Grants:Project/Performing Arts Aotearoa - Wiki Project

This project is funded by a Project Grant

statusselected

Performing Arts Aotearoa - WikiProject

summaryIncrease content of Aotearoa New Zealand performing arts on Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. Focusing on designers, directors and arts managers.

targetEnglish Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons

type of grantoffline programs and events

amount$10,475.00 NZD

type of applicantindividual

grantee• Pakoire

contact• maule.lisa@gmail.com

affiliateWM NZL

volunteer• Jonathanischoice• Giantflightlessbirds• Fjjulien• DrThneed• Hjbanks89• Ambrosia10

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created on03:40, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Performing arts is defined as theatre, dance, cabaret, and music performances, including opera, and other cultural forms. The problem encountered when contributing to content on performing arts in Aotearoa New Zealand on the Wikimedia platforms is that many organisations, events and notable people are missing or have very little information. This creates barriers for editing as there is little for new editors to link to, and there is also very little existing content as exemplars. As examples:

the central government arts organisation Creative New Zealand identifies 14 arts festivals in New Zealand and the 'Arts festivals in New Zealand' Wikipedia category lists only two articles on arts festivals.
the New Zealand on-line encyclopaedia Te Ara names 21 companies in a section on 'Theatre companies since the 1970s'. The Wikipedia category 'Theatre Companies in New Zealand' has a total of 26 pages (as at time of writing this), that includes just six of the theatre from the Te Ara 'Theatre companies since the 1970s' section. Three of these articles are start class.
on Wikipedia there is no 'Dance in New Zealand' article (it redirects to 'Haka'), no 'Theatre in New Zealand' article (it redirects to 'New Zealand literature') an overview of opera is two sentences in the article 'Music of New Zealand' and musical theatre has a single sentence in this article about the The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons are equally sparse.

New Zealand has a rich history of performing arts. Wikidata could form an excellent backbone of information. The Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Performing_arts) outlines some of the problems encountered in general in this subject area that also apply to this project.

Because the problem is scarcity of content and lack of precedent to enable achievable goals this project is choosing a narrower focus within performing arts - directors, designers and arts managers. This is also reflected in very specific metrics.

What is your solution?

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Gathering resources and coordinating volunteer editors to create more content on Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons about performing arts in Aotearoa. This will include identifying significant gaps in existing information. It will also involve establishing good practice with existing editors of properties to include in performing arts entries on Wikidata.

To narrow the focus the content will be focused on biographies of designers, directors and arts managers and related performing arts institutions, companies, events, awards and productions that are needed to create properties for the people.

The goals are to:

establish a project with identified priorities and areas
improve editing knowledge in this subject area with existing editors
gather and collate available resources including data within organisations and institutions
educate about commons license within the sector
generate content across Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia through galvanising and activiating the existing editing community
improve existing Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items

The main method is to activate the existing Wikipedia editor community especially in Aotearoa in a well managed project including three in-house edit-a-thons. The first step will be gathering resources and collating them to enable the creation of worklists, and then new wikidata items.

This is worth pursuing because Wikipedia is a good platform for accessible information and a central depositary when there is little resource in Aotearoa for any coordination of information about performing arts in Aotearoa. Organisations in New Zealand are willing to provide resources for content but need time investment to follow through. This includes education about the purpose and value of the Wikimedia Foundations platforms. Playmarket have been involved in past events and will host one of the edit-a-thons. Other organisations approached whilst drafting this application include the New Zealand Festival, Creative New Zealand, Auckland Arts Festival, Auckland Theatre Company and the Dunedin Fringe Festival.

Project goals

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Increase quality content about performing arts in Aotearoa in Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
Increase quality content about women and people of colour including indigenous peoples in Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons (this will manifest in the lists generated as the project outline is created and also in the metrics, 'what gets measured gets done')
Contribute to Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts and related projects on Wikidata and Wikipedia
Contribute to Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand

The main benefit is access to open information in the area of performing arts.

