Grants talk:IEG/Senior Citizens Write Wikipedia

Proposal deadline reminder

Hi Vojtěch Veselý, thanks for starting this draft! I just wanted to remind you that the IEG proposal deadline is less than 2 weeks away, so I'd encourage you to use the button at the bottom of your proposal page to create the rest of your proposal and begin filling in details about your project plan, budget, etc as soon as you're able - we're happy to give feedback or answer questions as you continue to develop this plan :) Best of luck, Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, thanks! :-) We are going to add more details on Monday. I hope we will finish it smoothly. Regards --Byrnjolf (talk) 19:07, 21 March 2014 (UTC) (AKA Vojtěch Veselý, I need to rename myself here. :-))

Combine outreach with Reading aloud?

I think this is a terrific idea. As a way to involve senior citizens, I know that many older people are excellent at reading aloud, and it would be a wonderful way to involve them by having them read articles (of their choice or by some committee choice) and then slowly help the ones so inclined to make corrections to articles based on their observations while reading. Many older people I know are very eager to read Wikipedia but with poor eyesight would prefer audio, so the audience is definitely there, especially for articles in the "recent deaths" list. Careful reading always leads to re-writing, so who knows, such an approach could be a new success formula that can easily be used across all languages! Jane023 (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Please see en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia for background on the need for audio in articles. I have thought for years that senior citizens would be great at this. Jane023 (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for support and your interesting idea. Once we launch our regular courses and "wikiclubs" I inquire our participants if they are interested in reading and recording articles. Perhaps it will help to raise their enthusiasm. There is WikiProjekt Spoken Wikipedia on Czech Wikipedia but it's dead. Maybe we can restore it. But I have to say that it is not our priority. :-) --Vojtěch Veselý (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2014

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2014 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2014 begins on 21 April 2014, and grants will be announced in May. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Silberwissen lessons learnt

Hi, I am really happy to see this issue re-explored and you showing leadership doing so. However, I would be grateful for a slightly more explicit account of what excactly has been learnt from the German attempt and how your model is supposed to deal with the problems identified in the process. Thank you and best regards, --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

some questions

Hello! Thank you for your project, I would like to clafiry the following points rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

• Is it possible to add a new column for budget with figures in USD? It will be easier for us to understand that figures. rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Vojtěch Veselý (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• target advertising via Facebook: I would also recommend you to use WMF Social Media; particularly Wikipedia's page in Facebook has 1,5 mln subscribers and it could be a nice way of free promotion rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

We are targeting on Czech Wikipedia only so we will focus on Czech pages. But yeah, worlwide publicity can help too. :-) --Vojtěch Veselý (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• rent of the computer lab - how many weekly events will be performed (I failed to find this information)? How long will they be? What is an average rate of rent? rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

We will not rent the lab for a long term but for specific hours a week. Average rate of rent is ca 500 CZK (25 USD) for hour and according to the situation we will pay couple of hours every week (from September/October to January). --Vojtěch Veselý (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• project management - how many hours, per your estimates, would management take in total and per week? rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
• as I understand, they key measure of success is a number of new wiki-editors: I would personally recommend to divide this target into 2 parts - total number of new editors from senior citizens and number of new editors from retired professors. Furthermore, I'd prefer to see more challenging target as 5 active seniors from 200+ attendees is a low conversion and it results in 1600 USD per 1 editor - that's not reasonable rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I will let the grantee answer all the other questions but let me comment on this one. Wiki Education projects have had almost zero retention rate and have probably spent millions of dollars over the years. This does not mean that we should close all the Education projects of the chapters and the foundation. I believe the senior program is a pilot to determine if we can do better - and five Wikipedians would in fact be better than working with young students. Increasing the number is risky - I believe that the project leaders should have some space for a pleasant surprise in case we do better than five. Is it really necessary? I call for other peoples' opinion on this. --Vojtech.dostal (talk) 15:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Well I would like to see a pathway plan explained here for the birth of an older Wikipedian vs student Wikipedian (or is the approach the same?). I can imagine that first work can be done on genealogy on Wikidata that then leads to article stubs, or something like that. I also would like to see the challenges of working with older people and computers explained, etc. Jane023 (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Senior Citizens Write Wikipedia

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weak alignment 10=strong alignment
(A) Impact potential Does it fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities? Does it have potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	7.4
(B) Innovation and learning Does it take an Innovative approach to solving a key problem? Is the potential impact greater than the risks? Can we measure success?	7.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in 6 months? How realistic/efficient is the budget? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.9
(D) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support? Does it support diversity?	7.6
Comments from the committee: Experienced Wikimedians have the skills and the key contacts needed to develop the project. Very nice to target the often-ignored demographic of senior citizens, who have lots of time and knowledge. By prioritizing focus on a particular city and a subset of citizens who are already 'PC-literate' the chances of success are higher. Not innovative in the target demographic per se, but in combining weekly workshops, repetitive meetups, and face-to-face contact; also a novel focus on micro edits such as corrections and repairs rather than the typical "edit-a-thon" approach of article stub creation. Track record with "Students Write Wikipedia" shows experience with Outreach efforts and tracking contributions of new users. Having a senior citizen at the helm who is both a retired professor and ex-presidential candidate is very appealing to seniors which adds confidence they will attract the number of recruits they expect. The success metrics are well defined and clearly identified. We want significantly more ambitious targets though (more than, for example, 5 new editors). There is little risk otherwise. Adaptation to other communities may be limited by country context, or to those with similar senior/tech centers. The team appears to be supported by their chapter from the endorsements on the proposal page. Support from a community center (in real life) makes a great plus. Would be nice to have some qualitative research to see if the motivations of senior editors and 'retired professors' differ from other outreach targets such as students or active professionals. This would help target outreach and inform future efforts at reaching this demographic.

Thank you for submitting this proposal. The committee is now deliberating based on these scoring results, and WMF is proceeding with it's due-diligence. You are welcome to continue making updates to your proposal pages during this period. Funding decisions will be announced by the end of May. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 23:56, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Round 1 2014 Decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, 160000 CZK

Comments regarding this decision:
We’re happy to see a focus on outreach to seniors who are already well-versed with computers and the internet, as you’ve suggested, so that the movement can learn whether this approach can more effectively engage seniors to edit Wikipedia. We’d urge you to be ambitious with your targets, because we expect that a successful outreach effort primarily aimed at building the Czech community should engage a large number of active editors. We look forward to learning with you as your project moves forward!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Questions? Contact us.

Retirement-age Wikipedians

Hi. We started a discussion w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#real-life retired people who are active or potential wikipedians which we'd like to centralize here if you don't mind. As the wikipedia article on w:senior citizen explains, it includes retirement-age people. Do you think it'd be beneficial to mention retiree explicitly? Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 19:43, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

This is a grant page which will get finished and 'archived' in a few months, maybe it would be more appropriate to start a page on Outreach Wiki. What about outreach:Outreach to Senior Citizens? Other better place would be discussion of Grants:Learning patterns/Training senior citizens. We will be happy to share our experience. Before we release our final report at the end of the year, we draw your attention to our Midpoint report --Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)