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Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Loves Folklore 2023/Midpoint Report

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Midterm Learning Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 30 June 2023

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Midterm

Application Final Learning Report

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General information

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This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.

  • Name of Organization: Wiki Loves Folklore International Team
  • Title of Proposal: Wiki Loves Folklore 2023
  • Amount awarded: 26061.46 USD, 28401.4 CAD
  • Amount spent: 5941 CAD

Part 1 Understanding your work

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1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?

As we commemorate the five-year anniversary of Wiki Loves Folklore, it is awe-inspiring to reflect upon the tremendous growth and progress witnessed during this transformative period. This momentous occasion is being celebrated through the vibrant and empowering events of Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 and Feminism and Folklore 2023, showcasing the remarkable strides made in the past half-decade. The project's goals are to boost contributions to Wikimedia projects, strengthen regional and global underrepresented Wikimedia communities around the world, and freely document and promote the world's intangible cultural heritage.

Wiki Loves Folklore is an annual international photography contest conducted in February and March. Photographers can post photographs, videos, and audio about their local folk culture to Wikimedia Commons for inclusion on Wikipedia and other websites in the photography competition. This photography contest highlights local folk culture. Feminism and Folklore, a parallel writing competition on Wikipedia, records oral traditions and biographies of women and LGBTQ personalities who work in the field of folklore.

The International team encourages local photographers and folk enthusiasts in regions without national coordinators to help countries without Wikimedia community leadership (chapters, etc.) participate. These individuals get training, guidance, and tools to start and build the project in their own Wikimedia communities. It also allows local communities to own and share their cultural heritage through Wikimedia platforms.

This allows equity-based leadership development and increases Wikimedia editors in areas with little open knowledge or influence. This ensures that Wikimedia platforms communicate varied information from different views and experiences. It also promotes Wikimedia community participation and inclusion, making it more open and accessible.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?

Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 attracted participants from over 140 countries worldwide. This year, we received over 38,000 images from over 2200 uploaders. We approached several Wikimedia chapters and affiliates about collaborating and coordinating the national edition of Wiki Loves Folklore in their respective countries and communities.

With the dedicated outreach efforts done via on-wiki and email communication and 1:1 consulting through zoom and google meet, we were able to encourage and influence 32 national editions (affiliates, nonprofits and wiki groups) from 30 countries who have joined forces to organize Wiki Loves Folklore. Apart from this, we invited communities to participate in Wiki Loves Folklore through various mailing lists and community talk pages. We have published blogs on Wikimedia Diff, Medium and internet publications, and mass media inviting users to participate in Wiki Loves Folklore. We also had the central notice, which was beautifully designed by the contest's central notice admins.

To reach a large audience, we also used paid social media campaigns and ads on Meta platforms. We contacted several media outlets and organizations and asked them to promote Wiki Loves Folklore on their websites. We also formed new alliances and maintained our relationship with Wiki Loves Falles, which encouraged participation from Spain. We also had diversity in our International Team this year, as well as new users, who brought new insights and helped us grow in our strategies. This has been an important development as it has allowed us to diversify our perspectives and approach challenges from different angles. We are excited to continue building upon this momentum and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within our team Our Project Board has provided valuable feedback and insights for the project's improvement and advancement.

3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?

  1. Retaining volunteers and onboarding new team members and board members is a difficulty for WLF. Advising, strategizing, and providing outreach and technical assistance for the project requires a lot of time and effort, which strains the standing volunteers and advisors. Since the worldwide team and project board work long hours, we wish to provide internet and childcare support.
  1. We were unable to estimate the cost of stipends and local rewards for Feminism and Folklore due to the tremendous response from participating communities. We also sought community comments late in the project, which delayed grant requests.
  2. Due to Central Notice limits, we couldn't build multiple banners for our language coordinators to target local campaign on their local project page. Even if they have a local country edition set up, users from all countries landed on the campaign's international project page..
  3. Multiple campaigns cannot be created with the Fountain tool, and the local administrator must approve its use on a Wiki. On Wikis without active admins, this delayed Fountain tool activation.
  4. The Wikimedia Culture and Heritage Team helped us contact UNESCO, but the collaboration process is complex and under process.
  5. We also had trouble signing up countries that couldn't include our initiative in their yearly financing cycle.
  6. This year's largest issue was losing communication with Hardarshan Benipal, who managed the first installment funds. Despite extensive efforts by the International Team and coordinators, he has not communicated. As a result, we had significant discrepancies in the management of project expenses. We will continue to contact Hardarshan in whatever way we can. We have a temporary project finance manager to handle spending and monitor the project. This will prevent additional inconsistencies and keep the project on schedule until we can overcome the communication concerns with Hardarshan.

