Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Bay Area Wikipedians:New Generation (ID: 22640981)

Missed opportunity

It would have been fun to call this "Bay Area New Generation: Wikipedians", but that may be besides the point :) Thanks for doing this, e_mln_e! Effeietsanders (talk) 02:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

well you know, I agree with you and since it was returned for edits, I changed the title! E mln e (talk) 01:43, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

(I should admit that as a non-native speaker I only just realize that my 'fun' abbreviation could also be interpreted very differently than the whimsical meaning I had in mind (as meaning a "sudden sound" rather than as a verb). So in hindsight, not so sure how appropriate it is... Effeietsanders (talk) 18:05, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

As a native speaker I also didn't catch that... Oh dear lol ElanHR (talk) 17:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

For grant purposes I think it makes sense to clarify this is a different group of organizers but for external branding I think it could be confusing. That said happy with either! ElanHR (talk) 17:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

@ElanHR: Unfortunately, because of the way our systems work where we copy over info from Fluxx to a page on Meta-wiki, retitling the proposal on Fluxx after it's been submitted creates two separate proposal pages on Meta-wiki and breaks the system in some important ways (such as the decision now applies to a different page entirely, and this one gets effectively stalled). Therefore, I need to stick with this proposal title for the purposes of our review and decisionmaking. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hello e_mln_e, ElanHR, and Audiodude, and thanks for your proposal supporting various activities for Wikipedians in the Bay Area. I'm Chris Schilling, a program officer with the Community Resources team supporting funding needs for North America. Please see my comments below:

• First, thanks for already submitting your application to be recognized as a User Group to the Affiliations Committee. This is a sensible step for your group given the kinds of activities you are interested in running and have already been organizing in the last year.
• Thanks also for providing details on your event and general organizing work over the past year, which included edit-a-thons and workshops in a university setting, among other activities.
• While we have funded some activities in the Bay Area previously several years ago, this is first proposal from this specific team of individuals. For a first proposal, the proposal is ambitious in terms of programming, as it includes two monthly events, multiple photowalks, active outreach to cultural partners, a few larger celebratory events, and multiple Q&A sessions at local libraries. While these are all eligible activities, for your first proposal, I request that you focus on a smaller set of activities to initially focus on events that you feel are most important or useful to support community engagement in the Bay Area. The current proposal focuses on six (6) proposed programs / activities, so my recommendation would be to focus on three (3) of these items -- about half -- in your revised proposal. Your requested budget and metrics should also be reduced accordingly. In the future, there may be opportunities to expand upon your work in future Rapid Funds. I have sent your proposal back to you on Fluxx for these revisions. Because we will be finalizing funding decisions for this round by 28 March, please complete your revisions and resubmit your proposal on Fluxx by 21 March (Friday), otherwise we will need to review your proposal for next round.
• Information provided about your team notes there are three dedicated volunteer organizers and an unknown number of other organizers in the community. Can I ask more about the specific organizing experience that each of your team members has from past events? Can you also provide more information about what roles each team member will have with respect to the proposed activities? While I understand they will be organizers, it will be helpful to know what programs or activities they will support.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need clarity on my feedback. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 06:39, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello Chris,

Thank you for your feedback. Here is some more details about the proposed programming and how it would impact the budget.

To clarify, we have already been organizing a monthly meetup for two and a half years (with a short hiatus), and proposed for the (new) developers meetup to be co-located to share the costs of hosting and providing food while expanding our impact. We will clarify in the proposal that these are two groups within the same meetup.

As we already have made progress on our partnership with historical societies in the works, and have organized large community-oriented events (Wikipedia Day in particular) that proved very popular, we will focus on those two items besides the meetup.

We will update our proposal to reflect these changes, clarify the meetup proposal as well as provide more information about the organizers by March 21. E mln e (talk) 19:44, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Audiodude here. I will primarily be leading the "technical contributor" track at the monthly meetups, providing information and resources, support, and presentations of interest to those who would like to contribute to the movement through technical instead of editorial means. I also intend to provide support to e_min_e and ElanHR for more general tasks needed for holding our meetups and the other goals of the group, as well as sending communications and fielding questions from community participants. My past organizing experience includes being the President/Director of my college a cappella group (c 2004), the Director of a work based a cappella group (c 2016-2018), and the sole organizer for multiple weekly Python programming meetups at Noisebridge in SF (c 2023 - ). Audiodude (talk) 04:58, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@E mln e, ElanHR, and Audiodude: While I understand some steps were taken to reduce the scale of your events, I'm afraid that we're still not able to support the proposed plan, especially because it is still about 90% of the original budget proposed. In addition, there are limitations on the Rapid Fund budget during this fiscal year, largely due to an unexpected and very large increase in Rapid Fund proposals for this round, meaning that we are not able to fund all of them fully. I am approving the proposal for 2500 USD, which likely means that you will need to reduce the frequency of your monthly events at the proposed space or other special events planned for this year. I also want to draw your attention to the fact that swag can be requested from the Foundation for free, especially if you are receiving Rapid Funds for event organizing. Please review that page there for more information, and when you want to make a request, I am happy to approve it for your meetups or other activities this year. Good luck with your organizing work over the next year, and thanks for your proposal to support Wikimedians in the Bay Area! With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Comments from Rosiestep

I met up with E mln e for coffee in Oct 2024 to talk about all things wiki within the SF Bay Area. I learned about the events of the last year and plans going forward; I was impressed. We met up again at Wikiwomen Salon (I was the facilitator; The Ruby, Jan 2025), WikiCredCon (Internet Archive, Feb 2025), Feb monthly meetup (large, in-person meetup with guest speakers even though there was torrential rain outside!), and Mar monthly meetup (I had to Zoom in as I was traveling). Emlne's experience as an organizer and veteran wiki person are evident. Having termed off the WMF Board of Trustee in Dec 2024, I'm ready to be more active in wiki activities local to me. I am pleased to call this my home wiki community, and will continue to support it not only as a member/participant but also as an organizer (e.g., wikiwomen events). --Rosiestep (talk) 17:49, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: Thanks for acknowledging your past interactions and offer of support for the proposal! I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)