Grants:IdeaLab/Nattes à chat/Let's fill the gender gap through community building

This project is funded by a Project Grant

statusselected

Let's fill the gender gap through community building

summaryAfter sucessfully getting new (add number) to publish 80 women biographiesarticles, we we want to do some community building with these new contributors.

targetplease add a target wiki

amount18 500 chf

grantee• Nattes à chat

contact• n.rault@me.com

volunteer• GastelEtzwane• Kvardek du• Mapomge• 89.82.91.11• Mimipepette• Myriam Forgeron• Chelseagirl79• ***Makita Angela***• RosaSchnabeltier• Rhinorataxes• Myriam Forgeron

project manager• Nattes à chat

community organizer• Otarie69• IIILazarusIII

this project needs...

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created on14:45, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

round 1 2016

Friendly space expectations

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Retaining women contributors is difficult because of the adverse environment they sometimes experience on Wikipedia. We want to retain the 50 new contributors that we gained during the Let's Fill the Gender Gap project and help attract new contributors. There is currently no regular scheduled meeting in the region, which makes it hard for the new contributors to meet regular wikipedians and foster a community spirit. We envisage this an extension of last year's project Let's fill the gender gap . Furthermore, there is no real community meeting of wikipedians in the region of Geneva, so we want to enhance the community building in Geneva (and Swiss Romande), as well as promoting interlanguage links with the swiss german community and the nearby french community, by participating to their events and building common events. This will promote women contributors and help them establish themselves in the wiki community, as well as helping new contributors to meet the community, and senior contributor to interact more often in a transparent way.

What is your solution?

We want to create a local section and have regular meetings to address the needs of new contributors in terms of training (continuing to improve their contributing capacities and helping them with translating articles, and learning more about wikicommons)). Some of the contributors of the Let's fill the gender gap projects still have questions after the end of the workshops concerning mainly translating (we have begun a collaboration with Women in Red) and importing photos to illustrate their articles. We also want to travel to other place and have 4 events located outside Geneva to foster links between the various nearby wiki communities (french and swiss german). This triggers personal relationship and a sense of belonging to a community fostering motivation.

Goals

community retention

last session of the Let's Fill the gender Gap Project in Geneva 2016

We aim at starting with the community we built during the Let's fill the Gender Gap Worshops. These contributors have needs in terms of learning how to import photos and also in terms of enhancing the first set of articles they submitted by translating them in other languages. We want to plan one monthly meeting in a friendly environment to maintain the forged human links and have more women contributors. We will also have ressources from other institutions. The equal opportunity office of the University of Geneva, who was active in the Let's Fill the Gender gap project is willing to provide ressources for the editathons to be held in the faculties, developing theme around the main field of each faculty. The objective will still be to address women's biographies and subjects linked to women's history, or main field of interests. Sustainability

expanding and translating articles

We expect the project to enhance the biographies published last year through contribution on Wikidata, Commons and to start publishing articles related to these bios. We have identified subjects that are not yet covered, such as the suffragette movement in Switzerland, and we plan to expand / create articles on these subjects.

Linking the swiss community to other projects

Great interractions were made with Women in Red, Art&Feminism in Paris links that were strengthened by participating to Wikimania Esino Lario (thanks to funding by WMCH) and the francophone Wikiconvention in Paris, where we co-organized the conference on non sexist language. These community interactions led to the creation of Les sans pagEs, which is basically an extension of the Women in Red project to the francophone wikipedia, and also an extension of the swiss project Projet:Suisse/Biographies des femmes en Suisse. We need to strengthen these ties to continue to work on the gender gap issues by putting in common our experiences and gaining support to promote the subject by making it visible. This is something we can give back to any new swiss contributor during the Wikimidis if they wish to develop their own project. We are now in the position to give an image of how to contribute on Wikipedia, and how to promote a project within the We are Wikimedia movement, using the les sans pagEs project as an international francophone platform.

Measures of success

Increasing number of contributors retention in the Lake geneva region
Achieving 5% of retention on the Let's Fill the gender Gap project
Achieving 10 regular new contributors per year
Making the Wikipedia movement visible locally by organizing one event per month in average and a minimum of 2 trips (one to France and one to Switzerland)
Translate articles written during the Let's Fill the Gender Gap Project and notify Women In red
Expanding the project to create a French Women In Red page
Having contributors starting a project of their own on wikipedia would be the best
Having contributors interested in keeping up regular meeting points to discuss the issues they are facing on Wikipedia

Get Involved

About the idea creator

I have launched workshops to adress the editor and content gender gap last year and I contribute on the French (mostly) and English (a littel bit) wikipedia. I was one of the organizers of the conference on non sexist language in the first francophone Wikiconvention in Paris. I am a member of WMfr and WMch. particpating in both chapters to events organized locally.

