Grants talk:PEG/Pgallert/Indigenous knowledge for Wikipedia workshop/Report

Apologies for the delay

Hi all, I'm sorry that it took so long to complete this report. In fact, it is not even 'final' in the sense that we will get something back for the unused ticket of participant 3, but I do not know yet how much... the email conversation with the travel agent is still ongoing, half a year after the fact, and I had the hope that I could include the outcome of this in the report.

Now there are two reasons why I present the report today as-is:

1. There is another activity for which I would like to apply for funds, the eLearning Africa 2015 conference in Ethiopia. I was encouraged by the WMF to submit a talk to this conference, the talk was accepted, and I have until 20 April to pay. I haven't filed a grant proposal yet but I guess I have to be 'in good standing' for it to have any chance.
2. And of course, I'm sitting on your money and shouldn't be.

So please forgive me for the long delay (due date was in January), finances are just not my favourite area. Thanks again for making this experiment possible! --Pgallert (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

P.S.: I have submitted the new grant application here: Grants:TPS/Pgallert/e-Learning Africa 2015 --Pgallert (talk) 10:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Peer review

A bit disappointing outcome, but the recurring concept of peer review in the report is interesting. I don't remember what's your research area at your university, but based on this experiment it looks like a "traditional" research project would work better for a long-term continuation, with an intern or junior researcher + translator conducting dozens of interviews over a period of multiple months. As for the selection of topics, maybe an approach similar to the WPS lists can help. --Nemo 08:05, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

Hi Pgallert. Now it's my turn to apologize for the delay in reviewing the report! Thanks for submitting the report and all your effort in making this experiment a reality. While the number of participants and articles expanded were fewer than anticipated, it sounds like there was still a lot of value in conducting the interviews and in the learnings. We have a few questions below and look forward to your responses.

1. Why do you think there were so few high quality applicants and that the experienced Wikimedians you expected to apply did not? In the end it sounds like the group size was appropriate for the type of activity you were doing, but it would helpful to know how to engage more experienced editors in the future. Have you considered continuing the project in a model suggested by Nemo above?
2. There is a lot of value in creating these “before--after” scenarios. What is the current status of the various policy discussions on the admission of oral citations? Have these scenarios been introduced into the discussions? If not, what are the plans for doing so? Beyond the Wikimedia blog, what are your plans for promoting this project to the broader community?
3. The blog says “we now understand a bit better how to collect oral citations, and how to select them for building an encyclopedia.” Beyond the report, have these learnings been documented and shared?
4. Remaining funds: After deducting 26,074.63 ZAR from your underspend on this grant to attend the e-Learning Africa 2015 conference, you should still have 47,022.37 ZAR remaining. Are you still interested in visiting another village to gather oral citations? Will you be covering much different topics that you had hoped to cover but weren't able to in this grant? Is the goal to add to the collection of scenarios? What follow-up plans would you have?

Thanks again, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Dear Alex, thanks for reviewing this. I should say that we could still get more oral citations out of the one interview we conducted, it is just that somebody has to do it. One of the participants let us down completely (didn't make a single edit and kept his notes for himself, if he indeed did take any), one only used them for his own academic work. So Nemo bis (talk · contribs)'s disappointment is partly caused by my disappointment, on a fine day I shall be back with more oral citations that are still on a notepad of mine. Regarding your questions:

1. It is hard to say why there were not more, but let me give it a try: There are activists, there are editors, and there is the intersection between the two. In sub-Saharan Africa we have a comparatively many activists. We have some active or very active editors, but people in the intersection are so terribly few that I believe I know them all by first name. So there's not so much fish in this pond. Having gained some insight into other indigenous African Wikipedias lately I would say that the experienced Wikimedians just aren't around in the numbers that I had planned for.
2. I haven't started a new policy discussion because I still wanted to add a few more citations. Particularly pressing is the issue of reliability: I think if we want oral citations to fly we need to show that different knowledge bearers roughly tell the same story. I am convinced that this is the case, and I have experienced it myself, but this part is not documented as yet. I think it would be strategically wise to wait with any new round of discussions until this point can be shown.
3. I tried to report on the current status at Wikimania Mexico, but while my scholarship was approved both of my talks were rejected. Wikimania organisers can pride themselves that they are in a position to reject things that are being accepted as PhD proposals elsewhere ;) as I have started at University of Oslo, and I had an informal approval also from University of Oxford. So yes, I'm going to make a lot more paper black in the next few years. Let me see how much of that I can make freely accessible, though.
4. I'd like to skip this question until after Wikimania, if that is okay.

