Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe WikiPortraits Initiative (ID: 22681019)
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Applicant Details
edit- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
SuperHamster
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
I'm a board member or president of a Wikimedia Affiliate or mission-allied organization., I'm a group leader of a Wikimedia User Group (submitted to the Affiliation Committee).
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Kevin is on the Board of Directors for Wikimedia District of Columbia. He is also a group leader for the Ohio Wikimedians User Group. This project is being organized outside of the scope and purview of these groups.
Main Proposal
edit- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe WikiPortraits Initiative
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2024-07-31 - 2024-09-30
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
United Kingdom
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) WikiPortraits
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects prioritize and require using freely-licensed images. This presents a challenge when it comes to photos of notable people, because most published photos of notable people are press images with full copyright and non-permissive licenses. This results in a significant number of biographies with poor quality or no photos. This challenge is quite notable in itself, having been covered by various publications including the New York Times in their 2009 article, "Wikipedia May Be a Font of Facts, but It’s a Desert for Photos". While that article was written almost a decade ago, the problem persists, so much so that @badwikiphotos is an account on Instagram. The English Wikipedia category, "Wikipedia requested images of people", has over 5,000 articles in it.
An effective way to gather freely-licensed photos of notable figures at-scale is to go to where they are. Gage Skidmore is particularly notable for publishing freely-licensed photos of celebrities at pop culture conventions and political events. German Wikipedia has been covering the Berlin Film Festival with its Berlinale-Projekt since 2017.
Indeed, our SXSW WikiPortraits Rapid Grant project added photos that were added to 60 wikis and collectively viewed an estimated 10 million million views per month in April (thanks in part to some movie premieres). Our early self-financed Sundance 2024 WikiPortraits project adds an additional 500,000 or so views per month.
We've also recently covered the International Journalism Festival and Cannes Film Festivals and are currently in the process of uploading photos from these events to add to Wikipedia articles. We expect similar results and success as our Sundance and SXSW photo work.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the world’s largest performance arts festival with roughly 60,000 performances of just under 4,000 shows in 300+ venues over the span of a month. The festival features both very known celebrities, who come in for short stints of sold-out performances, as well as emerging talent before you hear about them through their televisions shows on Netflix or Amazon. Fringe itself is a scouting festival. One of the most impressive things about the Fringe Festival is how accessible it is for media and photographers, so we can get a high volume of great photos in a very efficient period. In addition, there are many photographers who will happily take pictures because it allows them to get tickets easier than buying directly on their own.
With this grant request, we will be subsidizing housing for photographers and uploaders to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024, if they agree to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons. WikiPortraits will help them obtain press credentials, sometimes in partnership with media organizations.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
For this project, we will take photos of two main groups at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival:
- Known celebrities who have Wikipedia pages. We will write scripts to identify which people already have Wikipedia pages.
- Emerging talent we predict will have Wikipedia pages shortly. In fact, since Fringe generates a lot of press reviews of the performances across respectable media populations, we can start articles for people who get a substantive number of reviews.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
- Kevin Payravi (User:SuperHamster): Kevin has contributed to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites since 2007, and is currently a co-organizer of WikiConference North America and Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States. He also serves on the Board of Wikimedia DC. He has served as a photographer for WikiPortraits at Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes.
- Jennifer 8. Lee (en:User:Jenny8lee): Jenny is a co-founder of WikiPortraits, an adviser to the Wikimedia NYC, a founder of WikiCred project, film producer, and an adviser to SXSW Interactive. She has been to the Cannes Film Festival 8 times. She is a volunteer for this project, but will help coordinate the logistics and the press credentials.
- Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado): Lih is 2021 Wikimedia Laureate, an internationally-renowned Wikipedia expert, author, professor, GLAMs activist, and long-time Wikimedia contributor, including on Wikicommons photography.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
There are two main target populations for this project:
- Notable individuals who have Wikipedia articles, particularly ones lacking a photo or need a better photo taken. We will prioritize portraits of notable individuals from backgrounds that are commonly under-represented on Wikipedia, as well as individuals who are rising in their respective industries, with an emphasis on the global south.
