Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia MA Multi Annual Grant 2024-2026

Proposal Feedback and Invite for Response

Thank you for submitting your application. After the review process please find the feedback - comments and questions below for your response;

• From a curiosity point, we are interested in learning of any thoughts and interests in diversifying your work beyond the focus on Wikipedia. Is there an opportunity of contributing to other projects? We for instance see an opportunity to contribute to WikiSource given your interest in GLAM.
• We are excited for your partnership with UNESCO and look forward to learning how it advances your work as an organization over time. All this building on your partnerships in education and other sectors.
• Budget : We see 57% of the budget going to personnel costs and while this is the same as last year - we would like to learn about the possibility of investing more on programs .
• Which languages are they looking to work with ? What is the plan to do the language documentation project? And what is your approach to implement this project?
• We find the metrics to be a little low , for instance, the retention rate is low - 150/10 ? Please review.
• Kindly have a look at the timeline shared. We found a projects such as photography not mapped out , or months [July - September] not indicated.
• Please update your user group Meta page with the programs you are working on and the team leaders supporting implementation of the project together with other items useful in supporting community members in learning about the progress you are making in your work. This may include the names of team members (Steering group / committee - Volunteers) , staff and any others.
• What is your approach for expanding the “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom” project with Arabic-speaking affiliates?
• Regarding the indicated role of Technical expert - Staff - we advice ensuring that the bots are clear on where they or do not connect with Wikimedia projects . For instance not creating content on Wikimedia projects.

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you, and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff - VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Response from Wikimedia Morocco Team to the committee Feedback

Dear Veronica and colleagues from the MEA committee,

We would like to thank you for taking the time to read our proposal, and to ask very relevant questions related to it. Please find here below our answers to your questions, with hope that they are clarifying the picture to you.

• From a curiosity point, we are interested in learning of any thoughts and interests in diversifying your work beyond the focus on Wikipedia. Is there an opportunity of contributing to other projects? We for instance see an opportunity to contribute to WikiSource given your interest in GLAM.

Given our limited capacity in terms of resources (both human and financial), and the diversity of the projects we are working with, we are really careful with committing to different initiatives, in order not to overwhelm our volunteers and staff, and avoid any situation of burnout, especially that retention is one of the challenges that are very relevant in our case.

We are of course interested in enriching all Wikimedia projects, and one of our main working axes is actually to explain that Wikimedia is more than Wikipedia alone. Many of our projects and metrics are around other projects, mainly Wikidata and Commons, but also the incubator (by the way, a third Moroccan language, standard Amazigh, was just accepted as a new Wiki out of the incubator on October 2023, and the key editors are members of the user group).

We even have a project dedicated exclusively to Commons (the documentation project). This said, we will think about how to incorporate other projects such as Wikisource in our programs, maybe through contests? But again, we are really mindful of the bandwidth of our community, and we will need to make a deeper assessment before we can commit to working on projects other than Wikipedia, Wikidata and Commons for 2024.

• We are excited for your partnership with UNESCO and look forward to learning how it advances your work as an organization over time. All this building on your partnerships in education and other sectors.

We are also very excited by the different perspectives that partnerships can offer. As you know, the area of partnerships is a challenging one, because different partners can first express their interest in collaborating, but then refrain later, or simply not answer. We have actually experienced that with UNESCO, whom we approached to partner for the Wiki Indaba conference that we just organized in Agadir (3-5 November). While preparing for the conference, our team had an initial meeting with the education programs responsible at the UNESCO Maghreb office in Rabat. At first, she seemed very interested, before disappearing completely, and not continuing the discussion.

This said, we know the importance of partnering with actors such as UNESCO, and we will continue to deploy efforts to reach out to them. We also understand that variation is key in partnerships, and this is why we are suggesting a wide range of partners, to maximize our chances, and also to be able to work on different projects and perspectives.

We are also building on the Wiki Indaba work, where we have secured several successful partnerships (with the British Council, 1337 Coding school, and the Ministry of Culture among others), and will most definitely continue our engagement with them beyond the conference, and across our future programs, starting with this 2024-2026 multi-annual grant.

• Budget: We see 57% of the budget going to personnel costs and while this is the same as last year - we would like to learn about the possibility of investing more on programs.

