Grants talk:PEG/WM FI/WMFI 2015 H1
A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.
Evaluation by the GAC
editGAC members who support this request
editGAC members who oppose this request
editGAC members who abstain from voting/comment
edit- --DerekvG (talk) 12:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC) Although I'm not agianst this proposed plan, I will leave it to the more experienced members to judge this. However see my comment in Community comment section.
GAC comments
editComments MADe
editNeed some time to check this request... MADe (talk) 12:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, will not be able to send in my comments. MADe (talk) 09:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
Comments DerekvG
editfrom reading this proposal, I have to conclude that this is longstanding matter, there are previous plans an budgets made (approved and granted) for what seems a going-corcern long term program. I'm not in a position to track back and see what the program was about how is was motivated and what motivated the approval, etc... So as there might be reasons to crop some off-shoots of the project that might divert into another project ( which should actually be proposed separately), croppign should preserve the tree make it grow stronger and bear the expected fruit (if you will allow the imagery) So I would be against chopping down the tree before it has produced a suffucient quantity of fruit, therefore I would like my more experienced colleagues to evaluate how they can support this projects and keep it moving forward. --DerekvG (talk) 12:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Tony1 comments
editAlex, I can't see where this has been launched in the page history. And it says it wants to start the funding flow on 1 January. Tony (talk) 12:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Tony. I'm not sure why this is not showing up in the history, but the grant was opened on November 30th. WMFI realizes that a grant of this complexity will take longer to discuss and they will not have a funding decision by January 1st. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
I do not support this current proposal. It is too big, all at once, with too little credible evidence that there will be impact in terms of our goals. The budget seems rather expensive for what we're getting. I'm not convinced that this invesment would support a productive relationship between community volunteers and paid staff. Tony (talk) 09:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
AlleyCat80's comments
editDear [[user: Susannaanas] and friends from Wikimedia Finland, thank you for submitting this proposal.
Please accept my apologies if I am not understanding the context correctly, I had only read the proposal and took a look at your *fabulous* Wiki Loves Maps website. I will try not to repeat what has been said before me, just highlight a few points that come to mind. I'll be blunt but respectful.
The proposal, as it is currently laid, is not one I would approve, for several reasons:
- There does not seem to be a balance between paid hours and programmatic work by volunteers. How can it be that you have ~70% of the budget allocated to manpower and related costs (office, etc), and only less than 15% in programs? In other words - if you had no employees, would you still be able to do most of the work with volunteers only? If so, I don't think this is justified.
- The program is focused on short-term, one off events (such as GLAM and - I think the Movement now realizes that those kind of events have limited success. Learn from our painful experience - one-off events rarely bring new volunteers in, they rarely have sustainable outcomes. You have to think long term - - how do you make the same people keep coming, and going home to do more? I know that having only interim funding can be bad for long-term programs, but you have to do try. I guarantee that you will learn much more when you try to actively organize a community that keeps coming back - - it is much harder, but much more useful to have the same people keep contributing.
- No community-focused effort - one of the most alarming things to me in this proposal, is that it seems to be ignoring the Wikipedia editor/contributor community. Is the only way you can support your editor community by Wikipedia Library accounts and three meetups? Your community is the key ingredient that will help you achieve more in H2/2015. If you don't make focused, direct efforts of enlarging your 'active' volunteer community, you will be "stuck" in the second half of 2015, and in 2016, and will not be able to execute more.
In other words, this amount of budget is commensurate with a much larger community of volunteers, and unless it is used in an effort to enlarge the community, it is not grant money well spent, in my humble opinion.
- Quality is important, but so is quantity. I fear that your goals are simply too low. Why so few meetups? Surely, in 6 months you could achieve more... the same with photographs / articles. Why are you so conservative? In my experience, being conservative with goals leads to not trying hard enough. Sure, if you aim for 300 articles and not 60, you might not succeed, but you will do your best to reach that number, instead of settling for an "easy" 60 articles (--> I know that even that is not easy...). This is somewhat related to my last comment - with more active volunteers , you can easily scale to contribute more content.
- Wikimaps and other specialty projects - here I am in somewhat of a disagreement with my colleagues in WMF. I think your work in those areas should be encouraged, as long as you are truly collaborating with other chapters to participate. I think there is a lot of value in writing MediaWiki code outside of WMF's engineering teams, but I think your projects are too locally focused, and I think you are trying to only solve only "your" problems, rather than trying to think about other communities in the Movement and their needs as well. This is why, in my opinion, WMF is finding it hard to justify budgeting this. Ask yourselves:
- How can we recruit an international community to collaborate with us?
