Grants:PEG/User:MMelvaer/Just for the record/Report/Q1


Interim report accepted
This interim report for a Project and Event Grant has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.



Project status

edit
Are you complying with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
YES
Do you expect this project to be completed by the date specified in the approved grant submission?
YES
Did you use any of the grant funds?
YES

Activities and lessons learned

edit

Activities

edit

Detailed information about our activities

edit

Summary of our activities

edit
15.01.2016 Heroines (disambiguation)
edit

A day dedicated to presentations, discussions and Wikipedia editing, addressing gender issues around the theme of heroines, with guests Catherine Lenoble and Clara Thomine. Despite Wikipedia's efforts to come up with solutions to live up to their motto “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”, not only do the contributors predominantly identify as men, but the contents published also show partial gender representations. With platforms as Wikipedia becoming more important in our society these issues require attention. As a symbolic example, the article ‘heroine’ is automatically redirected to the article ‘hero’, and its emblematic figures are mostly male. Next to the issues of authorship and subject matter, the writing style and article structure that have become idiomatic on Wikipedia cause their own issues. A classic example of this is the amount of articles about women that starts with “this woman was the sister/wife of this famous man” in their first or second sentence. During Heroines, we will take these observations as the point of departure for lectures and discussions, and intervention—the day includes a crash course in Wikipedia editing.

  • Venue: Pianofabriek, Brussels
  • Date: 15.01.2016, 10:00-18:00
  • Language: English, French, Dutch
  • Cost: Free
  • Participants: Open to anyone interested in this experience: beginners welcome! débutant(e)s bienvenu(e)s! beginners welkom! Experienced Wikipedia editors will be present and will share their knowledge in editing Wikipedia.
  • What to Bring: Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords. Light lunch and drinks will be provided, as well as childcare.
  • A temporary library will be set up by the participants who are invited to bring their books and digital documents to feed the edit-a-thon!
Pictures
edit
 
Welcome!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Participants
edit

Register here!! (24 people present, with a few extra after 17:00)

Contributions
edit
Announce on the Village pump
edit

The working session and its goals were announced on the Village Pump (used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia).

Work on the hero-heroines page
edit
  • more diversity was brought in the first paragraph which was giving only male examples of heroes
  • pictures have been added
  • Washington name has been removed
  • modern fictional hero has been changes + picture of Catwoman
  • ethymology of the word hero arguing on the non neutral hero word proving that a proper heroine page is needed
On the heroines page in french
edit
  • Claude Cahun work called heroine
  • pdf archive of the last publication
  • makes links on several wiki pages which links to
Heroines disambiguation
edit
  • link to Claude Cahun
  • filling more this page with more pictures
Creating a heroine page on discussion
edit
  • create an heroism page that link to hero and heroine page
  • intersectionality
  • creating a gender gap page or link on the heroism
  • fictional heroins
  • using the word era instead of heroine
  • heroines discussion and hesitation and reflection might need a proper page to explain the problematique
  • advise : usually you start to create a new page if it is needed in terms of space, if the first page start to be too long
Talk page of the hero
edit

Explaining all the today changes why and propose them to contribute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hero

27.02.2016 Gender Redirect
edit

Just For The Record organizes its second event, Gender Redirect, a day bringing attention to gender representations in language constructions. Gender Redirect takes over the threads developed in the previous event, heroine, and continues its analysis of the process of Wikipedia editing, with its specific functions such as ‘view history’ and ‘talk page’, analysis tools like metrics and operations like redirection and disambiguation - to investigate the possibilities and challenges of gender-neutral writing.

  • Venue: Amazone, Brussels
  • Date: 27.02.2016, 10:00-18:00
  • Language: English, French, Dutch
  • Cost: Free
  • Participants: Open to anyone interested in this experience: beginners welcome! débutant(e)s bienvenu(e)s! beginners welkom! Experienced Wikipedia editors will be present and will share their knowledge in editing Wikipedia.
  • What to Bring: Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords. Light lunch and drinks will be provided.
  • A temporary library will be set up by the participants who are invited to bring their books and digital documents to feed the edit-a-thon!
Pictures
edit
 
 
 
 
 
 
Program
edit
  • 10:00 – welcome at Amazone with tea and coffee
  • 10:30 – presentation of Just For The Record
  • 11:00 – presentation by Femke Snelting
  • 12:00 – presentation and open discussion on language & gender
  • 13:00 – lunch break
  • 14:00 – crash course on Wikipedia editing and start of the editing session
  • 18:00 – end of the day at The Student (Paleizenstraat 76 rue des Palais), with a DJ-set and performance by Frau Picha at 19:00
Participants
edit

Register here!!