Participants

Volunteer I could help train new contributors. GastelEtzwane (talk) 10:40, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Project manager I would be in charge of managing the project strategically and animating the wikimidis putting the contributors in contact with the larger Wiki{p/m}edia community to solve their editing issues and eventually to pave the way for the launching of new projects. Nattes à chat (talk) 10:00, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Community Organizer I would be in charge of the logistic of the project so that the Project manager can focuse on the more strategic tasks. Also I can co-animate the wikimidis/wikifiestas. Otarie69 (talk) 13:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I could help this project by providing or joining help sessions. Kvardek du (talk) 20:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I'd like to contribute to writing the biographies. Mapomge (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I will transalte some articles 89.82.91.11 09:41, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer translating articles, logistic, ... RosaSchnabeltier (talk) 09:58, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I participated last year to the Let's Fill the gender gap project as an artist performer during the French Wikiconvention in Paris. I will be organizing the Art+Feminism editathon by providing my network and experience as a feminist artist in Geneva. ***Makita Angela*** (talk) 14:01, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I'd like to participate. Yann (talk) 23:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer I will be happy to join any initiative near Lausanne or Montreux whenever possible! Rhinorataxes (talk) 19:40, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer Hi, I would like to join as a Volunteer and translate articles from English to French. Chelseagirl79 (talk) 10:53, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer Hi, I can publish and translate pages, English to French and write pages in French Myriam Forgeron (talk) 14:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer Hi, I can publish and translate pages, English to French and write pages in French Myriam Forgeron (talk) 14:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Community organizer As a project manager at HES-SO, Switzerland, I have organised a series of 6 workshops (Let's fill the Wikipedia Gender Gap), and for 2017 I am in talks with the EPFL Lausanne to renew the experience, and improve it. We are currently designing the project and in negociation concerning budgets. IIILazarusIII (talk) 12:52, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Volunteer Bonjour,

I am a French native and used to be a journalist of AFP. I am based in Zurich and I have heard of the project of women's biographies at the University of Geneva. I have no experience in writing in the Wikipedia format but could surely learn it. Coud you give me the contact of the responsbile persons in Switzerland, so I can contact them (or give them my contact if they wich to contact me)? thansk a lot and best regards, corinne Mimipepette (talk) 20:05, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Endorsements

A few projects have been tried in the past (in the USA), with varying levels of success. I feel that this project is great, and that there is a huge potential in this type of grass-root activism. GastelEtzwane (talk) 10:39, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
After successfully teaching around 80 new contributors, create and motivate this communitiy to continue contributing makes sense and it's a great project. LaMèreVeille (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Such in-real-life investment on a local basis could be very useful for filling the gender gap. This project follows a successful project involving local participants. Kvardek du (talk) 20:10, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Support. Female editors can really improve the WP encyclopedia through very different point of view that usually fair and rational. Orgio89 (talk) 04:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Because it is a wonderful project for our society... 2001:620:600:1000:1C63:8B89:4DE0:BA6C 09:04, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
The workshop "let's fill the gender gap" has been incredibly succesful : several dozens women who had never contributed on Wikipedia published 80 women biography articles in few months. Now that the workshop is over, building a community is essential to maintain this energy and to help these new contributors overcome the difficulties they might face during the writing process, as well as to encourage them to remain active members of the Wikipedia community.

This project allows women of different ages and backgrounds to enter the wikipedia community and improve the quality of this encyclopedia by increasing the number of articles about women published and by improving the gender balance among contributors. RosaSchnabeltier (talk) 09:56, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Let's fill the Wikipedia gender gap is a great project, that tackles simultaneously two Wikipedia common issues: difficulty in the engagement of new contributors, and gender representation unbalance. Participating to it has been a valuable (and extremely pleasant) training experience. As a side note, I'd like to remark that, even though for what concerns the articles women constitute the exclusive subjects, the project had also seen (and hopefully will in the future) the participation of men wanting to give their contribution to a less gender unequal Wikipedia. ModPomo (talk) 16:52, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to the workshops organized last year by this community, many articles were produced which would not have been produced otherwise. This project needs to be continued. There is still so much to be done. MacAreux (talk) 09:26, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
It is wonderful to see the WMF has supported the grant request for this project that really offers the possibility to capitalize on what's been going in the area with regards to bridging the gender gap. WMCH looks forward to supporting out the organizers in any required capacity. Gabrielle Marie WMCH (talk) 16:16, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Project plan

Activities

We organize weekly and monthly meetings (see here Wikipédia:WikiPermanence#Régulières) over 10 months and 4 meetings in other towns to retain the new contributors who participated in the let's fill the gender gap workshops at Unige. The events that we will join in other towns are ment to connect the new contributors with the wikipedia community and boost their engagement. We have noticed that this is key to fostering engagement as the meetings with the community (like the wikicheese in Paris, or the festicabale in Switzerland) are usually fun and engaging. Furthermore new contributors need to meet senior wikipedians of various surroundings to understand our movement and to seek answers to their technical challenges.