--Pgallert (talk) 11:39, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Update on #4: It seems this topic is still of quite some interest, that's what I wanted to figure out in Mexico. Applying what we (translator, photographer, and I) have learned from this round of oral citation collection, I suggest we have another one. The changes would be:

• local group instead of international group
• small group (max 3) instead of big group
• more days and more elders

This should be much less expensive than the original project. Major savings are on the flight tickets, and on the rewards for the elders: Our own research cluster, without letting me know, has long resolved the challenge on how to fairly and equally 'paying' participants by buying a predetermined hamper set of basic necessities (flour, cooking oil, fish tins, corned beef, tea bags, instant soup). I guess I'll have to put in a new grant request? I haven't got the exact numbers yet for expected expenses, also because I don't know yet which village we'll visit.

The area of knowledge would largely be the same as in this round because we still have to show that different elders report more or less the same facts and explanations. That's the major point I need to show before starting a new round of policy discussion on en-wp. --Pgallert (talk) 10:42, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. Thank you for the responses. Regarding question #3 above, it would be particularly useful for knowledge sharing to outline your recommended steps for collecting oral citations for encyclopedic use on Meta or elsewhere. Perhaps in a Learning Pattern. You can hold on to the unspent funds. Once you have the details sorted out, youcan request a reallocation of funds for the second collection on this discussion page. Please see the bottom of this page for information on requesting a reallocation. This will be a simpler process than applying for a new grant. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), and thanks for accepting the report. I had started Grants:PEG/Pgallert/Indigenous knowledge for Wikipedia village week yesterday to outline what I want to do next. Now I see that it does indeed say 'discussion page'; I wasn't reading carefully enough. I will still need a week or two to estimate the expenses for the new exercise. --Pgallert (talk) 06:13, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding knowledge sharing: I plan to go via a WMF blog entry again, hope that this is okay. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 06:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Just an update here: This activity is not shelved or cancelled, just somewhat delayed. I have to accommodate my duties as lecturer and as head of family, and finding a week to travel is not always easy. --Pgallert (talk) 13:44, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Remaining money - a suggestion

Hi Alex Wang (WMF), I'm still sitting on ZAR 47,202.37 of WMF money. I'll have a Wikipedia outreach workshop in w:Opuwo in the first week of May, and somehow our financial planning does not work out properly: It was planned originally that I travel with a group of educational volunteers at the expense of a development fund that pays the volunteers. That's not working anymore because our institution has declared the first week of May a forced-holiday week and now the volunteers want time off, too. Traveling alone is more expensive, and my research cluster leader is not happy about that. On the other hand, I have a free venue with computers (nothing trivial in this remote area), and I have participants that are willing to attend in that week. I cannot take an institutional (w:NUST) vehicle because of internal regulations (no Namibian drivers license) but I could take my own car. Our internal rate is 3.50 ZAR per km for this type of car.

Would you allow me to use some of the remaining funds for:

1. Return travel to Opuwo, roughly 2 x 850 km times 3.50 ZAR per km = 5.950 ZAR
2. 5 nights of accommodation (includes breakfast and dinner) at roughly 400 ZAR per night = 2.000 ZAR?

The workshop will be for an w:Otjiherero-speaking audience with the aim of getting wp-hz out of Incubator.

Thanks a lot for considering, Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. Thanks for this update. We would like to see the remaining funds used for activities more in line with the original project. I understand you're still looking into the possibility of doing another week of oral citation research if possible. If you think it's possible to do both projects with the remaining funds we can consider this reallocation request. However, we would need more details about the workshop -- who are you training, what does the training include, and what are plans for follow-up with participants after the training? Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

