Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 1/Amical Wikimedia/Proposal form

Thank you Amical team, your proposal has been well received. We'll be reviewing it in the next few days. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Questions

1. Ciao ÀlexHinojo. Thanks for the proposal, this year, as always :-) One thing I note - because I've now noted and asked you about the same thing three years in a row is the "Number of conflicts on Catalan Wikis"/"Internal Wikilove" metric - in the "Program 1. COMMUNITY" section. I remain very supportive of this concept as a theory, but there is no explanation of how this is measured, tracked, or acted upon - either in this annual plan document, nor in the relevant section of last years' progress report. The associated "logic model" for this section is a nice two sentence vision-statement, but doesn't present the Inputs, Outputs and Outcomes of this program - which shows what actually happens to achieve this stated goal. [See, for comparison WM-Austria's detaliled logic models for the equivalent section from their last annual plan .] I note that in your answer to this equivalent question last year you listed a few practical actions you take to ensure community health - or at least to be aware of problems within it but these seem to be 'illustrative examples' not the codified processes that I would expect you to have by now since this is at least the third year this metric appears. So, while I remain hopeful that this could be an excellent goal for a Wikimedia community to strive for, I remain confused why this appears in the "How will be measured" column since there are no measurements. Wittylama (talk) 21:54, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

   Hello Wittylama and thanks for your comments. As we answered the year before we haven't found a tool to measure conflicts specially because it's no clear what is a conflict or its degrees out of a debate. We talk about a good atmosphere because thats what our members always report and because the lack of harassment issues or denounces (so frequent in other wikis), the low now number of people leaving due to harsh debates or the absence of bodies as arbitration tools (since community hasn't requested them, which is significant). Most issues arise between patrollers and newcomers, as usual in other wikis, and we devote many sessions in workshops and in real life to talk them in order to minimise them. Do you expect us to quantify how many debates are being held in village pump? How many parntners ask us about policies because they don't understand what happened with an edition? How many statement of angry people? It doesn't seem very clear to me what are you expecting (those examples don't make a lot of sense) and for me it is important, since community care is one of Amical pillars and we are proud to have a more or less welcoming wikipedia (related to a global panorama)--Barcelona (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

2. Similar to my question last year where I said (Q.6) that the items - such as WikiArs - are not described. There is the project homepage, but it also does not appear in your progress report form [although I note PESCAR does - thanks!]. So, rather like my point above, this is at least the second time this item appears in the annual plan and makes no justification for how the program will be run (or measured), and why it should be run - just that it was run last year. As I also said in these comments last year, I understand that some of these things are not knowable in advance (like what international writing challenges will be run) but these are the exception not the norm. Wittylama (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

   Wikiars is run by a volunteer team which continue the efforts of the first year. It is linked to our bibliowikis program and education program but it has decreased its importances. That's why it hadn't a specific point, sorry if needed, we will be happy to add as much information as you want.--Barcelona (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

3. Can you explain what the content of Program 5 (outreach and communications)? If I read correctly you'll be [re]starting a blog, and you'll have a group of community members on social media 24/7? And, you'll be using the existence of the hackathon as a catalyst for new media (mainstream, and social) awareness. Is that a fair summary of this program? Wittylama (talk) 23:15, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

   I see we haven't managed to explain our program. Discourse (trough social media, blogs but specially workshops and internal meetings) acts as an attractor for new editors and high profil projects, since thanks to it we can explain the philosophy of Wikipedia or Wikidata. We can go beyond the typical training workshop or editathon, we gain prestige among the cultural sector, so they act as a hub for new people. Our past audit, for example, included a visit to one of that partners, perhaps they can help us to explain this program. --Barcelona (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

4. The "members engagement" in an interesting metric which is clearly linked to your strategic view. However, I still don't fully understand how you are defining it. First you say that (according to you strategic plan) you aim to involve 50% of Amical members in at least one activity every year; then you are giving targets between 25% and 80% in the different programs; and you do not provide a "total for all programs". Does this means that 80% of you members will be involved in at least one activity in the Community program? And therefore that the "Members engagement" for the whole organization is at least 80%, thus largely overachieving your strategic goal? (I made a similar question last year but this is still not clear to me). - Laurentius (talk) 09:22, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

   Sorry if it is not clear enough. We want to reach 50% of members involved in at least one activity, but some of our programs or projects gather up to 80% of them.--Barcelona (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

   Hi Barcelona, it begs a question: if two of your programmes/projects already gathers up to 80% of Amical members (quoting your targets: community 80%, specific projects 75%), does it make sense to set your target % of members involved in >=1 activity as 50%? Isn't it too low / conservative, given the context? Best, aegis maelstrom δ 15:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

We must grow in all the programs. The ones already "fullfilled" are those two (easiest to do because it implies our annual gathering and mostly online work). We must improve assistants / teachers to offline workshops or complex programs--Barcelona (talk) 21:42, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Can you elaborate how the hackathon is linked to the other programs and to your strategy? Moreover, I understand that the main reason for organizing it is that the community asked for it: but why the community wants it? - Laurentius (talk) 09:22, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

   We will run specific workshops and presentations in our education program, we will increase the presence of wikidata in the discourse area, we will add some people from former activities to organisation and wikidata program. We will approach new communities (with a more technical profile) in order to increase outreach of the overall programs--Barcelona (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

2. Hi ÀlexHinojo and Barcelona! Further reading iterations create further questions. :) Firstly, your third programme "Culture" speaks about going beyond libraries, however the metrics relate only to the Bibliowikis, and even there you do not provide any goals (e.g. a number of libraries you want to work with in 2018). Could you elaborate on the achievements you want to make in 2018 and how you track them?

