Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Belgium Yearly grant 2022 (Previously called Simple APG)

Preliminary version was replicated from Fluxx to Meta

Thank you for registering the  grant request for Wikimedia Belgium on Meta, as a transcript from Fluxx.

Please consider that the version I find on Meta is an incomplete preliminary version of 24 November, while I have sent the final version on 30 November. The metrics attachment is also missing, and the name of the page on Meta does not properly mention “Wikimedia Belgium”, which is confusing.

Could you please take the above updates in consideration? Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 16:15, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello Geertivp, thanks for the heads up. I just updated your application and changed the title on Meta. Best, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:51, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Feedback

Thank you for submitting this application. Thank you for your time, energy and effort. After the first review step, We have some remarks, recommendations and questions that we'd like to get more clarity on, please find them below : (With our very best wishes ☕ Antiqueight ^chatter 16:59, 23 December 2021 (UTC) on behalf of the NWE Grants Committee)

Project Context & Overview

• In relation to question 3: How does promoting responsible contributions to Wikimedia projects impact the activities? What is the practical definition of this and does this mean a higher quality control?

This is a question about one of the legal (statutory) purposes of our national organization.

Wikimedia Belgium is not directly responsible for the content of Wikipedia. We train and educate Wikipedia volunteers on how they can write excellent Wikipedia articles, how they can upload media files, and how they can use diverse tools like Wikidata. We organize edit-a-thons and training sessions in collaboration with other organizations striving for free knowledge.

The quality control and the content creation is basically done by the community. The members of the organization, including the board, are all active content creating volunteers. We support them as much as we can, using resources (financial, organizational, and human) as fit in our budgets, priorities, objectives, and year programs.

To encourage content creation, we provide volunteers with expense claims directly related to their content contributions, or travel costs to assist at activities, and make available a limited budget for small personal projects.

We present how we conduct our projects at (inter)national conferences. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• For question 10: When stating “We need projects together with the Community and other organizations and institutions”, does this mean that :We need projects between the Community and other organizations and institutions?

Wikimedia Belgium wants to attract both volunteers from the community and professionals from other organizations and institutions to build free knowledge projects making use of and contributing to the Wikimedia platforms.

Therefore we stimulate personal initiatives, personal contributions to activities organized by Wikimedia Belgium, and projects organized by organizations and institutions. We involve the community in activities organized by other organizations.

We inform the community about our activities, and the activities of related organizations by means of our monthly newsletter, and our social media platforms. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• What is the entry barrier for being able to issue tax certificates for gifts?

Since December 2019 we receive tax certificates for gifts via the Koning Boudewijnstichting. These funds can only be used for specific social, educational and heritage projects, not for our administrative budgets. Specific projects need to be approved by the committee of the Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund, managed and controlled by the Koning Boudewijnstichting, which is a legal body.

The projects need to deliver specific invoices directly related to its project scope. Since we have limited human resources, we need to find other organizations to help to implement such projects, and we need a minimum amount of yearly gifts to be able to have impactful projects, compliant to the Fund requirements. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Referring to question 12: “Schrijven voor Wikipedia", is this the one used from WMNL, or a different one of your own?

It is the WMNL version of the book, which is very useful to augment the onsite training. Participants are really thankful to read a hands-on book while writing articles. It helps them to produce quality articles.

Belgium is 60% Dutch, and 40% French so we urgently need a French version as well.

Together with the WikiFranca organization we would like to assist in publishing a new French version in the near future (the current French version being dated and obsolete).

In my opinion, other (yet unexisting) books might be required like “How to create media files for Wikimedia platforms”, translated in the national languages. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Have you identified the mentioned gaps (cultural/language/geographical/regional/domain equity)? If you have in which language have they been defined? If not, how do you plan to identify these gaps?

