Grants talk:Project/Coffeeandcrumbs/National Film Registry

Concern

While I appreciate the intent, I'm not convinced that a non-profit should be subsidising the work of a US national agency; nor that doing so in a piecemeal manner such as this would be a cost effective way to do so. Has anyone from the WMF or a US chapter talked to the NFR about opening up their collection, or about hosting a Wikimedian in Residence, or holding collaborative events? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I was kind of thinking the same thing reading this. I think at least efforts should perhaps be made to see if they will give us some sort of discount. Ultimately I still support this grant if this is what we need to do to get the content. Bawolff (talk) 08:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with throwing 10 k$ at LOC for a pilot; it's less embarrassing than the hundreds of thousands of dollars the WMF has spent paying for WIRs in universities with billions of dollars of endowment. However, it would look better if the LOC provided a cofinancing. It's also really necessary to provide a comparison with other possible sources and digitisation methods and their costs: is the LOC service really the most cost effective? Nemo 12:46, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata perspective

From a Wikidata perspective, it would be more interesting to get more metadata on films in the registry. Some has been done recently. Not sure if paying a government agency for editing is the way to go. Jura1 (talk) 10:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know, LOC metadata is free. If you give me more details, I can also work on obtaining the metadata for all films in the collection. I do not edit WD much but I am not against also helping that project. Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 17:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Coffeeandcrumbs: We could collect this data with the help of our existing movement relationship LOC labs and @Thisismattmiller: who is already at LOC. I think the better investment of time and energy is probably on engaging with them, to take advantage of records and other parts of the registry. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

• d:Wikidata:WikiProject_Movies/Properties has properties for film items.

I can help you with mapping data to existing items (films or people)/advise you what could be imported in bulk. An overview of their data with sample records would be helpful. Maybe you want to provide it at d:Wikidata talk:WikiProject_Movies Jura1 (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Project duration

What is the duration of the project? Ruslik (talk) 17:54, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Ruslik0: I envisioned this as a 1 year pilot project to obtain 10 or more films. I am saying "or more films" because the budget is be spent entirely on transferring film to digital format and costs of transferring depend on the length of the film. It maybe possible to get more than 10 films. Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Metrics

It's not enough to state that the grantee will use some subjective method to select the most impactful video. We really need some hard numbers here, which will then be useful to make a selection. The most suitable metric is probably the number of bytes transferred found in wikitech:Analytics/Data/Mediacounts, divided by the size of the videos to find the total number of equivalent full-resolution reproductions. Nemo 12:46, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, Round 1 2020

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for Round 2 2020 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 16, 2020.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for round 1 2020 will occur March 17 - April 8, 2020. We ask that you refrain from making changes to your proposal during the committee review period, so we can be sure that all committee members are seeing the same version of the proposal. Grantees will be announced Friday, May 15, 2020. Any changes to the review calendar will be posted on the Round 1 2020 schedule.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

Hello Coffeeandcrumbs,

Thank you for submitting this proposal. This is an unusual type of request for us--we haven't seen a proposal quite like this one before. We are marking it eligible in order to let the committee deliberate on this idea.

In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that, in general, we are cautious about when and why we fund digitization projects. This is because, globally speaking, the digitization needs of knowledge repository institutions is massive in scale and far beyond the scope of what this grant program is resourced to address. When we fund any proposal, we don't just ask ourselves if the specific proposal in question would be a good idea, but also, what precedent we are seeking to set in terms of how we prioritize which proposals to fund, given a limited funding envelope to work from. Typically, with digitization, this program has tended to prioritize funding institutions in geographies whose knowledge is underrepresented in Wikimedia projects and knowledge that is of particularly important significance or in especially high demand for education purposes, and otherwise unlikely to be available to the public. In light of this, I think this proposal will have to work to demonstrate to the Project Grants Committee that it merits prioritization in this round, which we anticipate will be very competitive, and any comments you want to add are welcome!

