Grants talk:PEG/UG BG/WLE 2016

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

GAC members decisions

GAC members who support this request

1. -Violetova (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
2. the main question for me was the following: these guys conducted event without any grants during prior year and achieved nice results (>100 contestants, >1500 photos) and I wanted to understand whether additional funding is really required or these guys want to do the same as PY but this time they will use funding more than own enthusiasm. Here I see the difference and I expect real impact from the funding: I think that measures of success could be higher and more challenging but, nevertheless, I support this request. Thank you for such a detailed answer rubin16 (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

GAC comments

prior experience

I like the idea of the awards and it can really create additional publicity for Wikimedia movement but in order to better understand possible impact it would be nice to understand prior results of WLE 2015: were any awards used there? I see statistics on the grant page but I haven't found details how the contest was organized during prior year: whether prizes were awarded, social media used, etc. rubin16 (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rubin16: Thank you for your question, and let me answer it.

In 2015, we organized WLE in Bulgaria for the first time. It took Lord Bumbury, Vodnokon4e and me exactly 4 nights and 3 days to launch it, starting 28 May, and I guess this was the fastest ever setting up of Wiki Loves Anything. :) That would have never been possible without the huge support of our friends from Wikimedia Ukraine, who helped us for the wle-bg upload campaign, templates, and later with the jury tool.

The WLE-Bulgaria took place from 1 June to 30 June, and that was still in time. In most countries it took place from 1 May to 31 May, but there were several countries which organized the contest in June. In general, the contest period proved to be chosen well, because May was a rather rainy month in Bulgaria, and the weather in June was more favourable for taking pictures. :) As of today, this proves to be true this year as well.

The preparation last year consisted of several steps:

• Getting acquainted with the organization of the landing and support pages, as well as templates, and translating/adapting them to Bulgarian; in both Bulgarian Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
• Preparing lists of natural heritage sites (deciding the optimal level of detail, automatic extraction of information from public databases and formatting it in wiki markup)
• Creating categories and templates for all the respective natural heritage sites.
• Coordinating with the Ukrainian organizing team their support in launching the wle-bg campaign for us.
• Working on the promotion of the contest in online and social media.

We used a cute checklist for all these tasks, c:Commons:Wiki Loves Earth 2015 in Bulgaria/Tasks, which helped us a lot in prioritizing and completing the preparatory activities back then. A similar checklist is already prepared for this year, too: Commons:Wiki Loves Earth 2016 in Bulgaria/Tasks.

Although we already knew that our colleagues from other countries in the region had budget for the organization of the contest, due to the tight timeframe last year, we did not apply for funding from WMF, and we could not afford to provide our own. There were no awards, and the only incentive that we used while promoting the contest (WP Sitenotice, FB and other social media, kafene.bg) was that the winners at the national stage of the contest, would continue in the international stage.

In comparison with our last year experience, this year we started the first steps of the organization much earlier, starting with negotiating a media partner in the person of the popular science magazine "BBC Knowledge" (meeting with the editor-in-chief in the end of March), and already having the announcement of WLE 2016 published in their May issue.

Despite our hasty organization last year, we exploited every possible contact in order to get adequate publicity. Including: the lifestyle website kafene.bg, heavy FB promotion via our FB page, and, post-contest, a photo gallery in one of the leading online daily newspapers, with the 10 best photos on the national stage of the contest. We also received a lot of re-posting and thus new audiences via the FB group of the "Balkani" Wildlife Society (we have a cooperation since Feb 2015), and our long-term partner, Sofia Zoo. Our partnership with the Zoo, which received our first Bulgarian WMF funding several years ago, has continued to develop since then. When we received an invitation from the international WLE organizer from Ukraine, Antanana, to propose a Bulgarian in the international jury of the contest, we proposed our colleague from the Zoo, Mrs, Katerina Zareva, head of the Environmental, Educational and Research Centre of the Zoo. After the end of the jurying, she gave an interview for our blog, which was translated in the last days, and will be soon made available in the blog of WLE. In the next days, a publication in the lifestyle website kafene.bg is also anticipated.

