Grants:PEG/WM UA/Wiki Loves Monuments 2014/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY Pending has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM UA/Wiki Loves Monuments 2014.

• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
• You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Project status

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

YES

Is your project completed?

YES

Activities and lessons learned

Activities

International winner of Wiki Loves Monuments 2014: Holy Mountains Monastery, Sviatohirsk, Ukraine, by Konstantin Brizhnichenko

Alex Levitsky (right), winner of Wiki Loves Monuments 2014, with his photo

Natalia Shestakova (right), who won the prize for most monuments pictured in two different regions, picturing over 250 in each

Viacheslav Kyrylenko, Minister of Culture of Ukraine (left) and Alina Vozna, winner of Wikipedia Loves Monuments

We organised Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 photo contest and Wikipedia Loves Monuments article contest in Ukraine. These events were highly successful both in terms of content creation (new articles, new photos) and quality of submissions (1st place in international WLM contest, several FP and QI, a GA-rated article etc.). Our main activities for this project were the following:

1. Preparation for the contest. As in previous years, our main challenge was getting monument lists. We sent queries to the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, all regional administrations of Ukraine as well as district administration in regions with poor quality of lists. We have sent about 150 queries and received about 120 answers. The best answers were sent within days and contained full lists in a friendly (e.g. Excel table) format, in worst cases we received scanned images within weeks. In THE worst case (Pokrovske Raion) we had to go the court in order to obtain monument lists, the story was described on Wikimedia blog. In total we managed to add about 20,000 new monuments to our lists, raising the total number to approximately 71,000. In parallel, we contacted prosperous partners, and we managed to get a number of interesting partners, such as local partners in Ternopil, Zhytomyr or Kharkiv, or a nationwide partnership with Wooden Churches of Ukraine project resulting in a special nomination for Wooden Architecture of Ukraine.
2. Contest itself. The contest was organised from 15 September to 15 October, and we updated the contest website and its pages on social networks almost daily in order to inform participants of all goings-on. We also organised targeted outreach for regions that were underperforming in previous years: it worked well in most regions (e.g. in Ternopil local government, museum, a cultural organisation and media were supporting and promoting us, which helped the region to be among the most actives in the country), however, it failed in Luhansk Oblast (the region was almost devastated by the war, had constant power outages, thus we had only 15 photos from the region). In parallel we published a "league table" of uploaders by number of monuments pictured (our second nomination), which motivated many users to upload images of more monuments (our most active participants pictured over 1,500 monuments each). In total we received 47,286 images by 510 photographers. See our regional statistics and statistics by uploader for more details.
3. Selecting winners. It was a real challenge, as we had to select out of 47 thousand photos. Thus we organised selection in several stages: firstly, we launched a bot to put separately images in low resoltion and without monument identifiers, and we contacted their uploaders asking them to solve the problem. Secondly, we formed a group of volunteers (mostly Wikipedians and photographers) to review all submissions and reject those without chances to win, such as blurred, over/underexposed, with flares, with people etc. This significantly reduced number of photos, and we passed them to the jury of 18 people, who defined the winner in four rounds. We did not organise an offline jury meeting, as we decided to invite more members of the jury by inviting experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers from abroad. As this seems to be a valuable experience, we shared it as a learning pattern: Grants:Learning patterns/Selecting winners of a large photo contest
4. Award ceremony. We organised the award ceremony on 29 November 2014 in Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv. We had a lot of winners this year: almost no one managed to win two or more prizes, thus over 40 participants received awards, either national (top-10 photos and top-10 users by number of pictured monuments) or regional, in addition, prizes in the special nomination for Wooden Architecture of Ukraine were also awarded. Jury members and volunteers who helped with monument lists and pre-selection of photos also received small souvenirs. In total over 60 people attended the ceremony in a cosy hall of this museum of folk culture, creating a really nice atmosphere. See report with photo gallery.
5. Article contest. After long winter break (which lasted from December 2014 to February 2015 in different institutions of Ukraine) we organised Wikipedia Loves Monuments article contest from 7 March to 5 April 2015. We invited all participants of photo contest to participate via MassMessage, and we received 270 articles by 98 authors, including a good article and numerous long and original articles. For our award ceremony we received a wonderful surprise: the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Vyacheslav Kyrylenko got interested in attending the ceremony and decided to become Wikipedian as well by writing his article. We organised the ceremony on 25 April in the National Sanctuary "Sophia of Kiev" with about 30 users (participants, jury members and organisers) present, including the minister himself. See report with photo gallery.
6. Album. After both contests we decided to prepare an album featuring both photo contest and article contest, i.e. showing how photos from the contest are really used on Wikimedia projects. This album presents best photos of Wiki Loves Monuments and fragments of respective articles, and we are going to use it for promotion of the contest both among partners, sponsors and administrators owning lists.

Lessons learned

Statistics of monuments pictured by year

What worked well?

