Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Loves Monuments 2022-23 International Coordination and Prizes/Midpoint Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Midterm
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General information edit
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 Monuments International Organizing Team
- Title of Proposal: Wiki Loves Monuments 2022-23 International Coordination and Prizes
- Amount awarded: 66723.2 USD, 61500 EUR
- Amount spent: 8299 EUR
Part 1 Understanding your work edit
1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?
- Wiki Loves Monuments is the largest photography competition in the world, traditionally taking place in September and since Covid also in October of the year. The mission of the international team is to freely document and raise awareness of built cultural heritage, increase contributions to the Wikimedia projects and bolster local Wikimedia communities around the world. We do this by leading and facilitating an annual federated, global, low-barrier photo competition.
The competition is organized in a federative manner, and the WLM-international team supports the national teams in their preparations and the competition itself in the first half of the grant year (Jul-Dec), while in the second half of the grant year takes care of the international jury process and finally the international prize distribution. This annual planning and cycle has not changed during the first half year of this grant, and we expect it to stay the same for the second half of the grant year as well.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- The team was able to support organizers in the national competitions, which concluded in December. We recorded a “How to get started with WLM” presentation for Wikimania, and organized an office hour in the preparation period. We created and coordinated again the CentralNotice banners, Commons upload campaigns, and we supported two national teams with a micro-grant (out of three requests), a resource where national teams without own funds can request reimbursement with us for small expenses. We also actively assisted the national teams with problems that arose during the competition period.
- Due to personal circumstances of the two more technically specialized volunteers in our team, we have not been able to do much on tool development and technical infrastructure yet, except for urgent troubleshooting.
- Finalizing the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion research report took longer than was expected. The final report was published, along with paid translations in 10 languages, in October 2022. The next steps on the outcomes and recommendations of the report are still to be discussed within the team, because of the prioritization of the ongoing competition above all other tasks.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/DEI_research_2022/Final_report
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- A returning challenge for the WLM international team is retaining the current volunteers, as well as onboarding new team members. From the ones mentioned in the 2022-2023 Grant request, only two out of five from the core team were actively involved in the past half year, and three of the five advisors helped out on a trouble-shooting case-by-case basis. We were lucky enough to find two new volunteers, but unboarding during the active months of the competition was challenging for them, and also stretching the limits of the standing volunteers and advisors.
More externally, we see the Russian-Ukrainian war affecting our competition. Wiki Loves Monuments focuses on documenting built heritage online, and it is understandable that people want to speak out against outsiders bent on destroying what we as organizers hold dear. Some of the national teams have requested the international team to disqualify the top 10 finalists from Russia, as a gesture of support to the Ukrainian community. WLM Ukraine themselves has decided not to send in their top 10 because of the conflict, because of reservations against seeing images from Ukraine and Russia presented side by side in the galleries of nominated or winning pictures. While the international team realizes that we are part of an international movement that can be a strong voice in this, we want to be mindful of the emotions and struggles of all parties involved, and careful to set a precedent for other territories around the world where there is war or conflict. The challenge for the international team lies in how to deal with this kind of situation that has not arisen before in our competition, which is not easy to resolve, and which opens the way for protocols or rules to be established in the future to manage this type of situation (participating countries involved in conflicts, etc.).
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- WLM-i has a mailing list for national organizers, and in addition to that we also this year created a Telegram Group for quick troubleshooting requests. All organizing teams from the respective countries need to sign up on a dedicated page on Commons (where the contact information for the international team is also listed) to allow us to coordinate the banners and upload campaigns on a national level. As we want to guarantee a certain level of quality for all the world-wide participants in the competition, we do checks for availability of all the relevant information for WLM participants before the national campaigns from the teams go live.
National organizers therefore have our contact details: always the usernames, sometimes email addresses, often Telegram handles. We also host Office Hours, though not as regularly as we would like due to volunteer capacity limitations. We participated in Wikimania 2022 with a “How to get started with Wiki Loves Monuments” step-by-step (pre-recorded) presentation, and a live discussion panel on the outcomes of our recent Diversity, Equity and Inclusion research.
Moreover we also have our blog where we publish general information about the competition, and provide a space there for guest blogs. We sometimes use Diff to communicate on news we think would be interesting for the larger movement. We as the international team are active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and people will reach out in dm’s there as well. And last but not least, one of the team members was invited to join the MENA region at the WikiArabia conference 2022. We had one presentation, but also a lot of conversations and networking to possibly increase the participation from the region.
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- The WLM philosophy says that participating in the photo competition should be easy, fun, local and with quick and visible results. Our technical infrastructure works from lists with recognized built heritage (monuments), and from a participant's perspective it makes the most sense to choose the country the photograph was taken in, and maybe an added layer of deeper geographical distinction.