As of today, we have secured again cooperation from the Zoo and Balkani, as well as the Bulgarian geographic portal. We have the enthusiastic consent for cooperation with the National Museum of Natural History, where we'd like to have our award ceremony conducted, and in the next week we'll make a meeting with them. The commitment of the "BBC Knowledge" magazine is for 3 publications for WLE (1 announcement, 1 article with the top 10 Bulgarian photos, and 1 - with the top 10 on the international stage), and 3 publications for Wiki Loves Monuments.

Also, this year, we have negotiated a public lecture at the Faculty of Biology, Sofia University, about Wiki Loves Earth and Wikipedia, either on 1st or 8th June, preferably on 1st, but still pending confirmation. Also, an associate professor from the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, will be a member of the jury, and we'll seek publicity via the Institute's channels. (Oh, while writing this, I just remembered that I have a friend researcher from the Institute of Forest Research, at the Academy, and another in the University of Forestry in Sofia, and I will make sure to contact them on Monday.)

Not sure if this is enough, but we're still working. :) →Spiritia 21:13, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

One more, important thing. A huge difference between WLE 2015 and WLE 2016 in Bulgaria, is the fact that we already have a blog, which last year started in August, and thus could not serve us for the organization and promotion of WLE 2015 in June. The first publication about WLE 2016 is ready, under review right now, but is considered for publication by tomorrow noontime (I'll post a link). Finally, we discussed also setting up a FB event page, but this topic can be elaborated by either Лорд Бъмбъри, or VladislavNedelev, or Спасимир, because I'm right now inactive on FB. →Spiritia 21:25, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Morning, here is a bit more concise way to present the information above, as of today.

Media	2015: Agreement	2015: Publications(s)	2016: Agreement	2016: Publication(s)	2016: Member in the Jury
Our own FB page		FB posts, Interviews with participants/winners		FB posts	-
Our own blog	-	Two articles (post-contest)		First article A series of articles, Interviews with participants/winners	-
Sofia Zoo, FB group		FB posts/reposts, Interview for our blog		FB posts/reposts
"Balkani" Wildlife Society		FB posts/reposts		FB posts/reposts
Kafene.bg		Article		Article(s)	-
"Dnevnik"	-	Photogallery (post-contest)		Article, Photogallery	-
BBC Knowledge Magazine	-	-		Article already published Two more articles to come
Geograf.bg	-	-		Articles and FB posts/reposts	-
National Museum of Natural History	-	-		Venue for awards ceremony
Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research	-	-		?
Association of Women Photographers	-	-		?	-
A Facebook group on mountaineering	-	-		?	-
A leading online forum for photography	-	-		?	-

→Spiritia 05:20, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Community comments

• hello! thank you for the proposal. some sections are still empty: Target readership, Risks. I would suggest requests for non-financial assistance (like posts on Wikimedia Blog, some souvenirs etc) --アンタナナ 00:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Section "Target readership" just developed. Thank you! →Spiritia 05:10, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • "Risks" identified and described, too, together with Lord Bumbury. The non-financial assistance was also added earlier today. Thanks again, →Spiritia 21:22, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
    • thanks :) I thought you have forgotten about them, but it seems you have been polishing them :) --アンタナナ 22:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Spiritia. Thanks so much for your detailed and well-organized grant proposal and engaging with the discussion. We appreciate all the details you provided on organizing last year's competition. The estimated volunteers hours needed for organizing the contest is very helpful and we hope you'll be able to track this.