This proposal aligns with the Wikimedia Foundation strategic direction across both goals.

Knowledge as service - the project will advocate Wikimedia Foundation open source platforms as being a valued depository of data in the currently under-represented areas - performing arts and with Māori and Pacific island communities. This will develop infrastructure in the way the project is organised and the way data is modelled.

Knowledge as equity is present through the metrics ensuring a high level of content delivered to the knowledge and communities that have currently been left out. Potential barriers that have caused this underrepresentation in the indigenous peoples who reside within Aotearoa will be investigated through the project managers efforts of face to face conversations with people within these communities building upon existing relationships formed through performing arts connections. It is intended this can replicated in other countries sharing the findings and process of connecting as well as quality content as examples of value. There has already been one enquiry specifically about this area from another Wikimedia project.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

For each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:

During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)

For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (e.g. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents). Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Outputs: The project will be divide up into various areas so people can choose what suits their style of editing and timeframe. An example is highlighting articles that need improvement, Wikidata items that need to be created divided into people, venues, organisations, historic or contemporary. The three edit-a-thon events will provide additional focus from the resources available from the host institution. Competition will be encouraged and a summary of outcomes will be published at regular intervals. Redlinks and shareable tables will be used to track overall outputs.

Outcomes: The evaluation will include a story that can be told by the people, institutions and organisations that have connected with this project including:

the value of open access information
the processes of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons
the types of people who are editing Wikipedia
the way the project supports their mission and values as well as that of the Wikimedia Foundation

The goals are centred on designers, directors and arts managers in performing arts in Aotearoa. Metrics will also be used for evaluation - see the metrics section.

Do you have any goals around participation or content?

Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

CONTENT GOALS

The following goals can be measured through metrics and will support evaluation. The Magic button tool will be used to capture the data on outputs.

Wikidata

100 new Wikidata entries of people that are part of performing arts in Aotearoa [at least 50% of new people are women, 30% are Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour]
100 new Wikidata entries of organisations that are part of performing arts in Aotearoa [at least 30% are principally Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour focused]
50 new Wikidata entries of awards and events etc that are part of performing arts in Aotearoa [spread across the spectrum of classical, established and avant-guard, grass roots forms]
50 new Wikidata entries of venues which hold performing arts [representing a spread related to population]
Improvements made to 100 existing Wikidata entries related to performing arts in Aotearoa

Wikimedia Commons

100 new images of venues which hold performing arts
25 new images of people involved in performing arts in Aotearoa [at least 50% of new people are women, 30% are Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour]
25 new images of performing arts occasions or organisations [at least 30% are principally Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour focused]
25 newly uploaded already licensed available images related to performing arts

Wikipedia

20 new articles of performing arts people from arts management, design and/or directing [at least 50% of new people are women, 30% are Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour]
20 new articles about performing arts organisations, productions or occasions in Aotearoa [at least 30% are principally Māori, Pacific Islander or people of colour focused, 10% in the disabilities area]
Improvements to 100 articles related to performing arts in Aotearoa
Improving reference and/or links to performing arts design, designers, directing and/or arts managers on 25 articles

PARTICIPATION GOALS

15 people attending in-person at each of the three editathons including 4 new editors (12 new editors in total)

30 existing editors working on the project over four months from within and without of New Zealand

Project plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

Coordinate three in-house edit-a-thons in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin for experienced editors. This will be in partnership with institutions in Dunedin, Auckland and with Playmarket in Wellington. There is interest from the sector but can not be confirmed until the coordination can make firm proposals based on funding. There are also libraries in all three centres that could accommodate an edit-a-thon.

An on-line project will be created with focus areas for editors. At the core will be Wikidata items on people who are designers, arts managers and directors of artistic work and then expand to related missing items required such as the organisations who have employed these people, any awards they have received and notable productions they have worked on. The project will identify articles on Wikipedia that need to be improved or created. Making images available to Wikimedia Commons will be encouraged to the sector who hold archives and capturing new events and buildings will be part of the on-line project. Performing arts venues is one area for content across Wikipedia and Wikidata where on-line resources will be readily available.