• Hi Alex Wang (WMF), thanks for your response. I am sure there is still sufficient money for the oral citation week, with a tentative date of June 2016.
• What I am planning to do in Opuwo is a training for more mature community members: government employees, the librarian, tourist guides. It will be a small group of 5-10. I was there in early March with the aim of collecting pics for Commons and coordinates for OpenStreetMap and WP. The idea is that this map contains only landmarks that are of interest to tourists but not to locals. My datasets are not uploaded yet, but I have now captured sites of local importance: graves of traditional leaders, local industry, government buildings, and so on. With a new map I hope to produce an audiovisual prototype of a few pages in Otjiherero Wikipedia (in Incubator, wp/hz) where participants can click on an area in the map to get to a page to create where an audio or video file could be linked. Our research indicates that such an audiovisual approach might help recruiting new editors from the Otjiherero-speaking community.
• So in a way, it is project-aligned because an oral repository of knowledge also entails that it comes much more natural to community members to supply narratives and performances rather than text. We will look at some basics of Wikipedia syntax and then concentrate on uploading on Commons and linking from the Incubator which doesn't allow local file uploads.
• Opuwo is our second focus group among Otjiherero speakers, it is home to the OvaHimba and OvaZemba. The cluster members travel regularly there for a number of years, about 3-4 times a year. I only joined in 2016 to have a control group of the same native language but a different geographical area (Opuwo is about 600km away from Omakehe where the original project was conducted) and, to a certain degree, culture. I'm already in sms and cell phone contact with two of the participants and will follow up on these channels and, if there be editing independent of the workshop, also on-wiki.
• There will be sufficient money left to collect more oral citations. In fact, both activities cannot possibly exhaust the remaining money from this grant. I have an accepted full paper for CaTaC 2016 in London, titled "Clash of Cultures, Clash of Values: Wikipedia and Indigenous Communities", where I plan to ask you to use the then remaining amount ;) Please let me know if this explanation is satisfying for you. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. I apologize for the late response. I misunderstood your travel dates! This reallocation request is approved. We are interested in learning how this audiovisual approach engages new users and how you continue to work with and follow-up with those you've trained. Please provide a report on the activities on this discussion page and send us the documentation of expenses within 30 days -- by June 3. In terms of requesting funds to travel to present your paper, you will need to apply for a TPS grant as you did before. Let's talk about any other ideas for using remaining funds when you are back in the next couple of weeks. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:48, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, thanks a lot! The receipts will come tomorrow via email; I was quite busy at work. In the mean time I have applied for a TPS grant here, unfortunately that one by now is very urgent, too. Thanks and best regards, Pgallert (talk) 13:55, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Opuwo workshop

Participants of the Wikipedia training in Opuwo, w:Kaokoland

Disappointing things first: I had one more workshop where all editing ceased the very moment I left the town. I'm sure by now that this is not a proper method to gain editors, but I'll have one more this year simply because it is part of an approved and funded project (not by the WMF). I will prepare a blog post but I first have to mark my 284 exam papers at work. Hope this is okay with you. --Pgallert (talk) 08:46, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. Thanks for the update. I'm sorry to hear that this method is not proving fruitful, but it's a learning experience. Looking forward to hearing more. Good luck with the papers! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:18, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, I'm done with the papers now. Could you please ask somebody to check at Grants:TPS/Pgallert/CaTaC 2016? It is a week from now, and I haven't got any response so far. I'll do the blog post later this week. Thanks and cheers, Pgallert (talk) 12:52, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. I have sent a message to the Program Officer in charge of TPS, Marti Johnson. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Remaining funds

Hi Pgallert. I just wanted to document that after the Opuwo workshop, you should still have 39,252.37 (correction) 39,332.75 ZAR remaining. We ask that you submit a new request for reallocating these funds by June 30th or return the remaining funds to WMF following the instructions here. Please let us know what you plan to do. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Noting Pgallert's approved TPS request for his participation at CaTac2016 for 18,919 ZAR will be fully funded by his underspend from this PEG. After deducting the CaTaC 2016 costs, 20,333.37 ZAR still remains to be returned to WMF by 30 June 2016, unless a new request is submitted. -- Best, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 23:55, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Update as of 13 September 2016: Final cost for CaTac 2016 reported here is 15,927.46 ZAR. Funds still remaining to be returned to WMF is 23,324.91 ZAR, which reflects originally reported 73,277 ZAR unused grant funds:

• less 26,074.63 ZAR used for e-Learning Africa
• less 7,950 ZAR used for Opuwo workshop (report here)
• less 15,927.46 ZAR used for CaTaC 2016

Instructions for returning unspent grant funds to WMF are here. -- JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 22:43, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jtud (WMF) and AWang (WMF) and Mjohnson (WMF) While you are reviewing Grants:TPS/Pgallert/CaTaC 2016/Report I'd like to suggest one more project where I could use some of the remaining funds: I will run an editathon at the ICCCS conference in Windhoek. The edithathon is for indigenous Namibian languages and will be using the Incubator, probably in the OshiNdonga, Otjiherero, and Khoekhoe languages.

