Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia ZA annual grant 2023/24
Secondary User - Bobby Shabangu (User:Bobbyshabangu)
Other applicants Twin Mosia (User:TwinMosia) Ingrid Thomson(User:User:IngridThomson) Jan du Toit (User:Lefcentreright)
Deon Steyn (User:Oesjaar)This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the web service of Wikimedia Foundation Funds where the user has submitted their application. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.
Applicant details
editWikimedia username(s):
- Main User - Douglas Scott (User:Discott)
Secondary User - Bobby Shabangu (User:Bobbyshabangu)
Other applicants Twin Mosia (User:TwinMosia) Ingrid Thomson(User:User:IngridThomson) Jan du Toit (User:Lefcentreright) Deon Steyn (User:Oesjaar)
Organization:
- Wikimedia ZA
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?
- Yes
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- Open Society Foundation in 2014
Membership dues from chapter members
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information
editR. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- South Africa
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:
- Regional
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
- Some projects will involve community support and outreach activities in countries surrounding South Africa such as Namibia and eSwatini. This funding will also assist in maintaining the administrative capacity to continue the chapter's logistical support for Wiki Indaba (the annual pan-Africa regional Wiki conference) in addition to other Africa wide community support initiatives.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- Website: wikimedia.org.za/
Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/HwBwHWWurr Zulip server: https://wikimediaza.zulipchat.com/login/#narrow/stream/147876-Main-Chat Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaZA Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/wikimedia_za/ Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Wikimedia_ZA
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?
“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.” - Wikimedia Foundation
In a word: “Free-knowledge”
Wikimedia South Africa is a not-for-profit membership organisation that exists to actively participate in knowledge dissemination and the promotion of access for all to free knowledge. Both as in free of cost and as in free speech. The organisation also exists to promote the contribution of free knowledge by anyone to the body of free knowledge held on the internet. This includes, but is not limited to, access to the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia as well as to sister projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and many others.
The chapter's activities include supporting volunteer chapter members in activities to grow and contribute to these free knowledge projects as well as encouraging members of the public to make likewise contributions and so grow the volunteer contributing community. This involves running events that support the growth of the community of volunteers that participate in the free knowledge movement and that grow the body of free knowledge that is freely accessible to the public.
Activities are either done by the volunteer community that forms the base of our membership or are done by appointed administrative representative(s) on behalf of the organisation. The chapter members elect a board of trustees on an annual basis to direct the day-to-day activities of the organisation. These trustees are elected from the community of volunteer chapter members and perform their tasks on behalf of the organisation as unpaid volunteers in service of the free knowledge mission. The scope of Wikimedia South Africa's activities is primarily focused on activities in South Africa, secondarily focused on supporting free knowledge movement in the rest of Africa, and thirdly focused on supporting the free knowledge movement in the rest of the world.
Wikimedia South Africa is a non-partisan non-political organisation that operates within the prescripts of the South African bill of rights.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
Wikimedia South Africa seeks to support and grow both the community of Wiki volunteer editors whilst promoting the free knowledge movement. Although our focus area is South Africa primarily and Africa secondarily we support this mission globally. We want to cultivate a vibrant, inclusive, diverse and passionate Wiki community that will grow the body of free knowledge on platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, Open Street Map and Wikimedia Commons in as many different languages as possible.
We do this by hosting outreach activities that are designed to a) rise awareness of the Wikis, b) encourage new people to become a volunteer Wiki editor, c) contribute new content to the body of free knowledge, and d) build new partnerships with mission aligned organisations. The chapter also engages in support activities for the existing Wiki community in our region such as facilitating legal advice, granting access to reference material, hosting community events to grow community health, supporting the creation and growth of new language Wikipedias, representing local Wiki community members within the international Wiki community, advocating for new Wiki technologies needed by local editors, and advocating for free knowledge to create a friendlier environment for local Wikipedia editors.
These activities are all import for our mission to support the growth of the Wiki movement in our region and globally whilst also expanding the body of free knowledge that is inclusive and representative of our region. This is an important part of taking us all a step closer to achieving our movement's dream of "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
The chapter is trying to change the following:
- Grow the Wiki community within Southern Africa - it is important to grow the local Wiki community as currently there are not enough volunteer editors to adequately cover South African topics (or African topics broadly) on Wikipedia and other Wikis. Growing the local community with a focus on inclusivity is the most meaningful way to achieve this.
