Grants:Project/Wiki Loves Monuments international team/2017 coordination

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Project Grants

2017 coordination

summaryWiki Loves Monuments 2017: coordination at international level to help national groups to organize their local contest.

targetMainly Commons and Wikidata

amount13,200 EUR

grantee• Ilario• Effeietsanders

advisor• Indranii

contact• ilario.valdelliwikimedia.ch

organization• Wiki Loves Monuments International team

this project needs...

volunteer

contact

created on21:22, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

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Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

The international Wiki Loves Monuments team’s mission is to freely document and raise awareness of built cultural heritage, increase contributions to the Wikimedia projects and bolster local Wikimedia communities. We do this by leading and facilitating an annual federated, global, low-barrier photo competition.

Based on this mission, the international team has identified the following problems to work on in 2017:

• Lack of diversity in contribution type: Documentation of built cultural heritage encouraged and facilitated by the international team has been heavily focused on photo uploads.
• Limits in access to the already existing knowledge: There is no easy way to access, query, and build tools on top of the world’s largest database of monuments collected via the efforts organized by Wiki Loves Monuments. This makes the discovery of what has been collected so far and what can be contributed extremely hard, if not impossible.
• Workflows without end user in mind: The workflows for the organizers of Wiki Loves Monuments at the national level are not optimal. This, for example, includes lack of a user-friendly monitoring system of photo uploads against specific measures.
• Limited partnership and sponsorship opportunities: Building strong partnership and sponsorship relations are a challenge.
• Maintenance work: Facilitating a photo competition across tens of countries requires substantial coordination, follow-up, improvements in underlying technologies and documentation, etc. (This is part of the maintenance work that Wiki Loves Monuments team needs to do every year.)

What is your solution to this problem?

• Diversify contribution type: We are interested to experiment with encouraging (at least a couple of) countries to run Wikidatathons/Editathons prior to Wiki Loves Monuments contest in September. We will provide the motivation for doing this effort and structural/technical support needed for running such a Wikidatathons. This effort can help us diversify the contributions which in return can help Wikimedia projects with enriching their knowledge of built cultural heritage.
• Improve access to already existing data: The first and foremost step in improving access to the world’s largest repository of monuments data would be to transfer the monuments data to Wikidata. This is an effort which is led and run by Wikimedia Sverige. The international team’s role is to encourage countries to gradually work towards moving their data to Wikidata and also socialize the automatic creation of monuments tables using Lua modules and SPARQL queries and directly from Wikidata. We are also developing Monumental, a tool that is being developed to make the discovery of monuments and contributions towards gaps of knowledge in the built cultural heritage space possible.
• Increase partnership and sponsorship opportunities: For 2017, we have one person in the international team dedicated to improving our partnership and sponsorship relations/network. The work in this area involves: creating material for seeking partnership and sponsorship relations (something that’s been requested by the national organizers as well), meeting with them in person, looking for opportunities to work with them towards common goals, and actively looking for sponsors to offer prizes at the international level and partners to cover the story of Wiki Loves Monuments and help with our outreach and branding.
• Maintenance work: We expect to continue doing the underlying maintenance work for Wiki Loves Monuments similar to the past years. However, we will be monitoring and documenting this process to understand better which parts of the process we can automatize and improve, especially in light of changes in parts of the technology stack we will be working with as part of Structured Data on Commons project.

Project goals

The international team has three main goals, as stated in our mission statement. These goals are:

• to freely document and raise awareness of built cultural heritage
• increase contributions to the Wikimedia projects
• bolster local Wikimedia communities.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

• Freely document and raise awareness:

1. We will organize a Wikidatathon (likely in August) to enrich the data on built cultural heritage.
2. Once the data is enriched, projects such as Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, and beyond can use the enriched data to improve the content about the monuments in their corresponding projects. Enriched data also means better tools and services that can be built by developers using SPARQL to build other services on top of this freely documented knowledge base.
3. The first activity (i.e., organizing a Wikidatathon) is easily measurable. If we organize the event, we have met that goal. Of course, the event alone will not be enough and we aim for good outcomes out of the event (such as high participation, or at least a couple of countries participating for this year’s experimental try, etc.). The second outcome which is a lasting outcome can be measured over time and beyond 2017, when we have more of the monuments data enriched and we start seeing SPARQL queries on the corresponding data. We will measure tools created over time, and can monitor SPARQL query counts on the relevant data if access to raw webrequest logs are provided by the Foundation to at least one member of the international team.

• Increase contributions to Wikimedia projects

1. The Wikidatathons explained above will increase contributions to Wikidata. By design, the photo competition will increase contributions to Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia and Wikivoyage are two other natural projects that we expect to see increase in contributions though we in the international team will not directly encourage them in 2017.
2. The lasting impact in this category is clear as contributions to Wikimedia projects are considered to be contributions that empower people around the world to freely access and build on educational content.
3. We will measure the number and percentage of contributions to Commons and Wikidata at the times when we are organizing campaigns for these projects.

