Grants talk:PEG/User:Ahmed Mohi El din- Egypt Wikimedians user group/Wikimedia projects activities in Egypt

Changes

I have changed the project completion date to be October 29 instead of November 29 and the amount requested from 10,350 to 9,790 USD so the grant will be covering 3 months only. I made these changes before the review and process period starts when the grant is still a draft. Hope this will not cause any conflict. Thank you! -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 05:58, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

No problem! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC members who support this grant request

GAC members who oppose this grant request

1. In opposition to the education program. I have not understood how the students can interact with Wikipedia and how they can become editors. The organization and the plan of the education program is not detailed and it's poor. --Ilario (talk) 09:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

GAC comments

Tony1

Prima facie, this looks like a very worthy proposal. It's a multifarious and complex program, so I'll comment first on a few things—requests for the appropriate level of detail, as usual—before returning. Please interleave responses if it's easier for you.

1. "Promoting the quality and quantity of articles on the Arabic Wikipedia."—I suppose I'd have gone for a subset of articles that you'd have identified as appropriate for your participants and that are poorly served at the moment. This seems so vague, and narrowing focus can (although isn't always) a motivational factor. It's no big deal, though.
2. I'm not a fan of editathons unless the participants are targeted and the sessions are repeated, not just one-off. My source for this view? Asaf Bartov. Editathons have been held in Egyptian universities before (I've covered them)—any lessons learned from the people who ran them?
3. Any support to have the image description pages on Commons completed with useful information, links, and categorised?
4. Any support for nominations of featured-content candidates? The producers of some of the best images and articles might not feel confident in going through those processes: who will coordinate support?
5. Great to have numerical estimates for measures of success. It would be better still to know whether, for example, > 200 new accounts on WMF projects (Arabic-language sites, I presume) will be a doubling, a 5% increase ... Same with new articles. How many featured-article and -image nominations succeed every month or y ear, on average, so we can get a better idea of your ambition?
6. Some members not in Egypt? $30 seems rather cheap to get them in from Saudi or Libya. Aside from this, the $30 is an average estimate, right? Presumably it's much cheaper for your (how many?) members who live in Cairo.
7. Posters and t-shirts: I always question this. Is there a $900 promotional value in the t-shirts, and do people really wear them afterwards? (Maybe, but no one ever seems to answer this question.) How much advertising on social media would that $900 buy?
8. Concern about universities that don't normally have internet access. Are they worth holding sessions in, or would it be better to concentrate on places that are more internet-enabled?

Tony (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Note to grantmaking staff: Could there be guidelines making simpler, more thematic titles more likely? I had to work hard to make out the central message in "Grants:PEG/User:Samir I. Sharbaty - Egypt Wikimedians user group/Wikimedia projects activities in Egypt". Tony (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Replies from Samir

