Grants talk:PEG/WM BE/Wiki Loves Art 2016

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

GAC members who support this request

1. I support funding this project with transfering portions of grant according to the time schedule: there are some contingent points and it's important to see that the project continues to run smoothly before funding continued rubin16 (talk) 18:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
2. (anyway I am curious about the answer of my other question). --Ilario (talk) 21:35, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
3. -Violetova (talk) 21:41, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
4. I think goals/success measures should be re-done, but I get where you are going. This is a "strategic" project for you, and so it deserves a large amount of funding. I also think you need to make your aims more specific, not to be a "regular photo competition". I hope you agree with me. See details below. Alleycat80 (talk) 01:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
5. I support this project. --Hasive • talk • 10:55, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
6. Probably "Risks" (section) involved has to be re-written. Otherwise, I do see some experience previously working with Romaine in WLM and I'm sure to see this as a success. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 06:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
7. Broadly I support this initiative, however there can and should be some further fine-tuning on the "Risks" section given the amount of money involved. Craig Franklin (talk) 11:18, 10 June 2015 (UTC).
8. Very interesting and well scaled project. Léna (talk) 11:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
9. I see you have had a thorough grilling on this project plan and am certain that you will take all the valid concerns into consideration. Perhaps including a quality photography session prior to each of your organized photo events might help with your quality questions ( or providing good documentation as To y suggested). We have also had some success by including photographic groups in our calls for participation. I am happy to support it and look forward to seeing the impact it has on building your community. --Islahaddow (talk) 22:22, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
10. I support this project. I think it's well prepared and can be a good example for other chapters in the future. Only thing I want organizers to explain in detail are Management ($4.000) and Travel ($2.500) expenses.--Wertuose (talk) 12:34, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. --DerekvG (talk) 16:31, 30 May 2015 (UTC) involved in the project
2. MADe (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2015 (UTC) active in WM BE

Precheck by Wikimedia Belgium

• moved to project discussion

This project has been discussed with the board and the members of Wikimedia Belgium. I will try to give my remarks to the budget as well, before it is filed with the GAC. MADe (talk) 18:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Hey DerekvG and Romaine, can you clarify how you will make sure that volunteers will not violate museum copyright policy by uploading images of the art works online? Secondly, I would propose you to change the budget a bit: only add the BTW (21%) and the contingency cost (10%) at the end. This gives a budget which is easier to undestand. MADe (talk) 17:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok Iĺl take care of it --DerekvG (talk) 19:19, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

GAC comments

Number of institutions

Have you already contacted some of those "2 dozen cultural institutions" you hope to open door for photographers? I guess it is the key issue here for success. As the previous experience shows (from musuems POV - [1]) - the most important thing is to establish good cooperation with museums. Polimerek (talk) 00:35, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• I second the question above and just want to ask - what is "investment beamer"? Google hasn't helped me and I don't now what it is, sorry rubin16 (talk) 09:11, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The request is huge in my opinion. An event like this can have a wide advertising only using the banner of Wikipedia. Anyway it's unclear the impact. It may be justified but with a valid number of deliveries. --Ilario (talk) 19:27, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Allow me to answer some of your remarks, our partner Packed and Faro (public funded bodies that assist cultural institutions) have more then those 2 dozen institutions that are interested in collaborating with Wiki (for various reasons). If we express things in terms of "hope" then that is because at this point in time and at this stage of preparation we cannot say by name which individual instituion will participate (ie has signed an agreement). What we aim for is 2 dozen as a manageable quantity (given the current number of volumteers) for this first event, which we intend to run as a biannual event alternating with Wiki loves Monuments. We do have taken some experience from the dutch (Nl) Wiki Loves Art 2009 project. The cooperation with the institutions is the prime objective of this project, handling the volunteers is in the sideproject, we have prepared a menu of collaboration formulas with optional components to suit different institutions requirements, this makes the event predictable, foreseeable and manageable for the institutions and their staff, we can even do "rehearsals". Part of the project is to educate the GLAM's, which is a crucial confidence builder. --DerekvG (talk) 00:42, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Rubin16 as for the "investment beamer" it's an investment in a portable vdu-projector (beamer) unit, and PA (public address) system. This investment is not limited to this project but is essential in this project, and it can be used for other projects like the educational project and will be useful for several years to come. Not everywhere we come/are invited to give presentations to the public, to do educational workshops, those facilities are available, in some case we may not even be allowed to make use of the facilities present at the venue. When they are not we could rent that equipment, however the rental cost (of approx 150€/session) would be such that 10 times renting the equipment would have paid for the purchase, thatś why we opted for purchasing, it makes a lot more sense. In some cities that equipment might be rented cheaper from a the local council, however collecting the equipment there and returning it would also double or triple the rent, and would incur addtional transport cost, making it at least as expensive as the commercial providers closer to our office or to the venues where we give the presentation or workshops.--DerekvG (talk) 00:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Ilario the impact in term of returns (like number of images, number of edits, articles etc) might be less important at this stage of the project. Our objectives a re to establish the foundations far a longterm collaborations with a number of GLAM's suche that we can organise bi-annual re-iterations of this project, impact 1 of this project is establishing workabale realtions of trust with the GLAM if 90% of the GLAMś indicate that they will do this again with Wikimedia it will a success, if more then 40% say "once has been enough" that will not be a very good result. The next impact is that if these GLAMS return for other collaborations like content donations, WiR-projects , edit-a-thons at their location using their materials then we will have succeeded. The risk involved with this latter impact is that Wikimedia Belgium needs to recruit volunteers, to actually perform the requested collaborations from this second impact, our answer for that risk is the educational roadshow-projects in the sideprojects. --DerekvG (talk) 00:42, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't remember if the law in Belgium allows to photograph art in museums. May you give a detail? --Ilario (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

So far I know there is no specific law that is about taking pictures in museums. It is mostly up the museum itself to determine if they allow such or not. Based on the policy an institution has, we have models of how they can participate in Wiki Loves Earth. If they don't allow to take pictures during opening hours, they can choose for the model in what they open their doors after opening hours, another model is that people are allowed to take pictures when participants report themselves at the front desk, another model is going behind the scenes to the archives. Romaine (talk) 21:52, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Photo contest vs Mass upload

Hi and thanks for this contribution :) Can you explain why you chose to collaborate with GLAM through photo event and not mass upload ? Photo context often lead to poor to medium quality pictures, do you have any plan to mitigate this risk ? Léna (talk) 21:38, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi! First I like to say that the goal of photo contests is that they make participants upload pictures with the purpose of illustrating Wikipedia articles. I found it disappointing that all those so-called "medium quality pictures" are referred to in this way, because that denies the value they have. With a recent study of WMF it became clear that WMF has a much different goal than the community who is organising the photo contests. The community wants their cultural heritage, nature and art described in word and images, and for that reason they organise contests. I highly disagree with the suggestion that photo contests have lead to poor/medium quality images, actually seeing all the images being used on Wikipedia, now and in the future, they all are/were needed to illustrate Wikipedia properly. We always would welcome to get higher quality images, but without denying the value the less high quality images have. But still, a photo contest is designed in such way that high quality photos are awarded with prizes.

And if an institution thinks that the images are having a too low quality, they can always donate better images to Wikimedia.

At first sight, it may look like a photo contest only, but it is larger than only that. In November 2014 we had a meeting with a museum in Belgium about collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia. They were very positive about collaborating and we gave a presentation and explanation with all the possibilities. Then we asked what they would like as collaboration and it went silent. Somehow they do not know how to start such collaboration, they hesitate and experience a doorstep which makes it difficult to continue. Talking to other organisations, including Europeana, this appears a big issue in Belgium. We have considered how to continue and making the doorstep lower and having them opening their doors. We think Wiki Loves Art is for Belgian organisations a good way to start collaborating with us: first we have a concrete plan in what every organisation can participate, second it is a good way to have Wikimedia invited in the organisations as we are mostly introduced by existing organisations, third it gives us the opportunity to talk with them and making our existence known to them (awareness), fourth as we are in sight it will make it easier for them to think about other collaborations. And this fourth point has already happened, as we had pre-talks with some organisations, one made us clear that they would like to donate their entire archive to us, but didn't know how to. For other organisations it is a way to learn to know is and that Wikimedia is not a dangerous organisation but is a safe partner to work with. So when we propose Wiki Loves Art to organisations, we also introduce ourselves and explain them the possibilities of collaborating with Wikipedia. To make clear that it is also important for them to collaborate with us. It is not just a simple photo contest. The project is a key to unlock the doors. Romaine (talk) 22:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Léna allow me to explain some context about the situation in Belgium. First of all we are a young chapter (less than a year old). A mass upload requires experienced Wikimedians to support the GLAM, Belgium doesn't have the experience yet. We need successful projects to put our GLAMś at ease with the concept of contributions to Wikipedia. We need therefore to establish good working relationssihips, and confidence and trust between the different partners. In order to build trust we need to do what we can handle, and not take a bigger byte then we can chew. We also need to train volunteers to work with the GLAMś, Basic training takes time before we can begin with experience building.

Mention the risk of poor quality, photographers cannot show up with their phone and take a picture, photogrphers will be trained and they will be mentored by one of Belgiumś most renowned professional photographers Michiel Hendryckx. Pictures will be of high standards an quality and they will need to be uploaded with al lot of meta-data, categorisation and linked to existing articles or new articles will be written. Thsi is why the current gaols in term of uploads and articles of this project seems so limited. our prime objective is to build a base for regular cooperation with our GLAMś--DerekvG (talk) 22:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Romaine Just a reminder that I'm not from the Foundation and I'm an active Commons contributor (as a photographer, uploader, and sysop) :)

From your reactions of both you and DerekvG its seems like my question turned way harsher written here in English than what I intended, my apologies for that :(

A little clarification on what I called medium quality picture : this (on the right) is a file from a mass upload of Fine Arts museum in Toulouse

I call it "high quality" because the image is very "clean" and of sufficient size for screen, but not "very high quality" since we can't zoom in and see the details.

