Grants:Project/Rapid/Sakhalinio/Wikipedia 20 anniversary Turkey/Report

Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2020-21 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Goals edit

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

The project included celebrating the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia with two activities. One was a WikiProject called Vikipedi 20; the other was organisation of a virtual party. We are happy with the outcomes of both.

WikiProject:Vikipedi 20 edit

WikiProject:Vikipedi 20 included asking active members of the editor community of Turkish Wikipedia writing new articles about their favourite topic as a gift for Wikipedia; leave a note about their birthday wishes and the article on the project page. The participation was awarded by a small Wikipedia20 package of sticker, pin and badges. We didn't know how much attention it would get. We are happy that idea of such wikiproject was received very positively by the community. 34 users produced 41 articles as birthday gift until the birthday party. In tje project page, there was enthusiastic messages about the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia. We belive that, since it gave contributors an opportunity to express their thoughts & feelings, the small project was useful in creating an atmosphere of solidarity and celebration. The WikiProject will continue until the end of January.

Virtual Birthday Party edit

Second part of the celebrations was the organization of a virtual birthday party for Wikipedia. We made the party on January 18th over Zoom. This was the first Wikipedia birthday party organized in Turkey. We are very happy that the members of our group and some partners virtually came together for celebration on January 18th. During 2 hours party, 12 members have made short presentations about their contributions and activities during 2020; some talked about the early days of Wikipedia; a member made analysis of the past year based on the edits and pageview numbers; a member shared information about 2030 Strategy of the Movement. Some participants had cake for Wikipedia. After blowing out the candles of our cakes, we presented our gifts to Wikipedia. The most important goal of this party was saying thank you to the editor community for their contintued effors during 2020 and during the block. The talks and presentations provided an opportunity to show the importance of their work. Another goal was coming together with the partners who supported us in 2020 and thank to them. We had some paricipations from the partner organisations as well. They did have a chance to meet with other members of the community and shared the celebratory atmosphere. We can conclude that the party was a good way serving both of those goals.

The party was planned as an internal event for the active editor community of Wikimedia projects in Turkey and partners of the User Group. We were surprised and delighted to see that our small party took the attention of communities in Russia. During the party we watched the video-message of Sakha Wikimedians. User:Frhdkazan generously gave his time to translate the meeting into Russian to share the party with those communities. We were glad to get feedback that they found it useful to learn about our activities and the way we organize them; particularly watching the presentation about 2020 statiscs was useful. Sharing experiences with other communites was an unplanned outcome of the project.

Outcome edit

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
30 participants 34 contributors in WikiProject- 60 participants in the party We exceeded the targets.
10 new participants 11 new participants The wikiproject were designed for the active community members but the virtual party was attended by some invitees some of which were first time participants of such event.
~30 41 new articles (more to come until end of January) Achieved the target

Media related to the events edit

Learning edit

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?

Both ideas (making a WikiProject where anyone creates a new article she wants as a gift and making a virtual birthday party) were received positively by the community. At the beginning we thought that although they would join the meeting, the members of the community would not be very participatory during the birthday party and only the organizers will talk and make presentations. But, the organisers could persuade many members to talk 4-5 minutes. Hearing the voices of more people who talk shortly about different aspects of the projects and achievements of the past year instead of having long presentations by a few made the party more interesting.

We are happy that some university instructors who we worked with during the spring term for an Education Program joined our party. There were also participation from our partners from other activities, such as Istanbul Women’s Library and Information Centre Foundation and fact-checking organisation Teyit.org. Having partner organisations in the party was important for us because we believe that would help them understand our work more closely and provide new incentives to work together.

  • What did not work so well?

The participation could be even higher if we had announced more actively. We did not use some powerful channels (such as sitenotice, instagram, twitter) intentionally; because we decided to keep the events restricted to existing active community members. We announced them only in Village Pump and Telegram channels. We were especially worried about the outside participation in the virtual party. After successfully concluding the party, we think we should be bold enough to organize a bigger event next time.

  • What would you do differently next time?

Next time, we would like to add more interaction in the virtual party. We might plake some Kahoot games, make online-polls to keep everybody more active.

We were glad to have a message from Sakha community; the participants of the party were excited to see faces of fellow Wikimedians from such remote places. We would like to organize more international participation from other Wikimedian communities.

Finances edit

Grant funds spent edit

Items Sub-items Quantity Amount (TRY) Amount (USD)[1] Total
Pin & button badge 2600 ₺ (TRY) 350 $ (USD) 350 $ (USD)
Polos for organizers 0 ₺ (TRY) 0 $ (USD) 0 $ (USD)
Stickers for participants & for promotion 2300 ₺ (TRY) 310 $ (USD) 310 $ (USD)
Wikipedia pens & notepads: 1250 ₺ (TRY) 165 $ (USD) 165 $ (USD)
Social media Ad Campaign 0 ₺ (TRY) 0 $ (USD) 0 $ (USD)
Unforeseen expenses 0 ₺ (TRY) 0 $ (USD) 0 $ (USD)
Postal expenses for participants 1100 ₺ (TRY) 150 $ (USD) 150 $ (USD)
Possible VAT tax - 1100 ₺ (TRY) 150 $ (USD) 150 $ (USD)
Online meeting expense (for yearly) 175 $ (USD) 175 $ (USD)
Grand total 1300 $ (USD)

Total requested from WMF: 1300 $ (USD).

Note: We organized only online party because of Covid19 Pandemic and we didn't order t-shirts, and we didn't make social media ad campaign, we used those budget on promotional different materials.

Remaining funds edit

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

There are no remaining fund, all budget was spent.

Anything else edit

Anything else you want to share about your project?