Grants:IEG/Art+Feminism Editathon training materials and network building/Renewal

This project is funded by an Individual Engagement Grant

This Individual Engagement Grant is renewed

Over the weekend of International Women’s Day, March 6–8, 2015, approximately 1,500 participants convened in seventy-five locations in seventeen countries on four continents to edit Wikipedia articles on women and the arts. During this day, nearly four hundred new articles were created, and over five hundred articles received significant improvements. The event was covered by The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and ARTnews, among many other news sources. This was a productive and substantial growth from the inaugural 2014 event, which drew around six hundred participants in thirty-one locations who created 101 new articles and improved ninety. In New York, approximately two hundred participants came to the Museum of Modern Art: librarians, academics, curators, artists, art lovers, feminists, male allies, experienced Wikipedians, and more.

These events were supported by our IEG work building infrastructure to enable the day to happen. On the day of the event, we ran hour-long training sessions continuously throughout the day in multiple locations across three floors of the Department of Education, built off of our training materials. These sessions focused on the basics any new editor needs to know: the anatomy of a Wikipedia page, the basics of wiki markup, and core Wikipedia principles like verifiability, notability, and neutrality. We also built out an intermediate training lesson; we created short screencasts for each of these, allowing those far away to learn as well. Please see our Final Report for more detailed information, including granular article and editor lists.

In the process, we discovered that the amount of work for what we initially proposed was greater than we expected, and we uncovered new areas where we need to bolster our work:

As the project has grown, we have become increasingly aware of the need to be careful in our use of language about gender and our intersectional politics.
While the safe space agreements were an improvement from the 2014 event, we did receive reports of violations from one of our nodes and need a better-developed practice of making the policy clear and offering advice to node events when dealing with violations of the agreement.
The organizers spent a significant amount of time and energy, along with some guidance from the Wikimedia Foundation, working through conflict resolution. This is something we will need to address in terms of future edit-a-thons: whose responsibility is it to resolve conflicts? What kinds of guidance can we offer our co-organizers? How can we minimize the escalation of conflicts?

As a result, we are requesting a 6-month renewal of the grant, to continue work in the areas described below. This will be a joint IEG and PEG proposal, covering both the IEG focused community organizing and materials building, and the PEG focused event organizing and execution, as well as a travel component.

Scope

We will be proposing a renewal of this grant, covering both Campaign coordination and infrastructure development; travel; and event realization. The amount of work was greater than we expected, and we uncovered new areas where we need to bolster our work. This renewal will cover the following six components.

Diversity Audit

A significant portion of our proposed Campaign coordination work for 2015-2016 will be to organize a diversity audit of all of our Art+Feminism materials (Meet-up Page, website, training materials). This will require outreach to key reviewers who have Wiki and non-Wiki experience around community activism and/or intersectional feminism. We'll be asking each reviewer to analyze our content and suggest revisions or avenues for change and collaboration. Once they've completed their report, we ask that they meet with us to discuss their audits.

Outreach to potential participants
- Wikipedians, leaders of other intersectional groups focused on edit-a-thons
- Community activists focused on media and intersectionality
Audits: Co-authored, 3-5,000 words
- Publish findings on Wikipedia
- Create Learning Pattern from results
Discussion with Art+Feminism co-founders
- Potential for further collaboration, as we expand our organizing committee

Further refinement of the reporting process

Standardize process for gathering post-event metrics for immediate reporting to press
Standardize process for identifying and supporting articles that might need more support post-event.

Further outreach

Reach out to national chapters, related Wiki projects, and the Wikipedia community in general to build better lines of communications
- This should include travel to Wikimania, GLAM or Gender Gap conferences, as funding allows
Reach out to other thematic gender gap groups and interested parties to share our materials and best practices.
Improve scalability and make things more self sufficient.
Research and implement Customer Relationship Management and Project Management software. We are currently managing all of our communications in a shared Gmail Account which has ~1,662 messages in it. Because Gmail organizes messages under Subject Line not Contact, there is virtually no way of disambiguating threads and reporting on your communications. Because of this, we often used our personal emails and then the threads were unreadable to the other organizers. There are many low cost solutions for non-profits or fiscally sponsored organizations, so we don't anticipate the cost of this being prohibitive.
- A CRM would enable us to:
  - More effectively communicate with node organizers and local organizers
  - Have greater transparency between Art+Feminism central organizing committee as we expand
  - Analyze and report on our communications so that we can streamline our workflows
Decentralize, diversify and expand organizing committee
Refine protocols for communication amongst +Feminism ambassadors, including regional ambassadors in each city who lead organizing efforts.
Refine protocols re: node support.
Move all materials on wiki (pdfs, ppt, videos, etc,) so anyone can edit
Expand and refine editing resources, particularly those that encourage for post-edit-a-thon retention