Now this (on the left) is the same painting, but photographed by myself :

As you can see, the colours are different (meaning, the colours in my picture are wrong). It's also way more blurry, so even if my picture is bigger, details are not more visible. There is also a huge black shadow on the bottom and some grey stuff on the right. This is what I call "poor to medium quality" :)

But as you pointed out, it is waaaay better to have just the second picture, than no picture at all. I completely agree with that :)

From both your answers, it is clear that the main goal of this program is to be a "foot in the door" in Belgium institutions. Even if the Belgian chapter is very young, this shows that you already have a very mature approach, because you are both ambitious (number of institutions involved) and reasonable (involvement of said institutions, at least for their first action with Wikimedia). Again, I'm really sorry if my question turned out harsh, because I only have praise for you on this request :) Léna (talk) 09:15, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Léna for your suggestions, no need to apologise your question was neutral, to the point and we didn't have the feeling it was harsh. We do apologise if our answers seemed defensive, however both romaine and I come from a dutch background where q&a tend to have a more direct tone without people partaking in the conversation feel offended. Your example and your remarks about image quality is valid, and clarifies exactly what I intended to say. In order not to get bad quality pictures , bad lighting, loss of detail, loss of nuances in the shades of colours etc we have programmed in Wiki Loves art Sideprograms workshops for photographers by renowned professional photographers Michiel Hendryckx, on top of that we intend as part of this program that high quality source material is made, that different sizes of the image are uplaoded, we also have quality measures in place to make sure that uploaded images have high quality meta- and descriptive data and that they are linked to a number of articles (if possible) in different language wikipediaś but also that at least in the ducth wikipedia a "starter article" is made for the picture providing readers with basic data on the artefact photographed. We are very concerned with quality material not only for the quality of Wikipedia, but also because that is what our GLAM's expect, so itś critical for our objetcive of establishing good working realtionship with our GLAMś --DerekvG (talk) 12:17, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

@Léna: I didn't know your background. I still have some disappointment about some recent evaluation which was saying that we didn't meet the goals of WMF, while these goals weren't our goals, so sorry if that disappointment is found in my words. Also not to mention some issues elsewhere that gives some frustrations.

We do want high quality, but at the same time we do not have the control over what uploaders upload to Commons. We do like to avoid new examples of the milkmaid syndrome, so we want to organise training to avoid issues like such.

But yes, we want a "foot in the door", but saying such would not help this strategy. So we say: we organise a project called Wiki Loves Art, do you want to join?

It helps for me that I am/was already involved in multiple projects in the Netherlands and Belgium (pre-chapter), which provide some experiences concerning the culture and best practises. I am also aware that communication through a talk page is not the most effective way to express a message due missing intonation and mimics, and also that we have a bit more direct way of saying things, than other people have around the globe. Also English isn't our native language. Please do not worry too much, we understand the difficulties of language. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 17:46, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Better goals for the project?

Hi, I read through the proposal, and while it seems like a very good project, but with goals that don't quite fit the scope and budget proposed. I took the time and read DerekvG's reply to Ilario regarding impact, and I wish to offer a revised set of project goals.

To demonstrate why, I will use DerekvG's answer to Illario regarding impact:

"the impact in term of returns (like number of images, number of edits, articles etc) might be less important at this stage of the project. Our objectives a re to establish the foundations far a longterm collaborations with a number of GLAM's ... impact 1 of this project is establishing workabale realtions of trust with the GLAM if 90% of the GLAMś indicate that they will do this again with Wikimedia it will a success..."

So, If I understand correctly, the goal is to keep doing this project every year (or two)? I don't think this amount of budget is sustainable, nor do I think that it is wise to plan to do such a project every year. The resources you require for this project and the amount of existing volunteers mean that this is a "one-time" event. So, the goal here should be not the number of participating institutions, but the number of institutions willing to collaborate with WMBE on future, different projects.

"The next impact is that if these GLAMS return for other collaborations like content donations, WiR-projects , edit-a-thons at their location using their materials then we will have succeeded. The risk involved with this latter impact is that Wikimedia Belgium needs to recruit volunteers, to actually perform the requested collaborations."

But this is not a goal of the project! so, you need a goal to reflect that: "we will recruit volunteers that are not specifically photographers/editors, but "GLAM-wikimedians", to help us with future collaboration with GLAM institutions".

"Wikimedia Belgium needs to recruit volunteers... our answer for that risk is the educational roadshow-projects in the sideprojects."

It seemed to me that this project defers the recruitment of new editors (and perhaps new GLAM volunteers) to a side project. I took a look at the side project, and was dismayed to see that it's only a project skeleton with an initial few pages, and only Derek as a volunteer. Am I missing something? My resulting impression is that there is only little regard for volunteer recruitment and for the actual re-use of materials collected in the competition to illustrate articles. If you want better content, you need to measure content re-use, and it's better IMHO to plan that as part of the side-project to make sure to connect the two.

So, if I take a look at the goals (bold - my additions):

• We recruit 10 new volunteers to the WMBE community, that can help us to sustain future GLAM collaborations
• up to 2 dozen cultural institutions participate by opening the doors for photographers. We continue to collaborate with 10 GLAM institutions after the project (out of a total 24 participating in the project), in collaboration models such as mass content donation, WiR-projects , edit-a-thons, and joint projects.
• 50-100 participating photographers who visit the institutions and upload their photos to Commons.
• 50-100 article editors, which we will follow-up on in order to make them regular contributor , of which we recruit at least 10% to be regular contributors.
• 1000-2500 photos send in about works of art and other educational materials. At least 20% of the photos will be re-used to illustrate articles in edit-a-thons as part of the "side project".

I hope this doesn't seem to harsh, please accept this as only illustrations of goals that better suit what you REALLY want to achieve, which is a larger community, future partnerships and content that's not only uploaded, but also re-used.

DISCLAIMER: I'm posting the above respectfully and out of the desire that the project yields great results for WMBE - volunteers, collaboration, quality content. If you think I'm mistaken, please say so and I'll respect that. I don't really know the situation and experience of WMBE, and so have only a limited view.

Alleycat80 (talk) 01:04, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alleycat80! It is difficult to define goals based on so much unknown dependencies that are with the organisations we will go to. Therefore we kept our goals to those things we are sure of. Also I am not sure if setting goals for things we have a very limited influence on is a good idea, we can do our best and visit those organisations, but it is often just luck to see if they are willing to collaborate with Wikimedia.

If I would make an estimation of the next edition, it would be in 3 years, but I have heard Derek mentioning 2 years. After we have communicated with cultural institutions, I think it would be good to give them some time to come up themselves with projects, based on our presentations about the possible collaborations. And then there is time needed to process the outcomes like image donations and other collaborations.

From the project's main goal perspective (organising the contest), educating volunteers is a side project. From our personal perspective it is a large project with two parts. I am the core organiser for one part, Derek for the other part (side projects), and we support each other's part as both parts depend on each other. So if DerekvG's name is only on a certain page, mine should have been added there but hasn't been done yet. I just signed one of the pages, but it is just a formal thing. But there are already several pages on the wiki, but probably need a better structure.

Concerning the 10% to be regular contributors, I do consider working on editor retention for a large part a myth as long as the source of the problem is not solved. I give often courses in editing Wikipedia and the main experience of contributors is that Wikipedia is not an easy place to continue editing if someone hasn't a persistent thinking. Wikipedia does not provide a social environment in what it is stimulating to be active. New editors feel themselves being thrown in the deep, primitive software instead of social software that enables easy interaction and follow-ups. They experience Wikipedia as a difficult place to start and a difficult place to collaborate easily with other users. The collaborating they expect is more than only editing an article and writing messages on talk pages, that is our current primitive situation that is not sufficient to retain many contributors, and especially female contributors. They expect a social environment, with easy interaction, where they are stimulated and can form groups to be able not to feel alone on the wiki and to work together, where they can get constructive feedback, where they can follow easily what colleagues, friends and other people they know personally are doing on Wikipedia.

Further, adding photos to articles is fine, but I do not consider it the most easy or productive way to ask relatively new contributors to add photos. Certainly they can add photos, but knowing other photo contests the most photos were added by regular users as they find it easier to add photos and have a better feeling to find the right pages and add photos easily. (Not to mention that it is even more work to check if the goal is performed than adding the photos myself.)

However, I can image that different goals are welcomed to fit better with the full goal of the project. What I tried to say above that I personally prefer to have goals I actually have much influence on and are really effective, otherwise will be made accountable for something I have no or little influence on. So I can imagine that you advise us of thinking of other goals. I will talk with my colleague about this within some days.

Don't worry too much about disrespect or something, I understand your position, even while I think it would be hard to expand the goals. But yes, I have much experience in organising a wide range of activities. But I am open for suggestions. Romaine (talk) 03:47, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Dear Romaine, thank you for your thoughtful answer! I'm ok with all you've said above. My approach is somewhat less cautious in setting goals, I'd rather set a relatively aggressive goal, and "fail" by only achieving 80% of it, than the other way around. But I fully acknowledge that you want to achieve full success with the project, and I'm content with what you described above. Thank you for reading and writing back! Alleycat80 (talk) 18:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Alleycat80 I care fully read your comment and You certainly make more then one valid points. However you do appraoch our project from the wrong way. Allow me to clarify following points :

A) you validly state that if we want to do this project on a bi-annual basis thsi level of spendig is not sustainable, and you are absolutely right. However WMBE is building from scratch so our investment is high and results are low , we how to grow , increasing particiaption of GLAMś and increasing output , while decreasing spending such that the output/€ approaches the global average

B) you state that our goals are limited in terms of uplaods, and content additions, I agree, participation is low too , but we need to build our project including laying teh foundations and thi project is the foundations , we have limited resources in terms of volunteer manpower, we need to train photogrpahers and editors, in an enviroment where Belgian volunteers experience the wikipedia environment as hostile and unwelcoming. We need to train contributors because the ducth an french wikpedia alike rrepresent high hurdles for newcomers, much more so then the english wikipedia for instance, moreover on the ducth wikipedai newcomers experience a kind of "discrimnation" against belgian content. That might be a mere perception it keeps people away. we need to turn that tide in belgium getting editores and contributors to come to Wikipedia. Having said that we ahve limited capacity to interact with the GLAMś and the volunteers, for training for support but we do have one of belgium best known photographers to help us and train people to make pictues in museum or wahtever. we also want quality upload in terms of meta data and categoristaion and we want links with articles or new articles made about the subject of the picture. That limits us to quality outpaut rather than massive output. wehich is why we didn choose for large quantites of outpaut as a measure of succes.

C) ypu are right its a strategic project one in which to establish a workign rwlationshsip with our GLAMś , confidence building and trust , and professionalism are key to our succes.

