Grants talk:Conference/Wiki Education Brazil/IWSC-CCBWIKI

Problems with this grant request

This grant request worries me on several levels:

1. This grant was finalized after the deadline of 23:59 May 28 (UTC);
2. The grantee has been involved in several harassment cases, including targeting myself, it is troubling to imagine him establishing and adjudicating a Friendly Space Policy;
3. The grantee has no community involvement and has incorrectly created articles for his own events in main namespace in Portuguese Wikipedia, this causes unneeded friction with media groups and the community;
4. The group has few reported activities with universities, it is doubtful it is in a position to follow through and accompany possible integration from universities and wikimedia projects;
5. There is no detailed budget for the events;
6. The events have already been announced as a fact, before securing funding for the event, this seems hasty;

I was hesitant to post here as I know this may invite further harassment, but I find this grant request, and the possibility of it being funded, very troubling. Chico Venancio (talk) 01:14, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, Rodrigo has just thanked me for this edit, continuing a creative form of harassing behavior of the thanks tool. I've asked him to not do this multiple times. [1] [2] [3]

Rodrigo also left me a message in my talk page that clearly puts the thanks for this message as a continued abuse of the thanks tool. Why would he thank me for an attitude he "laments"?

This seems to me as a violation of the Grants:Friendly space expectations and I request Rodrigo immediately stop his abusive actions. Chico Venancio (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, this was also thanked(log).

How is a user who decides to continue harassment in this venue going to adjudicate a Friendly Space Policy? Chico Venancio (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Comment As a former sysop @ portuguese wikipedia and a member of wikimedia portugal, I feel obligated to clarify a few points in what seems to be a very worrying and troubling case of defamation.

2. I could politely ask for evidence of those alleged "several harassment cases", but instead I will save some time to this discussion and clarify there are none and that's a lie. In fact, Rodrigo is one of the most respected, peaceful and conciliatory users at our community. There was, indeed, one "harassment" complain by Chico himself, in which he claimed Rodrigo should be blocked because he thanked him a few edits and he considered that to be "harassment". Few administrators actually bored to even comment.

3. The series of statements in point #3 seems so out of touch with reality that I'm struggling to find good faith here. Rodrigo is a well-known member of our community, several brazilian editors take part on his projects and his projects generate a lot of impact (specially WLM and WLE). When Chico mentions "incorrectly created articles for his own events", he must be referring to this single AfD case, in which our community actually decided to keep and merge Rodrigo's article due to the notability of the event on multiple secondary sources. Oddly (or not), those who voted to delete are all members of Chico's usergroup. I also have no clue what Chico means by "friction with media groups and community". Maybe he should consider to present some kind of evidence when making such bold accusations.

4. I'm sure Rodrigo can provide further details about his work on universities and I just want to share a bit my personal experience. As I helped and assisted him to organize several reunions at some of the largest Portuguese universities to discuss outreaching and this congress, thousands of miles away from home, I find totally bizarre how someone can claim he has "few reported activities" or questions "possibile integration from universities".

I'm sorry, I rarely feel the need to comment on meta, but this kind of behaviour shouldn't be tolerated. Antero de Quintal (talk) 03:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

To clarify, Antero has also harassed several users on ptwiki, going as far as outting users with a blog offwiki.

Evidence to the harassments has been sent to the Support and Safety team and the grants email, but the ongoing abuse of the thanks tool and the message on my talk page speak for themselves.

I also recommend seeing Antero's comments on my OTRS volunteering request before assessing his claims [4] [5] [6] [7].