We identify the needs on the base of specific projects that we have executed, or want to execute:

1. Women designers: Wiki Women Design
2. Heritage: Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei, Wiki Loves Heritage
3. Historical places: Publieksgeschiedenis in Gent
4. Education: specific university working groups
5. Women in science: Planetarium project

and are planning for:

1. Migrant language project: integration of refugees, cultural gaps
2. Imply other heritage organizations: Erfgoedcel Meetjesland
3. Women in science: University of Liège
4. Reuse Wikipedia articles on heritage web sites (with proper copyright and referencing)
5. etc. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Community Engagement & partners

• For question 18: Which languages are meant where you say “the traditional languages the number of editors is not growing, or even decreasing” and are there any specific reasons for that in Belgium that you are aware of and that you can tackle?

For the main languages for which “most” subjects already have an article on Wikipedia, like for the English, French, German, Dutch and other Wikipedias, the number of active volunteers, the pace of new article creation, and the content growth of existing pages is slowly decreasing. This is a worldwide problem for all mature Wikipedias.

This S-curve is typical for all kinds of “marketing and technology” products. This only proves that those projects become mature and saturated, but it does not mean that they are completely finished. Ongoing maintenance is required and important.

We should focus on attracting motivated volunteers. Also the average age of the contributors is increasing, and more have to stop contributing due to physical, medical or mental conditions, or death.

Problem is also that knowledgeable (and valuable, older) people are refused or blocked (by younger, often less conscious people) from contributing for different reasons (alleged “own work”, licensing, language style, “sensitive”, or old-fashioned content or language).

Only for indigenous languages there is a lot of expansion possible, in terms of volunteers, and content. But the problem is that volunteers are even more sparse here. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Moreover, still with question 18. What the methodology for the translation of local language articles into non local languages?

We want to set up a project together with local social organizations, to e.g. organize language courses for migrants, in order to help them to integrate into the local community. We can organize specific edit-a-thons for those people to teach them to practice the local language by letting them translate existing local language Wikipedia articles about local subjects into their native language Wikipedia. Herewith we internationally expand local knowledge and serve a social project via the creation or replication of global free knowledge. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposal Impact & strategies & Sustainability

• Again with question 12: When you say “We apply and conduct as many activities as can be supported by our available volunteers”, how are activities prioritized if there are limitations on resources eg two events proposed but only volunteers available for one?

We can schedule those activities to non-conflicting dates/weeks/months. We can attract more/other volunteers. We can choose another medium like train-the-trainer. We can attract additional organizations for mutual collaboration. We can collaborate with neighboring countries. We can rescope the project. We can convert the project to online instead of physical. Or indeed, we only schedule the projects that we can support, making sure we apply a correct prioritization. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• For the risk assessment document, it is not recommended to organize events above government limits, does this only apply to the current covid situation?

We always follow government laws and regulations.

Our activities must always be safe for the participants. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• What is the cause of the decrease in the number of board members of WMBE? Have you identified reasons for it and do you plan to address it?

Wikimedia Belgium was founded in 2014 by a multicultural/international board of 8 volunteers, more than 7 years ago. We are a multilingual organization. There is a lot of administrative work to do, the legal, tax, and administrative rules are complex and bureaucratic, and this does not motivate potential board members. In addition to that there is some administrative complexity when we have foreign board members.

Because of the difference in language, and culture, communication and collaboration is difficult, both national and international.

Board members rather want to build an organization, with concrete results, rather than just executing boring administrative tasks.

Younger board members are either studying, starting a personal professional career, have a partner and young children at home. Older persons have a much demanding career, and elderly people would like younger board members to take the lead.

Also corona had a very negative influence, because there was no physical contact, and mutual motivation was not possible any more. There was no international travel any more (Wikimedia conference, European Wikimedia chairperson meeting, WikiTech, hackathons, Wikimania). Physical contact with other organizations was disrupted. Informal contacts were broken.

There was no formal training possible (physical contact) due to corona. It is very difficult to find people knowledgeable about budgeting, general ledger, financial reporting, yearly statements, organizing general assembly meetings, running projects, etc.

