Grants talk:IEG/Women are everywhere

9/29/15 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

Hi Kenzia,

This draft is looking like it's well on its way. I'm writing to remind you to make sure to change the status of your proposal from 'draft' to 'proposed' by the September 29, 2015 deadline in order to submit it for review by the committee in the current round of IEG. If you have any questions or would like to discuss your proposal, let me know. We're hosting a few IEG proposal help sessions this month in Google Hangouts. I'm also happy to set up an individual session. Warm regards, ------Marti (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments

Hello @Kenzia:,

I'm glad that you decided to improve on your idea and bring it to IEG. I'll give you a few suggestions later on today when I have time to collect the diffs to show you other similar projects that could be used as a model for this project. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Orphan articles

• My comments on IdeaLab talk page.

Last year I mentioned the possibility of working on already created orphan articles as a focus of the project.

The idea caught my attention because the articles that are created about women at gender gap focused edit-a-thons are frequently not well integrated into Wikipedia's other related articles. So, this focus would be highly useful and also measurable. Also, if it is successful it could later easily be done again by other people in other languages. Since IEG that receive funding often contain a particular idea that they are trying, I think that selecting a narrower focus for the project might improve its chance of getting funding.

It not that idea, I encourage you to come up with a different narrower more detailed area of focus. Right now, I think the proposal is too general. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I have a few other suggestions for possible focuses that I'll add later. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Sydney Poore/FloNight I can help on that. I was in task force of the connectivity project of itWikipedia, I know users who can help to produce wikimetrics for this type of job. It is very feasable. We have already a [1] we can produce gender-selected statistics for many type of templates. Also "orphan" is not a big issue on itwiki anymore. We did targeted campaign to inform users and they are less and less. Connecting existing articles often requires creation of new ones, while on many other wikis it is still much easier to connect inserting squared brackets or piped wikilinks. The core target, an idea which we never developped because noone was interested, are "underconnected" articles. We can do something about it, ven analyzing if there is some gender-related effect t least for biographies. It would probably require a different type of grant, maybe. We'll see.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:51, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Alexmar983, thanks for taking an interest in my suggestion. We are thinking similarly. I'm wonder about difference between "orphan" and "underconnected" and how we should define underconnected?

1) I would say that all articles on Wikipedia that already mention the women should be connected.

2) The women should be added to obvious places where they are missing such as articles about other members of their family, and topics related to their work.

3) If itWikipedia has uses See also sections, then they should be added to appropriate articles. And if itWikipedia has list articles the women should be added to the list.

I think all projects need a good method of evaluation. If pulling data for analysis is possible, I would like to see this project include that aspect even if that means adding more people who are knowledgeable about that aspect of the project. I'm not sure how complicated that would be.

There is a big advantage to have university based topic experts working with Wikipedians to identify where the women should be included in other articles. So, I see this can be one project with good project management to bring it all together. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 15:46, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Women in Red

If you plan to have events or projects that focus on article creation for missing biographies of women or their works, I suggest you consider using WikiProject Women in Red as a model that you can modify for your language Wikipedia. We have found it to be highly useful for as a central way to organize and advertise events. It involves creating lists of women by specialty area who should have an article on Wikipedia. When the name of a women without an article is put in brackets it show up in red instead blue. So that makes them a Women in Red.

I see this approach working well for you as you reach out to The Department of Ancient and Modern History of the University of Messina for topic experts. They could help you create list of women.

I suggest adopting this approach instead of putting your energy into creating a new duplicate project. It began on Wikipedia English but is now being brought to other languages. I'm certain that we could assist you in setting it up on your language Wikipedia if there is an interest in bring it there. This would free you up to do other types of project management for the Women are everywhere project. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 00:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Adding women back in to men's articles

This looks like as good a place as any to add my comment. I don't speak Italian, though I utilize several translator programs to translate from Italian WP to English WP, so actual participation in your project would be limited. But one of the biggest areas to address, and it goes into what what FloNight was saying about tying women into the encyclopedia, is to add women back into men's biographies. Almost every woman's article mentions their husband, partner, and children. Almost all men's articles mention their career and no family. I don't know how one would develop a search for that, but since it is a phenomenon others have studied, [2] surely there is a way. History cannot be balanced if 1/2 the population is omitted. The reason women are eliminated from men's biographies is easily explained, as men have been free to have their careers if women were caring for their homes and their families. On the other hand, women's careers, if they had them, were often interrupted by children or their name changed with marriages and divorce so finding them is much more difficult. Men and children are logically part of women's articles because not including those events leaves gaps in their history. On English WP, often sons and fathers are mentioned in men's articles but not daughters, wives, sisters or mothers. Power couples have always existed, but often the male partner is the only one mentioned in WP. I did an article last year on a woman scientist, who I discovered because her husband, who was a Nobel prize-winning chemist, credited her research (not her running his household so he could research) as the basis of his own work. She was not mentioned in his article, and yet, was clearly a notable scientist in her own right. Finding notable women in history is often a game of following the men they were associated with so adding women back in to the existing biographies of men would be a huge start. SusunW (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi SusunW, thank you for expanding on the details of how women are missing on Wikipedia. Your examples of ways that women are missing from men's biographies are perfect examples of how orphan articles are created or underconnecting women happen. Do you think a workflow diagram about how to add women to other articles would help editors better understand how to write women back into history by including them in more articles on Wikipedia? In the past people have created new categories or list articles to try and highlight content about women. But both of these ways are not very effective if most people are reading other pages and women are not included there or linked in any way. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

