Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/WikiCredCon 2025:Reliable Sources

Feedback on your proposal

Dear Jake,

Thank you very much for submitting your proposal for “WikiCredCon 2025.” You have a proven track record of working on this important topic, and it sounds like you’ve done great work over the past few years.

Overall, the proposal is substantial, and I appreciate the effort you’ve put into preparing it – I especially like the partnership with the Internet Archive for this proposal! After reviewing your proposal and discussing it internally with colleagues at the Wikimedia Foundation, I’d like to raise a few points for further consideration.

In general, the focus on credibility aligns well with the target participants and survey responses, and the overall high-level objective is clear. However, while the objectives are clearly outlined, it’s difficult to understand what specific activities you envision and what outputs or outcomes you aim to achieve, such as building useful tools to enhance citation and credibility efforts. Additionally, you mention that you would like to invite up to 15 Wikimedia Foundation staff members from various teams (Enterprise, Future Audiences, Research, Edit Check, Administrator Tools), but it’s unclear what specific questions you want to address or problems you want to solve. Could you please elaborate on what you plan to accomplish during the event?

One major risk I see is the potential lack of buy-in from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Product & Tech department, especially when it comes to technical changes. How do you plan to mitigate this risk? Have you already been in contact with colleagues in this area?

On a related note, I’m unsure about the urgency for a standalone event as proposed, particularly given the relatively small size (50 participants) in a city with high costs (San Francisco). Considering that WikiCon North America 2025 will take place in New York City, wouldn’t it make sense to partner with them and host a “WikiCredCon pre-conference,” similar to what was done in 2019?

At this stage, the budget is quite unclear and lacks sufficient detail.

• I strongly recommend using our conference budget template (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rR-ptnhSdS_Q0gwcBGhllEOuor03ShgRSOF1vmJP0Gk/edit?gid=0#gid=0), which will make it easier for both of us to understand the budget.
• Could you clarify what the “travel stipend” covers? Does it include flights and/or accommodation? From which locations will the scholarship recipients be traveling? Do I understand correctly that you wouldn't take care of any travel or accommodation for participants?
• What does the line “AirBnBs for organizing team (since Richmond, fewer hotels)” refer to? Wouldn't it make sense to find a hotel for the organizing team and, eventually, participants with a "travel stipend"?
• What does “Travel for organizing team” include? How many people will be covered?
• What are the “hackathon prizes”?
• Do you believe the livestreaming budget item is necessary? From our experience, actual livestream usage is often quite limited, especially for hackathons. Given that the event program is not yet fully clear, it’s difficult to understand the need for livestreaming or video recording at this stage.
• Is the fiscal sponsorship fee a fixed amount or a percentage of the budget?
• Lastly, you may include up to a 10% contingency fee.

Once again, thank you for submitting this proposal! I kindly ask that you provide more details and further develop your proposal as suggested, and then resubmit it via Fluxx (the proposal is now open for editing). The deadline for submission is September 30, after which the proposal will be reviewed by the volunteer Conference Fund Committee, with a final decision expected by mid- to late October.

Best regards, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 18:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @CKibelka (WMF), and thank you for your detailed feedback and questions. Answers below...

1. Could you please elaborate on what you plan to accomplish during the event?

• The goal is to find solutions and develop tools that can be implemented by the Wikipedia community. Talks will dive into improving critical media literacy for both editors and readers, using both tools and improved education. We will develop trainings and techniques that help editors better evaluate sources. Discussions will address how Wikipedia can be more transparent in showing the reliability of its references, with potential solutions like clearer citation notices or tools that help users verify information independently. The hackathon will focus on practical outcomes. Teams will build and refine tools that help editors flag unreliable sources and correct disinformation. These will include algorithms and methodologies that play a role in assessing source reliability, bots that automate citation quality checks, and dashboards that provide editors with real-time alerts about problematic references. We want to make it easier for editors to find and use quality sources. Participants will work on integrating databases, building algorithms that tap into search databases, and improving existing citation bots to automatically pull more accurate metadata. By working closely with disinformation experts, the event will produce updated guidelines and best practices that can be adopted by the Wikipedia community to prevent manipulation, particularly on controversial or heavily edited topics that are under undue influence. We will build long-term collaboration between Wikipedia and external experts.

2. Is there Foundation buy-in?

• The Enterprise team has taken a large interest in what we are working on; we have been in conversation with them since early 2023. They are among the ones most interested in this convening with the community.
• Many of these tools we are building or hoping to build sit on top and are editor-driven. As they develop, the Product and Tech team could implement these features in extensions or core.
• We have spoken with Selena at Wikimania about our work, and she attended our Citation Watchlist session. She even deputized James Forrester to give us more support directly.

3. Is this event 'urgent' and 'cost-effective'?

• We think this is cost effective and absolutely urgent. Particularly with the venue donated and supported by Internet Archive, we have a cost advantage. As for WCON NA 2025, it's frankly too long to wait on these critical issues of reliability, citation infrastructure, and disinformation. It's already too late; we're playing catch-up in an ecosystem that is fragmented and falling apart with bad information and bad actors.

4. Can you clarify the budget?

• We have updated the standard budget template here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nyrMayUBHg7TQN5rwTYHRuQTEBjAESbwkzqY8LqT088/
• As we have done in the past, and to make our scholarship budget stretch as much as possible across as many people, we give people a maximum flat stipend (usually at two levels) that they can allocate as they want. Some people use it for accommodation and use airline points or drive. Others have friends to stay with in the Bay Area and use it on travel and ground transport. We ask for a PDF for expenses at the end and reimburse them usually using PayPal. This works because we are mostly all in the United States. We realize that some people may not be able to pay out of pocket upfront, so for a limited number we pay their airfares directly.
• There are fewer hotels in the western, residential part of San Francisco where the Internet Archive is located, unlike downtown SF, where hotels are plentiful. Airbnb is a more cost effective option in that part of the city, and the organizing team is used to sharing Airbnbs, as we did in Katowice.
• There are 4 organizers who are travelling: Jenny 8. Lee, James Hare, Jake Orlowitz, and Kevin Payravi
• The prizes are often scholarships or stipends to go to Wikimedia Hackathon. That was the reward for the Wikipedia hackathon winners of the 2018 Credcon hosted by Hacks/Hackers, which is how we grew this community :)
• Our community survey indicated there was interest for people to attend remotely, hence the live-streaming budget for day 1, which is entirely talks.
• Hacks/Hackers takes 10% of the grant total and handles all administrative and budgetary tasks: this includes the scholarships, which we have found is not trivial

I hope this helps answer any questions you have! Ocaasi (talk) 10:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)