4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.

We used emails to coordinate with our organisers and help them organise the contest as many of them were new. We guided new contest organisers through office hours and zoom/google meet sessions. Organisers and language coordinators had a Telegram channel for fast chats. We also have a centralised organise page with contact information for the Wiki Loves Folklore country organisers and language coordinators for Feminism and Folklore, including Wiki user names for direct interaction.

We held office hours for Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism and Folklore to educate, guide, and answer questions from organisers, language coordinators, local Wikimedians, and non-Wikimedians. These exchanges have provided feedback and ideas.

Emails and mailing lists from Wiki Loves Folklore reached the general public. Project enquiries flood our social media DMs. Google Translate and our local coordinators helped us answer multilingual questions. Medium and our website covered our blog. We wrote Medium blogs for local movement supporters. The project was promoted on various native-language social media accounts. This increased local language project awareness.

In India, we promoted and engaged the community. We presented Feminism and Folklore at Wiki Conference India Hyderabad and had an outreach stall at Indian Photo Festival held in Hyderabad led by Kashyap from IIIT and Praveen das, South Asia Regional Partnerships Manager, in collaboration with Wikimedia Foundation and Light Craft Foundation. We also met with the South Asian coordinators of Feminism and Folklore at Wiki Conference India to plan next iterations, improve the international team's process and support, and understand the language coordinators' challenges in organising their Wikipedia projects. We also networked with possible partners and board members to promote regional engagement.

Diverse images spark engagement, connect cultures, and preserve heritage.

5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.

Partnerships

Wiki Loves Folklore, an international photographic competition, has brought together affiliates and communities to provide material about their local culture. The competition has showcased the world's folklore and cultural practices and inspired photographers to document their own communities. This campaign has Wiki Loves Folklore celebrating and preserving cultural heritage. The project was organized in 30 countries via 34 Wiki communities, affiliates, and NGOs.

Media Publications Our media coverage was wide and touched many nations and areas. It also emphasizes our message's importance and influence on all individuals. The project's media coverage enhanced awareness and encouraged people to engage in the open knowledge effort. This shows the media's ability to promote social concerns and community involvement.

In Person events FNF events and workshops from Tamil, Tulu, Odia, Assamese, the Philippines, and Fante Wikipedia were held in person. The events and workshops encouraged Wikipedia contributors from disadvantaged communities and cultures. Participants discussed digital cultural heritage preservation.. We also had a WLF promotion session at the Indian Photo Fest on 19/11/2022 on the topic “Introduction to Wikimedia Commons and Understanding the CC License,” an open community talk with a video presentation about five years with Feminism and Folklore, and a South Asia Coordinators Planning Meeting at WCI 2023 on 28/04/2023.

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?

We send feedback forms to our winners, organizers, and national coordinators for Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism and Folklore after the project results are announced. This feedback, suggestions, and improvement help us understand the project's overview and lessons learned. We value our participants' and partners' perspectives and insights because they help shape the future of our projects. We can identify areas for improvement and build on the successes of previous initiatives to create even more impactful programs in the future.

The planning of the Feminism and Folklore South Asia meetup also helped us identify the challenges faced by our participants, jury and coordinators. We were able to define some priorities for the next fiscal year's edition. We have the support of folks who would be working on creating lists for regional editions using Wikimedia tools. Additionally, there was a challenge identified for sending prizes and internet support in Bangladesh due to some reasons for which we are going to work with the regional affiliate members to coordinate this better.

7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?

Our Wikidata pilot project, Wiki Loves Folklore jury, and Feminism and Folklore prize distribution would be our primary focus. We also shared testimonials and progress videos. We will also recruit more board members and ask national coordinators to organise the WLF country editions in their regions with our targeted outreach. Feminism and Folklore project toolkits. Finally, we'll start planning Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism and Folklore for next year.