Working threads
edit

→analyze in which direction the redirects go (female to neutral, male to neutral, female to male, male to female) →start the talk page of the gender redirects about the criteria for the directions of the redirects

https://metrics.wmflabs.org/

Participant's projects to collaborate to
edit

See: Wikipedia:Meetup/justfortherecord/Events/Gender Redirect

  • Creation of a table with explanations of the redirections

Redirect M → N F → N M → F F → M

Discussion
edit
08.03.2016 Just For The Record stand at International Women’s Day
edit

At the occasion of the International Women’s Day and the worldwide annual Art+Feminism events, join our discussion table, with books from the Muntpunt’s library about great women from all over the world! People passing by will be invited to join the table, have an intro on the gender gap on Wikipedia and an editing demonstration. You will be able to create an account, and then if you want you can stay at the table, browse through the books, edit an article about an inspiring figure you would like to write about, talk with the people already around the table!

  • Venue: Muntpunt, Place de la Monnaie 6, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
  • Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2016
  • Time: 12:00 – 18:00
  • Language: Dutch, English, French
  • Cost: Free
  • Participants: Open to anyone interested in this experience: beginners welcome! débutant(e)s bienvenu(e)s! beginners welkom! Experienced Wikipedia editors will be present and will share their knowledge in editing Wikipedia.
  • What to Bring: Attendees can bring their own laptops and power cords.
  • A temporary library will be set up by the participants who are invited to bring their books and digital documents to share with the others!
Pictures
edit
 
 
 
 
 
participants
edit
  1. Romaine (talk) 10:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  2. Loraine Lfurter (talk) 11:43, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  3. Bibboy16 (talk) 11:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  4. Inge Taha (talk) 12:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  5. Joan Blondell (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  6. SvenDK
  7. User:MMelvaer
20.03.2016 presentation at the LADYFEST Brussels (Alter Egoes)
edit

Presentation and stunts at the Ladyfest fair

  • Venue: Brass, Avenue Van Volxem 364, 1190 Forest, Bruxelles, Belgium
  • Date: Sunday, march 20th 2016
  • Time: 15:00 – 16:00 + 17:00 - 18:00
  • Language: English
  • Cost: Free
  • Participants: A lecture open to anyone interested to know more about our project Just for the Record, learn more about gender bias on Wikipedia and learn the basic tools to create an account and start editing.
  • What to Bring: Attendees can bring their own laptops and power cords if they wish to start editing.
participants
edit
  1. Loraine
  2. User:MMelvaer
  3. Léonie Butler
  4. Sarah Magnan
Page edited
edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyfest

Lessons learned

edit
What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects, or that may change the way you are doing this project?
What went well, or is going well?
  • We have found that starting the events with a lecture on a specific topic helps the participants engage in the following discussion and edit-a-thon. We introduce that lecture with shorter talks on how Wikipedia works and Just for the Record's background to give context to the lecturer.
  • The layout of the rooms have also proved to have a great impact, and we find that having people sit in smaller groups around islands of tables work better than everyone on one big table as it makes the participants collaborate more.
  • As we also provide a lunch on our bigger events we find that doing a round of introductions before lunch make people talk more to each other, which again helps the workshop flow later.
  • Reaching out to existing institutions in our city is mostly a very positive experience.
  • Always having a person (could be different ones during the day) who is responsible for keeping things on schedule.
What did not go well, or is not going well?
  • We have learned to have more moments where people can ask questions, as our participants come from very different backgrounds.
  • We have learned to subscribe around 10 percent more participants than what we can host as there always are some last-minute cancellations.
From your answers above, do you plan to change anything you are doing as your project continues?
  • Every time we host an event there are small improvements that reflect lessons learned on our previous event, however we are not planning any radical changes. If you are planning to organize a similar event together with a group of people we will recommend to make sure to debrief with your whole team afterwards, and try to get feedback from your participants after your event.

Outcomes and impact

edit

Outcomes

edit

Goals

edit
  • Bring together people around gender gap issues in the recording and writing of history.
  • Find creative and inclusive ways of dealing with these issues.
  • Encourage more diversity on wikipedia by introducing and training collaborators (focusing on the presence of women).
  • Document this process and publish articles on wikipedia.
Do you expect to reach your project's goal? Why or why not?

