Grants talk:Project/Addressing the Global South systemic bias

Project Grant proposal submissions due 30 November!

Thanks for drafting your Project Grant proposal. As a reminder, proposals are due on November 30th by the end of the day in your local time. In order for this submission to be reviewed for eligibility, it must be formally proposed. When you have completed filling out the infobox and have fully responded to the questions on your draft, please change status=draft to status=proposed to formally submit your grant proposal. This can be found in the Probox template found on your grant proposal page. Importantly, proposals that are submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for review during this round. If you're having any difficulty or encounter any unexpected issues when changing the proposal status, please feel free to e-mail me at cschillingwikimedia.org or contact me on my talk page. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through January 2, 2019.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for round 2 2018 will occur January 3-January 28, 2019. Grantees will be announced March 1, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Questions from Superzerocool

Hi Andreasmperu thanks for your proposal. After read it, I have the following questions:

1. Why you address Global South as title of your project if you will work only in Peru?, How this project could be replicated in other countries, like as South Africa, Guatemala or Turkey? (both are GS).
2. Partnerships between person/institutions are rare, how do you will ask a partnership with a government office?
3. What are the 3 datasets to be imported into Wikidata?
4. How do you detect the regional bias in datasets?
5. Can you tell us about who will upload the data and how isn't a pay-per-edit project?
6. What are the charges to be paid in item Administrative costs?
7. The PM is allocated for 9 months, It will be 1,0 FE or 0,5 FTE? (FTE: Full Time Employee)

Thanks in advance Superzerocool (talk) 20:06, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

@Superzerocool: First of all, sorry for such a delayed reply. I completely missed this and I have to admit that I was silly enough not to even notice the existence of this talk page (maybe because I have been mostly editing on a mobile?).

1. Because it has to start in one place as a trial. This project could be used as an example of the challenges that would be needed to overcome in order to address the Global South systemic bias. I think this would be the first attempt to systematically import data from different sources originating from a GS country. So, a step by step guide on the process will be created. For instance, how to map existing databases, how to identify what information could be more needed (so it gets priority), what type of licenses are being used, what institutions to approach, what import tools are available or need to be created, what problems were encountered, etc.
2. Partnerships with institutions, and specially with government agencies, can be difficult to establish. In the case of Latin America, red tape tends to slow the process even further, and bureaucracy in the Global South is quite inefficient (as a test, I sent an email asking for information about a governmental dataset, and the reply came almost a month later, but sometimes no reply is also an option). Given that establishing partnerships can be a time-consuming and frustrating process, it is extremely important to choose well by identifying what institution could be a more feasible partner. In the case of public data, a partnership will not be always needed, but just an official statement that the data could be reused or even a clarification about the license of a given database (some databases do not clearly state what license is used). When this will not be possible, one solution could be to use networking in order to contact people on higher ranks (such as directors or vice-ministers) directly. Such direct contact in countries with bureaucratic problems normally speeds up the process.
3. I would like to start with the Database of Indigeneous and Originary Peoples - Base de Datos de Pueblos Indígenas u Originarios - BDPI, because it is one of the least represented subjects. That is the only database that I have identify prior to the beginning of the project, so the first step will be to map all available databases in order to make a selection. I set a minimum of 3 databases, but I expect to do much more than that.
4. I am not sure I understood the question about regional bias. I intend to prioritise national datasets with information about the whole country, and normally the information about each region is already specified. The project budget also includes a travel item, which among other things will be used to visit at least one institution outside the capital city. Because Peru like other Global South countries is a highly centralised country, I will avoid datasets that deal only about the capital city.
5. I will be the person uploading the data. In order to achieve this, I expect to either clean the data in a way that could be uploaded with the existing tools, or I will have to create special tools for specific datasets. Unfortunately, I will never be able to do this unless it is paid work. I have tried to find the time in the past, but it is just not feasible, basically because it is much more time-consuming than just simply editing.
6. Administrative costs will cover items such as office supplies, fees for cloud storage, general services (for instance, a one-time consulting fee for an accountant to manage the taxes on the project), travel insurance whenever needed.
7. The PM will be a FTE.

