Grants:IEG/WOW! Editing Group/Renewal

This project is requesting a 6-month renewal of the grant, to continue work in the areas described below.

Scope

Building on the momentum of WOW! Editing Group (34 new editors!), we have created a plan for the next phase of this successful pilot program.
We will continue the Social Events that include guest speakers who provide inspiration and motivation to our editors.
We will empower our new editors to take on a leadership role in the WOW! Editing Group by: having them run the monthly Socials which drives the content and schedule of events, and hosting a "Bring a friend" event, where they bring a friend along and teach them how to edit Wikipedia articles.
We will solidify our new editors' skills and foster confidence by continuing to meet in our safe space where women editors work collaboratively to create and improve articles.
We will deepen our relationship with local schools by assisting in the formation of 1 Wikipedia editing club at a local high school.

Budget

Food - $1200

Staff Stipends:

Lead - $2500
Project Assistant - $1200

Laptop use/Internet - FREE (co-sponsored by Berkeley Center for New Media)

Space -FREE (co-sponsored by Berkeley Center for New Media)

Total - $4900

Rationale

Our project is a huge success, with more participants than we had expected, and we have momentum and interest from our new editors. Our next step is to give them more leadership opportunities so that they can continue to edit Wikipedia and spread the good work we've begun.

Measures of success

We will host three more events including a "Bring a Friend" event where participants practice teaching a new editor how to edit Wikipedia.
We will improve or create 50 articles, with our new editors in leadership roles.
We will help at least 1 student form a Wikipedia editing club at their local high school.

Community discussion

Notification

Berkeley Center for New Media

Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon

Wikipedia Women Facebook group post (February 11, 2016)

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be continued for another 6 months? Please add your name and comments here. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

The WOW! Editing Group has successfully provided a comfortable and safe space for young women to explore authorship and editing through Wikipedia. WOW!'s growing momentum and its participants' growing confidence in editing Wikipedia should definitely continue to be fostered! Tkatoni (talk)

WOW! has mobilized young women in the East Bay to take ownership of information through a robust mentorship program. We deeply believe that for the dissemination of the full diversity of knowledge, projects such as these should continue, as they promote often silenced voices and build a more representative community of editors and sharers. posted by: larabcnm

I volunteered as an editor mentor at three of the WOW! social events (after Jill reached out to me via email), and I was very impressed with the turnout that the organizers gathered for these events - an entire room of thoughtful young women dedicated to figuring out Wikipedia together. Jill and Tamara fostered a very supportive and exciting environment - the new editors kept persisting even after seeing some of their early edits get reverted by ClueBot or other editors! The editors kept showing up for events, asking excellent questions, and making substantial edits - despite Wikipedia editing often not being easy or straightforward. I started editing as a woman in high school, and it had a very positive impact on me (and I've contributed substantially to Wikipedia); I'm happy I had this opportunity to help current high school women sink their teeth into this thing. Figuring out effective models for recruiting young women editors is really important for Wikipedia's future - I'd like to see WMF renew this grant to give them resources to continue this experiment. Dreamyshade (talk) 07:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

WOW! is an important project for empowering and inspiring young women to become involved in the Wikipedia mission and to recognize the value of their under-represented voices in shaping Wikipedia's (and their own) futures. WOW! also serves as a strong model for similar groups in other geographic areas, especially in light of the project team's thorough documentation of their activities. I would like to see WMF renew this grant in order to keep this project going, and growing, as I believe it will have a very long-term positive impact on our encyclopedia and our community. Nikikana (talk)

I witnessed this project first hand grow to impact so many young women! It was truly inspirational to see how much interest there was in this empowering mechanism in giving women a long missing voice on wikipedia. The role model structure was really successful and this project should absolutely continue. This project is a real and growing grassroots effort that has the potential to have signifiant impact with women and technology. EricPaulos