Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Asian American Literary Edit-A-Thons hosted by the Asian American Writers Workshop (ID: 22896104)

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Applicant Details

Main Wikimedia username. (required)

JafreenU

Organization

Asian American Writers' Workshop

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)

N/A

Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)

Main Proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.

Asian American Literary Edit-A-Thons hosted by the Asian American Writers Workshop

2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.

2025-03-01 - 2025-12-31

4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)

United States of America

5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)

Not applicable

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)

There are a surprising number of notable Asian American literary works and writers that are missing articles. Starting in 2019, Kundiman and the Asian American Writers Workshop have addressed this by partnering with Wikimedia NYC to do a series of in-person and online Edit-A-Thons.

In part due to the pandemic, which led to the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s closure of physical space for years, there haven’t been any events since 2021. Since then, a number of notable writers and works have been published, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop has been reopened for events in 2024. Therefore, another Edit-A-Thon of this nature would be incredibly timely, productive, and crucial.

With new leadership at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Wikimedia NYC, along with the emergence of a supereditor with experience in the topic, the two organizations have decided that it’s time to do another series of events. Kundiman has a vibrant community, and we anticipate that even with their leadership changes, by May, they will be able to do extensive rallying to drive up turnout for these events.

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.

We would like to host two to three one-day Wikicurious events to improve Asian American literary content on Wikimedia properties—similar to ones that took place between 2018 and 2021. This time, we would like to expand not merely Wikipedia articles but also field contributions for Wikimedia Commons photos and Wikidata items.

At least one of these events will be during Asian American Heritage Month in May. These events will span a range of activities to meet Wikicurious folks and experienced editors where they are: writing new Wikipedia articles, improving existing articles, uploading photos of authors to Wikimedia, adding photos to articles, and creating Wikidata items.

Planning activities include:

Figuring out event schedules that work for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Kundiman members, and Wikimedia NYC.
Finalizing training curriculum for editing articles, uploading photos on Commons, and adding Wikidata items for newbies.
Gathering a list of missing articles, photos, and Wikidata items.
Promoting the series on social media and newsletter by the respective organizations.
Reserving/coordinating catering and refreshments for participants.
Establishing an event RSVP page, likely Eventbrite.
Finalizing survey instruments for reporting in alignment with trainers and co-organizers.

Sample schedule/agenda:

Introductions between participants, featured speakers, and trainers.
Introduction to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons ans Wikidata.
Setting up an account and user page

Staged training while some participants take turn eating:

First portion of training, an introduction to Wikipedia: rules, community guidelines, registration.
How to add a citation and use the sandbox.
How to add categories.

(PhotoCurious people can choose to eat during this time)

Second portion of training:
Teaching people how to upload images onto Wikimedia Commons and add images from Wikimedia Commons to articles.

(Editing people can get food)

Simultaneous editing:

Drafting articles, followed by polishing and moving of each new editor's first article live if appropriate.
Finding photos to upload from participant’s phones and teaching them how to add a photo to an existing page. (This can be participants’ own photos or photos from Wikimedia Commons)

Assessing feedback and sharing findings:

Metrics collected on participant numbers and articles created or updated, photos uploaded and added, will be collected and documented; these metrics will be shared in reporting to Wikimedia, participants, and fellow organizers.
Collected surveys will be analyzed and assessed in congruence with learning questions.
All findings will be included in our report to the Wikimedia Foundation.

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.

Jafreen Uddin (User:JafreenU) is the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She is the first woman to lead the organization since its founding in 1991. With over a decade of experience working in the public sector, she specializes in communications, education, and fundraising. She most recently served as Deputy Director of Development for Special Events with PEN America, managing a high-level portfolio of events and cultivation activities. Prior to joining PEN America, she helped oversee Executive Education as an Assistant Director with NYU’s Stern School of Business, developing and coordinating both degree and non-degree programming for cohorts of senior-level executives.

Pacita Rudder (user:PacitaWikiNYC)) is the Executive Director of Wikimedia New York City since May 2024. Her previous work as the Director of Engagement at SPUR included designing and executing strategic campaigns, rooted in narrative, to educate and mobilize communities to engage in public policy. Prior to this, Pacita helped lead programs at Harness, leveraging her cultural strategy experience to activate a network of high influence artists, entertainment industry executives, and movement leaders to use their power and platforms for good.

