Grants:Project/Rapid/LDTC Wikipedians/Language Page Editathons 2018

statusfunded

Rapid Grants

Language Page Editathons 2018

We are students who research underdocumented languages. Many of these languages that have wiki pages which are incomplete, out of date, or could be translated into other languages. We want to use our skills to make information about these languages more available via Wikipedia.

targetWikipedia

start dateJanuary 8

end dateDecember 14

budget (USD)465

grant typeIndividual

grantee• BlakeALee

contact(s)• ldtc@hawaii.edu• BlakeALee

organization (if applicable)• LDTC Wikipedians

website (if applicable)• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LDTC_Wikipedians

friendly space expectations

ucc

privacystatement

Create your report

Please see the sample Editathon/Training application before drafting your application.

Project Goal

Choose one or more of the following goals. You can add or delete goals as needed.

1. Recruit new editors
2. Increase skills for existing editors
3. Add or improve content

Project Plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. Be sure to answer the following questions:

1. Are you doing one editathon or training or a series of editathons or trainings?

We are doing a series of three editathons, to be held (roughly) in January 2018, June 2018, and September 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, USA. These editathons will take place at a coffee shop or other suitable venue on a weekend day. Participants will be encouraged to work on their Wikipedia edits throughout the course of the weekend on their own.

2. How will you let your community know about the event? Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.

As we get closer to each event date, we will announce each event via the LDTC twitter and LDTC facebook page. We will also submit announcements of the events to the Linguistics departmental webpage. There are also several linguistics- and related disciplines- student listservs at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa which we will use to publicize our events. We are targeting linguistics graduate students because they have the necessary knowledge to make edits to language pages. We think Wikipedia editing is a skill that all linguistics graduate students should have some knowledge of, and intend to market it as such (i.e. professional development).

3. Do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?

Yes, DanniiYarbro, Ashleigh813 and others.

4. Do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?

We expect some participants will have the equipment and skills needed. For those who do not have the skills needed, we will have experienced Wikimedia editors on hand to train them. We also have training materials supplied by Gretchen McCulloch. We will request that participants bring their own equipment to the editathons. We are well-equipped to make language page edits not only because of our linguistic training, but also because our campus has an excellent library that we can obtain linguistics grammars from to use as source material; many of these references are not accessible to non-UH people.

5. How will you engage participants after the event(s)?

We will post event photos after each event and show our appreciation for our participants. The individuals who participate in the first event will be invited to continue participating in subsequent events. We will also invite participants to come to our regular LDTC workshops to participate in language documentation. We hope this will encourage them to continue publishing underdocumented language content on the web, including on Wikipedia.

6. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?

We have successfully hosted two editathons similar to this in the past. (See http://ling.hawaii.edu/ldtc/wikipedia/ for activity reports.)

Impact

How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets:

1. Number of events - 3
2. Number of participants - 25 unique individuals over the course of 3 events; 15 participants per event
3. Number of new editors - 5
4. Number of of articles created or improved - 15
5. Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events) - 10

Resources

What resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

The directors of the Language Documentation Training Center (BlakeALee and Chiclinguistchick) will organize the project. They will advertise the event and secure the venue. We do not expect any support from anywhere else.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.

We need:

• refreshments, $9/person for around 15 people per event x 3 events = $405 (roughly enough for a drink and a bagel at Coffee Talk https://www.coffeetalkhi.com/menu)
• custom buttons for giveaways, $40 for 50 buttons including shipping costs. 50 is the smallest quantity we can order.
• parking fees, $5/car for 4 cars = $20

Endorsements

Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

Endorsed! - Grovercleveland17

• This project will tap into the vast cultural and linguistic diversity of Honolulu and O‘ahu to enrich description of endangered and minority languages on Wikipedia. The leaders have experience with Wikipedia project and Wikiedu courses. Gholton (talk) 10:38, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Participants

• Volunteer Help to organize events and be an active participant. Chiclinguistchick (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
• Volunteer Workshop leader and wiki article contributor DanniiYarbro (talk) 22:55, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
• Volunteer I would like to use my skills and help train those around me to make information about endangered languages widely and easily available to the public via Wikipedia. Ashleigh813 (talk) 22:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
• Volunteer I participate by adding info from/about women of color that are underpresented in language related articles and edits that add linguistic subtly and accuracy to pages without making them less accessible. I like to provide context to other volunteers about wikipedia best practices. Kavonjon (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2017 (UTC)