1. We would expect with better planning, prizes, and more outreach this year, there will be a more significant increase in the number of participants and photos. You don't need to update your metrics, but hopefully you will surpass them!
2. We have not seen the benefit of giving merchandise (calendars, pens, notebooks) to all participants at an event like an award ceremony. Calendars are especially expensive to print and that money is better used for prizes or other outreach. If you want to have something small to give away at the awards ceremony, we will fund pens or stickers.
3. We understand that award ceremonies can be a useful tool for outreach and community building. However, costs for the award ceremony are almost half of the proposed budget. We are comfortable funding it this year since it will be the first time for such an event, but encourage the team to assess whether it was worth the time, effort, and cost of organizing. Some groups see it as a great way to recognize contributors and keep them motivated, as well as expose new people to Wikimedia. Other groups find that they would rather spend the money on additional prizes or activities aimed at integrating photos on wiki (like an editathon).
4. Have you thought about activities to integrate photos on wiki, like an editathon? An editathon or subsequent writing contest can be great ways to motivate editors to use the photos that were submitted during the contest.

Thank you again for this really high-quality proposal. We appreciate the time and effort put into writing it and organizing the contest. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Alex, thank you for your comments and questions.

1. We understand and agree with the expectation more significant increase in the number of participants and photos, but do not have the data to estimate it better and are thankful that you do not expect us to update our metrics. We will, of course, change our expectations for next year, based on this year's data.
2. We will discuss the merchandise for the event and surely not give away a calendar to every participant at it. We will speak to our regional partners and learn from their experiences before we spend possibly too much money on the wrong kind of merchandise.
3. We believe in our plan to use an award ceremony as means of building our community. Momentarily wiki meetups take place only in Sofia. Mostly people living in Sofia and abroad participate, but not people living outside of the capital. We believe that by inviting people from the province to such a ceremony we would engage them more in the future. There is no good quantitative metric for this, but we expect to be able to see a change in our community engagement afterwards.
4. Last year we organised an international online editathon, called Archives Challenge, which helped us use more of the digitised content from our GLAM Partnership with the Bulgarian Archives State Agency. We have been discussing something similar on a national level for the images from Wiki Loves Earth, but have not come to a decision.

Best regards, --Lord Bumbury (talk) 22:44, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lord Bumbury. Thank you for the quick reply. Did you want to get back to us regarding the merchandise with a revised proposal? Or we can approve this request now with a 200 EUR line item for merchandise. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, we will answer this question after we discuss it tomorrow. --Lord Bumbury (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, we discussed the matter among us and with our regional partners and came up with following:

• we consider calendars to be the best gifts for our (potential) partners, for the 10 winners and as motivation for the participating volunteers. We think that 50 calendars would be sufficient (10 for the ten best participants, 10 for the volunteers, organising the project, 10 for our current partners and 20 for our future partners (this is not overly optimistic!). They would cost 250 Euro (instead of 500) like now.
• we are willing to remove pens, notebooks, and mugs from the budget in order to spare money for calendars
• we would like to add 100 buttons to the budget, because they are rather cheap (50 cents per button) and can be used as giveaways for participants at the ceremony, which equals 50 Euro.

The budget for merchandise would be then 300 Euro instead of 910. Would that be okay? --Lord Bumbury (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lord Bumbury. That would be fine. Please update the grant proposal and then I can go ahead and approve the grant. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:51, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, Done. On behalf of our community I thank you for your support! --Lord Bumbury (talk) 07:32, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Question about the moment when we can use money

Alex, may we pay for some of the incidentals before the grant amount gets transferred to our bank account, and use the grant as reimbursement? --Lord Bumbury (talk) 18:29, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lord Bumbury. Please email grants@wikimedia.org and Janice can can discuss it with you. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Question about possible relocation of a small sum from one budgetary item to another

Dear Alex, this month we'll be making most of our expenditures on prizes, calendars, etc. And I have a question if it is possible to make a relocation of a small sum of 100 BGN (~ 50 EUR, 58 USD) from one budgetary item - Travel expenses, to another - Prizes. The idea about this relocation was first discussed within the organizational team, and agreed upon by Nikola, Spasimir, Stan (only waiting for Vladislav's opinion) before I ask you here.