- Increase community health and group cohesion within the diverse South African Wiki community. Maintaining community health and cohesion in such conditions presents unique opportunities and also challenges. Different language Wiki communities have different needs and demands that the chapter must constantly adapt to and try to fulfill. The Afrikaans Wikipedia community, for example, is in a strong position for future growth with multiple different partners whilst isiXhosa Wikipedia still needs a community to be cultivated around it as there are still not enough editors to form a coherent community.
- Increase diversity within the South African Wiki community; both demographic and geographic diversity. Currently the chapter's and the broader Wiki community's demographics remain unrepresentative of South Africa as a whole. A greater focus on encouraging more female and black South Africans to participate in the movement is needed. Geographically the community remains concentrated in either Cape Town or Johannesburg which illustrates a need for broader geographical representation.
- Increase coverage of African and South African content on Wikipedia - currently African, and even South African, topics are under represented on Wikipedia and the Wikis generally. It is important that we resolve this so as to make Wikis like Wikipedia as meaningful to Africans and other emerging country readers as possible.
- Increase public awareness - currently the general public in South Africa is still relatively unaware of Wikipedia and how it works. Increasing awareness is important as it increases readership levels and helps make the country a friendlier space for free knowledge principles.
- Make South Africa a friendlier place for open/free knowledge - legislation and preconceptions that either make editing Wikipedia difficult or risk pushing the country backwards.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Wikimedia South Africa seeks to solve two overarching problem types in 2023/4 that were identified in the chapter’s 5 year plan developed in 2019. One: the relatively small size of the existing free knowledge community in South Africa. Two: how to better serve the existing free knowledge community in South Africa and grow locally relevant free content on the Wikis.
These two problems can be broken up into multiple sub-problems, each of which have their own solutions but broadly the two problems can be solved thusly. The first problem can be solved by conducting outreach activities to increase awareness of and encourage participation in the free knowledge community by members of the general public whilst also building partnerships with mission aligned organizations. The second problem can be solved by providing services to the existing open/free knowledge community, the best developed of which in South Africa is the community of Wikipedia editors that the chapter represents.
Within the first problem (the outreach challenge) the following sub-problems exist:
- Increasing community diversity
- Growing the community broadly and African language Wikipedias specifically
- Increasing public access to free knowledge
- Increasing public awareness of the open/free knowledge movement and its associated projects (Wikipedia, Commons, Open Street Maps, ect)
Within the second problem (the community support challenge) the following sub-problems exist:
- Wiki editor support to grow content on the Wikis
- Technology for African language Wikis
- Bridge between local community and the broader Wiki world.
These sub-problems are all associated with one or more of the following five challenge themes identified in the five year plan:
- Diversity: Language, Demographics, Geography
- Capacity: Specifically the chapter's capacity to effect impact (volunteers, staff(?))
- Access: Access to free knowledge for both Wiki editors and the public
- Flexibility: Ability to react quickly to impact opportunities to the dynamic nature of the opportunities that come unexpectedly.
- Awareness: Increasing awareness to support chapter impact, making people more aware about Wikipedia.
Designing and deploying projects that seek to address one or more of each of these issues is now beginning to bear fruit. It has given the chapter, its members, staff, and partners clarity on what we are trying to achieve on a project by project basis and why. Our experience over the past year has been a continued shortage managerial oversight and available Wiki expertise for specialized projects has been a serious capacity problem. The chapter has reached a point where the appointment of an involved and committed CEO with knowledge of the Wiki community’s culture, chapters strategy and local community’s confidence is needed.