- Are we aiming to solve use cases that are too specific and narrow? Can we divert some development effort to things that are out of our interest/comfort zone?
- Have we tried talking to other people in the Movement to see what is bothering them and how this interacts with our projects?
- Are we doing things that can be replicated / reused by other chapters?
If you do things this way, you might find other partners that are also able to fund your worthy development efforts, such as other WM chapters, and other funds...
Again, these are only my views. I would not want to approve the grant as it is, unless it is more program and community focused. I still think that your development efforts are impressive, and that you should be encouraged to keep innovating, but not at the cost of losing focus on your volunteers and compromising on your goals.
I hope this helps,
--Alleycat80 (talk) 00:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for the comments!
- I hope we can consider your valuable comments as guidance as we prepare our application for the next term!
- I am sure it is obvious that actual work is required to create the opportunities that allow both volunteers and institutions to engage with Wikimedia projects and each others' work. The projects rarely require anything else but the compensation for the person's work that makes all this happen. For events, the food and location are provided. Travel reimbursement requires some funds. The labour costs are under a separate title, but the actual work happens within the projects. That can be further inspected in the spreadsheet.
- Face to face is very important, but it should not be the end of line. Through the introduction of Wikidays we aim to address the lack of a persistent context of contributing. It is not aimed to be a series of one-off events. Instead, in the context of this application, we aim for monthly events first.
- We have a huge interest in GLAM collaboration currently. We urgently need to establish practices for following it up. I am hopeful that there is support for the view that a chapter working together with volunteers is a logical partner for uploads and advocacy on bringing the GLAMs knowledge into Wikimedia.
- For the Wikimaps project the worry about focusing on our own local problems is not well grounded. We are only advancing methods that can be replicated regardless of location (maps uploads, rectifying maps, finding maps) and we expect to develop more. We aim for projects charting local history and creating methods that combine long-term GLAM work with onsite collaborative research. Putting it bland: thinking globally, acting locally. The Wikimaps project has connected world-wide, within Wikimedia and other communities. I hope you have familiarized with the Wikimaps Facebook group to see the diversity!
- In regard to technology, I would say that we are not doing technological development. Our aim is to connect open resources into a creative space to the benefit of everyone, and to tie contributing to Wikimedia projects part of that creative process. More specifically, we are not conducting MediaWiki development.
- I hope these comments can help highlight our passion for doing what we do. We ask for your support for using what we have done as a step on a ladder for establishing our next goals. We are inviting you to help in that process.
- Bestest regards, Susannaanas (talk) 06:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
Suggestions
editHello Susannaanas,
I enjoyed reading your proposal and looking at the past work that you and your community are doing. I especially like the work that you are doing with the Wiki Loves Maps. And see that it has the potential to advance work with maps in the global wikimedia movement. I also like reading the blog posts (and appreciate the ones in English.)
I have a few suggestions.
From the projects that you are working on, it wouldn't surprise me if you have a good number of women attending events and also that you are already working with women in partner organizations. It would be great if you set as a specific goal/metric to attract and retain these women. I suggest that you set this as a goal to measure and track at events. You also could be specific about adding content that would counter systematic bias in content. This could be a great way to connect your off site work with the on wiki content. (You may be already doing this but if so, its not obvious in this request for funds.)
I understand that you are focused locally and doing a lot of work with local GLAMs and regional organizations, but if you can look for other projects that bring in more diversity of membership or content that would be great, too. Just something to keep in mind.
As some of the other people commenting said, the request comes across as top heavy in admin salary costs and conference events without as much content created or uploaded as would be expected.
And lastly, I'm worried about the amount of time that you and the BoT will be spending working on proposals and reports in the first and second quarters of this year if you are going to submit a APG in the second round this year. I hope that you all will carefully weigh your options about when would be the best time to enter the APG process. It is more vigorous and time consuming. I'm concerned that you all will be burned out before you ever get started if you spend too much time now working on another proposal right away. And I think that it could interfer with you all meeting your goals for this proposal.
Again, thank you for all the work that you put into the wikimedia movement. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for your comments, Sydney Poore/FloNight!
- They are very valuable as guidance for us creating our applications in the future. But this process has been ongoing since November, and we are almost a third in on this term. I find it hard to weigh if this is the right moment for us to enter APG, since we have for example already made changes to our bylaws to meet this procedure and schedule.