FloNight I absolutely think it would be helpful. I struggle with how to do that effectively, as I am sure others do. It's easy if it is a spouse or child, but if say a woman was the first one to confirm a theory how does one add them in? For example, en:Catharine van Tussenbroek confirmed that en:ovarian pregnancy, as proposed by Mercier and suggested by en:Otto Spiegelberg could be confirmed by his criteria, did in fact exist. Since none of the other articles has a history section and Tussenbroek has no relationship to Spiegelberg, how does one add her? And I concur that lists don't integrate people they just create a separate entry. Actually tying the related articles together is what is needed. SusunW (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @SusunW: and @FloNight: for your comments and ideas. I'm aware that the problem we are trying to solve is very complicated. I know that you have done an enormous work on this issue. In Italy, things are much worse than on the English Wikipedia. There are far more less editors working on the gender gap problem. What SusanW writes about the fact that History cannot be balanced if 1/2 of the population is omitted is so very true, and terrible. Gender studies have permitted to progress on this line. But the great majority of women, who has played an important role in every field of History, or who has helped men to achieve their success (and they are by far the great majority) are still ignored, we could quote Jane Austen on this point: like Elizabeth Bennet these women are without family, friends or connections. Our endeavour should be to do this women the honour they deserve, by any possible means. I hope I could be useful for this endeavour.--Kenzia (talk) 11:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

SusunW, one way is to use the new Related pages extension. This is done automatically at present, but it can be done manually by adding {{#related:Catharine van Tussenbroek}} at the end of the article. For logged-in readers with the "Related pages" extension switched on in their preferences, they will see her article suggested at the bottom of the page. SarahSV ^talk 19:46, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

April 12 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

The deadline for Individual Engagement Grant (IEG) submissions this round is April 12th, 2016. To submit your proposal, you must (1) complete the proposal entirely, filling in all empty fields, and (2) change the status from "draft" to "proposed." As soon as you’re ready, you should begin to invite any communities affected by your project to provide feedback on your proposal talkpage. If you have any questions about finishing up or would like to brainstorm with us about your proposal, we're hosting a few IEG proposal help sessions this month in Google Hangouts:

• April 5th, 16:00 - 17:00 UTC
• April 8th 1:00 - 2:00 UTC
• April 12th 16:00 - 17:00 UTC

I'm also happy to set up an individual session.

Warm regards,
--Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:08, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Questions before endorsing

Hi. I have a couple of questions about this IEG as it has unclear goals and deliverables.

• What experience do you have in doing this sort of community outreach on Italian Wikipedia? What workshops have you facilitated or attended? What edit-a-thons have you been involved with? What is your relationship with Wikimedia Italy, and how much support have you solicited from them? What is your user status on Italian Wikipedia? What sort of networking have you done in Italy regarding the Gender Gap on Italian Wikipedia already?
• Your proposal says, "Improve italian Wikipedia quality from a gender point of view." This does not seem like an deliverable that is measurable based on the rest of the proposal. The rest of the proposal appears to be about creating a metric to understand the overall level of quality and quantity of articles about women on Italian Wikipedia. Why is there a disconnect between the measurable and the deliverable?
• Wouldn't a better deliverable for this project be a report detailing the extent of the gender gap, and the specifying which metrics will be used in this assessment?
• There has been a lot of research about the extent of the gender gap on Wikipedia projects. Which research have you read? What do you know about the gender gap on other projects from reading this research? How is your methodology informed by this other research? How do you see your research differing in methodological approach?
• This appears to be about setting benchmarks. How will your approach assist others in doing similar research on other projects? It costs a huge amount of money, and that does not seem very feasible for every language Wikipedia to do.

--LauraHale (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

if it helps I have already asked a contact about some new type of wikimetrics addressing not just the gender balance of articles or editors, but the analysis of gender balance for the activity of a specific editor, starting with biographies. Would you be interested in these types of metric LauraHale ?--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:24, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Kenzia, Content gender gap is an important issue, and I'm glad to know an academic scholar has interests in it.

