Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round2/Wikimedia Norge/Proposal form

Community review has ended. You are still welcome to comment on these proposals, but the FDC and the applicants may not be able to respond to your feedback or consider it during the deliberations.

Please do not edit this proposal form directly. If changes are needed, applicants can request them on the proposal form's discussion page. Thank you!

Proposal by Wikimedia Norge to support its annual plan with Template:Usamountrequested/2013-2014 round2/Wikimedia Norge.

Thank you for this proposal

Thank you for submitting a complete proposal form by the proposal submission date! We realize that you put a lot of effort into creating this proposal, and many of us are looking forward to reviewing it in-depth. Wikimedia Norge's proposal will be considered by the FDC in Round 2 2013-2014, provided Wikimedia Norge remains eligible throughout the course of the FDC process.

Please do not make any changes to your proposal at this time without requesting those changes first here on this discussion page, so they may be reviewed and approved by staff. We will consider changes that greatly enhance the readability of your proposal or correct important factual errors or broken links, but you need not worry about making minor corrections to your proposal form if you notice them after the deadline. The FDC will be looking at the substance of your proposal rather than focusing on the language used, and so these types of minor changes are usually not needed. This is also done to ensure that any changes made to a proposal are really intended by the organization submitting the proposal. Thank you for your cooperation, as this helps keep the proposal process fair and consistent for all organizations.

Please monitor this page for questions and comments from the community, FDC members, and FDC staff. Engagement during this part of the proposal process is important, and will be considered by the FDC along with other inputs into the proposal process. Follow up questions from FDC staff should be expected early next week and community review will continue until 30 April. Staff proposal assessments will be published on 8 May 2014 and linked to from your proposal hub page.

Please contact us at any time if you have questions about your proposal or the review process. We are here to support applicants throughout the process.

Best regards, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:54, 2 April 2014 (UTC) (on behalf of FDC Staff)

Added documentation

After the deadline, due to the late annual assembly date of WMNO (April 26), the following documentation has been added by Wikimedia Norge:

• Board and Financial Instruction, dated 2010, including a thorough description of COI for board members, here.
• Final Financial Report for 2013, from the Board before the Annual Assembly, adjusted with NOK 600, April 10 - here
• Budget proposal from the Board, covering 2014/2015 - here (pdf)
• Government notification of April 10, of a new encyclopedia funding scheme of NOK 5 million - here

Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:35, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Asked for increase in FDC funding

It is nice reading of your good results in the Glam area and the general good progress I read of and have heard of. My concern is the request for steep increase in funding from FDCs, while very litte is seen in increasing funding from other parties. As I understand it you received the equivalent of 140 KUSD 2013-20l4 and now ask for 430 KUSD for 2014-2015 making it an increase of 206%, a 3-fold increase, while it seems your expected income from other funding is to be left the same, at below 100 KUSD (please corect if I got the numbers wrong).

Your are a chepter in a starting up phase where it could be reasonable to expect a growth in activities and funding, but I would like to understand your rationale in propsing such a huge increase, specially considering the Board directive to not increase FDC grants and that FDC for Round 1 was very relucant to even give above 20% increases even for smaller growing entities, WMIL with comparable numbers recieved a 29% increase. Have you worked through a plan where the budget from FDC would be more like a 20-30% increase to 2012-2013, and what in your plans would look different, would it effect number of staff etc?--Anders Wennersten (talk) 08:01, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, and thanks for your good question. The main reason for the proposed increase in funding, is that our submission in last Round was much higher than the USD 140,000 that we received, actually we were only awarded half of the funding that we actually applied for. This means that the need has already been documented as much higher than USD 140,000. Because of the drastic cut in the applied spending in last round, we had to cut away half of the projects and concentrate on a minimum. In Norway, one single employee at a minimum salary, including wage tax (14,1%), will cost USD 80 - 85,000. The wage levels are 50 % above those in Stockholm, and above even the USA, Japan (Tokyo), and Switzerland. We are currently having 1.6 FTEs, which in an annual perspective would cost USD 125,000. Yes, we are applying for external funds that will sum up to appr. NOK 500,000 (USD 85,000) from Sametinget (deadline Sept 1), and at least a similar sum from the Government (believed to be opened for submission after the May 2014 Revised National Budget). But bottom line here is that USD 140,000 really doesn't get us anywhere in Oslo. It would just match the present employees and the office, and actually nothing else at all.

The Chapter as such is not really in a start-up phase, we were founded in 2008. But yes, the present activity level is new. The rationale for applying for USD 430,000 is found in the very strong increase in "demand" from the external world in increasing their openness and exchange of sources, data, etc with the Wikipedia. We believe the present staff and board cannot in any way manage this increase in activity without some strengthening. If we are to be able to strengthen external funding substantially, that would require the extra resources in excess on what already supports the board on operational programs. Local fundraising should be very promising in Norway, but it cannot be done from the "boys room" when we talk of releasing public funds or private funds. The application, reporting and other follow-up is rigorous, and we have presently prioritized to utilize present 1.6 FTEs in operational program activities.