- You are right in that this is stressing for us as individuals. I have trouble following how reducing or cutting out administrative work will help us better meet the requirements. Budget items can be skipped one by one as time passes.
- I will increase image upload figures. I will cut out any conference presences required. But I cannot take away any more work.
- Thank you again for your very precious comments. I hope you did not take my frustration personally, and hope to continue work with you in the APG process!
- Sorry for hastily replying before seeing the WMF comments further down the page! Thank you again for your comments. --Susannaanas (talk) 07:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
WMF comments
editHi Susanna. Thank you for this comprehensive proposal and all your work. Before we discuss the details of the proposal (and hopefully have more GAC member discussion), we would like to pose two bigger picture questions:
- What is the larger strategy for how to make Wikimaps successful? Until now, there has been a narrow focus on historical maps. The tools and technologies developed for this use case will be inherently specialized. It would be helpful for us to know if the plan is to continue in this vein or if this is part of a larger maps vision and how do we get there.
- Thanks a lot for the question! Working our way away from specialized software environments towards easy-to-use, personally engaging research and storytelling tasks and tools is exactly where we are heading. Our first short term goal is to make an enhanced interface for the Warper that will naturally sit alongside the iD editor for OpenStreetMap (as well as OpenHistoricalMap). It is already possible to start vectorizing the maps into OpenHistoricalMap within the Wikimaps environment!
- More broadly, the goal is a "maker space" for historical enquiry and storytelling, where we can make available a variety open source tools. We are very interested in geolocating historical images and finding ways to present that. This is a question we are addressing in the forthcoming Wiki Loves Maps hackathon with a pilot hack.
- More on the storytelling side, we are starting to investigate the different options for gathering and representing unverified or biased historical information or original research, that does not fit the limitations of Wikipedia. We are studying the use of available cultural history platforms and interconnecting that data to Wikipedia, Wikidata and the geographic data that can be produced with the Wikimaps tools. We are also proposing to launch a novel local wiki platform and are prepared to pilot that with Finnish local wikis. We have familiarized with the LocalWiki movement, and are extremely excited about the Wikipedia TOWN project in Japan. There the local (historical) knowledge is added to OpenStreetMap if it is spatial, to Wikipedia if it meets the notability limits or LocalWiki for non-notable or unverified information. This is what we are interested in, but we hope to tie the development more closely with the Wikimedia environment. --Susannaanas (talk) 08:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
- We are struggling with the fact that this is a considerable amount of money for a Global North chapter on work that is very geographically focused. We are wondering what is the larger plan that will help the tech community (OSM) and the non-Nordic GLAM community? If there is not a larger plan, does the community have ideas for how this work can support the global community? For example, focusing on freeing GLAM content on the Global South that is held in the Global North? The FDC is currently also looking at these questions throughout the community and as a chapter in transition to the Annual Plan Grant Program, it would be good to be thinking of these issues now.
- Wikimaps Nordic was a project that was funded for creating Nordic collaboration. It has also enabled work on a general level to make the tools available. The work on location is inherently local, but the tools and methods are universal.
- State of the Map 2014 was held in Buenos Aires. Jerry Clough, an OpenHistoricalMap advocate, made this remarkable pilot with Buenos Aires maps hosted in Wikimedia Commons. The maps were rectified, and a historical street network was reconstructed by stripping down the current OSM database to match the map of the era.
- I was presenting the concept of Wikimaps expeditions, a combination of online GLAM work and collaborative onsite documentation and material collection. The pilot project was planned for the Archipelago Sea between Finland and Sweden, but the concept itself with a global mindset. An example could be a Wikimedia chapter working in close collaboration with OSM in a country X. There would be collaborative projects, taking advantage of both organizations' expertise areas. GLAM content could be provided from the archives of a country Y where the archives of the country X were stored at a given time. An example could be Wikimedia Indonesia - Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team + Dutch archives.
- In the Archipelago Sea case, we would be able to find materials in the City Archives of Stockholm, and I'm not really sure if Stockholm is South from Helsinki, pretty much the same latitude.
- There are connections appearing between Wikimedia (chapters) and OSM all over the world: Indonesia, Japan and Italy are great examples. We hope to advance this crossover activity in the domain of historical location-based storytelling. What Wikimaps eventually tries to do is to act as a connector between open source projects for historical enquiry, focusing on creating the "maker space" where these projects can come together.