D) teh fact that off-wiki volunteer and contribruot trainign are side tracked is that curently that project doesn reuire any other funding than teh investment in a beamer and PA. We are working on education material , hand outs, an prepairng pilots, we target about 300 schools with pupils aged 15-18 and anoth 50 odd higher education (Universities and colleges) students 18+ and lecturers in the ducth speaking aprt of Belgium. This side project requires its own resources and whiel itś now a side project allowing romaine and I to collaborate and share resources, the eductaion project is moving slowly out of the shadows and maturing in an autonomous porject tha will run consecutive years recruit its own off-wiki volunteers and ambassadors itrs own patrons and partners and ahe its own target public

last but not least if only 10 out of 24 GLAMś stay with us that would be a faillure, we want them to come back beacause thee is soc much material to be worked that even if I had a 1000 volunteers to edit articles, and a 10 illustrators, and 200 photographers and 50 uploaders that work the metadata , this project would still run after the lifteiems of 2 generations ... We realy need those GLAMś to stay with us and get the collobration right is our prime objective

I hope that asnswers some of your concerns --DerekvG (talk) 22:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure does, DerekvG, and thank you for clarifying my perspective on this. I might sound a bit "tired old soldier", so I will tell you only that Wikimedia Israel started off wanting 10, 20, 30 glam partners, but we discovered that having a "strategic 2-3 partnerships" that include sharing of expenses on both sides, mass content uploads, and constant sharing of information is better than 20 partnerships which we only have to volunteer time and the other party doesn't. So - I completely agree with the above written by you - just be more aggressive when creating partnerships - remember that you are giving the GLAM institutions a HUGE benefit by joining with them, and don't be shy to ask for resources - staff time, money sponsorships for future events, and other types of support (PR, technical support) in return for your awesomeness. Good luck and I'll be following WMBE's rebuilding, let me know if I can help! Alleycat80 (talk) 04:19, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Printed matter & design

Could you please give me exact description of all printed matter you plan? AKA paper type, size, color, folding, number of copies? Thank you. — Danny B. 15:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I am concerned about the payment for design of flyers. You don't have any volunteer to create them? I think this is kind of opening of the Pandora's box in area which could and should be handled by volunteers IMHO. — Danny B. 15:06, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

We are preparing the folders content and determining the target readership / function of each folder. This will determine the technical spec you asked about. Currently we do not have a volunteer who has the experience in design \, however we are working togeter with ourt partners and WMNL and that would certainly generate solution. if not we can see if WMF has the required expertise avaliable to help us. Any offer from your part or from your chapters partners will be considered, certainly if it less expensive. Volunteers might come form our education program but if we want to do this right we are not steppign into teh trap of me or any volunteer with a PC can design, because they can't designing folders etc for wiki loves art requires a professionnal approach if we don't want to have to throw away our brochures and folders 1 month into the program becuase the inof is obsolete or wrong --DerekvG (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Resources and risks

"Resources and risks" probably has to be completely re-written. If you gonna ask me, Resources shouldn't only include list of core team members, it should also include the number of volunteers who will be involved throughout, partially and so on. Also, for Risks, it should list out what maybe the potential risk; like an example if the contest holds till non-seasonal month; efforts of volunteers and participation ratio both may go down. I would expect something like that. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 06:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

• We just started with contacting people who might be interested in volunteering in this project, so we do not know the list yet of the volunteers who participate in the project. Also one part of the project is also to get more volunteers through the side projects. But I think this is a bit a chicken or the egg problem, what comes first. If this grant is approved, then we will start communicating that this project is running and we ask for volunteers.
  I am not sure what you mean with "the contest holds till non-seasonal month"? Romaine (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Community comments

Comments from Kolonel Zeiksnor

Warning to community members from DerekvG

Warning : Kolonel Zeiksnor is not a part of the wikipedia community, he has been banned on NL.wikipedia , FR.wikipedia there are files are on meta about his behaviour, heś known for this behaviour since 2005 or 2006, heś a recurring vandal, troller and stalker, he has menaced wikipedians with physical violence and he has made attempts at identity theft. --DerekvG (talk) 20:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The warning above has nothing to do with the grant discussion. It is also (proven by the checkuser at fr wikipedia) false. I never menaced wikipedians with physical violence nor did I do attempts for identity theft. The file framing me as a recurring vandal, troller and stalker is the pov of one wikimedia admin that did not like criritcal comments about dutch wikimedia. The real argument at that time (7 years ago!) was one of the wikimedia (dutch chapter) founders requested to blacklist wikisage, everyone that protested against this obvious admin abuse was named a vandal and banned for trolling. I humbly advise user DerekVG to look at his own past behaviour at dutch wikipedia. DerekvG is no longer part of that community and left with an argument. A wise decision I have to add to his credit. Dutch wikipedia was (and sadly still is) a complete mess. I'm confident however we can continue trying to improve and lower this grant. Improving the Belgian Wiki Loves Art project should be our common goal. I'm suggesting to end these warnings about collegue wikimedia contributers here at meta wiki. Is that ok with you DerekvG and Romaine? - de Kolo nel - 13:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I haven't yet read the application or the rest of this page, but there seems to be an emerging trend for GAC members to insult or undermine community reviewers (last week a community reviewer was accused of being "a troll"). This is not acceptable behaviour. I'd rather judge the editor at issue here without prejudice; thanks very much for the gratuitous warnings, but please desist. It would actually be more proper to keep this kind of thing within your own secret GAC email list, and possibly to email any other community reviewers privately with your concerns if it becomes absolutely necessary, rather than to post publicly like this. Tony (talk) 06:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Venue rental + crew hire 7,500

Every euro spend comes with great responsibility

Hello DerekvG, 7500 euro is a lot of money. According to Concern Worldwide for just €8 a month, or €2 a week, we can help save the lives of starving children. That means every euro (the money from our donations) spend comes with great responsibility. What free alternatives for venue rental and crew hire (work with volunteers eg) have you investigated? Sorry for my poor English. De Kolonel (talk) 18:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• though I am not a grantee, it seems to me that 7500 EUR are not requested from WMF, those are in-kind donation from third party rubin16 (talk) 18:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you Rubin16 you are right. Still even if it is not WMF money every euro should be spend with care if wikimedia is associated with it. So the question for free alternatives remains. De Kolonel (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
    • @Kolonel Zeiksnor: The first lesson in Wikimedia world is: there is no such thing as free labour. Unless you are willing to do all the work instead of the time our partners will do? You seem to think that everything inside Wikimedia can be done for free, prove that first or stop with that illusion. Romaine (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Romaine, almost all the work at wikipedia that raised the money your team wants to spend was done by volunteers. For the record: Romaine just censored critical comments about wikimedia holland spending a lot of WMF funds for their own pleasure and hobby (my pov) in de dutch village pump (Romaine is member from both wikimedia holland and belgium) and blocked my account. De Kolonel (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

discussion about blocked accounts

• • • • • Romaine didn't block your account on the dutch wikipedia, the Kolonel_Zeiksnor account has been blocked on an indefinite block because of trolling and vandalism since januari 2015 days after it was created DerekvG
          • @Kolonel ZeiksnorI think you miss a mayor point: this is not work that is done on Wikipedia. And the only paid work in this grant request is work that is paid by our partners who donate their time to this project to have professional communication towards cultural institutions in Belgium. All the rest of the organising inside this project is done by volunteers who are not paid for it. ~
          • Your account has been blocked on the chapter wiki of WMNL, because of 1) disruptive behaviour (long term) and 2) abuse of sockpuppets while being blocked. The block of your account is supported by the full Dutch chapter. Romaine (talk) 22:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

For the record: this user has been blocked on both the Dutch Wikipedia and the French Wikipedia for disruptive behaviour and trolling. And that not just once, but continuously since 2006. (info/info/info) Romaine (talk) 22:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Not true. Romaine knows exactly I was banned at dutch wikipedia many years ago for critizizing dutch wikimedia. For those who read french: read this for the real reason for my block at french wikipedia. L'utilisateur aurait créé des blogs contre Wikipédia means this user wrote critical blogs against wikipedia. @Romaine and DerekvG meta wiki is not intended for these discussions, if you like to contine debate about this subject I suggest we do so elswhere. Thank you for your comments Romaine and DerekvG. De Kolonel (talk) 23:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

No, you are not blocked for criticism. Criticism itself is very welcome. You are blocked for trolling. You are unable to define the clear line between what is acceptable and what is not. You have gone miles beyond that line and not just this year, but already since 2006. Users feel themselves threatened by the way you act. That is happening and that is a big problem. Romaine (talk) 23:09, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Kol.Zeiksnor]] we will not take this discussion elsewhere, we will expose you HERE for what you really are : a troller, a vandal, a sockpuppeter, and a stalker, the latter being a criminal offence in Belgium, that targets specifically the dutch and french wikipedia and FAIK the dutch and belgain wikimedia chapters, and specific users like Romaine in those chapters, harassing people, moreover you gloat about your feats and actions in Wikisage--DerekvG (talk) 23:38, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

2300 euro for flyers

This seems a lot of money for printing a few flyers. How many companies did you ask for a price? De Kolonel (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• Did you just offer to do our printing for free Mr Zeiksnor? we need RV/double a5/CMYK prints , cut folded sorted/inserted and pinned can you do that ? where can I send the IND files, when is your delivery? --DerekvG (talk) 22:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
• @Kolonel Zeiksnor: You have made clear that all euros are a lot of money for you, so what you experience as a lot is not a good indicator. The price for the flyers is based on multiple offers of multiple companies, and we chose the cheapest ones. Romaine (talk) 12:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I think it is better to start with contacting a few museums and print a smaller number of flyers. In that way you can improve the flyer during the proces. If you print a lot of flyers in advance you cannot. De Kolonel (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

1650 euro for a beamer

Which free alternatives for using a beamer did you investigate? De Kolonel (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• There are no "free alternatives", unless you offer it for free? We have searched for all the options so that we can give a proper presentation. All options compared, we picked the cheapest one. Romaine (talk) 07:47, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • A free alternative could be using the beamer of an organisation that supports the wiki loves art initiative. How did other chapters solve this issue did they all buy beamers? De Kolonel (talk) 09:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    • If that was a possibility, we would have studied that option. Other chapters bought beamers. Romaine (talk) 11:43, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
      • You are a member of dutch end belgium wikimedia. Why don't you share a beamer with the dutch? De Kolonel (talk) 20:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Managment expenses 4000 euro

As explanation is given: Expenses to run the project safely such as volunteer expenses compensation, volunteer accident liability insurance, etc... Could you please explain which volunteer expenses need compensation and which liability insurances are needed? De Kolonel (talk) 18:39, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• "which liability insurances" -> Hoezo "welke"? It is common in projects like these to have a liability insurance as participants go inside museums with expensive pieces of art, and such is not differed by "which". If we already had a detailed description of which volunteer expenses it concerns we would have put it as separate post in the grant request. This is to cover any unforeseen expenses that are needed for the project. Romaine (talk) 07:57, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • 4000 euro is a lot of money. More detail about volunteer expenses would be welcome. How much of this 4000 euro is needed for insurances? De Kolonel (talk) 09:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    • We hope we do not have to use it. It is common that about 10% of the budget of a project is reserved for unforeseen circumstances. This is especially needed because if we dedicated a part of the project for a certain purpose, for most of it, we can't change the purpose if one purpose appears to cost less, while another purpose costs more. So if the money is received for a certain purpose, is not used, this must be returned to WMF. Romaine (talk) 11:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
      • That is not answering the question. Also you already requested an extra 1625 euro on top of this for these unforeseen circumstances. De Kolonel (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Travel expenses 2500 euro