Budget

Project budget table

Category	Item description	Unit	# of units	Unit price in US dollars	Currency	Budget 2016	Comment
Project Staffing	Community organizer	months	10	300	CHF	3000	basically this person would be in charge of the admin part of the project.
Project Staffing	Project manager	months	10	500	CHF	5000	this person is in charge of the management of the project as a whole.
Communication	Design, identity and communication	per item	1	500	CHF	500	Tshirts
Travel	Travel cost	annual	2	2000	CHF	4000	1- 2000 chf : transport, accommodation and meals for the team of 2. 4 planned his year: one to visit the friday events organized by WMFR in Paris, one to visit the Cabale de la Quenelle in Lyon), one to visit the swiss german community, and one in the French part of Switzerland Neuchatel (could be the planned workshops in Neuchatel) to establish links. 2- 2000 chf : transport ,accommodation and meals for contributors and members of the team coming to our planned events (wikimidis and wikifiesta, or other events organized locally) This would also cover the travelling expenses of the team and senior contributors to the events outside of their hometown if the travelling distance is more than 30 minutes (ensuring that we can put locals in contact with people from the outside community).
Logistic	Conference room rental	per item	10	200	CHF	2,000.00	the meetings in absence of funding are done at the University cafeteria. with funding we could envisage meeting in places like Impact Hub.
Logistic	Catering	per item	10	400	CHF	4000.00	this would be a budget pro month enabling within the wikimidis to pay a coffee and a picnic or a lunch for up to 5-10 participants 4 times a month (wikimidis) over a period of 10 months. This would represent a budget of 100 CHF per wikimidis.
	total				CHF	18500

Budget summary

1	Project Staffing	8000
2	Communication	500
3	Travel	4000
4	Logisitic	6000
	Total	18500

Community engagement

We have a twitter handle ( @lessanspages) this project being now involved in a more global project created on an idea issued by the Women in red group. The project is called les sans pagEs and the swiss biography project would integrate this one as well as the swiss german community. The link to the project (in French) is here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs. This project has now nearly 200 bios of women published since its launch in Esino Lario, thanks to the involvement of senior contributors and has already beneficiated from press coverage. Some of the articles are translated in english as well.

We also have the page of the project where all of last year participants are listed and can be reached here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Suisse/Biographies_des_femmes_en_Suisse. This page will continue to focus on swiss biographies, but the articles published / expanded are listed in the les sans pagEs project as well.

Sustainability

I expect the community to build and people getting engaged in projects of their own ideally.

Measures of success

retention rate of 5% from the let's fill the gender gap project : 3 to 5 persons contributing regularly
one independent project stemming out of the community
acquiring new contributors especially women
getting the 2015 new contributors acquainted with Wikicommons, Wikidata or wiktionary and gaining experience in technical aspects of contributing

Project team

ideally all the people involved regularly last year in the Let's fill the gender Gap project : LaMèreVeille, coding capacities, internet search useful to teach how to look for sources GastelEtzwane, experienced wikipedian The team is not complete as we are currently in holiday, the first meeting we plan is on the 2nd of september see here for what we have planned to do WikiPermanence Genève

Community notification

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

WMCH has been notified of the projects linked to les sans pagEs and I have recieved a positive return here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_CH/Call_for_projects_2017/Let%27s_fill_the_gender_gap_2017. The idea is tohave WMCH finance two separate events that will take place on the Swiss soil (Gostelli foundation and Art+Feminism in Geneva), while is this grant we are asking for support on the community building aspect of wikimidis within the participants of last years Let's fill the gender gap project. The two grants are complementary and we thought as part of a global community building strategy in the french speaking part of Switzewrland, reaching out to the francophone communities nearby.

Notification of the grant proposal on the project page of les sans pagEs here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs

recent press coverage for les sans pagEs following the French wikiconvention :

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs#9_ao.C3.BBt_2016 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs#28_juillet_2016 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pagEs#27_juillet_2016 Need notification tips?