It is also important to mention that we are now reaching a point where a new 5 year strategic plan will need to be developed and the impact of the current plan assessed.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
The chapter intends to run a number of projects in the 2023/24 year. Each of which tackle at least one of the 5 strategy focus (diversity, capacity, access, flexibility and awareness) outlined in the WMZA 2019 five-year strategy plan:
- Chapter meetups - Since 2020 WMZA hosts a community meetup on the last Saturday of every month to strengthen community health, due to popular demand face-to-face meetings have also restarted and are beginning to evolve into miniature open editathon events. (awareness)
- African language outreach - WMZA will be partnering with SADiLaR (South African Centre for Digital Language Resources within the South African government Department of Science and Innovation) to translate Wikipedia articles in African language Wikipedias by language professionals at all South African universities. SADiLaR has committed to securing matching funding for this programme. The Afrikaans language community continues to thrive and the chapter has committed to continue its support for the growth of this langauge Wiki whilst working to repeat this success in other African language Wikipedias. (diversity, access, awareness)
- WikiGap, Artfeninism, Whoseknoweldge, Afrocrowd, Black Lunch Table, & LGBTQ+ outreach edit-a-thons - WMZA has committed to continue our efforts to create articles that address the gender, race and sex imbalance on Wikipedia and female editors and grow the Wiki community in South Africa in partnership with these programmes. (diversity, awareness)
- GLAM digitization - the tragic destruction of the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town in a 2021 fire highlighted the need to digitise content for posterity. Making that content publicly available on Wikimedia Commons would mean it can be used freely on Wikipedia as well thereby expanding its public benefit. Both these goals seek to be met with this project. WMZA intends to continue our search for a collection to digitise with our partners at the University of Cape Town. This is an ongoing project that has yet to gain traction. (capacity, access, awareness)
- University and regional community incubation – WMZA will embark on a number of projects to encourage the formation of Wiki communities at South African universities. Universities have been identified as ideal locations to encourage a new generation of Wikipedia editors. This commitment has also been extended to supporting community growth in the neighbouring countries of Namibia and eSwatini.
- Climate change outreach and content creation - WMZA hosted the first climate change edit-a-thon with climate change scientists in 2019. We would like to continue hosting these events in the future. Increasing and enhancing reliable climate change content on Wikipedia is important to use and something we have experience in. (access, awareness)
- 1Lib1Ref - for the librarians, a project we have been running in South Africa since 2017 and would like to continue running and growing the librarian Wiki community. (awareness)
- Thematic edit-a-thons - we are often present with opportunities to do thematic events with partner organizations that were unforeseen at the start of the year. This project gives us the capacity and flexibility to do a small number of these events as they come up during the year. (capacity,flexibility)
- Wiki Loves:
- Science - science related photos for Wikipedia
- Plants - photos of plants for Wikipedia
- Parliament - photograph of MPs for Wikipedia
- Africa
- The Wiki Loves events gives the chapter a change to enhance coverage of South African topics on Wikipedia by generating photographic content to illustrate relevant articles. We have a long of experience in hosting these events since 2012. Wiki Loves Plants (formerly Fynbos) is a South Africa specific competition designed to encourage photographs of plant species for use on Wikipedia whilst building partnerships with the iNatralist and botanical communities. (access, awareness)
- Wikipedia Bookshelf - this Wiki community specific project makes it easier for Wikipedia editors to edit by providing them free access to reliable reference sources that would otherwise cost money to access. (access)
- Kaapse, Xan, & Khoe Wikipedia incubators: working with the Kaapse language community to start a Wikipedia in incubator. Involves training and coaching the community in their efforts to start their own language Wikipedia. This is an ongoing process of community building and formation.
Other events and activities the chapter will be doing in this period is assisting the Foundation with community feedback, facilitation, strategy development and advocacy. The WMZA, in partnership with the WMF, is still looking and considering the possibly becoming or assisting with the creation of a hub for Sub-Sahara Africa.
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.