1. On the English Wikipedia, a WikiProject called Women in Red is tackling some of the things you mention in your proposal, and we have achieved a quantifiable degree of success doing so, so if you wish, we would be glad to work with you to replicate Women in Red in the Italian Wikipedia. Women in Red doesn't have an IEG so maybe a scholarly IEG would give all of us a better understanding of some of the issues, but I'm not sure what your research would specifically address, e.g. developing lists of redlinks?
2. It would be important for us to understand your editing history as I think editors face various challenges and you should have a fair understanding of them in connection with your research. Thank you for your reply in this regard which you posted here.
3. If you were awarded the grant, how would you quantify success? Are there deliverables? Are they measurable? Could they be replicated? Or would the result be a scholarly paper? Or something else? --Rosiestep (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @Rosiestep: for your message. I'm aware that content gender gap is an important, vital, issue, that's why I would love to contribute. I know the Wiki project Women in Red. I would be honoured to work in collaboration with you to replicate Women in Red in the Italian Wikipedia. My purpose with the project "Women are everywhere" is to do a serious, measurable, deliverable work in the interest of the Wikipedia Community, a result which could help other editors, in Italy and elsewhere, to tackle with the gender gap problem. I'm not a wizard, I can't do miracles, so I will need all the available help. I'm used to hard, serious work, and I'm not afraid of challenges. Even if my editing history is short, I'm aware that editors have to face various challenges. I'don't underestimate this aspect of the engagement. Before proposing the grant, I'm trying to get the support as large as possible by the community concerned by the gender gap problem, in particular by the italian editors already engaged in this issue. This request of support is not formal, it is substantial. I know that I need all the possible help for being helpful in my turn. My motivation and my purpose are to collaborate as much as possible with other editors, to get not a scholar paper, or a personal accomplishment, but a real success in the interest of the community. Grazie,--Kenzia (talk) 09:05, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• Hi Kenzia, I have a couple of questions too.

1. First, has the University of Messina agreed to become involved, and in what capacity? (Apologies if this has been explained already and I've missed it.)
2. I'm wondering about your own editing experience. I see you haven't been involved with Wikipedia much, and although it's often helpful to have fresh eyes on a situation (especially with gender-gap issues, in my view), with this particular proposal to create content, would it not help to have more editing experience? In particular, I'm thinking you would need to be familiar with the Italian Wikipedia community.

SarahSV ^talk 18:19, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi @SlimVirgin:, thank you for your questions.

1. First, of course the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University of Messina has agreed to become involved in this project. Otherwise how could I have included their partnership in the draft? It would have been a very heavy responsability doing that without their authorization. It's a scientific partnership.
2. I can understand your wondering about my own editing experience. You are not the first person to underline this problem. I'm the first one concerned on this point. As I have explained before, I don't pretend being a skillful editor, but I have anyway written some pages without problems on the Italian Wikipedia. You will see between the endorsement to this project the name of Susanna Giaccai, who is a very experienced italian editor, particularly concerned about the gender gap issue. I can count on her help. I'm not a stranger in the Italian Wikipedia Community, even if my editing activity has not been very prolific, I've been part of the Italian Wikipedia since 2012. Moreover, there is a part of my activity that I have carried on without logging in, and it is not in my contribution page, but my IP was always identifiable.

I hope having been clear. If you have other doubts or questions, I will be very glad to answer. Sincerely,--Kenzia (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for the reply, Kenzia. Can you say more about what the university has agreed to do? SarahSV ^talk 19:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

You welcome @SlimVirgin:. The Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University has given a full scientific support to this project. I will have all the collaboration necessary to accomplish the scientific goals of this project. Nevertheless, I have to underline that in Italy the gender gap is a far more problematic issue than in other western countries. I can't foresee the problems I will have to cope with outside the scientific context. If there are other points I can give more informations about, I'm at your disposal. Thank you, --Kenzia (talk) 19:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kenzia, could you say more about what that would mean in practice (the full scientific support from the university, and the scientific goals of the project)?

I'm having trouble understanding how you would measure the project's success at the end of the year. I can see that you want to organize the creation of articles about women, along the lines of the Women in Red project on the English Wikipedia (e.g. you might produce a list of articles about women that are missing). You also want to integrate orphan articles about women into other articles, or organize others to do that, but it's not clear how you would do it. Are you going to write an academic paper, create a WikiProject, write the Wikipedia articles yourself, rely on new editors you find through workshops, rely on existing editors?

One problem is that the Foundation has said it will not pay for content. (I disagree with this, but that's their current position.) So a grant to create articles is apparently not something they would entertain. The problem with a grant to organize others to create articles is that it raises the issue of the organizer being paid, but not the people who do the writing. I can see perhaps workshops being organized, where the organizers are paid to put the workshop together; that already happens. But in terms of integrating this into the Italian community, where you would be paid to create lists of articles for other editors to write, I wonder how that would go down. (On the English Wikipedia, it would not go down well, but I may be thinking about it in the wrong way.) SarahSV ^talk 20:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to ping Kenzia. SarahSV ^talk 20:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: I'm very glad you ask me all these questions, that helps to make things clear. First of all, I think that the main problem for understanding is that you are used to a completely different kind of country and to a Wikipedia in that country. In the english version of Wikipedia you probably have a gender gap problem (I have read a lot of articles about that issue) but at the same time you have plenty of people engaged in trying to cope with that problem. You have lot of groups working on the women represantation, I know it perfectly because I'm trying to contact them all. In Italy, it is completely different. I speak very clearly. First of all, there are very few people really concerned with the gender gap issue. They have to tackle with a difficult context. If you go to have a look at the link I put on my project to the italian page you will have a clearer understanding, even if you don't understand italian https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Biografie/Donne. Look at the contribution page. Well, this is the point from where things should move on. With the collaboration of the University, and of the students, the goal is to analyse the actual situation of the women represantation in the italian Wikipedia. To state in a scientific, measurable way if the gender gap problem exist and how consistent it is. After that, there will be proposals to improve the situation. That's the scientific part of the project and there will be a paper about that. After this step, with a clear picture of the problem, in collaboration with the editors already engaged in the task, and with new editors if there will be students who want to participate to this part of the project, there will be an effort to improve the situation, following the successful examples (e.g. Women in Red) or finding other ways to tackle with the gender gap issue, and with the problem of orphan articles about women to be integrated into other articles. It's evident that I can't play every part. From an italian point of vue, I would consider already a success to assess in a scientific measurable way if there is a gender gap issue in the italian Wikipedia. My point is that in general, and that is not only an italian concern, there is a problem of mentality, but you can read that in my project.