As explanation is given: Travel costs by public transport for visiting meetings with the individual institutions and regional meetings, with collaborating organisations and organising and directing the photo-events. Could you please explain travel expenses by whom? De Kolonel (talk) 22:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• Travel costs by the project team who give presentations to various cultural institutions throughout the country about Wikipedia/Wikimedia, collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia and donating material to Wikipedia. Romaine (talk) 07:59, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Belgium is a small country. With public transport you can travel very cheap. I cannot imagine why 2500 euro would be needed. You have volunteers that live all over Belgium. Did you consider splitting the work like each person visiting a few museums in their own region? De Kolonel (talk) 09:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Public transport is not very cheap. Based on the prices that actually have to be paid, we made an average of the possible cities times the number of people times the number of expected meetings. And no, we do not have volunteers all over the country that are able to give a professional presentation and give a good answer to the questions asked. You generalize too much, thinking too simple. We really need to give a professional impression towards the cultural institutions and not a hapsnap, messy, unprofessional impression. The people giving the presentation and answer the questions also must be able to fit the proposal for the cultural institution based what is possible in Wikimedia Belgium and the Wikimedia movement. Just sending some Wikipedians will not work. Romaine (talk) 12:20, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
      • I never argued just sending some wikipedians. You can train the people that are needed to visit museums. Will someone from Wallonia visit museums in the Walloon region? De Kolonel (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

500 euro for website design and hosting

• There are some skilled technical people in your team that have created proffessional websites for them self. Have you considered saving money by asking them to help with the web design? De Kolonel (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• You seem to know our team very well, did you make a professional website? I didn't see you volunteering to make the website while the project was in discussion on the community page...--DerekvG (talk) 22:47, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
• I did not know you knew our team, so far I know you don't know at all. Nevertheless, we have asked the people in our team for help. Based on the feedback we were able to get a relative cheap design and hosting. Please be aware that we have to deal with multilingualism in the site which makes a website more complex to built. But still... Why do you think everything can be done for free? That vision is irrational. Romaine (talk) 12:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• • • I think is not irrational to ask volunteers to work on a website. Almost everything at wikipedia is done by volunteers. Forum member Dereckson works as a volunteer with the code and the infrastructure for the Wikipedia projects. He also made a professial personal website: http://www.dereckson.be/ Why not ask his help to start with? De Kolonel (talk) 21:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• How many euro is needed for hosting? De Kolonel (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

250 euro (!) for gifts

Why is 250 euro needed for gifts to the jury? De Kolonel (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• What are your credentials as a jury member, if you prove to be an acceptable candidate you could be invited to be a jury member and you might get a gift, and get to know what they are, you could also particiapte as a photographer and get a bigger prize --DerekvG (talk) 22:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
• It is a non-optional social convention, it is common practise to thank jury members for spending all the hours and hours in judging the photos, a thank you for all the work they have done. It is for the same reason WMF has merchandise giveaways for outstanding volunteers on Wikipedia. Romaine (talk) 12:33, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I disagree is a non-optional social convention. A lot of candidates will see it as an honor and will not expect a gift from a volunteer project. If you insist on spending money for gifts I'd rather spend it for giving small prices for best pictures uploaded. De Kolonel (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

1250 euro for renting a venue

What free alternatives did your team investigate? De Kolonel (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a free venue to offer us, one to suggest ? or should we use the local parking lot like you suggested for the wikinic in Louveigné ... a "Kolonel zeiksnor"-organsiation in which it was highly likely that attendees would have been arrested by the local policeforce for en illegal and unauthorised public manifestation on a public square...--DerekvG (talk) 22:57, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Asking people suggestions for a free venue (at our forum, in the village pump of french and duch wikipedia) could be a first step have you done that? De Kolonel (talk) 09:41, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The forum is no longer an option as you have chased almost all the users away and making it an unpleasant place to be. I do not know who is "our", but you are certainly not part of our community for who the forum is intended. And asking in the village pumps is not a serious suggestion. But again, you do not do anything, you do not have any practical suggestions, the only thing you say is that others do it wrong without proposing a serious alternative. Sorry, that attitude is not helpfull in any way. Romaine (talk) 12:40, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Community notification

Why was this grant not announced or discussed with the community at our Forum de la communauté? De Kolonel (talk) 18:59, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The page you link is currently only in use by you to employ your disruptive behaviour. All other users have almost left the wiki, because of your disruptive behaviour. Our community is elsewhere than on that wiki, and we did inform them multiple times about the project and grant, have had multiple times input from various members of our community. Based on this the project has evolved. Romaine (talk) 23:03, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

It has been announced on the main page of the coummauté wikipage, since early february, there were project pages since march, a draft of this grant request was published here since januari 21st, the communauté has had at least 3 months time to react, suggest AND volunteer , i didn't see you come forward to volunteer...

However Kol.Zeiksnor You have been banned indefinitely form dutch Wikipedia, you were banned form the dutch wikimedia wiki for sockpuppeting, french admins informed us about reports available on meta m:Vandalism reports/BogaertB. and after a number of derogatory comments blocked you. They made available information to us from the dutch wikipedia nl:Wikipedia:Checklijst_langdurig_structureel_vandalisme/Die_vandaal and from the french wikipedia fr:Wikipédia:Faux-nez/Lustucri futhermore your activity is in line with trolling MO of the useraccounts in the sock-puppet and vandalism files from the wiki's, and are in line with comments made on your actions and intentions on Wikisage with the same userid Kol.Zeiksnor, itś obvious you target with your comments all public facing dutch french and belgian initiatives and troll about "stroopwafels", and nag about free stuff that only exists in your vivid imagination..

You are not even capable of organising a simple "let's-get-together-and-grab-a-beer" event for more then 3 people. The foiled and failed attempt you made at organising a wikinic event at Louveigné clearly shows. It was to be held at a public parking space in a village south of liege, people had to bring their own drink, food and BBQ's. If peopla had actually shown up there they would most certainly have been arrested by local police for staging an unauthorised public event, and ligthing fires in a public places without due licensing form the village mayor and fire squad... You prove me you are capable of organising anything like an edit-athon and I will take any serious questions seriously... other wise i will answer you like the troll you are --DerekvG (talk) 23:31, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

This wiki loves art project was not mentioned at our Forum de la communauté which is our main communication channel. In what ways have you asked our community for input? De Kolonel (talk) 10:01, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The forum is no longer an option as you have chased almost all the users away and making it an unpleasant place to be. I do not know who is "our", but you are certainly not part of our community for who the forum is intended. And no, it is not our main communication channel. Romaine (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Try to see it this way Romaine: trying to lower and improve this grant should be our common goal. De Kolonel (talk) 21:36, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that I intervene as an ex-GAC-member, but I think 'De Kolonel' refers to Wikimedia Belgium and the discussion about her/his own involvement. I'm afraid a CheckUser-investigation is necessary, but here the comments can be safely ignored IMNSHO. Kind regards from Ex-nederbelg  Klaas `Z4␟` V:  08:10, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

The comment by Klaas can be be safely ignored since the checkuser has already been done. - de Kolo nel - 01:17, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

With which community (and how) has this project been discussed? - de Kolo nel - 13:36, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

A few comments about Wikimedia Belgium and this Grant

The sad thing about Wikimedia Belgium is it seems to exists only on paper. The community forum was only used by a few boardmembers. Also there were hardly any announments about this project in the village pumps of dutch and french wikipedia. There are no volunteers, there are hardly any active members and the board is self elected. The concept grant included a paid Employee (0.3 FTE for 12 months). Now the paid employee is gone but we do have huge expenses to compensate volunteers. Personally I think some work should be done on avoiding conflicts of interest since some board members may be looking for a paid position. - de Kolo nel - 01:53, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

This is exactly the situation they're trying to change (creating a cool project that would attract volunteers, etc.), and your attitude isn't helping. Just saying. Alleycat80 (talk) 07:23, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, I was banned at tree projects since I started commenting this grant. I do hope the new Belgium chapter will be open for community input (and will activly ask for this input, not only from it's members) in the near future. With a focus on the french speaking part because the present board is too flemish/bruxelles oriented imo. Also just saying (as long as that is allowed here ...) - de Kolo nel - 09:59, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Comment by DerekvG

you were banned for trolling, stalking, putting wikipedia users at risk of being arrested, and that was only for starters--DerekvG (talk) 12:22, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Obviously you donot know what you are talking about DerekvG. My (repeated) suggestion is to end these warnings about collegue wikimedia contributers here at meta wiki. This page is for the Wiki Loves Art 2016 Grants talk. Thank you. - de Kolo nel - 19:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Tony 1 comments

See my note above: I couldn't help but see the fighting between a GAC member and a community reviewer, but I've purposely not read further. I make these comments, then, without prejudice, on the basis of reading the application alone. So I apologise if there's any repetition of other discourse on this page.