After Diversity Audit

Shift the language in our materials to be more precise and explicit in stating that Art+Feminism is rhizomatic, meant to be remixed, and that others do not need to ask for permission from us to run an event or to change the focus they see fit. Specifically:
- Clarify the collective ownership of the Tasks list so that it is clear that everyone is welcome to add to it
- Include more information regarding Harassment & Safe Space issues
- Create a post-event FAQ
- Make sure we are more explicit in all of our materials about open access resources. It should be clear that you can run an event without access to databases that exist behind pay walls.
- Revise and streamline the HowTo page to function as a clearinghouse for new organizers
- Adapt and refine our current emails into sample emails for organizers to use to send to venues and collaborators.

UX/UI/IA design review and implementation

Hire an interaction designer to assess the User Experience, User Interface and Information Architecture (UX/UI/IA) of our Meetup page, and implement revisions to improve usability and legibility.
Streamline and integrate brand identity across platforms, including our Meetup page, and website.
Rework art.plusfeminism.org and plusfeminism.org to better match brand guidelines and outcomes of UX/UI/IA review.
We will consult with WikiProject X in order to learn from their work and avoid duplication of effort.

March 2016 Edit-a-thons (The Event!)

We seek support to expand outreach and ensure the continuing success of Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thons.

Programs and Events Goals: It is our goal to expand the 2015 Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon by

running four training events in Fall 2015/Winter 2016
organizing one large NYC edit-a-thon on March 5, 2016 at The Museum of Modern Art
coordinating many node edit-a-thons around the world in March, 2016
targeted outreach to post-secondary institutions nationally and internationally

MoMA, LACMA and about two dozen other venues have already confirmed their participation for March 2016.

We hope to expand both the number of node events and the total participation by 50% and participating at the NYC event 20%. Although we were able to increase participation by over 30% between 2014-2015 for our New York City event, this was largely because we had additional audiences: the POWarts community, as well as the Museum of Modern Art's community of attendees. This year, we plan to focus our marketing efforts more on building our node events and will continue to work with our existing infrastructure in New York. This is why we are projecting a slightly lower number in 2016 in New York City.

Train the Trainers: There will be four Train the Trainer events before the March, 2016 international edit-a-thon. The trainings will take place: in Fall 2015, for Art+Feminism volunteers; in January, 2016, in two online trainings for node organizers; and in February, 2016, for the general public and new volunteers in the lead up to the March event. It is our goal this year to use the trainings to better empower our volunteers and node organizers.

Post-secondary outreach: We want to do targeted outreach to post-secondary institutions nationally and internationally, with a focus on HBCUs, major state universities which have not previously participated, European libraries, and locations that have not held edit-a-thons previously. This will require substantial research to identify potentials nodes and time to begin a conversation with them.

Budget

Project Management and Infrastructure for Sustainability

Lead Organizer labor; Includes Wikimedia community outreach, curriculum development, creation of collateral materials, and Campaign coordination project management: (18,000 USD)
- 30 hours of collective work per week, for 24 weeks, at $25/hr. This accounts for 10 hours per week per person for three people. ~~We are hoping we can recruit a fourth person into the lead group, but are confident we can complete the work as three.~~
Organizing Committee member Honoraria ($6,000 USD)
- Work that goes beyond general advisement and event organizing will be paid, including:
- Regional Ambassadors, who organize beyond a local area (3 @ 1,000)
- Diversity Subcommittee Members who write the diversity report (3 @ 1,000)
Web services and consulting (7,010 USD)
- Hosting and Domain registration for 5 years ($650 USD)
- CRM: After reviewing options, we plan to budget for $30/month for a CRM/project management solution. The upfront Campaign coordination labor of implementing it and changing our current workflow is captured in the Campaign coordination organizer labor. (360 USD)
- UX/UI/IA design review and implementation ($6,000 USD)
  - Assess Meetup page UX/UI/IA Design, and implement revisions to improve usability and legibility
  - Streamline and integrate brand identity across platforms
  - Rework art.plusfeminism.org and plusfeminism.org to better match brand guidelines and outcomes of UX/UI/IA review
Total Budget: $31,010 USD