Thanks for the questions! Andreasmperu (Wikidata, enwiki) 15:55, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

A few additional questions

I have a few additional questions about your proposal:

• Can you provide some evidence for your claim, "Educated people with free time from richer countries are more likely to contribute to Wikidata. Such users tend to contribute on subjects familiar to them, and also richer countries produce more data. On the other hand, people from developing countries are less likely to contribute to Wikidata because of limited Internet access or usage," as this claim seems pivotal to your proposal.
• Can you provide some details about what the proposed budget will cover and how the budget amounts were generated?
• Can you provide more details about exactly what will be done in this proposed work, and who will do it?

I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts on this proposal. --- FULBERT (talk) 03:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I want to make sure you saw my questions Andreasmperu so pinging you. --- FULBERT (talk) 22:35, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

@FULBERT: Sorry for the delay. As I explained above, somehow Meta pings only appeared at the bottom of my notifications list, and I only went through all of them today.

• So let's start from the beginning. This article from The Economist "Rich countries are deluged with data; developing ones are suffering from drought" states the existence of a North-South divide related to data. Basically, rich countries produce a lot more data that poor countries, and such data is easily accessible, which results in a huge amount of information about the North, and not so much about the South. There is also a en:Global digital divide, which explains the disparity between rich and poor countries in regards to access to computing and information resources (plenty of references in that Wikipedia article).

Map of Wikidata items about women by place of birth

Wikidata items with a coordinate location

As for Wikidata, there is this quote from WDCM Journal: "the North-South Divide in Wikidata usage according to the person's birthplace is split approximately 95% and 5% between North and South". There is also a series of Wikidata Maps and here are the latest from October 2018. Just a quick look to these maps show that a higher number of Wikidata items deal about people or places from rich countries, so the question would be why is that. Part of the explanation would be the aforementioned North-South divide, but also it could be about who is adding the information. Unfortunately, there is no profile of Wikidata editors, but there have been some attempts to establish the demographics of Wikipedians. According to the Editor Survey 2011/Executive Summary, "if there is a typical Wikipedia editor, he has a college degree, is 30-years-old, is computer savvy but not necessarily a programmer", and "the data from the survey shows that the majority of Wikipedians hail from North America or Europe". Also from the same report, "in some of these [Global South] regions, like India and Africa, desktop Internet has yet to see broader penetration, though mobile Internet is expanding rapidly, and it is no surprise that the mobile phone is the most popular device among editors". So we are back to the global digital divide. Maybe the explanation as to why we have so many items about videogames, and we lack items about politicians from Ecuador could be that the majority of editors come from rich countries (where they have time and money to buy and play those videogames), and they do not really care about what is happening in a small country from the South. We can let it be or not even consider that to be a problem, or we can start finding solutions.

• The proposed budget covers a FTE for 9 months, which would be me the Project Manager (USD 15000 for 9 months). The amount was calculated as my opportunity cost, so it is the amount I would be receiving in case I was working in something else instead of this project. I established it as a bit lower than my current wage. The item "Travel" (800 USD for 9 months) will be used to visit at least one institution outside the capital city, my hometown, but also to move around Lima whenever I need to meet with people related to the project (to establish partnerships with institutions, for example). A round trip to any Peruvian city from Lima could cost between USD 100-200, another USD 150 for travel expenses, and the rest (USD 450-550) to move around Lima for 9 months was calculated as half the amount I currently spend to go to work. As I stated earlier, the item "Administrative costs" (2600 USD for 9 months) will cover items such as office supplies, fees for cloud storage, phone bill to contact institutions, general services (for instance, a one-time consulting fee for an accountant to manage the taxes on the project, or a fee for a programmer in case I need help creating the import tools), travel insurance whenever needed.
• I will be executing most of the project. As stated in the project proposal, the result will be to make accesible in Wikidata more data about an underrepresented country such as Peru, and to establish a precedent as to how to start tackling the Global South systemic bias. It is clear what needs to be done (to import more data from poor countries), but we are currently lacking the know-how.