As it is custom to charge for attending a conference workshop, and as this might prevent people from attending, I suggest to cover the workshop fee of NAD 200 per person (about 15 USD) for the participants. The fee is used for food and refreshments during the 2 x half day workshop. Maximum attendance is 25 people. Please let me know if I may use some of the remaining funds for that purpose. Thanks and best regards, Pgallert (talk) 08:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Update as of 28 April 2017: Hi Jtud (WMF) and AWang (WMF) and Mjohnson (WMF)! Due to some miscommunication I bought T-Shirts for an editathon in Windhoek but did not get it approved. If I have not misunderstood anything this time, the current status is:

1. There were 23,324.91 ZAR remaining funds, see above.
2. The T-Shirts were approved retrospectively (I had already paid for them out of my pocket). The price was 2,322.00 ZAR for purchase and 1,673.25 ZAR for printing.
3. The now remaining funds of 19,329.66 ZAR were transfered to the WMF on Wednesday 26 April 2017. All documentation is with Alex.

Thanks again for supporting our initiatives. Can someone please confirm that we're even now? ---Pgallert (talk) 07:21, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pgallert. Thanks so much for the final documentation and sending the funds. Once we've received them we can officially close the grant : ) Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Returning unused funds

Hi Pgallert. Thank you for the recent reallocation request. At this time we ask that you return the remaining funds from the original grant request, 23,324.91 ZAR. There have already been three reallocation requests funded under the grant and we would like to consider any new projects within the framework of our new grants programs -- either Rapid Grants (grants under 2,000 USD) or Project Grants. This gives the community the opportunity to comment on the request with more context. Instead of funding one-off reallocation requests, it will be helpful to better understand the work you are doing more holistically and to have a conversation with community members. Please return the remaining funds following the instructions here. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, and thanks for your response. I asked here not because I want to evade scrutiny but because transfering money into and out of Namibia carries bank charges. I did create a separate request for the CaTaC event. I hope to be able to initiate the transfer on Friday; this depends on the bank manager granting me an audience, though. For the ICCCS Wikipedia editathon I have filed a request at Grants:Project/Rapid/Pgallert/ICCCS editathon. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 05:22, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, I talked to the bank manager. The charges will be ZAR 810 (around 60 US$) to register with the central bank, plus the actual bank charges for the transfer (maybe some 20 US$). Please confirm that I should transfer the funds back under these conditions. Thanks and best regards, Pgallert (talk) 07:17, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Next steps

Hi Pgallert. As mentioned on the Rapid Grant request, we are very interested in and supportive of your work to document the need for and benefits of oral citations on Wikipedia. This work is very much in line with our commitment to building an encyclopedia that is representative of all of the world's knowledge and believe you to be one of the best advocates for this work. We aren't sure about your ability to do more focused work in this area, but we would like to explore the possibility of using the case studies you've developed and making a case for oral citations. We asked above about a potential policy discussion and your response was the need for more citations and better documentation. What do you think it would take to conduct more citations and better documentation, and then build a project around this, including rallying support, framing a community conversation, and working on an RFC for policy change? If you're interested in talking about this further, we are happy to explore the idea more and see what kind of grant funds or staff resources we could consider. Let's hold of on returning the remaining funds until we've discussed this. If you don't think it is feasible right now, you can then return the funds. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Alex, our research cluster is going to have a planning session soon. I'll let you know of the envisaged activities and dates. Thanks, Pgallert (talk) 07:32, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Grant closed

Noting here that WMF confirms receipt of US$1,412.44 return of unspent grant funds. Per AWang (WMF)'s post above, dated 28 April 2017, all documentation and requirements have been completed. This grant is now marked closed. Thank you, Pgallert. -- Best, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 23:15, 5 May 2017 (UTC)