Grants:Project/Rapid/New England Wikimedians events

statusdraft

Rapid Grants

WM New England/Wikipedia Day and 2020 events

Funding for Wikipedia Day editathons and continuing outreach

targeten.wp, Wikidata, Commons, potentially other languages

start dateJan 11

end dateOct 31

budget (local currency)1000

budget (USD)1000

grant typegroup

non-profit statusno, we are not registered as a non-profit

grantee• Phoebe

contact(s)• phoebe.ayers@gmail.com• user:Gkuriger, en:user:Amyc29, user:sj

organization (if applicable)• New England Wikimedians

website (if applicable)• New England Wikimedians

friendly space expectations

ucc

privacystatement

Create your report

Please see the sample Editathon/Training application before drafting your application.

Project Goal

Choose one or more of the following goals. You can add or delete goals as needed.

1. Recruit new editors
2. Increase skills for existing editors
3. Add or improve content
4. coordinate activities in the New England region

Project Plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. Be sure to answer the following questions:

1. Are you doing one editathon or training or a series of editathons or trainings?

This grant is for the year's editathons and events in New England, kicking off with a Wikipedia Day event, that aim to recruit and train new editors, build community among existing editors, and (building on the very successful recent WikiConference North America at MIT) build a community of experienced librarians and educators who can host editing events at their institutions.

Specifically, we will be hosting a Wikipedia Day 2020 event at MIT in partnership with MIT Libraries on Sat 1/11 (and/or Wed 1/15), with cake and snacks for participants. Last year's event attracted around 30 people and we hope to make this one bigger. Our theme is Public Domain Day, with newly digitized materials from MIT Libraries available for editors to work with.

We'll follow this up with a half-day meeting at MIT or another regional university in Jan/Feb to gather librarians and educators in New England to share resources and plan editathons for 2020 throughout the region, following on our very successful gathering at the recent WikiConference New England; funds will support lunch for participants. This activity will likely to catalyze a much larger number of editathons and events than a single person could manage. We have a long and successful track record of edit-a-thons and events at many of the 80+ universities and colleges in New England, but know that support, connections and training would enable more people at even more institutions to feel confident hosting events.

Any additional funds will go towards supporting editathons that are in planning or that arise as a result of this meeting. At MIT, we plan to host two more editathons in the spring in partnership with the MIT museum, themed with Afrocrowd and Art+Feminism; other ideas for editathons from others in the area have included science and engineering themed editathons, music themed events that do outreach to new editor populations, local history, African studies and translathons, and a Wikidata workshop aimed towards librarians. The purpose is training new editors but also catalyzing our large, but relatively uncoordinated, community of editors and librarians/educators who host editathons and support Wikipedia events in this area.

2. How will you let your community know about the event? Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.

We use the Wikimedia-boston email list, Facebook and Twitter, a brand-new slack channel, and a geolocated central notice. We will also do outreach specifically to student communities at MIT and elsewhere, via grad student and postdocs networks in the area, which will draw in current Wikipedia editors that aren't connected to existing networks and new editors who are curious. For the train-the-trainers workshop, we will work with WikiEdu and their very strong network in the area to reach out to people at many schools.

3. Do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?

yes - many, including librarians at MIT (user:phoebe, user:gkuriger, user:Siarus1074); community members (eg user:sj); and several educators (eg user:Amyc29, user:rtbhive) experienced in teaching Wikipedia.

4. Do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?

Our editathons are primarily training events, for Wikipedia Day, we'll be anticipating new editors. For our New England trainers gathering, we hope to attract many of the people who have run some of the events listed on our events page - there are many experienced edit-a-thon leaders in the area.

5. How will you engage participants after the event(s)?

We add people to existing New England channels, and we keep a list of participants in MIT events. We also have a brand-new slack channel and mailing list.

6. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project? New England has a long-running group of active Wikipedians and Wikimedia organizers, but they are disbursed across the many educational institutions in the area or are unaffiliated individuals. With some support, this group could be catalyzed to help support a broader range of activities and serve as a hub for sharing knowledge and training. The potential of building partnerships in this area is great, and after WikiConference North America many people in the area are newly excited about editathons and activities, making this a perfect year to try this out. WMNE has not gotten a grant before for this type of activity.

Impact

How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets:

1. Number of events - 3 minimum (Public Domain Day editathon, New England trainers roundtable and a spring edit-a-thon]]
2. Number of participants - 30+ in editathon; 15-20 in trainers group
3. Number of new editors - 5-10+
4. Number of of articles created or improved - tbd, much work will be on Commons with public domain materials
5. Number of repeat participants (for projects that include a series of events) - 5-10+

Resources

What resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

We have donated space at MIT and other regional universities, and can request additional funding from MIT Libraries.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.

Wikipedia Day/Public Domain Day 2020 - $250 (Cake, pizza or snacks for participants, coffee and beverages)

MIT-hosted New England roundtable/train-the-trainers event - $400 - box lunches and coffee for participants (TBD depending on final registration)

Spring edit-a-thons - $300 (supporting snacks for participants)

printing for fliers, misc - $50

Total: $1000

Endorsements

Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

• Very excited to help galvanize grad students/postdocs in the greater Boston area to become Wiki contributors. Phoebe et al. are experienced Wiki editors and educators, so I'm very confident they will make these events run smoothly. Aeffenberger (talk) 17:06, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
• Excited to reprise a very successful Public Domain Day/Wikipedia Day editathon! Last year's event was extremely well done and well attended; looking forward to doing it again. User:Katielemur
• I love this idea. I work at Harvard, very close to MIT, and I agree it would be wonderful to have a New England support hub for practitioners since so many of us have academic use cases for Wikimedia projects and we should help each other. Librarian lena (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support Timely series of events that can contribute to community-building on campus and with the wider community, and add to the momentum generated by WCNA 2019. MassiveEartha (talk) 05:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• This grant will allow us to more easily and better plan events for Wikimedia New England and with MIT Libraries. Gkuriger (talk) 12:02, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• I support! Aliceba (talk) 15:45, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support This work will contribute to and build coalition around Wikipedia as well as around content and editors interested in the African Diaspora, arts, and gender, equity and inclusion at MIT and in the wider community in the Boston area. Siarus1074 (talk) 15:52, 21 November 2019‎ (UTC)
•  Support from New York City and our neighboring community here. This is a fantastic group that just did the lion's share of the hosting of WikiConference North America 2020, and this is a fabulous way to follow up and build on that great work on a regional basis. They had a lovely Wikipedia Day last year, that brought in a lot of interesting new voices, and I fully expect the new enlarged iteration to be worth every minute of the 5 hour bus trip it'll take me to get there.-Pharos (talk) 00:52, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support Really enjoyed the Public Domain Day/Wikipedia Day event held by this group. Very exciting to watch several new folks learn how to edit. Nucleosynth (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2020 (UTC)