Travel

Organizer travel to Wiki GLAM/Gender Gap conferences ($2,000 USD)
- These are primarily the GLAM + Gender Gap conferences that happen once a year or so. They aren’t planned more than two months in advance.
Total Budget: $2,000 USD

Event Coordination Costs - Coordination and implementation

All numbers based on 50% growth from last year

Event Project Management ($5000)
- Point person to manage the event component of the grant. This includes:
  - taking the lead on the CRM
  - implementing project management software (e.g. Basecamp)
  - facilitating deadlines
  - Accounting for node events (setting budgets, collecting receipts, issuing payments)
  - Reporting
- So far, we have come into this event piece-meal, without a structure, and it's been incredibly stressful for everyone involved. We have an opportunity to do it differently! It requires this component to do so.
Event Marketing ($4,500 USD)
- Marketing consultant honorarium ($500 USD)
- Marketing research assistant ($1500 USD - 75 hours at $20/hr)
  - This is the outreach research noted in the "Post-secondary outreach" section
- E-flux announcement ($1000)
  - This arts press release list is the primary global information source for arts news, and reaches over 90,000 arts practitioners globally. We will send this out in early February in order to catalyze attendance at the global events.
- Facebook and Twitter Ad Buys ($1500)
  - We found social ad buys to be a very effective and targeted way of spreading awareness and catalyzing event hosting.
Food ($8,800 USD)
- Node events ($5,800 USD)
- MoMA event ($3,000 USD)
Childcare ($2,000 USD)
- Node events ($1,550 USD)
- MoMA event ($450 USD)
Computer rental for MoMA event ($2,200 USD)
Wikipedian Travel ($1,000)
- This is reduced from last year. We want to keep this in the budget, as this was the amount allocated last year (in the end two events that required travel were cancelled at the last minute.)
In Kind venue costs ($160,000 USD in kind)
- We make the conservative estimate that median venue costs $1000 to rent (including staffing costs) for a day. We expect several anchor venues (MoMA, LACMA, et al) to be significantly higher. For comparison Eyebeam, our 2014 venue, costs $20,000 a day to rent.
Total Budget: $183,500 USD
Total Budget Requested: $23,500 USD

Combined Total Budget

Combined Total Budget: $216,510 USD
Combined Total Budget Requested: $56,510 USD

Rationale

Our 2015 campaign, supported by an IEG and PEG grant, was highly successful, meeting or exceeded nearly all of our impact goals. We have established a network of over 80 ambassadors, created materials that were used in NYC and elsewhere, at events that had 1000 editors who created or improved over 900 pages (almost three times as many as our goal of 350). In addition we had very high press visibility with 40+ articles in high impact outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Artnews, Art in America, NPR, BBC, New York Observer, and Wired.

In the process we discovered that what we proposed was ultimately much more work than we expected, and we discovered new work that needed to be handled, but was out of the scope of the original grant. It is important to note that the amount of work we did on this IEG was much more than we budgeted for, as such we have increased the budget for organizer labor to reflect this.

These areas of focus of this renewal each arose out of specific situations over the past year:

The Diversity Audit comes out of a number of conversations with node organizers both about the safe space agreement and also the language of our materials. These conversations centered on trans-inclusivity, and intersectionality.

The further refinement of the reporting process comes out of our experience this year. We did A LOT better this year, but we feel like we could refine this further, in particular re: trouble articles.

The Further outreach component arises out of the challenge of organizing a weekend long event with as many participants as some Wikimanias, held at over 75 different locations. We encountered several of SNAFUs when communicating with international chapters, and need to spend more time and effort building bridges with them.

