Grants talk:PEG/Wikimedia Community Ireland/WLM Ireland 2015/Report

We would like to request that the remaining funds of 294.73 be reallocated as a contingency fund for the Wikimedia Community Ireland for our 2016 schedule. There have been a few instances so far in 2016 where events have been added to our schedule with a short notice, which makes it difficult to request funds from WMF. This contingency amount would enable us to pay for our volunteers to travel throughout Ireland to conduct training and attend conferences on short notice. The funds would be used for travel costs (mostly via train) and occasionally accommodation. Sameichel (talk) 10:18, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Report Accepted

Hi Sameichel. Congratulations on a successful WLM 2015!

1. It sounds like the launch event was a success! It’s great to develop partnerships with organizations that have overlapping interests and missions.We felt the launch event was very successful as well. We interacted with a lot more people than the previous year. We will definitely do something like that again in 2016.
2. You had fewer photos submissions than last year, but more importantly, you mentioned a higher level of quality. Do you attribute this to the increased participation of photography club members? It's interesting that you reached out to over 50 clubs, but only got a response from 2. Will you change your outreach strategy going forward? Perhaps offering to organize photowalks specifically for club members might be enticing.It's possible that reaching out to photgraphy clubs increased the quality of images submitted...several of our winners belong to photography clubs. As far as the out reach to photography clubs I think the issues was that we started a little late and didn't have time to follow up on the intitial contact. Out original plan was to give a series of talks, but that didn't pan out. It's definitely something we want to improve for next year. The photowalk we did hold was organised by a Dublin photoclub so it would be nice to do more.
3. It is a common experience that the # of photos submitted decreases year-on-year, as the easiest to photograph monuments are already covered. As you noted, it’s a good idea to conduct outreach outside of Dublin in future years if possible. Awarding prizes in new categories, such as number of new monuments photographed, best new monument, or largest number of photos integrated into articles can add new dimensions to the contest, increase participation, and encourage high quality content.The use of different categories is definitely something we have discussed. In 2016 we are celebrating the centenary of the Easter Rising which ultimately led to our independence from Britain so we will definitely have a 1916 category in the 2016 contest. We've also discussed having a juniors category where we reach out to secondary school students.
4. It's great that you had a large increase in the number of new users. In terms of existing Wikimedians in Ireland, what outreach have you done to understand what kind of activities they are interested in, either online or offline? We can talk more in Berlin about strategies to engage existing Wikipedians as the lack of offline volunteers seems to be a consistent issue for the group (and for many groups).We are currently running a survey to get some feedback from Irish users to see if they even know we exist and what types of events they would like to see us run. We should have the result back before WMCON so I'll be able to share them with you then.

Regarding the unspent funds, it is fine to use if for community activities. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:39, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback Alex Wang (WMF) Sameichel (talk) 16:45, 24 February 2016 (UTC)