1. That's a good note. We do have Education Program Courses that focus on certain topics like "women and society",... etc, and we may ask for grants to support these topics soon, but this grant is more like annual plans posted by chapters and user groups to support their activities in general for a period of time, i.e. we'll support the Education Program in two universities with all its courses and we'll hold editathons for all wiki users, not only WEP students, and so the results must be diverse.
2. Actually, we haven't held any editathons yet in Egypt. We've run Education Program workshops which are usually held many times for every course students during a semester for 1-2 hours at their class. The idea of the editathon is different; we gather experienced and new users from different places to spend the whole day together editing, usually on a specific topic, and so the new users would get help from experienced ones and enjoy editing in a funny atmosphere.
3. Sure, I've told the WLM organizer to take care of this.
4. Usually the Campus and Online Volunteers do so with students in the Education Program. Also Ar wiki admins and editors will be attending the ediatathons to help new users with any similar issues.
5. Well, we had 40 articles nominated in 4 terms and we expect at least 10 new this term which means +20%. We also had 566 registered students in the past four terms so the +200 new accounts will add about 35% or more beside a considerable number of users on Commons.
6. We really want every interested member to attend our meetups. The 30$ is the cost of 2 meals for every person in 2 meetups. If the member lives in Cairo or any other city in Egypt and needs help to cover his transportation this could be paid from the "Transportation/shipment fees" but we don't see it is reasonable to ask for thousands of dollars to support travelling of every one living in another country. We might do so in the future to support travel expenses of some members if they show real interest and if their attendance will add a lot.
7. On the surface level t-shirts may seem not important for the wiki events, but they have 2 rules; first they work as a promotional tool for the wiki movement when anyone sees them, and second they are a simple token of thanks to a new user who shows interest in Wikipedia/Wikimedia by attending the events which would encourage him/her to attend again and contribute. To answer your question "do people really wear them?", I really don't have statistics about the percentage of people who do, but I do wear them and see my fellow volunteers and even WMF staff wear them proudly during the events. As for advertising on social media it was meant to be for WLM. 100 USD on facebook for example will allow 100,000 people see the post. If we have 1/1000 of them interested to create an account and upload 5 photos this will be pretty good, although we do expect much more than this.
8. Internet in Universities: That's a good question. We do try to expand through new universities in Egypt but the two existing universities, Cairo University and Ain Shams University are the most potential in Egypt being located in Cairo with the largest number of students. The problem of not having well-equipped internet laps is common in governmental universities in Egypt in general and private universities which are well-equipped do not have this large number of interested students (This is what I've seen when I visited private ones). The internet problem hindered students in Cairo University from contributing last semester. In spring 2013, Cairo University had more than 100 students who added 3.8 million bytes to Wikipedia while in fall 2013 when the internet problem occurred 3 students only participated, in Ain Shams too students faced many issues that hindered them from holding workshops and depended only on online support at home. 2 months ago Siko Bouterse the head of WMF grants met professors and volunteers of the program in Amman and discussed the problem, she also forwarded it to Alex Wang. Also do you think that it is reasonable to stop the program where we have volunteers and professors willing to support and students with great results because they don't have internet connection in their classes?

Thank you very much for the time spent reviewing this grant! -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 04:18, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Rejoinder

OK, I thought the education program workshops were, in effect, editathons. See my report here. Perhaps LiAnna might be a good contact. One of my continual suggestions is that you don't use article creation as the core, but the improvement of existing articles. Aren't there tons of stubs on ar.WP? Article creation might be a possible subtopic, as might how to combine google translate and a little knowledge of the source language (probably English is best for technical reasons) to add to a stub on ar.WP. You'd need to set up the source and the target exercises, and delimit the amount of text, for a good learning experience. It all needs to be stage-managed and well prepared.

T-shirts: people wear them "during the events", which is my case. Not much bang for bucks there in terms of promotion. $900 vs. $100 for a hundred thousand views of an ad on Facebook? I know which one I'd choose as value for money.

"do you think that it is reasonable to stop the program where we have volunteers and professors willing to support and students with great results because they don't have internet connection in their classes?"—well, it was a reasonable question. You expect some take-up on a longer-term basis by students and staff using their own connections, I guess. Do most of them have only a mobile phone (which is not great for editing)? Tony (talk) 02:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting report on Egypt's Cairo Pilot, Tony. And thanks for your notes on the Education Program too. As for the idea of comparing T-shirts promotion with social websites promotion, I'd recommend using both as usually a friend's impression about seeing his/her friend volunteering in an activity and seeing them with its T-shirt is surly more impressive than seeing an ad on the Internet, so everything works for its purpose.

• The idea of providing computers and hotspot routers was that students bring their own laptops and routers are used to provide them with a good internet access and the computers are being used by volunteer leaders who spend their all time supporting the program in class and online. Two leaders have already their laptops broken down. -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 15:59, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Shipmaster

I love to hear that there is a lot more activity now coming from my native Egypt. Your proposal is multifaceted so I will comment on each activity separately.

WLM

1. Can you expand a little more on the details of the budget for social media? are you buying 300-400$ worth of Facebook ads for example? Have you done this in the past? do you have an idea of how successful it was if you did?
2. How many people on average participate in the photography trips? I am assuming you have some numbers from WLM 2013?

Meetups

1. Can you expand the section about "shipment of material needed"? What materials are you guys using during the meetups that need to be shipped?

Editathons

1. If there is a bus involved then I am assuming there is a venue for this? Are there any estimated costs for the venue that need to be included?

