Grants:PEG/WM EE/Start up II/Report
- Report accepted
- To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM EE/Start up II.
- 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 grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.
- Period – August 2010 – January 2012
- Amount requested – $ 6000
- Project goal – get WMEE up and running
Activities
edit- Wiki Loves Monuments (Kultuurimälestised Vikipeediasse)
- 3112 images of 1717 heritage objects (gallery). One of the images won 2nd place in overall.
- 71 participants.
- Photo exhibition was made and it will be presented in several places around Estonia.
- Blog posts: [1] [2] [3]
- wikilovesmonuments.ee
- Estonian Nature Photo Collection (Head Eesti Looduse Pildid, HELP and HELP2)
- 505 images in 2010 and 530 in 2012 (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
- Articles in magazine "Eesti Loodus" (Estonian Nature).
- Some of the participants have continued to add images after the photo collecting actions have ended.
- Almost no expenses to WMEE.
- Estonian Science Photo Competition (Teadusfoto 2011)
- 280 images (gallery: winners). 36 participants.
- Photo exhibition from the 30 best images (currently in AHHAA science center in Tartu, soon will be moved to Tallinn University of Technology).
- Lot of media attention (Tartu Postimees, Vikerraadio, Horisont, ERR Teadus, Eesti Päevaleht, Novaator, Eesti Loodus, etc.)
- Wiki page
- Estonian Nature Article Competition (Eesti looduse artiklivõistlus, ELAV)
- Quality article writing competition about biological species.
- 18 articles were submitted by 9 participants.
- Homepage, Blog post
- Wikipedia in Schools
- 15 schools around Estonia were visited. Lectures were held, but we also conducted a survey about usage and knowledge of Wikipedia among students and teachers.
- Estimated audience ~1200–1500 students (mostly 16–19 years old) + some teachers.
- Wikipedia in universities
- We had a lecture course "Wikipedia" (2 ECTS) in University of Tartu under the Institute of Journalism and Communication.
- There were 8 courses in fall semester 2011 in University of Tartu where students were asked to write a Wikipedia articles. In total this counted for 450–500 new articles in Estonian Wikipedia.
- Cooperation continues and we are looking ways to start this in other universities as well. Also, we are starting a project in cooperation with Estonian Academy of Arts to create a media campaign to promote Wikipedia.
- Digitization project
- We have bought a laptop and a scanner to start digitizing the Estonian authors whose works are no longer under copyright. Materials will be added to Estonian Wikisource (Vikitekstid).
- We are conducting discussion about cooperation with Estonian Literary Museum, University of Tartu Library and National Library of Estonia.
- Project itself started in January 2012 and will continue for a long time.
- 9th birthday of Estonian Wikipedia
- Open lectures by the academic staff of University of Tartu were held in Tartu Public Library.
- Blog post and ERR news
- Wikipedia Summer Days
- In 8th–9th July we had Wikipedia Summer Days and Wikimedia Eesti general meeting in Viinistu village with 18 participants.
- Blog posts (in Estonian) and images: [4], [5]
- Blog
- We started the WMEE blog: http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/
- Currently there are 37 posts (as of January 2012) and we are planning to add shortened English version.
- 1000+ page views in a month was first hit in November 2011. 2000+ page views in a month was reached in January 2012.
- There is also a Facebook page with 90+ followers.
- Regular meetings
- Chapter board meets almost once a week. There have been 2 general meetings.
- We tried to start an open Wikipedia meetups in Tartu Public Library (both in spring and in autumn) but ended this because of the lack of participation.
- We started participating in a quiz show at Tartu since autumn 2011 and we have had some success in it.
- Wikipedia conference
- This was moved to May 2012.
- SOPA, PIPA, ACTA
- Members of Wikimedia Eesti have taken a major part in public campaign against SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, writing explanatory articles and giving interviews on copyright problems to several news channels (major newspapers, web portals, and radio channels).
Project goal and measures of success
editProject goal
editThe goal was to make as many successful projects for that money as possible. Actually, we have done more than we thought was possible, while we have spent less than we thought was necessary.
Measures of success
editMost of our projects have fared better (or much better) than we expected. Our only failure was conducting open Wikipedia meetups in Tartu which did not include any money; it appears we did not have a strong conception neither for the target audience nor marketing channels. ELAV article competition also performed a bit worse than expected, which is mostly due to the high expectations for the articles - although some results were quite good. During "Wikipedia in Schools" project we originally hoped to visit 40 schools, yet unfortunately we fell short of people and time. Still, we gained valuable information through the questionnaire.
On the other hand, we have started several unexpected projects and more are still in development, as WMEE has been contacted by several other institutions willing to start a partnership: Estonian Association for History and Philosophy of Science, Estonian Association of Museums, etc. The first one of those has a particular interest for us, as we were offered to wikify the whole "Biographical Lexicon of Estonian Science"; we hope that it will lead to other similar donations and a general improvement in policies for state-funded publications. We have also been active ourselves, initiating many contacts in public and third sector, leading to Wikipedian trainings, photo donations, and changes in license policies.
Wikimedia Eesti has established very good relations with media. Main Wikipedian activities have been covered extensively by all major news channels, and the public attitude towards Wikipedia is notably supportive. We have had no problems with getting our message through, and we have been approached many times to add a Wikipedian POV to cultural debates. All in all, Estonian Wikipedia is a very strong brand in Estonia.
