Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Österreich/Proposal form

Thank you for your application

Hello, WMAT team! Thank you for submitting your complete application on time. We look forward to reviewing it in the coming weeks, and will contact you if we have questions or need more information. We saw how you completed the tables for the two year format, and we think that makes sense. The proposal form is not designed for a two year application, so I think that interpreting this form for two years will be a learning experience for all of us ;)

If any questions or concerns arise on your end, please do let us know so we can help. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 11:20, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Winifred! We made some last minute changes in order to be as similar as possible to the Swedish 2-year proposal and to make comparison as easy as possible. Happy Sunday --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 18:38, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Important notice: Two year funding

Wikimedia Österreich is applying for a two year funding period, within the frame of the Multi-year funding pilot. Do not hesitate to ask any question you might have about this pilot here or at fdcsupportwikimedia.org. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Questions from non-FDC members

Hello WMAT! Thank you for this lovely proposal. In particular, thank you for the very clear and helpful presentation. I have a few questions...

1. Quality metric. I am pleased to see quality indicators in use! Also I am impressed by the amount of quality media that you have had in the last 2 years! Does this include any media that has a quality indicator on any project - e.g. both Commons and de.wp? Do you know what the total number of quality media files is on these projects? Also, did you consider including quality articles rather than quality media files?

   Thanks for taking the time to review our proposal Chris - it's very much appreciated! For the total numbers of decorations by projects/type of decoration please see the tables „Decorations for media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich“ in Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Progress report form#Free Content and Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Impact report form#Free Content Generation. Concerning articles: Yes, we did and do consider article quality too. However, the process leading to decorated articles in DE:WP is long and complex, nothing that can be influenced in a meaningful way by chapter work and hence hard to plan or predict. We will keep documenting it where it makes sense (i.e. in the content improved metric for writing competitions or the like supported by WMAT), but we stopped setting goals for it, as it is more guesstimating than anything else. As mentioned in our elephants of program 2 though, we will follow initiatives of other affiliates (WMIL) which try to come up with alternative ways to measure text quality and might incorporate metrics based on this in future.

2. Diversity metrics. This is also a good thing to be measuring, but it can be difficult to track effectively. What tools do you use to measure diversity - for instance do you ask each individual their gender, sexuality, ethnicity while taking part in an activity, or do you do this some other way?

   For most of our offline activities we will only track the gender ratio (based on manual counting at smaller events and participant surveys for larger events). The rest of the number will come from targeted projects that are designed to adress certain minorities (e.g. edit-a-thons for refugees or the like). Of course this will never be 100% accurate or complete (nobody should ever be forced to disclose information they don't want to), but we think even with these restrictions it will still be a valuable indicator for our work.

3. Photography equipment - I only mention this because you've highlighted it as an "elephant". Do you know what proportion of your media uploads are taking with WMAT equipment (vs volunteers' own equipment, or as part of content partnerships?)

   No we don't, as the indicator for this metric is the Commons Category "Supported by Wikimedia Österreich" which is also applied to other means of support such as travel support, help with accreditations, or post processing software sponsorships. In most cases it would also be a mix of the volunteers own equipment (e.g. camera body) and WMAT equipment (e.g. special lenses). What we do track and what we think is also more meaningful is the utilization rate - is the equipment borrowed regularly by a growing number of people? Both is the case for most of our equipment.

4. Programme 2 Versatile content metric. This sounds sensible, can I just check that I understand it correctly: This is measured as - (Number of occasions WMAT media files are used in articles) / (Total number of WMAT media files).

   The formula is: “number of distinct medias files supported by WMAT and used in main namespace of Wikimedia projects“ x 2 = „number of total usages of medias files supported by WMAT in main namespace of Wikimedia projects“. In other words: each file which is used should be used at least two times on average.

Many thanks in advance, Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 20:46, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Welcome! :-) --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 09:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Claudia for the thorough answers! Just one followup question for completeness - what is the utilisation rate of the photography equipment? :) Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 10:56, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, our readily available data is very detailed and not anonymized, we are working on a distilled high level number and will get back to you asap. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 17:29, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, our overall average utilisation rate is 47% (of days in the period of 2014-2016). However, broken down to the individual pieces of equipment the utilisation range is quite broad, from 20-30% for more specialized lenses up to almost a 100% for some camera bodies and multi-purpose lenses. New acquisitions are usually considered for equipment with high demand, or specialized equipment in case there are two or more feasible projects planned by the community (e.g. recently macro photography). Our planning also takes into account the needs in the wider German-speaking community (we lend across the DACH communities) and available equipment in other DACH chapters. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 10:45, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Claudia. No further questions from me (for now at least :) ) - generally this bid looks very strong and I hope the FDC support it. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 20:18, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Questions from RightCowLeftCoast

Why this amount? What is the minimum amount that the grant submitter believes is needed to accomplish these goals? Can the grant submitter accomplish the goals stated in your proposal, without funding? If the grant submitter can't, why not? If the grant submitters grant request is not approved, what alternative sources of funding are you seeking? If only one grant is approved during this round of grant approvals, why should this grant be approved rather than all the other grant proposals--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:13, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

