Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Shared Knowledge/General report 2014-2015
This is an annual overview of the activities and achievements set out by Shared Knowledge in the annual plan for 2014-2015, spanning from 15 September 2014 to 15 September 2015. The report is organised in two sections, each pertaining to the activities completed in two halves, for which separate reports were prepared.
Financial overview
editYou can also see our General financial report for 2014 and 2015.
Aims set for the 2014-2015 grant in general
edit| Area | Measures of success |
| General |
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| Administration |
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| Education |
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| GLAM |
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| Community |
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2014 activities
edit- Wiki Loves Earth 2014 (previously granted; not part of 2014-15 Annual grant)
- Wiki Loves Monuments 2014
- Jews and Judaism
- Educational programme
- Edit-a-thons
- WikiWomen (separately granted; not part of 2014-15 Annual grant)
2014 achievements
edit- See: Interim report (concluding by the end of January 2015)
Project metrics
| Project metrics | Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
Wiki Loves Earth 2014
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The project was granted previous to our 2014-15 Annual grant; see full report. | |
Wiki Loves Monuments 2014
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The project was supposed to begin on 1 September, but it began on 1 October. This was due to the wait for the transfer of grant funds from WMF to Shared Knowledge, as well the bank procedure necessary to enable the use of the funds. | |
Holocaust Memorial
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We intend to extend this number by PR methods. | |
Edit-a-thons
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Reasons and proposed solution explained above | |
Educational programme
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Explanation #1: Lists of participants in Josip Broz - Tito Grammar School are to be updated with participants, as they still have to choose particular topics and be listed on those basis on the project page. The Economics Faculty list need
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WikiWomen
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The project was granted separately from our 2014-15 Annual grant: see full report. |
- Overall assessment
Wiki Loves Earth 2014
All of the goals mentioned above were achieved on various degrees. Some of them were even outachieved. The increased number of freely licenced photographs and the promotion of natural heritage can be evidenced through the uploaded photographs during the competition, the improved quality of content through the use of these photographs in different articles, the creation of new articles through the activity on the Wikimedia projects, while the penultimate goal was only partially achieved because it is expected to have long-lasting effects on the future photographic projects.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2014
- Most of the activities relating the competition went well without any serious problems. Also, we are very happy that Macedonia ended very high place among other, much more populous countries, with more than 10,828 uploaded pictures.
Holocaust Memorial
- The The Holocaust Memorial Center and the Jewish Community in Macedonia were very helpful and co-operative, providing us with the necessary literature on ongoing basis. We have keen participants who are eager to use the material to write articles on Jews and Judaism in Macedonia. We will soon start receiving photos related to the Jews and Judaism in Macedonia. We consider the project quite successful, and for that reason, we have decided that it is best to prolong it until the end of our grant year (September 2015), since there are a lot of topics that need to be covered, as well as the willingness to cover them. The original dates would have stopped it short and made it less comprehensive and successfull than it can be.
Edit-a-thons
- Topics were easy to pick and lists were comprehensive, and the articles are, for the most part, well-made and in accordance with the wiki-standards. The participants so far have been those that are already in close contact with each other, and we are yet to see an interest to participate in edit-a-thons by the wider editorship. We advertised on mk.wiki itself, wanting to attract only existing (and relatively experienced) editors for the edit-a-thons. This may have been due to the topics (both were on sports), or some inertness of the part of the editing community. We have not established the reasons yet. Project goals have been found to be unrealistic and need reducing to manageable ones. We probably have to diversify the topics, including those that are current and attractive for editors. Some other form of attracting participants seems to be wanting, although we have not had specific ideas yet. We also have to lower the project goals, as it is yet not possible to engage 25 participants per edit-a-thon or to create 50 articles on any one of them.
Educational programme
- Project has been very satisfactory so far in the preparatory stages and partly in the writing of articles. The large participation and work starts soon. As it can be seen from above, so far the interest in students has been great and we expect many articles to be created during the following months. The participants so far have been those that are already in close contact with each other, and we are yet to see an interest to participate in edit-a-thons by the wider editorship. We advertised on mk.wiki itself, wanting to attract only existing (and relatively experienced) editors for the edit-a-thons. This may have been due to the topics (both were on sports), or some inertness of the part of the editing community. We have not established the reasons yet. Project goals have been found to be unrealistic and need reducing to manageable ones. We have had no negative experiences so far. There has been however, reagarding the time needed to negotiate and arrange matters, find suitable slots to engage the students and provide training. Their schedules were taken up with activities, so in two of the three cases, we have had to wait until the new semester/term to begin activities. Seeing our success, our aims are generally higher than the basic goal. We are also aiming to gain more media coverage of the event.
WikiWomen
- We had more than one organizations which wanted to collaborate on this project. Women were interested, they learn how to edit an article, how to upload image, how to fix template etc. Many of them come several times on session, and we have at least five of them which come on nine sessions. We have women editors which were not active any more, but started again because of the campaign. We decided not organize sessions that a re so intense, as three times a week was very intense. Next time we will spread sessions once in a week and more sessions outside the capital.
