Grants:Project/Rapid/pperdiga/Youth in IG WikiContest/Report
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Goals
editDid you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?
We (Youth SIG/Observatory) were quite happy with the result and that everything went smoothly, especially since we had little experience with organizing such an event before (and even then it wasn't a Contest), and we didn't want to bother our partners who already worked with WMF by asking too many questions.
We have achieved our goals of adding several new elements on Internet governance pages in English and Portuguese, but we have not been successful in Spanish and French, despite having a substantial amount of applications in these two languages.
On the other hand, our main goal was to engage new members of Internet Governance organizations with the Wiki community, and although we had success with a few newcomers, in this Wikicontest did not meet our expectations. The learning curve proved to be much higher than we imagined for most people, and an online event without constant follow-up (mostly due to lack of enough knowledgeable personnel inside the Youth SIG board) did not encourage newcomers to start actually editing, despite having signed up for the competition and watched the introductory webinar.
Outcome
editPlease report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.
| Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
| 50-70 participants expected | Partially achieved | We had 67 applications but just 39 editors in the dashboard, with 12 active ones. We estimate that around 25 of these editors in the dashboard (~7 of the active ones) are newcomers. See explanation on the section "Learning".
Redacted list of participants, with wiki usernames but without any other personal data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IAMK1IrmnnOasGF-NYYk3AZoM-8GUOPPF04aC5NwwxY/edit?usp=sharing |
| At least 300 articles created or improved | Achieved | The dashboard indicates 1.05k articles edited or improved. Most of the meaningful edits are en.Wikipedia and Wikidata pages. We expected a better balance between languages, though - see comments below. |
| Add or improve content in Wikipedia and Wikidata (general) | Achieved (Target changed from the original plan) | A Portuguese experienced wikimedian told us a few days before the start of the event that Wiktionary and Wikibooks were not good platforms for newcomers to work on, and Wikidata would be easier and more useful, so we changed it right before the Contest began. |
| Add or improve content in Wikipedia and Wikidata - Portuguese | Achieved | We had meaningful contributions in pt.wikipedia and in Portuguese sections of wikidata pages. |
| Recruit new editors in Wikipedia and Wikidata - Portuguese | Achieved | We had at least two participants who were very active and newcomers. |
| Add or improve content in Wikipedia and Wikidata - English | Achieved | We had meaningful contributions in en.wikipedia and in English sections of wikidata pages. |
| Recruit new editors in Wikipedia and Wikidata - English | Achieved | We had at least one participant who was very active and a newcomer, and at least one other with meaningful contributions. |
| Add or improve content in Wikipedia and Wikidata - Spanish | Partially achieved | We had quite a few edits in es.wikipedia and Spanish sections of wikidata, but mostly unrelated to Internet Governance. |
| Recruit new editors in Wikipedia and Wikidata - Spanish | Partially achieved | We had at least one active editor who was a newcomer, but she made edits unrelated to Internet Governance. |
| Add or improve content in Wikipedia and Wikidata - French | Not achieved | We had some edits in french sections of Wikidata, but almost nothing on fr.wikipedia. |
| Recruit new editors in Wikipedia and Wikidata - French | Not achieved | Some french newcomers applied to the Wikicontest, but none of them were active. |
Learning
editProjects 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? What did not work so well? What would you do differently next time?
We initially reached the expected applications, but in an unbalanced way. Many entries from Africa (choosing to participate in English), a significant portion from Latin America but few from elsewhere. There was an initial predominance of Portuguese and English entries, but after the help of people from the Latin Wiki community, a large number of Spanish speakers signed up.
In general, the biggest problems we faced in the Wikicontest were: (i) a lack of manpower to organize the event in different languages (a few of the Youth Observatory board members who would help could not, after the Contest began, for personal reasons); (ii) and difficulties in learning and engagement with people who applied, who were mainly from Africa and Latin America. Several of the participants didn't even understand how to enroll in the Dashboard, even after we provided the link and explained it step-by-step. The introductory webinar, done with the help of Alex Stinson and Melissa Guadalupe Huertas (big thanks to them, by the way) was extremely didactic, and yet the barrier continued. Maybe because we delivered it only in English, since there were not many people that requested it in other languages.
It would definitely be better to prepare the introductory video and learning material beforehand, and then run the event almost mechanically, only sending texts and videos that were already ready.
In conclusion, we think that it was not helpful to leave the scope of participation too wide as we did - it is better to focus on just one or two languages at a time and already have a list of articles ready to be created, translated, or improved. In our idea, this openness would stimulate participation, but in reality, the opposite has happened, and we realized that the pages we provided as an example were related to most of the edits that were made afterward. Not only that, but the amount of work to translate each message into four languages made it all the more exhausting for the small team of volunteers who actually helped to organize Wikicontest (four people).
Finances
editGrant funds spent
editPlease describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on. We spent EUR 319.60 (three hundred and nineteen euros and sixty cents), converted in dollars or local coins. All of the money was spent on prizes:
(i) Winners of the English track/language (each of them received + U$10.00 as a consolation prize for being the track with most contributions, but not having the overall winner):
- DaSupremo – U$80.00 gift card - Ghanaprovisions gift card
- NanaYawBotar – U$50.00 gift card - Ghanaprovisions gift card
- TemiTaiwo – U$30.00 gift card - Amazon gift card
(ii) Winners of the Portuguese track/language:
- Gotsoua (overall winner) – U$100.00 - We paid for selected items directly from Amazon.br store, since this national site was not providing gift cards.
- Elizmarinab – U$70.00 - We paid for selected items directly from Amazon.br store, since this national site was not providing gift cards.
(iii) Consolation prizes receivers (U$10.00 each)
- Madamebiblio (ES) - Amazon.us gift card
- Yamila Maribel (ES) - Amazon.us gift card
- Parzeus (PT) - Steam gift card
Remaining funds
editDo you have any remaining grant funds?
Yes. EUR 204.01 (two hundred and four euros and one cent)
We would like to try a new project following the same pattern as the Wikicontest Youth in IG, but with the changes and learning we mentioned above, such as selecting articles to be edited beforehand and focusing on just one language (Spanish) - for Latin American engagement in the Youth LACIGF 2021 we (the Youth Observatory) are already organizing right now.
This money would be used only for prizes, since we already have the online structure and improved our know-how to develop this new phase. The Contest would start in August, after we finish the Youth LACIGF 2021 Open Course. We would try to engage those newcomers to the Internet Governance ecosystem that finished the course successfully and thus and have already demonstrated interest and proactivity, stimulating them to learn how to edit in the Wiki community.
Anything else
editAnything else you want to share about your project?
We learned a lot from Wikicontest and, above all, we were very happy with the openness we had from the wikimedians who helped us during the whole process. I would specifically like to thank the enormous help of Mehrdad Pourzaki and Giovanna Fontenelle, as well as the direct support of Melissa Guadalupe Huertas and Alex Stinson. Luisina Ferrante and Anna Torres from the Spanish-speaking Latin American community and Paulo Darwin from the Portuguese community were also of great help.
Therefore, we were very interested in creating closer ties with the Wiki community, including projects without any resources. We are open to help with dissemination, with volunteers, and with other kinds of useful participation in WMF-related projects.
All wiki community members with projects that are somehow related to Internet Governance, feel free to contact us (Youth SIG/Observatory) with any ideas you may have that we can be of assistance with. We do not have much time left to plan new projects this year - personally, my term on the board ends in a few months, but I will remain a member of the Youth SIG and encourage the next board to reinforce this relation - but we would be excited to support or help other existing ones.