Grants:Project/WM ZA/Joburgpedia Digitization 2016/Final


Report accepted
This report for a Project Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/WM ZA/Joburgpedia Digitization 2016.
  • You may still review or add to the discussion about this report on its talk page.
  • You are welcome to email projectgrants(_AT_)wikimedia.org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.



Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the grantee's project.

Part 1: The Project edit

Summary edit

In a few short sentences, give the main highlights of what happened with your project. Please include a few key outcomes or learnings from your project in bullet points, for readers who may not make it all the way through your report.

  • Handing over the project to Bobbyshabangu (talk) 11:41, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Selection of images done.
  • Challenge in uploading photos into Wikimedia Commons.
  • Change in management in SAHA halted efforts to continue with the Edita-A-thons as planned.

Project Goals edit

Please copy and paste the project goals from your proposal page. Under each goal, write at least three sentences about how you met that goal over the course of the project. Alternatively, if your goals changed, you may describe the change, list your new goals and explain how you met them, instead.

  • Our goal is to introduce Wikipedia to The South African History Archives (SAHA) and its stakeholders in Johannesburg and surrounding areas. Our First project with this new GLAM partner will look at digitizing at least 300 historical photographs of a Photo Journalist and Fellow of SAHA. The Photographs are a rich trove of life in Townships and Shanty towns under the Apartheid Era. These are works taken by Gille De Vlieg and will be released under Creative Commons Licensing.


  • to introduce Wikipedia to The South African History Archives (SAHA)

After new management came in at SAHA we've had difficulty going ahead with the planned edit workshops. Communication was a key stumbling block in that the new management didn't make an effort to want to meet with us to talk about the project or show an interest in continuing with the project.

  • digitizing at least 300 historical photographs

We however continued to meet with Gill for the digitization part of the project, and she did digitize the historical images, which she kept in her laptop to upload later.

  • taken by Gille De Vlieg and will be released under Creative Commons Licensing

Gill managed to upload only 8 of her photos in the list of 300 she was looking to donate to Wiki Commons, the reason is because every time she would try and upload they would be rejected on the grounds that she's a new hand on Wiki Commons and some of the reasons included that they don't believe these images were taken by her or even if she's the true Gille de Vlieg whom this Wikipedia article is written about.

Project Impact edit

Important: The Wikimedia Foundation is no longer collecting Global Metrics for Project Grants. We are currently updating our pages to remove legacy references, but please ignore any that you encounter until we finish.

Targets edit

  1. In the first column of the table below, please copy and paste the measures you selected to help you evaluate your project's success (see the Project Impact section of your proposal). Please use one row for each measure. If you set a numeric target for the measure, please include the number.
  2. In the second column, describe your project's actual results. If you set a numeric target for the measure, please report numerically in this column. Otherwise, write a brief sentence summarizing your output or outcome for this measure.
  3. In the third column, you have the option to provide further explanation as needed. You may also add additional explanation below this table.
Planned measure of success
(include numeric target, if applicable)
Actual result Explanation
This project will benefit the following online communities:

English Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia; Zulu Wikipedia; Xhosa Wikipedia; Sotho Wikipedia; Xitsonga Wikipedia; Setswana Wikipedia; Siswati Wikipedia.

Pictures are digitized but unable to be uploaded. Due to the fact that the project is in hiatus halfway to its completion with the digitized pictures in place and having an experienced Wikimedia Commons Volunteer coming in very late when we want to close it, we are still looking to upload them to Wiki Commons but separately from this project and we are still looking that they'll benefit these small language Wikipedias.


Story edit

Looking back over your whole project, what did you achieve? Tell us the story of your achievements, your results, your outcomes. Focus on inspiring moments, tough challenges, interesting antecdotes or anything that highlights the outcomes of your project. Imagine that you are sharing with a friend about the achievements that matter most to you in your project.

  • This should not be a list of what you did. You will be asked to provide that later in the Methods and Activities section.
  • Consider your original goals as you write your project's story, but don't let them limit you. Your project may have important outcomes you weren't expecting. Please focus on the impact that you believe matters most.

Eventually we manage to connect with User:Rodrigo.Argenton from Brazil who's experienced in running digitization projects like these. He did mention that "the Wikimedia Commons community created some barriers to avoid copyright violations, however this creates, in some cases, unnecessary bureaucracy" and he then advised Gille that she can send an email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, an email saying that she provides part of her work to be uploaded at Wikimedia Commons. He then pointed out that Gille must use her personal email or any other email that verifies that it's her who's sending the email such as @saha.org.za, or @gille.co.za,. After the volunteers validate it, they will provide a ticket number, this number will be important to create a license template of this project. As this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Matemateca-USP-license

Unfortunately because of these issues the project tended to move at a snail's pace and Gille had other projects on the side that she had to put on hold while busy with the Joburgpedia digitization project, she however decided to finish her other two projects then come back to resume with the Joburgpedia digitization and that was already late since we must close this project for WMF to consider WMZA for the next financial year.