1. Thank you for writing the application in a foreign language, and for dealing with queries on this page in that language. The additional effort is much appreciated!
2. Many Wikimedians will be immediately attracted by the on-the-ground focus on content generation—I count myself among them, and am supportive. A plus is that it would involve quintessentially Belgian art and institutions.
3. I have a general concern that you might be spreading yourselves too thinly, especially for the first big program by a new affiliate. We do love ambition, but it might be wiser to design a smaller-scale project, trial it for 2016 (who says you wouldn't still win the competition?), and fine-tune it for 2017 so that you and we can all learn from your experience. You might raise this with Alex, who encourages emails and skype calls from applicants.
4. Would there be prioritisations and recommendations for subject matter, based on what is and isn't already served well on Commons?
5. The partnerships look very good. I'd be pleased if you specified the role of each, and how you'd collaborate—especially given the large budget requested. Why not make it more than a laundary list: who would be likely to do what in collaboration with whom? Perhaps give us a slight sense of the personnel from those partners who would be contact points or substantively involved (without naming them, if privacy is an issue)? What expertise, knowledge, access to the right people, in-kind contributions are you looking for (that would be a starting point for expanding your section)?
6. You mention: "Afterwards volunteers from Wikipedia will add the photos to relevant articles, and more information about the pieces will be added to the file pages as documentation, including the author, date of creation, description of the piece, and more meta data." The devil is in the detail: do you have a willing workforce of members and other volunteers to do this, and would they require organisation, leadership, guidelines, encouragement, monitoring? This is an important part of the usability of the product. Would all four languages be used on the description pages?
7. Would there be guidelines on people's behaviour and demeanour during visits?
8. "The contributor workshop team is currently looking into contacting women associations who would invite us for a wiki contributor workshop, ... to add a positive gender drive into this project"—rather vague; this kind of claim sometimes doesn't happen after a grant is approved. More detail would add to the credibility here (positive gender drive means what, in terms of the end-users, who are our readers and our editors?).
9. "Wiki Loves Belgian Art 2016 will increase the quality of images about Belgian art, Belgian artists, artefacts in Belgian Collections and Belgian GLAM institutions that were previously not available under a free license." Could you provide more detail on how the quality of photographs would be optimised (as opposed to the quality of the art itself)? Would there be training sessions, mentoring, tips on what to avoid and what to attempt? One of the disappointments of these photographic events is trawling through masses of poor-quality product. Would there be post-production support? It seems to me that specific techniques are at issue in indoor medium-to-close photography, and whether 2D or 3D, how colour and ambient lighting affect the task, plus lots more. We could all benefit from a guide to this kind of work, and perhaps you might aim to create a few (multi-lingual) "learning patterns" on Meta—it would be much appreciated by the worldwide movement (translation needs to be properly funded on Meta).
10. Are there any copyright challenges with respect to the participating institutions? And what about art by living artists?
11. Educational roadshow: are 300 schools too many? It sounds very ambitious. Surely some schools would offer greater concentrations of student talent and willingness, and better locations in relation to the subjects. Is someone in the chapter good with schoolkids? Perhaps prioritise your list of schools and think of 40 or 50, and I presume it would be a representative ratio of Dutch- and French-language schools?
12. Measures of success: what does "50–100 article editors" mean? Long-term? Would there be solid procedures for mentoring them (I'm unsure what "follow-up" really means)? "1000–2500 photos"—that's 15–38 euros per photo. Is that about right?
13. "Risks"—this is not a serious attempt, and needs to be fixed. The first point is not a risk; the second is just vague. At the moment, it makes me not want to fund this. "Success factors: User:Romaine has participated in the organisation of Wiki Loves Art 2009 in the Netherlands"—per se this doesn't mean much. I'd be pleased to have the roles and responsibilities set out; it's a big undertaking.
14. Budget. It's rather large, and it's not in nearly enough detail. Generally I'd like to see the budget shrink down to size.

    The cheatsheets would be for what purpose? Why would you need flyers in English?

    Who would do the website, and would it be interactive? 500 euros seems incredibly cheap.

    Partner employees: we need the details, please. Hours, hourly rates, who, what, where?

    I hope the prizes are big enough: I have no objection to solid amounts, since this is a key motivational factor, and good for publicity.

    But venue hire plus crew: 7,500 euros?

    Are you not hiring casual labour to ensure that some of the grunt organisation is done? Even 50–75 hours?

15. Please note that "man hours" is not preferred nowadays; non-gendered language is the accepted form, unless you intend to bar women from participation.
16. "We hope to get this sponsored." Vague.
17. Please change the nominal start-date so that this is not a retrospective funding application. There are several problems with this, which I'll go into if you wish.

Well done, but I think it needs further work. I look forward to seeing your responses, and please intersperse them within my comments if it's easier for you. Tony (talk) 13:37, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Tony, allow me to add some comments after my colleague Romaine

about the size we've cut down the overall size of the project both in GLAM partners and in on-wiki and off-wiki volunteers and we eliminated the need for staff, thanks to our partners

I understand that by means of measurement the content output versus investment ratio is in the "very expensive" area of the scale I do admit.

So weŕe not tackling 100 + GLAMS we limit ourselves to de 2 dozen that are already engaging themselves via out partner FARO and Packed and yes this is not a one off it will have regular repeat but thsi porject is laying the foundations for the coming projects

Indeed weŕe not tackling 300 schools - this project was conceived before WMCON where our Wikiducation program took shape (formerly known as Sideprojects) we expect to run 6 stage 1 pilots and as a result of those pilots and the other small-scale educational initiatives we can reasonalby expect to build a sufficiently large volunteer team of recurring contributors of fotographers, illustrators and editors, and (meta) data builders - and we do have the means to make that happen - which will be working on this project, for these people that will be part of the exercise.

about the risk having volunteer run around all over the place, we have the experience, that is not how itś going to happen, work by the volunteers will be scheduled, prepared, limited impact and most of all tightly supervised, guided, basically they will be herded, and side projects is all about volunteer training.

The gender issue, covered is being rolled out already, by female volunteers

Belgium is a tri-lingual country with an important ex-pat eglish speaking community which we intend to involve

re website : we are currently reviewing our website to change everything over this would only cover design and content release hosting / technical matters are covered elswhere

re: partner employee time we discussed with our partners their involvement, they are semi-public institutions and the work their staff is doing was estimated, then we put a hourly rate on it however that has nothing to do with the financial reality its a budget item. the only thing that we've established is the amount of workinghours spend for this project by that partner ( probably reality will exceed the estimate)

re: the 7500 € venue hire/crew cost are a figure we've taken from our partner who is funding the event, and we don't know yet if they hired playboy bunnies or chippendales as waiters or the royal palace as a venue but in any case we will not have to pay for it, but we do look for sponsors to cover (even in part) that amount.

about the date I ahve no problem changing it but as romaine said it would be lying , we are working at the project preparing it, without spending any money the spendig will come in the coming months

I hope my small contribution has answered some of your concerns and thank you for the words of encouragement

--DerekvG (talk) 18:27, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Hy Tony,

3. The project is designed in such way that the collaboration is both focussed on a few moments and at the same time later individually with the organisations. They need a lot of time to get used to the idea of a collaboration. At first sight, the project may seem large, but if you look at the time it is expected to have effect (as minimum), it isn't that large. Based on our strategy and plan, we do not expect to re-organise it again in 2017, and personally I think 2018 will be too early as well. We have designed the project in such way that there are as little as possible bottlenecks which can frustrate the project, and depending on the circumstances we can easily scale (smaller and larger). That Wikimedia Belgium exists since October 2014, doesn't mean we do not have some experience in organising. We organise Wiki Loves Monuments already since 2011 and also have done other projects with cultural institutions, including image donations.

4. As there is a Belgiumgap (structural less articles and images about Belgium on Wikipedia and Commons), our focus is on Belgium art. Second, Wikipedia and Commons try to describe and show a wide variety of subjects, but there is also a variety needed in countries. Example: if there is an image of a black Madonna from eastern Europe on Commons and described in Wikipedia, you can't say this subject is already served. There are still cultural differences between the culture of countries which makes it valuable to have images from Belgium. Sometimes the impression is given that Wikipedia is already so large, but in fact we still have so little.

5. We form together with our partners and volunteers a team that takes up the organisation of this project. There is not on forehand a split in tasks/roles, we are doing it together. However, our partners are especially asked to join in this project for the contacts and expertise they have. Contact points? The people involved of our partner organisations are part of the project team. I am not sure what you are trying to ask. Their expertise is that they work for years with many of the cultural institutions in Belgium, and will use their knowledge and expertise for this project.

6. With other organised activities users from Wikipedia have done a lot of work on this matter, and also we have as sideproject to work on training new volunteers, which can add photos to articles. The uploaders will decide for themselves what language they use. This is often based on the origin of the organisation what language they provide or what the uploaders have as native language.

7. This is a question about a subject that needs to be defined during the organisation of the project, not before. Also it depends on the organisations that participate.

I disagree. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

8. At the same time you claim that we are not going to do that. You do not know us and still you think you can say such thing... Not to mention that you expect us to have the project already half organised before the grant request!! (Something I noticed with multiple points.)

Yep, I do expect it to be half-organised—actually, more than half-organised. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

9. There are training sessions organised. As I said as reply above, I highly disagree with statements that photographic events cause masses of poor-quality images. This kind of false and fictious claims really start to annoy me. This kind of claims come from a different reality which isn't ours.

Rather than reacting aggressively, you might consider engaging with us on the practicalities. My experience of WLM uploads is that the great majority are not of high quality. In my view, you need to take steps to maximise quality—all parties would benefit from that, and it is a chapter's job to to this generally. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

10. The biggest challenge will be the works of art of modern artists. Institutions will, likewise as in 2009 in the Netherlands, contact the living artists or their heirs for permission. There is a specific model for these institutions.

11. The project is a long term project, also 300 is about the number that will be contacted. Contacting is easy, doing an actual project is something not all schools will do.

Better pre-targeting is required, given that just telephoning or emailing that number would be very time-consuming. You can't possibly deal with a small fraction of them. Why not 3000, then? Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

12. It are new people who start to edit articles during the project. I have no idea how you would define a "solid procedure". I consider it strange to compare the costs of a whole project with only a detail of it (photos in the contest). Strange as that is far from the only output. Also you referred to the fact that Wikimedia Belgium only exists since October 2014, which means we do not have any materials that other chapters do have and have worked on for years. Materials that are certainly also an important piece of output of this project, as those materials are not only useful for this project but are for many activities and projects of WMBE.

13. Apparently the first line was accidental moved to the wrong section. I moved it now one section up. I can image that you consider it a vague risk, but this is the Belgian situation we are talking about. This project is developed because of this risk. A risk that is confirmed by both our partners and Europeana. Perhaps vague for you, not for us. With your questions I get the impression you do not fully get what the situation is in Belgium, nor what this project is really about or tries to do.

"Perhaps vague for you, not for us." It's your task to make it not-vague for readers; otherwise, your application lacks credibility. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14. You want the budget in more detail? The only step to get more detail is to show you the numbers on the offers. I have no idea why you consider it large, this are actual prices that things cost here. You look too much at the total price, while you forget what actually is needed on site for each of the needed parts. The budget is based on what we consider the minimal required, without extras.

I consider the budget to be too large given the applicants' lack of track record in programmatic activities and that the proposed acitivities are too ambitious even for an experienced affiliate. It needs to be reduced in scope and size so that cumulative lessons learned can be fed into subsequent design. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14a. An important part of the project are sideprojects, which include educating new volunteers. It is common usage to have cheatsheets that are handed out during workshops and trainings. In Belgium many international organisations have a seat as in Brussels the politics of a continent are arranged. Many institutions have people working for them who are native English speakers.

I'm perplexed that a quintessentially online organisation would be funding the production of pieces of paper. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14b. We do the website mainly ourselves. And I am not sure what you mean with "interactive". We have not the intention to spoil money on a flashy website, but will create a website for informing participants.

