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

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Report under review
This Project Grant midpoint report has been submitted by the grantee, and is currently being reviewed by WMF staff. If you would like to add comments, responses, or questions about this grant report, you can create a discussion page at this redlink.



Welcome to this project's midpoint report! This report shares progress and learning from the grantee's first 3 months.

Summary

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In a few short sentences or bullet points, give the main highlights of what happened with your project so far.

The grant "lets fill the gender gap through communinity building" has started in January 2017 and lasts one year, but we have started to work since July 2016 without financial support.

So far it has enabled us

  • to organise weekly sessions at University of Geneva
  • to organise from 1st to 5th March 2017 an "art and feminism" event in Geneva with more than 30 participants fr:Projet:Les_sans_pagEs
  • to participate to the "Glam on Tour" from 28th April to 1st of May in Fribourg, Switzrland Wikipedia:GLAM/GLAM on Tour/Gutenberg 2017/Programm
  • to meet other wikipedians in France (Nantes, Lyon, Grenoble) and in German Switzerland (Bern)

Since January more than 580 articles have been written or translated in(to) French, more than 30 articles have been written in other languages, 49 articles have been improved. On the whole it totals more than 665 articles who have been worked by 80 more or less experienced wikipedians, combining local groups (Geneva, Sion, Nantes, Paris, Toulouse, Lausanne) with global ones (Women in Red, LGBTqi, Wikimooc).

The detail of the activity, contributors, articles written is awailable in the wikipedia page fr:Projet:Les_sans_pagEs The finance part is followed up through the accounting of association "les sans pagEs" based in Geneva and created to manage the acoounts transparently.

Methods and activities

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How have you setup your project, and what work has been completed so far? We continued on last year's project trying to engage more with the wikipedian and wikimedian community, to gain support from experienced contributors, which was one thing that was hard to achieve last year.

Describe how you've setup your experiment or pilot, sharing your key focuses so far and including links to any background research or past learning that has guided your decisions. List and describe the activities you've undertaken as part of your project to this point.

 

We have focused on

  • training any person interested in Wikipedia
  • meetings in museums, cooperation with artists to write new articles and add content to wikimedia projects
  • being easily reachable through our weekly sessions opened to anyone and through the project page created one year ago
  • linking the porject page to other communities and groups to gain visibility and support, as well as share our experience and articles on social networks (twitter, Face Book and Youtube)

Our priority is

  • to "make wikipedia" accessible to all the persons who are interested in the gender gap and need coaching to learn how to contribute
  • to generate cultural events so that people are motivated to come and to write articles relating to the gender gap
  • to create friendly meetings so that people are pleased to see each other and motivated to write articles
  • to make the project visible through the wikipedian project page, the twitter account and the face book page
  • to share experiences and ressources with other groups concerned about the gender gap

Midpoint outcomes

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What are the results of your project or any experiments you’ve worked on so far?

Please discuss anything you have created or changed (organized, built, grown, etc) as a result of your project to date.

 

Since January more than 580 articles have been written or translated in(to) French, more than 30 articles have been written in other languages, 49 articles have been improved. On the whole it makes more than 665 articles who have been worked by 80 more or less experienced wikipedians

The detail of the activity, contributors, articles written is awailable in the wikipedia page fr:Projet:Les_sans_pagEs. The finance is followed up through the accounting of association les sans pagEs based in Geneva

Press coverage

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There were articles in the Canadian, French and Swiss medias.

Finances

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Please take some time to update the table in your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed all approved and actual expenditures as instructed. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided there to explain them.

The finance is documented in the section Finances.


Here are a few comments

Globally, at mid term 50% of the budget has been used.


Project staffing

  • for the time all the work done has been done on a non-paid basis and therefore no dollar has been accounted on this budget line. We would like to know if this is possible, because it represents a huge part of in kind contribution and could not be sustainable in the long run.

However we might considere that this is a limitation to expand the project.

  • the main person in charge of the project Nattes à chat is spending an average of 15 hours a week on the project and she has to combine this workload with her paid work to make her living and her children as she is a single mother. We think the foundation has to reflect on these challenges to enable more participation of women.
  • we are looking for new members motivated to help & relay Nattes à chat on project management , Otarie69 is no longer available for many hours of volonteer work due to her professional engagements.

