Grants talk:PEG/Wikimedia Levant/WikiArabia 2016 Conference/Report

Comments from WMF

Hi Mervat . Thanks so much for this great report and all your efforts planning this event. We noticed that you have not submitted the financial report and expense documentation by email yet. We cannot approve the report until you submit that information. We have a few follow-up questions and look forward to your responses:

1. You did a survey when planning this conference - based on your experience, would you ask different questions on future surveys? Is there information that would have been helpful to have when planning the conference program?
2. It is great to hear that the medical students who attended the conference helped produce the medical application - is this the Kiwix application? Do you have an estimate of how many of the students who attended became more active within your community after the conference?
3. Did you do a survey after the conference? If so, please share some observations from the results. If not, It would be interesting to do a survey now to find out if people started new projects, made changes to existing projects, or began using some of the tools they learned about such as phabricator, bots or wikidata.
4. It is great to hear that people are continuing conversations from the event on social media - what are the most common topics that people discuss?

Please submit the financial report by email as soon as possible so that we can review and approve the report. I have posted some observations and notes for future planning in the section below. Please feel free to add any other points that you would like to share with other conference organizers, and for future WikiArabia organizers. Thank you again for all of the hard work you put into this conference, we look forward to reading your responses to our questions. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@KHarold (WMF):: Hey Kacie. by filling out the expenses table, we thought that would be it. if it should be provided in another way, please advise. --Mervat Salman (talk) 22:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Mervat,the instructions are not as clear as they could be - I understand how you might have missed them. We ask grantees to email us a spreadsheet documenting spending as well as reciepts and other materials. You can find the full instructions here: Grants:Documenting_project_expenses.--KHarold (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Highlights and next steps

Highlights:

• Bot workshop evaluated as one of the best sessions. They had a signup before the event, and people were only allowed to attend if they had necessary background skills and a computer.
• Due to the updated rules of Wiki Loves Women award, better participation have been achieved. Also, enhancing the medical content have improved, specially that no less than 6 participants where medical students who are active editors at the same time. they participated effectively with the Wikimedicine team to produce the free mobile application which was released in early August.

Next time:

• For admins: Spend more time on policy discussions, review draft policies, set priorities for the year ahead
• Invite more active participants who positively ran programs and initiated unique ideas that can inspire other participants. Lightning talk format? Or poster session with ‘how to’
• Keep track of time, leave more time for group discussions after sessions
• Perhaps limit the number of people in workshop sessions that require wifi to ensure strong connection.
• Fewer theoretical sessions, more workshops
• Think of ways to avoid disengagement (invite newcomers/students to only part of the conference, remind people to use lobby for discussions). Have a list of discussion topics on hand in case someone cancels.

Extension request for conference expense report completion

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had delays in submitting a completed expense report by the original due date. Therefore, I would like to request an extension to the submission date of the final expense report of WikiArabia 2016 until Dec 31, 2017. --Fjmustak (talk) 07:49, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the request, Fjmustak! The new submission due date for the documentation of expenses will be 31 December 2017. We hope to resolve these delays soon, and look forward to working with you on closing this grant by then. Best, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)