Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Thailand 2022/Midpoint Report

Midterm Learning Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2022-08-31T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Midterm

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General information

This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.

Name of Organization: Wikimedia Thailand
Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Thailand 2022
Amount awarded: 16863.1 USD, 560400 THB
Amount spent: 108753.6 THB

Part 1 Understanding your work

1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?

Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) was organized for the eighth time this year. The aim of this campaign is to gain participation from new participants as well as to keep the old participants engaged. We have quantitatively analyzed the results of the WLE. The graph below shows the engagement in Wiki Loves Earth campaign in 2022. The blue line indicates the number of submissions. The red line indicates the number of new users, while the yellow line indicates financial usage. We found that the number of submissions has continued to decline since 2018. Number of new users has remained somewhat constant. A more thorough report will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

WikiGap2022 was launched to bridge the gender gap. The Outreach Dashboard was used to quantitatively assess the campaign. A total of 28 editors were involved. There were 70 articles created and 265 articles edited. These articles were related to female individuals and issues related to the gender gap. A total of 1.33 million bytes were added from approximately 2,000 edits.

Content evaluation of English Wikipedia articles in the field of embryology is being carried out. We are in the process of getting the protocol approval by the Institutional Review Board of Mahidol University. In addition, we are developing Wikipedia page views as a potential metric in the development of medical curriculum. The preliminary finding will be presented at the ESEAP Conference in Sydney.

Two undergraduate students are actively being involved in the scanning of 3D anatomical specimens. So far, 10 specimens have been scanned. These students will work further to scan more samples, polishing the mesh and downsizing the files for upload to Wikimedia Commons soon. Please click here to see some of the students’ work previously uploaded to Sketchfab. For Wikimedia Commons, the students are using another set of skeletons. We expect to reach the target number of scans by the end of the grant period and will upload it to Wikimedia Commons.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?

Collaboration with NGOs and larger organizations was beneficial. We had experience in organizing edit-a-thons in the past but the number of participants was very limited. Collaboration with UNESCO and the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok on WikiGap2022 helped us a lot with reach. Although we did not come up with a targeted number of participants in the grant proposal, we agree that Wikipedia contributions that occurred as part of this event exceeded what we originally anticipated. Therefore, we plan to strengthen the partnership with these organizations and will look out for potential collaboration with other stakeholders.

3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?

t was not possible to analyze the gender ratio of the people who participated in WikiGap, mainly due to the anonymous nature of Wikipedia. Wiki Loves Earth this year was not as successful as in the past. Number of submissions has been on a continuous decline and engagement from new users has been constant. One possible explanation is the shifting of social media, whereby Instagram and Tiktok are dominating digital marketing. On the other hand, our social media platforms such as Facebook and Discord are not as popular as they used to be. We noticed that the amount of reach and number of likes on our Facebook page were relatively low compared with previous years. To tackle this problem, we are targeting other social media platforms, particularly Tiktok and Instagram, and upload short videos to advertise our events. We believe that this is more suited for the newer generations which are our target audience.

Regarding the incorporation of Wikimedia Thailand as a Foundation, we have concluded that we will use a virtual office instead of a physical office due to the ease of maintenance and convenience.

4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.

There were a number of communicating channels that we used including Wikimedia Thailand Facebook page, event pages on Wikimedia Commons, banners on the Thai and English Wikipedia and advertisement channels of our partners. For WikiGAP, social media and websites of our partners including the Swedish Embassy and UNESCO Bangkok were used.

5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.

To promote the engagement of participants and the involvement of marginalized groups, incentives such as merchandise were provided. Merchandise includes T-shirts, umbrellas, calendars and certificates. Certificates in particular were issued by UNESCO Bangkok and the Swedish Embassy. So participants could add these rewards to their CV or portfolio which further strengthen their job profile. Monetary compensation will also be provided to students who carry out the 3D scanning of skeletal specimens. We should also be aware of the issue related to paid editing. We are well aware that paid editing or its equivalents is a double edged sword and is opposed by a significant number of people in the movement. Nevertheless, we also perceive that 3D scanning requires a lot of training, expertise and experience. So people doing it are financially compensated for their unique skills. The amount of compensation is approximately 300-500THB per specimen depending on the complexity of the mesh, which to us is justifiable.