Expanding the functionality of the website was something we wanted to do as part of the first grant, but we didn't really budget for it, and it ended up being too much to take on in the last grant given that we were working so much more than we had budgeted for.

Measures of success

Build lines of communication with at least 10 international chapters.
Establish organizing committee including regional organizers and diversity subcommittee
Use CRM to pilot decentralized organizing process
- Set up Pilot CRM
- Train 4 lead organizers and 4 key regional organizers for pilot test.
- Measureable: Analysis of CRM report will show that organizers other than the lead organizers of us handled at least 25% of communication.
Complete and publish Diversity Subcommittee Evaluation
Revise A+F materials to reflect Diversity Subcommittee Evaluation.
Increase outreach to geographic regions and institutions where we have not had much uptake
- Measurable: Increase events and attendance by 50% internationally and attendance 20% at the NYC event, with corresponding 50% increase in articles created and improved.

Participants

Siân Evans (User:Siankevans), Jacqueline Mabey (User:Failedprojects), and Michael Mandiberg (User:Theredproject) are the applicants on this grant renewal request.

Community discussion

Community Notification

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

On Wiki

Off Wiki

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be continued for another 6 months? Please add your name and comments here. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

This is a worthy project to support and be part of. --Carla Davis-Castro

There's still a lot of work to be done equalizing coverage on Wikipedia and recruiting diverse editors. This is a great project and can serve as a model for similar efforts. — (Eric Phetteplace) Phette23 (talk) 16:52, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I had the pleasure of hearing their presentation at WikiConference USA and attending their planning session during WikiConference USA. I especially appreciated their interest in working with more established Wikipedians earlier in the process in order to help the events be more productive. I support their efforts to expand. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 17:55, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I completely support this project and look forward to being a part of the Montreal, QC events. - Amber Berson

This project helps close the gender gap on Wikipedia - an effort which I strongly support. I have used their resources while training new editors, and have used their events to inspire my own Wikipedia edit-a-thons. I do think this project should be continued. Extabulis (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I attended both the presentation and the 2016 planning session for Art+Feminism at WikiConference USA. I'm very supportive of the outlined expansion efforts. WikiProject Women in Red has offered to coordinate the online nodes across multiple languages. To be successful, we'll need to develop goals with Art+Feminism leadership, create action plans, coordinate online event pages, and liaise with Chapters and User Groups. I'm confident that this teaming arrangement will produce even more articles and will allow many additional editors to be Art+Feminism participants. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:28, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Such an important project that deserves all the funding and support it can get. Keep up the great work! WilliamDigiCol (talk) 13:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Support This is the most visible effort addressing the gender gap on Wikipedia. I'm especially encouraged that the project renewal includes a diversity audit and efforts to address intersectionalities. In Minnesota, our Art+Feminism events have precipitated engagement with prominent GLAM institutions that otherwise would not have happened. The experiences and lessons learned through this initiative provide a roadmap for future efforts in other areas. gobonobo ⁺ ^c 19:31, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support this application. The Art+Feminism team are leaders in addressing the Wikipedia gender gap and they have a great track record of identifying issues, developing creative solutions and following through. As the co-leader of Toronto node events in 2015 and (planned) 2016, I have benefited hugely from Art+Fem's leadership and training materials and can vouch that these have a real benefit to the wider network. I believe their proposed new initiatives are well-chosen and achievable. --Artchivist1 (talk) 14:00, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Having hosted a few edit-a-thons, I can say without a doubt, that the training resources provided by the Art + Feminism Project are crucial for a successful event. -- Guy 713 (talk) 16:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Support The organization and management of this initiative has been outstanding, and the training materials are some of the most well-developed I've seen. I helped facilitate an Art+Feminism event last year, as the Wikipedian trainer but not the primary organizer, and every time the organizer asked me a question I found that it was typically already covered in the Art+Feminim materials. I think this group has proven that they can handle large organizational tasks and scope and carry out large projects. AmandaRR123 (talk) 18:54, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Support This has been the most successful Wikipedia project that I have ever been involved with, and its potential to sustain its reach and momentum requires continued support. The organizers continue to do an impressive job at fostering effective collaborations with community members and cultural institutions. I hope that this important work can keep going. --Mozucat (talk) 20:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Support Art+Feminism is a uniquely strong Wikipedia project well worthy of continued support. Not only has this project increased the coverage of female artists, it has created training materials that I and others have used in planning and running other edit-a-thons. The overall project model could also be emulated. As a Wikipedian, archivist/librarian, theater maker, and participant, Art+Feminism has my whole-hearted support, and I hope that it will continue to receive funding for its remarkable work. --Lange.lea (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Like I admit, I've not read much of the above content. So I will leave it to others to read more carefully and scrutinize as they see fit. I just want to comment that the Art+Feminism project has been one of the most successful I've seen during my eight years of editing. I am happy to participate in, and support, this group's efforts in what ways I can. -Another Believer (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Support This is the landmark effort at community-raising in the Wikimedia galaxy, and the organizers have been incredibly thoughtful and diligent in their efforts to bridge diverse disciplines and modes of experience. I trust them to iterate an even more developed and rhizomatic project this year, and to engage yet more deeply both online and offline communities.--Pharos (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Support A+F is a crucial leg of the Wikipedia / Wikimedia community engagement table, one that has consistently provided the highest user numbers of engagement among NYC-area editathons, has garnered press and publicity to address the gender gap, and has contributed to a high profile community-GLAM entity partnership that is invaluable. The organizers are responsible, do a great job executing the events, and represent the Wikimedia community in a stellar fashion. Big thumbs up to providing the resources needed to continue this great project. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 21:43, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Support The Art+Feminism project is an inspiration to us all in terms of scope, organization, outreach, and leadership. It must be maintained and extended so that Wikipedians as well as the larger community continue to profit from its lessons and challenges.-- Doctorxgc (talk) 15:19, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Support My university hosted our own Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in March 2015 and it was a fantastic experience. We were able to create or heavily edit articles on 15 female artists from Georgia, many of whom were undocumented on the web. We found that this was an excellent way to introduce research on artists in a library context. The Wiki markup language is somewhat challenging for new users and it has potential as a stepping stone towards HTML or other coding languages. We are looking forward to hosting our second event in 2016 and hope to make this an annual event. --Courtney Baron, University of Georgia