We are confident that we will reach our projects goals. It took more time that expected to launch our events, but we have now managed to secure a vast network of institutions, partners and participants interested in our activities and coming back to our events.

  • Bring together people around gender gap issues in the recording and writing of history:
    • As we have mentioned in the activities section, we have had two major one day long events, each time bringing about 25 participants to learn about gender biais issues and collaborate to make a change on Wikipedia.
    • We have now secured more dates for 2 other events to come during the month of June with the public Library and cultural institution called The Muntpunt in Brussels.
    • We have already reached for a broader audience, and made 2 presentations for the public at the LadyFest and at MuntPunt for women's day. We have another presentation at the VUB library for the Brussels Writing Week, VUB – gender-neutral writing and another one for the Girl Tech Fest in Brussels.
  • Find creative and inclusive ways of dealing with these issues:
    • The events are always free, a vegetarian/vegan lunch is provided.
    • We are always trying to expand our network and reach a different audience, this is why we are working with many different collaborators and spaces to host our events. We work to make encounters between different circles of interest to get to know each other by bringing the cultural/artistic sectors in political/associative venues and vice versa.
    • We want to understand more deeply how gender bias happens in society in general, to be able to understand better then how it manifest on wikipedia. To do so, we invite guest speakers to talk about their expertise, we are focussing on research-based or performing artists who bring a creative twist into their inquiry of gender studies.
  • Encourage more diversity on wikipedia by introducing and training collaborators (focusing on the presence of women):
    • The events are open to everyone. We strive to provide a friendly environment where everyone feels welcomed to participate to the discussions in an open way, with special care for women, but also people of all race, class or sexual orientation. We want more diversity on wikipedia.
    • We always have a discussion before, and also after with the participants. This way everyone can share about the contributions they have achieved to make on the platform, but also the technical or relational problems they have encountered on Wikipedia. We are sure that by doing this we can find collective solutions and make it less likely for people to leave the platform after a negative first experience.
    • By having relatively small groups, and events that last a whole day, we contribute to create a sense of community and trust between the participants.
  • Document this process and publish articles on wikipedia:
    • As we have mentioned previously, we keep track of the articles that have been edited each time and record the big lines of the discussions that happened during our events on our meetup page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/justfortherecord . It has proven to be a great tool, for us to keep track and improve our activities and also for others who want to get a sense of what we are doing.

Progress towards targets and goals

edit

Measures of success

edit

Project metrics

Project metrics Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
30 participants at each event between 18 and 24 participants at each event, plus the participants of supplementary events. There were more people registered, but we had seats limits so we couldn’t do too much overbooking and we had some last minute cancellations. more people came for the first part of the day, and attended to the presentations, but sometimes they couldn’t stay for the editing session, or didn’t want to register on the meetup page.
half of the 30 participants stay active on Wikipedia over 38 editors we have 15 active editors So far we can say that approximately that more than a third of the participants stay active after the event. Talking with edit-a-thon organizers, it seems it is a very good ratio.


So far, our measures at this point (half way) give us
rolling active editor: 15
bytes added: 177703382
newly registered: 25
pages edited: 153676
pages created: 787
existing editors: 38
Provide an overall assessment of how your project is going according to these measures.
We have an attendance of between 18 and 24 participants who created accounts, and we had more people attending to the presentations. More than a third of the participants stay active after the event, which is a bit less than we expected but seems to be a very good ratio still.
While doing this project, have you decided to track any other measures of success not listed in your grant submission? If so, please list them here.
We had two articles in national newspapers and keep on meeting people interested in what we do and did.

Remember that you will need to report on Global Metrics in your final report.

Impact

edit

Remember that you will need to report on your project's impact on WMF's mission and strategic goals in your final report.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

edit

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

edit

Remember that you will need to send receipts or documentation of all project expenses to WMF at the time your final report is submitted.

Expenses

edit
Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here here.
These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses.
Note that variances in the project budget over 10% per expense category must be approved in advance by Project and Event Grants program staff. For all other variances, please provide an explanation in the table below.

SEE INSTRUCTIONS AT Grants:PEG/Create financial report.

