Grants talk:PEG/WM US-NYC/Short term funding program/Report

Report past due

We're glad to see your'e working on this report. Can you let us know when it will be ready? As you know, it's almost a year since this project was scheduled to complete and so the report is well past due. WM US-NYC is currently out of compliance with WMF Grants Program requirements and we'd like to work with you to resolve that as soon as possible. Please contact us at grants at wikimedia dot org with questions about completing your reports or your compliance status. Best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 19:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from WMF

Thank you for this much-awaited report. We appreciate the candor and meaningful lesson-learning.

We are surprised to read repeated mentions of the tourism experience of participants as success or impact. Seeing the Statue of Liberty is no doubt meaningful for many people, as you say, but we are surprised you consider this impactful in terms of the Wikimedia mission. As far as we can tell, the only aspect of the work this has funded that can be considered impactful is the (intangible) social cohesion achieved by the pre-Wikimania events. Would you agree, or are we missing something? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:25, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

About 80% of the funds in this grant were spent on Wikimania Takes Manhattan, and about 20% on Wikipedia Day 2012 conference. With this, we extended the social program of Wikimania for nearly a week, giving major added value to the conference for merely the price of a one-way bus trip and some pizza. No funds at all were spent on flights, hotels, tour guides, or lavish parties. This is almost certainly the most cost-effective social program in Wikimania history (compare the tens of thousands spent on parties and tours in DC and Haifa), developing bonds among a diverse group of international Wikimedians in the crucial period before the conference proper for a very low financial cost.--Pharos (talk) 20:20, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems you do agree. This report is now accepted. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 21:05, 5 December 2013 (UTC)