Grants talk:Project/Whose Knowledge/VisibleWikiWomen2019/Midpoint

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

@Seeeko, Aadele, and Anasuyas: Hi Whose Knowledge? team, and thanks for your midpoint report reflecting on some of the campaign activities you've been up to. Congratulations on completing your campaign! Here are my comments and questions:

• I like the point you've made under the challenges section that typical edit-a-thons are not a particularly productive way to encourage image uploads and integration, and that events need to be planned differently to achieve those goals. The learning pattern you've prepared addresses some important gaps in typical edit-a-thons, such as difficulty finding images that fit the licensing policies on Wikimedia Commons and also finding good quality images to support biographies and other content on Wikimedia projects. It's great to see this practice being adopted by partners such as Black Lunch Table as well. I was curious about the proportion of photos that have been uploaded due to the involvement of a professional photographer specifically hired for VisibleWikiWomen. Do you have an a rough estimate or percentage of how many of the now 5000+ photos were obtained in this way?
• Thank you for summarizing your extensive communications work on social media and the Whose Knowledge website. I had a chance to listen to some of the podcasts you produced that elevates the needs of marginalized communities in our movement and addresses important complexities when taking on a project focused on visibility. The availability of interviews to document these narratives is valuable for others who wanted to jump into this work.
• Reviewing your partners list, it's great to see you've been able to engage and form image donation agreements with not only with Wikimedia affiliates, but also with several external and mission-aligned organizations such as the Syrian Female Journalist Network, Tequeria, Global Voices, and the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), among others. This shows that Whose Knowledge has been effective in developing a broad network inclusive to many types of organizations that share common goals and values around how marginalized groups are represented online.
• In what countries have the 8 edit-a-thons that have included VisibleWikiWomen taken place?
• Congratulations on getting images incorporated across 71 different Wikipedia projects and vastly exceeding your goal (3 projects!) Relatedly, you've exceeded all the goals detailed in your proposal around the number of images, image integration, total number of edit-a-thons, and countries represented in your partnerships. Why do you think your campaign was able to exceed these goals so thoroughly?

I've formally accepted this midpoint report. When you're able, please respond to the questions I have above. Thanks so much your hard work on the VisibleWikiWomen campaign this year, and I'm looking forward to seeing the feedback from your partners and more of your reflections for your final report! I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi @I JethroBT (WMF): We gladly answer your questions below (in the same order you asked):

• We do not have an estimate or percentage around the photos obtained this way, but we agree that would be interesting to get some metrics around this method of images collection if possible (for example, analyzing metadata). We will keep this in mind for next year’s campaign. We know that, at least, three organizations (Black Lunch Table, AWID and MediaRed) and one individual partner (Kritzolina) shared professional or semi professional photography as part of this year’s campaign.
• Thank you! Making the efforts and actions of our partners visible was key to foster more collaboration and encourage other partners to join this work.
• Yes, thank you! We have focused on establishing relationships with various types of organizations and making room for their different ways of participating in the campaign.
• The edit-a-thonks took place in Brazil, Ghana, India, Santo Domingo, Argentina (Córdoba and Buenos Aires) and Uruguay, plus one event that was held online and worldwide (Women’s History Month).
• We believe we were able to exceed it's thanks to the engagement of a wide variety of partners and collaborators, from feminist organizations and cultural institutions, to Wikimedia affiliates and wikiprojects from around the world, plus some really committed Commons users. We also believe that awareness of the gender gap in Wikipedia is growing, but so far no previous campaign has ever focused on Commons, a site that hosts many campaigns and challenges of the most varied themes, but never before on gender issues. There is a lot of relevant women's photographic and visual material on the web or in digital and analog archives, which has not yet been added to Commons or Wikipedia yet therefore we have lots of work to do and this encourages our friends and allies to join us every year. Last but not least, we believe that having a serious commitment to change something as structural as the gender gap and women’s invisibility on Wikipedia requires investment, especially around staffing needs. This campaign would not be a success if we didn’t have the many communications talents of Claudia Pozo and our extremely experienced Wikimedian and skilled community organizer Mariana Fossatti as our campaign coordinator.

Sorry for the delay for our reply, and thank you very much for your comments! --Señoritaleona (talk) 01:28, 17 October 2019 (UTC) and the Whose Knowledge? team