The reasons why the FDC and Board cut our requested funding in half last time, was because of our lack of experience, track record and routines - things that are now by and large improves, altogether. Given the fact that our expressed need from the start was bell above USD 200,000, we believe it would be very sad if the Board chose to level our funding after a one-time grant that was already drastically reduced compared to documented need. BR, Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:54, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. You mention in this answer of external funds from the governement which you have not included in your plan. To diversify funding and not be dependent of FDC funding is one of the recommendnations to chapters. As you write, WMNO is no longer in a startup phase but you are now up and running, but here I come back with my question, when you have had employeees why have you not more explored the possibiliteis of other fundings?. FDC are given financial frames and directives from the Board and resources are not unlimited, on the contrary the funds for this round are stricly limtited and there exist a directive from the Board to not increase the FDC fundings, as has been communicated.--Anders Wennersten (talk) 06:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

We have explored several sources of external funding, and we have regarded some as beyond target (Ministry of Foreign Affairs programs), but most of those explored are highly relevant. We have applied for NOK 50,000 from the Savings Banks' Fund (deadline was in February), to cover regional outreach projects. We will apply for Sametinget funds (c. NOK 500,000) by the deadline on September 1, and we submitted two, very substantial applications for the NOK 5 mio fund of the Ministry of Culture. These applications were much work, comparable to the FDC rounds, and were submitted in April and October. You can the read the first submission here. The result, however, was that the Government postponed the whole program because both we and SNL applied for the fund (they probably didn't anticipate that) and announced that there will be a clarification of application rules. We expect that to come in the May Revised Budget, with granting before/after summer break. The reason why we do not state a sum on that application (we will submit when the program is presented again), is that there will probably be a total fund to apply for, and it would be unwise to foresee any specific sum because that will be highly uncertain. Since SNL (and others) are believed to apply, there will be fierce competition for these funds and we can not anticipate how much of this would befall on us. But of course, if the total fund will still be NOK 5 mio then it would be reasonable to expect a proportion of it. Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 18:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The Government has now released the prospect for state funding of encyclopedias - with a NOK 5 million fund. for 2014. The release notification is to be found here. Accordingly, WMNO has budgeted with a NOK 1.5 mio revenue from applying for such funds, since we expect three applicants. The revenue is highly uncertain, since the funding will be based on competitive submissions. Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Confirmation of close collaboration

I just wanted to confirm that Wikimedia Sverige looks forward in collaborating with Wikimedia Norge. Not only study tours (which is also beneficial for WMSE, we gain experience from WMNO already), but we see that stronger chapters in our region will be hugely beneficial for all the chapters in the region. This is because it will help us coordinating and seeking external funding in a more efficient ways. There is a lot of funds to apply for in the Nordic region, and up until just recently we have suffered from not having strong local organizations that can be enabling in finding the right partners and to be a trustworthy applicant. We already work together in the Wikimaps project, and we really need to work together with Norway in order to secure further funding for that. Thanks. --Jan Ainali (WMSE) (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Questions and clarifications from FDC staff for WMNO

Thank you once again for this proposal. Please take the time to respond to a few questions about your programs and your finances, so that the FDC can better understand your proposal. We know this process takes time and we thank you for your attention. We would also like to emphasize that we are available to clarify anything asked or stated here. Thank you, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 09:46, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

General note

In making the case for a more than 200% growth rate in the FDC request, WMNO has stated “Norway attracts substantial sums of donations to the WMF every year, an far in excess of the sums we request through this application, indicating exactly the combination of record-high costs, and donations.” We would like to note that the amount received in movement donations from a particular geography is not considered relevant to the FDC process. The FDC is looking at the impact of an organization’s programs on movement goals, while also considering the overall costs of those programs (funds, staff and volunteer time etc). Therefore, stating that many donations are received in a particular geography is not considered a justification for significant growth in movement resources. We do understand that the costs of operating an organization are high in Norway.

WMNO’s proposed large growth rate beyond the recommended guardrails

WMNO is requesting more than a 200% growth rate, which is more than 10 times the 20% growth rate recommended by the guardrails. We thank you for providing some additional information about this rationale for growth here on the discussion page in response to the question from Anders. We have a few more questions related to this growth rate.

1. What plans does WMNO have in place to handle this large increase in budget if funds are granted?
2. What challenges, if any, does WMNO anticipate as part of this rapid growth and how is WMNO equipped to face these challenges?
3. If WMNO is funded at 120% of its current budget (i.e. a 20% growth rate), how would its plans change? What parts of the proposed work would be prioritized?