The organisers will ensure content on Wikipedia expands for women, people of colour and in the disabilities areas, and that the regions and experimental or fringe is also included where it is notable. (See how the metrics are being measured for more information). The challenge of sourcing legitimate resources will be part of the work of the organisers.

At the end of the project we will have had three physical get togethers focused on editing content, and a well-run updated on-line project that identified areas for content improvement and progress. The editors involved will have expanded their knowledge in editing in this subject area especially in Wikidata. This will contribute to the Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts, as well as other related projects.

PROJECT MANAGER RESPONSIBILITIES The project management role as a paid position is 40 hours per month over 4 months.

Advocating for the value of the wikimedia foundation to support organisations putting effort into providing their information ( data sets, references and images) in a way accessible to editors. This involves conversation including face to face (there is a cultural requirement for this with indigenous peoples in Aotearoa to enable the metrics to be met). Flexibility to meet in the organisations timeframe is also required. There is very low awareness of anything to do with Wikimedia platforms in NZ (this has been scoped by myself and others). There is however in general a positive feeling towards Wikipedia opportunities. The specific job is contacting people, explaining what and why, arranging a face to face meeting, having the meeting and following up with action points. It is important for there to be momentum and a level of professional follow up - this is not suited to the current volunteer pool in NZ. The personal and face to face approach will set the seeds for the existing editor pool to expand.
Coordinating the event of the editathons. Arranging location, catering, resources, promotion.
Setting up the on-line project. Identifying gaps and focus for editors. This job involves being networked with existing editors in NZ and in other related projects. There is work to do in categories in Wikipedia for example. It is drawing in others observations of the technical aspects of the goal, analysing the existing information in the platforms, setting up frameworks, and then creating redlists and tables to support content development. Experienced editors are committed to supporting the project manager in this area.
Administration of gathered data. This is coordinating information from performing arts institutions and organisations to enable access by editors for the three editathons and for all editing outside of these events and in an ongoing way.

The effort required by the project manager as it includes new learning in the setting up of the project will at times fall outside of the paid hours and become volunteer contribution.

A contact list will be established of participants who have edited or made any contribution to enable good flow of reporting and updates.

The outcomes of the project will be published to participants in newsletters and on-line. This will include learning. Organizations and institutions involved will be given material for use in promotions.

COVID-19 RISK ASSESSMENT At the time of writing this application New Zealand is in Alert Level 1 in relation to COVID-19. This means there are no restrictions on national travel or gatherings. https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/about-the-alert-system/ Government has provided advice to follow guidelines including individuals tracking their movements, safety on public transport, and not participating in group events if sick with any COVID-19 type symptoms. If alert levels change the group edit-a-thon meetings, and other face-to-face meetings will be assessed and may move all or partially on-line. The outcomes or timeline may be affected depending on the timing and locations of restrictions.

Budget

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

The budget is calculated on the project manager traveling to two centres for two of the edit-a-thons. Project management is calculated 40 hours per month over 4 months (160 hours) to organise the project and the edit-a-thons. This is for coordination not for editing of articles or Wikidata. Part of the job is to communicate with institutions and organisations within New Zealand about the value and purpose of the project and to gather resources to make them available for editors and the edit-a-thons.

Edit-a-thon Auck, Wgtn, Dunedin				NZD	Notes
Promotion (social media advertising)				$70.00	Most promotion done through organisatations own channels

Travel
Return flight Wgtn - Auck			$120.00		$60 each way
Return flight to Wgtn - Dunedin			$240.00		$110 each way
Ground transport Auck			$50.00		skybus
Ground transport Dunedin			$100.00		hire a car
Internal travel within New Zealand (flights and ground transport)				$510.00

