Grants talk:PEG/WM CL/2015 Projects and Activities/Report

Hello B1mbo, Warko, Zuirdj, and everyone else who contributed to this report and the activities of Wikimedia Chile. 2015 was a very busy year for the chapter and it was exciting to read about the diversity of activities, from education programs, to GLAM work, conference participation, and many editathons and editing workshops!

We are concerned however that the report is over a year late and want to understand the barriers to reporting that the group has faced over the last several years. As WMCL looks to move into the Simple APG program, on-time reporting and staying in compliance is an important part of eligibility. Having more administrative support will help in this area, but if there are other challenges we can support thinking through, please let us know. Another way to decrease the burden of reporting is to focus your reports on what are the most important outcomes of your projects -- the stories that give a sense of community building, a new editor who is motivated and takes on an organizing role, a particularly promising partnership or relationship with a professor, etc. We actually don't need a description of every single meeting and event, just the highlights of where you feel the work of WMCL is making the most impact and where you feel improvement is most needed. This will save you time in documenting your activities and will provide a more meaningful report for your community and WMF. We would be interested in talking more about how best to tell the story of your work and would be happy to set up some time to do this.

The report is approved, and we have a few follow-up questions/comments below:

1. We understand the goal of the national wikiconference was to establish GLAM and WEP partnerships that could support regular work with WMCL. In the report you wrote that you were able to develop agreements with the Spanish Cultural Center and UN Women, who hosted editathons during the 2015-2016 period, which is great! Beyond hosting editathons, are other activities planned with these institutions? It is often the case with volunteer-run affiliates that there is more interest from GLAMs for partnerships than the chapter has the capacity to handle. It will be important to think strategically about how you do outreach to these organizations and what follow-up is realistic.
2. It's exciting to see that membership in your Wiki Force Chile group has group so much during the time period of the grant.
3. WMCL did a lot of editathons, editing workshops and outreach events in 2015, with a lot of success in recruiting participants from other areas of Chile and around the topic of the gender gap. What engagement have you seen from participants after the events?
4. It would be helpful to learn more about the longer-term collaboration outcomes from the Trans-Andean editathon. In the report it says, "links between Wikipedia communities were strengthened". Can you tell us how you've seen this develop? Are there examples of collaborations you can provide that will help us understand how these two communities are working together?
5. The report also mentions that a local community of editors was formed during the Trans-Andean editathon and that Chilean and Argentinian editors agreed to support them. How has this local community develop and what support has been given?
6. The partnership between WMCL and the Photographic Academy of Chile sounds really promising! After signing the collaboration agreement have activities been developed together?

Thank you again for all your work on documenting your 2015 activities. It sounds like WMCL has really grown in its ability to organize offline events for a broader diversity of participants and developed strong partnerships. We are very curious to learn what has happened the last two years as well as what you are planning in the future. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you AWang and the Grants team for your patience, and we will implement all your suggestions to our future processes. I'm going to get straight to the point and answer your questions:

1. Indeed, we have collaborated with those institutions thanks to the Wikimedia Chile Conference 2015, and after the end of the current grant we have continued in touch with both of them. Unfortunately, due our delay in our reporting, the Board of WMCL decided not to program more edit-a-thons until we could catch up -- so we couldn't organize new projects with those organizations. In addition, the Spanish Cultural Center had in the meantime a change in its directorship, so we will have to propose a new plan to the new administration.
2. Yes, it is! Some of our new members came from there.
3. Many of the participants wanted to continue participating in wiki-related activities, but after the decrease in our external activities during 2016, we lost contact with most of them. One of our current projects is to start a newsletter for outreach, and we would include there all the participants in our past activities thanks to our email databases on Eventbrite and other platforms.
4. Chilean and Argentinian communities have worked side by side since the Trans Andean edit-a-thon, most of the time organizing contests and activities in the Iberocoop sphere, but also between both chapters. This ranges from little things (as sharing our presentation design with them) to bigger projects -- as the future implementing of the Wikimedia Argentina's MOOC "Wikipuentes" in Chile the next year.
5. The community in Mendoza was wikipedian-based but also integrated new people who joined thanks to the partnership with the National University of Cuyo. The original idea was to have a second version of the edit-a-thon in Chile, but I was not possible due our financial gap on 2016-2017. We have to revaluate along with Wikimedia Argentina the possiblity to reinvigorate this local community in the near future.
6. Yes, it has been very productive! The Photographic Academy of Chile helped us in our Wiki Tour 2015 contest, providing members of the jury, some prizes and even managing the photo selection process, which was a big help to us, and gave more reliability to the contest. They also provided a scholarship to our member leading the Sport and other Events Accreditation, which consisted in two photographic courses he took during last year.

I hope this answer all your questions, if not, please reach me! Best, --Warko (talk) 02:55, 26 July 2017 (UTC)