Grants talk:Conference/WMDE/WikidataCon

Eligibility Review Complete

Hi Lea Lacroix (WMDE), thank you for your hard work on this proposal. You have completed all required parts of the grant request and your organization is currently up to date on reporting for other grants, so the grant request is eligible for review by the conference grant committee. Thank you for your detailed work so far, I look forward to working with you over the next few weeks through the review process. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Conference Grant Committee Comments

Hello team; It's obvious that the demand for Wikidata workshops in increasing; it's not only to enhance the participants skills of using the tools, but also to increase the awareness of what can be done in Wikidata, specially in emerging wikipedias. I hope this will be considered when scheduling the workshops to be conducted and when choosing the participants. My questions: 1) Would you please explain how participants will be selected? % of internal and % of external 2) what does item #11 in the Budget table mean? Thanks. --Mervat Salman (talk) 22:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello, and thanks for your questions.

Yes, we expect that people attending WikidataCon will come back to their local communities after improving their skills, not only about technical tools, but also having a better overview of how Wikidata can be useful, inside and outside of the Wikimedia movement.

1. We decided not to select the attendees of the event, but we will select people who will run talks and workshops. We have a community-driven program process, where people can submit projects, other community members can support these ideas, and in the end, the program commitee, composed equally with volunteers and Wikidata team employees, will rate and select the proposals to make sure that the program is diverse and gives an overview of all the possibilities of Wikidata.
2. The ticket for the WikidataCon is free of charge, but people have to take care of travel and accommodation themselves. Our community being very diverse, both in terms of country of origin and financial resources, we want to provide a scholarships opportunity, so people are not discriminated. The scholarship process is also community-driven, and the scholarship committee will evaluate the applications to make sure to select people who can bring technical and personal value to the event. This scholarship program is precisely the point why we need this event grant: we want to support our community diversity, especially for people who can't receive support from a local chapter or organization :)

If you have any other concerns, please ask. Thanks, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 11:45, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Lea Lacroix (WMDE), thank you for all of the hard work you have put into planning this event so far. Wikimedia DE has lots of experience with Wikidata and planning conferences, so we feel confident that this will be a valuable event for the Wikidata community. Below are a few suggestions for ways you could use this event to develop tools and resources that can be used after the event has ended.

• There seems to be a lot of demand for intro Wikidata workshops at conferences and events across the movement. It might be valuable to have a session dedicated to creating training materials and identify people within the Wikidata community who are interested in teaching others how to start contributing to the project. Similarly, it might be helpful to create simple documentation to explain how Wikidata tools can be used to improve projects and list users who are willing to help others learn to use these tools.
• The ‘birthday presents’ for Wikidata is a really nice idea. Have you considered asking the wider community of Wikidata users to request tools, gadgets or other functionalities that could be created as presents? I am imagining something like the community wish list, but for Wikidata.

We understand that it is valuable to provide space for Wikidata enthusiasts to gather to share ideas, work together and discuss issues that affect the community. We would like you to be more specific about what you hope to achieve during the conference. In the table below, please list the topics that your community will be discussing at the event, the skills that you plan to teach in workshops and the projects that people will work on during the hackathon. If you do not expect to have this kind of information until closer to the event after the program committee has surveyed participants, we can wait to fill the table in at that time. Please let me know if you have any questions. We will make a funding decision early next week after we get more input from the conference grant committee. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

	Description	Activities during the conference	2 months after the conference	6 months after the conference
Strategic Discussions: Are there issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?			Notes about the status of the discussion. Plan for next steps, with leaders identified who will be responsible for following up.	Report on the progress that has been made 6 months after the conference.
Capacity Development: What skills do participants want to learn?			How many people participated in the trainings?	Survey participants 6 months after event -- how many people have used the skills they learned?
Working groups: Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?			Brief description of new projects that were planned at the conference or summary of improvements/changes that were made to existing projects after the meeting. Identify people who will be responsible to follow up or complete projects.	Provide an update on projects that were started, or changes that were made as a result of work done at the conference

Hello KHarold (WMF), and thank you very much for your feedback.

• I noticed just like you that the demand for Wikidata introductions and workshops is increasing, which is wonderful news, and I agree that we should work on empowering the volunteers so more people can talk about Wikidata all around the world. We can definitely suggest a session where we share our experience, communication supports and all tips about introducing Wikidata :)
• Something will definitely be made around the Wikidata birthday present. For the past birthdays already, developers and volunteers spontaneously created some special features, tools and games to celebrate the anniversary. I guess this will be made as well this year. In my opinion, a Wikidata wish list is a different idea. We started exploring this concept internally, and the main blocker is currently a lack of time within the team.
• Even if we have a general idea about what the program will look like, it will be built by the community, and I would prefer to wait for the end of the process. The call for submissions ends on July 31st and the selection will be made by the program committee during the month of August. Is this timeline OK for you? Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 14:11, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit: I submitted a session about sharing experience on organizing Wikidata workshops and another one for the birthday presents demo :) Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 10:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Scholarship committee criteria

Hello,

As requested, a few more information about our scholarship committee.

Members

Lea Lacroix (WMDE), Lydia Pintscher (WMDE), Micru, Venuslui, Daniel Mietchen

Schedule

• June 8th: opening of the scholarship application
• July 16th: ending of the scholarship application
• July 17-24th: review of the applications by the committee
• July 25th: announce of the answer to the applicants
• July 25th-31st: applicants register if not done yet, communicate their needs regarding travel and accommodation
• August 1st-10th: WMDE books the transport and accommodation for the recipients

Selection

The committee members have access to the information provided by the applicants in the form. Besides the practical questions about the person, their residence and the way they plans to travel, we request the applicant to describe their involvement in the Wikidata community, their interest for the conference, what they plan to bring into the conference and how they plan to share the knowledge they will get from it, to their local community.

List of questions asked

First name Family name Username Birth date Gender Country of residence City of residence E-mail address Telephone number How are you involved on Wikidata? What are your projects, favorite topics, achievements? Who are you regularly working with and can support your application (other community members, tools developers, etc.)? Which part of Wikidata or Wikidata community do you like the most? Why do you plan to attend the WikidataCon? What are your expectations regarding this event? How can your participation benefit to the community? Which kind of knowledge, expertise, point of view can you bring into the event? Do you plan to submit a talk during WikidataCon (or workshop, discussion...) On which topic(s)? Do you plan to help on a volunteering team during the WikidataCon? After attending WikidataCon, how do you plan to share the knowledge and experience you gained within your local community? Country of departure City of departure Transport mode(s) Total estimation of the travel costs Details Any other relevant information you'd like to share?

The committee will review internally the applications. They can rate an application with a score from -3 to 3. Discussions between the committee members will happen if necessary, and an average of the scores will give a rating of the applications. Some applications having a negative rate may be removed from the "shortlist". Depending on the amount of money necessary to support the applicant, we will then select applications starting with the highest ratings.

To rate applications, the committee members may consider these criteria:

Criteria

Positive criteria Is an active member of the community (Wikidata editor, tool developer, data reuser) Has many references and proof of his/her work Has an interesting point of view or vision about Wikidata Has specific knowledge that will be useful to the community (technical, language, etc.) Wants to volunteer during the event Submitted a project for the program, or plan to do so Expresses a clear way to share outcome with local community Negative criteria Doesn’t know Wikidata Is not involved in Wikidata yet Doesn’t seem interested by the content of WikidataCon Does not give answers to the questions Does not provide a clear vision about Wikidata Does not provide a clear way to share outcome with local community Have current or past conflicts with the community or the development team

I hope this can help other projects as well :) Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 13:36, 6 July 2017 (UTC)