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 09:46, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Questions and clarifications about the financial information in WMNO’s proposal

We would like to offer a few clarifications about how we are understanding the financial information in WMNO’s proposal. Please let us know if there is anything we are interpreting wrongly!

1. We note that the amount of total funds allocated to this entity through the FDC process is precisely 821,758 NOK, which has been rounded up in this proposal form to 822,000 NOK. This represents a small difference approximately equivalent to US$50. This is not an issue; we are just noting this here since the exact amount will be used by FDC staff in our financial summaries and calculations.
2. We have calculated that the growth rate in movement resources requested is actually 216%, and not 208.6% as stated in this proposal. This is based on the following amounts in NOK: WMNO received 821,758 NOK in 2012-2013 Round 2 and is requesting 2,600,000 NOK in 2013-2014 Round 2. We will also use this growth rate when understanding WMNO’s proposal and its financial details.
3. Would WMNO please clarify the amount it will receive (or expects to receive) in external funding for the Saami project during the current year?

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 09:46, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Questions about WMNO’s programs

These questions and requests relate to your programs and strategy:

1. Does WMNO have baseline metrics to share about its Wikipedias of focus (Nynorsk, Bokmaal, Northern Saami), so that we can better understand the context of WMNO’s goals and targets? (For example, WMNO plans to increase the number of articles on Bokmaal Wikipedia to 500,000 and mobilize 2,000 editors and 1,000 active editors. It would help to also let readers of this proposal know how many articles, editors and active editors there are currently, so readers can better understand the significance of this work.)
2. Please explain more about how WMNO has grouped its activities into programs. We noticed that the system used to describe program expenses in WMNO’s table seems to be quite different from how WMNO has organized this proposal into different programs.
3. Please share some measurable targets for WMNO’s second program (External GLAM). For example, how many female editors to you expect to recruit through this program and how will WMNO know it has met its goal? How many images does WMNO expect will be released through this internal GLAM work, and how do you expect these images will be used on the Wikimedia websites?
4. WMNO’s largest program expenses are Film and new media, Omnibus surveys CATI, Wikipedia Academy in Tromsø, and Wiki Loves Memories development, but there is not very much information contained in this proposal about each of those activities. Would you please provide a brief description here of each item and describe how it is related to your program goals? If you can link to where this information is contained elsewhere, that would work well instead.
5. We are excited that WMNO is gaining momentum with its GLAM work in Norway; given that building partnerships can be resource intensive, how do you ensure that WMNO’s GLAM work is focused on targeting content gaps on Bokmaal, Nynorsk, and Northern Saami projects and increasing diversity? This will help us better understand the potential impact on Wikimedia's strategic goals.
6. What does WMNO hope to achieve through its microgrants program? How has WMNO determined a need for this program? Are there any goals associated with microgrants? How will the program work?
7. How, if at all, does WMNO’s work in the education sector relate to the Wikipedia Education Program as it is being implemented elsewhere in the world? How is it similar or different from the education programs being implemented in other places?

Thank you once again for your responses! We greatly appreciate your engagement in the proposal process, and are available to clarify anything we have requested here. Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 09:46, 11 April 2014 (UTC) �

Answers

Hi! First of all, thanks for good questions - and regrets that we did not manage to answer before Easter. We have our Annual Assembly today, and this has demanded much preparations, together with preparing Q3 reporting and a large application for state program funding. Here are some comments:

1. What plans does WMNO have in place to handle this large increase in budget if funds are granted?

Board members in the new WMNO office in Oslo. Jarle Vines, Hogne Neteland, Dan Mikael Heggø, Astrid Carlsen (employee), and Knut Hjelleset, on March 13, 2014.

• The increase, peculiar as that might seem, is more qualitative than quantitative, i.e. an expansion of existing programs and hirings more than new ones. We currently have 1.6 FTEs distributed on as much as 3 employees. This means, on the staff side, it might be possible to expand the employment entirely without recruiting any new employee, but rather expanding the assignment of each employee (this is of course not to be regarded as anticipated, since these are personnel issues). Program costs are closely related to personnel. To handle program costs the main requirement is stable and competent personnel to manage projects and activities together with the board. Our board now consists of a chairman and vice chairman who have 4 years each in the board and 55 years of organizational experience, combined. Other board members also have substantial organizing and programmatic experience. The programs will be rooted in a board which is capable of handling programs at a large scale. We have got confirmed that recruitment has supported capacity-building and programmatic abilities. We now have three employees who have all proven themselves highly self-going, with much initiative and zero churn. Two of the employees have each 10-15 years of project management experience, one from the film industry and one from the editing business. So, the combined project experience of the board and staff is substantial.
• Specifically, we have experienced that the GLAM sector funds all our co-projects and WiR's, but this is rapidly changing since the new government made substantial cuts in the state budget for the GLAM sector. For example, the Arts Council Norway and the Labour Movement Library and Archives got severe funding cuts, which means that some more co-projects and -events will have to be funded from our side. While all the 8 WiR positions until now have been fully funded by the institutions, the next WiR in discussion can probably not be funded by our GLAM partner. And the higher education program will hardly get much funding from institutions.
• During Q3, the total annual decline in the number of articles, editors and especially of very active editors (+100), was reversed and the earlier levels totally regained. On the biggest, Bokmaal version, the number of heavy editors regained its past levels with 70 heavy editors, while the number of new articles per month, more than doubled. The change coincided with a period of build-up and new outreach activities on the side of WMNO. It is probably fruitless to search for one, single explanation for the strong recovery in activity at Bokmaal, but for certain it coincides with some increased activity such as the large GLAM outreach seminar, the Wikipedia Academy, emerging writing circles in GLAM institutions, and Wiki workshops. On the Nynorsk version, the number of editors was more or less stable, while article production rose sharply in Q3.
• The number of members of Wikimedia Norge has marginally increased, by 6 new members in 2013. The total number of paying members was 70, in march 2014. Four years ago, the number of paying members was 38, so there is close to a doubling since then. The number of volunteers is stable at about 20-30 that more or less frequently attend social gatherings, seminars, etc.

