Grants:Project/Rapid/Gikü/Wiki Loves Earth 2017 in Moldova/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Gikü/Wiki Loves Earth 2017 in Moldova.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

The goals have been met (with one exception, described below). The partners' help proved itself to be very effective in the final numbers.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

The following table displays what are the goals of 2016 vs. 2017, and the total results of 2016 vs. current results of 2017:

Metric	2016		2017		Explanation
Metric	planned	actual	planned	actual	Explanation
No. of uploaded images	3000	553	2000	1737	There was one "power uploader" (Alex Prodan md) who uploaded 40.2% of the images. 32.1% were uploaded by organizer(s). Serbinov Maria uploaded some collections of repetitive images. The rest of participants (the great majority) uploaded only a handful of images each, albeit on pretty diverse locations.
No. of quality images	10	?	5	?	No images were submitted to Quality Images. It is planned to do so for the top 10 photos of 2017.
Images used in articles	300	183	300	318	Wikipedias (esp. Romanian) lack dedicated articles on the majority of the protected areas, so the number is still lower than could've been...
No. of participants	30	25 (17 valid)	30	62 (56 valid)	Looks like the promotion worked well, as more people than expected uploaded pictures, and they were pretty strict in following the rules/process
No. of newcomers	20	20 (majority)	20	53 (majority)	see above
No. of new items covered	50	63	50	84	Thanks to the power uploader, the 'occasional' uploaders, and the photo expedition organized before the contest.

Images by type of protected area

Type	Number of images
scientific reserves (5 items)	166
national parks (1 item)	53
natural monuments (289 items)	598
nature reserves (63 items)	39
landscape reserves (41 items)	348
resource reserves (13 items)	8
multi-purpose protected areas (32 items)	58
dendrological gardens (2 items)	69
monuments of landscape architecture (21 items)	279
zoos (1 item)	9
biosphere reserves (0 items)	-
RAMSAR sites (3 items)	27

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?
- Partners were awesome!
  - Wiki Loves Earth international team was promoting images from Moldova on their FB page; a post on their blog is being written.
  - Hai Moldova and MEGA Generation, based on their experience with similar projects, provided a lot of good advice and tips.
  - Eco FM gladly greeted us in their studio in their thematic shows everytime we needed,
- Good press coverage: written online press published our press releases, two radio stations (national broadcast company, and our partner EcoFM) had us interviewed before and after the contest, a news material ran on the day of awarding ceremony on national TV network.
- Prizes (gift certificates to a local photography store) were well-received, they proved useful to the winners.
- More professional photographers got involved and promised to help promoting the contest next year.
- Contest's Facebook page gained more followers and views.
What did not work so well?
- With the exception of winners, participants did not show up at the awarding ceremony.
- Interactive maps were not really used by the participants.
- The power uploader announced that he would rather be a jury next year, so we have to be prepared for lacking a power uploader next year.
What would you do differently next time?
- Find a way to allow direct upload from map.
- Include in the message to future participants that the photos help promoting tourism in Moldova.
- Have a way to promote involvement from the amateur part of the photography community; I think an additional prize should be awarded in a lottery to one random participant outside top-10.
- There is an idea to promote drone photography using an additional special prize category; need to find drone enthusiasts of Moldova and ask for their help in promoting.
- Society for Protection of Birds of Moldova (SPPN) are very interested in promoting bird awareness and plan to work with us in a special prize category for bird-watchers.
  - Communication manager of SPPN offered their help in administering contest's Facebook page.
- Try to pull some strings to be invited to thematic/morning TV shows before the contest to promote it.
- A great chunk of feedback was about the level of promotion: almost everybody advises that more people to be involved in organizing; I plan to do that with the help of SPPN.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Item	Number of units	Price per unit (MDL)	Price per unit (USD)	Amount (USD)	Comments
2.500 MDL gift certificate from the photography store Fotomax.md	1	2500	134.559	134.559	Main prize
1.500 MDL gift certificate from Fotomax.md	1	1500	80.7352	80.7352	Second place prize
1.000 MDL gift certificate from Fotomax.md	1	1000	53.8235	53.8235	Third place prize
Promotion (banners, FB page management, etc.)	-	0	0	0	Negligible amount, I think at most 100 MDL; paid by myself. The associated photo expedition has been covered by a separate grant request.
Hosting awarding ceremony	1	0	0	0	"B. P. Hasdeu" Municipal Library of Chișinău provided access to their venue for free (they also hosted last year awarding ceremony).
Total				269.1177

Note: USD amounts are based on exchange rates provided by Oanda on May 24 2017

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Winner photos

Geological complex of Lopatnic
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Balan Anton
Lower Prut reserve
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Roman Friptuleac
Orhei National Park: Orheiul Vechi
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Alex Prodan md
Dniester near Naslavcea
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Alex Prodan md
Lower Prut reserve
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Roman Friptuleac
Geological complex of Lopatnic
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Balan Anton
Orhei National Park: Răut river near Butuceni
Photograph⧼colon⧽ IurieSvet
Țipova reserve
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Alex Prodan md
Orhei National Park: Răut river near Morovaia
Photograph⧼colon⧽ Alex Prodan md
Valea Mare reserve
Photograph⧼colon⧽ SerKo Photography

Awarding ceremony

Awarding ceremony took place at the central building of Hasdeu Library of Chișinău, on July 9. The main prize winners were there, also one partner came (MEGA Generation) with more gifts, and a journalist from national TV network Moldova 1. In September (after the PTO season) visits to local TV stations are planned.