- [Event name] - [Date of project initiation]
> Kaapse Wikipedia incubation - ongoing > Khoe & Xan outreach & incubation - ongoing > African Langauges Support - ongoing > School Librarians outreach - ongoing > 1Lib1Ref - ongoing > Thematic edit-a-thons - ongoing > Afrocuration - ongoing > Plants - ongoing > Local Community Meetups - ongoing > Bookshelf - ongoing > WMF general engagement - ongoing > Wiki Design Outreach - ongoing > Afrocrowd , Black Lunch Table, Whose Knowledge participation events - 1st quarter > LGBTQ+ events - 1st quarter > University Wiki Club incubation - 1st quarter > Wikimania scholarships - 1st quarter > SADiLaR African language outreach & training project with universities - 2nd quarter > Afrikaans Wikipedia birthday - 2nd quarter > Afrikaans writing competition - 2nd quarter > Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Rhino Heritage Park - 2nd quarter > Parliament - 2nd quarter > Afrikaans Schools Writing competition - 3rd quarter > WikiGap & Artfeminism edit-a-thons - 3rd quarter > University history workshops - 3rd quarter > Science - 3rd quarter > Africa - 3rd quarter > Namibia road show - 3rd quarter > eSwatini edit-a-thon - 4th quarter > Hackerton - yet to be detarmined > Climate Change editathon - yet to be detarmined > Arts on our minds - yet to be detarmined
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
The current Wikimedia South Africa team includes:
- Administrator Cape Town: Shupai Mchuchu
- Expectations: remain largely the same as outlined in the 2021 WMZA staffing plan . The expectations for this position can be summarized as communications support, chapter membership tracking, community support project implementation, keeping track of chapter projects for monitoring and evaluation, assisting with report writing, and dealing with chapter bureaucracy. Although the Cape Town administrator can speak a number of African languages she is unable to speak Afrikaans which has created a capacity gap when serving that community that WMZA has sought to fill with the Pretoria Administrator position.
- Administrator Pretoria: Afrikaans Academy agreement
At the request of chapter board members WMZA has experimented with an administrative agreement with the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (here after known as the Afrikaans Academy) in Pretoria. In return for a modest remuneration of R5000 a month the Academy has lent one of their administrative staff for one day a week to assist in chapter administration in the Pretoria/Johannesburg area and with Afrikaans language projects. This has so far seemed successful but the search for a more dedicated administrator with Afrikaans language skills continues.
- Monitoring & specialized projects:
- Expectations: experience over the past year has proven to the chapter of the need for an experienced chapter member and Wiki community leader to provide both training and managerial oversight of the administrator. The addition of a remuneration line item has invigorated chapter members to fully participate in movement activities and feedback sessions.
- People and time slots to be fill will be selected by the chapter board.
Currently the chapter wishes to fill the following position once funding is secured:
- Management
Although great progress has been made in develop partnerships and implementing projects it has become clear that the chapter has grown to a point where a CEO with a strong understanding of the movement’s culture, confidence of the chapter’s members and a proven ability to navigate the complex needs and competing demands of our diverse community, needs to be appointed. Such a candidate would ideally come from the WMZA board.
In addition to paid staff the chapter has a strong group of volunteer chapter members who are directly involved in the implementation of a number of projects that they have volunteered to implement. This has allowed the chapter to get a great deal of “value for money” when implementing projects and delivering on impact.
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.
Geography, Language, Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
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.
All of our projects are focused on addressing the content gap. Specifically the Africa content gap. Both for content on established language Wikipedias such as English, where we exist to encourage the creation of African content, and the creation of content generally on African language Wikipedias. African language Wikipedias in particular are in need of community cultivation to create a body of volunteer Wikipedia editors. In summary, our language support projects seek to address the gap with African language Wikipedias. Our diversity specific projects seek to address the ethnic and racial knowledge gap on English language Wikipedia. All of our projects seek to address the geographic gab between Africa and the rest of the world as well as addressing the geographic gap between the better represented metropols of Cape Town and Johannesburg and the rest of South Africa.
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.
Education, Advocacy, 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.
Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Linguistic / Language
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
The chapter has two strategies for engaging participants that are currently not members of the Wikimedia community. A program specific strategy that seeks to introduce participants to editing Wikipedia and thereby join the editing community through direct training and/or community involvement. The second is a general awareness campaign to increase the public's awareness of Wikipedia, how it works, and how to get involved.
The general awareness campaign relies on community members making public appearances as often as possible in the media and publishing opinion pieces in the media.
The program specific strategy is made up of the following programs. The Internship program which seeks to cultivate a strong connection with the movement and our free knowledge principles with its project participants and address the age gap as the young are an underrepresented group.
The diversity projects (such as WikiGap, Afrocrowd, LGBTQ+ outreach, ect) seek to engage a more diverse group of participants with the intention of growing the local Wiki community in a more diverse way and thereby address the diversity gap. This is an effort to address the racial, gender and sexual orientation gap within the local community.