In our grant request we wrote: "we will consider this start up a success if many projects are carried out and the chapter becomes well known, good working and financially supported". Indeed, many projects have been carried out. Our chapter has become not only well known, but also well-covered by national media. As we now have some experience with running NGO and we have found our way to put this to function well, it seems to be "good working". The hardest part is "financially supported", as Estonia is not a very rich country and our tax system does not really support donations to non-profits (our third sector depends heavily on European Union). Still, we believe we are becoming quite good in getting the "bang for the buck", so the funds we receive by WMF grants has been and will continue to be used well. Indeed, some of our public outreach activities have received support by sponsors, and we are working towards maintaining those sponsor relations and developing new ones to raise local participation in our financial health.
Background info: Estonia has a population of 1.34 million. This means our most precious and scarce resource is people: Estonian Wikipedia has less than 30 active Wikipedians (making more than 30 edits a month) and Võro Wikipedia has only 2 active Wikipedians. Our chapter has currently 26 members, and 3 Wikipedians have shown interest to join (not all of our members are Wikipedians though). By the end of 2012 there will be more than 30 members in WMEE. By the beginning of 2012 we had ca 92 000 articles in Estonian Wikipedia.
Lessons learned
editWhat lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects?
We have tried many different projects and even more will be put to the test in 2012. We are showing what can be done with the minimal resources (we used less than € 3000 in 2010-2011 and almost all of the work was done by 4 persons – usually with only 1 person per project). So now we are also planning a massive recruitment project as we have too many great ideas and too little people to do the job.
We are planning some cooperation projects with other chapters and thinking how to export our ideas but this will be the work for the year 2012.
Our experience has shown that a thorough planning is useful for Wikipedian projects, while it is also important to avoid getting stuck in development hell. We believe we have learnt to maintain that balance.
Also, as our main (and constant) problem is the lack of people, it seems to be useful to use professionals for some supportive functions (e.g. bookkeeping) so we could use our volunteers for the best results.
What impact did the project have on WMF mission goals of Increased Reach, Increased Quality, Increased Credibility, Increased and Diversified Participation?
The number of users who have contributed during last 30 days to Estonian Wikipedia has nearly doubled (from 300-400 to 600-700, mostly thanks to university projects). We used to have the growth rate of 11 000 articles a year but this rate has started to increase and it definitely will do so in 2012.
Many people now know that WMEE exists. We have developed a good representation of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Eesti on national media. For example, most recently there has been a lot of attention due to our court case against Estonian Tax and Custom Board (because of their strange definition charity work we were denied tax-exemption) and in relation to the SOPA/ACTA themes (we have written several articles to national media and talked in radio about the topic).
Photo competitions have brought 4500+ new images to Commons and some of them have been featured as well. We have started cooperation with Estonian Institute to facilitate a major photo donation from their image bank into Commons during the first half of 2012.
About 500 new articles have been created thanks to the various projects. Now we also have a collaboration that will lead to ~6000 new articles in Estonian Wikipedia (the content of "Biographical Lexicon of Estonian Science": in total there are 8000 articles) during the first half of 2012.
Reporting and documentation of expenditures
editDocumentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.
Details of expenditures:
Note: Currency conversion was made at the exchange rate of January 1th, 2011 (when Estonia joined the Eurozone). 1 € = 1,3748 $ (6000 $ → 4364,28 €)
Budget breakdown (€) Requested Used Difference Wiki Loves Monuments** 1163.81 508 +655.81 Estonian Science Photo of the Year 116.38 -25.08 +141.46 HELP 2 72.74 5.60 +67.14 Wikipedia conference* 363.69 0* +363.69 Wikipedia in Schools 189.12 179.02 +10.10 Transportation 320.05 285.32 +34.73 ELAV article competition 320.05 207.09 +112.96 All other projects*** 581.90 899.5 -317.6 Promotional materials 581.9 489.52 +92.38 Legal fees 72.74 14.5 +58.24 Administrative costs and other expenses**** 581.90 441.5 +140.4 Total 4364.28
(100%)3004.97
(68.85%)+1359.31
(31.15%)
We are requesting re-allocation of remaining grant funding to Grants:WM EE/2012. This money could then be used for the Wikipedia conference that was moved to 2012.
Additional info
editAt first this grant proposal looked like this but as we made very many changes in it, a new grant proposal was made where we specified how this $6000 will be spent (so the "Start up" and current "Start up II" grants are basically the same).
- Detail of expenditures
| Wiki Loves Monuments** | Used |
|---|---|
| Prizes | 24.56 |
| Publicity | 156 |
| Transportation | 78.56 |
| Rooms for prize ceremony | 35.60 |
| Exhibition | 197 |
| Other | 16.28 |
| Total | 508 € |
All prizes were covered by sponsors (companies + a municipality) and by partner organization - National Heritage Board, participation in the European meeting was covered by Wikimedia Polska. WLM T-shirts and European calendars were covered by European chapters. Some expenditures on shipping exhibition photos will be made in 2012.
| All other projects*** | Used |
|---|---|
| Participation in events | 60 |
| 9th birthday of Estonian Wikipedia | 58.60 |
| Wikipedia Summer Days | 35 |
| Digitization project | 745.9 |
| Total | 899.5 € |
| Administrative costs and other expenses**** |
Used |
|---|---|
| Other events | 85.20 |
| Postal fees | 32.10 |
| Training | 32.80 |
| Project CD | 10 |
| Banking fees | 11.40 |
| Board members' compensation + taxes | 270 |
| Total | 441.50 € |