I hope I was able to answer your questions. Andreasmperu (Wikidata, enwiki) 15:53, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Addressing the Global South systemic bias

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.6
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	6.2
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	5.6
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.6
Additional comments from the Committee: This project fits with the strategic goal of increasing the diversity within the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia movement is yet to tap the full potential of volunteers and knowledge from Peru, so this project appears to be a good starting point to bridge the knowledge gap. I am unsure about the online impact of the project, because the grantee seems to be unsure of which datasets to upload to Wikidata, although the one example dataset he has given (BDPI) appears to be an extremely important one. I would like for the grantee to list out all potential databases he can think about, and pick the ones he thinks is the best for this particular project. I am also unsure about sustainability and scalability of this project, since it is driven by just one person. It would be ideal to find a group of volunteers to join this project so as to ensure that some of them will continue to work on this project on a voluntary basis. Some resources from this project grant should be set apart for educating and involving local volunteers as a part of this project. The grantee mentions that he will create some tools for uploading the data, but not much information about the same has been given in the talk page. Moderate impact potential. There is a fit with strategic priorities by development of Wikidata and improving content about an underrepresented country. However, significant concern on sustainability of partnerships (they rely on one person only) and scalability of the work (same concern) I love this proposal for the impact it can have for Peru, but also other countries. This project can serve as a template for other countries trying to establish locations of open content. I do want to see some outreach in Peru, because this is a lot for one person, and also I want to make sure this is sustainable and in a way where contributors are writing the content that is about their country and culture. This project appears to be innovative because few have tried to run a Wikidata-based project grant tailored for global south databases. The grantee also mentions that he will create and run some tools in the process of uploading the data, which is again innovative. Measures of impact have been well-explained. It is not fully innovative as multiple national databases were already integrated to Wikidata. On the other side, measures of success are not fantastic, and it is not clear whether there will be anyone from Peruvian community interested either in integration or in improving these Wikidata items. I love the idea of mapping the resources available. The identified resources can be documented and the uploads from those sources can be quantified. I do like the opportunity this brings for learning how to work with organizations in regions with a developing wiki-presence. Some concerns about licenses of data. The submitter supposes to contact local institutions but it is not clear if the data are open. It appears that the scope will be achieved in 9 months. I think that the budget is a bit high, considering the living expenses in Peru. The grantee appears to have the skills and experience for this project (is an admin on Wikidata). Feasible project, with participant having Wikidata experience but not necessarily partnerships experience. The budget looks high to me: this does not look like a full 9 months 1 FTE work, except if solid partnerships will be developed (in which case I keep asking how they will be sustained). The proposal seems straightforward in regard to the method. I would love to see how the grantee intends to explore options for community members to participate in the project. The target community is unknown, as most work is planned to be done only by the grantee. However, tools created as a part of this project might be reusable by other Wikidata volunteers. Community support is lacking, except for two endorsements. Two target communities identified. One is Wikidata community, which was well informed and has good support. Another one is Peruvian community who will sustain the partnership, and there are no engagement plans. This is the one aspect where the project proposal is lacking. I do see where there will be presentations and connection with the Wikidata community, but I would love to see something more intentional (upload parties, edit parties). Not so much enthustiatic, the project seems to heva several weaknesses. I would like to see a revised budget with lower costs on project management (assuming that the grantee is living in Peru). Evidence for communicating with local Wikidata community about this project, and their responses for the same would be valuable. More clarity regarding the course of the work plan is needed, especially about the tools that the grantee is planning to create and about the datasets that would be uploaded as a part of this project. I support it *only if Peruvian community is involved in sustaining these partnerships* AND *only if budget is reduced via involvement of other volunteers*. The idea is not so bad, but lack of involvement of the community of the target country make partnerships not really sustainable, which is my significant concern. If none of this is done, my vote is "no" as I am not looking forward to supporting rather expensive one-man partnerships. I would love to fund this proposal with changes of adding more targeted community engagement (edit parties, upload parties, even if they are 'virtual' initiatives and not local as would be the ideal hope).

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page.
2. Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on March 1st, 2019.

Questions? Contact us.

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Comments from WMF

Hi User:Andreasmperu. Thank you for this interesting and important proposal. The data gap between the Global North and South is alarming and we are excited about your ideas to create a process for Global South countries to support getting more of their data on Wikidata. In review the committee's comments above, there are a few important remaining questions we would like to get your response to:

1. This project is lead and driven by you, which is a testament to your commitment! However, in order for this to be sustainable, we would like to see more community engagement and interest in the work. Have you tried to engage more volunteers to join this project to ensure there will be people that will continue to work with the data on a voluntary basis after the pilot is over? Have you considered using some resources from this project to educate and involve local Wikimedians?
2. As you write above, establishing relationships, or even just getting an initial response to inquiry from government institutions, can be very challenging and it often takes networking and knowing someone to get a response. Do you have experience in working with government institutions, have contacts or networks that could support this work, or have any responses so far that increase your confidence that they will engage with you?
3. While the actual data imported is of course an important outcome of the project, the "step-by-step" guide that other communities can use is of equal importance. Please add more details about this guide in the goals section and what information you plan to include in the project plan.
4. What are you plans for sustaining this work after the project period is over?