Chico Venancio (talk) 03:19, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

"Harassed"... what? This feels like the twilight zone. I'm sorry, but you need help and guidance. Antero de Quintal (talk) 03:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Harassment and persecution

I will not engage in all of these comments and accusations posted here by Chico Venancio , but, I would like to ask that something should be done against this chancy attitude of Chico and some other members of the Wikimedia user group in Brazil to always try to raise mistrust and negative feedback on mail lists and all of our grant requests. I and the other members of the Wiki Educação Brasil user group feel persecuted and harassed, and when we defend ourselves we are still accused of harassment. This type of attitude is unacceptable, especially coming from someone hired by the Wikimedia Foundation to deal directly with the community, since Chico Venancio was hired to work and discuss with the Brazilian/Lusophone community about the movement strategy. This drives away new contributors and prevents us from inviting teachers, researchers and universities to participate in the construction of this type of proposal. We spend a lot ot time in vain with this kind of negative intervention and nothing constructive comes from this discussions to improve our proposals and activities Rodrigo Padula (talk) 03:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, when I edit with an account that does not have "(WMF)" appended to the end I am editing in a volunteer capacity. Please do stay on topic about the grant on this space and refrain from thanking further edits in abuse of the tool. Chico Venancio (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Your behavior is not compatible with the WMF's mission and the other contractors/employees. You cant just logoff (WMF) and login with your personal account to attack people and a serious user group, recognized by WMF/AffCom that is doing a lot of good projects in Brasil. As a WMF's contractor you should change your behavior, mainly here on meta. If your manager agrees with your behavior there is something really wrong with WMF. Based on your behavior a lot of very important contributors are not participating in the movement strategy discussion and no one from our user group is feeling comfortable with all your harassment and persecution. You are commenting here with no good intentions and no questions, just negative pov and to raise mistrust. Shame on you Chico Venancio! Rodrigo Padula (talk) 04:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Friendly Space

It is important for commenters to abide by the Friendly space expectations and limit their comments and discussions to topics relating to the content of the grant proposal. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Eligibility Review Questions

Hi Rodrigo Padula, thank you for all of the hard work and thought you and your team have put into planning this event. We need you to answer a few questions and complete some sections of the grant request by Monday June 5th, when the committee will begin reviewing requests.

1. Budget section: Review the conference grant budget guidelines and create a budget table using this budget template.
2. Community input: Please add links to the needs assessment you have conducted to gather input from your community about what this conference should focus on. The needs assessment could be a survey, questions and needs page or endorsements from past and potential participants describing the way the event has been useful in the past and what they want to focus on at this event. It would be helpful to write a summary of the input that was gathered in the needs assessment.
3. Please confirm with Winifred that you have submitted all necessary reports on your current and previous Annual Plan Grants.

Please let me know if you have questions or need additional information. It is important to complete these steps by June 5th so that the request is complete and eligible for review by the conference grant committee. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

WMF Comments

We understand that this was a valuable and successful event last year, and that you have gotten many requests to host it again this year. We would like to support you to host an effective conference conference that reflects the interests and needs of the Brazilian scientific community. Primarily, we would like you to gather more input from past and future participants to help you plan a successful event. We also think it is important to evaluate the ways in which this conference is helping the user group meet its goals for building awareness of Wikimedia in the scientific research community. Below are some recommendations and requirements for planning and reporting that we hope will help you do this.

Additional reporting requirements

You have stated that the goal of the conference is to increase awareness of scientific research on Wikimedia projects in Brazil, and that the user group will continue to work toward that goal during activities after the conference is over. In addition to the measures of success you have listed in the proposal, we ask that you evaluate the ways that the conference is most effective at meeting your goal of increasing awareness of scientific research on Wikimedia projects in Brazil. We hope that having this information will help you understand how this conference and follow up activities are helping to meet your goals.

Two months after the event:

1. How many people join the mailing lists?
2. How many new people participate monthly meetings?
3. Have you noticed new contributors to scientific projects on wiki, in publications or elsewhere?
4. How many people participated in this edition of the conference? Compare the lists of the participants to see how many people are new, and how many are repeat participants.
5. How many people participated in workshops and/or editathons at the conference?

Six months after the event, survey participants to ask:

1. How many participants host local events during the six months after the conference?
2. How many students participate in local events or contribute?
3. How many researchers began new projects or began collaborating with other researchers as a result of the conference?
4. How many participants used skills they learned in workshops?