As any digital program, our capital is our staff and volunteers. It is normal for us that the biggest part of our budget is salaries. In fact, and thanks to these salaries, our group became more professionalized and aims to be sustainable in terms of programs and activities. Most of the activities that we are driving do not require a big budget besides the staff costs (for example, the education program is done online, and requires just a good computer, Zoom and a connection. So most of its budget is the salary of the employees who will spend time to develop and implement it. The same applies for other projects).

To invest more on programs and have a lower percentage of the salaries in our application, we would like to understand what you suggest us to do? Is it that we need to have more in-person programs? (as these require a higher budget, and expenses for transportation, accommodation, meals, venue rental etc.)? Or that we need to have different programs needing a higher budget that is not salary (such as conferences, contests, etc.)? Also, do you have any guidelines on how much a percentage of a grant should be given to salaries Vs programs/operations?

• Which languages are they looking to work with? What is the plan to do the language documentation project? And what is your approach to implement this project?

Given what we have worked with during 2023, most of our focus in the documentation project is actually on pictures, and most specifically on photos of communes and villages that do not have license free pictures to be used in Commons, and be used in the Wikimedia projects. In 2024, we are planning to build on this work, so that we have more communes and villages covered and their pictures seen by everyone in the world.

In parallel with the pictures work, we will be proactive and intentional in working with the language documentation project as well. This project will be focusing on Moroccan languages, either Moroccan Darija or Hassaniya or the different Berber dialects. The goal of the project will be to document as much as possible of these languages, in written or oral form, to enrich the content of Commons and the Wiktionary (or Incubator). The finality of the project will be to have languages and words documented in the wikimedia projects, and also on the long term that Wiktionnaries in all these languages are created and active.

A concrete example of this work are the 182 audio recordings that were collected in the Central Atlas Tamazight language during the national Wikicamp that we organized this year in Ifrane. These recordings and their descriptions/translations were already uploaded in Commons by the User Group, and will certainly serve in the future to enrich the Wiktionary in that language when volunteers will start working on it.

• We find the metrics to be a little low , for instance, the retention rate is low - 150/10 ? Please review.

We recognize the committee's concern regarding our retention rate of 10 out of 150 editors. This target, while seemingly modest, is based on a focused strategy prioritizing deep engagement and quality contributions over sheer numbers. Our experience has shown that a smaller, well-trained, and highly committed group of editors can have a profound and lasting impact on Wikimedia projects. This retention target aligns with our broader goal to cultivate a dedicated core of contributors who can consistently enhance the quality and diversity of content. We've set this target based on our past experiences and current capacity, ensuring it is both realistic and in line with our strategic objectives to foster a sustainable and impactful contributor community

• Kindly have a look at the timeline shared. We found projects such as photography not mapped out , or months [July - September] not indicated.

Due to calendar constraints, mostly related with the Wiki Indaba organization, we could not complete all of our timeline before the grant deadline (especially that the grant application deadline was not communicated early). This said, we acknowledge the importance of having a clear timeline, as it is the foundation for having all the activities completed and implemented.

Regarding the months, we do not understand the comment, as all the months are indicated in the timeline (they are columns in the tab “Timeplan 2024”).

As for the mapping of the projects/dates, and following your question, we have now indicated when each activity is “preliminary” scheduled to happen. We will most probably revisit this timeline later, as we are usually working in an agile way, and allow flexibility in our projects (depending on the current priorities, that cannot always be planned, such as the organization of Wiki Indaba this year, which we knew after the start of our annual grant programs). What we are sure to commit to is that all projects that are mentioned to be done in 2024 will be done in that year, but the dates can be changing depending on different situations and conditions that the team navigates in between.

• Please update your user group Meta page with the programs you are working on and the team leaders supporting implementation of the project together with other items useful in supporting community members in learning about the progress you are making in your work. This may include the names of team members (Steering group / committee - Volunteers) , staff and any others.

We do already have a Meta page dedicated to our programs, that we have been continuously updating since the beginning of this year (and the annual grant). It contains all the requested information (team members of every project with their names, status and links of every project activity, achieved metrics so far, and much more information).

You can find all this information at this link. This gathers probably the information you were requesting?

For 2024, and to continue on our documentation efforts, we are planning not only to have a similar page for the different activities, but also to have a dedicated page per project, so that the various teams can independently share information about their work, and provide more details for anyone interested in learning more or collaborating with us.