Bea Phi (user:Phibeatrice) will serve as a data wrangler to locate initial gaps in Wikimedia’s coverage of Asian and Asian American literature, help with sourcing for the Edit-A-Thon’s contributions, and clean up and report on each event’s results. They may also provide training support. In the last few years, they have worked at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Creative Writing Program and Comparative Literature Department at Stanford University, the Asian American Theater Project, Plympton, Poets & Writers, and BOMB Magazine. They also have worked on the WikiPortraits project, specifically with photo coverage of the 2024 National Book Awards and data support for other events like the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Following their Wikipedia training in July of 2024, they have since entered the top 5000 users list for article creation, with over 160 articles mostly pertaining to literature, and contributed nearly 300,000 words to Wikipedia.

Kelly Doyle Kim (user:KellyDoyle)) will be facilitating sessions pertaining to the gender gap on Wikipedia. Most recently, she was the Open Knowledge Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, where she stewarded the addition of over 1.2 million new words about American women to Wikipedia through her public programs and training sessions. Kelly has worked in the open access and cultural heritage space for over a decade, exclusively focusing on the gender gap on open sites like Wikipedia. [PAID FOR TRAINING]

Jake Orlowitz (User:Ocaasi)) will be designing sessions on editing skills, citations, and verifiability. He founded The Wikipedia Library, providing free access to 100,000 journals. Jake initiated the #1Lib1Ref and #1Bib1Ref campaigns, helping others add thousands of references to Wikipedia annually. He built The Wikipedia Adventure gamified learning tutorial and the Citation Watchlist to enhance Wikipedia’s reliability. Jake has presented at numerous conferences and authored several influential papers on Wikipedia and open knowledge. Learn more about Jake's work: JakeOrlowitz.com, WikiBlueprint.com. [PAID FOR TRAINING]

Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (User:rosiestep) is a Visiting Scholar at Northeastern University (Boston), where her work focuses on pre-20th-century English language women writers and their works. She has created more than 5,000 new Wikipedia articles, including more than 2,200 women’s biographies. Rosie is the co-founder of an international Wikipedia community, Women in Red, that focuses on improving the representation gender gap across 33 language Wikipedias. In 2016, she was honored as Wikipedian of the Year, and Women in Red was shortlisted for the ITU/UN Women GEMTECH award. In 2018, Rosie was knighted in part because of her Wikipedia achievements and activism. She is a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees. [UNPAID SPEAKER]

Peggy Lee (User:communitygem). Peggy Lee will be serving as the primary operations and administrative support for the series. Peggy Lee is the Director and a founding member of The Ruby, an arts & letters–focused community and gathering space in San Francisco. The Ruby is a collective of Bay Area women and nonbinary creatives that proudly collaborates with community organizations and hosts cultural programming for creatives and the creative curious alongside community organizations and partners. Partners include the San Francisco Public LIbrary, Indigenous Women Rising, NDN Girls Book Club, Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network, The Marigold Project, Chinatown Media & Arts Collaborative, and the Asian American Women Artists Association. Prior to leading the Ruby, she’s worked both locally and globally on public health education programs addressing HIV/AIDS, family planning, mental health, child nutrition, women's health, and substance abuse throughout Asia, Africa, and the US. She also created Made By Girls, a national education program to build stem confidence in girls ages 8-17 at 18 locations throughout the US and Canada. [PAID FOR ADMIN]

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)

The main target populations for this project include people who are interested in Asian American literature in NYC, either through the AAWW network or WMNYC event.

As AAWW serves as the central host of activities, we will share about the upcoming event in our social media accounts, in our newsletter, and on our website. We will also promote the activity amongst mission-aligned organizations in New York. RSVPs will be collected using Eventbrite. Participants will be contacted prior to the event with reminders and agenda.

All participants will be asked to fill a short questionnaire after the conclusion of each session to gather feedback on the event and on their future plans to participate in editing activities on Wikipedia. AAWW will also document the number of participants, edits completed, articles created, photos uploaded, Wikidata items created and other feedback and insights generated. Findings will be shared in a report to Wikimedia as well as to the participants.