Education program

1. I share Tony's comment about numerical estimates for measures of success. What is the current rate of new accounts coming from Egypt and what is your expected % increase. Also, is just signing up a better measure to signify interest or doing at least a minimum amount of activity?
2. I am also not sure about which measures of success correlate to which activity (for example, is your featured article goal a measure of success for the education program or the editathon?) Can we separate them by activity?

Overall though, awesome effort, really excited! --Shipmaster (talk) 07:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Replies from Samir

WLM

1. Yes we've tried using facebook ads for the Educational Program. The exact reach of an ad differs from one to another but the average is 100,000 views for 100$.
2. Well, we haven't had photography trips for last year's contest and we didn't have a local grant for this two. A bus can take 50 people so the number of participants could be 40 to 45 beside the organizers.

Meetups

1. Shipment is not meant for meetups. Shipment of material would be used for example if a member lives in another city and needs WLM posters or Education Program brochures to use for activities there. The amount listed under "Transportation/Shipment" will cover travel/transportation expenses for members attending meetups and events too.

Editathons

1. Editathons will be held at ADEF in Mokattam, Cairo. They will allow us to use the place for free.

Education Program

1. That's a good note. We usually count results of Wikipedia Education Program every term and so we can guarantee exact numbers coming from it. Editathons will be open to any user so that a student in WEP can attend and other users can do too. We can expect number of people attending editathons and how much it is helpful but the number of articles they create (excluding students of WEP) is not that easy to expect before it is held as we don't know exactly the percentage of attendees from WEP and others and we don't want to recount the results of students too. Other numbers are classified, i.e. photos will be uploaded by WLM users, ... etc.

Thank you for the time you spent to review this grant! -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 05:03, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments MADe

It looks quite ok, but I have some questions:

• The time schedule should be more detailed. Will you participate in the international WLM competition this year? (it'll start September 1)? When do you plan to do all the events?
• buying 2 13" Macbook Airs? Why? If it's necessary to buy new equipment, it would seem fair to go for a more budget friendly laptop ... As such I support the comment from Alex (your reply: I need high performance and good hardware - even almost all cheap laptops do nowadays)
• Lastly, in the image of the Cairo 4th conference I see a lot of female participants. This is super good - their participations probably lacks as on other wikis. I would strongly suggest you to focus on them during the events, and also to use this to strengthen the current grant request MADe (talk) 09:41, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Replies

• Yes we will. The local competition in Egypt is planned to be implemented between August and September, and the prize awarding ceremony will be in October, may be with other activities.
• Well, I don't mind to reduce the amount and will do if the WMF staff insists on doing so, but after using Mac, HP, Asus, Lenovo, and other laptops I would recommend a Macbook for a better experience and high-quality hardware and also a value for money as it lives longer.
• We do, we have about 90% female participation and we work on encouraging them now by starting a course dedicated to studies about women and by launching a competition which is now prepared. -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 02:47, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments from WMF

Thank you for this proposal and for your engagement with the GAC. Please see our questions/comments below:

• WLM: It would be great if you could organize an editing event (even if small), between the time of submission and the award ceremony. An event focused on integrating photos into Wikipedia articles will significantly increase the impact of the competition. We are focused on the quality of images, not quantity, since higher quality photos have a greater chance of being used on wiki projects. The number of photos integrated on wiki projects 3 and 6 months after the competition is an important measure of success. Please add.
• WLM: Please be sure to provide photography tips on wiki and during your photography trips. Here are some good tips and guidelines: photo event program resources.
• WLM: A large first prize is highly motivating. However, please decrease the amounts for the second and third prizes.
• Edit-a-thons: Please clarify if you are planning on 3 or 4 edit-a-thons. Please see our edit-a-thon program resources.
• Edit-a-thons: Please cut the number of t-shirts in half. T-shirts should be used as a motivator for participants during the event and not promised to all participants.
• WEP: Have you had further discussions with Cairo University regarding the availability and quality of computer labs for WEP use? Is internet access still an outstanding issue? Will the purchse of the 2 routers be enough or are there other solutions we should consider?
• Equipment: We looked at the prices of laptops on egyptlaptop.com. It looks like reasonable laptops are available for under 7,000 EGP. We expect laptops not to exceed that amount. We also expect the group to keep a public record of where the equipment is at any given time. A page should be created on Arabic Wikipedia and details like name, date lent out, date returned, and to whom should be noted.
• Internet: We recommend increasing the internet subscription from 3 to 6 months.
• Measures of success: We would suggest you reconsider your metric of 5 million bytes added. We would recommend 2 million, which is still ambitious.
• Shipping: What kind of materials do you foresee needing to ship? Please cap shipping at $50/month.