We count librarians and partners as regular community members, so they go with the same global metric of being involved in one activity per year. The idea is that they are not part of an outside world, but community members. As for GLAM partners, our goal is that they become self-sustainable and that they schedule and programme their own wiki strategies in their activities. We don't care that much if -in a year- there are 100 o 120 editathons done in libraries, we care more that they feel part of the community and they add wikipedia and sister projects to their year programmes. Regarding to avaluation, we keep an open record to number of active libraries and what they do, but we are aware that they are actually doing more workshops and events than we can manually track (we discover them when they promote them on social media, for example). So this is a success for us.--ÀlexHinojo (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Secondly, I've been comparing your progress report with the submission last year. Some numbers are not clear for me, e.g. you report that Community programme involved 122 new editors (mostly thanks to Viquidones meeting space) but only 48 active editors (various projects). Should I read "new editors" than other people that "active editors"? And the people in particular projects - do I read it correctly that one person can be counted more than once in a programme total (that is the number 48 may mean less than 48 actual people)? I am trying to understand your work, especially as the # of people involved is higher than the # of new editors + the # of active editors.
2. Thirdly, I am not entirely sure how your goals translate to the reported metrics: in the proposal you aim for "Content pages" but then you report "Media Used" and # of Articles improved. For clarification, what is relation of e.g. "Media Used" and a # of media files uploaded?

They are both part of the global metrics requirements. We do not appreciate them specially, but we inform because they are mandatory. It is hard to track how many media files have been used. And why only in wiki articles? We love when museum content uploaded to WikiCommons ends up in printed press thanks to our partnerhisp. Example: here--ÀlexHinojo (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Finally, your detailed metrics (outcomes and goals) may lack a translation into your narrative. For example, for 2017 the largest outcome in term of wikipages you expected from your Core projects (10.000) and you seem to be on track to achieve it (1.526 media used + 3.585 articles improved). However, your reported most successful (in these terms) project "Wikipedian in Residence in València Museums" has been barely mentioned in your proposal and I am not sure if such partnerships will be a priority for you in terms of the Culture programme, or maybe you see some strong limits here (the other WiR in Girona has far lower numbers). Some very brief elaboration about the differences in outcomes of these projects and your plans would be great to see.

Best Regards, and please have much fun with the wikiworld. aegis maelstrom δ 15:16, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

We appreciate a lot your request for context. The Valencia Museum is part from a wider project and it has been a long term relationship. It all started with some workshops at a local library and it has become a County project collaboration with Government, where some orgs are involved. This program is important for us for many reasons: because its basic for our territorial balance (its in an area where not many wikimedians are doing public activities), because it shows how the commitment and good relation with a partner brings benefits for both partner and wiki, and because we've managed a way where local wikimedians feel happy and engaged with the project, they are actually leading it. It is an example of our decentralized, long term strategy projects, where the number of edits doesn't care that much, but the mindsetting change of the cultural and gov sector, what finally brings us better results. Regarding the Girona, is same idea at a whole different scale. We did some workshops at Girona university, and one of the teachers happens to work at the museum, so they started a small self-sustainable projects where they teach students that are doing a small research at the museum how to edit wikipedia and one of them became "WiR". If if works for them, it works for us.

At the end, the total amount of improved articles is less important than the model. For example, we run a "Quality 15 days" where veteran wikimedians are asked to stop creating new content and are claimed to improve stubs adding refs and formating. During these 15 days, litteraly thousands of articles are improved. Should we put them in the same pot than an editathon where we created 5 articles. What that the result number will mean? Numbers without context are meaningless. This is our basic claim. Thanks again--ÀlexHinojo (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikiquote

Nice to see a mention of Wikiquote. I see stats:wikiquote/EN/TablesWikipediaCA.htm 13 "new wikiquoters" between 2017-04 and 2017-09, is this the kind of engagement in WMCAT wiki editing activities that you're referring to? Do you have plans to use Wikiquote in schools? --Nemo 14:18, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Not particullary in schools. We've been ading sister projects systematically to our "writing challenges". People can score updating content in cawiki or in any other sister project. This has worked quite well in wikiquote, because it was kind of easy to "score". On the other hand, wikiquote has also worked well with librarians. They like the idea of adding small edits with quotes. But we do not have any particullar plan for wikiquote in schools. We've been working a couple of years with wikibooks in schools, but in a particular project where a couple of teachers where interested and there was also an available volunteer.ÀlexHinojo (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC)