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Grants:PEG/MMandiberg/Art+Feminism Editathons

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The final report for this PEG grant can be found within the IEG grant report: m:Grants:IEG/Art+Feminism Editathon training materials and network building/Final


This Wikimedia Foundation grant has a fiscal sponsor. Wikimedia District of Columbia administered the grant on behalf of the Art+Feminism group.

statusFunded
Art+Feminism Editathon expansion
The organizers of the February 2014 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon seek support to expand the success of this highly successful bootstrapped event into an ongoing series. A separate IEG grant covers startup costs to build infrastructure for years to come.
targetPrimarily English Wikipedia, though we expect a secondary impact on Dutch, Italian, German, and French
strategic priorityIncrease participation
start dateOctober 21
start year2014
end dateAugust 1
end year2015
budget (USD)11,226
grant typeGroup
non-profit statusNo
creator• Theredproject
contact(s)• artandfeminismwiki(_AT_)gmail.com• Michael(_AT_)Mandiberg.com
endorse
created on17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia's gender trouble is well documented. In a 2011 survey, Wikimedia found that only 8.5% of its contributors are female. The reasons for the gender gap are up for debate: suggestions include leisure inequality, how gender socialization shapes public comportment, and the contentious nature of Wikipedia's talk pages. The practical effect of this disparity, however, is not. Content is skewed by the lack of female participation. Many articles on notable women in history and art are absent on Wikipedia. This represents an alarming absence in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.

On February 1, 2014 during a Wikipedia event called Art+Feminism, approximately 600 participants convened in 31 locations in 6 Countries (USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom) to edit articles on Art+Feminism. During this day, at least 101 new articles were created, and at least 90 articles improved. Highlights from the 40+ press stories include a LA Weekly feature story, the most shared article in ARTnews history, and a 30 minute podcast from Bitch Magazine. By all accounts, this was a success, with some saying this may have been the largest multi-location edit-a-thon ever. Furthermore, initial exploration with Wikimetrics indicate a high editor retention rate.

The organizers of the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon seek funds to expand the success of this bootstrapped event. This PEG grant covers operational costs for one year. A separate IEG grant covers startup costs to build infrastructure for years to come.

Goal

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For Individual Engagement Grants goals, please visit the IEG grant.

Programs and Events Goals: It is our goal to expand the 2013 Art+Feminism Editathon by

  1. running three NYC training events in Fall 2014/Winter 2015
  2. running one webcast training event on March 1st 2015
  3. organizing one large NYC editathon on March 8th 2015
  4. coordinating satellite training in the Fall/Winter
  5. coordinating satellite editathons around the world on March 8th.

Train the Trainers: There will be three Train the Trainer events before the March 2015 international editathon. Taking place on October 27, 2014, December 9, 2014, and February 2015 (date TBD), each workshop will have two tracks, one for beginners and one for those who have basic editing skills. We will bring in experienced participants from the 2013 event both as trainers, and as participants to gain the skills to be trainers. It is our hope that participants who progress through the October and December events will become facilitators at the February event. Our goal for these workshops is to both empower a group of +Feminism-friendly ambassadors and to rally our networks for the March 2015 international editathon.

Plan

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Activities

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Pre-grant (already completed)
  • Sent a save the date email about March 8th to our mailing list of past satellite event organizers
  • Secured venue for three training workshops
October
  • Building on existing models, craft curriculum for targeted gender gap training workshop
  • Activate existing social media infrastructure to notify past participants of the trainer training
  • Monday October 27th: Train the Trainers workshop 1/3, CUNY Graduate Center
  • Share training materials and feedback from workshop with satellite organizers
November
  • Initiate planning for March event
  • Secure NYC anchor venue
  • Establish network of +feminism ambassadors in each city who will lead organizing efforts
  • Continue outreach plan: social media announcements, on wiki invitations to collaborate
  • Develop measurement and evaluation plan (Wikimetrics to track editor contribution/retention)
December
  • Monday December 8th: Train the Trainers workshop 2/3, CUNY Graduate Center
  • North American and worldwide events begin conducting train the trainers workshops based off of the materials developed for October workshop
January
February
  • Early February: Train the Trainers workshop 3/3, CUNY Graduate Center. (This workshop will be run primarily by facilitators trained in the previous two workshops.)
  • Confirm food/drink details for March
  • Have an experienced editor facilitate all North American satellite events that are organized at least a month in advance, and are reasonably possible to get to for $500 airfare or less.
  • Help get an experienced editor to the non-North American events to facilitate.
  • Confirm that enough people were trained to ensure that our March event is not underfacilitated.
  • Sunday, February 28th: Webcast Train the Trainers workshop, we will offer a Skype or WebEx training for organizers for which we cannot find a local ambassador, or have one travel for less than $500.


March
  • Make childcare available to anyone who requests it, at least one week prior to the event.
  • Sunday, March 8th, Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon, in NYC and around the world.
  • Facilitators and Wikipedian allies will follow articles created, to minimize speedy deletions and PRODs
  • +Feminism Abassadors and facilitators will give every editor who signed in to the event a Art+Feminism Barnstar, with a call to action message inviting them to stay in touch and/or ask them questions, and directing them to the Tea Room, amongst other information.
April
  • Debrief with organizers
  • Continue to track participants in Wikimetrics.
May-August
  • Continue to support one-off satellite editathons.
September
  • Prepare grant report for WMF

Volunteers / Facilitators

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We will need a substantial number of volunteers to make this multi-location editathon successful. Last year in New York City in particular, one of our weaknesses was too many editors and not enough facilitators (as noted in the Risks section). We estimate that we had 10 trained facilitators who were on the same page regarding process and ethics. Ideally, we would have one trained facilitator for every four participants; it is worth noting that in New York City last year, roughy 2/3 of the participants were very new editors, while the other 1/3 had enough editing experience to mostly fend for themselves. Our goal is to have 150 attendees in New York City, which means we think we will need 30 facilitators.

We expect to be able to meet this need in New York City through the three training sessions. We anticipate that the ~10 experienced facilitators will help facilitate the March 2015 event. We will be actively recruiting the ~30 more experienced women from the 2014 event, who are untrained in facilitation, and inviting them to the training series. In addition, we will be actively recruiting through our co-sponsorships with the CUNY Graduate Center's ITP Certificate Program, and POWArts, to fill the remaining spots in the workshops. All told, we expect to bolster our numbers of facilitators to meet our need of 30 for the NYC event.

Based on conversations with organizers at satellite locations, we heard roughly three different kinds of experiences regarding facilitators:

  1. There were medium and larger events that had a number of experienced Wikipedians and/or trained facilitators, which ran smoothly. San Francisco is maybe the best example of this, where many of the attendees were quite experienced.
  2. There were medium and small sized events (<15) where there may have only been one experienced Wikipedians and/or trained facilitator, but because of the size of the group, she was able to give a training presentation to the whole group at once, or do one-on-one training as needed. This seems to be a function of group size, and corresponds generally with pedagogical standards regarding computer instruction lab class sizes: one instructor can teach a lab class of up to ~20 students by herself, after which point she will need assistants.
  3. There were medium and small sized events that lacked a Wikipedian with enough wiki-knowledge, or enough facilitation experience to make the event go well enough. There were only a few of these. We heard about these primarily through frustrated new organizers or new editors writing us panicked emails trying to figure out why their articles had been deleted, and what WP:NPOV and PW:COI were.

We are confident that the first group will be able to execute training sessions, if they feel the need. We are confident that they second group will be able to manage, as they are under the critical mass of ~20 participants. We are most concerned with the last group. We will organize a Skype or WebEx training for these organizers March 1st, the weekend before the event.

Impact

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Target readership

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Fit with strategy

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This project addresses the high impact strategic priority of increasing participation of a by recruiting new women editors, and onboarding and educating these new editors with a plan for follow-up and mentorship through the training sessions, and ongoing edit-a-thon series.

Measures of success

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We will consider the project successful if:
  • At least 60 women total attend the three NYC facilitator training events October 21st, in early December and early February. (Some may attend multiple times, but will only count once)
  • At least 30 of these women attend and/or facilitate the March 8th New York City event.
  • At least 40 satellite events take place on March 8th. (30 in 2014)
  • At least 125 people sign in the March 8th New York City event (86 signed in to 2014 event)
  • At least 600 users sign in (369 signed in to 2014 event). At a 75% sign in rate this equates to a 800 person attendance.
  • At least 275 articles are created and/or improved at all locations combined
  • Increase the rate (ideally 90% or higher, but at least 75%) of event sign-ins by participants.
  • Maintain or increase the roughly 3:1 women to men ratio that existed in the previous event.
  • Submit at least 10 DYK's
  • Less than 5 articles are speedy deleted, or nominated for deletion.


We will track impact with Wikimetrics to report data on editor activity, but we would like to resist laying out goals regarding the number of editors retained, what defines retention (duration of edits post event), or what defines an active editor (number of edits) as the primary measure of success of these events. We feel that there is not enough baseline information about what is a viable outcome, nor do we agree with the extant definitions of active (>5 edits/month). Our goal is to train women to understand they can edit, and to be able to edit. It is as much a consciousness raising effort, as it is an effort that can be measured in numerical data.

That said, we recognize that these have become core goals. Considering the outcomes of the previous case study, in which there was a 4.5% one month retention, and a 1.5% 6 month active editor rate (>5 edits per month) amongst new editors, we feel confident setting the following goals:

  • At least 30 new editors will make edits 6 months after the event
  • At least 10 new editors will be active editors (5 edits per month) 6 months after the event

Resources and Risks

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Resources

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  • We pulled off what some say was the largest multi-location editathon. We had approximately 600 participants and over 30 locations around the world. We did so with no support from the Wikimedia Foundation. We had a budget of $200 from Eyebeam, which we used to pay for childcare and to buy some snack food.
  • We leveraged existing on wiki resources, which are listed in detail on the Resources section of the Meetup page.
  • We built preliminary infrastructure on wiki, and off wiki, that will allow us to maintain our momentum from this 2014 event. These include:
  • We reported on our work through the creation of an FAQ for press and interested parties, as well as an Outcomes page with detailed information about the numbers and locations of each event.
  • Others have continued to organize 15+ editathons around the world over the past 6 months, because of this decentralized infrastructure that we have built.
  • We have gained the trust and advocacy of a number of active Wikipedians. We will be asking them to offer their endorsement of this grant when the time is ready.
  • We have extensive experience organizing public programming, doing social media outreach, and teaching. Our biographies are on the Participants section of the IEG grant.
  • We have extensive PR/outreach experience" We have extensive combined professional experience writing promotional materials, pitching, and working with the press, as well as a publicity track record from the 2014 international edit-a-thon.
  • We have strong networks in New York City, and around the world. These include several key constituencies who we mobilized for the 2014 event:
    • Artists and culturally engaged citizens
    • Professors, Art historians, curators, and critics
    • Librarians, (who have the ability to schedule events in their libraries)
    • Art workers, (who have the ability to schedule events in their spaces)
  • POWArts (Professional Organization of Women in the Arts) will be assisting us with finding spaces, publicity, and press outreach.

Risks

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  • We have not finalized a host for the March NYC event. Our host for the 2014 event, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, was perfect because they were centrally located in an arts district, had plenty of space, chairs and tables, had great wifi, and were able to provide 15 iMacs for participants who arrived without their computers. Unfortunately, they moved and are in a temporary space for a while. We are in the process of outreach, and have a number of leads, as well as a number of offers. We expect we will be able to find the best space possible, though we may choose to run multiple smaller events distributed across the boroughs. We have several offers from colleges and libraries, though we desire to hold the event in a space that does not require pre-registration (as most NYC libraries and schools do), because many/most of our 2013 participants did not register in advance (either on wiki, or on Facebook).
We have confirmed MoMA as the host for the March NYC event--Theredproject (talk) 03:50, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
  • We are not experts at tracking editor activity and retention. We will work with the WMF Learning and Evaluation team to learn evaluation tools and practice using them.
  • Too many participants and not enough facilitaors. This was a problem we experience in 2013 in New York, with roughly 150 editors present, and less than 10 of those were trained facilitators who were on the same page regarding process & ethics. In an effort to combat that, we are organizing three +Feminism facilitator training sessions to transform the participants from the 2013 editathon into the facilitators for the 2014 event.

Budget

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Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines. Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.


Project budget table

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Item Projected Cost Notes and Comments
Travel $1,500 3 Travel grants to fund experienced Wikipedians & +Feminism ambassadors to travel to facilitate editathons in underserved cities where we cannot find a local facilitator trained in the social and pedagogical nature of facilitating a gender gap editathon. Over the past year we experienced this problem in Halifax, Edinburgh, Detroit & Toronto specifically. $500 per traveler.
Childcare $1,200 Child care for NYC and satellite locations. 6 hours @ 20/hour, for ten locations. We are budgeting for 10 of the 40 locations, as last year not all locations needed childcare.
Food for Satellite Editathons $3,600 Food for 40 Satellite locations. We estimate we had 450 non-NYC attendees last year; we are assuming we 33% growth, or 600, and that we will spend $6 per head on food. We will budget based off of a combination of attendance from last year and RSVPs for each event, with locations with lower attendance, getting lower allocations, and the larger locations getting proportionally larger allocations.
Food for NYC Editathon $2,000 Food for NYC location. We estimate we had 150 attendees last year; we are assuming we 33% growth, or 200. We have been advised that food costs in midtown will be higher, and are budgeting $10 per head on food. We will get sandwich platters and salads.
Food for 2 NYC Trainings $646 $8.50 per person, for party platters. We expect 30 participants per event, plus 8 facilitators. 38 x 8.50 = 323 per event. Union regulations require this one caterer (and no outside food can be brought in.) Costs come from here. Food is particularly important for these after-work 38events, as we want to keep the post-work/pre-dinner hunger from distracting the participants' concentration.
NYC laptop rental $1,500 MoMA is able to provide all space costs, including labor and security, but is not able to provide computers. Last year we needed all 15 iMacs provided by Eyebeam. Based off of prices from TekServe we have added the cost for 15 laptops. We will approach TekServe asking them to donate the rentals, or at the very least give us a discount, though this cannot be guaranteed; in the event we are able to secure a donation and do not need these funds, they will be returned to the foundation.
In Kind venue costs $50,500 We make the conservative estimate that each venue costs $1000 on average to rent (including staffing costs) for a day with some higher, and others lower. (For comparison Eyebeam, our 2014 venue, costs $20,000 a day to rent!) We anticipate 40 venues will be provided in-kind on March 8th, for a total of $40,000. In addition, the CUNY Graduate Center is providing two labs on three separate evenings. Each of these rooms costs $500 to rent, so the total for the training events is $3,000. We also project that we will have 15 satellite trainings, at $500 on average per venue, which amounts to $7,500. All told, we estimate we will receive $50,500 in in-kind space donations.
Marketing $400 Online marketing costs for promoting Facebook posts, and Twitter tweets. We promoted several Facebook posts for our campaign, which made a huge difference in their reach and impact. Each promoted post costs ~$50. We will promote one post about the training workshops, three posts about the main March 8th event (December, aimed at organizers; Early February, aimed at NYC Facebook Event; Mid February, aimed at promoting Satellite events) and one post on March 10th, celebrating the accomplishments. Promoted Tweets on Twitter work slightly differently, with the cost of roughly $1.50 per engagement; this means that we have budgeted $150 to pay for 100 users to click on the link to register for the March event. The promoted tweet will be served to many more users: clickthrough rates are typically 1%-3%, which means that if 100 click, 5,000 to 10,000 will see the promoted tweet.
Printing $175 Printing costs for 8.5x11 sized posters ($25), 250 color participant handouts ($150) Costs from Fedex Kinko's.
Nametags $180 Nametags for 30 locations (30 x $6 per pack). Costs from Staples.com
Misc. Event Supplies $25 Misc. supplies for NYC location markers, pens, tape, etc.
Total Cost $61,726
Net Cost $11,226
WMF Requst $11,226