Communication

  • We intend to buy tee-shirts to increase the visibility


Travel & Logistics (catering)

  • We are located in Geneva Switzerland and one of the challenges of the project is the low density of population and hence the transportation duration and cost. Therefore one of the 1st expense is the transport. Wikipedian are volonteers and they spend a lot of time in transportation to meet each other. Thanks to the grant we can take in charge their travel costs and pay for their food when they work together.


What is working well

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Lodochka's first article a translation in Russian
 
Contributing in Gujrati: where do we get the alphabet?
  • the project welcomes new and senior contributors and receives many thanks (emails and tweets)
  • huge quantity of articles written with many contributors
  • active use of the translation tool and articles translated in Gujrati, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Catalan, English and French
  • it is very positive to be able to take in charge food and travel costs for events. We have an agreement with the Unige cafeteria where we receive a monthly invoice thus reducing administrations chores
  • we try to be very trasnparent about our actions and report every event and wikimidis on the wikipedian project page so that the community is aware of what we are doing. This, combined with the twitter account has enabled huge support from the commnity, attracting senior wikipedian. The discussion page is very reactive, people ask questions and get answers, and the community has even begun to notify the project page when articles are going under an admissibility procedure
  • we use the French WikiMOOC tutorials and make them available to train new contributors as Nattes à chat is a member of the pedagogical team
  • collaboration with other local group has really started and is growing, giving a sense of gender gap communnity on the French wikipedia.

Here are examples of recent collaboration:

 

What are the challenges

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The main challenge is sustainability because project management is time consuming and challenging.

  • project management is "the hidden part of the iceberg". It is time consuming, which is why we had asked for a financial compensation. For us it is still unclear if this is possible or not.
  • Collaborating with chapters is sometimes complicated and leads to a lot of supplementary administrative cost
  • it is easy to obtain finance for catering and logistics, but other costs like childcare and equipment are tricky. These costs would be better adressed in our opinion by allowing project managers and community managers to be paid on project basis. We don't understand why developpers can be paid, and project management which requires numerous skills (negotiation, ability to build a team and motivate, communication, leadership skills, ability to face adversity and pressure) not. In this project, at least 3 persons could be more implicated if these issues are resolved and a modest financial contribution was given. This was the initial 5000 + 3000 dollars we asked for. Otarie69 has not been able to put as much input as intended because of this very fact, and last year, LaMèreVeille stepped down from her role for that very reason. time consuming not allowing her to develop her independant activity. Teaching people how to manage a wikimedian projetc is time consuming, and when they step back, it is hard to find other dedicated persons.

Of course we are supposed to be all volunteers as wikipedians or contributing to one project: in reality as project managers, we are doing much more than adding content and I think this should be recognized because it is hard and dedicated work, exposing us to public exposure and criticism as well (this is particularly true when working on the gender gap).

Next steps and opportunities

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What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your project? Please list these as short bullet points. If you're considering applying for a 6-month renewal of this grant at the end of your project, please also mention this here.

  • The wiki midis are going on at the University of Geneva during summer. During the wiki midis we write articles and answer to questions, but we also discuss of the next events and we try to explain what is going on in the Wikimedia movement to enable empowerment from participants. We would like to help other projects to write grants and encourage people to have ideas and go forth with them. We will go to Nantes in August to help the local group finalize writing their own grant directly to the WMF
  • Nattes à Chat, Yann, Aneses and other members of the team have plenty ideas about other workshops and we have made many connections with libraries, high school, museums etc...
  • We are planning to have evening session "Wikijeudis" at Lestime twice a month, where we held the last Art+Feminism event in Geneva, starting in september.
  • A collaboration with Unige departments are under negociation
  • a collaboration with 2 renowned feminist libraries is being negociated

Grantee reflection

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We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being an grantee has been so far. What is one thing that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed from the past 3 months? Nattes à chat I find it very inspiring to work with the WMF since the start. We are asked questions at the start, we have to document, but we are then left entirely free to work without pressure of any kind, and that is very positive. The thing that has surprised me is the comnunity support on this new project, it felt like being really part of the movement. 80 participants in one year is like… Wow! I would never have dreamed that result. I also received support from the foundation when I was under pressure, and this is important, because a contributor cannot face aggressivity alone.

