Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2016-2017 round 2/Wikimédia France/Proposal form

WMF preliminary remarks

Bonjour Wikimedia France team (Cyrille Émeric, Pierre-Selim, Jean-Fred). Thank you for this proposal. This is a section for remarks about the proposal (this is more on form and missing data than on actual content)

• You have not filled Table 2 and gave a rationale for it. Can you confirm the exact date when you will have those numbers ready? They are essential for our analysis and review of proposals. Thank you. 13:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
• in Theme 1- Item C under Strengths and weaknesses, there's a text placeholder with "link to a press review" and no link. If you have one, please add it. Thanks! Delphine (WMF) (talk) 07:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Bonjour Delphine (WMF), I apologize for the missing data. I added the information in Table 2, but for the dead link, I have a small problem: the link refers to our internal wiki (WikiMember). But you need a code to access it. We can not put this information on Meta because many are under copyright ... Sorry about that. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 12:29, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Merci Cyrille. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Missing budget: Hey Cyrille, I can't find a link for WMFR's full budget (there is no link under "Detailed budget: upcoming year"). Could you add a link? --Itzike (talk) 12:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

• Was coming to say the same :). Thank you for adding a link to the detailled budget. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
• Hello everyone. I'm not in the office today, but I'll be going on Saturday. I will put the link before the end of the weekend. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 16:10, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
• Done. Have a nice week end. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 14:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Merci Cyrille WMFr. Can you confirm that the columns Item 1/2/3 refer to the THEMES outlined in the plan? Thanks. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, ITEM was the old translation ... but this actually refers to THEMES. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 07:05, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Questions and remarks from the community consultation

Languages

If I understand correctly, most of the work completed so far in this area is the creation of pronunciation recordings (quite a hot topic in recent years, since GSoC and other projects). What usage is expected for those? Are there alternative potential sources, such as existing pronunciation dictionaries with audio samples?

I think Wikisource and Wiktionary are the projects where it's easiest to achieve broad impact with regional languages: will you focus on either, or just support the "business as usual" i.e. the various Wikipedia subdomains? (I've been working myself on [technical] support for those Wikipedia subdomains, so of course I think that's valuable too.) --Nemo 10:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• You are right, the origin of the Lingua Libre project aim to increase sound contents on Wikimedia’s project by realizing easily records thanks to an internet access only, and sending them to Wikimedia Commons. But we also work on an option which allows massive upload of corpus with the support of universities or linguistic centers. And yes we are not only focused on the various Wikipedia subdomains, we also work on Wiktionnary with several members of the User group of Wiktionnary who are deeply involved in this project. Today, we didn’t begin to work with Wikisource but it should be the next step by digitizing sources in minority languages. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:36, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Fonctions

Your organization chart has a funny typo, fonctions in stead of functions. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 07:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• indeed. Sorry, it's the French word, but fortunately it means the same thing. Thank you Cyrille WMFr (talk) 07:12, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Questions from FDC members

Wittylama

Ciao WM-FR thank you for this application documentation - and the considerable work you've done to make it not only detailed, but also *pretty* :-) I've got a few questions about it:

1. Can you explain what the columns "item 1" , "item 2" and "item 3" refer to in your budget? Is this the way you've chosen to describe the project costs of the "three themes" of your annual plan, or does it refer to periods of the year, or something else? [question was already answered in #WMF preliminary remarks.] If it is the former ("item 1" column = "Theme 1: content development") do you have any breakdown of the costs allocated to the projects within those themes (e.g. "Item A: Focusing on heritage" vs. "Item E: Languages") or is the budget only delineated at the Theme level? Wittylama (talk) 16:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
   • Our management accounting is not built on the model of the actions proposed in the application. In this case we can only make one projection per Theme. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
2. The introduction of Radar Charts (for example this one) into the planning is an interesting development, and i'm looking forward to seeing if it is a useful tool for you (and therefore maybe other chapters in the future). You've said that "This is an a priori evaluation enabling us to design the implementation of a project" - does this mean you've used this tool to determine which projects to run this year? Can you explain how you arrived at these particular 8 variables to be used in each chart (attractiveness, replicability, disruptiveness, etc...), and is there a definition for them somewhere? For example - is it accurate to say that something with an "necessary resources" score of 3 is a less attractive project than one with a score of 1 because it needs more resources; and, does a "legitimacy" score of 1 (the lowest score) mean that the project is "illegitimate" (and what does that mean in this context)? Also, whose scoring was used to make the final assessment (e.g. community-wide survey, staff of the chapter, core volunteers for each project) and was it the same people who scored all of the projects (or was each chart built with the input from different people)? Wittylama (talk) 16:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
   • The radar charts are used to determine, a priori, whether a project is worth the effort. And even if the evaluation is not absolute, it forces us to have a reflection on the interest of the action.

