Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Portugal Annual Plan 2024

A Critical Look at Wikimedia Portugal's Growing Dependency on WMF Funding

Greetings,

As an engaged member of the Portuguese Wikimedia community and Wikimedia Portugal, I feel compelled to share some observations and concerns regarding this recent grant application submitted for your review.

Since 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation's financial commitment to Wikimedia Portugal has exceeded $225,000 USD, with an additional request of $148,212.31 USD for the current grant cycle. This pattern underscores a growing dependency on WMF funding, characterized by steadily increasing annual requests from the current board. This reliance is particularly evident in the operational reliance on WMF funds to cover salaries, amid an apparent lack of initiative to broaden and diversify revenue streams, which appears to have stagnated since 2022, when WMF funds started pouring in. As WMF grants become seemingly the sole source of income for Wikimedia Portugal, the sustainability of this model raises significant concerns, especially as we witness the affiliate indulging in expanding its paid workforce even prior to the approval of the funding intended to support such growth. This approach not only challenges the overarching goal of affiliate sustainability but also poses a risk to all stakeholders involved in or observing organizational practices that prioritize expansion without securing a sustainable financial base. As a member of this affiliate, it certainly is a cause of concern to me.

Furthermore, my observations suggest that past grants may have been approved without a thorough assessment of affiliate performance metrics. Community engagement has notably dwindled since 2022, with minimal attendance at chapter general assemblies, and negligible participation in training sessions and events. Chapter general assemblies have been attended by about 5-6 people at most, all or almost all board members and staff. At the same time, trainings and presentations show residual attendance and no visible impact. Organized events often have residual community participation, being attended mostly by institutional people, if at all, with many photos showing staff talking to what seem to be empty rooms. This lack of capacity to generate community engagement, alongside limited impact and transparency regarding initiatives funded by the WMF, such as the Wikimedian in Residence program at NOVA University (have you seen its report?), calls for a reevaluation of how funds are allocated and the expected outcomes of such investments. Since late 2022, Glam involvement seems to have been mostly limited to the dubiously named "Wiki Loves Musica Portuguesa" initiative, whose contributions seem to be mostly done by WMPT staff (paidediting?), with apparently low or very low impact in the Wikimedia projects. It's a case in point that despite the ambitious metrics predicted by the chapter every year, since 2022 only 10-15 files managed to find it's way from WMPT Glam partners to Wikimedia Commons.

Additionally, concerns arise around the execution of educational programs, particularly the interchangeable use of volunteer and staff accounts, which clouds accountability and the quality of training provided. Misunderstandings propagated by the staff, such as misinformation about Wikimedia Commons' content policies - with such outstanding declarations after almost two years giving WM Commons trainings as that the platform accepts fair use [1][2] (note that despite the different accounts, it's actually the same staff) - have led to complications with GLAM partners and unnecessary burdens on the volunteer community tasked with content curation. Indeed, most of the content uploaded by WMPT Glam partners had to be deleted as they uploaded it with non commercial licenses, eventually due to erroneous or/and insufficient guidance by the staff in charge of their training.

In conclusion, while the dedication to promoting open knowledge and supporting our community is unquestionable, the current operational and financial strategies of Wikimedia Portugal present substantial challenges. I suggest that fostering a more sustainable financial model should be imperative, as well as ensuring transparency and accountability in operations, and enhancing the effectiveness of community engagement and partnerships. As a committed member of this affiliate, I believe it is crucial to reflect on these matters and collaboratively seek solutions that align with our shared values and objectives for the future of Wikimedia Portugal, something that seems to be mostly absent from the current grant request.

Ping @ABruszik-WMF .

Kind regards,

- Darwin ^Ahoy! 13:06, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Re: A Critical Look at Wikimedia Portugal's Growing Dependency on WMF Funding

Dear DarwIn, Members of the Grant Committee and others reading this,

We will try to both be succinct and still answer most of the concerns raised here. However, this will be difficult because there are many assertions, assumptions and a long history that we will not be able to revisit here.

As stated on the proposal, one of the main goals WMPT Board has embraced for this year is the Community Building and Training program, along with governance improvements. We share some of the concerns regarding community engagement, a key aspect of our global strategy, and have consistently improved practices in response to community feedback, including from DarwIn.

Funding request amount and diversification of revenue streams

The amount of funds requested for this grant represents a 15% annual increase from the previous request, covering expected inflation costs and the new communications contractor. We believe that this position will improve the communication of the chapter both internally as well as externally.

Regarding the job opening mentioned, it predates this application. We are utilizing unspent funds from the 2022 grant, reallocated for a communication specialist, while aiming to continue this position if the current request is granted. This reuse of unspent funds was already approved by our Grant Administrator at WMF.

Financially, WMPT is developing training programs targeting librarians, researchers, and academics, potentially leading to additional revenue sources through consulting. Additionally, our involvement in research project submissions for national science funding offers another potential revenue stream.

Community engagement

Building an organized and healthy community takes time and patience, and increased community involvement over the past two years has led to more engagement in governance and organizational aspects. Thus, we've introduced a new governance and leadership development program to facilitate internal processes and enhance governance.