- Editors of individual biography pages across all languages who are looking for photos of the subjects. Our WikiPortraits SXSW photos were used across over 70 language versions of Wikipedia with an estimated 4 million monthly views across all of them. These include ruwiki, hewiki, rowiki, nowiki, ukwiki, elwiki, viwiki, dewiki, itwiki, svwiki, kowiki, zhwiki, jawiki, arwiki, arzwiki among many others.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
Given that WikiPortraits’ SXSW 2024 photos were added on over 60 different language wikis, with a collective estimated 10 million monthly views in April 2024, we feel there is strong community demand for what WikiPortraits is adding.
WikiPortraits has a presence on the Wikimedia Commons, at Commons:WikiPortraits. We have also created a meta page to catalog related efforts called Wiki Covers Events and to share best practices. Among notable related efforts are the German Berlinale-Projekt.
Wiki Covers Events + the WikiPortraits initiative has also been discussed within the GLAM Global Telegram group, which has over 200 community members.
Last, at the Wikimedia Hackathon in Tallinn, Estonia, we discovered a number of affiliates and Wikipedians who were doing their own version of event coverage and thought it would be good to combine forces for resources such as scripts identifying speakers/performers/honorees with Wikipedia pages.
Our origin story, for background: the WikiPortraits idea was originally the brainchild of Andrew Lih, a past Wikimedian Laureate, who presented on a Wikimedia panel at SXSW 2023 with WMF CEO Maryana Iskander. Andrew has done similar self-funded photography efforts and book festivals and comicons and saw the potential of SXSW for doing that on a larger scale. He has socialized this WikiPortraits idea in the GLAM Telegram group, as well as on Meta Wiki.
Jenny also discussed the idea at 2024 Wikimania in Singapore with Frank Schulenberg, who is the secretary of the Commons Photographers Users Group. He was so enthused that he decided to self-finance a trip to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and obtained an assignment letter from Nadee Gunasena at the WMF, which was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival press office by Jennifer. This then led to our SXSW 2024 WikiPortraits project, which has had its photos incorporated into 60 different wikis. We have also photographed the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, self-funded.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Innovate in Free Knowledge
Learning and metrics
edit- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
This project — in conjunction with our film festival work at Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes film festivals in 2024 — helps to build a repeatable and scalable template for experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers to get press credentials at well-established cultural events. Fringe is largely different from our previous events in that it is live performance, versus a film festival or a conference with speakers. It is also a longer event, so we can potentially rotate photographers in and out.
Our intent with this, compared to our previous projects, is to elevate the Wikipedia presence at global-level events. If logistics allow, we may also explore holding edit trainings or Wiki explanations for people who are in Edinburgh, including agents, performers and managers.
Historically, volunteer Wikimedian photographers are not plugged into the media infrastructure that is built around credentials. Given the support of credentialing letters, we hope that the press office decision makers of these global caliber events will become more receptive to having Wikimedia photographers participate, as it only serves to amplify the cultural impact of their events across the many language wikis.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 200 | We are targeting to photograph 200 individuals, at least 35 of which have a Wikimedia page (Wikipedia article, Wikidata item, etc.). |
| Number of editors | 8 | We plan to have up to 5 photographers taking photos and uploading their work to the Wikimedia Commons, and another few Wikipedia editors helping add photos to Wikimedia pages, as well as creating and improving Wikipedia articles related to Fringe and notable photographed individuals. |
| Number of organizers | 6 | * 2 on the ground organizers at Fringe: Kevin Payravi and Jenny Lee
|
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 35 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 200 |
| Wikidata | |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
200+ photos of people uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, which will be used across Wikimedia wikis in multiple languages.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
We would utilize a tool like BaGLAMa to measure how many pageviews our portraits receive over time through their inclusion on Wikipedia articles and other Wikimedia projects.
Financial proposal
edit- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ODzaebGQiEM-uHwNnDCb2uu3Yrztvtgc-JkZxq8L6LE/edit
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
5000 USD
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
5000 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
editPlease add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).