   The criteria used were defined in the workshop during the strategy weekend in January. You can find a definition here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Gouvernance/Projet_strat%C3%A9gique/2017-.../Plan_d%27action/Week-end_strat%C3%A9gie/Crit%C3%A8res_d%27%C3%A9valuation_des_actions (unfortunately in French).

   As for the evaluation, it was actually done by a group made up of employees (almost all the teams) and volunteers interested in the exercise. Itstarted during the strategy weekend and was finished in the following days. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

3. This is probably a silly question - but when is the "Wikiconcours lycéen"? I as because that section of this Proposal document contains no links to the homepage of the project. The graphic timeline in the application says October-June. and the project page on French Wikipedia says it will finish on 15 May 2017. Does that mean that the project described the FR.WP is that which is mentioned Interim report and that this proposal is referring to October-June 2017-18? On another note: I really like that this project is growing and potentially to other neighbouring countries :-) Wittylama (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
   • The Wikiconcours lycéen runs from October until June but the start date and end date of the contributions depend on the year. This year, the end date is the 15th of May 2017 but after these dates there will be a jury (with both Wikimédia France and the partner) and the deliberation and award events for the winning classes. So that’s why, we wrote October - June. For the next year, it will be the same but the start and end date may change, in accordance with holidays for example. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
4. Under "Theme 3, Item D: Educational videos" it is not clear what the outcome of this project will be. The "what" column of the relevant Impact Mapping says that the different stakeholders will make storyboard, a communications-campaign, and a project page. Does this mean that filming/animating/editing (with what equipment? by who?) the videos (how many?) is not part of the scope of the project and will be done in the following year? Wittylama (talk) 16:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
   • This is a misunderstanding : the goal is actually to produce videos (and not just make storyboards).

   We have already tried, to explain to the general public the details of the law and their implications for them, and the results have been rather conclusive.

   So far, the equipment used is mainly the WMFr photo equipment (Canon EOS 5D, 7D, 70D). But for these videos we are looking for a partnership with a large French Not-for-profit organization (called ’’Les Colibris’’ which proposed to share their recording studio, equipments, skills and to share the outcome to all of their stakeholders! Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Mike Peel

Thanks for your proposal this year. Although I have to admit that I was seeing red a lot of the time while reading it, that's just down to the colour scheme you chose. ;-) I have a few questions:

• It's good to see the restructuring of your staff into departments. I'm less clear on how that relates to the themes, though, or whether everyone works equally on each theme. Can you elaborate on this please?
  • Hoping that you like red, the aim of the restructuring, as well as the presentation under 3 themes, is to communicate more effectively with our different partners, to ensure that they better understand what we are doing.

  That said, each pole is not dedicated to a defined theme. For example, Operating Core is mainly busy with theme 2 (community animation), but it is also very active on theme 1 (in connection with GLAM).Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• I also like the use of timelines (it's the closest I've seen to a Diagramme de Gantt in the Wikimedia movement so far!), but as they are scattered through the document it is difficult to visualise how these interact through the year. Do you have a figure that shows all of these together at all, please?
  • This document does not exist at the moment. But it will be created, over 2 years, for our strategic action plan. Stay tuned.Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
• The radar plots are also good, but I have the same question as Liam above about how they are used to inform the projects that are done, particularly given the wide variety of areas contained in these charts across the projects.
  • Does the answer to Liam answer your question? Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
• With the 'My Wikipedia Town' project, how are potential conflicts of interests between the editors and the topics being handled?
  • There should be no conflicts of interests with this project because it was conceived more like an animation tool for supporting local activities. We know that heritage is an interesting approach for a means of actions. This action lean on a broader initiative concerning the open data especially for municipalities/towns in France. So we are going to work on two different level: Strengthen open data practices among cities and inviting people to reuse them by contributing to Wikipedia. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
• I'm concerned about the plan to develop a MOOC, rather than continuing to use an existing platform. It's quite a bit of development work, both to get it up and running to start with (beyond the concept development costs here) and to keep it running in the long term. By changing from a more widely-used platform to a dedicated one, don't you lose access to the people using that platform? (I guess this depends on where MOOC attendees are coming from - through the platform or from other advertising.) Do you have buy-in from other chapters or volunteers on the different Wikimedia projects at the moment, to demonstrate that it would definitely be used internationally? Is it not possible to adapt/build on an existing system, rather than develop a new one from scratch?
  • “By changing from a more widely-used platform to a dedicated one” -> yes, it’s a risk; but only about 25 % of the attendees found the WikiMOOC through the platform; about 50 % saw the CentralNotice. These data comes from a survey we did at the end of the WikiMOOC #2. We actually think that the fact the courses will be accessible all the year –and not only during the MOOC duration, as until now– will amply compense the people we lose because of the dedicated platform. There are indeed often people who can’t attend the MOOC because of that. Moreover, all in all, the current WikiMOOC content will be easier to adapt, transform, so we think it will be profitable.
  • “Do you have buy-in from other chapters or volunteers on the different Wikimedia projects at the moment, to demonstrate that it would definitely be used internationally?” -> We have public endorsement from Wikimedia CH, Wikimedia AR and Algerian User Group (see here). We have also been in touch with Wikimedia DE, Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia NL, and with an Indian Wikimedian, User:Diptanshu Das, but the truth is that we don’t currently have enough time to move forward with all these chapters and Wikimedians. That is the reason why the project is in stand-by: we want to develop the platform based on the needs expressed by the other chapters (ping @Gabrielle Marie WMCH:). It means we really need to have a first phase dedicated to coordination between chapters and volunteers. Without this coordination, creating a platform will not be worth; with it, we really think the platform will be used internationally.
  • “Is it not possible to adapt/build on an existing system, rather than develop a new one from scratch?” -> Yes! When the first coordination phase will be done, our plan is to adapt en:Open edX (the software behind our current platform FUN, and one of the most known MOOC softwares) for the Wikimedia MOOC platform. We will probably work with OpenCraft, a company who contributed to Open edX. This will save us a lot of time. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:46, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Laurentius

