Grants:Project/Rapid/San Francisco Art Institute Art and Feminism 2017 Editathon
gmail.com• kmorgan@sfai.edu
Please see the sample Editathon/Training application before drafting your application.
Project Goal
editChoose one or more of the following goals. You can add or delete goals as needed.
- Recruit new editors
- Add or improve content
Project Plan
editActivities
edit1. Are you doing one editathon or training or a series of editathons or trainings?
We are hosting a series of short how-to-edit workshops (March 12-14) as well as a large edit-a-thon (March 25), all of which will take place inside the installation A Living Thing by Mel Ziegler in the Walter and McBean Galleries at the San Francisco Art Institute.
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.
We are using our local mailing list to find experienced editors to volunteer at the editathons, have requested a geonotice invitation to the event, and have given in lightning talk and hosted a mini-A+F-intro editathon at the local Bay Area Wiki Salon to invite volunteers and attendees. We made a meetup page and event on Dashboard, a Facebook event, and an event page on the SFAI website, and will include it in numerous SFAI newsletters this month. We are also hosting a series of 3 short introductory workshops at SFAI on March 12-14 to help build interest among the SFAI community. We are also teaming up with student groups, faculty, and staff on campus to help spread the word and develop lists and references for articles needing improvement in advance of the event.
3. Do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?
On our team we have one experienced editor, Niki Korth (Nikikana), who led the introductory workshops leading up to the main 3/25 editathon. We have also recruited Britta Gustafson (Dreamyshade), long-time Wikipedian and experienced editing-trainer to give an introductory talk and training at the main editathon, and be available throughout the day. We also have an experienced Wikimedian programmer, Mahmoud Hashemi (MahmoudHashemi) joining the main editathon who will help inform attendees about tools on Wikipedia for assessing article impact and guiding editing decisions.
4. Do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?
We will have some laptops available but are otherwise directing people to bring their own. The gallery is nearby the library and our librarian will be pulling reference material in advance, a list of which we will provide on the meetup page, and will also be available to consult individually with attendees with any research question or to pull reference material from the archive or special collections, the information from which will then be added to Wikipedia, as appropriate. As mentioned above, we will have experienced editors at the event to help newcomers get acclimated and contribute high quality content.
We are also working with the group CODE (Committee on Diversity and Equity) at SFAI to build a list of articles needing improvement or creation relating to gender, identity, diversity, and discourse in contemporary art, especially in the Bay Area community.
5. How will you engage participants after the event(s)?
At the editathon, we will invite interested attendees to sign up for a mailing list which we will use to follow up after the event, reporting results and invite them to future editathons at SFAI which we plan to organize.
If approved for funding, we would also like to work with CODE and the SFAI community to develop a series of 3-5 informative, freely-licensed posters informed by Art + Feminism which aim to do the following: 1.) address/list the gender gap-related articles still in need of improvement or creation that are of particular relevance to the Bay Area cultural community; 2.) recruit and inform new editors through the lens of Art + Feminism; and 3.) share knowledge about Wikipedia and contemporary art that serve to make both more accessible (and intriguing) to those not-yet-familiar. Through an open call to the SFAI community, we would solicit poster designs and work through consensus with CODE to select the winning 3-5 designs. We would produce 125 total posters with these designs, and canvas them in strategic locations around the Bay Area. This poster campaign would serve to bring the Wikipedia Art + Feminism conversation offline and into the streets and other public spaces, and to the attention of people otherwise unlikely to encounter it. The poster would contain a QR code with a link to the digital version of the poster on Wikimedia Commons, the description of which would contain further information on the project. The poster would also contain suggested sharing/tagging instructions, with a hashtag to use for sharing images of encounters with the posters on social media, and also to use in edit summaries for edits inspired by the poster. This use of the hashtag will allow us to track impact of the posters both on and off Wikipedia, and collect user-generated digital ephemera depicting local encounters with Wikipedia in public space, away from the screen.
The posters would be placed in a variety of locations around the Bay Area including: outdoor/indoor public bulletin boards, libraries, book stores, art galleries and museums, schools and universities, coffee shops, and community centers. We would also connect with local, interested, non-profits in education and technology to give them sets of posters to put up in their common areas. The 125 posters would be distributed in such spaces throughout the Bay Area in these approximate quantities: 40 in San Francisco, 30 in Oakland, 30 in Berkeley, 25 in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Jose). The specific sites will be determined through discussion and brainstorming with CODE, informed also by recommendations from both the local Wikimedia community and the SFAI community.
6. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?
We realize that the request for funding for a poster that would be produced after the editathon is unusual and may impact the eligibility of this request, in which case we ask that the other elements of our funding request be considered. That said, we want to emphasize that the collaborative creation of this poster would serve an important purpose in keeping participants engaged following the event, and would service offline impact for the Wikimedia movement in a new and highly-accessible manner.
Impact
editHow will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets:
- Number of events: 4
- Number of participants: 60
- Number of new editors: 45
- Number of of articles created or improved: 75
- Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events): 15
Resources
editWhat 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).
We have three experienced Wikimedians who will attend the main editathon on 3/25 (two of whom will also give training/inspirational presentations), one experienced Wikimedian who will attend all the events and facilitate the introductory workshops on 3/12-14, one curator/event planner, one Archivist/Librarian who will pull reference material in advance of the 3/25 event and provide individual and group consultation on the day-of, and on-campus group of students, faculty, and staff of which at least 7 will attend the 3/25 event and help shape suggested articles lists. Additional SFAI staff Library, Exhibitions, and Student/Academic Affairs staff will help us with resources and are providing the venue for free.
We have $100 for snacks/refreshments from Art + Feminism via Wikimedia DC (which will go toward refreshments for the three warm-up workshops on 3/12-14), and a small budget from the SFAI Exhibitions department for refreshments for the main 3/25 event.
What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.
- Food and drink = ($450 for 3/25 event) + (refreshments for 2 poster planning and editing workshopts: $100 x 2 = $200) = $650
- Miscellaneous supplies (name tags, printing lists and welcome packets, cheatsheets, etc.) = $200
- Wikipedia T-shirts for exemplary volunteers and top editors at the 3/25 event = 12 x $25 = $300
- WMF Swag Collection 2: Plath = $72.10
- Poster production and distribution (125 posters) = $300 printing + $150 for transportation to distribute and put posters up = $450
Total = $1,672.10 USD
Endorsements
editCommunity members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!
- It's great to see more editing events in the bay area arts scene. SFAI has been proactive about preparing for & organizing this event and I'm confident it's a worthwhile use of Wikimedia resources. Phette23 (talk) 19:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
- Niki's an experienced Wikimedian who has gone to great lengths to make this a great event, including securing a great space, holding advance workshops, and convincing other experienced Wikipedians, like myself, to attend. A small grant to cover a few costs seems very reasonable. --MahmoudHashemi (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
- I'm excited Niki is using the resources of SFAI to connect students and community members with Wikipedia editing! I haven't heard of a poster campaign like this before, especially not in San Francisco, and I'm very curious to see it happen and what the impact might be. I also support having a budget for snacks/drinks, since that definitely makes editing events more pleasant and welcoming. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)