
69.78
0
5.4
Event coordinator
month
3
3,000
9,000
2093.40
2093.40
0
Responsible for event logistics, paperwork, coordinating volunteers, making reservations, and scheduling things
5.5
Museum tickets
ticket
70
35
2,450
569.87
569.87
0
There is a possibility of getting a discount from the institution via GLAM partnership
6.
Administrative and unforeseen expenses
5,000
1,163
1,163
6.1
Additional accounting fees on WMPL side
event
1
1,000
1,000
232.60
232.60
0
Costs of higher fees from accounting company due to additional paperwork and documents
Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.
Nattes à chat (talk) 15:11, 2 February 2020 (UTC) great initiative the Wikisource community needs to be able to gather and share knowledge and challenges anout the project.
We really need a conference after five years!--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Wikisource is in the top 5 wikimedia projects. Each languages are well connected online, as the relatively huge participation of Wikisourcers to the Community Wikishlist shows. But an international event is needed to deepen thos links and work on some important topics for the futur of Wikisource. Pyb (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Great initiative, and a big chance for the community Olaf (talk) 20:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
I support this project and I look forward to seeing the outcomes and improvements done by the Wikisource editors, I'm especially excited about strengthening the connection with Wikidata :) Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 09:04, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
I edited Wikisource a few years ago. The community of this project deserves support like this Conference. Nostrix (talk) 10:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Projects need targeted conferences or other specific kind of support. WMPL is good in organizing conferences. Wargo (talk) 14:32, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
On the one hand, WMPL - in this context a fiscal sponsor - has proven itself capable of organising not only national-scale conferences, as mentioned in the grant proposal, but also - as, again, mentioned - an international event which was well-received by the participants. The local community will definitely provide resources, staff and volunteers to run this project. On the other, I appreciate the wide interest in the dispersed Wikisource community, expressed towards meeting for an event of this scale. This makes a good combination and promises to result in a coference that will have positive multidimensional impact. Wojciech PędzichTalk 14:38, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
As one of the organisers and responsible fiscal sponsor of the 1st Wikisource Conference in 2015, I am very exicted to see that there is finally a second edition of the event. I could see the positive effects the first event had on the international Wikisource Community, I think today they are among the most well connected and effective international volunteers group, giving Wikisource a voice and visibility that many of the other smaller sister projects of Wikipedia do not have. This conference is the ideal basis to further shape the future of this amazing project, especially in the light of the 2030 Movement Strategy. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 14:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Support Wikisource community has expanded and developed, and a dedicated conference will help even more. Ruthven(msg) 15:32, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support - It will help Wikisource communities to know about each others initiatives, works, projects etc. and people can learn so much from different communities and individuals who works remarkably in their Wikis. It's a great initiative by the Wikisource community. Jagseer S Sidhu (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Such a conference would be an excellent way to make the point about what have been achieved in the last five years, what are the current tendencies and needs, how current efforts are aligned with the 2030 goals, and what is the roadmap that will drive us to completion of collected demands from the community. Psychoslave (talk) 21:47, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong supportGill jassu (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Support Wikisource is a productive, strongly multilingual part of Wikimedia, and increasingly integrated with both Wikipedia and Wikidata. I attended the Vienna conference in 2015, and think it would clearly be productive for the Wikisource community to meet again. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:28, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Support this event! This will bring Wikisource people together and discuss the current issue in the project and then bring back the experience to their home community. ···🌸Rachmat04·☕ 07:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support - Much needed conference to bring the synergy between diverse international community. Five years is a good time to have another edition of the conference. WML is a very capable institution to organise the conference. I strongly support -- Balajijagadesh (talk) 08:26, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support The recent Wikimanias have shown the need for a meeting involving wikisourcians from different continents. Wikisource is an important project in the 2030 strategy. εΔω 15:07, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support - Wikisource projects involve lots of international collaboration and they contribute to accessible public culture. Wikisource helps researchers get digitized versions of particular documents of historical interest. Wikisourcers need training from one another. And this proposal is terrific! -- econterms (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong supportPMG (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC) strong local community, strong local organisation, conference is needed for talking about things like Community Wishlist entries.
Strong supportDraco flavus (talk) 11:36, 7 February 2020 (UTC) Contact with other local communities is essential for the development of tools used in the project and keeping the local projects consistent. Further development has to be discussed.
Strong supportZdzislaw (talk) 15:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC), it is a great opportunity to identify development restrictions and work together to solve problems. A meeting in the real world gives a huge advantage over "traditional" online communication methods (where it sometimes takes years to solve a problem or is blurred due to difficulties in understanding or describing them).
Strong supportJoanna Le (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support by Team #DieDatenlaube, linking german Wikisource with Wikidata and Commons Metadata roundtripping of GLAM data with Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, ;-) --Jeb --Jeb (talk) 19:48, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support --Mfchris84 (talk) 05:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC) - (Team #DieDatenlaube). Through MediaWiki Linked Data technologies both used in Commons and in Wikidata itself Wikisource (MediaWiki) could become an extraordinary example for a fully structured and linked fulltext repository software and could be used both for the digitalization of historic materials and for digital born documents. So a conference has the capability to support and motivate the community in stronger integration of Linked Data technologies and in its communication of the advantages and possibilities of the Wikisource project especially with GLAM insititutions.
Strong support -J. AnsariTalk 05:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support --Jnauber (talk) 15:03, 11 February 2020 (UTC) Would like to discuss the possibility of annotation support (with Wikidata entity linking) in Wikisource
Support -- I love this proposal. Public culture should be available on Wikisource. Vilena66 (talk) 06:49, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
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Support Wikisource community has expanded and developed, and a dedicated conference will help even more. Ruthven (msg) 15:32, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Strong support - It will help Wikisource communities to know about each others initiatives, works, projects etc. and people can learn so much from different communities and individuals who works remarkably in their Wikis. It's a great initiative by the Wikisource community. Jagseer S Sidhu (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
