Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Rossella Vignola (OBC)/Wiki4MediaFreedom edit-a-thon - II edition

Decimal separator & reporting

Your budget is nine hundred and thirty dollars, right? I suggest you use the same decimal separator throughout the application, my first reaction was to wonder why do you need almost a million dollars, because you used the point as decimal separator in your USD budget and I assumed that it was thousands separator.

Also, your previous grant does not seem to have a report. How did the first edition go? Did you reach your targets?--Strainu (talk) 14:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Strainu: The report for the I edition is here. I don't know why the "create your report" button still appears in the grant page. --Jaqen (talk) 08:23, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Strainu:, thank you for your comment. The decimal separator was a mistake: I have fixed it. Thank you, --Rossella Vignola (OBC) (talk) 08:30, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Questions and comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hi Rossella Vignola (OBC), and thanks for your proposal for the second edition of this editathon series. Here are my questions and comments:

• Thanks for sharing the page on the first edit-a-thon focused on topics related to media freedom. In this last event, one thing expressed in the report was that there were fewer participants than expected. What sort of outreach or planning are you considering to increase participation compared to the last event?
• You had also expressed some concerns that the topic area itself may discourage folks from participating because of its complexity. Acknowledging that not everyone will be interested in participating, have you considered ways to make this event open to people who might not be familiar with the topic area?
• The start date and end date for this project are on the same day. Is this the date of the edit-a-thon? If so, I assume planning and other preparations will start before that (and it sounds like quite a lot of preparation has begun already). Could you adjust the dates accordingly?
• Thanks for noting the use of Slack to facilitate conversations on improving articles and items in this topic area. If folks wanted to replicate this kind of event, what sort of materials or advising do you think you might able to provide?

When you're able, please respond to my questions above, and let me know if I can clarify anything. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi I JethroBT (WMF), and thank you for your comments and quick feedbacks. Here follow our replies to your questions:

• On the issue of participation: Media freedom is a serious problem in Bulgaria, as in many other European countries. Although one of our main target for this event are journalists, we believe the issue is very close to the general public heart. Two organisations specialised in the field of media freedom will support participants, in particular the general public, with their experience and knowledge. Moreover, this year we have the full support of the Association of European Journalists Bulgaria (AEJ Bulgaria) that is very enthusiastic about this event. It has been involved since the beginning of the design phase. They will help us in engaging our main target group, i.e. journalists that are AEJ Bulgaria's regular target group and audience. The AEJ Bulgaria will have a major role in disseminating the event at local level (through all their channels, including personal contacts, the newsletter, the website, etc.) Also, for encouraging participation, we have dedicated a budget (funded by OBC Transeuropa) for providing a reimbursement for participants.

• On the complexity of the topics we will work on: this event will be a quite "specialized" event. Our main target are journalists and media people, even if the event will be open to everybody. Two specialised organisations, i.e. OBC Transeuropa and the AEJ Bulgaria will support participants with their experience and knowledge. Moreover, for the Wikipedia track, we will provide a selection of sources from the Resource Centre on Media Freedom that is a platform we (as OBC Transeuropa) are curating. Also, two editors of the Resource Centre (including me) will help participants to find and select sources, while the expert wikipedians (including me) will support participants in editing in Wikipedia. As for the Wikidata track, two facilitators from mySociety will participate in the event, and will provide their support to the participants (also through the Slack channel, see answer below).

• On the duration: yes, definitely we are working on the preparation since weeks. I have adjusted this in the application.

• On the Slack channel for facilitation: If people wanted to replicate the Wikidata track, mySociety's EveryPolitician/Wikidata project team would be happy to advise on event activities. Through materials such as this, the team can advise on what data is currently missing in Wikidata that would be useful to work on during the event. Guidance has been produced on how to model political data in Wikidata, which is a useful aide for editors. A list of SPARQL queries is also available, which can be replicated in other countries to answer similarly interesting questions using the data. Please note that the Wikidata track has been designed with the idea of showing the relevance and the “usability” of Wikidata to the participants: examples of how to use it for journalistic / accountability / transparency projects will be presented. The aim is more to let participants know that such possibilities exist than teach them how to do it in practice (thus would require a longer, dedicated event).

For any further question do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you! --Rossella Vignola (OBC) (talk) 13:02, 7 November 2017 (UTC)