• What is your approach for expanding the “Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom” project with Arabic-speaking affiliates?

In our 2023 program, we worked on retranslating the entire content of the Wikipedia reading in the classroom training into a more professional Arabic language on the WikiLearn platform. We have also updated and adjusted the content to suit the broader Arab context, and we changed the word “classroom” in “Reading Wikipedia in the classroom” to a word that is used in all Arabic speaking countries (we used a word used just in Morocco before) (فصل instead of قسم).

We have also opened discussions with interested Arab communities in order to involve them in the work we do, and to learn about their opinions on the subject. We did all this work in order to pave the way for the involvement of the Arab community in this program, and to expand the benefit to the rest of the Arabic-speaking countries. In order to measure the success of the idea, last year we involved 10 professors from different Arab countries (Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Palestine) in the program. Two of them, from Tunisia and Jordan, were able to successfully complete the course. One of them was even ranked third among the 70 final graduates.

The work we did, and the success of this experience, convinced us of the effectiveness of opening this training program through the WikiLearn platform for teachers in all Arab countries, instead of leaving it exclusive to Morocco, in order to spread benefit and enhance media and information literacy in the entire Arab world through Wikipedia. In order to open up to Arab countries, we will rely on targeted advertising, and we will reach out to the Arabic-speaking Wikimedian communities in order to establish a network of volunteers who will support the organizational aspects of the training, and we will make all our communication channels related to this program in classical Arabic to be understood by all.

• Regarding the indicated role of Technical expert - Staff - we advise ensuring that the bots are clear on where they or do not connect with Wikimedia projects . For instance not creating content on Wikimedia projects.

The development and deployment of bots in all cases follows the local guidelines of the Wikimedia projects where they are used. The creation of content using bots is also necessary in some cases, and is in fact liberating to editors, if used in a reasonable and targeted manner. For instance, categories of the same type as “Category:19th century Moroccan writers” can be created and distributed easily and effectively with bots using Wikidata properties. This frees editors to focus on quality of content and actual editing of articles, instead of getting tangled too much in category maintenance, in this example. Additionally, even if the values of Wikidata properties are incorrect, this presents the opportunity to correct Wikidata items, which has a positive global effect on all projects linked to it. In some cases, even the creation of articles on the main namespace with bots can be useful. But once again, this should be done in a reasonable manner and with the goal of creating more value to readers, rather than simply filling the project with meaningless content, and with the approval of the local Wikipedia community. A concrete example is that of Moroccan villages, for which we have started creating articles, based on census data from 2004 and 2014, on arywiki and shiwiki, with bots. For many of these villages, very little or no content can be found online, so the existence of the article, even if created by a bot using a pre-established text template, has a lot of value. This also opens up the possibility for new users from those regions to join the Wikimedia movement, by helping document their native region with more information, pictures, etc.

Best regards,

Anass Sedrati (talk) 06:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC) - On behalf of the Team

General Support Funding Approved at 2,066,316.00 MAD

Dear Wikimedia Morocco User Group,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The MEA Regional Committee and Staff have thoroughly reviewed, discussed and deliberated upon your application and made the decision to fund you at 2,066,316.00 MAD for for a grant period of 1st January 2024 to 31st December 2026.

Here are a few points to note; We funded you for 3 years, recognizing after our discussion that you have planned consistent programming over the 3 years, and we also hope that learnings from the implementation will inform any adjustments needed to improve the work. As mentioned in our discussion, we recommend that you look at organizations such as Igbo Wikimedians User Group and Wikimedia Uganda for examples of their approach to personnel management and resourcing. While we know there will be economic-based differences between the countries - we hope the approaches can be useful to learn from. We also recommend sharing more on the other projects you are working on besides RWiC a flagship program of the affiliate.

We hope to continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Do set up a regular schedule to connect with your MEA Programme Officer based on your needs.

The reporting requirements for the grant will shared in your grant agreement and on Fluxx. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.

Once again, Congratulations! We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on a new year of project implementation.--Aristidek5maya (talk) 14:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Review of Wikidata experience

This grant proposal outlines a significant contribution to Wikidata, but does not identify any users who are knowledgable about that project. Can this be remedied? Thanks, Bovlb (talk) 05:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)