Thank you for your proposal. I have a few questions:

1. Having a meeting with your stakeholders seems a good idea to have input for you plan. Which kinds of stakeholders took part in your January meeting? - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • We invited staff members, board members and the geographical or thematic group coordinators, facilitated by externs consultants.Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
2. In past editions of L'Été des régions, have you actually managed to involve also holidaymakers? Or will this be the first attempt? The idea seems good, but not easy to achieve. - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • Yes, we actually succeeded last year to involved some holidaymakers. We sent to tourism offices and to municipalities a communication kit available to the public. Last year 75 accounts were created during the campaign.Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
3. In the "French language Wikiconvention" timeline there is a symbol not explained in the legend, a wrench and a laptop: what does it mean? - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • This was the first version of the pictogram supposed to illustrate the time of preparation. As it was not understandable enough, the pictogram was modified, unfortunately the timeline of the wikiconvention had not been updated. It is now corrected. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for the notice!Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
4. Reading the page Wikimédia France/Utilisation du matériel empruntable you linked, the equipment has been used only 4 times in the last year. Is the use of the equipment decreasing, or is the usage not recorded over there? - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • Sorry ! Wrong Link. This is the good page : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Mat%C3%A9riel_mis_%C3%A0_disposition
     • Thanks! Since that information is not on the new page, could you give us an idea of how much are those materials used? - Laurentius (talk) 11:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
5. In section 3A, you mentioned "employees of companies" as one of you target audiences for training. Which kind of companies/jobs are you targeting? - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • We’re targeting the big companies (CAC 40 index firms) and their training, HR and communication departments. We focus on the best practices of contribution regards to the rules of the french Wikipedia. We had some good feedbacks about the thematic.Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
6. Still in 3A, in the timeline there are only background and opportunistic actions. It's not clear to me when actions are taking place, also considering the different activities in this section. - Laurentius (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
   • Only background and opportunistic actions are represented because we don’t have right now all the dates of the trainings. Indeed, some stakeholders contact us during the year to set up training sessions mostly from october to may. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
7. I'd like to understand more how your local groups work. Is there a page listing the groups? How many people are part of them? How many, and which, activities are generally running? Do you plan to increase their number? - Laurentius (talk) 15:48, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, I think two things can be answered: our website (https://www.wikimedia.fr/participation-locale/) and the guide used for the operation of the groups (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Guide_pratique/en) Cyrille WMFr (talk) 10:27, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Bishakha

Many thanks for your proposal. I have one question on the metrics. Is there an overlap between the shared metric of "participants" and the grantee-defined metric of "people trained"? In other words, are "people trained" also being recorded as "participants"? Bishdatta (talk) 14:10, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, people trained can also being recorded as participants. This grantee-defined metric help us to evaluate the number of people really autonomous to edit Wikimedia projects (and not only the participants ot a conference, event…). So, we can have an idea of our investment of dissemination. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 12:09, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Risker

On deeper review of this proposal, and comparing it with previous years, I note that 6 of the 12 staff identified in last year's proposal are no longer with the organization. As well, 4 of the 9 Board members, all or most of whom were elected since the last proposal have resigned in the last 11 weeks. Could you help us to understand why there has been such a high level of change? Risker (talk) 04:57, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Dear @Cyrille, could you address this question? aegis maelstrom δ 10:16, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

.Sorry, I had not seen this question.