- We have been connecting with local and regional GLAMs, international Wikimedia and OSM communities, working with OpenHistoricalMap in particular and connecting with the spatial wing within Digital Humanities. We are seeing results in mutual understanding and collaborative action.
- --Susannaanas (talk) 08:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Looking forward to your responses. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
- As a general point, I disagree on the supposed necessity for a maps project to serve "non-nordic" users.
- Map creation and management on Wikipedia is something that consumes disproportionate amounts of volunteer energy: as long as a project produces outcomes which fill demonstrated gaps and/or save considerable amounts of volunteer time, there is nothing else to prove. (I don't know if that's the case here, I didn't read the reports yet.)
- European languages communities are exhausted and will implode soon, they are in dire need of support.
- For the same reasons, the next two years might be the last opportunity in this century (and perhaps ever) to collect information in/from several smaller languages/culture, whether that's Wikimedia's mission or not. --Nemo 09:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Additional WMF comments
editThank you again for all the work you've put into this ambitious proposal and the time spent with us in conversation about your plans. Some of the below feedback has already been discussed, but we want to make sure it is captured in a comprehensive and transparent way.
2014 Results
editWhile your final report for 2014 activities is not due until March 1, 2015, we do need to have a better understanding of the impact of those activities to be able to evaluate your proposal. Your interim report 1 and interim report 2 give a good sense of what activities were conducted, but we would to like to know what the longer term expected results are of those activities. For example, in October/November, WMFI organized 6 events. How many people attended the events (new editors vs. experienced editors? repeat attendees?), what content was created or released during those events (articles created/improved, photos uploaded), and how have those events created or strengthened new partnerships? If new partnerships with institutions have been formed, what is the plan to develop those relationships and by whom? We understand this was a year for WMFI to start building its activities and presence in the GLAM community and the actually metrics might be relatively low. However, they will give us a good sense of a baseline of content contribution, community involvement, and partnership potential.
- The reports are underway. The annual report draft is being created here and the relating GLAM metrics will be reported here. We made an effort to contributing to the voluntary reporting round, but we we did not quite have the capacity yet to complete the report. We have conducted surveys among editathon series attendees as well as participating GLAMs, and we have collected metrics from the event series. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:25, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Growth and Staffing
editAs discussed, rapid growth in staff and budget is a major challenge for all organizations. This proposal (including the 2014 underspend/reallocation request and if doubled to calculate for 12 months of activity) represents a 250% budget increase over last year. We would like to have more evidence that the organization can handle this much growth. Hiring staff is one way to address growth and if WMFI plans to hire an Executive Director and part-time project assistants, please explain in more detail how the staff will be managed and by whom. Additionally, we will need to see a staffing policies put in place before anyone is hired. Please see this page for some examples (under "Policies").
- We have had our staffing arrangement in operation since September. The Project Manager is working with 3 assistants. The assistants work as contractors remotely, and are supervised by the project Manager and in the future by the ED. Tasks are assigned on a weekly basis in a staff Hangout. Hours are billed monthly based on working hours reported against a detailed working plan. The ED reports to the Board. A single person in the Board has not been assigned for this in the Board.
- The arrangement has proven to be very effective and so far has suited the needs of the assistants. We have managed creating several events and development work for GLAM upload tools simultaneously, and are able to be idle when necessary.
- The staffing policy is being drafted here (Finnish original).
- The association has approved a general strategy. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Most importantly, we would like a better understanding of the community of volunteers that are needed to capitalize on all the GLAM partnerships developed by staff. The role of staff is to support the community and their interests, not to drive projects without the support of volunteers. Once a relationship with a GLAM has been secured, community members are needed to partner with the GLAM experts to review coverage on the Wikimedia projects, help with tools for content release, organize and attend events. Please let us know more about your community and how they will be involved in the proposed projects. Considering the breadth of the work proposed, prioritizing those projects that have the most volunteer involvement is important.
- For the GLAM work it is not realistic to expect the current Wikipedia community to carry on the work alone. In contrast, there is a vibrant community and active participation in the Open GLAM activities in Finland, which is now focused on Wikimedia participation. Year 2014 was groundbreaking, since many GLAM organizations started to open their archives as a result of active advocacy and programming by Avoin GLAM in Finland. We are hoping to engage GLAM participants as Wikimedia contributors.
- We are planning to launch a GLAM project space in Finnish Wikipedia, where we expect to gather data about images released openly to allow the Wikipedia volunteers to find the open resources made available by the Finnish GLAMs. The space can also act as a gateway to bringing Wikimedia knowledge to GLAM organizations.