• Bolster local Wikimedia communities

1. By design, Wiki Loves Monuments is a project that will bring national communities together around a common theme: their shared built cultural heritage. The international team continues to seed new communities with opportunities, encouragements, and incentives for organizing Wiki Loves Monuments.
2. Communities are the building block of Wikimedia projects. By encouraging communities to form around one project (Wiki Loves Monuments), we provide an opportunity for people to build relationships and networks that they can use later on to do other projects in their corresponding communities with.
3. Measuring the impact of Wiki Loves Monuments in communities scientifically/accurately, requires research resources that are not available in abundance in the international team in 2017. Therefore, we limit our measurements to counting the number of new countries we will help organize Wiki Loves Monuments in, in 2017.

Do you have any goals around participation or content?

Yes. Two out of the three goals mentioned earlier are directly related to the increase in participation within the Wikimedia Movement as well as increasing/improving content on Wikimedia projects. We will use the following metrics and numeric targets to measure whether we meet our goals. Note that by design, a substantial amount of work in the international Wiki Loves Monuments team is focused on empowering local organizers to organize Wiki Loves Monuments. As a result, not all metrics suggested in the link above are metrics that the international team can have direct control over. We will only report metrics over which the international team has direct control and/or metrics that the change in their value can be directly associated with the initiatives by the international team.

• Total participants: For the international team, the participants are the local organizers. We measure each country’s participation as one participant, independent of the number of community members involved in that country for organizing the contest. We set a goal to have at least 40 30 countries participate in Wiki Loves Monuments in 2017. We also set a goal to have at least 2 countries participate in data enrichment initiative that we will be experimenting with in this year.

• Number of newly registered users: This is a metric that is expected to be largely driven by the national organizers. Therefore, we are not setting a target to meet for this metric. However, the international team is interested in this metric as a measure of the health of Wiki Loves Monuments ecosystem and we will monitor this number throughout and after the contest. We do this for one or more reasons mentioned below:

• International team is in a good position to monitor the number of newly registered users across participating countries to identify and share best practices across projects as well as notify the countries in case an unexplained signal is observed in our trends.
• The international team may be responsible for initiatives that can have direct impact on the number of newly registered users and for those initiatives, we will report the number of newly registered users. These initiatives are those for which the international team spends substantial effort to improve the infrastructure to lower the barriers for entry. For example, we are discussing to provide a default landing page design to the countries who choose to use it and we hypothesize that a better landing page design can increase the chances of users attempting to register an account and participate. If we offer such a design, and if resources are available to us, we are interested in doing controlled experiments to learn the effect of such a change on the number of newly registered users as a result of this change.

• Number of content pages created or improved, across all Wikimedia projects: Similar to the above metric, the number of uploaded images is a metric that the international team does not have direct control over. This being said, the data enrichment initiative can have impact on an alternative metric (contributions to Wikidata) and we will measure and report that impact since this new initiative is driven by the international team as an experiment.

• Basic goals: As the coordinators of Wiki Loves Monuments international competition, the international team has set the goal to meet the following targets on top of what is described above:

• 90% of countries nominate at least 1 image to the international finale (in time)
• All critical infrastructure necessary for the start will be ready before September 1, 2017
• The international team will ensure the availability of critical tools developed and/or maintained by the team throughout the contest and will monitor all other critical tools throughout the contest.
• The international jury process is finalized and a jury report is published before the end of the year
• The project is evaluated as part of preparations for the team meeting at the end 2017/early 2018
• A survey for national organizers is executed to learn about where the international team has done well and where the team and its efforts can be improved.

Project plan

Activities

The international team assumes responsibility for a wide range of activities around Wiki Loves Monuments. In this section, we will describe the activities that are (directly) funded by this grant. A more complete impression of the work of the international team in 2016 is available in these meeting notes.

Preliminary work

• Inform local organizers and affiliates about the new contest, initiatives, and projects the international team is working on;
• Collect feedback and suggestions from local organizers;
• Hold regular internal team meetings to review work done and plan for the work that is ahead;
• Communicate with the WLM community periodically.

General Coordination

• Update and communicate the international rules;
• Update and share documentation;
• Prepare (or coordinate for others to prepare) communication material that can be used and/or built upon by national organizations;
• Facilitate communication channels;
• Monitor statistics;
• Set up clear timeline.

Project Management

• Report on the use of budget at the end of the program;
• Maintain communication with relevant staff at Wikimedia Foundation;
• Collect measures and data to be reported at the end of the program.

Technical contributions

• Help with the setup and maintenance of the technical infrastructure for uploading;
• Help with the setup and maintenance of the CentralNotice;
• Maintain an international website for participants;
• Improve Montage based on the feedback from last year in order to offer jury tool services to local and international jury members and coordinators;
• Build the technical infrastructure for the data enrichment project;
• Build the first version of a monitoring tool to help local organizers more efficiently monitor their campaigns;
• If requested by WMSE, provide support for the technical work in specific parts of the pipeline for the migration of data from Monuments Database to Wikidata.