In addition to what has been promised as activities in the frames of the project, one idea appeared in the beginning of May, and we recently announced the results from it: One of the Top10 photos on the national level, that will be awarded, was chosen by the Committee of Postage Stamps Issuance, and will appear on the first official wikimedian postage stamp in Bulgaria and for the WLE concourse. So, the idea was whether it will be okay to give a small prize of 100 BGN in the form of a voucher for a bookshop, or shop for photographic equipment, or Amazon, to the designer of the stamp, a young female graphic artist. She agreed to volunteer about making the design, but I feel that she deserves also a small prize, like the author of the photograph whose picture appears on the stamp, and her work is of no less importance. This question is also motivated from the fact, that our information from the other awarded photographers has shown that most of them are from Sofia, so in the budget for travel we will have enough remaining money that can be turned into a voucher for the illustrator, too.

Will such relocation be considered eligible? →Spiritia 06:46, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Spiritia. It sounds like a great use of funds. The budget change is approved. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! →Spiritia 08:37, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

A bit more budget restructuring

Dear Alex, I think that we'll benefit a lot from your permission to do a little bit more restructuring of the budget, i.e., to have three of the budgetary items exceeded on the account of another, which will remain mostly untouched. Some of the items (printing of calendars, printing of the panes with the winning photos and catering) exceed the projected amounts (not dramatically, but still enough for me to ask permission), and one of the items (travel) will remain almost intact. We will fit within the whole budget frame, but the planned division per items seems to need finer tuning, which I consider normal in the course of the real project implementation.

• The reason for the changes in the pane printing costs is that in addition to the ten winning photos, we also included in the exhibition the one winning photo from Bulgaria in the top 10 of "Wiki Loves Earth - Biosphere Reserves", outlined by the UNESCO jury. This is an additional recognition for our country and we consider the author's contribution equally important as that of the rest WLE winners from Bulgaria, who were appointed by the jury. One more pane with information about the competition, statistics of this year's contribution and the logo of Wikimedia and the project partners was prepared, as well. Thus, while the plan here was for 150 EUR, the total cost came up to 180 EUR.
• The calendar also turned out to be a bit more expensive because the quote given for (the originally planned) 100 calendars seems to have been lower than the actual price for printing the 50 calendars (resulting from the required reduction at the project discussion stage). We planned in the budget 250 EUR for calendars, and we report an expense of 300 EUR.
• As I already mentioned in the previous thread, we made an extra effort to arrange one of the Top 10 photos to be printed as an official national postage stamp, the first Wikimedian postage stamp in Bulgaria, and the first one for "Wiki Loves Earth". However, even as proposers of this idea, we will not be entitled to free postage stamps, and we will have to buy them. While everyone from the team can buy for our personal use as many stamps as we like, it might be a good idea to buy some reasonable quantity for the User Group, for sending to our international Wikimedia partners, including Wikimedia Ukraine as WLE founders and the Wikimedia Foundation (Katherine Maher is already waiting for hers :) as well as Charles Roslof and the rest of the legal team, who facilitated the process of Wikipedia's logo usage on the stamp. :) Do you consider the travel/postage item eligible for this kind of cost?
• On the other hand, the item for travel/postage expenses (350 EUR) will remain almost untouched, as the majority of our winners are residents of Sofia. One winner will travel from Plovdiv, and another will not travel and will receive his prize by a delivery service. The budgetary item, allocated for bank fees, also seems to produce a good remainder.

In the next 1-2 days we are making final arrangements and payments, and I think that other surprisingly higher costs will not occur. But if we have permission to report our expenses as they are, while strictly fitting within the original budget, will help us significantly to complete the project as smoothly as possible. Thanks in advance for your consideration, →Spiritia 21:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi →Spiritia. Thank you for this detailed request and explanation of the changes in budget. We are fine with the reallocation of budget items as you have described and agree to using travel/postage funds for purchasing of the stamps. Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Alex, this permission is very much appreciated by the team and me. Tomorrow is The Day, I hope we'll organize a really successful awards ceremony! :) →Spiritia 16:05, 30 September 2016 (UTC)