I have been very clear, please tell me very clearly if the project is not understandable, I can very easily not propose the draft. Thank you for all, --Kenzia (talk) 21:30, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kenzia, I'm just one person with an opinion, and I would hate to discourage something that would help. But as things stand, I don't feel I can endorse this.

I strongly support anything that would help reduce the sexism on Wikipedia, but with this project, I don't know anything about you (are you an academic, and if so can you tell us something about yourself?), and I see very few contributions on Wikipedia. I think you would have to know the culture you want to change. You're likely to encounter resistance, and it's important to be able to predict where it will come from and how to respond to it. I've seen women end up being damaged because they've responded in a way that (through no fault of their own) made things worse for them, although the response to the backlash against them made things better overall (thesis, antithesis, synthesis).

It would also help to know more about the university's proposed involvement, and perhaps have someone from that department outline it here. SarahSV ^talk 00:30, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi @SlimVirgin:, I strongly respect your opinion, every opinion, and it's a choice I would profoundly respect if you don't feel you can endorse this project.

About myself, as you can see on the draft, I'm a PhD in history. I'm also a journalist, I've worked for many years in the cultural department of the public administration in Rome; after that great and marvelous experience, I've always worked in the cultural field. Since my university studies, I've been deeply concerned about sexism and gender studies. I know pretty well the culture I would like to contribute to change. Of course I'm going to encounter resistance, but that's always the case when someone tries to do something new. I'm used to a dialectic approach. I believe that culture is a very strong tool for making things change. My intention is not to involve myself in a fight, far from that. My wish is to contribute in a cultural, civil way to a wider and deeper awareness of the gender gap issue. Wikipedia reflects the culture of our time. I do not pretend changing Wikipedia, I just propose, possibly, to improve it from a gender point of vue. For doing that, it's important studying its content with a scientific approach, and, after that, to propose, in a constructive way, in collaboration with editors as well concerned with this issue, possible solutions for opening opportunities to a more balanced approach to the women's representation.

As for the University, as I have already explained, the director of the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization has given a full scientific support to this project. He is ready to issue an official certificate on this point. Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 06:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Kenzia, thanks for this information, and I'm glad to hear the department director (who I see is Mario Bolognari [3]) is willing to confirm his involvement. If he could outline what the department's role would be, that would be very helpful. SarahSV ^talk 21:23, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Prof. Mario Bolognari is very willing to confirm the department's involvement in this project. Is it necessary in this preliminary step an official certificate? In this case, where the certificate has to be sent? Or the Prof. Bolognari has to send an email? To what address? Otherwise, I will outline in this page the department's role on his behalf. Please let me know what it is the required procedure. Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 22:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kenzia, at this point it would be helpful just to hear from him, or to have you describe what the department will do. Regarding the endorsements you're requesting, by the way, it's fine to ask people to look at this and make suggestions, or perhaps become involved as volunteers, but endorsements are unlikely to make any difference. The most important thing is to give a full description of what the project will involve and what you hope the result will be. SarahSV ^talk 22:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @SlimVirgin:, that's very clear. I've already had a clear understanding with Prof. Mario Bolognari, so I can outline on his behalf what the department will do for this project. I will work with Prof. Michela D'Angelo [4] on a workshop based on the goals of this project. If it will be necessary, there will be an interdisciplinary approach with the collaboration of other professors of the Department. The facilities of the Department will be at our disposal. The project will involve professors, students and editors of the Italian Wikipedia. I hope the result will be a scientific assessement of the gender gap in the Italian Wikipedia, and an improvement of its content from the gender point of view. --Kenzia (talk) 23:07, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