- Engaging the Finnish Wikimedia community is progressing well. The community has been characterized as very anonymous and only online. The activities initiated by Wikimedia Finland have started to attract old community members who are joining the events more and more. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:34, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Measures of Success
editThe measures of success seem quite conservative, but this is difficult to know without having numbers from 2014.
- Editathons: Please provide numbers for your measures of success. For more information on editathon metrics, please see these resources.
- Based on the metrics we have from 2014 we already know that the editathons don’t shine in terms of bit and bytes, and the success will need to be measured with more qualitative terms. Guest blog posts and partners’ coverage in social media are perhaps ways to measure the impact made inside institutions. As noted above, we are working on the metrics report for the editathons.
- The surveys conducted at the events give us insight into the effect of the events.
- The metrics must also guide in setting our goals. Like in the rest of the world, there are very few editors who continue after the events. Other forms of participation must be developed to support continuous learning and participation, and we have plans for that. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
- WikiLoves: 500 photos is very low. We see at least 10x that number in most other countries. If you decide to do a smaller competition on a more narrow theme, you may have fewer photos but will want to focus on the integration of those photos in articles. For help with photo competition metrics, please see these resources.
- Finland participated in Wiki Loves Public Art, where 100 images were submitted. There are photo challenges in the Finnish Wikipedia community each August, and there the average result has been around 500 images. We will want to work on the related data regardless of participation in the photo competition, perhaps used for continuous illustration work and content upload guides:
- Information on public art in Finland
- Information on cultural heritage sites in Finland
- Information on natural preservation areas in Finland
- Finnish artists and artworks
- The statistics for our neighbouring countries (excluding Russia that is not a comparable country) are Sweden 2177, Norway 2161 and Estonia 1755 uploaded images. All of them have proven enthusiasm in participation, and rank only 4x the proposed number.
- I propose we keep our expectations moderate (max. 1000 images, half the Nordic average), concentrate on building sustainable workflows and avoid draining volunteers with one-off events.
- Skipping participation is not going to lower the budget, so we want to keep it in the program. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
- Finland participated in Wiki Loves Public Art, where 100 images were submitted. There are photo challenges in the Finnish Wikipedia community each August, and there the average result has been around 500 images. We will want to work on the related data regardless of participation in the photo competition, perhaps used for continuous illustration work and content upload guides:
- Content uploads: Considering the focus on partnerships and amount of GLAM activity, we would expect this number to be higher than 1,000 images. What are the barriers to increasing the outcomes of content release partnerships? Is it volunteer time? Technical?
- There is an interesting dynamics to content uploads. Wikimedia Commons community is not necessarily in favour of mass uploads, since the maintenance of the files will become their responsibility. We have developed tools with which the original uploader (the GLAM in collaboration with a Wikimedia contact, volunteer or staff) can enhance image metadata and add Wikimedia templates when uploaded from Flickr. The same tool is being developed for OAI-PMH output. We are planning to proceed with caution, and increase the volumes gradually, when our pipelines have been tested and proven. Metrics to consider should include the quality of image metadata. With our tools we aim to structure and refine uploaded metadata.
- Maps have been already included in the goals for the Wikimaps project.
- 1000 corresponds roughly to the amount of images released through the AvoinGLAM Master Class projects. Our goal is to make available the same images in Wikimedia Commons and expand from there. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Outreach
editHow will WMFI participate in the Interactive Technology in Education fair and what what are the expected outcomes of participation? Please specify what "one new initiative" would mean and how WMFI would capitalize on the "500 new contacts".
- Regardless of the metrics, this is the most important event to be present regarding media in education in Finland. Wikimedia must be present to make contact with teachers and educators.
- In the 2015 event, Wikimedia Finland will be present with a booth.
- Last year WMFI was also present with a booth and had several one-to-one discussions during the event. Of the current 3 plans for bringing Wikipedia to the classroom all discussions were started in last year’s event. We aim to capitalize also by reaching out to the scientific communities, making editing Wikimedia products part of research processes of students, researchers, as well as curators in the GLAM sector. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Wikimaps
editAs discussed, please update your plans for Wikimaps and OHM. We would like a clearer understanding of how the proposed maps activities build off of what was done in 2014. Thank you for providing more details on the longer term maps strategy above. It would be helpful to understand how this longer-term strategy will show impact on the Wikimedia projects.