2015 activities
edit- Wiki Loves Earth 2015
- WikiCrafts
- Skopje Zoo
- Wikimedian in Residence at DARM
- CEE WikiCamp 2015 (separately granted; not part of 2014-15 Annual grant)
- Edit-a-thons & Editing competitions
- Educational programme
- Wikiexpeditions
- Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 (separately granted; not part of 2014-15 Annual grant)
2015 achievements
edit- See: Second-half report
Project metrics
| Project metrics | Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
Wiki Loves Earth 2015 6,000 uploaded images
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WikiCrafts the 1000 image goal was set as part of the wider Wikiexpeditions, Wikicrafts and Archaeoexpeditions set. |
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The length of the video footage and the number of images is yet to be fully determined, as their processing is still underway. | |
Skopje Zoo
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We have placed plaques for every animal species in the zoo (originally thought to be about 100) | |
Wikimedian in Residence at DARM no concrete goals set |
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Significantly more would have been achieved, were it not for the slow internet connection, the absence of the archive staff member and attendance of Wikimania. | |
Edit-a-thons & Editing contests
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As mentioned in the interim report, our aims for number of participants and content on the edit-a-thons was a significant overestimation, and this is reflected here too. | |
Education programme
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Significantly more would have been achieved were it not for the long (April to June 2015) student protests, which meant that students did not attend school and the Educational programme was stalled in that period. | |
Wikiexpeditions the 1000 image goal was set as part of the wider Wikiexpeditions, Wikicrafts and Archaeoexpeditions set. |
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This figures are to be updated in the next few weeks, except for uploaded photographs. We are writing new articles and improving existed articles about the villages, churches, rivers and others in the visited regions almost every day and with this usage of the uploaded photographs are increasing, respectively. | |
Wikimedian in Residence at DARM no concrete goals set |
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Significantly more would have been achieved, were it not for the slow internet connection, the absence of the archive staff member and attendance of Wikimania. | |
CEE WikiCamp 2015
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The project was granted separately from our 2014-15 Annual grant: see full report.
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Wiki Loves Monuments 2015
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The project was granted separately from our 2014-15 Annual grant: see full report. |
- Overall assessment
Wiki Loves Earth 2015
- As is already the norm with our contests, we are very satisfied about the project and we seem to have outperformed our goal at least threefold.
WikiCrafts
- The quality of the content was our primary aim, and this was achieved. The content itself will be ready to be shown soon. The number of intended craftspeople we managed to engage in the given period was due both to unforeseen circumstances and the lack of experience
Skopje Zoo
- The project went very well, and will be a valuable aid for people interested in animals. It is also a good permanent promotion of our organisation and the movement.
Wikimedian in Residence at DARM
The intention was to have a wider scope of activities, but the archive is very helpful and full of materials we are using to illustrate important topics in our articles.
Edit-a-thons & Editing contests
The editing contests are going very well. The edit-a-thons are not doing badly either, considering our capacities.
Education programme
- Project has been very satisfactory so far in the preparatory stages and partly in the writing of articles. The large participation and work starts soon. As it can be seen from above, so far the interest in students has been great and we expect many articles to be created during the following months.
Wikiexpeditions
- This project went very well and has a lot of success, especially when we knew that this project is first of this type which was organize in Macedonia. We can see that a organizing team visited four regions and also made two additional expeditions, one for railway stations along the routes for first and third Wikiexpeditions and one expeditions to Megalithic Observatory Kokino. Also, usage of the uploaded photographs in Wikimedia projects is one half (so far), which is very high percentage.
CEE WikiCamp 2015
- The general atmosphere was very positive and people had a lot of fun seeing the country, and engaging with each other. There were lots of talks about cultural similarities and differences, as well as about the movement itself. Many personal contacts were established. They were motivated to continue their work on Wikipedia and to explore other countries and cultures. We increased the motivation of participants because they had the opportunity to see a new place and culture, share experiences with their fellow editors from the wider region, which made them more interested in the cultural, geographic and historical treasures of each other's countries. Their coming to the event was itself a reward for their efforts at the CEE Spring 2015, which undoubtedly had a motivational impact on them. The editing sessions were not as expedient as we had intended, mainly due to the restricted space and technical capabilities. Words were not recorded due to technical limitation of the available equipment. Also, the person dealing with airplane tickets had not succeeded in obtaining border entry documents for participants of two countries.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2015
- Organisation went very smoothly, with no obstacles of any note, except the need to extend the contest. A total of 1,532 images were uploaded by 23 participants, covering a total of 103 listed monuments. We also had great coverage in a comprehensive interview titled "Promoting Our Country's Great Heritage" in the prominent national newspaper Utrinski Vesnik, where Bojan Jankuloski, the head organiser, talked at length about the nature of the contest and its value. It was published on 7 October 2015. The contest needed to be extended due to reduced interest. Since we had withdrawn the prizes for prolific contestants, participation has been reduced, both in terms of individuals and image quantity. Overall quality has remained the same. Many listed monuments were not covered, as people generally seem not willing to go the extra mile to get to them. Considering our situation, we have come up with a new paradigm (explained below), to make WLM work for us. It should also be noted that the planned edit-a-thon did not take place due to a particularly busy period for our editors, and the required number of images were added in articles in the regular manner of editing. From our previous experiences, it was clear that quantity is not what we are after anymore, but should focus on quality. Considering the (only) modest success of this contest, next time we intend to change the approach towards promotion and outreach. We will still keep the general outreach, but from now on, we will pay special attention to reaching to photography groups and societies, cultural research groups etc. and their forums. We will also approach individuals whom we know to be members of such communities and can also spread the word of mouth. These are the people who are both concerned with quality and with content, and are in the habit of going to heritage sites not covered in the contest so far.