• We had a very successful photo contest, beating 2012 and 2013 editions in both number of images and number of images pictured
• We had very active participants who were really challenged by the contest, with 6 users picturing over 1000 monuments each
• We managed to get 6661 new monuments pictured this year (i.e. those without illustrations in 2012 or 2013)
• We managed to publish 20,000 additional monuments compared to 2013
• We had a very dedicated team of volunteers and jury reviewing images to select winners
• We prepared a tutorial on integrating photos to Wikipedia
• We had a successful article contest, providing high-quality articles about monuments of Ukraine
• We managed to convince our Minister of Culture to become a Wikipedian, now known as uk:Користувач:Кириленко В'ячеслав (and remains active!)

What didn't work?

• Organising a photo contest during the war was a challenge. Here we explained why we needed such contest, although many people were unable to participate, particularly in Luhansk Oblast that brought us only 15 photos
• Many regions still did not provide monument lists. Some of them provided useless documents (that the person in charge of lists was fired / someone else is responsible / they never had any lists etc.), some did not answer at all, and we had to sue Pokrovske Raion in court as they refused to provide lists as they considered them "classified information".
• Lack of freedom of panorama resulted in many images deleted from Commons, which was unpleasant for uploaders.

What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?

We would prefer to organise it in a more peaceful time...

Learning patterns

We shared our experience selecting winners out of 47 thousand submissions here: Grants:Learning patterns/Selecting winners of a large photo contest

Outcomes and impact

Outcomes

Provide the original project goal here.

Our goal was to organise the Ukrainian edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest. After two successful editions in 2012 and 2013 we wanted to continue this contest by organising a new edition. During this year we have expanded our lists by adding new monuments and we hoped to attract for this new edition more contributors from regions that were underrepresented in previous years.

Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 short paragraphs.

Yes, we almost completely achieved this goal. We had a successful 2014 edition of the photo contest, resulting in over 47 thousand photos, 12 thousand more than in 2013. We also got our monument lists expanded with about 20,000 new monuments and we got more contributors and more contributors from previously underrepresented regions, like Ternopil Oblast or Odessa Oblast (we failed only in Luhansk Oblast where we got only 2 new contributors due to ongoing war).

Progress towards targets and goals

Project metrics

Project metrics	Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
400 users participating in the contest	510 users participating in the contest	We are happy to see more participants in the contest, even despite the war and other unfavourable conditions.
200 newly registered users thanks to the contest	301 newly registered users thanks to Wiki Loves Monuments	We are glad to exceed our expectation.
25,000 images uploaded	47,286 images uploaded	Results exceeded our expectations. We had a number of very motivated users who uploaded many images (15 users uploaded over 1,000 images each) and we made good promotion in regions that were underrepresented in previous years.
5000 monuments illustrated (including monuments that previously had illustrations)	14107 monuments illustrated (incl. 6661 monuments that previously had no illustrations)	We are very happy that our participants took this as a real challenge
5000 image uses across Wikimedia projects	8412 image uses (7111 images used)	See [ GLAMorous]. We used bots to integrate images to the lists, we made a tutorial to help participants add their images to the articles and we organised an article contest in order to increase image usage.
200 Wikipedia articles to be created	270 Wikipedia articles created	See category. We are happy that contest was more successful than expected.

Global Metrics

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees. In addition to the measures of success for your specific program (in above section), please use the table below to let us know how your project contributed to the Global Metrics. We know that not all projects will have results for each type of metric, so feel free to put "0" where necessary.

1. Next to each required metric, list the actual outcome achieved through this project.
2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome. For example, if you were funded for an edit-a-thon which resulted in 0 new images, your explanation might be "This project focused solely on participation and articles written/improved, the goal was not to collect images."

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	275	209 WLM participants 20 Wikipedia Loves Monuments participants 30 volunteers 16 jury members
2. # of new editors	310	301 WLM new editors 8 Wikipedia Loves Monuments new editors 1 minister
3. # of individuals involved	809	510 WLM participants 98 article contest participants 30 volunteers (organisers, pre-filtering, monument lists etc.) 50 jury members (WLM + article contest), sponsors and partners 120 local administrations answering 1 minister
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	7111	Images from commons:Category:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 in Ukraine used on Wikimedia projects
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	270	Articles created during Wikipedia Loves Monuments only, not including articles where images from WLM were added.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	3,201,647	Only added bytes and only during Wikipedia Loves Monuments. We cannot track deleted bytes because it is useless to count what users remove from articles they created and because Wikimetrics cannot do that.

Learning question

Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?

Yes, our project increased motivation of many contributors: we had very dedicated photographers who travelled around the country to picture for Commons as many monuments as possible, we had a lot of Wikipedians who felt very motivated about contributing to Wikipedia about Ukrainian heritage, and we even had a minister who became motivated to contribute to Wikipedia. We know this both by observing their contributions and by communicating with them directly during award ceremonies.

