Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Takes Curious Steps (ID: 22026084)/Final Report

Rapid Fund Final Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2023-10-07T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Rapid Fund, Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Final

Application

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General information edit

  • Title of Proposal: Wiki Takes Curious Steps
  • Username of Applicant: Egezort
  • Name of Organization: N/A
  • Amount awarded: 909.79
  • Amount spent: 470.88 USD, 13500 TRY

Part 1 Understanding your work edit

1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented

Due to the delay we had, and some changes within the Curious Steps program, our approach in the project changed a lot, I will reference the positive and negative aspects of it throughout the report. As planned in the application, we conducted an online meeting and one full day of a memory walk and some presentations to follow it. Due to the increase in the number of presentations, and some miscalculations in time management, we ended up not doing the edit-a-thon.

In the online meeting, we introduced ourselves to each other and talked about the project. There were two presentations (Speakers given in paranthesis): Women in Red (Başak Tosun) Creative Commons (Orçun Madran)

The presentations after the walk were: Very basic introduction to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wiki Commons (User:Egezort and User:Gufo46) The Curious Steps Project (A person from the Curious Steps crew) The WMLGBT User Group (User:Egezort) Art+Feminism (User:Yagmurkozmik)

The online meeting was on the 1st of February and was attended by 10 people, the walk itself was attended by 15 people. Due to the dates being far apart and some other conflicting difficulties, the overlap between the two groups was low.

There were around 10 stops in the memory walk and the lunch was in between the walk. In each stop, information that contained encyclopedic knowledge (and a lot of non-encyclopedic but fun/interesting knowledge) was conveyed.

This project will provide the backbone of future walks and edit-a-thons.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals? Please describe these strategies and approaches.

Some approaches outlined in the application:

Redesigning an already existing project to include Wikipedia: I believe that this was very successful, even with the absence of the edit-a-thon, participants understood the link between Wikipedia's role in creating more equal information.

Combining physical activities with encyclopedic work: This worked well as expected.

Focusing on the societal aspect of gender inequality: This didn't translate into on-wiki contributions, but it was talked about and we do have a plan to create articles related to sexism in historiography in future projects.

Using different forms of content for contribution: This was always in our mind within the walk, we got some photographs of statues and they will be uploaded on Commons when we reach out to some participants later.

The approaches not outlined in the application:

Letting participants be storytellers: This is something the Curious Steps program does a lot, it helped keep the walk interesting and non-formulaic.

Reach out to different organizations and get their support: Since I started focusing on the CIP project, I invited two people from the CIP office, and the "Wiki Walks the City" event may become an event that CIP does (Curious Steps itself was already sometimes done with CIP)

Find relevant places for food: We ate in a place that had a focus on helping poverty-stricken people, which made the walk more interesting (because we heard many of their stories).

3. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact.


Field to type in URLs.

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1:Egezort/Wiki_Walks_the_City https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMvwPbq2qwlKahDAQNyH4HmGUojxbTQPgoVZfw6cDVsHoyTMm_3y0En_kySLqD_Pg?key=elVpNlFBWkotejY5Z08xT1FIU3ZVR1M4MVd4eF9R

4. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups Neither agree nor disagree
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community Agree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups Neither agree nor disagree
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives Neither agree nor disagree
E. Encourage the retention of editors Neither agree nor disagree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers Strongly agree

5. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

Since this is a project that's related to gender identities and sexual orientations, the people we invited were people that were interested in the subject and/or members of underrepresented groups. We didn't announce the event publicly (except in an LGBT related whatsapp group) so providing the safe space that we wanted to was easier, however it did mean that ensuring ample participation was also harder.

Part 2: Your main learning edit

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?

I want to learn if introduction to Wikipedia through these types of projects leads to many active accounts:

I have seen that perhaps it is too ambitious to expect continued involvement on Wikipedia projects after these events. This has pushed me to focus more on making "Wiki Walks the City" events parts of a broader project, CIP in this case. I believe that this type of project serves more as a thing that motivates editors instead of creating new editors out of non-editors.

