Grants:Project/Rapid/Lori Brown/Third Annual WikiD meetup/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/Lori Brown/Third Annual WikiD meetup.
• 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?

We did meet our goals and are happy with the outcome. We recruited several new editors, we increased skills of existing editors and we added and improved content. The tutelage by the wikipedians was extremely useful in teaching and trouble shooting as new writers created entries. There was also shared skill building by all participants.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
up to 30 participants	12 participants	I am satisfied with the turn out for this event. It is on average with the other events we have held over the past 3 years. (We are always hoping for greater participant turnout, regardless.) The architecture community is one that is difficult to engage in larger numbers. From our experience, it remains an ongoing and continued effort that slowly improves participant and editing outcomes for the discipline of architecture.
20-24 new editors	approximately 8 new editors	Two-thirds of the participants were new to wikipedia. This is a larger proportion of new to existing editors than we have typically experienced. I think this is a great turnout for teaching new women to become writers for wikipedia. I am quite happy with this outcome.
we hoped to create 15 new articles and improve content for another 10.	3 new articles created; 25 articles edited; a total of 192 edits made over a 2.5 hour period (once people actually sat down and began to write).	Although we did not meet the 15 new articles I had initially targeted, which i think was overly ambitious within our 2.5 hour work time, there was significant work produced and we more than doubled our content improvement for existing entries. This has added 4.25K words and 219K article views. Overall, our workshop was quite successful.

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?

We continue to have success with structuring the workshops with a brief introduction by me explaining why we need the #wikiD project and why we are invested in this project followed by a brief how-to-edit by a local wikipedian. The most important part of all workshops is learning through doing. We have also found an invaluable resource is to have several seasoned wikipedians available to trouble shoot. People begin to feel comfortable trying to write or edit an entry because they can easily receive help when questions arise. Their first success will encourage people to continue to write and participate again.

• What did not work so well?

I do not think there is anything that did not work. However, we have found the workshop time frame of 5-8pm is always a tricky issue. Due to the late hours architects work, it is often difficult to garner a large group (+/- 30) to participate at one event. Architects are also rather stingy about their weekends (whether they are working or not) so the weekend time slot has not proven to attract near as many people.

• What would you do differently next time?

Next year, I would like to add a second session that collaborates with a school of architecture's history course. A year ago I did this and it was quite successful. A goal is for that to become an annual event, in addition to the Center for Architecture workshop, with the hopes that one history class in each architecture program will eventually commit to participating.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

Overall, we spent $882.30.

space rental + av tech: $475

my travel: $217.40

food: $189.90

Remaining funds

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of US$442.70.

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

We do, $442.70.

Both the child care services and the transportation support was not requested by participants. I hope in future workshops to be able to more specifically engage these communities.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

I want to thank the Wikimedia Foundation for these rapid grants. They are so helpful in supporting our efforts. We are most often unable to find free space in NYC so this sort of grant allows us to keep going with our #wikiD efforts. Thank you!