@Cynwolfe: Hi Cynwolfe, thank you for your comment. Please, let me understand better your suggestion, do you think I should insert in my project something like e.g. the impressive list of italian women writers missing in Wikipedia prepared by the University of Chicago that you find at this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dsp13/Redlinks/Italian_women_writers in the WikiProject Women in Red of the English Wikipedia? There are also paradoxes of italian notable women, e.g. Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, present in the English Wikipedia and missing in the Italian one. There is also the example of Jeanne Villepreux-Power, marine biologist, who did her studies of natural history in Messina, the first woman member of the Catania Accademia, missing in the italian Wikipedia. You have plenty of notable women missing everywhere in Wikipedia, e. g. (only for the Messina area) Majella Arena, Francesca Balsamo Aragona, Camilla Bonfiglio Ventimiglia, Maria Bardi Spadafora, Cettina Natoli Ajossa, Anna Balsamo Avarna Marullo, Adriana Caneva Bosurgi and many others, like Antonina Cascio, who was one of the sicilian leaders during the Revolutions of 1820. Please, give me your advice on this point. Thank you, --Kenzia (talk) 07:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@FloNight: @SusunW: @Rosiestep: @LauraHale: @SlimVirgin: Many thanks for your constructive feedback, --Kenzia (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kenzia:, I have a few questions. You brought as an example the biographies of Alessandra Strozzi Macinghi or Jeanne Villepreux-Power, certainly encyclopaedic characters according to the policy of Wikipedia in Italian: well, I ask you, why did not you think to create yourself the voices? Your contribution on Wikipedia in Italian appears very limited, and I think you would have been helpful as an experience "on the field." Another question: the project you propose should operate in Wikipedia in Italian: how, until now, it the user community have made to share? You have not even thought of writing to inform you at the bar? Thank you! --Euphydryas (msg) 14:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Euphydryas: Thank you Euphydryas, you are really welcome. I've informed the people interested in the gender gap in Wikipedia in Italian. I'm going immediately at the bar, thank you very much for this advice. Regarding the kind of project I'm proposing here, it concerns a deeper, scientific, understanding of the gender gap issue on the Wikipedia in Italian, not simply the writing of entries about this or that woman, that I could have done myself. As you can read in the draft, this project would be realised in collaboration with the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilization of the University of Messina, and will have the support of many specialists in differents fields from that Deparment. Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 14:43, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Totally support the concept

Hi. I totally support the concept of this IEG and most of the proposal but I believe the lead of the proposal backfires a bit with undertones of being misandrist. Maybe somebody can smooth that out?

I am also reticent about plans that rely on US$450 travel reimbursements, and think that part of the plan should be stricken. It would be better to have a front wo/man by proxy closer to the hub that requires those travel outlays. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@Checkingfax: Hi. Thank you for your total support. My English maybe is not good enough to understand perfectly the meaning of your suggestion. I'm really sorry if there is something that could sound misandrist. Please, suggest me how that could be fixed.

About the travel expenses, someone asked me to quantify the import. I can't foresee. The sum I put is the maximum cost of an airticket. I hope it will be less. Please, suggest me what you think would be the best solution on this point. Thank you for your kindness. --Kenzia (talk) 19:42, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Kenzia. I believe in affirmative action but I also believe one should tread lightly so as not to appear to be too militant about it. The proposal is good but the lead part is a wee bit combative. It appears to draw an unnecessary line in the sand. I am sure that is not your intention. As for fixing the lead I think you or some other helpful editor can do it.

As for travel, maybe forecast how many $450 trips will be needed in a one year period. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 00:13, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@Checkingfax: Hi. Following your suggestions, I have tried to make some little changes in the lead. I hope it is a little better now.

For the travel expenses, I'm trying to get all the informations. I've changed twice the amount of the aiplane fares in the draft, it's not that easy to have it precisely, depending on so many factors (season, aircompany, destination airport Reggio Calabria or Catania). In the end, I wrote 300 euro, which is the cost of the travel by a private car. I know it for sure because I did it lately. To forecast how many times the trip will be needed in a year, I have to set an agenda with the University. Maybe it's a little premature now, not being sure of having the grant. Thank you very much for all your support. --Kenzia (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi Kenzia and volunteers (Effems, Alexmar983, Johanna-Hypatia). I'm very pleased to see a considerable amount of community feedback on your proposal. Thanks for inviting folks to check it out. I wanted to provide some feedback on a couple of sections. Broadly, the project appears to have three phases: research/assessment, campaigning/outreach, and a phase where volunteers will be actively improving project content on the Italian Wikipedia based on the outcomes of the prior two phases. Here are some thoughts I have:

• Activities
  • I think it would be helpful to include some ideas or details around how recruitment of editors for this project could work (e.g. having event messages/banners on it.wikipedia, inviting folks to edit-a-thons at physical locations (maybe the university?), etc.) It's OK if that plan changes, but some thoughts would be good there.
  • Similar to above, what is the goal of the workshop/lectures you've suggested, and how might it work? Also, while I think coordinating these events would be helpful in your project, I also wonder if they are strictly necessary to achieve your project's goals.
  • This has been discussed a little here on the discussion page, but I think it'd be helpful to state what your general goals are while at University of Messina, and what you can accomplish at the university that would not be feasible/practical from Rome. It's OK not to have an exact agenda at this point, but some general goals would be useful. If it is a matter of project planning and discussion, is it possible to arrange meetings with university staff over a free medium such as Skype or Google Hangouts?