Planning recommendations and requirements

• Please identify members of your community who will be conducting outreach and following up with researchers after the conference, to remind them about monthly meetings and offer support to host local events.
• If your goal is for participants to host local events after the conference, we recommend that you create a short event guide with suggestions of activities, discussion topics and links to materials to teach students how to edit.
• The conference registration form should ask participants what workshops they want to attend, or what skills they would like to learn. The registration form should also ask past participants if they have any recommendations for ways to improve the conference this year.
• You will need to submit a list of names and get approval from the conference grant program officer before offering travel funding to participants or speakers.
• The conference registration and information pages should make it clear that WMF will not be able to offer any travel scholarships to this event through the TPS program, and consider offering suggestions for other ways to get travel funding.

Thank you for all of the hard work you have put in to planning this event, Rodrigo Padula. Please let us know if you are willing to work with these requirements and recommendations. We can support you to develop surveys, questions to include in the conference registration form, and plans to make it easy to track and document the additional information we have asked you to report on. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 17:46, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello @KHarold (WMF):, we agree to follow all your recommendations on reporting, and follow up after two and 6 months. We appreciate all contributions and for sure we will need WMF's help to develop the surveys, forms and to create a good strategy to follow up after the conference. We can organize monthly meetings or generate monthly reports and meetings before and after the conference to keep everything as clear as possible. Rodrigo Padula (talk) 23:39, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Questions from the grant committee

Hi Rodrigo Padula, the conference grant committee has asked for more information about the previous edition of this conference that you organized last year. They would like to get a better understanding of the impact of the event, and how the budget of this year's event compares to last year.

• What was the budget for this event last year, and how was it funded (i.e. through registration fees, donations from other organizations)?
• While we do understand that it is difficult to get feedback and endorsements from conference participants last year, the committee would like to get a better understanding of the outcomes and impact of the conference. Can you please describe the ways in which you have observed that the previous conference was effective at meeting the goal of increasing awareness of scientific research on Wikimedia projects in Brazil. This could include new partnerships, participants who started education programs after the conference, an increase in participation on user group mailing lists, increased participation in meetings and events after the conference, new contributors to Wikimedia projects or new research projects or publications that resulted from the conference.
• The budget includes funding for international keynote speakers. WMF staff and board members should not be included in this budget if they are attending the event in a professional capacity, but they can pay for travel using their own travel budget if it fits with their goals for the year. Please adjust the travel budget if you have included WMF staff or board members in the calculation.

Please let me know if you have questions, or need more clarification. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 19:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello @KHarold (WMF):, thanks for the feedback

• The first edition had only a local focus as a Brazilian conference. The venue, sound/video, professionals and part of the printed material, including registration material were covered by our partner UNIRIO University. The keynote speakers, Dario Taraborelli was covered by WMF using own department travel budget and Daniel Kinzler from WMDE was covered by WMDE travel budget. We received near US$600,00 in registration fees that was used to cover a very simple coffee break offered during the 2 days of conference. All the participants covered their own travel and lunch/dinner during the conference in a very organic way. Great part of the participants were just students/researchers. This year we are expecting to have more researchers from other countries and teachers with a higher level of organization and results as well.
• After the conference we were contacted by 3 local universities interested to organize the next edition of the event including the one that we created a partnership to organize this year's edition. The first edition helped us to get more attention from the local media and universities in the academic field, including important local funding institutions published information about our conference, we had more than 20 publications on the local media(as you can see in our clipping), including radio interviews, newspapers, sites and participation in a TV Program. Dario and Daniel were invited to give interviews during and after the conference as well, what helped us to promote the conference and get more attention for this year's edition. During the conference we received more than 100 people, that learned more about Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. 27 projects were presented and more than 30 researchers added information about the CCBWIKI into their national academic curriculum(Lattes). Since the event we were contacted by 4 researchers to provide guidance and help with tools, data and general wikipedia dynamics information.
• We are aware of this practice, so, we are in touch with Dario from WMF and I had a conversation with Maria from the board during the Iberoconf in Buenos Aires about this. I updated the grant table, because this request is not only for potential keynotes, but for international and national contributors of the event as well.

Thanks for your help and contributions to improve this proposal and the event as well Rodrigo Padula (talk) 23:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)