Grants talk:Project/Dr. Blofeld/Contest toolkits and prize funds

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2017

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2017 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through the end of 4 April 2017.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2017 begins on 5 April 2017, and grants will be announced 19 May. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Supporting the Wikimedia Movement Development Strategy

You can read more about my vision for higher importance articles and contests as part of the "Most Respected Source" Strategy here, and vision for national contests as part of the "Truly Global Movement" Development Strategy here. I think it would be good if this could start to directly work towards the Development Strategy and be a way to start overhauling the site and building up consistency.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 12:34, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Round 1 2017 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

WMF has approved partial funding for this project, in accordance with the committee's recommendation. This project is funded with $6,025

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support partial funding for Contest toolkits and prize funds, with $2,000 allocated for developing a pilot toolkit and $4,025 for a World Women Contest.

We have reduced the budget for the World Women Contest to reflect the funding precedents in the Wikimedia movement for large contests. Because the contest toolkit is an innovative idea, we would like to fund a smaller scale pilot project to see how much adoption happens from community members. Expansion of the toolkit is an option if it proves to be a popular tool. We ask that you prioritize building a product that can be discovered and used by volunteers independently, so that its application is not limited to your own availability to offer tailored support on a case-by-case individual basis. This is not to prevent you from offering tailored support as you wish, but to give the toolkit the widest possible audience.

We are happy to support your further work in running and supporting contests and we look forward to seeing the results of your efforts.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

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Aggregated feedback from the committee for Contest toolkits and prize funds

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?	6.3
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	6.3
(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?	6.1
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.3
Additional comments from the Committee: Fits with strategic priorities by addressing content gaps (and specifically the gender gap) through contests. Has potential for online impact as contests can prove to be a good way of engaging users to focus on improving content for underrepresented topics. Efforts of project can be sustained as better documentation and tools will support others to organize contests more easily. This unusual project fits with Wikimedia's strategic priorities and has the potential for online impact but its scalability and sustainability are less clear. Contests generally tend to have good potential for online impact and fit into quality / participation strategic priorities. Contest toolkits are supposed to make this project sustainable and scalable. Innovative approach but I'm not sure if this is a key problem. It'd be nice to hear confirmation that there is a lot of overhead/confusion/challenges to organizing contests and that more toolkits would help with this. Measures of success are a bit vague. It'd be nice to have an exact number of toolkits that will be created through the grant. The approach seems to be innovative. The risks appear to be modest taking into account the experience of the participant. However the measures of success are vague. I give a low score as contests do not seem that innovative and their measures of success look low compared to prizes. 195 + 134 prizes -> I would probably expect more than 2000 articles. Perhaps some adjustments are needed in order not to give prizes for just 1 or 2 articles. Toolkits are more innovative, but their success is harder to measure. The prize over all countries could be a little ambitious (ie: can we send prizes to Syria?). The budget seems sufficient to cover the costs, but the work isn't detailed... Grantee is very experienced and has good endorsements from others. Scope of activity seems achievable. I'm never that comfortable when prizes make up the bulk of the budget. The participant probably has the ability to execute the project within 12 months. The budget is probably realistic. The budget for section "Developing a contest directory and toolkits" can be reduced. The organiser is qualified and experienced. The budget is a bit too high (see above). The project has a clear impact in English Wikipedia but I didn't read how it will impact countries without local affiliates (such as Somalia or Costa Rica). I'm worried that even with a contest directory, groups and individuals will continue to create their own materials (and not use the directory). The grantee needs to consider how to promote awareness and use of the toolkits. There is a noticeable community support and the project supports diversity. Noticeable that there is community support. The main participant is in good standing with the target community (English Wikipedia) and is well supported by this community. I didn't see the multi-lingual component in the project. I have some hesitations around supporting a project that mainly serves English Wikipedia given the many language communities and projects also in need of resources. I think a contest directory sounds promising but need more evidence that there is demand for this resource. I'm more inclined to fund the creation of the directory than support the prize fund for two contests. I’m willing to support the project provided that the measures of success are made more specific. Too many countries (195 countries) covered by one grant? Yes: good impact, especially for toolkits; and potentially good impact for contests. I would reduce the budget to put it closer to measures of success: 2k articles for 16k USD is somewhat high, probably there should be no prizes in nominations with, say, less than 5 articles. This will either lead to increase in metrics (more articles) or to decrease in budget (less nominations).

English Wikipedia

I don't find it appropriate to build such resources in the English Wikipedia, in an en.wiki-centric way. Please use Meta-Wiki. --Nemo 17:35, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Debloatathon

(Or drainathon, prunathon?) As always, I love the idea of cutting Wikipedia articles merciless. There's so much fluff and poorly written obese text on many popular or semi-popular or personal-pet-peeve articles! --Nemo 17:42, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Exactly, it's one of the most needed things on Wikipedia! Important articles accumulate a staggering amount of cruft and bloat over time if not taken care of and promoted to GA/FA. Readability is very poor in places. Dr. Blofeld (talk) 17:21, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Grant money

@Mjohnson (WMF): Only two weeks to go before I have to pay the contestants. The second half of the grant was due six weeks ago. The contest is going extremely well and we produced more women bios than men in the first time in the history of Wikipedia. I know you're very busy but can you please find a few minutes to do look at the midpoint review and sort out payment of the second half of the grant, thanks.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Need an extra month

@Mjohnson (WMF): December went very quickly, aside from sorting out the grant prizes I didn't feel that well over Christmas. Can you give me an extra month on making the toolkit rather than rush it at the last minute?Dr. Blofeld (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2017 (UTC)