Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Epantaleo/The Wikimedia Foundation - Wiktionary - Etymologies/Report

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hi Ester! Thanks for submitting your report on your presentation regarding your work in conjunction with the Wikimedia Foundation and, more specifically, about your work in Wiktionary. Here are my comments/questions on the report:

• I really appreciate that you documented your conversations with attendees in your session after your presentation, as these more specific conversations can sometimes can be more valuable for you and the attendee than the presentation alone. I think it is a good practice that, as a presenter, you make yourself available and open to these conversations as you did here.
• Even when the audience is smaller than expected like it was in this case, there can be ways to engage that audience beyond familiarizing them with Wiktionary and Wikzionario. If you expect your audience to have laptops, perhaps there are some simple tasks you can prepare ahead of time that you can ask you audience to do as a part of your presentation (time permitting, of course. I know in this case you only had 45 minutes, and you had a lot of topics to cover). This can take some preparation, but the result is that your audience is not just familiar with these projects, but now have some experience contributing that they can develop further and share with others.
• Questions: What different media do you think you will use next time to attract more people? Also, do you think you necessarily need more people? Sometimes, the goal is to identify communities or channels of people who are more likely to be interested in your work, rather than attracting a numerically larger amount of people.

As soon as I hear back from you, I'll be happy to approve the report. Thanks again for your work, Ester. :) I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi JethroBT, thanks for your comments! Now that I am more familiar with the procedure (event organization, funding) and I have some feedback from participants as well as more connections, I will use channels like the mailing list of the local Linguistics Department and Polytechnic school, as well as of other coworking spaces that are spread in the region, and a couple of groups of developers. I agree with you that a small group of people can also be a good start. In any case I'm happy with the feedback from the previous event as I have met people that would like to help organize future events, and other Wikimedia volunteers. If I manage to organize other events, I want to invite participants to bring their laptop and to use their Wiktionary sandboxes to familiarize themselves with Wiktionary, and to learn how to contribute. Thanks again for your feedback, it was helpful! Epantaleo (talk)

@Epantaleo: Thanks for your response, Ester. This report is formally approved. Thanks so much for your work. :) I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2017 (UTC)