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF):, this is my first grant proposal and I am still having trouble understanding how this works. On my talk page, Slowking4 has said that "Wikimedia DC could be [the] fiscal sponsor" for this project. That would be great! I would much prefer to have an organization like that handle the fiscal aspect. I have seen Slowking4 at an edit-a-thon but did not mention this project at that time. I will be attending more events organized by Wikimedia DC and can meet with Slowking4 to discuss further if Wikimedia DC is still interesting in being a sponsor. Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

yeah, given the large library of congress digitization budget, you might want to emphasize works that add to encyclopedic content, that have been overlooked by LOC. we did some of this with photos, w:Wikipedia:Meetup/NARA 4, but the backlog is so huge, it suggests some triage is necessary. you should network with our partners at Packard center, w: Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Jazz: Changing Chords and Culture Library of Congress. clearly WMF is going to be skeptical, but if rejected, we can shop it around at knight foundation, or newmark foundation. and for sponsorship see also https://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Contact -- cheers Slowking4 (talk) 23:48, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Feedback from a GLAM strategy perspective at WMF

As User:Mjohnson (WMF), highlights above this is a highly unusual request, and has a lot of implications on many fronts, not just in the foundation funding programs but the movement's approach approach to digitization funding and knowledge equity more generally. I regularly provide public feedback on these grants, so that the grant committee has the opinion of someone who has worked with the GLAM sector and Wikimedia communities doing this work. In my professional capacity, I rarely advise against capitalizing on movement capacity/enthusiasm for a project -- but in this case I recommend not prioritizing this work.

Here is why I recommend that the committee be very cautious about considering this project:

1. First, digitization of the National Film Registry is of long term importance to the US Library of Congress -- it sets a bad precedent for the Wikimedia Foundation to prioritize funding what should be in the existing strategic operations of LOC, from our budget -- we probably don't want to become that kind of funder, especially in a funding rich environment like the US. I think this kind of project would be better suited for something like KickStarter, collaboration with a film enthusiast organization, collaboration with a digital archive partner like Internet Archive or funding by a wealthy film buff -- all of which would work well within existing North American funding environments -- I recommend that Coffeeandcrumbs consider these options. There is no special need for WMF funding in this environment. Moreover, under Dr. Hayden, the Library of Congress is becoming much more progressive about digitization, open access, and metadata -- we're going to get that content eventually, even if no-one seeks early funding for it now. We may even be able to convince LOC to spend this money themselves, through existing relationship at LOC or DPLA, who is one of their key partners.
2. Second, even if we did want to be this kind of funder mentioned in #1, in the North American environment -- 10,000 dollars would digitize a substantial archive of almost any other kind of content, or in contexts that are much more underresourced that LOC, with a much higher volume of content that could be used to advance strategic knowledge work (see #3).
3. In the current scope of the proposal, there is no evidence that this films would fill high-impact knowledge gaps on Wikimedia projects. American film history, like European Film history, has a significant body of scholars, archivists, and professionals already working on this space -- I think it would be very hard to argue that this project reflects our movement strategic strategic direction focus on knowledge equity or the recommendation on identifying strategic knowledge gaps. Scholars, who have secured North American funding streams, are more likely to be successful at identifying and funding priority content for digitization, including for example, working on rare film that advances knowledge equity through representation of minorities, etc. If we wanted to pursue this kind of work, I think other parts of the world might benefit: for example, I know of several similar early film collections in Latin America, which have no similar funding stream and would be a better fit for our goals.
4. We are not a strong film media environment: Wikimedia platforms are well behind industry best practices for streaming/supporting film. Because this probably doesn't fill a strategic knowledge gap (per #3) and it wouldn't advance our practices on engaging film on Commons or other projects, I don't see a practice/method/precedent reason for prioritizing this project.

