Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Wikimedia Ghana User Group/Art+Feminism 2019

Questions from WMF

Hi, Sandiooses and WIkimedia Ghana User Group, thank you for submitting this grant application. We have received the application and will begin our review shortly. In the meantime, we have a few questions:

1. What criteria will you use to select the 12 participants? Please reply here and also update the grant application to include that information.
2. Two questions about the laptop:

• Does the group have a shared laptop that is unavailable for this event? If so, why isn't it available?
• Would you be able to rent a laptop rather than buying one? Although your event is very well organized and sounds like it will be quite in-depth, it does not seem like a good use of grant funds to purchase a laptop for an event with 12 participants.

1. Please remove the photographer honorarium from the budget and adjust the budget total. If you cannot get a photographer to volunteer his or her time, then perhaps one of the UG's members can volunteer to take photos.

Please watch this page for further questions or comments as we review the grant!

Many thanks, LSmith (WMF) (talk) 23:51, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

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Hello LSmith (WMF),

I have in my possession a list of about 53 persons recruited from re:publica Accra whom we will give priority of invitation. Concurrently, as we have always done with all events, we send public invites out via our social media channels.

The criteria is as follows:

– Participant to express interest first within a deadline – Participant should have a laptop – Participant should be in the first 12 registered persons with a laptop

We are still deliberating on adding an additional criteria of inquiring about the persons attitude towards open knowledge, Wikipedia editing as a volunteering activity, writing generally, any prior work with blogging/writing/editing text, general love for digital publishing or software engineering (coding). About six years on this job has taught the team people with these attributes generally are likely motivated enough to be Wikipedians.

However we are also being mindful not to be discriminatory. We are open to the grants teams' opinion on this.

On the issue of the laptop

The group doesn't have a shared laptop yet. We usually rely on volunteers within the team to lend their laptops. For eg Whoever is assigned to a task requiring a laptop would bring their own. It's getting harder to continue like that.

We can rent one for now. But I think Grants should consider agreeing to one soon because our group has activities planned for the year and we know this will come up again.

On the photos

We will remove the honorarium but reasoning behind it is that there are only 3 known photographer volunteers within our community. As in people whom we can trust to take photos that meet Wikimedia Commons standards and are willing to give it out on a free license. 2 of us are facilitators of the A+F events, 1 person hasn't shown interest in the events at all. The group also does not have photo equipment at all. It's always the volunteers who bring their own. So that is where the attempt to offer an honorarium comes from.

Sandiooses (talk) 11:06, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

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Hello, Sandiooses, thank you for those answers! Here are some thoughts/replies:

1. Selecting participants: You're certainly welcome to select participants on a first-come, first-served basis. However, if you add a few more criteria to the selection process it's possible that you might get higher-quality participants who are more committed. Some things you could consider using as selection criteria:
   • Ask them to write a few sentences on why they are interested in participating in this event and/or learning to edit Wikipedia.
   • Ask them to write a few sentences on who they would want to write/edit articles about if they participated.
   • You could consider looking at the number of edits someone has made, either targeting all newbie editors, all experienced editors, or a mix.
   • You could consider giving priority to women or reserving a certain percentage of the spots for women.

1. Laptop: It sounds like the group needs a shared laptop :-) We would suggest submitting a separate rapid grant request to purchase that equipment, that way you can outline how it would be used and stored and it would be clear that it's for all of the UG's activities, not just this grant. We're happy to consider that request at the same time as this one because it wouldn't put you over the limit of open grants.

Warmly, LSmith (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

p.s. You're probably already aware of this, but here is a toolkit for Art+Feminism organizers. LSmith (WMF) (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

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LSmith (WMF), we will put in a separate request for the laptop for clarity. Also with the criteria, the suggestions work for us and we will incorporate them. Thanks for sharing the toolkit page too Sandiooses (talk) 13:25, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Sandiooses Sounds good! We will look for the laptop grant request. Best regards, LSmith (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Additional Comments from WMF

Hello Sandiooses, thank you for responding to my colleague LSmith (WMF)'s comments. We're very close to approving this request but I have two more questions for you.

1. Now that we've decided on removing the laptop from this grant could you please take it out of your proposal and adjust your budget accordingly?

LSmith (WMF), I have taken the laptop out Sandiooses (talk) 12:37, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

1. I reviewed the tasks you labeled under project coordinator and unfortunately they are tasks that should be carried out by a volunteer. So you will also need to remove this line item from your proposal.

Once you've made those changes I can go ahead and approve your grant request. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

WJifar (WMF), I have removed the project coordinator, and I have modified activities as well around volunteers. Sandiooses (talk) 12:37, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Approval

Hello Sandiooses, thank you for updating your proposal. I am approving your grant request. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 19 February 2019 (UTC)