- We propose to postpone further development of the Wikimaps environment to the next funding round starting in July. The OHM community is getting organized and we want to see what forms of collaboration emerge from the new setting. We also want to educate ourselves about the active efforts of the Wikimedia Foundation to direct our efforts in a fruitful manner. If it is foreseeable that WMF is interested in developing maps rectification tools as a MediaWiki extension, Wikimaps would try to finish off quickly to pass on our knowledge. If that is not the case, we would like to focus on an independent maker space for working with maps, taking advantage of and contributing to Wikimedia products: Wikimedia Commons for sharing maps and enriching their metadata, Wikidata for storing historical names and geographic features, and Wikipedia articles where location based mashups can be brought together. In addition to using Wikimedia products various resources all over the web can be utilized.
- Also, we have extended the Nordic Culture Fund grant period for WIkimaps Nordic until the end of June. We will use the extra time to complete the development tasks we have had in 2014. So the development would not be halting. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Local history project
editThis is an interesting project, but as we discussed falls outside of the Wikimedia projects. Please provide more details on what the PEG portion of the budget would fund and what metrics are associated.
- The costs associated with the local history project come from setting up Wikimedia events in cities outside Helsinki for gathering local knowledge to complement Wikimedia products. We would like to work this idea further in our strategy for an office space and a touring office. --Susannaanas (talk) 13:55, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Budget
editPlease include your proposed activities/budget for spending the remaining 2014 funds in this proposal so that we can have a more comprehensive picture of 2015 activities and spending. Below are more detailed budget questions:
- Edithathons: 3,408 EUR per editathon is extremely high. In the detailed budget you provided WMF, the costs include payment for a project manager, assistant, assistant teachers, lecture fee, partner working hours, subsidized space rental, and catering. These types of events should be able to be organized and run by volunteers (with some logistical support from paid staff if needed). The bulk of the costs should be associated with catering. Please prioritize those events where you have enough community support to run the event without such a large investment in paid assistants/teachers.
- I have reduced complexity in the budget to make it more legible. In the earlier version all costs, actual, sponsored and in-kind contributions were summed up to display the cost of the event. The budget will now show only direct costs to the PEG program. The direct costs include a speaker fee for a lecturer, travel reimbursement and catering 570€ maximum. We can arrange more events if we make them with less. The speaker fee is not always necessary.
- We do not believe the volunteer community is supposed to organize and run editathons. We will want to offer lightweight ways for volunteers to participate and allow time to get familiar with working together in a larger context.
- Tuo Kulttuuri Wikipediaan editathon series was a high profile professional event series arranged in collaboration with the Helsinki Summer University. In that context Wikimedia Finland also works professionally, and the lecturer was paid a lecture fee. More informal editathons don’t require the investment in the lecturer’s fee. --Susannaanas (talk) 14:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
- Wikimedian-in-Residence: A Wikimedian-in-Residence provides a great benefit to the GLAM institution. In general, we do not fund WiR positions (except for a couple of instances in the Global South) and expect the hosting institution to support these costs.
- Roger.
- Wik Loves Maps @Hack4FI: The detailed spreadsheet does not allocate any of this budget to WMF funding, but the budget in the proposal attributes 6,160 EUR to WMF. Please clarify.
- This plan has been completely reworked. The event was shifted from December to February to co-locate with #Hack4FI. At the same time we also made it bigger with more international guests. We applied for additional funding at the Nordic Culture Fund, but the application was not successful. We have another grant application of 3 600,00 € at Svenska Kulturfonden. The decision is however due only after the event, in the end of March. In the absence of the additional funding we have scraped together funds from various sources and downsized the subsidized participation of wikimedians. We request the a sum 2 500,00 € that we are willing to return if our grant application at Svenska Kulturfonden is successful. --Susannaanas (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
- Project Managers/Assistants: In the detail budget provided to WMF, there are line items allocated for project managers, assistants, and coordinators in each project. These seem to be in addition to the staffing budget under "Personnel Costs." If yes, we would expect that an ED and 2 project assistants would be enough to manage the proposed activities.
- This is not the case. The budget has only showed the allocation of the ED and assistants’ working hours. It has been calculated to the whole cost of each event as match funding. --Susannaanas (talk) 14:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you again for your all your work! We understand it is challenging to put together a proposal and plan for this level of complexity. We would encourage you to think strategically about your community, their interests, and what can reasonably be accomplished considering their level of involvement. Looking forward to our continued discussion. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Changes to the budget
editBudget table outdated, deleted as not to give false information --Susannaanas (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
- We did not have success with our funding application for an office space. We have however a shared space option available for H1 together with the other open data actors. The proposed rent is cut in half, and proposed to be included in the budget.