1. What challenges, if any, does WMNO anticipate as part of this rapid growth and how is WMNO equipped to face these challenges?

• The main challenge is employee follow-up, which is to be still undertaken by board members, but which will need to be handled by two board members, with a clear division of responsibilities, in the shorter run, but by hired staff in the intermediate (at latest 2015-). If the application request is met, we will establish a part-time administrative and HR assignment for one employee planned with external funds, insofar as these funds will add 1-2 more FTEs (see below).

1. If WMNO is funded at 120% of its current budget (i.e. a 20% growth rate), how would its plans change? What parts of the proposed work would be prioritized?

Wikimedia Norge showcasting it's first ever recruitment film, a 120 seconds long footage featuring six active editors. April, 2014. Production by Tor Arne Bjerke, an experienced film producer and employee of Wikimedia Norge. The film will be released in May through social media, Wikimedia.no, and possibly on national television.

• The main change will be that we would have to continue at today's 1.6 FTEs with approximately the same programmatic activity level, while the desired funding would leave room for up to 2.5 FTEs with a correspondingly higher ability to convert resources into programs and added activity. Only with the desired funding, would we be able to:

• stage the Wikipedia Academy in Tromsø (North Norway), with a saami topic program (+ NOK 50,000)
• start working systematically towards the higher education sector (NOK 25,000)
• stage several activities and micro granting projects towards the community (+ NOK 50,000)
• develop film and new media as a channel of recruitment and editing training (+ NOK 100,000)
• conduct user and editor market surveys in order to target the right recruitment groups (+ NOK 100,000)
• develop Wiki Loves Memories as an outreach to collect historic living picture (+ NOK 100,000)

• We have a reserve budget, which is presented to the Annual Assembly today. The full budget proposal is conditioned by a full, NOK 2.6 mio funding from the FDC; while the reserve budget is conditioned with a low, c. NOK 1.15 mio funding. See all details here. Please note distinctions between 2014-15 budget columns, and 2014 calendric budget columns, of which the latter include c. NOK 680,000 funding for 2013-14.

1. We note that the amount of total funds allocated to this entity through the FDC process is precisely 821,758 NOK, which has been rounded up in this proposal form to 822,000 NOK. This represents a small difference approximately equivalent to US$50. This is not an issue; we are just noting this here since the exact amount will be used by FDC staff in our financial summaries and calculations.

• Yes, this error probably derives from intra-currency calculations at different times, plus simplification of numbers to the nearest tens, etc..

1. We have calculated that the growth rate in movement resources requested is actually 216%, and not 208.6% as stated in this proposal. This is based on the following amounts in NOK: WMNO received 821,758 NOK in 2012-2013 Round 2 and is requesting 2,600,000 NOK in 2013-2014 Round 2. We will also use this growth rate when understanding WMNO’s proposal and its financial details.

• Yes, this is correct in the strict sense. But the funding last year represented a 40% cut compared to the applied funding. The necessary revenue from FDC was stipulated at USD 235,715. This submission was reduced by the FDC assessment referring to the rapidity of staff growth and the need to find alternative funding. We fully agreed and agree with this concern, but we believe we have proven that the employment challenges are well dealt with, and we are now for the first time in a situation where we can apply for substantial public funds outside the FDC. We regard an increased FDC funding as a vital stepping stone for this move towards external funding (program v - Professionalization), with a first aim to raise NOK 2 million for specific projects. We appeal to the FDC to consider the following: If a chapter has it's first funding reduced by half due to anxiety over it's ability to organize programs and deliver results, should that reduced, first-time funding be regarded as an eternal baseline for later grantmaking when the chapter proves capable to deliver on those key variables? We believe not, if the chapter clearly improves and excels in the areas that were at first questioned.