These technical decisions create an interesting challenge for some organizing teams as the technical model of the WLM competition complicates the participation of sub-national groups. We strive for collaboration between these sub-national teams to keep things as easy as possible for all of the photographers worldwide that join in the competition. We try to connect and guide the national organizers in doing so, and will suggest things such as awarding a special prize within the national competition if they want to highlight a specific thematic or geographical focus. The cross-affiliate relationships within a certain region will strengthen bonds and improve the knowledge exchange for affiliates, while at the same time still respecting the backbone of WLM, the philosophy where it all started from.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Philosophy
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- For our learning, we traditionally use the outcomes of the participants survey that has been communicated to all 3687 participants only recently, and the organizers survey that we hope to be sending out soon to the 38 national teams that joined in the competition in 2022.
After the analysis of the outcome of the surveys, the results will be combined in our learning from this years Wiki Loves Monuments.
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- In Q1 the international team will be focussing on the international jury process and communications of the international winners of WLM 2022. In Q2 we hope to have an in-person meeting, to work on a multiple year strategy, connect with and onboard new volunteers for the core team, and start preparations for WLM 2023 that will be starting shortly after Wikimania, in September again.
Part 2: Metrics edit
8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of countries participating | As the international team, it is hard to measure participants. We can however measure the number of countries that take part in WLM. | 40 | 38 | The target of 40 participating teams was almost reached. | [1] |
| # of countries that did not participate in the three years before | Not every country participates every year, but we love to see them return later! Hopefully the improved and updated documentation will help, as well as the availability in more languages. | 5 | 5 | Not all interested and invited affiliates or groups had the resources to do so. Nevertheless some countries re-entered the campaign after a pause and new ones joined in. | [3] |
| % of participants in our evaluation surveys | The idea is to follow-up with participants, especially those who joined Wikimedia through the competition, at regular intervals after the competition is over. This includes a simple message (with help of translations done by the national teams) on talk pages of the participants on what they can possibly do after the competition is over. The goal is to improve retention.
We will be conducting a data analysis to understand the retention of editors after 3, 6, and 12 months after the competition is over. We will average this for last three years and compare it with 2022's. That will help us to understand the impact of follow-up intervention. (the # below is a percentage of the total # of participants in the competition) |
40 | N/A | [not finalized yet] | surveys |
| Net Promoter Score | Net Promoter Score is one of the metrics that we use to calculate satisfaction rate. According to the 2019’s organizers’ survey (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2019_Organizer_Survey_Report.pdf, page 29), the net promoter score for support received from the international team is -7 (the score is calculated as [promoter% - detractor%] * 100). Generally a score of 50 or above is considered good. For this iteration, our target would be to shift from a negative score to a positive score around 20-25. | 20 | N/A | [not finalized yet] | Net Promoter Score |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 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 | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | |||||
| Number of editors | |||||
| Number of organizers |
| 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?
- No, not yet.
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?
- Blogposts on our website: https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/
DEI-research report: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/DEI_research_2022/Final_report Diff blog post on the DEI report: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/11/10/inclusive-storytelling-through-photographs-role-of-wiki-loves-monuments/ WLM presentation at WikiArabia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_WikiArabia_Wiki_Loves_Monuments.pdf Wikimania presentation on how to get started: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Getting-started-with-organising-Wiki-Loves-Monuments-Wikimania-2022.webm
(and more smaller instances, as for instance at our Office Hours, 1:1 conversations in person at the Berlin Summit or online via Telegram or email)
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.
- Blogposts on our website: https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/
DEI-research report: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/DEI_research_2022/Final_report Diff blog post on the DEI report: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/11/10/inclusive-storytelling-through-photographs-role-of-wiki-loves-monuments/ WLM presentation at WikiArabia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_WikiArabia_Wiki_Loves_Monuments.pdf Wikimania presentation on how to get started: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Getting-started-with-organising-Wiki-Loves-Monuments-Wikimania-2022.webm WLM 2022 stats: https://wikiloves.toolforge.org/monuments/2022
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance edit
12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 8299
13. Local currency type
- EUR
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.
15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?
- Yes
15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.
- We would like to reallocate some extra funds to the travel budget, to have a team member and one of our devs attend the Wikimedia Hacktathon in Athens. There we hope to find a (paid) front-end dev for the planned Montage tool update, and strengthen the collaboration between the technical volunteers, Wikidatans and the WLM competition in general.
16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.
- It's okay. I try not to double up on my responses in this report, but also do not want to be incomplete in answering the individual question. So sorry for repeating some of the links included.
I realize the updated time path for grants makes sense from a WMF fiscal year/grant comm volunteers side, but please be aware that for me and the team this deadline for mid-term learning and the request for the new grant for next year are only 5 weeks apart: this on is due on Jan 31st & the new request on March 2nd. :(