We look forward to your responses. Please let us know if you have any questions. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Reply to WMF comments

Thanks for your comments Alex. Here are your comments with my reply

• WLM: It would be great if you could organize an editing event (even if small), between the time of submission and the award ceremony. An event focused on integrating photos into Wikipedia articles will significantly increase the impact of the competition. We are focused on the quality of images, not quantity, since higher quality photos have a greater chance of being used on wiki projects. The number of photos integrated on wiki projects 3 and 6 months after the competition is an important measure of success. Please add.

Done I have sent to my fellow organizers to put this into account and added the item on the grant page. I agree with you that quality is more important than quantity, and I think the prize will encourage professional photographers upload their high quality photos.

• WLM: Please be sure to provide photography tips on wiki and during your photography trips. Here are some good tips and guidelines: photo event program resources.

Sure, and that's a good note. We will provide tips and follow up with them during the contest period.

• WLM: A large first prize is highly motivating. However, please decrease the amounts for the second and third prizes.

Done Decreased the second to $500 instead of 600 and the third to $250 instead of 400.

• Edit-a-thons: Please clarify if you are planning on 3 or 4 edit-a-thons. Please see our edit-a-thon program resources.

Done At first we've been planning to hold 4 editathons in 4 months, but finally decided to use this proposal to cover the expenses of 3 months only. I have corrected the mistake on the table.

• Edit-a-thons: Please cut the number of t-shirts in half. T-shirts should be used as a motivator for participants during the event and not promised to all participants.

Done

• WEP: Have you had further discussions with Cairo University regarding the availability and quality of computer labs for WEP use? Is internet access still an outstanding issue? Will the purchase of the 2 routers be enough or are there other solutions we should consider?

That's a good note. Yes, the internet access issue is still there in Cairo and Ain Shams Universities. I've been in contact with them since the problem started. To answer your question "Will the purchase of 2 routers be enough" I'm not sure about this point. Will check this out in an e-mail connecting you with them.

• Equipment: We looked at the prices of laptops on egyptlaptop.com. It looks like reasonable laptops are available for under 7,000 EGP. We expect laptops not to exceed that amount. We also expect the group to keep a public record of where the equipment is at any given time. A page should be created on Arabic Wikipedia and details like name, date lent out, date returned, and to whom should be noted.

Although we have in Egypt laptops starting even from much less than the amount you mentioned, I do not recommend to decrease the amount. We need a laptop to help a volunteer leader who spends most of his/her day working on it so I think it should be one with high performance and good hardware. My own laptop has broken down out of hard work and the same happened with Walaa and we don't want this to reoccur with WMF laptops. I recommend a Macbook Air 13" which is sold for 10,000 EGP or 1,400 USD so I think we should raise the amount. The current amount (1,200 USD) would get an 11" Macbook Air. I have created this page on Wikimedia Outreach to keep a track of the current and future WEP equipment.

We understand your need for high performance and good hardware. However, we do not think a Macbook Air is necessary and that you can find a quality laptop for under 7,000 EGP. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Done Reduced the laptop budget to 1,000 USD. -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 14:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Internet: We recommend increasing the internet subscription from 3 to 6 months.

I just don't want to extend the project completion date to 6 months because we don't know what will we need in this period. Do you think we can increase the internet subscription to 6 months without extending the project completion date?

It is fine to keep the internet subscription at 3 months. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Measures of success: We would suggest you reconsider your metric of 5 million bytes added. We would recommend 2 million, which is still ambitious.

Depending on our results in the past four terms and following the current one I see no need to. On the contrary I expect more than this number.