I want to learn if the discussions started in our project will extend to the Wikipedia community organically. I want to see if people outside of our project will also be inspired by our contributions:

I have learned that expecting "organic" is undershooting the potential of these projects. There has to be ways to involve the broader community who aren't part of the projects to contribute on their own accord, these have to be our efforts and not things we expect to happen on their own.

I want to learn how to connect different organisations working on similar goals. I have seen that this takes a lot effort to make in a way that makes sense for everyone but I have also seen that it's very much worth it.

I want to learn how to improvise when things don't go as planned: As addressed in another question, I got a lot of practice with this.

I want to learn how to make sure that steps taken in one area can be translated into other areas:

I haven't been able to succeed in this much, I have more to learn.

7. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences?

Many unexpected things happened. I'll try to explain some 1- We were planning to do the project in the beginning of February. There were terror alerts and the weather wasn't going to be nice, so we decided to postpone it. Then a major earthquake happened and that caused a crisis comparable with Covid. (University became online for a term etc.) We had to re-realise most of the project. 2- The Curious Steps activity stopped after that, and they didn't begin fully yet. There were also some changes within the Curious Steps crew, so we had to recalculate participation. 3- We were expecting most of the storytellers to be able to join, though many weren't, so that also changed our expected participation. 4- We had to change the content of the walk a bit so that we would be reading some stories instead of the storytellers. Su Gender was very helpful in giving us the necessary resources for that. 5- My relationship with the Turkish Wikipedia community changed so we opted not to make an open invitation to the Wikipedia community. 6- Because of scheduling reasons, we did the event earlier than anticipated, which caused some willing people not being able to attend. 7- We found (through Su Gender's advice) a cheap and charitable restaurant so we got to hear their stories and that was a real highlight of the project. 8- CIP's involvement wasn't anticipated at all originally, but with the other work I'm doing, we invited them and 2 people from the office came.

8. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?

I think I understand the dynamics of Wikipedia a little better now. I have seen the importance of documentation and I understood ways of doing that. I have also seen that linking, publicising, organising around the outputs of projects are the way to make sure that they create the effect that you want to create, and that simply putting stuff out there isn't doing much (even when it is, it's still under its potential)

One of the hardest parts of the project was finding the participants and making sure that they were coming. Around a quarter of the expected participants either cancelled or couldn't come. This was one of the driving factors behind me focusing on CIP since it provides a sustainable flow of participants every term.

I have learnt a lot about time management, I will do less packed planning next time, I'll also try to consider how tired the participants will be, which I had considered but apparently underestimated.

One of my goals for the future is to create the Wiki Walks the City project as a thing separate from Curious Steps. This is both for their and our benefit. I'm thinking of ways to do this without being a carbon-copy of them.

I want to do more in order to find suitable dates for events. Because with this one, there were many things I didn't know to consider. Even though earthquakes etc. are unexpected, weather conditions and days of the week information should have been better accounted for. I want to improve myself on that front.

9. Documentation of resources: Use this space to upload any documents that would be useful to share with others (e.g. communications material, training material, presentations).


Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

N/A

Part 3: Metrics edit

10a. Open Metrics reporting

In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in. Use the tables to report the result. Use the comments column to describe any aspects of this result that you find relevant. If the results were different from the initial target (goals) then you can explain why and what you learned from this. You can also provide any qualitative analysis regarding these results. In the last column please describe the tools and methodology used to collect this data and any difficulties you might have had.