I'm not suggesting "flashy"; but some of your proposed offline expenditure might be balanced against the potential impact of a good online site. In my view, you are "spoiling money" in a few areas that lack justification in terms of euro-impact. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14c. You need it for? And who is "we"? The information in the grant request has been based on information from our partners.

"We" refers to readers of this page and reviewers, including the WMF. Unwilling to provide the details of employment is problematic: donors have a right to know how their money is being spent. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14e. Past activities with partner organisations have indicated these costs.

Inadequate response. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

14f. No.

Clearly I find the mechanisms for engaging volunteers to do some tasks inadequate. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

15. And this you mention because? We haven't used this in the grant nor this talk page.

16. Again, you seem to expect us to organise this already, sorry, that is not realistic.

17. Sorry, I do not want to loose time and I refuse to lie. We already started slowly with some basic things as preparation in May: working on the flyers/leaflets, just as the grant request says. (And then I haven't even mentioned that the project actually started in December 2014 with asking our partners if they want to join in our project. Talks have followed. Grant request written. And more...) Also, we submitted the grant request in May. You consider it wrong to have a start date in May, but at the same time you expect with your questions that we already have done the project at least half or something.

And I personally do not think further work is needed. I consider spending time on re-writing not worth it, as it would not improve the actual project. The project is clear, has been discussed and agreed on with our partners, community and board, we have a plan thought through for months, thinking of every aspect of it so far such is possible at this stage (before the start). Taking into account the learnings from other projects, including other photo contests and the previous Wiki Loves Art in the Netherlands. The basics of Wiki Loves Art are outlined. When funded, the next step is to communicate with cultural institutions and give form to the contest. In the step after the users can take pictures and upload them. This project is not just saying "then and then" you can take/upload pictures, it comprehensives more. There is a preamble before that, the major part of the project. Romaine (talk) 05:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Comment moved, wrong section>, see #Community_notificationMultichill (talk) 20:16, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Romaine, a less edgy and petulant tone would be more productive in your reponses to me and at other places on this page. I find your responses largely unsatsifactory. I've interleaved a few rejoinders. Generally, a smaller and better-crafted program is required at this stage. Tony (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thank you for this grant request and your engagement in the discussion. There has been a number of substantial issues raised and we appreciate your time in answering them. We still have a few remaining questions/comments and look forward to your response:

High-level questions

1. We understand the main goal of the project is to engage a large number of GLAM institutions who could be potential partners for future work. Our concern with this approach is not having the existing volunteer base to then follow-up on these connections and project ideas in the future. This relates to Alleycat80's comments above and the lessons WMIL learned about focusing on a few key partnerships. It seems that the goal should really be around completing this contest successfully, by getting high quality photographs, integrating them on Wikimedia projects through associated wiki trainings, upload-a-thons, and editathons, and then following up with the participating GLAMs with the highest potential for future work. It does not seem that WMBE currently has the resources to engage "two dozen" institutions or manage those relationships. Your response to Karthik was understandable in terms of the chicken/egg dilemma for engaging volunteers, but we do need to see some evidence of Community Notification and Endorsements to understand that this project is indeed of interest to your community and supported by it.
2. In terms of the measures of success, I agree with Alleycat80's suggestion that beyond just a photo contest, the real goals are related to the # of future GLAM partnerships secured, # of photos actually used, and # of participants who become regular contributors/volunteers. We are less concerned with how many people participate or how many photos are uploaded than the longer term impact on building your community. In reality, when photographing pieces of artwork, you only need one really high-quality image of each piece -- quantity does not matter as much (as raised by Léna above).
3. While the funding needed for the educational roadshow is not high, it would still be helpful to have a better understanding of this project. You have clarified above that 300 schools is the goal over the long-term, not just during the duration of this grant. My next question is how will WMBE support new editors that have been trained during these activities through continued communication and on-wiki mentorship? I assume that there will not be enough time or volunteers to do local follow-up trainings in all the locations. Without that type of support it will be challenging to get new editors to stick around. It would be great to hear what your strategy is for retention. Other affiliates have been successful in school programs with wikiclubs or through the education program. But this takes dedicated local volunteers to see any long-term engagement of new editors.

Detailed questions

1. Please note that the grant term cannot be longer than 12 months.
2. How have copyright discussions with the GLAMs developed?
3. How will the flyers/leaflets be used? We have not seen these types of materials to be as effective at outreach as other online, radio/newspaper, or social media channels.
4. Please provide more information on the role of each team member.
5. What is the breakdown of the management expenses? Who will be receiving them and for how many hours?
6. How many prizes will be awarded and what for -- best photo, best article?
7. Please provide more information on the 21% tax since we have not seen this on past grants applications.

Since the discussion has been rather complex, it might be easier to schedule a call early next week to clarify the above points and your responses. Please let me know. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:25, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

High-level questions:

1. There is indeed a matter of the chicken-egg dilemma, as this whole project is also intended to get more volunteers and participants. Also as our community is spread of multiple language Wikipedias and other projects, where they are a tiny group of people in a large language community. Also being faced with multiple disruptive users, users do not feel themselves comfortable to react. What works for us the best is to contact individual users by e-mail and face to face. Currently we are working on translating flyers, and we work on this together (by language) with 10 volunteers. But to conclude, we should mention the public places where it has been announced and send an e-mail to those volunteers and other users to ask to sign up?

   Yes, please link to the public places where it has been announced and discussed by the community. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

2. I agree quantity matters not that much, it is about quality. But the examples named in your question seem to focus more on quantity than on quality. Also this is not a project that is to be done quick quick quick, and including a grant term of 12 months (see below), it gives in my impression too much rush and too little quality. This I say because I expect to have a good image of the quality of the output after 2 years, and not after the short period of 12 months of the grant term, as the project has the intention of a longer effect. (With other projects it was already difficult to get proper statistics for, for example, Wiki Loves Monuments, as I consider the ability to get good statistics too limited.) Also I must say that GLAM partnerships take time. Spoken with various GLAMs in multiple countries, they see 1 or 2 years to set up a collaboration as a short term. (Again period conflict with this measure of success.)
3. I think Derek is better able to describe this. He has created a stable plan to organise collaborations with, that grows in time. I think the 300 schools is the number that is to be contacted in the first instance. And yes, this is a project that in this part is also intended to last much longer than 12 months.

Detailed questions:

1. Personally I am most concerned by the question that a grant term cannot be longer than 12 months. At the moment we are discussing whether the contest should be in February, March or April, as the preparation time before the summer became much shorter than anticipated and this makes us consider only autumn and the hectic month of January as a too short period. If the contest itself is organised in April, it takes normally with this kind of contests at least a month to do the judging properly. If 12 months are a must, than combining the prize ceremony with an event (idea from our partners) is too short time. Also I like to do the reporting properly and not in a rush, also the project we like to do with much care. Also if you like us to organise wiki trainings, upload-a-thons, and editathons to add the images to the articles, this time frame does not match. But maybe I should ask the question first, why can a grant term not be longer than 12 months? Is there a reason for?
   Faced with the question about the 12 months period, I realize that our project has a term of two years. I always assumed that the start date in the grant is the start date of the project, but we started with some first preparations in January, also we started with some further preparations in May, as it is not possible to the full project in 12 months only. I have experience with projects, but not with how to solve the time issue.

   Maybe this grant should be considered as a start-up grant for a project that takes more time than only 12 months?

   Please see my comments below. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

2. I am not sure what you mean with this questions in relationship with this project. We have spoken with some cultural institutions about the copyright situation they face, but however we have discussed this with our partners and thought it through, this seems to me a question that is to be answered when the phase of contacting cultural institutions starts. But I think I do not get your question. What is it you like to know?
3. Flyers will be used to hand out to our partners. They contain well described examples of what kind projects are possible, based on a successful brochure from Wikimedia UK. Another flyer is about the issue of materials that can be used for non-commercial purposes only, as this is a big risk, and is a translation in the local languages of a successful German flyer about this subject. Also Creative Commons Belgium is very interested in the publication of it. So the flyers are not intended to be used for participants in the photo contest, but are intended to be used to build up a relationship with cultural institutions to explain how Wikimedia/Wikipedia works, what kind of collaborations are possible, what the benefits and outcomes are, about Creative Commons licenses, about the standards of Wikipedia/Wikimedia, and more. Europeana has stated that they perceive it difficult to start collaborations in Belgium, in comparison with other countries. We face with a big misunderstandings among cultural institutions, as well as a fear to open up the doors. Therefore we have together with our partners thought through what would be needed for informing cultural institutions, and get them over the doorstep. The flyers are not only to be used for this project only, but designed in such way that they can be used for future projects in they many years to follow.
   There will be no flyers for participants in the contest, that will be purely online.

   Generally, partners do not need to be given flyers as a nice pdf typically is enough. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

   We are not doing this project generally. We do this project specifically to the Belgian situation. We need printed materials so that GLAMs can trust us. By the way, I spoke with multiple people from other countries at Wikimania, people who actually have experience in organising projects with cultural institutions, and they note that physical materials have a much better effect for collaborations. Romaine (talk) 15:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

4. Derek is mainly focussed on organising activities for (future) volunteers/participants, and I am more focussed on the communication with cultural institutions, coordination and the contest. We support each other in their parts. The five people working for the partner organisations will use their many contacts to get in touch with cultural institutions. They also organise they meetings we host to present Wikimedia and the project. We have already to active volunteers who want to reach out to their network of organisations they have contacts with. A team of 10 volunteers is working on the translations. The presentation is discussed with the people from our partner organisations. Jury for the contest is not formed yet.

   It would be helpful to know who in the Wikimedia Belgium community will be actively involved in the project besides you. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

5. There are no expenses paid for hours, nobody is paid by the grant to do the work. Management expenses are there to cover volunteer expenses compensation (like telephone costs), insurances, etc and unforeseen costs. We hope we don't have these costs, but as I have seen with many projects it was needed, often compensated by unexpected less costs for other subjects, but which can't be relocated without approval.
   (The only people paid for doing this project are the people working for our partner organisations, of which their employer want to have them spend time to this project.)
6. It is a photo contest, the prizes will be based on the quality of the images. So: best photo.
7. On every paid good is a value-added tax is added on top of the price. Asking for offers from organisations we have calculated the costs without this 21% tax. As we do not sell goods/services/etc, this tax can't be compensated with what we sell. So this 21% tax is calculated separately in the budget. Maybe it should have been incorporated in the other amounts.

I hope my answers are detailed enough and answer your questions properly. Yes, the questions are rather complex, that makes it difficult to put the finger on what specifically is wanted for information.