That being said, I think there is a lot of room for the enthusiasm that WikiProject Film on English Wikipedia to explore other community engagement tactics or strategies -- which could for example, include outreach to film scholar associations who do make these kinds of requests to LOC, to build a priority list etc. I hope we continue to explore those kinds of options and capacity building. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Thinking about this more, I think, if you are interested in working on this more, we should really explore doing something a bit more ambitious/different with LOC as a partnership around Wikidata per the comments above: i.e. @ThisIsMattMiller: could probably collaborate with you to import the registry's data, another dataset that could be really high impact (like the American silent Film Database, or similar) and then use that mapping to start importing more films that are already digitized. The other route of engaging film enthusiasts/buffs in funding work or outreach, also could follow in the model that Jamie Tubers (talk · contribs) has been developing about Nigerian Cinema: doing some type of content drive. If you want to find some time to explore these ideas, and learn more about different tactics that could be high impact on other fronts -- let me know. I also have connections in the Radio Preservation community supported LOC that, I believe, sits in the same offices as the ones that support film. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for National Film Registry

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?	3.4
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	3.8
(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?	5.2
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.0
Additional comments from the Committee: While this is an interesting proposal, it is difficult to see how in its current form it fits with the strategic priorities of knowledge as service and knowledge equity. In terms of knowledge as service, the approach seems unsustainable and unscalable, and the knowledge equity piece is challenging because of the focus on (presumably) English-language films from the U.S. Interesting project about films It may partly fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities but I am not sure. On the other hand it is hard to imaging how the project can be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere. I completely agree with Alex Stinson's comment on the proposal talk page that this project does not fit with WMF's strategic direction. Lack of clear targets for evaluating impact and capturing learning. An interesting problem has been articulated, but I think there are better approaches (e.g. a WiR position or other partnerships with LOC) I must admit that the project is in some respect innovative but it's impact will probably be quite limited: digitizing just ten movies is not going to change much. The main risk is that the digitized movies will not be very popular. I don't see how we could effectively measure the impact of this project. And I don't see how the grantee plan to measure the impacts The grantee is an active Wikimedian and experienced contributor to Commons. The scope is manageable and clearly defined; the issue is more around the potential impact and the ROI I see several difficulties to upload them because the film can be in open license but the digitalization of the film cannot be. In addition there should be a lot of work to do to have a format complaint with Commons and to solve the problem of upload of big files in Commons. All these risks are not mentioned. The project can be executed as proposed and the budget is reasonable but I am not sure whether is wise for WMF to become a co-funder of LoS? I do think the grantee has the capacity to execute this project. It just isn't something we should prioritize. Need more details around how community would be engaged to prioritize digitization of the ~10 films. Also think this proposal would benefit from more discussion, particularly with Wikimedia DC and other potential partners, in order to initiate a more sustainable and impactful project It should be explained better how the films to be digitized are going to be selected and how the opinion of the community will be taken into account. There are a handful of people who supported the proposal but I don't think that was enough Appreciate the planning that’s gone into this proposal but given the issues/concerns raised on the talk page I think the grantee needs to be supported by a more experienced partner who can help navigate working with LOC I would suggest to the submitter to check before the limits of Commons in terms of format of video and in terms of uploading of big files. Anyways we should support more the volunteers' activities about films because Commons misses it. I disagree with the comments in the discussion page because we must support under-represented communities and content and those of films is an under-represented content. I would decline funding of this project. I basically agree with the opinion of Astinson (which can be found on the talk page of the proposal) in that I am not sure that becoming a funder of LoC is within the mission of WMF. This project does not reflect our movement strategic direction. It is not clear what knowledge gap that these 10 videos intend to fill that we must prioritize it at this time. While this is a worthwhile initiative, I don't consider it a suitable project to be funded by WMF project grants. I look forward to the applicant exploring some of the options for funding and partnerships outlined in comments on the [Grants talk:Project/Coffeeandcrumbs/National Film Registry talk page]. Good luck with the project.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

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 carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Round 1 2020 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.

Comments regarding this decision:
We will not be funding your project this round. The aggregated comments from the Project Grant Committee, posted above, provide insight into their concerns about your project. While some committee reviewers thought your project was an interesting idea, they had concerns about sustainability and scalability. They also felt there was not a sufficient plan to measure impact, and relatedly, there was concern that the impact would not be sufficient to yield a good return on the investment.

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.