1. Would WMNO please clarify the amount it will receive (or expects to receive) in external funding for the Saami project during the current year?

• We have budgeted with a NOK 500.000 grant from the Saami Thing at the start of 2015, the submission deadline is September 1. We might apply for slightly more, but all in all this will generally suffice for personnel cost. Wages are lower in those areas, than they are in Oslo.
• We doubted for long, whether or not we should expose a budgeted sum anticipated from state funds. The reason is that the application process is competitive, and we were not eager to expose to other contestants for those funds, how much we were going to apply for. But in the budget proposal for today's Annual Assembly, we have set the application sum to NOK 500,000 on the Saami project application (September), and NOK 1.5 mio on the State funds application (May). This could include 2-3 employees in > 2 FTEs, of which one employee carrying on some administrative and HR functions. This is not clear yet because the applications are still to be submitted. See etails here. Again, note that only the left column includes H1, 2015.

1. Does WMNO have baseline metrics to share about its Wikipedias of focus (Nynorsk, Bokmaal, Northern Saami), so that we can better understand the context of WMNO’s goals and targets? (For example, WMNO plans to increase the number of articles on Bokmaal Wikipedia to 500,000 and mobilize 2,000 editors and 1,000 active editors. It would help to also let readers of this proposal know how many articles, editors and active editors there are currently, so readers can better understand the significance of this work.)

• Yes, we are tracking full baseline metrics against the goals here. And there are baseline statistics for Bokmaal, Nynorsk, and Saami. We have also included such statistics in our latest FDC reporting (Q3), here. The graphics to the right show how the declining trend seems to having been halted or reversed since our employees were installed and substantial outreach programs started in late December.

Graphics showing the development of Activity at Wikipedia in the Bokmaal written language. Two-month intervals, 2013-14.

Graphics showing the development of Activity at Wikipedia in the Nynorsk written language. Two-month intervals, 2013-14.

1. Please explain more about how WMNO has grouped its activities into programs. We noticed that the system used to describe program expenses in WMNO’s table seems to be quite different from how WMNO has organized this proposal into different programs.

• I really do not think we do. The five programs are organized i-v, and so is the program expenses table. Just that this table is more finely divided into main activities under each program. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the spending table has projects and activities grouped under the i - v programs.

1. Please share some measurable targets for WMNO’s second program (External GLAM). For example, how many female editors to you expect to recruit through this program and how will WMNO know it has met its goal? How many images does WMNO expect will be released through this internal GLAM work, and how do you expect these images will be used on the Wikimedia websites?

• In our 2014 plan, we have set targets to reach out to six new GLAM institutions in 2014, and to have an accumulated 10 Wikipedians-in-Residence by 2015. We are on a good track to reach this.
• We expect that GLAM institutions release at least 100,000 new photos into CC every year, which means a little bit more than until now. However, upload is a major issue, since there are still approximately 300-400,000 released photos still waiting to be uploaded. Our WiR developed an upload tool for GLAM collections which was trialed this spring with a 5,000 photos upload, and the Directorate of Cultural heritage now wants to co-operate on a solution that automatically transfers their freely licensed images onto Commons. Furthermore, the Science Museum (Vitenskapsmuseet) has released tens of thousands of historic images and artifact images in CCBYSA, and we will contact them in May to discuss a WiR solution and an uploading / metadata process. We will do the same with the Labour Movement Library and Archives.
• Regarding female editors, we currently recruit mainly female editors through GLAM outreach since they dominate the sector and strongly dominate the events. But after the Chilean gender-tracking tool broke down at tool-server, we are struggling with measurement and have therefore included some plans on market surveys (omnibus, cati, etc) under program v Professionalization".

1. WMNO’s largest program expenses are Film and new media, Omnibus surveys CATI, Wikipedia Academy in Tromsø, and Wiki Loves Memories development, but there is not very much information contained in this proposal about each of those activities. Would you please provide a brief description here of each item and describe how it is related to your program goals? If you can link to where this information is contained elsewhere, that would work well instead.

• Film and new media: If funded, these development projects will be managed by Tor Arne Bjerke, who is half-time film producer and university lecturer in film production, besides his employment at WMNO. In March, Tor Arne produced two 30 sec and a 120 sec films for recruitment and outreach purposes, on an ultralow budget (30 sec film here). However, with growing social media followings and event numbers, and with a large number of institutional and self-organized training sessions, we really want to produce tutorial film in the Norwegian language.
• Wiki Loves Memories: There is an enormous amount of private and corporate film in Norway, which has great historic value. They are available in a number of analogue format that need digitalization and meta-data categorization in order to be preserved. There is much experience in this field among our closest partners. The National Library is responsible for the full historic record of professional film in Norway, and the institutions have much experience in digitalizing and preserving film from historic formats. The costs budgeted will mainly coverthe development of a secure and trust-evoking process for collection, conversion, and return. The crucial issue will be to assure individual uploaders that they can safely trust that their private films are properly dealt with and preserved. This will demand a solid partner (possibly within the GLAM sector) to add this level of trust to the project.
• Wikipedia Academy in Tromsø: This winter, we discussed with the founder of Wikipedia how we could evolve a topical and media focus on the Saami minority language efforts that are taking place with Wikipedia in Northern Norway. The University of Tromsø is the center of linguistic research in Saami, and the local organization of the Wikipedia Academy will be led by assistant professor of Saami language, Trond Trosterud. We have organized 4 Wikipedia Academies, already, the last one in December 2013.