For multiple questions I experience the chicken or the egg dilemma, to be able to determine certain things we have to start the project fully. Romaine (talk) 13:19, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Romaine. Thank you for the above responses. I will respond to the remaining open questions above, but also want to give the team more summarized feedback before our upcoming call.

1. We are still a bit unclear as to the main goal of the competition. The grant request highlights establishing a network of GLAMs for future partnerships as the main goal. On the discussion page you write that the main goal is to get more volunteers and participants. Both can be included, but it's important to understand the focus in order to structure the most effective project. Either way, we are interested in supporting a pilot (up to 12 months) with 3-5 institutions. Especially considering your own identification of the risk of Belgian GLAMs having closed attitudes, we encourage you to identify the most promising institutions and see how the contest goes. Hopefully you will be able to recruit more volunteers through the pilot who can then help work on a expended contest in the following years. Please note that we consider the start date of a grant when you actually start spending funds, not necessarily any planning or preparatory work done prior.
2. We do not see the direct relationship between the education roadshow and Wiki Loves Art. We suggest moving this request to the H2 grant request (which we assume will be submitted soon). Since the flyers are to be used beyond this project, they should also be included in the H2 request.

Please let us know if and how you would like to proceed with a pilot. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry, I am completely unhappy with these answers. This kind of questions, if reasonable, are to be expected at the last 6 weeks ago! Coming now with these kind of questions... sorry, we spoke with you in person in the beginning of April, that is 16 weeks ago!! We explained in The Hague the project, and only coming now with these questions is #$@%&. In case I am not clear, I am a little bit angry here, and I usually do not get angry easily.

We have clearly described what the goals of this project are. All the GAC members who have commented on this page have indicated that they understand what we want to achieve. Our project is inclusive and have a comprehensive set of goals. So far I know I haven't said that our main goal is to get more volunteers and participants, but of this project it is one of the goals. I disagree with the idea that it is important to understand the focus, we have a clear project in mind and we want to do that project.

I also disagree with the idea that WMF is interested in supporting a pilot with 3-5 institutions. In this way this project is changed by WMF what makes the project loses its soul. Wiki Loves Art has been done before in other countries. In 2009 it was organised in the Netherlands for the first time and had that first year already almost 50 participating organisations. We are not aiming at 50 or 100 organisations right now, but we start with a few and the project is set up in such way that it can be scaled easily. If you only propose 3-5 institutions only, you do not understand the essence if this project.

"Especially considering your own identification of the risk of Belgian GLAMs having closed attitudes" -> the project has been set up to open up the Belgian GLAMs.

"we encourage you to identify the most promising institutions and see how the contest goes" -> Are you giving us advice about a project we have ourselves more experience with than you? We have from the first beginning of this project with all the talks with our partners a common understanding what we want and what we are going to do. Our partners have also many years experience in doing projects with GLAMs. We have already made agreements with our partners what we are going to do and we have already an active plan for the first couple of months. We have asked for suggestions 16 weeks ago, you gave us advice, we have adopted our plan, we went forward together with the team including our partners. Coming only now with an "encouragement" is too late.

"a expended contest in the following years" -> Then you do not understand the project, and my comments on this thought above on this page have been ignored. This project has a different flow (I am missing the right word for it). My lowest estimate is that this project has effect for 3 years, in the form of an after-contest outcome. And this project has been chosen and designed to generate that outcome.

"Please note that we consider the start date of a grant when you actually start spending funds, not necessarily any planning or preparatory work done prior." -> That makes it more clear. But then the start date is the wrong wording, the start date mentioned in the infobox is only the one of the grant itself, and not of the actual project. Just saying start date I find confusing and an illusion.

"We do not see the direct relationship between the education roadshow and Wiki Loves Art." -> We explained this 16 weeks ago in The Hague. Coming only now with this thought is highly annoying and strongly demotivating. But this sentence describes perfectly the problem of the situation: you are missing the essence of this project. We as team have been working together on this project, to build a project that is stable and does what we want this project to do. And now after weeks of absence you say something like "we don't get it so let's cut it off". No, it is up to us to decide what the project contains. And I think the suggestion is insane, especially the education roadshow is (also) designed to solve the problem of a lack of editor retention. I believe the Wikimedia Foundation is concerned about editor retention and wants more to be done about this. And then this suggestion.... I am totally struck by surprise and flabbergasted. Many of the projects organised by the community do not have the aim to work on editor retention, but still are judged on this subject. Now we actually organise something for this attention point and it is shot off.

"Since the flyers are to be used beyond this project, they should also be included in the H2 request." -> The Dutch and French flyers and brochures are this year only used in the project Wiki Loves Art. It is nonsense to add them to a budget where they aren't used. Also I think it is time to end this kind of hocus pocus. The brochures and flyers should have already been ordered to have them in time, but because lack of funds we are still waiting for this WLA grant request to be approved so we can finally order them. The suggestion that it can be added to the H2 request, as you assume it will be submitted soon is frustrating this project. This (WLA) grant request is on the table, this request is submitted to be funded. The H2 request is not and can take months before it will. But still the printing company wants to be paid. We can't say to our partners that we delay the project because vital brochures are not printed (because WMF likes to play hocus pocus), that will make the Wikimedia Foundation unreliable.

We (we = volunteers + our partners) have a clear project. A project that is thought through many months together with our partners who have years of experience with working with GLAMs in Belgium, with a common understanding between us and our partners, with clear objectives. We have asked with this grant request funding for this clear project. We certainly did not ask WMF to change the project, and certainly not in such way that the project loses its soul. And certainly not on the day that we would have performed a first test with our partners and friendly cultural institutions, which has been delayed because WMF has made a mess of their grant process and is not capable to handle fund requests in time.

We want to start our project today (as soon as possible), in the way we have discussed it with our partners. In the way our partners, with many years of experience, have evaluated it and agreed with because they think our set-up works. That is how we like to proceed our project. Romaine (talk) 13:12, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Call summary and next steps

Thanks for the call today, Romaine. We are excited about the project and impressed with the organizational partners you've been able to bring on to the project thus far. We still had a number of questions about the project goals and organization and it helped clarify some key issues. Here is a brief summary of the call and next steps.

1. One of our main concerns is around the large scope of the project and capacity of WMBE and the project lead to work with such a large number of GLAM institutions. We suggested starting with a pilot instead (above). Our understanding now is that the GLAM institutions will not all be contacted at once, but on a gradual basis, and engaged based on their level of interest and the organizing team's capacity to support that institution. New institutions will not be invited to participate in the contest before the team is sure they can handle both the off-wiki and on-wiki follow-up that will occur as a result. We want to make sure that the team does not over-commit.
2. Another concern was about the number of Wikimedians who will be able to join the project team. This is closely related to the above concern about over-commitment. The WMBE 2015 HR Report already raised the issue of lack of volunteers and spreading resources too thin. We expect the team will only grow the contest and take on more GLAMs as Wikimedians come on board to support the contest.
3. We had a brief conversation about the Educational Roadshow side project. We will need more discussions to understand the larger project idea, but in terms of how it relates to WLA in the coming months, WMBE will partner with a few schools where you have contacts with specific administrators or teachers to work with a group of students on editing wikipedia and integrating photos. Those students will then be able to participate in the WLA contest. We have seen partnerships with schools work best when Wikimedians do multiple workshops with the same students and provide mentorship on-wiki between sessions. We see this as complimentary to WLA.
4. We asked WMBE to review Part 1 and Part 3 of the budget. We understand the language issues in Belgium and the need to print materials in three languages, which will obviously be more expensive. In general, we do not see printed materials as very useful, but understand some of the materials could be instructional. Please consider the amount of material produced and how it is given away. Please also review the management and travel expenses based on a realistic assessment of how many volunteers will be on the organizing team.
5. We agreed to a 12-month project with the option of an extension if needed. If a grant is awarded, it will be paid in two installments with a 6-month interim report. This will give us an opportunity to talk about how many GLAMs are committing to the contest and the level of volunteer capacity.

Please let me know if I've missed anything important. After your final review of the budget, we can move forward. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I think for a non-standard project a personal call is essential to have a mutual understanding of the project and each other's viewing points. The interpretation of each others words in written communication can be conceived in a variety of ways, because of a lack of intonation and mimicry, while with a call this is way less a problem.

1. As WMBE is a young chapter, we recognize the situation that the scope of the project is large and we do not want to over-commit, but it is not our plan to start immediately on this scale, but to build this up gradually during the project. This not only because our capacity, but also because we like to adopt our documentation so it fits better with the needs of the cultural institutions. First the project starts with a pilot: one friendly organisation who gives us feedback. After processing the feedback we continue with another organisation, another three, and so on, but all of this depending on our capacity. The same applies to the educational organisations we work with. There in the past we have already done a pilot which was successful, which is now built out. One of our partners is centrally located and has meeting rooms where Belgian cultural institutions often meet, which is the location where we organise multiple sessions for multiple institutions at the same time. The GLAM part of the project has three phases: in the first phase the institutions are contacted on a gradual basis, depending of the available capacity; in the second phase participating institutions open their doors for photographers and organise in-door events for photographers; in the third phase a jury judges the participating images, a prize ceremony is organised, and further collaboration projects are done with cultural institutions. This third phase goes partly beyond the project's period of one year, as it is up to cultural institutions in what time frame they are ready to start a further collaboration. This also applies to the educational part of the project. First we start with a few educational institutions, which later will grow in number, depending on our capacity. Also the educational part of the project starts in this year of the grant, but has the intention to continue and grow further afterwards.
2. We are aware of the situation that WMBE does not have a large voluntary community (yet), what is taken into account with planning this project. We do not start at full speed, but build up gradually so the project keeps matching with our capacity. The project has also been designed to attract more volunteers. In the end the size of our active community and capacity, defines the size and growth speed of the project. In the preparations of the project we already have more people involved who helped us, than I had expected with setting up the project plan in December-January 2015, which is promising for the coming year's time.
3. The educational part and the cultural part of the project are entwined to be able to fill the needs of both parts of the project. We like to achieve that the participants in both parts of the project are not just single participating, without seeing them ever again, but giving them the opportunity to stay continuously active. This we only can try to achieve by doing both parts of the project together. Secondary, funds used for materials of one part of the project, are also used for the other part of the project, and we certainly want to prevent hocus pocus with funds. The folders/brochures are mainly intended for the cultural part of the project, while they also will be needed (even if it is in a less number) for the educational part. The cheatsheets are mainly intended for the educational part of the project, but will also be used with our talks with cultural institutions. The beamer is mainly used for the educational part, but will also be used for the cultural part of the project.
4. We are very conscious how printed materials are used. With the founding event in the drawing rooms of the president of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives we noticed that our first folder was highly popular, and would have been a shortage if we hadn't printed it. This is not about effectiveness, but about what impression we give towards our audience. Wikimedia is strong in the digital world, but not so much in the physical world where people expect to be able to touch something from us on paper. But we are conscious about the question if something on paper is useful, this even more because of everything takes here four times the work in comparison with most other countries, as well as the costs that are associated with it. Therefore I want to make absolutely sure that the effort we take to get something produced is usable with multiple future activities in the coming ten years as well, and we only create materials that are with strategic importance to achieve our mission.
   • As requested to review part 1 and 3 of the budget, this has been done:

     Part 1: From the original three flyers and a set of leaflets, this has been changed to two brochures. At the same time, as written in an earlier mail and indicated in the call, the designing and printing costs of the brochures are higher. In the original printing offer we received a discount we now likely do not receive, because we now have cancelled multiple parts of the original order (on request of WMF) and because the grant request still hasn't been approved we can't combine the order any longer (time issue) with another order. Because of hocus pocus with allocations of funds and timing in grants, the money of donors is wasted.

