Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Advancing Wikipedia, wiki projects, and free knowledge in Ukraine, 2022 and beyond

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 139,102 USD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 139,102 USD for your first year with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 December 2023.

The committee was overwhelmingly supportive of Wikimedia Ukraine’s proposal. During this funding period, the chapter will support a number of programs and community needs, including continuing some of its robust movement campaigns such as Wiki Loves Earth as well as engaging some underrepresented groups and inviting them into the Wikimedia movement, such as Crimean Tatar community. The committee also appreciates Wikimedia Ukraine’s work to support skill building and capacity development of its community, namely through its scholarships program, routine training, and that its Board is able to very directly engage in community support effort. Finally, Wikimedia Ukraine has a strong host of partnerships with charitable organizations as well as government entities that bolster its impact.

One minor point of concern is that more clarity could be provided around how Wikimedia Ukraine intends to address many of the knowledge gaps named in the proposal, such as on the gender gap, religion, language, and a few other disparities.

We look forward to supporting your future work in Ukraine and working together with you. On behalf of the committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I JethroBT (WMF), thanks a lot to the committee and to you personally for approving our proposal and for your help throughout the application period. We're excited to continue advancing our mission in the coming years, and we are grateful for your feedback and continuous support. Regarding the minor point of concern you noted — should we provide more information about this question here / in the application itself, or is it something to note for our future work? AntonProtsiuk (WMUA) (talk) 15:14, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@AntonProtsiuk (WMUA): You're welcome! For your question, I think responding to the question here would suffice, but there's no specific deadline or urgency around this request for clarity. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Response to the request for clarity

@I JethroBT (WMF): We are getting back to you and the committee with an answer to the question raised.

The key way for us to work on addressing knowledge gaps is organizing content campaigns in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

The topic Wikimedia Ukraine has worked most with is closing the gender gap. In 2021, we organized the WikiGap challenge in Ukrainian Wikipedia (devoted mainly to creating new articles about women), "She Did It" challenge in Ukrainian Wikipedia (devoted to improving existing articles about women), and the #SheSaid challenge in Ukrainian Wikiquote. Overall, these campaigns yielded 1200+ articles in 2021 alone, and several thousands more in the year before.

These activities and the broader awareness they bring help move the needle in terms of the percentage of women biographies in Ukrainian Wikipedia. While still too low, it's up by several percent as compared to the period when we started organizing these challenges. (It's hovering at ~17% at the moment, up from ~13% a couple of years ago).

You can learn more about our results organizing WikiGap, the largest challenge of such kind, in our Diff post or in our Wikimania presentation.

All that's to say that, in 2022 and beyond, we will keep this work, and we will expand on it. As mentioned in the application, we have a strong set of partners for this set of projects (including the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine, United Nations Population Fund’s office in Ukraine, and the National Democratic Institute), as well as a community of long-term participants (for example, over 100 people joined WikiGap in Ukrainian Wikipedia in 2021, and the vast majority of them indicated in the post-campaign survey that they were interested in joining the next edition). Thus, we feel quite confident that the coming years will bring new important results for closing the gender content gap on Ukrainian Wikipedia and other Ukrainian-language Wikimedia projects.

In 2021, we also worked to bridge the language gap regarding the Crimean Tatar language, which is the language of an ethnic minority that traditionally resides in Ukraine. The first article challenge in Crimean Tatar Wikipedia, which we organized in the summer of 2021, brought ~300 articles on the most basic topics, as well as a record surge of contributor activity in this language edition. (You can read more in our blog post, in Ukrainian). We have good relationships with key partners, and we are continuing our work on developing this topic in 2022 and beyond.

In terms of geography gaps, we will continue to organize and support thematic weeks and other content campaigns devoted to specific geographic regions (most notably, CEE Spring, the largest article contest in Ukrainian Wikipedia). Also, we will keep provide support to community-organized wikiexpeditions that help bridge geographic gaps related to Ukrainian regions. Both programs have been performing strongly in 2021 and before, and we have a solid foundation to build upon.

Apart from specific content campaigns and community support programs, knowledge equality is an important topic that informs our broader work, from interaction with partners and other stakeholders to our communications with the broader public. --AntonProtsiuk (WMUA) (talk) 11:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)