Otarie69's testimony: I must say that I am amazed by the experience. US Wikimedia fundation really help so that we "can make it possible". Thank you for that ! I am very happy to see that other people are doing a lot, thanks to this grant. Thank you for that too !

Community feedback

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We have decided to ask for the feedback of the francophone community on the project page, so that we could be transparent of how we used the funds, to raise awareness that direct financing through the WMF is possible. Furthermore, we are willing to help any group wishing to beneficiate from our experience. Postez vos remarques là en français ou Anglais et on traduira !

  • Les SanspagEs ont réussi à agréger une communauté existante bienveillante au Gender Gap. Ce projet montre qu'il est possible de contribuer dans un environnement accueillant et amical. Cela est un vrai soulagement pour les contributrices mais également pour les contributeurs. De nombreuses contributrices se sentent bien dans ce projet et participent avec un réel plaisir.DeuxPlusQuatre (talk) 19:02, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Le groupe a réussi à attirer des contributeurs de tout horizons en communiquant sur les réseaux sociaux à chaque nouvel article, mais aussi et surtout en animant des ateliers physiques très régulièrement. Il s'agit selon moi d'un des projets les plus actif et productif du site, avec presque cinq articles par jour depuis plus d'un an. Qui plus est, ce projet est en harmonie avec ses confrères internationaux : Women in Red pour ne citer qu'elles permet une visibilité internationale, et recevoir les échos à travers le monde fait chaud au cœur. Continuons ! --Framawiki (talk) 22:51, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
    Nattes à chat: We have to thank Framawiki who helped us a lot to design a bot tweeting the new articles. Thank you ever so much!
  • Le projet Les sans PagEs est un superbe lieu de création pour Wikipédia, au fonctionnement très appréciable. Les membres ont su utiliser différents outils, notamment les réseaux sociaux, pour capter un public très vaste. Des profils pluriels s'y rencontrent, et savent faire prospérer un espace de convivialité à l'écho important, notamment dans les médias francophones. Des utilisateurs et des utilisatrices de tous les horizons, que ce soient des participant.e.s à des ateliers pour découvrir et contribuer au projet, ou des contributrices et contributeurs avec un bagage plus ancien dans Wikipédia, font du projet Les Sans PagEs un élément à mes yeux important du microcosme wikimédien, offrant, de plus, un espace un peu différent de ce que l'on peut trouver habituellement dans les discussions de l'encyclopédie participative. Sa luxuriance actuelle nous fait espérer une prospérité qui soit soutenue par la WMF, tout comme ses sœurs, Women in Red, WikiMujeres etc. J'en profite pour remercier très chaleureusement les créatrices et créateurs des Sans PagEs au détour de ce feedback. GrandCelinien (talk) 23:16, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
  • The Les Sans PagEs project is the reason why I joined Wikipedia. I wanted to be a Wikipedia contributor for a while, but never knew where to start. They had a clear to-do list and lots of advice, so I tried my hand - and now, I'm in the middle of my first 100wikidays challenge! Les Sans PagEs is, in my opinion, an amazing initiative, that should have more editathons all around French-speaking countries, because they would be a great opportunity to meet other participants and contribute to something that we believe in. The gender gap is painfully huge, and we can help fill it, one article at a time. And we'll keep doing it. I'm glad to have a chance to contribute to this initiative and community. - Exilexi (talk) 06:13, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
    Thank you Exilexifor your comment! As you have the wish to start a new group in Paris, we will provide support and resources to get you going! Stay tuned to the discussion page of les sans pagEs.
  • J'ai trouvé dans ce projet une nouvelle raison de contribuer à wikipédia alors que j'étais en wikibreak. La communauté y est bienveillante et accueillante et l'enjeu est primordial pour les femmes qui vont se renseigner sur wikipedia et pour lutter contre l'autocensure notamment dans les matières scientifiques. Je suis fier de faire partie de cette aventure. Merci encore aux personnes qui l'ont créée. Viking59 (talk) 11:23, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
  • This project gave me an engaging environment for personal contribution, where I could find a safe and caring community. LaMèreVeille 28 August 2017
  • I am really happy to be part of a project like this one. This project gave me the chance to become an active Wikipedia contributor. I actively participate to our weekly meeting where I can meet up other engaged contributors. Roxigene 9 october 2017


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