     Part 3: The management expenses and travel expenses have been lowered with 1,500 on request of WMF. With this I must make clear that I find this very uncomfortable as this makes the amount to tight to our conservative estimates.

5. We agreed on a 12-month period, with option of an extension if needed, to prevent the possible situation that we have too short time to get it managed. One issue that can occur is the situation that we aren't able to organize a sponsored prize giving ceremony before the summer of 2016, which may result in one after the summer, when we maybe can combine it with another event to have synergy and reduction of costs. We agreed that we as organisers will write an interim report about halfway the period, but I find the timeframe of precisely 6 months difficult. Because there is likely a pause in the project during the last three weeks of December (+ first two weeks of January because of holiday) because those weeks are too busy/occupied for everyone to organise a meeting, while it also is the end of the second semester, for us it is better to have a first interim report in January. I think it is good to have a second interim report with the start of the contest, which is currently likely to take place in April. Then we know how many volunteers are active in the project, how many organisations we have contacted, how many organisations take place in the contest, and how many have indicated to organise a further/different collaboration. A third report should follow when the contest part of the project (including the prize ceremony) has finished. Probably this third report is considered to be the final report (from WMF perspective), but while I understand why such probably would be the situation, I would like to stress that while the main part of the project has ended, remaining funds are returned, etc, this should in my perspective not be the last report as I expect that it takes at least two more years (lowest estimate) to have effect of this project grant. About the paid installments, I see no problem to have the second part been paid after 6 months, but the split in installments only must concern part 3 and part 4 of the budget table. Part 1 and 2 are to be spent completely in August/September, because those materials need to be ready with the start of the activities.

Earlier it was stated that the period of the grant should be in the future and last only one year. I updated the infobox about this as well, I choose 15 August as I certainly hope that it will be ready by then and I do not want to change the date again, but earlier would be preferred. Romaine (talk) 10:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments on approval

We would like to thank the organizers, GAC, and community members for participating in this discussion. We realize there are still reasonable concerns about the scale of this project and the local community's capacity to implement such an ambitious plan. We have spoken at length with the organizers and feel comfortable with their plan to only add GLAM and educational partners at pace with their local volunteer's ability to manage those relationships. They will not be contacting everyone at once, but establishing partnerships one-by-one. We are also processing this grant in installments, with reporting done throughout the grant period. While the community is small, this is a great opportunity for expansion and the team lead is quite experienced in project management throughout the movement. We wish the team success! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Request for change of the Wiki Loves Art 2016 project : March 2016

Budget

NO CHANGES in the BUDGET will be requested

WMBE requests that the end date of the Wiki Loves Art 2016 project be extended to December 15th 2016. Project plans for WIKI LOVES ART 2017 will be prepared to follow-up on the outcomes of WLA 2016 and to accommodate GLAM's that indicated the lengthy and slow process of their institution.

Following planned activities will have to be changed

• April 2016: photo contest: participants visit museums and other organizations to take photos and upload these under a free license
• May-July 2016: judging and prize ceremony

Following the meetings with with our partners and multiple GLAMS have revealed a serious gap between our initial expectations and the practicalities on the terrain, especially about the intended agenda. This gives rise to this request for change.

PHOTO CONTEST : the participating GLAM's indicated that the summer period July and August would be a much better moment to accommodate the Wiki Loves Art participants.

Follow-up edit-a-thons and writing contest : together with our partners and the participating GLAM's we have included in the program follow-up edit-a-thons and illustrating and writing events to reuse the uploaded pictures from the contest as Wikipedia illustrations and to implement a quality improvement to make sure the uploaded pictures are given the best possible meta-data and categorization tags

JUDGING AND PRIZE CEREMONY : for practical reasons the judging and prize ceremony will be delayed to the period october and november

Modified planning

• July-August 2016: photo contest: participants visit museums and other organizations to take photos and upload these under a free license
• September - October : follow up illustration and editing events
• October November 2016: judging and prize ceremony

FYI about project metrics

For this first edition of "Wiki Loves Belgian Art 2016" we were expecting only a limited number of participating GLAM's. Our partners FARO and PACKED have a number of GLAM's already interested.

Our main objectives are making this a useful learning experience for WMBE and its volunteers but also a first and valuable experience builder for the participating GLAM's which should result in establishing a sustainable relationship based on WMBE reliability as a partner and mutual understanding and confidence as a base for future repeats of the WLA contest.

An initial inventory by our partners revealed that there are about 70 institutions in Belgium that are potentially participants for a WLA event 4 major collections are currently closed undergoing multi-year renovation projects of their infrastructure.

• at least 2 dozen cultural institutions will be given the opportunity to collaborate in the contest
• we expect that a number between 4-8 will effectively participate by opening their doors for photographers.

During the initial meetups with our partners and potential participating GLAM's we will meet with approximately 2 dozen Cultural institutions, although they are eager to participate, developing their interest into a participation will take longer then foreseen (essentially on their part), lining their organization up to participate in WLA, getting all the legal aspects covered might take more then a year; meaning they will effectively start the process now to participate in next years event. Together with our partners we've come to the conclusion that WLA will have been very successful if 8 of those 2 dozen will effectively participate passively or actively in the initial WLA contest.

Extension approved

Apologies for the delay in responding to this change request! The new end date is December 15th, with the final report due February 13, 2017. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Extension grant

Hi! On request of Janice, hereby a formal request to extend the grant Wiki Loves Art 2016. We were under the impression that the project had been extended until the end of December 2016. If that is not the case, our apologies for that. For all the grants of Wikimedia Belgium we plan to come with a report in the end of December (if not earlier in December) to close 2016.

Concerning the project Wiki Loves Art, we are currently completely within the budget (so we do not need extra budget), but the project is not yet completed. Besides the request of Janice, we also want to ask for an extension of the project in combination with an interim report to show the status of the project. As we had the impression that we had until the end of the month (December) before the previous end date of the project was reached, we have no interim report yet. We planned to come with an interim report next week, but we will see what we can do already in the coming days.

We would like to request an extension of the project until the end of June 2017, to be able to complete the project. Almost everything of the project has been done, besides one thing: half of the event on the award ceremony we budgeted money for, did not yet take place on request and in dialogue with our partners, as they considered the announcement time too short. (So nothing of the closing event budget has been spent yet.) We originally planned to do our closing event together for both the participating (and interested) institutions as the participating photographers who took part in the contest. On 25 November only the part of participating photographers took place and they received their prizes. The closing session (supposed to take place in the afternoon) did not take place, and is moved on request of our partners to Spring 2017. For the institutions the project is now an open end, and we did not had the change to show them the results and to continue with them a joined collaboration. Wiki Loves Art started as project to open up the doors of museums and heritage libraries so they the opportunity to meet and get acquainted with us, and to work on projects together.

A secondary reason to extend the timeframe of the project is also to have more time to add the uploaded images to articles in Wikipedia and items in Wikidata. Therefore we like to ask for an extension of the project until the end of June 2017. Romaine (talk) 01:08, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Romaine. Thank you for this detailed request. We are fine with extending the project until June 30, 2017 in order to organize the closing event and work on integrating more photos on the projects. It will be great to have another interim report by the end of the year. The new final report due date (which will only need to cover the activities from January-June) is August 29, 2017. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 05:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Budget change

Hi Romaine, thank you for sending the following text by email to WMF grants staff:

"The photo contest has been finished in 2016 and now we are organising a closing event in what later this month we show the results and inform institutions about collaborations (etc). During this closing event multiple people from institutions talk about why collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia is important/etc. Yesterday we had a meeting to talk about the organisation and the status, and it is going great. We expect to be able to close the project at the end of June. The reasons why we like to request a change is:

1. In the budget in part 4, there is 1250 Euro for the venue for the closing event. Thanks to the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage we get/got both the venue in 2016 as the venue later this month for free.
2. In the budget in part 4, there is 500 Euro for the catering of the closing event. Thanks to the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage we got the catering costs for the participants (photographers) event for free, and we get the catering for the June 2017 event sponsored for a part sponsored by Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage and for a part we have to pay ourselves. They pay € 7,50 per person, and we € 12,50 per person. The number of participants times the costs per person is currently already exceeding the budget for catering. Maximum about 100 people can participate in the event, signing up is still open.
3. In July 2016 Freedom of Panorama went into force in Belgium. One of the major issues for what Wikimedia Belgium was founded was to get Freedom of Panorama in Belgium. To inform the public about Wikipedia, Wikimedia and more we created a folder in what we also wrote about the lack of Freedom of Panorama in Belgium. As the Belgian law changed, much faster than we expected, our folder is outdated and we need to work with the designer to update the folder (in 4 languages!). During the past years the folders have shown to be an important way to inform people and stay in touch and connected with people.
4. Each of the participants will get a book about openness and sharing in the cultural heritage sector we got sponsored for free!

We like therefore to propose the following:

1. That the costs in the budget in part 4 for the venue of the closing event (1250 Euro) can be used for other purposes, including covering the extra costs for catering (more than budgeted), extra costs for the designer (more than budgeted), and extra costs for printing the folders.
2. With all the costs we will stay within the overall budget and within budget for the several other budget parts."

It is great to hear that you got the venue for the event donated, and it sounds reasonable to use those funds to cover the increased cost of catering and to update the Freedom of Panorama folder. Thank you again for your clear explanation, and for bringing this request for change to us before the event - this budget change is approved. We hope the event goes well and look forward to the final report. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 18:35, 7 June 2017 (UTC)