Part 2: Metrics

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8a. Open and additional metrics data.

Open Metrics
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants Number of Participants in the Wiki Loves Folklore International Photographic contest and Feminism and Folklore Writing Competition 750 2200 We have received a total of 2200 uploaders during the contest. We used the Uploaders in Cat tool available on Tool Forge to view the total number of uploaders during the contest. https://ptools.toolforge.org/uploadersincat.php?category=Images+from+Wiki+Loves+Folklore+2023
Number of new participants Number of New Participants in the Wiki Loves Folklore International Photographic contest and Feminism and Folklore Writing Competition 200 641 641 Wikimedians have participated during the Feminism and Folklore 2023 contest We have collected information from Fountain and `Dashboard tools to collect information on the number of participants during Feminism and Folklore competition
Number of media uploaded to Wikimedia Commons Number of media uploaded to Wikimedia Commons during Wiki Loves Folklore International Competition. 7000 38027 We have received a total of 38,027 images uploaded during the contest. We used the Uploaders in Cat tool available on Tool Forge to view the total number of images uploaded during the contest. https://ptools.toolforge.org/uploadersincat.php?category=Images+from+Wiki+Loves+Folklore+2023
Number of articles created/improved Number of articles created/improved during the Feminism and Folklore Writing competition 1000 14122 A total of 14,122 articles have created/improved during the Feminism and Folklore 2023 contest We have collected information from Fountain and `Dashboard tools to collect information on the number of articles created/improved during Feminism and Folklore competition
Number of images illustrated Number of Images Illustrated which were uploaded during Wiki Loves Folklore International Photographic competition. 500 1199 We have received a total of 1199 file usage for the images from Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 contest We have used Glamourous Tool available on Toolforge to identify the number of Images illustrated https://glamtools.toolforge.org/glamorous/?
Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of activities developed N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of volunteer hours N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

8b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants N/A
Number of editors N/A
Number of organizers N/A
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
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 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?

Collection of data from Fountain and Dashboard could be done one by one as per language. There is no single page to display the total number of articles impacted and the number of users participated.

10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Yes

10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?

Yes we have written Wikimedia Diff and Medium blogs on showcasing our journey and the various call to action for the various underrepresented communities for the contest.
  1. https://medium.com/@openheritagefoundation/the-quest-to-close-the-gender-gap-on-wikipedia-continues-five-year-anniversary-with-feminism-ebd7a3b3185e
  2. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/06/a-journey-through-worlds-intangible-cultural-heritage-with-wiki-loves-folklore/
  3. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/10/history-in-the-making-five-years-and-counting-in-projecting-worlds-intangible-heritage-globally/

Risk Assessments

As a first time recipient of the General Support Fund, we had the opportunity to expand our support and reach to many other communities. Although this has its benefits there were some issues we faced as highlighted in the challenges above.

In an attempt to move forward with funds disbursement to our community, provide child support, internet stipends and relevant awards, we intend to judicially monitor and scrutinize our next funding by adhering to the following;

  1. First funds installment sent to Hardarshan shall be fully retrieved with the help of WMF and Teams intervention before the project cycle fully completes.
  2. Contact list on fluxx will be rectified to match the grant request
  3. The next funds instalment will be received by our Outreach coordinator Joy Agyepong into her account yet to be shared with WMF solely for the purpose of the project. She is responsible for funds disbursement and financial obligations on behalf of the group.
  4. Since we cannot afford a fiscal sponsor for this year's iteration, In our future campaign funds request we will secure a fiscal sponsor prior to our application to avoid the setbacks and mismanagement of funds from an individual going forward.
  5. The project is currently at its final completion and per our assessment it is doable, to complete should we receive the remaining funds from WMF while taking legal actions on the outstanding challenges.

11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.

  • Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
  • Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.

Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance

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12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

5941

13. Local currency type

CAD

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

  • Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
  • Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_il5GWg-oQOFPQoRjO3bKWL97A_r5FK64zhBojIlQ2U/edit#gid=0

15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?

No

15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.

N/A

16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.

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