Survey(s) edit

If you used surveys to evaluate the success of your project, please provide a link(s) in this section, then briefly summarize your survey results in your own words. Include three interesting outputs or outcomes that the survey revealed.

Other edit

Is there another way you would prefer to communicate the actual results of your project, as you understand them? You can do that here!

Methods and activities edit

Please provide a list of the main methods and activities through which you completed your project.

  • This project would have been considered complete if upload of photos on Wiki commons and outreach happened otherwise the following happened:
  • Theme and Focus:
Handing over the project from Dumisani to Bobby included this sections to be jointly managed by Bobby & Gille, with Gille taking the lead in shaping the theme of the project as this tied in with the types of images she has. The following theme and focus were developed.
- Strong Rural women as part of Rural removal resistance.
- Rural Land removals of the 1980s to 1995.
- Tie in to Roots of Resistance Program with Mpumalanga Provincial Government.
- Link to Wikipedia knowledge gaps.
  • Technical:
This section was managed entirely by Gille, as it involved the technical aspects of digitization and necessary image retouches required. The following aspects were clarified.
- Imacon scanning facilities.
- Cost of scans.
- Batch uploads to Commons.

Project resources edit

Please provide links to all public, online documents and other artifacts that you created during the course of this project. Even if you have linked to them elsewhere in this report, this section serves as a centralized archive for everything you created during your project. Examples include: meeting notes, participant lists, photos or graphics uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, template messages sent to participants, wiki pages, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter accounts), datasets, surveys, questionnaires, code repositories... If possible, include a brief summary with each link.

  1. A list of pictures that Gill managed to upload thus far.

Learning edit

The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you took enough risks in your project to have learned something really interesting! Think about what recommendations you have for others who may follow in your footsteps, and use the below sections to describe what worked and what didn’t.

What worked well edit

What did you try that was successful and you'd recommend others do? To help spread successful strategies so that they can be of use to others in the movement, rather than writing lots of text here, we'd like you to share your finding in the form of a link to a learning pattern.

  • Your learning pattern link goes here
Our project did not achieve the results that we hoped for however I would still encourage Wikimedia volunteer to collaborate with archives institutions or renowned photo-journalists who may want to donate with their pictures like Gille.

What didn’t work edit

What did you try that you learned didn't work? What would you think about doing differently in the future? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • We should have spoken/involved an administrator or someone well known or well versed in Wiki Commons even before we started with the project so that Gille won't have a problem when she uploads her pictures.
  • Although unforseen but if say Gille managed to upload all her pictures we were still gonna have to organise an edit workshop with a different institution.

Other recommendations edit

If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please list them here.

  • If you are in a UG, Chapter or Thematic group, have separate bank accounts for User-group and for WMF so that it will be easy to track spending for projects.

Next steps and opportunities edit

Are there opportunities for future growth of this project, or new areas you have uncovered in the course of this grant that could be fruitful for more exploration (either by yourself, or others)? What ideas or suggestions do you have for future projects based on the work you’ve completed? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • There's still future for this project, as soon as we have Gille's pictures uploaded on Commons we are still gonna run other projects where we use the same photographs to tell the story of South Africa during apartheid.

Part 2: The Grant edit

Finances edit

Actual spending edit

Please copy and paste the completed table from your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed the actual expenditures compared with what was originally planned. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided to explain them.

Expense Approved amount Actual funds spent Difference
Preliminary and general costs $476.52 $405,22 $71,30
Digitization and edit-a-thons $1,506.66 $17,52 $1 489,14
14% VAT $277.65 $59,18 $218,47
Total $2,260.83 USD $481,92 $1 778,91


  • Note: Gille was paid from the WMZA Chapter's bank account an amount of 714 USD.

Remaining funds edit

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation edit

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadmin wikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

  • Yes.

Confirmation of project status edit

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

  • Yes.

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

  • No.

Grantee reflection edit

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being a grantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the Project Grant experience? Please share it here!

  • Besides the unforeseen hurdles that we faced during this project, we've had a great time working with Gille de Vlieg who did not only show a keen interest in sharing free knowledge but had a great depository of historical knowledge for each of the pictures she took.