Accommodation & expenses
Auckland 1 person (cheap hotel or airb'n'b)	2	$250.00	$500.00		Two nights - central to avoid transport costs
Dunedin 1 person (billet)	2	$60.00	$120.00		Billet
Daily food allowance Auckland	3	$60.00			Own expence
Daily food allowance Dunedin	3	$60.00			Own expence
Accommodation & expenses				$620.00

Edit-a-thon event expenses
Catering 15 people per event @$15 / head	3	$225.00	$675.00		Three events
Venue costs	3	$200.00	$600.00		Venue sponsored by a host, this covers any additional costs
Catering and expenses for in-house edit-a-thons				$1,275.00


Project manager
Hourly rate is $50NZD for 40 hours per month over 4 months (160 hours) to organise the project and the edit-a-thons	160	$50.00	$8,000.00		$50NZD / hr in-line with CNZ central arts funding body for experienced practioner ($25/hr minimum)
Project manager				$8,000.00

TOTAL NZD				$10,475.00

Community engagement

Community input and participation helps make projects successful. How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve during your project?

The specific audiences are:

Existing wiki editors of Aotearoa New Zealand
Existing wiki editors of performing arts-related projects
Performing arts sector organisations eg: Entertainment Technicians New Zealand (ETNZ), Entertainment Venues Association Of New Zealand (EVANZ), Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ), Theatre Archives, Arts Access Aotearoa, Playmarket, Capital E National Children's Theatre, professional theatre companies, and regional festivals which hold archives.

Updates to the performing arts sector will be in four email newsletters outlining progress, the next stage and a final summary.

Updates to the Wikipedia community will be given through the wiki project pages.

Two messages prior to edit-a-thon, one during edit-a-thon, and then a message about edit-a-thon results to the community also outlining other work still needed to be undertaken.
A report in the GLAM wiki newsletter after the project
Ongoing reporting and attendance at any regular Wiki Aotearoa meet-ups

Get involved

Participants

Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.

Project coordinator - Lisa Maule - Pakoire (talk). Approximately a year editing on Wikipedia. Ran an edit-a-thon in 2020 on New Zealand playwrights with Playmarket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/Playmarket_Edit-A-Thon). 25+ years working in performing arts in New Zealand so knowledge of the sector / topic. Have been managing the COI that are intrinsically part of this. Took part in other Wikipedia projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/Wikipedia_Edit-A-Thon_2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/M%C4%81ori_Women_Weavers_Editathon West Coast Project I have been working for many years as a designer and organiser and am a competent project manager. https://www.lisamaule.info/

Volunteer I'm happy to help with linking in SOUNZ data for organisations, composers, performers, conductors, etc., as well as for works and publications. And just generally try and help :-) Jonathanischoice (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer My name is Dr Hannah Banks and I am a theatre practitioner and academic originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, and I would be happy to volunteer to work on this project. I have been teaching in tertiary education since 2011 and have worked as an actor, director, writer, producer, and production manager in the New Zealand theatre industry. I completed my PhD in Theatre in 2018 at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. This ground-breaking research explored women in devised theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand. 203.29.104.121 05:58, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer I'd be happy to support Lisa with Wikipedia editing backup and with remote running of meetup events. Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:00, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer I am happy to help with this project. It will be an interesting subject to work on, and I enjoy uploading data to Wikidata, creating redlists, and so on. DrThneed (talk) 23:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer I would be happy to help out with any questions related to the performing arts and Wikidata. This is the focus of a current project grant and we proposed another project grant to continue this work in 2021-2022. Please don't hesitate to rely on me and to the Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts community. Fjjulien (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer My name is Dr Hannah Banks and I am a theatre practitioner and academic originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, and I would be happy to volunteer to work on this project. I have been teaching in tertiary education since 2011 and have worked as an actor, director, writer, producer, and production manager in the New Zealand theatre industry. I completed my PhD in Theatre in 2018 at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. This ground-breaking research explored women in devised theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand. Hjbanks89 (talk) 23:43, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Volunteer Help with Wikidata workflow, writing wikipedia articles and uploads to WikiCommons. Ambrosia10 (talk) 23:41, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Community notification

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc. Need notification tips?