Impact

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic priorities?

Option A: How did you increase participation in one or more Wikimedia projects?

• We invited over 300 new participants who contributed to Wikimedia Commons with their own photos, some of them uploading hundreds and thousands of photos.

Option B: How did you improve quality on one or more Wikimedia projects?

• Our contest resulted in a number of high quality images, including the one that won the international contest and a number of FPs and QIs. The article contest produced high-quality content on Ukrainian Wikipedia, including many long and detailed articles as well as one GA.

Option C: How did you increase the reach (readership) of one or more Wikimedia projects?

• We increased reach of Wikimedia Commons in terms of coverage of new regions.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "No".

Yes

Expenses

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.

Number	Category	Budgeted total	Actual total	Currency	Actual total (UAH)	Notes
1	Prizes	2850.00	2756.76	USD	42040.64	We have awarded 1-10 places in both main categories, winners of regional nominations and special nomination Wooden Monuments of Ukraine
2	Jury and Award Ceremony	1389.00	694.32	USD	10588.36	We decided not to have jury's offline meeting this year (we had users from other countries being a part of the jury), and we also didn't have food & Beverages at the Awards Ceremony (though some participants told us that it would be better to have it, we are to think about this next time), also we didn't spend money for presentation events
3	Album & prizes delivery	2375.00	2620.19	USD	39957.89	We had to overspend here a bit. The main reason is the exchange rates (USD/EUR)
4	Wiki Loves Monuments article contest	750.00	1003.13	USD	15297.66	We had to overspend here, but the project was very successful and led to new partnerships
5	Administrative expenses	75.00	15.26	USD	232.75
Total		7439.00	7089.66	USD	108117.31

Detailed breakdown

by Grant row

N	Description	Budgeted (USD)	Expenses (UAH)	Expenses (USD)
1.1	Main Prizes	2700.00	33794.85	2216.06
1.2	Additional Prizes	600.00	7290	478.03
1.3	Special nominations prizes	300.00	955.79	62.67
2.1	Jury's offline meeting (travel expenses and meals)	300.00	0.00	0.00
2.2	Hall rent	200.00	1657.89	108.71
2.3	Hall decorations	125.00	2430.47	159.38
2.4	Food & Beverages. Stand-up party	90.00	0.00	0.00
2.5	Travel expenses (for participants and jury members)	400.00	6321.05	414.50
2.6	Presentation events	500.00	0.00	0.00
2.7	Transportation expenses	24.00	178.95	11.73
3.1	Publishing photo album	2250.00	39957.89	2620.19
3.2	Post expenses and telephone charges	125.00	36.84	2.42
4.1	Wiki Loves Monuments article contest: prizes, press-conference (presentation)	850.00	15297.66	1003.13
5.1	Bank expenses	75.00	232.75	15.26
Total		8539.00	108117.31	7089.66

Exchange Rate Calculation

No.	Date	Amount (UAH)	Exchange Rate (USD/UAH)	Amount sold (USD)
1	21-oct-14	72251.29	0.07722	5579.25
2	28-apr-15	41193.46	0.04515	1859.75
Total	-	113444.75	0.06557	7439.00

Weighted exchange rate for the grant period: 0.06557

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Total project budget (from your approved grant submission)

8539.00 USD

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if PEG is your only funding source)

7439.00 USD

Total amount spent on this project

7289.66 USD

Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project

7089.66 USD

Are there additional sources that funded any part of this project? List them here.

• Additional books and other souvenirs have been provided by our partners in a special nomination for Wooden Architecture of Ukraine, namely Wooden Churches of Ukraine project (Дерев'яні храми України), Туристичні марки – Україна and Українська млинологічна асоціація. Olena Krushynska, Mykhailo Syrokhman and Serhii Krynytsia (the winner of previous WLM and WLE photo contests in Ukraine) have been the jury of this nomination, they have rated the photos, choose the winners and planned what prizes are to be bought and for whom.
• Ministry of Culture of Ukraine helped us to find a venue for the Awards ceremony of Wikipedia Loves Monuments article contest in April. The ceremony took place in National Sanctuary "Sophia of Kiev". And we could have it for free (we didn't even pay for our guests the entrance fee). They also provided additional souvenirs for the winners (books).
• We have won the court case vs Pokrovske Raion, Медіа Law Institute (Інститут Медіа Права) covered all related expenses from its own money (around 400 USD).

Remaining funds

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of 246.46 USD (reflects depreciated amount) were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:PEG/WM UA/Wiki Loves Monuments 2015.

Are there any grant funds remaining?

Answer YES or NO.

YES

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

349.34 USD (=5327.44 UAH)

If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.

Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.

We would like to have the remaining 122.58 USD from budget line #3.2 Post expenses and telephone charges to be used to cover post expenses for sending the albums to our authorities, partners and libraries. The remaining 226.76 USD are to be included in our new grant request.