- GLAM-WIki and GLAM-Wiki coordinators meeting are added in the budget. There is no other way we could fund participation.
- Wikimedian in Residence is taken away.
- The funding scheme for Wiki Loves Maps has been completely reworked.
- The cost for editathons, workshops and EDU events has been streamlined. They still include a modest lecture fee. Other than that, it consista of travel and catering.
- Membership fee has been made 0€ for H1 of 2015 by Board decision in December.
- The budget now includes reallocated WMF funds from 2014
- Wikimedia Conference could be taken away from the budget if we apply for that funding directly through the organizer. That will reduce the budget. It currently stays included.
- 2 Wikimaps development packages have been taken away. We are keen to keep them to be used for enhancing the Warper tool. This is the only remarkable way we can lower the budget.
-- Susannaanas (talk) 14:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
The alterations will change the sum to be applied for to 54 019,40 € Outdated --Susannaanas (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
-- Susannaanas (talk) 07:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Requested cuts made - Ready to be processed
editPlease find enclosed our revised application for chapter funding for January–June 2015.
Notable changes:
- The ED position was turned into a 1 FTE mosaic: Project Manager / Admin and assistant(s). This will restore current arrangement and workloads.
- Wiki Loves Maps was fully funded with non-WMF resources.
- WMCON costs were updated to reflect real costs. It had been severely under-budgeted.
- Addition of Wikidays, public events for learning Wikipedia.
- Overall reduction of costs and projects.
--Susannaanas (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Susannaanas. Thanks to you and the team for reworking the proposal. We really appreciate your efforts to think critically about the project and staffing needs. We have a couple of questions on the revisions.
- The metrics for wikidays, GLAM events, and content uploads seem very conservative. The sum total for all those events put together is 60 articles, 60 new participants, 120 participants overall, and 1,530 media uploads. Looking at other affiliates with a similar size, community, and staffing we would expect these numbers to be a lot higher. Can you please provide more details on how these were developed?
- Could we please have the comparison figures and we could see if we can match them? --Susannaanas (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- Obviously, each country and community is different so we don't expect your measures of success to "match", but we do expect a relative level of ambitiousness and impact from the resources invested. Here are some good references: Wikimedia Ukraine 2015 (6 months), Wikimedia Ukraine 2014, Wikimedia Armenia 2014, Wikimedia Armenia 2014 Interim Report, Wikimedia Estonia 2014, and Wikimedia Estonia 2015 APG.
- As you said, each country is different. The relative size of the grants/results could be calculated in comparison to the GDP or PPP indices. Also, as stated earlier, we are not participating in photo competitions producing vast bulks of material, but aim for carefully conducted mass uploads with institutions, refining the metadata in those uploads so that the Commons community does not have to. That is indeed showing a lot of ambitiousness and impact. I would not want to have the demand for numbers overrun the quality goals of the project. We could devise metrics for the metadata quality? --Susannaanas (talk) 11:52, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
- We created a 3-step scale for measuring metadata quality. See Metadata Quality Metrics in the application. --Susannaanas (talk) 08:56, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
- Obviously, each country and community is different so we don't expect your measures of success to "match", but we do expect a relative level of ambitiousness and impact from the resources invested. Here are some good references: Wikimedia Ukraine 2015 (6 months), Wikimedia Ukraine 2014, Wikimedia Armenia 2014, Wikimedia Armenia 2014 Interim Report, Wikimedia Estonia 2014, and Wikimedia Estonia 2015 APG.
- Could we please have the comparison figures and we could see if we can match them? --Susannaanas (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- Please clarify if the wikidays are planned monthly (as described in the summary) or if you will hold 3 events?
- We are in February and we just hosted an event. The first would not be until March. Next one in April and then in May. It would be possible to have one in June, but in my experience when starting a new process there will be coughs and 3 instead of 4 will suffice. --Susannaanas (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- I forgot this is until June. Thanks for the clarification. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- We are in February and we just hosted an event. The first would not be until March. Next one in April and then in May. It would be possible to have one in June, but in my experience when starting a new process there will be coughs and 3 instead of 4 will suffice. --Susannaanas (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Additional feedback on revised proposal
editHi Susannaanas. We have carefully reviewed the revised proposal in coordination with a group of both FDC and GAC members. We want to acknowledge your dedication to the projects and passion for your work. You have been successful in engaging new communities in the Wikimedia movement through your GLAM efforts and maps work. However, we remain very concerned about the chapter's track record in engaging active volunteers who can initiate and run projects. This is the core of any volunteer community and the only way to sustainably grow your work. We do not feel the current grant request, with the high investment in staff and relatively modest measures of success, reflects a strong volunteer community nor a strategy for building that community. We will support continued funding of a project manager at the .7FTE level, but not additional management support. The amount of staff should not be increasing, while the activity decreasing, as compared to last year.
