Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Thailand 2023
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Applicant details
editWikimedia username(s):
- Athikhun.suw
Organization:
- Wikimedia Thailand
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did receive a grant
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information
editR. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Thailand
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Local
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Proposal
edit1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
Wimedia Thailand is a recognized Wikimedia chapter in Thailand. We have organized a number of outreach activities to promote the creation and access to free knowledge in collaboration with both local and international partners. It was founded in 2008 as a user group and approved as a Wikimedia chapter in 2019. Our aims are to support creation, development and maintenance of Thai Wikimedia projects, to conduct supportive roles in aforementioned activities, as well as to promote public knowledge. We are incorporating our Chapter as a non-profit organization according to Thai law.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
There are three main challenges that the Wikimedia community in Thailand are facing including content diversity, editor recruitment, public recognition, and the lack of technical contribution.
One issue faced by the Thai community is content diversity, which stems from gender and age bias. In a 2018 survey, it was reported that 90% of users reported their gender as male, 8.8% as female, and 1% as other. It is well known that most contributors on the Thai Wikipedia are male high school students. As a result, the content is heavily biased based on the interests of this specific group of people. In 2022, we organized several events such as WikiGap and Wiki4HumanRights. The results of these events were satisfactory. Therefore, such campaigns will be renewed in 2023 in order to narrow down the gender gap and increase the diversity of the content. We might be able to host activities for various groups of individuals to diversify the contributors to reduce such systematic bias.
Recruitment of new users is among the top priorities of most Wikimedia communities including the Thai community due to the low retention rate of new users. It was previously found that as of 2010 that the proportion of surviving new editors was approximately 0.1, meaning that only one out of ten new editors continued to contribute after a period of time. On the Thai Wikipedia, there are only 1,059 editors out of 413,637 registered users (2.5%) that are still active. Over these years, we have utilized Wiki Loves campaigns and Wiki Asian Month as initiatives to recruit more people to edit Wikipedia. These campaigns will be continued in 2023, although adjustments are expected to be made to make the campaigns more effective and viable in the long term.
Another issue of the Thai Wikimedia Community is the lack of visibility among the general public. Although we have established many partnerships with third party organizations including DTAC, Swedish Embassy, UNESCO and Siam Society, we still notice that the general public are not aware of Wikimedia Thailand. In 2023, one of our key members is the core organizing team of Wikimania Singapore. Travel scholarships will be provided for people from the Thai community. We expect that around 75% of the awardees will receive full scholarship and 25% will be awarded partial scholarships. Prospective scholarship recipients include winners of Wiki Loves campaigns and outstanding contributors of the Thai Wikipedia. Rules will be announced in advance.
Technical campaigns have never been a focus in our community. We believe that increased technical engagement to construct features will help reduce the barrier for new and existing users to contribute to Wikimedia Thailand. This involves providing documentation, instructions, templates, and sample code and applications that users can easily refer to. We look forward to implementing technical campaigns similar to edit-a-thons that focus on installing and updating existing features as well as designing new features inspired by Thai culture.