• Shipping: What kind of materials do you foresee needing to ship? Please cap shipping at $50/month.

I don't think we'll need shipping a lot. May be less than $50/month would be enough. Shipping would be used to send material (i.e. posters or brochures) to a volunteer in another city. Also this amount will be used to cover transportation of volunteers who live in other cities and want to attend our meetings/events and so the $100 would be OK, or what do you think?

• Certificates and awards: The main certificate of completion should be an on-wiki award (of the barnstar type). We would recommend certificates or special awards for just the top students in each class. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

We don't dispense awards for everyone. We do this with top students only, but we may give a certificate to a student who finished the requirements in a good way and dispense some stickers, tokens, ... etc on everyone attending. @AWang (WMF): Let me know if this meets your criteria and please let me know if you want me to make any further changes.-- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 14:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and looking forward to your response. -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 16:16, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Ilario

• I don't see any need to have a laptop with good performance and I don't see any additional value having a Mac instead of a Samsung. Wikipedia works on both. The question concerning the breakdown of a laptop gives me a feeling that probably you need more a strong and valid hardware, and more if it's used in the school. --Ilario (talk) 09:11, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
• How is the current situation of the schools in Egypt? Are they equipped with hardware and connection? How you think to involve students in the editing? In my opinion there will be no big impact if the trainers are well equipped with Mac and the students have to look on the Mac's trainers. --Ilario (talk) 09:11, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Reply

Thanks for your comment. Well, the proposal was approved and the request of high performance mac was deleted but still you can find the answer to this question above in my reply to Alex and Made1. Please read and let me know if you have any further questions. -- Samir El-Sharbaty ^{(talk to me)} 18:44, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Changes

Project completion date: extend to January 31,2015 instead of October 29, 2014.

Reason: There were some difficulties in issuing the joint bank account here in Egypt and consequently the funds were delivered late which led to postponing some of the planned projects.

Budget changes (in detail):

1. +50 USD to WLM photography trips.
2. - 100 USD from the WLM photography editing session (The session was very short and refreshments were not needed).
3. - 100 USD from the WLM advertising budget.
4. - 50 regular meetings.
5. +500 end of term celebration (group dinner and prizes for user group volunteers)
6. - 150 USD from the editathons budget (less number of participants)
7. - 225 from the WEP equipment budget. One laptop is 93 USD cheaper, the two routers were 94 USD cheaper for each one and 56 USD were added to the internet subscription charges to extend the subscription for one month.--Ahmed Mohi El din (talk) 00:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ahmed Mohi El din. Thank you for your change request. We approve the extension request. Your new end date is January 31, 2015 and the final report will be due April 1, 2015. Regarding the budget changes, we understand the current under and overspending in the different line items. However, I would encourage you to think about additional strategic ways to utilize the extra $500. There is already budget for food/beverages for the education end-of-term celebration. Can the extra budget be used for a future writing contest? Photo contest? Meetups? Please note that remaining grant funds can be retained with approval for future grant requests. Let us know your thoughts. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Alex Wang (WMF) what about using the extra $500 in new writing project about history and make some prizes for it.

• first prize will be $250
• Second prize $150
• third prize $100

Hi Ahmed Mohi El din. A writing competition is a great idea! It would be helpful to have a few more details:

1. Is the topic history broadly or are there content gaps on the Arabic Wikipedia in history that you'd specifically like to target?
2. Is the project targeted to active editors or newer editors?
3. What are the criteria for awarding the prizes?

It sounds like from the Wikiwomen prize report that the pilot was successful. Is the group interested in using these funds for another WikiWomen's writing competition? Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF) We prefer to make it about the history in general and it will be for both active & new editors . Our criteria will depend first on the quality standards, then the number of bytes . please let me know if you need further information.

We are working on preparing new project for WikiWomen we will let you know when we finish it.--Ahmed Mohi El din (talk) 15:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Ahmed Mohi El din . Thanks for the information. Please provide a start/end date for the writing competition and your estimated measures of success. Then we'll be fine to move forward. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alex Wang (WMF) well the start date will be at 25 Jan 15 and end date will be at 25 Feb 15,measures of success will be around +50 new articles --Ahmed Mohi El din (talk) 23:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)