1. We are excited that WMNO is gaining momentum with its GLAM work in Norway; given that building partnerships can be resource intensive, how do you ensure that WMNO’s GLAM work is focused on targeting content gaps on Bokmaal, Nynorsk, and Northern Saami projects and increasing diversity? This will help us better understand the potential impact on Wikimedia's strategic goals.

• We work systematically to build up the core article portfolio of topics that are typically under-represented: culture, film, natural history, women, etc. For each Wiki workshop we develop lemma lists to guide participants. We take care to have workshops targeted towards female editors, and topics. For example, our WiR at the National Library produced good lemma lists on female photographers to the Preus Museum workshop (March 26), and produces good lemma lists and resource lists to the Cinemateque workshop (May 6). Since new year, all our trainings and Workshops with external partners have had this purpose to reach out to women in general, and culture topics in particular. Another good example is the systematic approach of the Cultural Heritage project, which sets up a scorecard of missing topics and quality gaps. All relevant articles that are missing or under development, are being measured according to how much the articles are being developed and increasing in depth (here).

1. What does WMNO hope to achieve through its microgrants program? How has WMNO determined a need for this program? Are there any goals associated with microgrants? How will the program work?

• We have determined the need through community discussion, and through good success within WMSE. Judging from the experiences of the Directorate of Cultural Heritage who gave away 15 grants last fall, we will follow up every grantee a bit more on actually meeting predefined activity targets. Microgrants will be distributed among such things as Wikimania, WiR conferences, one-person photo safaris to remote areas, etc. The microgrants project is first of all intended to increase editor retention, present new possibilities for veteran editors, and fill in white spots - such as topics related to the most remote districts in Norway who do not have wikipedians. We will evaluate applications and review results in a simple way by verifying traveling costs, produced images or articles, etc.

1. How, if at all, does WMNO’s work in the education sector relate to the Wikipedia Education Program as it is being implemented elsewhere in the world? How is it similar or different from the education programs being implemented in other places?

• We do not yet work programmatically towards education, that is only proposed to commence with the 2014-2015 period. In January-February, we had a first successful approach towards the higher education sector, resulting in 2 Masters programs from 2015 that will include Wikipedia as a didactic platform, at the University College of Lillehammer. Independent initiatives have also established Wikipedia in higher education at the University of Nordland, and at the Norwegian School of Business (Oslo). There have also been attempts at the University of Bergen (genetics, 2009), and the University of Oslo (odontology, medicine, informatics). We are now eager to take these independent and partly spontaneous initiatives a step further, and connect their originators to each other and to the higher education network around Wikipedia. In Norway, the 8 traditional universities have acquired ownership of the competing encyclopedia (SNL.no), and attempt to give top-down preference to that encyclopedia. We regard this development as an alarming and unwarranted attack on the scientific freedom of researchers, and we want to organize a program for the 30-40 university colleges and the private universities. Our board and staff have substantial experience from the sector, as university lecturer, national student organizers, and researchers. Board members also have a strong knowledge of, and network within the sector. The initiative towards higher education will be the cournerstone in the State funds application (May, 2014), because the funding requirements focus on article quality and scientific content. This makes the FDC-funded program a piloting platform for a much larger initiative targeting the sector.

Bjoertvedt (talk) 22:13, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for these responses to our questions and clarifications. We appreciate your engagement during the community review period! Best regards, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 20:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up to questions from last year's WMNO proposal

I raised several very specific points regarding last year's proposal, as I was concerned whether sufficient planning and preparation was done for the hiring of two full-time employees. My specific inquiries were here, questions about Wikimedia Norge strategy, these being the salient points:

• Will the job descriptions for the two new staff members include any prior familiarity with WMF, Wikipedia "culture", editing etc.?
• Who will train the two new staff members, and is that budgeted? In order to fully realize the benefit of two newly hired full-time staff, certain pragmatic matters, e.g. systems support, supplies, must be anticipated.

This was the response (excerpt): Familiarity with WMF is not important, if at all interesting. We need two full time staff to run courses, lectures etc. Regarding training, they walk into uncharted land and basically have to train themselves, if they are successful they will keep their jobs, if not, they are out. They must work independent, organise and deliver results.