The project will be presented to the monthly Wellington Wikimeetup in person and the monthly Aotearoa Wiki meetup virtually. This will keep the community informed and garner support and feedback on how to improve your project.

Information on the project and the edit-a-thons will:

be posted to the Aotearoa Facebook group
tweeted to the Aotearoa twitter account and asking for retweets
added to the Aotearoa New Zealand usergroup page
added to WikiProject Theatre and associated projects
added to Wikidata:WikiProject Performing arts

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

I endorse this project. In my opinion New Zealand performing arts coverage in English Wikipedia is in need of improvement both in its coverage of New Zealand arts organisations as well as coverage of individual artists. I believe this project will assist with both highlighting and filling the current gaps in Wikipedia coverage as well as assisting New Zealand art organisations to collaborate with the New Zealand wikipedia editing community. I also very much approve of this project's emphasis on expanding coverage in English Wikipedia of performing artists from unrepresented groups such as women and people of Pacifica descent. - Ambrosia10 (talk) 02:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I am really looking forward to seeing how this project develops and getting involved. The coverage of New Zealand performing arts awards, events, performers, venues and organisations is not great currently, and so there is room for much improvement even from a relatively small number of events. It will be good to have some engagement from performing arts organisations that will hopefully help us to both improve information in the first instance, and maintain it in the future. As an editor from outside the performing arts, I'm also personally keen to understand better how this sort of data is modelled in Wikidata. DrThneed (talk) 22:41, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I endorse this project, as there is a definite lack of coverage of people, events and organisations related to the performing arts in New Zealand across all the Wikimedia projects. I'm interested in participating in editathons on this topic, and also would like to see some redlists/worklists created so that it's easier for me to identify notable people etc to write about. MurielMary (talk) 10:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I endorse this project. Having worked for 10+ years in the performing arts education sector, I'm aware of the lack of coverage in English Wikipedia of the Aotearoa New Zealand performing arts scene. This project offers an opportunity to increase the visibility of individuals and organisations in this important area.Noracrentiss (talk) 20:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
I echo the comments already here; existing classical music, opera and ballet coverage is especially uneven. Jonathanischoice (talk) 03:10, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
I endorse this project. Pakoire is a very productive editor and makes a compelling case.-Gadfium (talk) 03:19, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
I fully support and endorse this project. A key part of my doctoral research was the documentation of specific artists and theatre makers working in New Zealand. When companies and contributions are not recorded or written about, they fade and we are unable to learn from those artists and their incredible work. Projects like this are vital as an important stepping stone to create a rich and vibrant discourse. 203.29.104.121 05:52, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
I think this is a great project. There's a real lack of coverage of the performing arts in New Zealand Wikimedia projects, and Pakoire is ideally placed to build on her relationships with arts organisations to improve this. This sort of partnership with performing arts groups will have much more productive results than the general editathons we've been running over the last few years in NZ. I've worked with Pakoire in some of these in the past, and can attest she's organised and savvy, and very capable of running this project efficiently. This would be a good allocation of Project Grant funding – there's only been one Project Grant in New Zealand previously, but the editing community is growing rapidly and the gender balance of new and active editors skews strongly female. I suspect this project would help with that, and also improve the coverage and potentially participation of Māori and Pacific peoples as well, giver their strong representation in the arts. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
Performing arts information and content is still relatively scarce across Wikimedia sister projects. Projects such as this one are needed. Fjjulien (talk) 22:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Having been a Wikipedia editor for more than 14 years and involved in previous edit-a-thons, I know that community events like this are hugely important to support and nurture volunteer editors. I'm also part of the NZ performing arts community and strongly support any activities to improve documentation and visibility of this sector. Frock (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I support this project - it is an area that needs more coverage for New Zealand. David Nind (talk) 21:22, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
My work on British theatre history has shown me that there is a need for better coverage of New Zealand theatre. I endorse this project. Gertrude206 (talk)