We look forward to hearing from you. Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@AWang (WMF): I just saw this, and it's probably too late for this reply. Sorry about that! I should have know I needed to regularly check this page. As for the questions raised, I think I was not clear enough about the aim of this project. It is not about community building nor about community engagement. My goal is to increase the amount of data available from the Global South, whose gap in regards to the rich part of the world is only increasing. I am proposing a solution to what I understand to be a big problem. Luckily, importing databases is not a task that needs to be sustainable: unless it is constantly updated (which is unlikely to be the case in a poor country), the import task would happen only once, which brings me to another point: partnerships with government institutions. My hope is to avoid them at all costs because of the low time-effort trade off, or to limit the contact to a clarification of the licence used (mostly free in public databases, but not specifically stated as such) or to a specific permission to import data. Nevertheless, I do have the appropriate contacts to reach out to higher level authorities if needed. I could only import data with a free licence, so this is crucial. Again, my aim is to make data available worldwide not to establish long-standing partnerships with institutions, which would probably require more time and, indeed, would be better guided by a community and not one single person. For instance, last week, the director of Indigenous Languages at the Peruvian Ministry of Culture got in touch with the group of Peruvian Wikimedians in order to organise activities for 2019 as it is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. I would take advantage of this opportunity to discuss importing data from the Database of Indigeneous and Originary Peoples developed by that ministry, but the aim of this project would not be pursuing activities other than importing data. I do understand the need to involve the Peruvian community, but I do not think this is a good fit for the aim of this project. Unfortunately, there is not an organised Wikimedia chapter in Peru, but a user group, and none of the editors are familiar with Wikidata, which would be a hindrance if they would be helping out at this stage. Today, the Wikimedians of Peru will be having a meeting, and I will propose to organise at least a couple of workshops about Wikidata, but that would enable them to use Wikidata, not to actually understand the know-how, which usually takes a lot of time of constant practice (a problem when free time and a good Internet connection is a scarce resource in the Global South). However, I do understand this to be valuable, so I will rearrange the project timetable to have the time to organise those events.

This project would make no sense if there would be no lessons drawn from it. That is why I think it is important to register the import process step-by step. I am an experienced Wikidata editor, but I would be trying something new, and I would like this project to be replicated in other developing countries. The guide would include dos and don'ts, what tools are available and what tools would be needed depending on the dataset format, what kind of alliances would be useful, how much knowledge of Wikidata would be needed to import data, what can be accomplish with limited resources and what cannot, etc. So I guess, that guide could be considered another end product of this project, on top the imported data of course.

It came as a surprise the questioning about not having specify which databases would I be using, when the first activity in my project plan was to map all databases about Peru. That is one of the problems with the Global South: the information is not readily available and duly organised as in most rich countries. We actually need to dig it or to go in person to certain institutions and ask about what information they hold, and sometimes they don't even know it themselves!

I was also a bit surprised to find a complaint about the amount of funding citing the low living costs in Peru, while I have already stated that I had based my calculation on my current base salary. To be more precise, I would be taken more than a 25% pay cut with regard to my current salary, so I would actually be losing money by doing this project. I could not live with the Peruvian minimum wage, and I fortunately never needed to. In that sense, I am a privilege person who was lucky enough to attend a world-class university, but I am also a minority in a poor country. There is a reason why most editors come from developed countries, and why most grant proposals asked for ridiculously high amounts of money. I was just reading this Wired article about Wikidata the other day, and it said: "Amazon and Facebook ponied up $1 million each. Google recently announced a $3.1 million donation. The funds will help the foundation’s efforts to make its communities and information stores more representative. Almost 4 million people have a Wikidata entry listing their gender; only 18 percent are female. The resource’s knowledge of the global south is sketchy." Maybe my proposal was not the best option, but I would like to see something happening to address the Global South systemic bias. Andreasmperu (Wikidata, enwiki) 21:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Round 2 2018 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 1 March 2019 (UTC)