Support This has proven to be a successful and influential endeavor. Yes, please! --Mssemantics
Support I personally support this project both for what it is in itself and for its usefulness of a model for how Wikipedia outreach can work for contexts other than art and feminism. At the last meeting of Wikimedia New York City both this project and en:WP:AFROCROWD were discussed as locally organized projects which seek WMF grant funding and which local Wikipedia contributors may support if they like. I think there is near universal familiarity among the WM NYC regular participant base with A+F, and although I cannot speak for WM NYC or any group of Wikipedians collectively, so far as I know A+F is praised and supported by almost all Wikipedians in New York who talk about outreach events.

The budget for last year was modest. I think the proposed budget for this year is modest too, considering the precedent of impact that this project already has made among readers, the media, new contributors, institutional partners, and Wikipedia outreach coordinators. This project needs to grow a bit and because it attracts so much volunteer labor it makes sense to support that scarce sort of passionate enthusiasm with the backend infrastructure that makes everyone's contributions more effective and easier to offer. I hope that this project can continue its present course, and also think about a possible future in which this project stabilizes and matures into a yearly event. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Support It has been a pleasure to serve as an advisor on this project and to review the wonderful work of the project leads -Thepwnco (talk) 19:52, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
Support 2015's event was a hit; 2016's promises to be even bigger! It was a pleasure to work with several students--grad and undergrad--to create and expand entries for Cleveland's women artists. While learning new Wiki markup skills, students really enjoyed putting their research skills to good use and contributing to our cultural record. This is such a worthwhile endeavor, and I fully support Art+Feminism's efforts. -lbonds (talk) 08:21, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Support The Art+Feminism team's work in organizing Wikipedia Edit-a-thons and satellite events, as well as bringing to the forefront of human awareness the need for such cultural change, is a worthy project and I wholeheartedly support their efforts. --Eemccall (talk) 17:06, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Support I am very impressed with this project and the fact that it is working so well has renewed my interest in editing on Wikipedia. -(maberry) 17:06, 17 November 2015 (UTC)