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?

Since only 2 out of 5 objectives have been met at the midpoint of our grant, it is still premature at this stage to discuss most of the learning priorities. However, here are the things that we have learned at this point.

We noticed that the retention rate of new users is low in our community simply because of the typical behaviors of these users. Our primary targets for the last five years include new users who joined merely because of Wiki Loves contests or students who edited Wikipedia as part of the education program. These groups of people are extrinsically motivated (awards, prizes, merchandise, etc.). As a result, long term motivation is not there and it is natural for them to fade out after a while. Students tend to also move on upon their graduation. To tackle this problem, we aim to target more varied groups of people with higher potential to become long term contributors. We hope to discuss this issue again at the ESEAP Conference.

The Thailand Wikipedia community and Wikimedia Thailand community are quite dependent. One factor could be the lack of communication and also the insufficient reach from the Chapter to the editing community. We hope to strengthen the relationship between these two entities, leading to a more sustainable affiliate as well. Currently, the Chapter has very few volunteers and most of the core functions rely heavily on a few key members.

7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?

The second half of our work will be built upon the lessons and challenges learned in the previous half will be used. These opportunities include the increase in reach, retention of new contributors, strengthening the relationship with existing partners, and search for new partners.

Part 2: Metrics

8a. Open and additional metrics data.

Open Metrics
Open Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
N/A	N/A	N/A	31	New participants of Wiki Loves campaigns (WLM not included). We unfortunately did not include metrics data in the Fluxx system. However, they are available on this page on meta:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_Thailand/2022	WLE tools
N/A	N/A	N/A	2300	Number of uploads as part of Wiki Loves campaigns (as of 26 September 2022)	Number of items in the following categories: and We unfortunately did not include metrics data in the Fluxx system. However, they are available on this page on meta:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia_Thailand/2022
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of activities developed	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of volunteer hours	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

8b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics	Description	Target
Number of participants	We expect five experts to participate in content evaluation and five participants to participate in 3D scanning. All of these participants are expected to be new to the Wikimedia movement.	10
Number of editors	Based on our previous experience, the ratio between the new editors and returning editors is around 7:3. With this assumption and given there are around 100 participants all year around, we estimate that there will be 70 new editors and 30 returning editors. That brings the tentative number of participants to around 100.	100
Number of organizers	There are five organizers. Their names are stated in the team members' list above. In addition, we plan to hire an affiliate liaison. The objective is to increase the efficiency of the current administrative work and also to response queries on social media channels in a timely manner. This person is also expected to serve as competition and campaign manager. Due to the growing of the community, these demanding tasks are difficult to manage in a volunteer capacity.	5

**Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project**
Wikimedia Project	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Wikimedia Commons	Based on the previous years' results, we expect there will be around 2000 uploads to the WLX campaign and other contests. Number of high-quality 3D models uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are expect to be 30. However, given the small number of 3D models relative to the expected overall value, the target number of contents remains to be 2000.	2000	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?

None

10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

No

10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?

11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.

Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).

Wikipedia metrics for curriculum development.png

WLE statistics.png

Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.

https://dtacblog.co/en/idw2022-2/

https://www.facebook.com/SwedeninBangkok/videos/wikigap-bangkok/484464683382030/ https://muic.mahidol.ac.th/eng/wikigap-girls-in-digital-world/

Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance

12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

108753.6

13. Local currency type

THB

14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
Provide links to your financial reporting documents.

Budget template for Wikimedia Funds (Wikimedia Thailand 2022).xlsx

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SWeZn2CfOEt4XsBOV_VuLLoGIXxut3CMEwQAqaoWB7Q/edit?usp=sharing

15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?

Yes

15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.

Some of the budget will be reallocated to fund one key member to attend the ESEAP Conference in Sydney.

16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.

Thank you for taking the time to share all your learning and reflections. We look forward to our conversation so that we can learn more at this important stage of your work and find the best ways to support the months to come!