• Budget
  • Thanks for providing estimates of the budget for travel between Rome and the University of Messina, this is very helpful. I think it makes sense to estimate how many trips you expect to make based on what your goals are while there. It might also be helpful to look into costs of accommodations.
  • Some more detail will be needed on technological expenses in terms of what software or technology you require, and estimates of costs.
  • I'd suggest also thinking about what kind of funding you need for your time to perform research and do project management for this proposal. As an example, you can refer to the budget for this IEG proposal I did a few years ago. I considered how many hours each week I needed to devote to my role and assigned an hourly rate of $20 USD/hour over the course of the six-month grant period to arrive at a number for compensation. Unfortunately, funding project management/research work at a market rate is usually not practical, but it is reasonable that you are paid some for your time.
  • If you want, you can make a table similar to the one here for your budget section, but keeping it to bullet points works fine too.

• Sustainability
  • I think a little more detail here is needed; taken as a whole, the model you've set out in this proposal is rather involved: Working with a major university, in-depth research, outreach/campaigning efforts, travel, etc. It may be hard to package that together as a model that could easily be followed by others. It might be better to focus on one particular aspect of this proposal for sustainability, such as the methods of the research or the nature of the outreach/campaign.

• Measures of success
  • Check out Global metrics to see if there is anything there that might help you consider some specific goals you could set.
  • Global metrics aren't the be-all and end-all of project success though, and so it might be helpful to consider a goal around reducing the number of orphaned/poorly-connected biographies about women, or about reducing the number of articles where women's contributions are documented in reliable sources, but not yet incorporated in the article.

That's all for now. Let me know if there is anything I can clarify! Thanks very much for your hard work on this proposal. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@I JethroBT: Hi. Thank you for this feedback. It would have been very useful to receive it at least few days ago. It would have been possible to improve the project according to your thougths. If I'm not wrong, tomorrow is the deadline for proposing the project. It has been very nice trying to participate. I thank very much all the supporters of this idea, and particularly the volunteers @Johanna-Hypatia:@Effems: @Alexmar983: for their kind offer of help. Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 20:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kenzia: My apologies, but please be assured you still have time to continue working on the proposal. The deadline for declaring an intention to apply for a grant is indeed tomorrow, but you can continue to work on and improve your proposal as you will continue to receive feedback from community members and IEG Committee members through April. 3 May – 16 May is the time frame for official evaluation from the committee, so any last changes should made before May 3rd. That you are able to work isn't immediately clear on the IEG Calendar, so I'm going to go ahead and clarify that now. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I JethroBT (WMF) I can help with some global metric. Not alone, with somone else. I let you know with calm in the following days. Also User:Giaccai asked me some lists of missing and more urgent women articles so it's time I produce them as well. We already targeted local users to eventually help with edit-a-thons, we can improve that if necssary. Also there were some preliminary studies of underconnected articles w can work to improve (that's why I pointed out the poorly-connected articles are as important as orphan ones, especially on itwiki).--Alexmar983 (talk) 04:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I JethroBT (WMF) about recruitment we can produce a list of users of itWikipedia that have been very active in the area of female biographies and send them a mass message inviting them to take part to some of the edit-a-thons.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:00, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I JethroBT (WMF) I already produced with the help of another user a list of users that have created the biggest amount of women's articles or show the biggest amount of ratio beetwen women and men articles. It is very interesting because we can target them asking for help. Also we can do the opposite, target users who show a very gender-oriented edit history and ask for feedback. What is the problem? often they are not lacking the sensibility but the right sources. Think about what a good book about women's history can do if in the right hand of a prolific editor.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:23, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Writing about women

Kenzia, it case it's helpful, I want to draw your attention to an essay, en:Wikipedia:Writing about women. It might be something you can use on the Italian Wikipedia or translate. Quite a bit of it is about the English Wikipedia, but it would be easy enough to insert different examples and language-appropriate rules. SarahSV ^talk 00:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @SlimVirgin:, it's very helpful. --Kenzia (talk) 01:02, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for review and scoring. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period (through 2 May 2016).

The committee's formal review begins on 3 May 2016, and grants will be announced 17 June 2016. See the round 1 2016 schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at iegrantswikimedia · org .

Gender maintgraph

This is the maintgraph of itwiki, it was created more than 2 years ago. I spoke with the two users who did that and I can assure that with the support of this grant we can produce a similar type of interface for gender-related information.

Monitoring the global amount of male and female biography articles, their size distribution, the types of maintenance templates, and so on. In addition I think we can introduce basic query from wikidata, and constantly updated charts and to do lists (see for example it:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Red#Useful_Wikidata_lists)

The results can be adapted to all languages, this means that even small wikis without specific projects can use it.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Methodology

Hard work. --Kenzia (talk) 17:43, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

How to withdraw the IEG proposal

Hi @Mjohnson (WMF):, following the yesterday interview, I have the strong feeling that my project would in any case create a problem inside the community, especially among the people you were talking about. So, I prefer to withdraw my proposal. Can you please explain me how to do that? Thank you, --Kenzia (talk) 05:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

--Hello Kenzia, I am not entirely sure what you are referencing in our interview, but I'll clarify what I think you may be referencing and try to eliminate any potential misunderstanding before I answer your question.