Still we do our very best to find new board members: https://be.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wanted_-_Board_members_for_Wikimedia_Belgium Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• The Belgian proposal is working with 4 languages, NL/FR and DE/EN, but Belgium is majority in none neither of these groups, how does this affect your strategic plan? Please give some clarification on how the organization interacts with other Wikimedia organizations in the different languages (NL, DE, FR, EN)

We collaborate with the neighbouring Wikimedia organizations. We indeed are a language minority in any of those languages/countries. It is very complicated in Europe since there are a lot of cultural differences/variants.

There are often international cultural and content conflicts within and against minority language communities dispersed over multiple countries (the Netherlands against Vlaanderen, France against Walloon). It requires a delicate and frequently contested balance. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Budget and resources allocation

• Can you provide an annual plan, i.e. a document describing the activities you want to organise in 2022? Please provide at least one sentence description of each project and at least the main goal.

We basically want to organize at least the same (type of) activities as we did in 2021 and the previous years, together with:

1. Museums
   • Industriemuseum Gent: industrial heritage in Gent, document the museum collection
   • Jenevermuseum Hasselt: document the museum collection
   • Plantentuin Meise: document the plant inventory, biodiversity
   • Koninklijke Bibliotheek Brussel: cultural heritage, public domain day
   • Mundaneum Mons
2. Heritage
   • Wiki Loves Heritage: yearly photo contest
   • Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei
   • Erfgoedcel Meetjesland
3. Libraries:
   • Iedereen Wiki
   • Iedereen Leest
   • Jeugdboekenweek
4. Education
   • Réjouisciences: promote science in colleges
   • Universities: public history, economy, public relations, journalism
5. Partnerships
   • Welcome To My Garden: collaboration between OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia
6. Volunteers
   • Weekly Wiki Helpdesk via the Spatial Chat conferencing tool
   • Expense claims directly linked to Wikimedia activities
   • Limited financial support for small personal projects Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Please provide more details on the freelance work, i.e. what kind of work you will order, if it is one or more freelancers, how many hours, how you will manage the freelancer(s) etc.?

We foresee 6 hours per week at an hourly rate of 35 €. It could be one or more freelancers, and would be more administrative work that can't be fulfilled by volunteers. The freelancers will be managed by board members.

The work could be translating and writing newsletters, website maintenance, social media follow up. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• The Capacity building line item needs further clarification and details around how it interacts with project costs.

The details have been clearly indicated in the uploaded spreadsheet “WMBE sAPG budget 2022”. Capacity building costs and project costs are separate; find here an overview:

1. Capacity building
   • Partnerships with other organisations
   • Volunteer program
   • Wikimedia training
   • Board training
2. Project costs
   • Education program
   • GLAM program
   • Heritage program Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Please expand on details around any formal training activities.

1. During the edit-a-thon trainings we distribute the book “Schrijven voor Wikipedia” for all participants
2. We educate museums how to use OpenRefine for preparing and performing uploads to Wikidata
3. We collaborate with national governmental institutions like meemoo, FARO
4. We answer questions from volunteers
5. We organize online hands-on sessions Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Recommendation

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 45264.00 USD.

The committee is pleased to continue supporting Wikimedia Belgium. The organisation’s myriad efforts to support more people and languages demonstrates the commitment towards values of free knowledge as well as establishing good relationships and collaboration in the movement. The committee is excited to support the contribution of Wikimedia Belgium to the movement strategy principles. The committee also appreciates the degree to which the organisation has worked to grow volunteer numbers.

As Wikimedia Belgium’s current strategy has expired, the committee recommends that the chapter works on the new strategic plan, particularly tackling the strong linguistic challenges and elaborating on what Wikimedia Belgium can do and how they can collaborate with NL/FR/DE/EN wiki communities. In addition the committee recommends that Wikimedia Belgium should support board members to focus on strategy and create ways for freelancers or staff to take up administrative work. We appreciate your effort on the proposal and look forward to working with you in solidarity to support important and fundamental transformations in the Wikimedia movement. On behalf of the committee ☕ Antiqueight ^chatter 14:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)