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.

Three Asian American literary hackathons were held between 2018 and 2021 in partnership between Wikimedia NYC, the Asian American Writers' Workshop and Kundiman (nonprofit organization). The audience and contributions showed the demand and interest for such events. Kundiman drove the latter two events, which were in person at the Ace Hotel and online. The 2019 event was documented at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Asian American Literature (May 2019). The 2020 event was documented at Meetup/NYC/Asian American Literature (May 2021).

There have not been any such events in the last few years. so the history had largely faded from institutional memory due to staff and member turnover (though Richard Knipel remembered!).

But Jafreen Uddin, head of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, sat next to Pacita Rudder at the Museum of Chinese in America gala. Together, they brainstormed doing events together. Then, upon discussion with Richard Knipel, they discovered the existing track record, event pages, and articles.

Meanwhile, Bea Nguyen, an editor who had gone through Wikipedia Immersive Training program by Jake Orlowitz, has became an enthusiastic editor of literary pages, specifically Asian American literary content. In July, after their training, they identified a serious gap in Wikipedia's coverage of Asian and Asian American literature; as a result they created over 100, and counting, pages relevant to the field in the last two months, which has been documented in a table on User:Phibeatrice. Additionally, Bea Nguyen had previously been a summer intern twice over at AAWW and was a perfect fit to rally.

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)

Gender and diversity

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)

Identify Topics for Impact

Learning and metrics

17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)

We hope to see if there is still the interest and energy for Asian American literary Edit-A-Thons, as there were in 2018 to 2021, which often attracted dozens of people. If so, AAWW would like to make this an annual series or events. In addition, the Wikipedia Immersive Training program is always looking for candidates who want to invest more heavily in contributing to the Wikiverse.

We operate with a theory of change in that our activities can address racial, ethnic, and cultural gaps in knowledge on Wikipedia by bringing awareness to the issue, bringing in various members of the Asian and Asian American community in New York City and beyond, and inspiring a new group of editors from various underrepresented backgrounds. We hope to teach many people who are new to Wikipedia and provide editing skills to our communities so that these absences in the encyclopedia can be addressed by experienced, knowledgeable, and thoughtful members among us.

Just as we are learning from past Edit-A-Thons of this nature from 2018 to 2021, we hope to keep building upon this practice, finding better ways to teach editing to diverse groups of people, and searching for new editors among these cohorts to develop longer-term, in-depth relationships between Wikipedia and our communities. We take feedback, and analytics, seriously, and we hope to probe the following questions: What are the existing perceptions of Wikipedia and the make-up of its editors and their contributions? What draws people to an Edit-A-Thon, especially without prior experience in Wikipedia? What keeps people invested in Wikipedia, such that they become editors after attending a Wikipedia event? What kinds of content on Wikipedia require more attention from Asian and Asian American editors with knowledge and expertise in those areas? How do we offer training as a long-term practice rather than a limited series of events, thinking about how we can specifically utilize the Asian American Writers’ Workshop space for this purpose?

With regard to analytics, we hope to monitor the number of participants, the number of articles created/updated, as well as how many images and Wikidata items are created. Depending on whether we shoot over or under our predictions, we will seriously consider how to recruit, how to train, how to host and promote events, and how to otherwise promote satisfaction among participants.

18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)

Number of participants, editors, and organizers
Other Metrics	Target	Optional description
Number of participants	100	40 people event * 3 events, so at least 100 people—some of them possibly twice.
Number of editors	4	Currently, 4 senior editors, including a WMF board member, will help guide the community. We might draw in other editors as the events get organized.
Number of organizers	4	Jafreen Uddin Pacita Rudder (not necessarily in person) Bea Phi

Number of content contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Number of content created or improved
Wikipedia	100
Wikimedia Commons	100
Wikidata	50
Wiktionary
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia

Optional description for content contributions.

N/A

19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)

No

Main Open Metrics Data
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 will be using the WMF dashboard events dashboard to keep track of the following metrics: 1) Number of editors involved 2) Number of new editors 3) Number of edits 4) Number of new pages created 5) Number of pages edited 6) Volume of new content added (words and/or file size)

Financial proposal

21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

Grant Budget.pdf

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

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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).

Endorse