• I recommend that you focus on making your methodology very clear so that you take full advantage of constructive feedback from the experienced users who have been offering comments on your page.
• Since unfamiliarity with community protocols and mores might make it more difficult for you to design effective outreach, I recommend that you think about how to mitigate for your relative lack of experience contributing to our projects. Working with an experienced Wikipedian could help you sync up with existing volunteer norms--as appropriate--I recognize you are seeking to change some norms!  :-)

In any case, I don't have the sense that your project is going to "create a problem inside the community," just that it could use further development. If you would like to develop it further this round or another one, you are welcome to do so. If you want to withdraw your proposal (for now, or until the next round), you can simply change the proposal status from "proposed" back to "draft." Feel free to contact me here or by email if you have any further questions!

Best regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much @Mjohnson (WMF): --Kenzia (talk) 02:00, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry @Mjohnson (WMF):, maybe my understanding is not good enough. Could you please explain better the following point?

• Since unfamiliarity with community protocols and mores might make it more difficult for you to design effective outreach, I recommend that you think about how to mitigate for your relative lack of experience contributing to our projects. Working with an experienced Wikipedian could help you sync up with existing volunteer norms--as appropriate--I recognize you are seeking to change some norms!  :-)

Thank you :) --Kenzia (talk) 13:45, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Kenzia, I am suggesting that, if your project is funded, you might want to solicit input from an experience Wikipedian as you go about designing your outreach program. This will help you to be responsive to the practices and standards of existing volunteers. Hope that makes more sense! --Marti (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): Please, what does it mean that "I go about designing my outreach program"?--Kenzia (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): Maybe my last question wasn't worth answering. I looked up in a dictionary what it means "to go about" and that's quite clear now. What it is not at all clear is why I should need "help to be responsive to the practices and standards of existing volunteers". It's quite a strong statement.--Kenzia (talk) 19:50, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Kenzia, I think we're struggling with a language barrier because I have used overly complicated language. It might be helpful to talk again in person to get clear. I can set up a call with you next week, if it would be helpful. In the meantime, in more simple language: If you are funded, it might be helpful to work with a Wikipedian who is experienced with community engagement on Wikipedia. That person would be able to inform you about how existing volunteers do things. This information could be useful as you plan to integrate new users into the existing community. This is not a strong statement or a "should;" it is just a suggestion. I hope this is clearer. --Marti (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @Mjohnson (WMF):. Yes, I think there is a language barrier, and I'm really sorry for that. I think there are a lot of misunderstanding, depending on the language and on the cultural differences. Anyway, I was very sad thinking that this project could be a problem in a way or another. It was very hard for me thinking that I could be a problem for this project. With the italian editors interested in this project, we are going to reconsider it completely. Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 21:09, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Kenzia, yes, I agree with you that culture and language barriers can be tricky to maneuver! I apologize that I didn't recognize the difficulty in this case sooner. Your English is very good, and I didn't realize during the interview that this misunderstanding had occurred. I'm truly sorry you went away with the impression that you or your project are a problem. I will reach out to you soon to see if you'd like to check in about options for your project going forward. --Marti (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): I accept your apologies and I believe you are truly sorry I went away with the impression that myself or my project are a problem. Nevertheless, I have to underline that it was unnecessary to write: "I am suggesting that, if your project is funded, you might want to solicit input from an experience Wikipedian as you go about designing your outreach program. This will help you to be responsive to the practices and standards of existing volunteers. Hope that makes more sense!".

In this long page of talk, I had written:

1. "Before proposing the grant, I'm trying to get the support as large as possible by the community concerned by the gender gap problem, in particular by the italian editors already engaged in this issue. This request of support is not formal, it is substantial. I know that I need all the possible help for being helpful in my turn".
2. "As I have explained before, I don't pretend being a skillful editor, but I have anyway written some pages without problems on the Italian Wikipedia. You will see between the endorsement to this project the name of Susanna Giaccai, who is a very experienced italian editor, particularly concerned about the gender gap issue. I can count on her help. I'm not a stranger in the Italian Wikipedia Community, even if my editing activity has not been very prolific, I've been part of the Italian Wikipedia since 2012. Moreover, there is a part of my activity that I have carried on without logging in, and it is not in my contribution page, but my IP was always identifiable".

Sincerely, --Kenzia (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): I am back form a week off-wiki and I read this with calm only now. As far as I have understood, the cooperation with the University is over but there are a lot of ideas that can be reused for another project. As Kenzia was pointing out, there are expert users available so the lack of competence is not a real issue. One name is Susanna in the area of Florence, I contacted Effems in the area of Messina during the draft of this proposal. We can find another name: We already have two expert users, do you need a third one? a fourth one? We may also find some contacts on enwiki to translate some of the pages (I can help there, i know enwiki more than Susanna or Kenzia).

Without the academic support the "quality" of the project will be limited, but its impact on the community can be in any case great. The budget can be reduced to reimbursement of simple travel fees for some events, compensate the time spent to create tools, and it is still possible to organize "small size" edit-a-thons with volunteers, testing in parallel some of the tools I mentioned in the skype chat some weeks ago. If you want (and if Kenzia wants), we can finally phone and discuss it further. it is a pity I couldn't be there. I am available. I start in any case to contact more users about the general idea of "gender edit-a-thon", it is still a useful idea for the future.