We asked for the money we need to accomplish the goals described in our proposal without cushioning, any major cuts will result in the need to adapt the goals accordingly or tapping our reserves. Concerning alternative sources of funding, please compare what is outlined in this regard in our proposal. As for your last question: As this is not some reality TV show such as "X country got talent" or "X country's next Topmodel", there is no winner takes all scenario in which only one affiliate gets funding and the others don't - so with all due respect I regard answering this question a futile effort. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 10:27, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi RightCowLeftCoast, thanks for engaging with this process - however I suspect almost all the chapters seeking grants will give a similar answer to Claudia's. All of them have submitted requests that they believe are the amount necessary to deliver the programme they've described. They also describe any other income sources they have in the bid (in section 5). Of course, that isn't to say that everything in an APG request is always a good idea, or good value for money - but identifying potential issues with grant bids requires a more detailed look at the bid and at previous years' performance. Thanks, Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 20:11, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Questions from FDC members

From Liam

• The "WikiDaham" project is referred to several times as a core activity of the organisation, but I can't really see what it is beyond the description of "a new integrated project around Austria's heritage". I see that it is designed by integrating lessons-learned from WM-Fr's summer of regions and WM-PL's WikiTravel activities, and that it is to integrate photography and editing into a combined activity/competition, but can you say what the activity specifically is? Wittylama (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your question Liam. The details/exact scope of the project are still work in progress, as we want to involve our broader community in the design - in fact, there is a planning meeting going on tonight ;-) I will ask the project manager Philip Kopetzky to share a few more details here with you. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 17:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Liam! "WikiDaham" (or "WikiHeimat" as I like to call it in English) is a project that encompasses photography as well as editing articles. Basically, readers/users will be asked to take pictures of noticeable objects in their home region and add information about their municipality or buildings that they live in/live near to. Besides this general approach the yet-to-be-programmed website will also have specific suggestions on what users could upload or write articles about: Cultural monuments, natural monuments and protected areas, public art, etc. In our opinion this is the best way forward when trying to come up with new contests, while incorporating successfully completed projects like Wiki Loves Monuments at the same time.

The project also has the task of implementing a new plattform that provides a toolset to easily set up contests/projects similar to "WikiHeimat" (including interfaces for Commons and Wikidata), reducing the costs for future projects and enabling more volunteers to create and manage their own projects. Since the project is still in a very early stage I'm afraid there's not much documentation to share yet. Although, I did create two mock-ups of the landing page for "WikiHeimat" for a presentation in September, with the small caveat that it's in German: Pages 5 & 6. Hope I could clarify a few things :-) Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 01:26, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

• In the 'Spheres of activity" section of the Community Support projects, the first two bullet points are headline projects (the Hackathon, and WikiDaham). After that the items are a mix of general good-practices ('encourage [small scale meetings]', 'advice [for on-wiki work]', 'establishing links [to likeminded communities]') as well as some more ongoing projects (like travel-grants and project 'incubation' funds). With regards to bullet point 3 in particular - "Designing and/or facilitating skill transfer workshops within the community" - does this refer to a specific headline project, to a general good-practice, or to an ongoing project? I see that the phrase "skill[s] transfer" is used elsewhere in the document in the context of WikiTuesday and also in the context of offline project management. I'm just unclear whether this is a project in its own right (like "the hackathon") or whether it's something you hope to include as part of the outcomes of your other projects (like "international volunteer support"). Wittylama (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Skill transfer for us is a cross-cutting issue - WikiTuesdays in particular are oftentimes designed to foster learning and exchange of experiences, but we also build it into other projects (e.g. photography projects) where expertise is generated which we think could be relevant for other community members. We also think that this is a good way to make the most of every Euro invested into a project. To answer your question more directly: No, it is not a project in its own right, but an activity that is usually incorporated into other projects which eithter provide a platform for exchange (such as WikiTuesdays) and/or projects which generate new skills among our volunteers (e.g. photography projects). --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 13:17, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

• I'd like to reiterate Chris Keating's request for information about the usage rate of the "high-end photography equipment" since "stats about lending frequency" is your explanation/justification for the expense in this self-declared 'elephant'. Also, while I applaud the focus on the multimedia utility/usage metrics (and I say this as the person who wrote the en.wp stub on Opernpassage so Austria's winning image could be used in mainspace [1]), I wonder if the "Free Content" program measurements are not too heavily focused on multimedia (especially contemporary, wikimedian-made, photography) as its only focus. One of your 'grantee defined' metrics, and both of your 'additional metrics' for this project area are about multimedia quality and use. Where does that leave the non-photography aspects of this project's "sphere of activity" such as Providing access to reliable sources and Support of editing contests?

The quantitative aspect (e.g. improved articles) are part of the new global metric "content pages" - the qualitative aspect for articles in DE:WP is just something that can't be sufficiently controlled by us as a chapter - at least not when it comes to community decorations (other than on Commons, where we can see direct effects). Based on the last years, we could give an estimate of what is possible when it comes to quality articles, and we will most likely keep on reporting on this matter in context certain projects, editing contests, and the like, but really there is little to none influcence we have on this on a larger scale that would justify making it a program wide metric. As mentioned in the elephants, we would need other tools to measure the quality of text based work - so far there is nothing that we find convincing. But we know others are thinking about that too, and we are happy to try new approaches and learn from others. So hopefully, we will find a new way to measure our work in this reagard in suitable numbers soon. --CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 15:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)