1Lib1Ref and library outreach projects seek to engage librarians and introduce them to editing Wikipedia.
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?
ikimedia South Africa has signed up and committed to both the WMF's Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code Of Conduct. In a country and a chapter with as diverse a membership base as South Africa it is very important to have a community culture that encourages a welcoming friendly space for all. The UCOC is import for helping active this as is the principle of assuming good faith. These principles create an important social structure for our chapter culture to develop. This is reflected in the range of projects we are implementing, our commitment to increasing diversity, whilst also welcoming and encouraging the existing community. We recognize that more work always needs to be done which is why we encourage dialogue and listening to as many different pro-social voices as possible to help give us the perspective necessary to make our space more welcoming.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
Yes
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
As the main representative Wikimedia organisation for the southern Africa region and the representative Wikimedia organisation for South Africa we have extensive connections with other Wikimedia communities around the world. The chapter also engages in a number of activities to support the growth of Wikimedia communities in Africa the most notable activity being the annual hosting of Wiki Indaba (the Africa region focused Wiki conference event). We are also involved in assisting the global Wiki community's free knowledge advocacy efforts, most notably in the area of copyright reform. These are in addition to the multiple smaller Wiki projects we co-host with other Wikimedia communities, thematic groups and chapters around the world.
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.
A significant project we will be hosting is a language support and outreach project with a partner organisation SADiLaR that will target as many South African universities as possible. The aim of the project is to work with South African language experts to translate Wikipedia pages into as many of South Africa's nine official language versions of Wikipedia as possible.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
Most chapter activities are continuous so we will be applying again in 2024/25 thereby allowing us to continue many of these projects. The chapter's most successful projects are ones that have been worked on for a number of years before they reach a launch period of success. Good examples of this are the copyright advocacy, WikiIndaba, Afrikaans Wikipedia growth and support projects. We would like to repeat these successes with other African language Wikipedias, university and science outreach projects.
Once the chapter is more familiar with the process and prepared we would like to apply a multi-year project grant to better plan for long running projects. Ideally in the 2024/5 to 2027/28 three year period. Additional projects are intended to be continued by volunteers and/or spin off other projects to stakeholders.
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.
- Risks that Wikimedia South Africa anticipates for the duration of this grant period includes:
# Inflation fluctuations # Cross boarder payment issues # Lack of partner ability to deliver on project commitments # Internship oversight # The breakdown of chapter and local community cohesion # Communication breakdown
The following mitigations measures have been proposed and considered:
# The risk of inflation has been mitigated by adjusting the budget to take this into account. # During WikiIndaba 2022 the issue of timely cross border payments was reviled as a serious risk for the chapter when supporting activities based in Africa outside of South Africa. Funds take a considerable length of time to move across boarders in Africa and require significant effort. The chapter has mitigated this risk by implementing a payment policy that requires a bank letter from the recipient party to ensure banking details are correct and requiring that the payment process begins at least two months before the start date of the event. # The chapter pursues two strategies to mitigate the problem of partner reliability. The first is to plan well in advance of the event to ensure the partner is adequately briefed and all commitments are clear and secured before events are announced. The second is to try and line up a number of different partners, in an open and transparent way, for each project so that there are backup options should a partner not be able to deliver. # To mitigate declining interest levels by partners and community members in projects we have ensured that the relevant parties have made strong commitments well before project initiation and are regularly communicated with on the project. # South Africa is a very diverse country with each community having its own unique needs and perspectives. Managing this diversity is a core component of the chapter's culture. A culture of listening, communication, and encouraging assumptions of good will whilst also balancing chapter commitments between communities has proven to be an effective cultural solution to this challenge. That chapter has also adopted and takes seriously the friendly space policy and UCOC whilst also encouraging frank, but friendly, conversations. # Closer and more structured management of interns with clear time related deliverables based on personal accountability is a key risk mitigation strategy. The chapter will also vet all media related content being handled by interns before they are made. # Preventing a breakdown in communication is critical as it can result in project failure, or worse, a domino breakdown in community cohesion. Constant and regular empathetic communication between role players is necessary to mitigate this risk.
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, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
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.