We would also like to a
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
To tackle the aforementioned issues, various activities will be organized. Our proposed activities are divided into four areas including content campaigns, media campaigns, face-to-face events and technical campaigns. Timeline of these events is available in our event calendar (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar). Content campaign events will be launched to bridge the gender and age gap similar to what was done in 2022. These events include Wiki4Women and WikiGap. They will be hosted in collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok and DTAC. In addition, other content campaigns such as 1Lib1Ref and other GLAMs outreach events will be explored. Another group of activities is media campaigns. Because our Wiki Loves campaigns including Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monument have been quite successful since we first started them in 2014, we will continue to host these competitions in order to keep the existing participants engaged as well as getting new participations. In addition, this competition would be a good chance to establish collaborations with external organizations. Although the results of this year (2022) did not quite meet our previously set targets, there will be new strategies employed to make sure that expected outcomes are achieved. Several face-to-face meetings will take place in 2023 to promote our visibility and engagement with members and third party organizations. Physical meet-ups and edit-a-thon will be hosted more regularly since COVID-19 restrictions are no longer in place. Meetings with existing partners and prospective partners will also take place to discuss the continuity of our collaboration and plan future projects. In addition, an annual meeting is obligatory by law once the Chapter is formally incorporated. This annual meeting would allow us to set up a multi-year strategy, revision of bylaws and election of board members for the fiscal period. Another important face-to-face meeting is Wikimania Singapore. Members of Wikimedia Thailand, in collaboration with other affiliates in the ESEAP region, will co-host Wikimania 2023 which will take place in July or August 2023 in Singapore. We hope that this event will help us gain more visibility from the general public, leading to more potential contributors and partners. We will introduce two technical campaigns in 2023. An edit-a-thon will be hosted in January 2023 where the focus will be on inserting additional features, updating the documentation, and creating templates. A “to-do” list will be provided at the start of the event as a guide. The second campaign is scheduled for July 2023 where participants can propose ideas for new and unique features to the Thai Wikipedia. This may be held as a competition where an infographic of the design will be listed in a gallery and garner votes within a time frame. After voting is concluded, popular designs will be implemented and infographics will be appended to the documentation.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
More information and timeline of the activities can be found in our 2023 calendar:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
No
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- N/A
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
- Please refer to our 2023 calendar:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
Athikhun Suwannakhan Username: Athikhun.suw Role: Leader Description: Athikhun has led WMTH since 2017 and has organized many Wikimedia-related events in Thailand including Wiki Loves campaign, education program, content evaluation, and outreach. He represented WMTH at various Wikimedia events including Wikimedia Conferences 2017-2019, ESEAP Conference 2018 Wikimanias 2018-2019. He was the member of the core organizing team (COT) for Wikimedia Strategy Summit 2019, Wikimania 2020 and also a COT member of Wikimania 2023. He currently works as a full-time university lecturer. Taweetham Limpanuparb Username: taweetham Role: Senior advisor Description: Taweetham led WMTH since its inception in 2014 as a user group. He represented WMTH at many Wikimedia events including Wikimedia Conferences (2015-2016) and Wikimanias (2014, 2015). He has stepped down from a leadership role since 2017 and his primary role is now technical and legal advisor. His main responsibilities include the incorporation of Wikimedia Thailand and technical campaigns on the Thai Wikipedia. As a university professor, he introduced Wikipedia writing assignments into some of his classes.
Prangmilint Montriwat Username: 2ndoct Role: Administrative advisor Description: Prangmilint has been a key member of WMTH since 2016. She has contributed significantly in terms of outreach and partnerships. She was one in the organizing team of Wiki4Women in 2019 and Wikimedia Strategy Salon in 2019. She also represented our group at the ESEAP Conference in Bali. Her major task in 2023 is the incorporation of Wikimedia Thailand as a foundation.
Tanapat Sathapornsermsuk Username: tanapatjms Role: Volunteer program coordinator Description: Tanapat has joined WMTH since 2021, as public relations manager. In 2022, he had a role to communicate among the organizers and host WikiGap: Girls in Digital World. He was a representative for Wikimedia Thailand in Wikimedia Summit 2022 in Berlin as well.
Ganchai Siriwatcharapaibool Username: Karto01 Role: Competition coordinator Description: Ganchai is the latest member of WMTH. He started helping with Wiki Loves campaigns in 2022. He also helped other members co-hosting the WikiGap and other events that took place both online and offline in 2022.
Jaturawit Rodcheewan Username: B20180 Role: Affiliate liaison/social media manager (planned hired staff) Description: Jaturawit has served as an administrator on the Thai Wikipedia for more than a decade now. WMTH had a plan to hire Jaturawit in 2022 as an affiliate liaison and social media manager. The rationale of this position could be found in our previous grant application. But his contract can only start after Wikimedia Thailand is formally incorporated. Jaturawit is well recognized and well respected in the Thai Wikipedia community. Because of his long standing contributions, he has received scholarships to attend Wikimanias 2016, 2018 and 2019, and also ESEAP Conference 2018 and 2022.