After consulting with FDC staff and committee members, we strongly recommend that you move forward with this 6-month PEG, followed by another 6-month PEG request for the remainder of the year. We don't believe this coming round is the right time for WMFI to apply for an APG. This grant period should focus on developing a strategy for deeper volunteer engagement and beginning to engage more volunteers who can run projects. We would expect to see more volunteers managing projects in the next grant request. We want to see WMFI succeed and to support you, Susanna, as a leader in the movement. Please let us know if you have questions about this feedback and if you would like to move forward with this plan. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
- I am sorry I wrote the above comment before reading this one. I am sure we can find this acceptable. I will forward the issue to the BoT and reply as soon as possible.
- After discussion with the BoT we propose the following:
- We will gladly accept making another PEG before APG, even though it requires us to reverse the changes in bylaws we already made.
- Participating in all events will be cut except ITK and WMCON. Participating in ITK has been an initiative of the Finnish Wikimedia Community that was realized after a lengthy hesitation for the first time last year. Participating in WMCON has been designated to be covered by the chapter by the organizers.
- If we are to cut out the working hours of assistants, we must also cut out the projects that they would have enabled. That means we should cut out Wikidays, content uploads, data imports and development. We propose to cut out only managerial assistance, as mentioned in your proposal, and paid work at GLAM events. Much of the work required to be cut down is continuation of work funded last year, with substantial remaining funds. In the current proposal remaining funds from assistant work from last year exceed funds allocated to it this year. We feel it is justified to keep the item in the budget.
- If you would be willing to keep any of the cut out items, we will thankfully accept that.
- This results in proposed funding request of 27 655,00 €
- Please find enclosed a working document for a roadmap (in Finnish) for future activities collected from our current ideas.
- Best regards, Susannaanas (talk) 11:06, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
- An additional concern we would like to express is to know how this decision can restrict us from seeking external funding for items not funded by this grant.
- Best regards, Susannaanas (talk) 07:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
from | to | FTE | amount | unit | unit price | subtotal | costs | PEG | |
Staff and contractors | 71,06% | ||||||||
Project manager / Admin | 1.1.2015 | 30.6.2015 | 0,70 | 6 | months | 3 500,00 € | 14 700,00 € | 30% | 19 110,00 € |
Project assistant(s) | 1.1.2015 | 30.6.2015 | 0,15 | 6 | months | 3 500,00 € | 3 150,00 € | 30% | 4 095,00 € |
23 205,00 € | |||||||||
Shared office | 10,80% | ||||||||
Office rent | 1.1.2015 | 30.6.2015 | 50 | days | 10,00 € | 500,00 € | 500,00 € | ||
Running costs, accounting, financial docs | 1 777,40 € | ||||||||
Board participation support | 300,00 € | ||||||||
Annual meeting costs | 1 | meetings | 600,00 € | 600,00 € | |||||
Equipment | 350,00 € | ||||||||
Office costs | 3 527,40 € | ||||||||
Participation in Wikimedia events | 4,05% | ||||||||
Wikimedia Conference | 1 322,60 € | ||||||||
Participation in Wikimedia events | 1 322,60 € | ||||||||
Outreach events | 7,58% | ||||||||
ITK conference | 1 | events | 1 200,00 € | 1 200,00 € | |||||
Wikidays | 3 | events | 425,00 € | 1 275,00 € | 1 275,00 € | ||||
Outreach events | 2 475,00 € | ||||||||
Organisational collaboration | 2,07% | ||||||||
GLAM events | 3 | events | 225,00 € | 675,00 € | 675,00 € | ||||
Content donations | 0,00 € | ||||||||
Data imports | 0,00 € | ||||||||
Org collab | 675,00 € | ||||||||
Community support | 4,44% | ||||||||
Library and photocopy support | 1 000,00 € | ||||||||
Meetups | 3 | meetups | 150,00 € | 450,00 € | 450,00 € | ||||
Community support | 1 450,00 € | ||||||||
Total | 32 655,00 € |