I am just saying that we can save the idea. And I am available.--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:09, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Women are everywhere

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.5
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.0
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	5.5
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.8
Additional comments from the Committee: Yes, anything related to addressing the gender gap needs support. I also like the focus on a project specific to Wikipedia, but would withhold funding until it could be linked to Wikidata and other projects. We should apply the lessons learned to other projects. By not involving Wikidata in the measurements process, the proposal would repeat efforts that have already been done on English Wikipedia, which would not be innovative. This proposal aligns with Wikimedia's strategic priority to increase the (gender) diversity of knowledge on WMF projects. However, I see limited opportunity for online impact because the applicant has not made clear connections between their proposed research and action/implementation based on findings. It would be helpful to have more details on the research, too: without them, it's unclear to me that the approach can be sustained, scaled or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends. Given the amount of funding requested by the applicant and the dependence on a university partnership, it seems difficult to be sustained/scaled without significant resources. From my limited knowledge of Italian Wikipedia, I think it could be very useful to have more gender gap work done in Italy. However, like many of the commenters, I wonder about the applicant’s experience. I don't think it's necessary to have Wikipedia experience to work on gender gap projects, and in fact, I think it can give a fresh perspective. However, the proposal is still rather vague and I'm not entirely sure of its potential for impact. If the proposal measured the interconnectedness of articles based on interconnectedness of associated Wikidata items, then I would support this project. The risk here is high: the applicant does not have enough experience with Wikimedia projects and may not be very aware of previous gender gap activities and research. The measures of success are also vague. There am unsure how innovative the approach is in this proposal. The measures of success are very vague in providing how many articles of notable women would be involved. A project of this nature should spell out its quantitative expectations. I'm concerned about the measurability of success. The proposal mentions few specific measurable goals, and it seems to be couched in rather broad terms. However, it is a project that could potentially learn from other gender gap projects outside of Italy. I have concerns about technological expenses, and would like clarification on this point. Yes, I think this is doable. The timeline provided is one year but it is possible that the applicant is not aware that IEG only funds 6-month projects. While I would like more details on the scope/activities, I think aspects of this proposal could be accomplished. However, these aspects also seem more beneficial and of interest to the academic/research community more than to the WMF movement. There is a yearly salary posted in this proposal that should be limited to six months. It's still somewhat unclear to me exactly how this grant will be executed, so it's a little difficult to determine whether the scope can be accomplished in 6 months. There are many willing to support all gender gap efforts and from my own corner of the Wikiverse I happen to know that the Italian Wikipedia has special challenges in this regard, so it's nice to see the large amount of community support. It's good to see so many community members providing feedback on the talk page. It looks to me that the applicant made an effort to notify interested people/projects. However, the proposal is still very unclear about how editors would be engaged and the applicant has little experience with the target community. There is not strong enough activity for community engagement in this proposal, and the project seems to be limited to a single geographic area. Community engagement seems more like community notification instead of a developed plan for interaction or collaboration. This project seems to have a lot of support and there are plans to engage with the local Wikipedia community. I would also encourage the applicant to engage with other gender gap projects, e.g. Women in Red, and those outside of Italy. The application does not seem to explain the importance of the survey and "scientific analysis," and how the outcome of both would be used. In general, this proposal seems more like a paid research project that includes some editing and a workshop. I like the project, but there are some concerns with the metrics and how they are measured; the budget isn't clear, but the proposal has strong support. If the project is to be funded, I would really appreciate clarifications on budget and metrics from the applicants. I think this should be part of ongoing work by the Italian chapter. That said, if the Wikidata aspects are taken into account so that other projects can pull this up as a storytelling guide for gender gap reporting and monitoring, then I would support this project. I'm not sure if there's a language barrier but I had a really hard time understanding the project plan. I would encourage the applicant to narrow the scope of the proposal, and either focus on research that sheds light on the extent, the causes, and impact of the gender gap, OR on activities that engage community members in improving content. This long-term project to review content is not aligned with IEG time requirements. But I am slightly in favor of this project in case of a stronger review. The compensation for the Project Management is quite on the high side, since there are no proposed numbers in terms of deliverables. It is very difficult to ascertain whether or not the duration stated here is commensurate of the proposed work. This proposal feels incomplete. It isn't clear why everything mentioned cannot be archived through volunteers. The vast majority of budget is the salary and only a very small portion will be directly used for the actual intended work. I would like to see smaller-scale attempts first. For instance, we could fund a few edit-a-thons as a test case and grow from that. This project is better suited for a local chapter as the focus seems to be restricted to Italy.

--MJue (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 2 June 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the IEG Committee

@MJue (WMF): Thank you! --Kenzia (talk) 02:04, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the tool part (discussed also in th talk) uses wikidata and it is not restricted to "Italy". We use the Italian area a test to improve these types of tools but they are for every platforms. For example when I was learning how to do wikidata lists I shared the information with eswiki and enwiki immediately. See for example: en:w:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Red#Useful_Wikidata_lists.--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:24, 11 June 2016 (UTC)