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Age (regency) , Sexual Orientation
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
Content produced by the Thai Wikimedia community is affected by systemic bias which plausibly stems from the lack of diversity among the editors as most Thai contributors are teenage males. As a result, the content is heavily biased towards the interests of these contributors. Our proposal aims to reduce this content gap by diversifying the people involved including people from different expertises, age groups and genders.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Culture, heritage or GLAM , Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
Incentives are provided for participants outside the Wikimedia movement. These incentives include merchandise such as t-shirts, trophies, certificates etc. To increase the value of certificates, they will be officially issued by our partners too. From our experience, certificates issued by the Swedish Embassy and UNESCO Bangkok are of interest for participants which are particularly beneficial for recipients to improve their CV or portfolio. In 2023, we will provide scholarships to attend Wikimania 2023. Prospective scholarship recipients include winners of Wiki Loves campaigns and outstanding contributors of our events.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
At the beginning of each event, participants will be informed of the Friendly Space Policy. We will state that anyone violating this policy will be removed from the event and will be restrained from joining our future events. Participants will also be introduced to the concept of assumption of good faith, meaning that in spite of the differences, everybody is embodied with good intention for the community and should not be misjudged.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
No
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
We will work closely in collaboration with other organizations to deliver this proposal including Mahidol University, UNESCO Bangkok and Swedish Embassy Bangkok. Expertise, resources and human resources are needed from these organization to ensure the effective execution of our activities.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
There are several third party organizations that we have partnered with including DTAC, Swedish Embassy Bangkok, Siam Society and UNESCO Bangkok, Mahidol University, The Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology, National Science and Technology Development Agency. These organizations provide us with expertise needed, help us advertise activities and expand our reach. Some partners also provided merchandise and souvenirs.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- We will ensure there is effective follow up for each activity. The results of our activities will be communicated to other affiliates through regional meetings and the affiliate network including ESEAP Hub. We also have to make sure that there is no conflict of interest, especially when partnering with business-minded organizations. We have to make sure that their goals do align with our Movement and values. We acknowledge that leadership change can be problematic when dealing with an organization that has rapid turnover. In that case, we have to maintain constant communication with both the outgoing team and the new team.
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- No
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation
edit19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
- Will our campaigns help increase content diversity?
- Will Wiki Loves campaigns reach a saturated point some day? Any replacement in the future?
- What are the factors that prevent new editors to become long term editors?
- Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation? Which one works better?
- Will Wikimania 2023 increase the visibility of Wikimedia movement in Thailand and the ESEAP region?
- How do we increase sustainability and robustness of Wikimedia Thailand as a Chapter?
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of partners | Number of partners in 2023 including new partners and renewed partners. | 5 |
| Number of reports | Number of reports written by Wikimania 2023 scholarship recipients | 10 |
| N/A | Percentage of participants satisfied with each activity | 80 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | There are five main organizers in WMTH. We expect all of them to continue to participate after activities. | 5 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | We expect at least three long-term partnerships that contribute to sustainable growth of WMTH. | 3 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | Number of event reach on Facebook = 3,000. This is based on this year's number at ~2,500. This number was obtained from Wikimedia Thailand Facebook account information. | 3000 |
| Number of activities developed | There are 11 activities to be hosted in 2023 according to our calendar. | 11 |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Number of people participating in Wiki Loves campaigns, editing contests and edit-a-thons. The number is obtained from manual counting, Wiki Loves tools and Programs and Events Dashboard. | 100 |
| Number of editors | Numbers of editors participating in our events, edit-a-thons, meet-ups and etc. The number is obtained from manual counting, Wiki Loves tools and Programs and Events Dashboard. | 50 |
| Number of organizers | Number of people who participate as jury members, organizers and volunteers. | 15 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons | Number of uploads to Wikimedia Commons as part of Wiki Loves campaigns. Measured by determining number of items in selected categories. | 3000 |
| Wikipedia | Number of articles created | 120 |
| Wikipedia | Numbers of articles edited | 300 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
A more balance gender ratio of participants and editors.
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
Gender ratio will be evaluated manually by asking participants to specify their gender, unless they prefer not to do so.
Financial Proposal
edit23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 1459000 THB
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 41997.7 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R8E0GZKq4LKqTQoyiPcpHjE-Ag_104vWlmlcZKURHco/edit?usp=sharing
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message
editBy submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback
edit- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.