Could you please describe if this was successful, if there were any issues, how you addressed them and what your intentions are in the future?

As others have already noted, your funding request level has increased by greater than 200% over last year, thus we wish to ensure that the funds are used as effectively as possible.
Thank you. --FeralOink (talk) 13:03, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I must simply sum up that our recruitment process was extremely successful. We got 3 employees on 1.6 FTEs, who have done very good work for the chapter and community. There is absolutely no churn after half a year, and all catch up very quickly with wiki editing and culture. They have a mixture of NGO, programmatic/project, language, film and communication experience. They work extraordinarily well together, and we would really hope to be able to keep some or all of the three if we got the requested funding. This could make new recruitment fully or partly obsolete, and we anticipate hardly any training apart from what experienced employees would face before new programs to be implemented. The only issue is that employee follow-up is a bit demanding for volunteer board members, but we intentionally avoided a leadership role for any employee, after conferring with WMSE experience and evaluation. However, if a substantial state program funding scheme is successful, we might define a part-time HR function. Best regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 08:06, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The employees are three. They call themselves prosjektmedarbeider, which in Norwegian means temporary worker in a project limited in time and scope. As far as I can ascertain from the WMNO documents they have contracts ending in june. They seem to be one full time worker and one on 20% time and the third 40% time. They are new and have not made many edits to Wikipedia yet. One worker with two accounts (26 edits + 74 edits), another also with two accounts (37 edits + 37 edits) and the third worker has 12 edits. The two of them that has user accounts have not connected the accounts so they have not yet been told about the advisability of connecting their accounts. They are still newbes and treated with all good will accorded to newbes. --Dyveldi (talk) 21:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Flat rejection

• Norway is one of the world's richest countries, with a standard of living above most other countries. There is no need for external funding covering travel expenses etc. although distances are long.

• New contributors to Norwegian Wikipedia are treated with disdain. Instead of acknowledging the effort and contribution by new writers, the administrators meet them with petty complaints. See: Brukerdiskusjon:Weatherford

• I also find it extremely peculiar that I cannot log in under my Norwegian account name to comment on this proposal.

It is correct that Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, but Norwegians also contribute to Wikimedia Foundation fund raisers, so I would argue it is would seem to be fair that some of that money were spent in Norway, if it could be used for supporting volunteers there.

I do not agree that new contributors to Wikipedia in Bokmål/Riksmål in general is treated with disdain. One could always do more, but checking with how newcomers are met I think that one in general would see a friendly and welcoming environment, even when newcomers are not that helpful. Do bear in mind that there have been no training of voluntary contributors, no courses run on best practice etc which would be very common in any other similar setting. Best regards, Ulflarsen (talk) 07:49, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

About the Norwegian government support of internet encyclopaedias

• For several years various governments did say no to supporting the Norwegian encyclopaedia Store norske leksikon (now snl.no). First the paper version and later the internett version. Norwegians do love their encyclopaedias though. The National Library claims we have bought more encyclopaedias per capita than the rest of the world (ISBN 9788275476119 page 14). We seem to have had an excessive appetite for encyclopaedias having published close to 100 of them and buying them as well, but after year 2000 this came to a slow end and in year 2010 the publisher gave up and gave their encyclopaedia away gratis. Internet and problably Wikipedia brought it to an end. We still love encyclopaedias though and several professors and other well known and influencial people has fought hard to save our "cultural heritage", our last big encyclopaedia: Store norske leksikon, with the finances of the Norwegian non-profit foundation Fritt_Ord they have survived till now, buildt a new internett-based encyclopaedia from the old paper-based one, changed and developed, but Fritt Ord after spending millions on development had made it clear that their funding would not continue further than the beginning of 2014 and this prompted an application from snl.no for government funding in may 2013.
• After the election for the Norwegian Stortinget in September 2013 the politicians that won the election had changed their mind about not funding a Norwegian encyclopaedia, and in their revised budget set aside 5 mill. NOK («Videre foreslås det å etablere en tilskuddsordning til nettbaserte leksika med en bevilgning på 5 mill. kroner i 2014. .... Regjeringen ser derfor et behov for å bidra til å sikre et større mangfold av fagredigerte og faglig kvalitetssikrede nettbaserte leksika på norsk.» Furthermore it is suggested to establish a financial support of internet-based encyclopaedias with NOK 5 mill in 2014. ... The government sees a need to contribute to a greater variety of internet-based encyclopaedias in Norwegian that are professionally edited and where the quality is professionally controlled.)
• Details about this new funding of internet-based Norwegian encyclopaedias became known April 10th 2014 in this press release. It was to be administered by the Norwegian national library (link here, with link to document containing criteria in Norwegian). Some of the criteria are:

4. Who can apply. Publishers of encyclopaedias can apply for funding. ...

5. What will be applicable for funding. It is possible to apply for development and management for internet-based encyclopaedias.