Concerning the salaried team:

• Nadia was replaced by Cindy because Nadia had a baby and she wants to focus on this new project.
• Anne-Laure, following her training, wished to become self-employed and was replaced by Xavier.
• Jean-Philippe followed his ambitions and joined a communication agency as Artistic Director. He is replaced by Sarah (former civic volunteer of WMFr).
• Pierre-Antoine also chose to follow his route.
• Louise and Marc were on civic voluntary service, and these contracts last only nine months.

In general, WMFr gives young graduates a chance. The turnover is therefore natural and healthy. It means that after a first experience gained, new opportunities open for our colleagues and that the image of WMFr is rewarding.

Concerning the members of the Board of Trustees, I invite you to consult the answer given on the talk page of the "Staff proposal assessment".

This comment has been hidden according to the Friendly space expectations
... and the other two for suspicious reasons.

The Board is still operating normally though. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 12:30, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

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• Thank you for responding. The FDC has reviewed the response, both here and on the talk page of the staff assessment. This information is being reviewed prior to drafting our recommendations. Risker (talk) 15:34, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Questions from WMF

Hello WMFR's team! (ping Cyrille, Émeric, Pierre-Selim, Jean-Fred). Here are a few clarifying questions from the WMF team, some of them might tie into the questions from the FDC members above, so feel free to answer just once above or here.

Number of participants vs content pages

Your expected results for number of participants, especially in Axis/Theme 1, are very high (9005). In comparison, the numbers for content pages in that Axis is quite low (this amounts to a just a little more than one page created or improved per participant). Can you elaborate how this works? Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• We run some actions involving more participants than editors. For example, the MOOC and the Wikiconcours lycéen involve around 6000 participants but not all the participants are editors on the Wikimedia projects (about the MOOC, a large proportion of participants don’t succeed and through the Wikiconcours lycéen there are working groups, so a team of 4 students equal one editor / one user account on the Wikimedia projects and maximum one article created. About the editathons, the balance is more equal, we usually have one article created for 1,5 participant. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:22, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Cyrille WMFr! When we reviewed the progress report, I think you mentionned around 3000 people enrolled in the MOOC this time around and if I'm not mistaken about 500-600 for people who actually finished the MOOC last round (which would be a good indicator of how engaged people are and might be a better metric than just those who enrolled). This would leave 3000 for the Wikiconcours. How do you track statistics for the Wikiconcours? I couldn't find it on the Project & Events Dashboard. I have just gone through the Wikiconcours pages, and counted about 400 participants who remotely seemed to be doing something on Wikipedia, double that if we count the dormant pages with not even a list of students. Am I missing something? What's the point of the Wikiconcours if not adding stuff in Wikipedia? Thanks. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 09:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

• About the Wikiconcours lycéen, we have a sheet with the classrooms which participate. Each classroom gather around 30 students which work in several working groups to edit Wikipedia. That’s why i wrote 1 user account for the Wikiconcours is not 1 student. For one account created, we can have 6 students behind. Even with that, a lot of students create their user account (during the training for example) but will edit with one account. After that, with the usernames archived in the project page, we just track the edits with WikiMetrics. The project pages are not still complete, we do an important update just after the end of the contest. Right now 50 classrooms participate which means around 1550 participants. For example, last year students created / improved 377 articles. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 13:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Cyrille WMFr. Please do not forget my question below about the hackathon. :) Delphine (WMF) (talk) 07:50, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Strength and weaknesses radars

We had the same question as Liam, which you answered above. Thanks. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• This hackathon would be about improving ComeOn! and other tools that could be useful for GLAM partnerships. The audience would be quite small (maybe around 20 volunteer devs), so not a big event. On the long run, the goal is to encourage French open source developers to create tools for the Wikimedia community. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 07:37, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
  • @Cyrille WMFr: I think you mistakenly copied also here an answer intended for another question. - Laurentius (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Hackathon

You mention a hackathon in Promoting and protecting projects:Item B:Open Content. It is not clear what the audience, theme and potential outcomes of this hackathon would be. Thanks for clarifying. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• This hackathon would be about improving ComeOn! and other tools that could be useful for GLAM partnerships. The audience would be quite small (maybe around 20 volunteer devs), so not a big event. On the long run, the goal is to encourage French open source developers to create tools for the Wikimedia community. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 07:37, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Local Groups

You mention 14 local groups. In order for us to better understand the context, do you have numbers of how many active volunteers these groups have in average? Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• It's complicated to give you a reliable average, because some emerging groups have only 5 active members, where a group such as the one in Lyons must approach the twenty members (if not more). Basically, for these 14 groups, we have to count between 75 and 100 members. Cyrille WMFr (talk) 08:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

You also mention that you did a survey towards those loal groups. Can you point us to the results please? Thanks! Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yes... but in french... Wikimédia France/Gouvernance/Projet stratégique/2017-.../Études/Questionnaire stratégie Cyrille WMFr (talk) 09:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you!