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation
edit19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
The chapter intends to learn the following. How to better serve, support and grow the Wiki movement, how to better run the chapter, how to more effectively work with other Wiki communities, and how to grow the open knowledge/source/data/information movements broadly in South Africa and abroad.
We hope to learn how to better grow the free knowledge movement, in particular Wiki communities, in the Southern Africa region. This includes growing our chapter membership, increasing the size and diversity of the volunteer free knowledge community, and increasing public awareness of our movement. Our experience will give the broader movement and the Wikimedia Foundation better insight into how to grow our community in diverse emerging communities globally and in Africa in particular. We also hope to learn how to better support the existing free knowledge community in our region. This includes but is not limited to understanding the needs of the local community better and how to better serve those needs.
The chapter hopes to learn how to better run the chapter by developing, testing, and monitoring internal systems that serve the basic functions of the chapter. Such as the impact that moving to a monthly payment meeting with the treasury committee and the bookkeepers has on the chapters ability to pay bills in a timely fashion whilst maintaining or enhancing good transparent and accountable financial practices and what learnings we could share from this new process with other chapters. Another learning would be how to better manage, train and utilize interns dispersed across the three major metropolitan centers of a large country like South Africa whilst ensuring that our diverse community feels these resources are being shared fairly.
Working with other Wiki communities more deeply and more frequently is also an important learning for us. The isolation that the COVID-19 pandemic brought taught us the importance and value of being able to effectively and frequently communicate and work with Wiki communities in the rest of the world. Without the binding and coordinating influence of Wikimania it has been a snuggle to find and develop new methods of achieving this inter-Wiki Community coordination.
We would also like to learn, and share these learning with the global community, on how to better support the broader open movement outside of the open/free knowledge Wiki movement. Such as the open software movement, open data, open copyright, open science, open publishing, open government and open information movements. Openness is a central pillar of our global movement and although we are focused on knowledge we will thrive when we support our mission aligned sister open moments as well.
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 Participants | The number of individuals who attend or benefit from our project activities, either in person (offline) or virtually (online). This will be measured by the dashboard. | 200 |
| Number of new chapter members | Number of new members to the Wikimedia South Africa chapter. | 40 |
| Number of new Wikipedia articles | The number of new Wikipedia articles created in any of South Africa's 11 official language Wikipedias. | 3500 |
| Wikimedia Commons uploads | The number of content items (photographs, videos, etc) uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Most of this content is likely to come from the Wiki Loves events. | 4000 |
| Number of new Wikipedia editors | The number of new editors to Wikipedia with a specific focus on new Wikipedia editors on African language Wikipedias. | 10 |
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 | The number of WMZA members who continue to stay involved in chapter projects and events. | 9 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Success of the SADiLaR partnership to grow African language Wikipedias
Build partnerships with science and technology organisations to improve articles on Wikipedia |
2 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | This is a controversial metric that will require introspection and debate within the WMZA chapter to agree on what an appropriate measurement looks like. At the moment there is agreement that the chapter needs a better gender balance as well as racial representation. There is also agreement that at least two board members need to be Afrikaans language Wikipedia editors to give better representation to that Wiki community. More young (below the age of 30) board and chapter members are also needed to increase the chapter's diversity. | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | Number of activities developed by the chapter. | 5 |
| Number of volunteer hours | Number of volunteer hours donated to the chapter by community members for chapter activities. | 5000 |
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 | N/A | N/A |
| Number of editors | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers | Ten (10) organisers are involved to some degree or another in the projects WMZA intends to implement in the 2023/4 FY. These organisers are all either chapter board members, chapter volunteers, or chapter administrators. WMZA defines an organiser as an individual that is directly responsible for the successful implementation of a project. Each project has an assigned organiser. These organisers are:
The Administrator Jan du Toit Coenraad Loubser Michael Graaf Khetiwe Marais Twin Mosia Bobby Shabangu Douglas Scott Deon Steyn Ingrid Thomson |
10 |
| Wikimedia Project | 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 |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
Programs & Events Dashboard Wiki Loves Competitions Tools Event Metrics The chapter administrator will also compile and maintain a spreadsheet of activities, volunteer time, and partner feedback. Informal conversations will be had with partners to qualitatively gauge their feedback.
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.
- 3461407 ZAR
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 188119.94 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
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):
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We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
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