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Grants:Project/Rapid/SuperHamster/Wikipedia Asian Month 2018

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statusFunded
SuperHamster/Wikipedia Asian Month 2018
Wikipedia Asian Month 2018 is a global month-long edit-a-thon in November. This grant will fund resources to sustain and expand the event.
targetMultiple language versions of Wikipedia
start dateNovember 1 January 10
end dateApril 1
budget (USD)2,000
grant typean individual
grantee• SuperHamster
contact(s)• kevinpayravi(_AT_)gmail.com


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Wikipedia Asian Month (WAM) is an annual online editing event occurring every November, all month long, since 2015. The edit-a-thon asks participants to create and/or improve articles on Asian topics, and currently has over 50 language-versions of Wikipedia participating. Wikimedians from all around the world (as well as multiple affiliates in Asia and beyond) help organize the event on both the international and local levels. At the end of the event, certificates and hundreds of custom WAM postcards are sent to top contributors to recognize their efforts.

Ultimately, the event helps improve Wikipedia's coverage of Asian topics, which is lacking on several language versions of Wikipedia. The event also encourages participants to learn more about Asian topics, particularly ones they may not be familiar with; the event mostly requires participants to write on topics from countries other than their own. Finally, the event helps bring communities together, with multiple affiliates coming together to help organize the event.

In the past three years (2015, 2016 and 2017), over 20,000 quality articles have been created in more than 50 language editions of Wikipedia. The event continues to grow with more language editions of Wikipedia participating, and more organizers getting involved. Recently, in September of 2018, the Wikipedia Asian Month User Group was approved as an official affiliate to represent the Wikipedia Asian Month community.

Last year's grant funded materials and resources that helped make the event possible. We would like to request resources again to cover our printing and shipping costs for the post-event recognitions, as well as a lump-sum stipend to provide to our top international organizers. These funds will go towards sustaining and continuing to expand Wikipedia Asia Month, which continues to result in high levels of participation and valuable content creation.

Project Goal

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Successfully repeat and improve Wikipedia Asian Month for 2018, with the following key goals:

  • Have at least 50 Wikipedia projects involved and engaged with Wikipedia Asian Month.
  • Have more than 800 Wikipedians participate by contributing articles (last year involved 673 Wikipedians).
  • Have participants create more than 7,000 qualifying articles (last year resulted in ~7,500).
    • Each Wikipedia projects have requirements for articles to ensure decent quality (e.g. English Wikipedia requires 3,000 bytes and at least 300 words).
  • Facilitate the organization of offline edit-thons in at least 10 locations around the world.

Project Plan

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Activities

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

Wikipedia Asian Month is a month-long online edit-a-thon. Individual offsite edit-a-thons are also being organized, also supported by this grant.

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.

Wikipedia Asian Month has many avenues to inform the community about the event:
  • Central Notice for logged-in users on dozens of language-versions of Wikipedia
  • Mailing lists
  • Facebook and Twitter
  • Affiliates outreaching to their own communities

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

Yes - we have a core team of international organizers facilitating the event on a global scale; their responsibilities include outreach, supporting editors, ensuring each language-edition of WAM has the support it needs, and delegating tasks to affiliates (such as postcard production).

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

This event primarily reaches existing editors who have experience producing quality content. As it is an online edit-a-thon, Wikipedia's own documentation is at editors' disposal.

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

As we have done in the past, we continuously engage our participants through mass-messages on-wiki, as well as through our social media accounts and local affiliates. Engagements include informing participants of results of the event, inviting them to participant in future years, and inviting them to help organize WAM on their own wiki.

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

We're thrilled to be running Wikipedia Asian Month for its fourth-consecutive year, and to be able to host an event that attracts hundreds of excited editors who wish to improve content related to Asia. It's great to see over 50 versions of Wikipedia participate in this event, and to bring everyone together under one umbrella with a shared goal. As always, we appreciate the Foundation's support of this event.

Impact

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  1. Number of events: 10 offline events
  2. Number of participants: 800
  3. Number of of articles created or improved: 7,000 article creations
  4. Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events): At least 50%

Resources

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Postcards from WAM 2015, sent all around the world.
  • Resources requested:
We require funds for our certificates (for top content producers, postcards, shipping, and bank transfer costs (when sending money around the world to reimburse organizer expenses).
As we did last year, we would like to provide a total of $1,300 in subsidy for our top international organizers - several of our organizers devote hundreds of hours into the event in a tight time span, and the subsidy helps ensure
  • Certificate printing: $30
  • Postcard printing: $70
  • General shipping and mailing costs: $400
  • Funding for local edit-a-thons: $250
    • This can include office supplies, signage, food, and travel
  • Bank transfer fees for reimbursement: $150
  • Subsidy to volunteers serving on the international team: $1,100
Total: $2,000

Endorsements

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Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

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