Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wikimedia Immersive Training (WIT) for Editors from Underrepresented Communities (ID: 22760528)
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Applicant Details
edit- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
jenny8lee
- 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)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal
edit- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wikimedia Immersive Training (WIT) for Editors from Underrepresented Communities
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2024-09-30 - 2025-03-30
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
International (more than one country across continents or regions) We are focused on English language Wikipedia. The bulk of our editors are US-based, but some of our editors may be in the UK, Canada, Australia etc.
- 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) We are inspired by Women in Red, Art+Feminism and Afrocrowd, and want to train editors to contribute to those initiatives, but this training is not formally under their aegis.
- 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)
The gender gap on Wikipedia is vast: only 19% of biographies represent women on the site, and only 16% of all editors are women. Wikipedia is the top reference website in the world, the seventh most visited website overall, and a foundational resource for the generation of AI large language models that will shape public knowledge to come.
Projects like Women in Red, Art+Feminism, and Black Lunch Table have emerged to identify and address the gaps in Wikipedia content, but they need a sustained pool of editors to contribute. The culture of Wikipedia editing is often hostile to newcomers—full of jargon, insider rules, and technical coding that can be bewildering to a beginner. Solution: Immersive Small Group Training Typically, training in the Wikipedia world is provided at “edit-a-thons”— one-off sessions that offer an overview of editing options and how to get started. While good for “top of the funnel exposure,” retention from edit-a-thons tends to be low, because they don’t provide the robust foundation and sustained mentorship that successful Wikipedia editing requires.
We plan to pilot a high-touch, immersive, small-group training course that gives participants editing competency and also brings them into the community of editors and activists behind the scenes working to close the gender gap on the site, such as the Women in Red project.
We will track their participation over time, and set a definition of what a “retained editor” looks like based on Wiki standards.
- 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.
The trainings will be conducted in very small groups of 2-3 people who already know each other and likely self-selected to train with each other. Over six one-hour long Zoom sessions, we will help them prepare for and execute meaningful contributions to Wikipedia, namely a completely new article for each participant. The intimate groups will create a sense of camaraderie and peer accountability.
Our expectation is that course participants will be able to write Wikipedia articles from scratch after the course ends. Our plan is to funnel graduates into the community-led Women in Red project, which crowdsources lists of notable women who do not have representation on Wikipedia. We will work from these crowdsourced lists to generate new content on Wikipedia with our participants.
Our modular virtual training will cover specifics and in-depth explanations that give flexibility for more questions, and the ability to walk through complex Wikipedia processes with a guiding hand. Our vision is for this cohort to integrate themselves into the Wikipedia community and positively collaborate towards the closure of representation gaps on the site for many months or years to come.
This high-touch, highly-curated training system will ultimately build long-term advocates for Wikipedia, something which simply can't be provided in larger group settings.
- 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.
Jennifer 8. Lee (user:Jenny8lee) is an active Wikipedian who cofounded WikiPortraits, Wikicred and served on the search committee for the Wikimedia NYC executive director. She also won a service award in 2020 from Wikimedia DC. VOLUNTEER.
Kelly Doyle Kim ([[user:Kelly Doyle)) 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.
- 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 are people who are “Wikicurious” and very good writers but haven’t been able to get the traction to learn how to do Wikipedia. We are aiming for people we think can be active in the movement, enough so they attend WikiConferences and can apply for their own Rapid Grants.
We will partner with the Ruby in San Francisco, a writer-centric coworking community for nonbinary, transfeminine, and woman-identified creatives. We have already found 3 Ruby people who are interested in participating.
Given the size of our cohort, we expect them all to be people in the community.
- 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.
Jennifer 8. Lee (user:Jenny8lee) has personally recruited people to be active in Wikipedia, whether in Wikiportraits, Wikicred, film or general editing.
She has been sending Wikicurious individuals to Jake Orlowitz for Wikipedia Zoom training on an ad hoc basis (about 6 people so far), and realized the pairs, where people knew each other, were a good model for retention.
She reached out to Kelly Doyle Kim (user:Digitaldoylekim), who has done a good bit of training with the Smithsonian Women’s History Museum to discuss the immersive model as a strategy to close the gender gap in content and Wikipedian participation.
Jenny also discussed with Wikimedia NYC about funneling people from the Wikicurious event series into the more intense editor training.
- 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)
Content Gender gap
- 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)
Gender Identity
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
Learning and metrics
edit- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
We want to test our hypothesis that peer-reinforced small group training can create sustained Wikipedia engagement among a diverse cohort of editors.
We also want them all to feel comfortable starting a Wikipedia article from scratch. We do not think these are necessarily the Wikipedia editors who will rise to be admins or on Arb Com (but one can hope!). We see this as increasing the number of people who see a notable subject missing in Wikipedia, especially content around underrepresented communities, and feel empowered to add an article of enough quality that it survives scrutiny.
This belief has somewhat come to pass already, as one of our early Wikicurious recruits, who is herself a ballet dancer, felt that there were missing pages for notable ballerinas who had been profiled in the mainstream media. She felt empowered to create the new pages.
Number of participants: For this Rapid grant alone: ~7 new editors. For entire project (which would include additional funding from other sources): 30 people trained to get to 20 new editors who have finished an entire article from scratch.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 30 | |
| Number of editors | 8 | |
| Number of organizers | 4 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 25 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 50 |
| Wikidata | |
| 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 | 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)
Since the training is small and editors are mostly new, we will be able to watch and tabulate the edit history on the people we onboard.
Financial proposal
edit- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-ODg9pRSGHMErRpK01hniAbrrqCrf0UbAMiWpi__AvI/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
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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).