Communication & partnerships

• Update wikilovesmonuments.org with the necessary/useful information;
• Update social media channels;
• Disseminate the results of the international jury;
• Maintain communication with international partners (if applicable).
• The partnership activities are limited to levels not requiring traveling which means a much more limited scope.

Follow & help national organizations

• Give specific suggestions and support to national organizers (mostly online, though additionally we offer onboarding sessions over Hangout to the countries participating for the first time);
• Collect & answer questions of the national teams;
• Crisis management for national contests.

Set up & run the international contest

• Set up jury processes
• Find suitable jury members for the international jury
• Collect results of national competitions
• Support the jury in their process
• Provide & distribute international prizes, awards and diplomas

Budget

It is important to note that a large number of activities and projects in Wiki Loves Monuments international team are done thanks to many volunteer hours offered to us by the members of the international team as well as volunteers who support our efforts on a case-by-case basis. We are requesting the following budget to make the work of the international team more efficient, make better use of the volunteer hours available to us, and make some of the basic and important operations for a global photo contest possible.

• Prizes

  7'000 EUR (backup options. We will look for sponsorships to cover at least some of the prize costs)

• Diplomas for the top finalists as proof of accomplishment (printing & shipping). This helps in branding the competition as serious and seems to be especially appreciated in developing countries.

  300 EUR

• Outreach budget (for experimenting with new forms of outreach across platforms)

  1'000 EUR

• Jury report

  400 EUR

• Blog redesign and landing page templates - templates can be reused by national competitions too.

  500 EUR for branding and illustrations for the blog. The bulk of the work for blog redesign is expected to be done by volunteers.

• Branding and thank you gifts

  2'000 EUR T-shirts, stickers, etc.

• Travel - Rationale: Sometimes a meeting face to face is more effective than a dozen e-mails. In special cases, we would travel to meet a potential partner, if that involves a strategic partnership that can benefit WLM as a whole in one of the main goals that we’ve set out to achieve. We may want to use this also to travel to hackathons and organizing a wikidatathon at Wikimania relevant for the projects.

• 3'000 EUR

• WLM international team meeting (the end of 2017 or early 2018)

  13'000 EUR, similar to the budget requested for the previous year's meeting

• Grant administrative costs and overhead

  2'000 EUR

• Unforeseen

  2'920 EUR (calculated on the basis of +10% of the budget)

• Total

  32,120 EUR

Non financial requirements

• Capacity in WMF Comms team (non-monetary)

  For making videos, helping with press releases, pitching, documentation?, etc.

Community engagement

Wiki Loves Monuments international team uses a variety of platforms and venues to communicate about Wiki Loves Monuments 2017. The top most often pathways of communication used are wikilovesmonuments mailing list and mailing list. We also use Wiki Loves Monuments blog and Wiki Loves Monuments Twitter channel, though less frequently. When opportunity provides itself, we take advantage of in-person events such as Wikimedia Conference, Wikimedia Hackathon, and Wikimania. And of course, there is the our Commons FAQ page and its corresponding Discussion page as well as personal communications (via email) with local organizers.

Get involved

Participants

A list of people involved in the project for 2017 is in the page Organizers 2017 and the profiles can be found here.

• Advisor I want to participate this project of monument as a coordinator.i am from Gujarat.it is a place full of monuments unknown places.i can collect more information and place which is very beautiful.my hobby is collect pictures of unknown places of special places.i have travelled many places.i known many unkown things which is never seen anyone.i want to provide the unknown information photos to wiki.with the help of you. thank you Indranii (talk) 09:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Community notification

We will reach out to Wiki Loves Monuments community at wikilovesmonuments mailing list to inform them about this grant request.

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).

• A proposal with the potential for high international impact, especially in countries that need significant support and infrastructure to run the contest locally. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
• The potential for this is very high and will allow country organisers with limited technical knowledge to take part and also let them focus on encouraging people to upload photos. I am very happy to help source national and regional heritage registers through UNESCO. John Cummings (talk) 14:26, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
• The work of the international team is critical to the maintenance and growth of WLM. The challenges are great (especially the migration of the database on Wikidata), so I endorse this grant request for the successful 2017 edition of the competition. Cristian Cenci (WLM.it) 08:02, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
• ...
• Support from Georgia g. balaxaZe★ 23:44, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
• I cannot imagine a year without Wiki Loves Monuments ... knowing that the international team have planned, exhaustively strategised and are intent on making this annual competition better, more effective and more relevant should be celebrated and supported. Islahaddow (talk) 06:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support from WLM India team :-) naveenpf (talk) 10:45, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
• I strongly support the proposal. Rodelar (talk) 11:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
• "The work of the international team is critical to the maintenance and growth of WLM." as said by Cristian_Cenci_(WMI). Jules WMFr (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
• Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:43, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• WLM is very important to promote the world cultural heritage. In Brazil is always a chance for us to improve data about our monuments! All the support from the UG Wiki Education Brazil. Museu33389 (talk) 14:38, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• WLM is one of the biggest activities the community has and it evolves and grows every year. It needs our support! Ciell (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
• A very useful campaign that is bringing more historical facts to light Flixtey (talk) 16:43, 20 April 2017 (UTC)