6. Criteria for funding. Funding is granted based on a professional and technical evaluation of the application based on the purpose, limits and criteria. The following criteria are of especially important:

Professional quality of content.

The articles must be signed.

...

• One of the larger Norwegian newspapers, Dagens Næringsliv, wrote about it in the article: «Støtter nettleksikon» and the minister of culture, Thorild Widwey, was quoted saying. «Dersom Wikipedia skal kunne få tilskudd, må det nettbaserte leksikonet legge om sin praksis med usignerte artikler.» (For Wikipedia to receive a grant the internet encyclopaedia must change its practice of unsigned articles.)
• snl.no wrote last year to the government that they had secured 7,8 mill NOK from Norwegian universities to produce professional quality content and support a professional editorship. They wrote that in addition they needed 5,2 mill NOK from the goverment to pay for technical development information, administration and management. The new goverment funding now published almost meets these "demands".
• There have been extensive discussions on Wikipedia in Norwegian bokmål so obviously WMNO must apply if only to receive a proper answer. As far as I can see WMNO does not publish encyclopaedias and Wikipedia articles can be well and thouroughly sourced, but never signed. As the question has developed in the political discussions referrred to in the newspapers, and having read both the invitation to apply for the funding and what snl.no last year wrote to the goverment, I find it highly unlikely that WMNO will be applicable to receive anything of these funds and this part of their budget suprised me. --Dyveldi (talk) 20:46, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dyveldi! Your views are welcome and known, from the good debates that we have already had at Wikipedia in Norway. The board and the Annual Assembly last weekend concluded more positively regarding the chances of getting State project funds. But only time can tell. Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

About the current edit trends at the major Norwegian Wikipedia (bokmål)

• 
  Nye skribenter
• 
  Bidratt 5 ganger eller mer
• 
  Bidratt 100 ganger eller mer
• 
  Nye sider som tilfredstiller visse krav

These are the trends for the Norwegian (bokmål) version of Wikipedia. In all aspects there are a steady decline over the last years. The yellow graph shows the difference over one year, and the red one shows the a one year mean. The period with courses shows a slight improvement in new editors and in the group of editors with five or more edits. It seems like this coincide with the courses held by Arts Council Norway and in cooperation with others. When the courses finishes it seems like the previous activity drops.

New pages have a spike, but that seems to be due to a rather large copying of bot created articles from swedish Wikipedia.

An interesting thing is that it seems like the decline in number of large editors seems to slow down. This would be a GoodThing™. — Jeblad 21:53, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I could comment on this as I disagree with most of your messages, but since your comment and my eventual answer would be overdue according to the discussion period (deadline April 30), I understand that both your comment and my answer would be of no value. If the FDC wants this commented during their assessment period, please contact me directly. Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 17:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

This is an ongoing steady decline for several years, which is easily available in Zachtes statistics. If you don't want to accept it, fine, but don't try to give the impression that this is wrong unless you have clear proof that there is in fact something wrong with the statistics and/or graph. Thank you. — Jeblad 23:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Community review period has ended on 30 April

Thanks to all who have engaged so actively with the discussions about this proposal! Community discussion during the review period is an important input into the FDC process, and is considered very carefully by the FDC. We appreciate everyone's engagement with this proposal, but we would also like to remind all that the Community Review Period for 2013-2014 Round 2 proposals has ended on 30 April. While everyone is free to continue to comment, the FDC or FDC staff may not be able to take further comments into account when preparing assessments of this proposal or consider new comments during the deliberations. While we ask organizations to be responsive to comments and questions during this review period (until 30 April), we do not ask organizations to reply to new comments and questions made after that date within any particular timeframe; therefore, it may take some time for organizations to reply to any new comments. Thank you to everyone for your engagement and your understanding. Best regards, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 04:01, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

WMNO's approved annual plan and budget

Greetings, WMNO colleagues:

Now that it has been more than a week since the annual assembly, are you able to add links to your annual planning documents (approved budget and approved annual plan) to the proposal form or to this proposal form discussion page? This information will aid the FDC in their upcoming deliberations.

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 18:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello. Here you can find our annual plan for 2014 Arbeidsplan 2014. And here you will find our budget approved by the annual assembly Budsjett 2014, --Jarvin (talk) 10:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for this update, Jarvin! Cheers, 216.38.130.164 15:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for extension on Q3-report

Hi, would it be possible to grant Wikimedia Norge an extension on the Q3 deadline because of our board transition? We hope you can grant us an extension till 8 May. Best regards --WMNOastrid (talk) 17:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, WMNOastrid. The extension to 8 May is approved, although we would appreciate your posting any data that you have available now as soon as possible, as it may assist the FDC in understanding your work as they review your current proposal. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer). Thank you!--WMNOastrid (talk) 07:10, 24 April 2015 (UTC)