Open Metrics Summary
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Existing Pages This is the number of how many of the artist women in our walk have a page about them 13 0 N/A N/A
Featured articles about these artists I want to get the pages of at least 3 of the artist women in the project into a featured article status. 3 0 A comment, our project lead had asked about Featured Articles and since then I noticed that creating even featured articles are much harder than I had first thought. I won't include such a metric in my projects unless I feel confident that we'll be able to do it. 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 N/A N/A N/A N/A

10b. Core Metrics reporting

In your application, you defined targets for some core metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with each core metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in. Use the tables to report the result. Use the comments column to describe any aspects of this result that you find relevant. If the results were different from the initial target (goals) then you can explain why and what you learned from this. You can also provide any qualitative analysis regarding these results. In the last column please describe the tools and methodology used to collect this data and any difficulties you might have had. Note: a table will appear for each Wikimedia project content contribution you defined in your proposal.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants New Participants (People from SuGender and from Cins Kulüp): 25 people

The Wikipedia Community: 10 people

35 15 I had expected Counting
Number of editors Newly Registered Users: 15

Returning Editors: 15

30 5 We didn't have time to make everyone an editor, therefore I'm writing down the people who had accounts before.
Number of organizers The 4 people crew that is running this project

1 person from SuGender to cooperate with us in organising this project 1 person from the Wikipedia community to help me introduce Wikipedia to everyone 1 person from Cins Kulüp, so that students from our university can also enroll in the project.

7 4 One of the 4 people crew quit, so we were 3 organisers (within the application). There was indeed a person from SuGender who helped us organize the event.
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Wikipedia Around 13 will be about the artist women in question.

2 or more pages about the broader ideas discussed ("Sexism in historiography" for example)

15 0 As mentioned before, we didn't have time to do the edits, and therefore the contributions weren't a part of the project N/A
Wikimedia Commons Photos taken on the way will be added on Wikimedia Commons 20 0 There are more than 20 pictures, but they haven't been uploaded to Commons yet. I will make sure that they are as the participants get more interested in Wikimedia projects (through other events) 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 N/A N/A N/A N/A

12. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? This could include things like a lack of time or resources, or the expertise in your team to collect this data. It could also include difficulties with particular data collection tools.

No

12a. State what difficulties you had.

N/A

12b. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges?

N/A

13. Use this space to upload any documents and provide links to any tools you have used that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, program and event dashboard link, project page on Meta).


Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

N/A

14. Have you shared these results with other Wikimedian communities (either affiliates, user groups, volunteers, etc., different to yours)? This can include things such as data and direct outcomes, lessons you have learned, or information on how to run or recreate your programs.

No

14a. If yes or partially, please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how.


Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance edit

15. & 14a. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

13500 TRY

16. Please state the total amount spent in USD.

470.88 USD

17. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

17a. Upload a financial report file.


17b. Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PBQHVg85jpCxb3I1YDsfFDYOf6w4k46BsP2-YOChDg0/edit?usp=sharing

As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

17c. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

Some changes are: Since participation was lower, the food costs were changed accordingly There was an unexpected opportunity for us to buy books from the restaurant about the work that they've been doing. Since it is a restaurant with a focus on helping impoverished people, and since that book is the story of its founder, who was also impoverished, we decided to buy those books from within the budget. For the spending we conducted in February, because of the change in the parity rate, I wrote down a larger amount (around 1.5 times) for the Turkish Liras so that Dollarwise, they would be roughly the same.

18. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?

Yes

18a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

434 USD. We had anticipated that we would have been able to involve more participants, also the stationary budget was not used at all because we did everything electronically.

18b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future grant request with PO approval

18c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

I am planning to reapply for the CIP101 project, which was rejected before, I intend on using the funds in that project. It will be within the next cycle if things go as planned.

19. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?

Yes

20. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

21. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

22. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.

I may not have gotten into much detail above, the Curious Steps program has already had some collaborations with CIP before. Since I have close relationships with both parties involved, I'm planning to make similar walks a major part of the CIP project in later terms. I believe that that is the most valuable output of this project. I'm waiting for some external factors to change (mostly about Curious Steps) in order to lay out a plan to fully incorporate this project into both the gender related project for CIP and the Wikipedia related project in CIP (that I've started).

I plan to make references to this project when laying out the details in my CIP related applications later.

Note: For those projects, the focus will be on editing instead of organising. This project was a little too presentation-heavy and that won't be the case for the CIP versions.

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