Grants:Project/Rapid/SuperHamster/Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in the United States/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 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/SuperHamster/Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in the United States.
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?

While we did not meet our numerical target outcomes, I am very happy with how the project went given that we fulfilled the overarching goal of having a successful Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States. We had the most participants of any nation this year, and once again had a high-proportion of first time participants. Compared to 2016, I am also happy with our organization of the judging experience this year. With this being the second year of organizing, we had a better idea of what to communicate to the jury in terms of instructions, image criteria, etc. We (the organizers) also did a pre-jury filtering, where we removed images that would not perform well in the judging (low resolution, plane images of signs, overly edited photos, etc.). This greatly reduced the number of images left for the jury to judge, allowing them more time to judge fewer images. Finally, the Montage tool used for judging had been improved by its developers, making it even more efficient and useful for jury members to use.

There is still room to improve in terms of improving the monument discovery experience, upload experience, and streamlining judgement, which is detailed more below.

Outcome

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
2,000 participants	1,419 participants	In 2016, Wiki Loves Monuments in the US has 1,768 uploaders, barely beating out India for the highest number of participants of any country. For 2017 we hoped to push this up to 2,000; unfortunately 2017 saw fewer participants than 2016. However, the United States still saw the highest number of participants of any country, which was great to see.
13,000 photo uploads	8,092	In 2016, Wiki Loves Monuments in the US has ~11,300 photo uploads. We hoped to beat that this year, but unfortunately did not. A few possible reasons: Lower participant count than last year. Last year was the first time in several years the U.S. participated in Wiki Loves Monuments, which could mean that several participants uploaded a backlog of photos they've had from the previous years. In 2016, 12 people contributed more than 100 photos; in 2017, 5 contributed more than 100. In general, 2016 saw more high-volume uploaders than 2017 did, perhaps due in-part to the previous bullet point.
1,500 photos used on Wikimedia wikis	1,265	While we did not meet the goal, we were still impressed with the number, especially given that we did not meet our original upload goal. 1,265 photos being used on Wikimedia projects represents ~15% of all uploads.

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 had a great number of participants (most of all countries!), many of which were first-time participants.
We had a decent number of images uploaded (13,000+), and a good proportion added to Wikipedia articles and other Wikimedia projects (15%).
Judging went rather smoothly - most importantly, better than last year, since we had a better idea of how to handle judging and implementing a pre-judging filtering system.

What did not work so well?

Depending on location, some people had trouble finding local- and state- designated historical sites.
We received some complaints about the prizes being too low in value.
There's always room to improve in judging, in both making the judging process easier, as well as ensuring judges have a good understanding of the criteria.

What would you do differently next time?

Provide a better upload and tagging experience; given that people are allowed to upload photos of local- and state-designated historical sites, there was sometimes confusion by participants when it came to providing identifiers. This may involve creating new Commons Upload Wizard campaigns, as well as creating new Wikipedia lists of state-designated historical sites to make the identifier look-up process easier.
Provide better ways for people to find local- and state-designated sites. This will likely involve adding location coordinates to Wikidata, what can then be used on Wiki Loves Monuments maps.
Clearer explanation of what consists of an educational image (e.g. no selfies, portraits, etc.).
Do more outreach to external organizations, such as local and state historical societies. The goal is to WLM on their social media, press pages, mailing lists, etc.
Increase the prize values. We received a few complains, especially from professional photographers, that the prize money was too small. Given how many participants and uploads we receive, and compared to other national competitions, it may make sense to raise the prize values.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

Item	Budgeted	Spent	Notes
1st Prize	$200	$200
2nd Prize	$125	$125
3rd Prize	$75	$75
Facebook advertising	$30	$25
Twitter advertising	$20	$18
Certificate printing	$10	$13.05	10 certificates on high-quality paper sent to top-ten placers.
Custom organizer shirt	$40	$48.90	Single shirt ordered ASAP for Niki for in-person outreach events and photo walks in San Francisco
Custom shirts for judges and winners	$290	$318.75	35 custom shirts (~$8/each) from Blue Cotton, which will go to our jury (estimated up to 25) and top-ten winners after the end of the contest. T-shirts provide a nice incentive and thank-you for our jury and winners. T-shirts will be made to order, so we won't be ordering any more than we need.
Postage	$115	$101.80	Estimated $3 per shirt + $1 per certificate
	Total:	$925.50

Receipts have been shared with the Foundation through Google Drive.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No remaining funds.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

As always, we are appreciative of the Foundation's support of Wiki Loves Monuments, and Niki and I are happy to be including United States in the international competition for a second consecutive year. We look forward to improving the competition yet again in 2019!