Initial budget

edit
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Notes
1 Documentation and technical material Reference materials that cannot be found in the partner libraries but needed for the edit-a-thons, beamer rental, sound equipment, etc. Per event 4 125 500 EUR Estimation of the needs, as it will also depend on what is available in different venues
2 Fee for the space Donation Per event 4 300 1200 EUR The events will be held in different places, often non-profit/very low budget organisations, but very important for such topics and wikipedia-enthusiasts, so we think it is important to also show even a symbolic support for these places
3 Food and beverages Snacks for a day Per person 120 25 3000 EUR We would like to encourage bio,vegan, women/gender-linked cooking initiatives. We expect an average of 30 people per event for a total of 4 events.
4 Wikipedia-editing material (print) budget Print costs for wikipedia material (cheatsheets and posters): photocopies and paper Per event 4 25 100 EUR Estimation of the printing and paper costs
5 Communication budget Posters, flyers and eventual add in local magazine Per event 4 50 200 EUR We believe it is still important to have a visual/physical communication to touch a wider public and make publicity for our events in agendsa distributed in cultural organizations throughout Brussels

Expenses

edit
EXPENSES 1ST EVENT
edit
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Actual cost per unit Actual total Budgeted total Currency Notes
1 Documentation and technical material beamer rental 1 beamer rental 1 15 15 15 EUR
2 Documentation and technical material car rental (Cambio) 1 car rental 1 17.55 17.55 17.55 EUR
3 Documentation and technical material documentation, book about heroines 1 book 1 20.04 20.04 20.04 EUR
4 Documentation and technical material documentation, book about Gender Studies 1 book 1 23.38 23.38 23.38 EUR
5 Documentation and technical material documentation, book Donna Harraway 1 book 1 29.70 29.70 29.70 EUR
6 Documentation and technical material documentation, book feminism unfinished 1 book 1 14.15 14.15 14.15 EUR
SUB-TOTAL DOCUMENTATION 119.82 125 EUR
7 Fee for the space Pianofabriek 1 room 1 60.00 60.00 60.00 EUR
8 Fee for the space – Childcare Compensation for childcare Fee for 1 person 1 100 100 100 EUR
SUB-TOTAL SPACE 160 300 EUR
9 Food Lunch food at Pianofabriek 1 1 285 285 400 EUR
10 Food Fruits 1 1 39 39 50 EUR
11 Food Clara’s catering 1 1 100 100 100 EUR
12 Food Drinks, Brussels Beer project 1 1 83.79 83.79 200 EUR
SUB-TOTAL FOOD 508.39 750 EUR
13 Print Copies for cheatsheets 1 1 20.00 20.00 25.00 EUR
SUB-TOTAL PRINT 20.00 25.00 EUR
14 Communication budget Business cards 1 1 9.68 9.68 10.00 EUR
15 Communication budget Print posters 1 1 39.60 39.60 40.00 EUR
SUB-TOTAL COMMUNICATION 49.28 50.00 EUR
TOTAL FIRST EVENT 857.489 1250.00 EUR
EXPENSES 2nd EVENT
edit
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Actual cost per unit Actual total Budgeted total Currency Notes
SUB-TOTAL DOCUMENTATION 0 125 EUR
1 Fee for the space Amazone rental 1 room 1 242 242 242 EUR
2 Fee for the space Technician Fee for 1 person 1 120 120 120 EUR
SUB-TOTAL SPACE 362 300 EUR
3 Food and beverages Amazone lunch 1 meal - Menu du jour II 26 12 312 312 EUR
4 Food and beverages Amazone tea coffee 30 2.9 87 87 87 EUR
5 Food and beverages Amazone water juice 30 2.5 75 75 75 EUR
6 Food and beverages light dinner 1 small plate 20 4 80 80 EUR
6 Food and beverages snacks 1 portion of fruits and biscuits 30 1 30 30 EUR
7 Food and beverages catering 1 person 1 100 100 100 EUR
SUB-TOTAL FOOD 684 750 EUR
8 Wikipedia-editing material (print) budget Copies for cheat sheets 1 1 25 25 25.00 EUR
SUB-TOTAL PRINT 25.00 25.00 EUR
9 Communication budget Business cards, flyers 1 1 25 25 25 EUR
SUB-TOTAL COMMUNICATION 25 50.00 EUR
TOTAL SECOND EVENT 1096.00 1250.00 EUR
Total amount spent on this project so far (with currency)
1953.50 EUR
Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project so far (with currency)
1953.50 EUR
Based on your spending, will you need to request any changes to your budget? If you do, please see the guidelines for requesting changes to your budget.
NO.