Grants talk:PEG/Shared Knowledge/WikiWomen Macedonia

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members who support this request

1. --Ilario (talk) 21:37, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
2. --Hasive • talk • 07:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
3. --DerekvG (talk) 13:31, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
4. Satisfactory answers to my questions. Craig Franklin (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2015 (UTC).
5. Polimerek (talk) 01:07, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
6. Béria L. de Rodríguez ^msg 11:58, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
7. Big support for this. Looking on Polimerek's question and Violetova's answer, I must say that I think 10€/h is not a Macedonia average. It is more EU standard wich is several times higher than Macedonian one. However, I support the idea of project and suggested budget looking good.--MikyM (talk) 15:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
8. Reasonable project with reasonable amount requested for the described purposes.
   — Danny B. 00:02, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

GAC members who oppose this request

1. ...

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. I refrain from evaluating this grant request because of my involvement as President of Shared Knowledge and one of the contact persons for this request.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 23:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
2. I abstain from voting, because I am creator of this request. -Violetova (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

GAC comments

Questions from Lankiveil

I'm very inclined to support, but a few quick questions:

1. How do you define "at least 150 female editors are educated on how to edit Wikipedia"? Do you just mean you want 150 women to show up at the events?
2. How have the travel costs been defined? 1.5 euros per trip sounds like an awfully small amount. Can you elaborate on the proposed mode of transport?

Thanks in advance. Craig Franklin (talk) 09:51, 14 March 2015 (UTC).

Hi Lankiveil, thank you for your questions.

1. It will be 27 event / sessions, 10 women at every session, equal 270 women, would be our best result. But, some of them will come several times on sessions (if the person have more questions on how to edit Wikipedia, could come two or three times on the events), some events could be with less than ten women (could happen), that is how we define at least 150 female editors as a measure of success.
2. About transport: we'll hold the events in two cities, so the costs calculated are for traveling between them. Some of the traveling cost are for public transport inside the city. This was particular request from the organizations in the preliminary meetings: their female members and activists would come to the event, and in the end of the session we'll give them tickets for public transport to go home. Not cash money, of course, but tickets. Regards, -Violetova (talk) 14:50, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Excellent, no concerns here then. Best of luck with the project. Craig Franklin (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2015 (UTC).

Questions from Polimerek

Simple but well though project. Just one question - regarding "Project management" (entry 3 and 4) - how do you calculated this? This if for reimbursement of cost or also a kind of payment for work - if yes, how it was calculated and why 3 and 4 is different by 33 EUR per person? Polimerek (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Polimerek, thank you for your kind words. The answer regarding how we calculated "Project management" (entry 3 and 4) is going as this: we calculated that the persons who will help Shared Knowledge will have at least active 3 hours a week each, or something more. That is around 13,3 hours a month, multiply 10 euros an hour, as we usually pay. The partners organizations asked for 100 euros a month honorarium for their coordinators. That is common payment for this kind of duty for them, they said. We accepted the sum, without asking how they calculated, because it doesn't seem to be a high expenditure. Everyone should be paid for their time and money (telephone cost, for example) spent on this project. Regards, --Violetova (talk) 09:46, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

Hi Violetova. Thank you for this grant request and for engaging with the GAC in the discussion. We're really excited that Shared Knowledge is interested in supporting more women contributing to Wikipedia! We support these efforts and have a few remaining questions on the grant request:

1. Teaching at least 150 women wiki skills is an ambitious goal! However, we are less concerned with the number of women trained than the number of women who become regular and active contributors. Our experience has shown that if an individual attends one editing workshop or editathon they are not likely to continue editing. What has been shown to be more effective is conducting series of workshops where people progressively learn more advanced skills, are mentored between sessions online, and develop relationships with more experienced Wikimedians. We would encourage you yo think about restructuring the sessions so that the focus is on recruiting women that come to multiple sessions, not just one. We would also like to understand better your plans for following up with the women after the sessions are over -- either in person or online. Please take a look at our program resources for editathons and editing workshops, especially the editathon case study and editing workshop case study, which provide good information on ways to maximize retention.
2. It's great that Shared Knowledge is working with other organizations that have access to more women. One of the goals is to set up collaborations with at least 2 organizations. What are your hopes or expectations for what a longer-term partnership would look like?
3. Please clarify the travel costs. Who are the 30 people traveling from Nagoricane to Kumanovo? Are the costs for the 100 people in the city reimbursement for participants who request it?

Thanks again for this request. We look forward to your responses and supporting this great work. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex, thanks for the comments and questions. I highly appreciate links with reports you posted, I found very useful information there. Here are the answers:

1. We are concerned also how many of them will stay and be active Wikipedians. In theory "quality comes from quantity", so we hope that this theory is applicable to Wiki community. Of course, we encourage every woman who will attend the session to come to multiple sessions, especially if one has more questions on how to edit Wikipedia. Online support is available for every one on WKMK, for there are active Wikimedians as admins.
2. We hope to continue collaboration with the organizations after the sessions are over. Part of the collaboration would include edithathons which we will work on together, and if this project ends up successfully, we would continue with workshops with their memebers in other cities.
3. Skopje is one of the cities where this sessions will take a place, and Kumanovo is other one. Travel costs for 30 persons from Nagoricane to Kumanovo (public transport) is for women who lives in the village named Nagoricane, which is very close to Kumanovo. We planed to have 30 persons from Nagoricane. Other travel costs for 100 people are for the participants who will come on the sessions in Skopje. Costs are for public transport, and we are going to give bus tickets to women who will come by bus, not cash money. Of course, if one come with taxi or with car, we are not reimburse their costs at all.

Regards, -Violetova (talk) 20:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Violetova. Thanks for the response. In our experience, quality does not always come form quantity, but we will see! It would be great to hear if you plan on have a more tailored follow-up plan for these participants beyond the online support that is "available for every one on WMMK". We've found that unless there is a real plan for continued mentorship, new editors do not continue. Please discuss with the team what you have the capacity to offer. If it means targeting a fewer number of participants, but with a higher probability and metric for retention, then that's fine. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex, here is our plan as a team:

• Small groups of ten women or less at three hours session, so we will be able to give in-person support;
• Sessions will be hold in two months;
• We encourage everyone to come on more than one session;
• We update the local project page with list of Admins, and names of Wikimedians who are available for online support;
• We are going to invite them on Wiki meetings in live other then sessions, where enthusiasm about creating new articles of Wikimedians usually is motivated force for beginners;
• We encourage them to contact us on our private e-mail, FB profiles and phone numbers as one kind of support;
• We have FB page for this purpose also;
• If they have requests or questions, we will help for sure;
• We are going to check their editing weekly to see how it is going.

We are open for suggestions any time. Regards, -Violetova (talk) 18:04, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Violetova. Thank you for these details. We are ready to approve.