Grants talk:Project/UG GLAM Macedonia/Wikipedian in Residence/Midpoint

Midpoint Report accepted, with questions

Dear MacedonianBoy and Violetova,

I apologize for the delay in posting a response to this report. I am accepting it now, with some concerns as outlined below:

• It's great to hear that you perceive the WiRs as having exceeded the goals you had for them in the first half of the project. I would love to hear you describe further the ways you see them as having done so.
• I would like to revisit a concern addressed when the project began. Across the board, when the Wikimedia Foundation provides funding for a Wikipedian in Residence, we are concerned about making sure that the WiR is focused on supporting volunteers to do content creation and curation, not doing content creation and curation themselves. Even beyond that, the Wikimedia Foundation does not wish to fund a WiR to build a project that depends on ongoing contributions from a WiR, since we will not fund WiRs for more than a short period. Instead, we wish to fund a WiR to establish a sustainable, autonomous, self-motivated system for ongoing contribution even after the WiR has departed. For example, they might create staff protocols within the institution that lead to ongoing contributions to Wikimedia Projects. They might educate volunteers about ways they can make use of the institution's archives, so that volunteers can begin incorporating that content in their workflows--something they can continue to do after the WiR is gone. When I read your Midpoint Report, I don't see much evidence provided that this is happening. I would like to ask you to describe in more detail any work that the WiRs are doing to establish modes of contribution that are likely to continue to happen after this project is over. In other words, your WiRs should assume that there will be no further funding for a WiR in the future once this project ends and do their best to set up systems, protocols and workflows that do not depend on their ongoing participation. At the very least, they should be focusing on getting the most important, highest priority content of the institutions adopted into volunteer workflows. Hearing this, can you please speak specifically to these concerns? Can you tell me what plans the WiRs have in the second half of the project to address these concerns and plan to close out their residency with as much closure as possible, understanding that ongoing funding is highly unlikely?
• I would love to hear more about what specific content the WiRs are working with. What knowledge areas are they focusing on? I'd also like to know what process they use to determine which content is highest priority and how they involve volunteers in this process.

Our Grants Administrator will be in touch with you about your grant. Thank you for work on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 08:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Marti and thank you for your comments. The WiRs are not focused on the content creation, of course. They organised and held several workshops for training new users and GLAM employees about Wikipedia; so far they organised three edit-a-thons, where 20 people took part in; held two Wiki-Tours so far; trained 8 new users to use and edit on Wikipedia, including how to add references and images. WiR in the State Archives is finishing his duty at the 9 of December 2017, when new contest DARM challenge will be active. This is a very useful project, because the volunteers will have a chance to incorporate uploaded materials into articles and to created new articles as well. There will be more other activities till the end of the project. Regards,Violetova (talk) 14:13, 31 October 2017 (UTC)