Total cost of project

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$61,726 (USD)

Total amount requested

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$11,226 (USD)

Additional sources of revenue

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$50,500 (USD) In in-kind venue rental donations.

Non-financial requirements

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  • We request support for Wikimedia Communications though a press release and assistance with press outreach, if this is possible.
  • We would like to ask that if the WMF is in a position to facilitate/enable Vgrigras or another Wikipedia Storyteller to be present and cover the events, we would very much appreciate it. (Forgive us, as we do not know if Vgrigras was at the Chicago event in his WMF capacity, or out of personal interest.)

Discussion

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Community notification

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On Wiki

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Off Wiki

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The success of the 2014 Art+Feminism edit-a-thon relied heavily on access to professional networks of librarians and art historians via listservs. In the months since, we have presented at the College Art Association’s THATcamp, the Art Libraries Society of North America, and Wikicon USA. We have a forthcoming publication in Women in the Arts magazine and plan to continue our outreach to professional organizations of artists and librarians. We have also secured support from POWarts and have a dedicated list of supporters from our last event that we will leverage as we begin outreach for our training sessions and the edit-a-thon in March.

We will continue outreach to the following professional organizations:

Endorsements

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Do you think this project should be selected for a Project and Event Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

  •   Support Wataimi (talk) 00:25, 1 October 2014 (UTC) Rationale: I attended the Art+Feminism Editathon at Eyebeam, NYC. Not only was I inspired to create pages of artists I admired and studied in my Visual Arts class, but the people there were incredibly helpful with reliable sources. The best experiences were the amazing friends that I made during the event, and the activist network that grew out of this editathon.
  •   Support Netherzone (talk) 20:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC) I endorse the Art+Feminism project for a PEG grant. The event earlier this year in New York City was effective in raising the visibility of women artists and art historians on Wikipedia. It trained a new generation of women editors, thus empowering a marginalized constituency.
  •   Support gobonobo + c 12:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC) -- Since the initial Art+Feminism event last February, we have had three edit-a-thons in Minnesota. We have seen a high degree of interest from GLAM institutions in continuing these events. Regionally, these events have served as lead-ins to more formalized relationships with centers of culture and learning. While we have been successful in maintaining interest from a small group of committed editors, our efforts would be greatly complemented by the materials and organizational backbone that this grant seeks to create.
  •   Support Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 14:33, 20 October 2014 (UTC) I helped with one of the 2013 satellite events, was impressed by the event as a whole. It was extremely successful. This is an ambitious plan, and definitely worth supporting. The planned advance training is highly desirable and its benefits will have an impact beyond this event.
  •   Support Given the success and level of interest in the February campaign, I think it is worth seeing how the project can grow. I have confidence in campaign organizers and would love to see the program expand into more cities and countries. -Another Believer (talk) 14:48, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
  •   Support The impact that the first event had with zero budget was huge, and I look forward to seeing how much can be accomplished with a grant like this. After hosting a satellite event in Portland, Oregon, my perspective about Wikipedia has been completely changed, and I realize how big of an impact small informational gestures can have not just now but in the future. The more people that this event can reach, the better, and it will continue to add value to this community for years to come. Krystalsouth (talk) 17:44, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
  •   Support Portland, Oregon joined the Edit-a-Thon on February 1, 2014 with an event at Portland State University that attracted around 75 participants - almost all of them first-time Wikipedia editors, most of them women. This project is an important step towards narrowing the gender gap on Wikipedia, while also working to preserve and celebrate women's contributions to society and culture more broadly. ItalianscallionPDX (talk) 06:04, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
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