That shift is also clear on our budget, with specific categories for local community meetups or Capacity building. For instance, our microgrant program not only tries to support community needs but also fosters engagement, and attracts community to us.

Regarding training sessions and the GLAM program, "Wiki Loves Musica Portuguesa" has facilitated regular meetings, training sessions, and partnerships with various entities, as detailed in wmpt:Plano_de_atividades/2024/En#Wiki_Loves_Portuguese_Music_(WLOVMUSPT).

It’s relevant to mention that WMPT currently supports and trains academics, researchers, and librarians to utilize Wikimedia projects and technologies for institutional work, aiming to develop power users capable of driving projects within our partners. Some of these events will have a specific target audience and cannot be measured in quantitative presence.

Metrics

We are undergoing an internal evaluation process to establish clearer goals and evaluation metrics, as detailed in the proposal. We’ve shared in the proposal some of internal metrics and indicators that we are working on. These metrics are crucial for refining our programs and activities, contributing to our ongoing improvement efforts.

Staff training and partnerships

Staff training is always ongoing, and mistakes will occur. Both board and staff are committed to a continuous learning system, which is not easy, especially because it involves several projects at the same time. But importantly, wikimedia projects are places to share knowledge, and it’s very important to use mistakes as points of learning, not condemn them. Sincerely, Alchimista (talk) 22:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Alchimista,

Thank you for your answer. I believe you may have overlooked the main issue of my comment above, however - the increased lack of sustainability of Wikimedia Portugal, and its total dependence on WMF funds. This wavering and recurring lack of stability was already a problem back in 2021 - in fact, it has been a problem since 2009 - but only got worse after WMPT started being funded by the WMF Community Fund. The situation worsened over the last two years, and I understand the current scenario is one where if the WMF for any reason stops funding WMPT, or even diminishes the resources provided for this affiliate, it will be unable to pay wages to the staff and fulfil its legal compromises, and board members risk being sued over that, as well as all kinds of judicial problems. That's quite risky not only for the staff, but also to the board members, who had put themselves into that situation. And, frankly, under these conditions, I fail to see how even the board (and whole chapter, consequently) sustainability can be guaranteed, since predictably not many people will be putting themselves in such a risky situation.

You claim that potential additional funding may be obtained through consulting, through the national science research funds, but where is that? Is there any strategy for getting that, at all? Back in 2018-2021, we were following a number of paths for independent funding, including getting the Public Utility statute, in order to be eligible for the Portuguese Government tax redistribution program. We experimented applying for different grants, and studying different sources of revenue. As part of it, for instance, we managed to secure participation in a Public Policy project on fake news and disinformation funded by the US Embassy, which took place in September 2021. All that at a time when we had no staff nor any WMF funding at all, apart for a few specific activities, like Wiki Loves prizes, and our strategy was to grow without sacrificing sustainability, and risk sinking the whole thing at the first iceberg that appears on its path. What happened to all that, including all the strategy and governance documentation produced by the chapter as of 2021 as, apparently, at this moment, only WMF funding is coming in as WMPT revenue, and nothing concrete seems to be done to change that? And this, despite being already in the 3rd year of funding, with 2 full time staff paid for by WMF funds, which could have been looking into that?

It's sad that, despite all the funding provided, and the flashes and soundbites WMPT sometimes emits on its social networks, it's state from an onwiki perspective is almost of a non existence. There are often mentions to this "Wiki Loves Musica Portuguesa" thing which don't even seem to exist on Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata or any other kind of wiki project, whose existence seems be limited to WMPT own wiki. Additionally, it seems to be carried on almost entirely by WMPT staff, often using their volunteer accounts intermixed with their official accounts. What is the impact of such a thing? How will it attract any new community, or help engaging the existing one?

I also understand that despite all the graphics and assertions, there doesn't seem to exist any verifiable metric, apart from the 2 Wiki Loves contests (Monuments and Earth - which are not stellar metrics, but ok).

And that, despite assertions of significant participation in events - and overlooking the fact that quite often those can't be verified too - I and others have been questioning: -Who are these people? We certainly do not notice the vast majority of them in the Wikimedia projects, and very few (1/2) can be recognized at the events, when at all. I understand that vast majority are people from other participating institutions and associations, which is great, but I guess there ought to be more than that, otherwise... what is the impact for us? What's the point of building partnerships over partnerships, if nothing meaningful for the Wikimedia community ever comes out of them?

Anyway, I wish things get better and WMPT manages to improve, as all the Wikimedia community (Portuguese and non-Portuguese) would certainly benefit from that.

Ping @ABruszik-WMF for the updated comments.

King regards,

- Darwin ^Ahoy! 22:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback from the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Regional Funds Committee on your proposal

Dear Wikimedia Portugal Team,

Thank you for your proposal, describing your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Northern and Western European Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wishes to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review.

• The committee is grateful to see a plan that was presented with more structure than in previous years, offering us to see the overall direction in which Wikimedia Portugal is heading, and the partnerships that are maintained by your activities (as well as your intention to clarify the nature of your cooperation with these partners).
• We appreciated the self-reflection that took place and the fields of improvements that were recognised, such as skill development, governance, communications, and external fundraising. Above all, the plan for developing a strategic vision for yourself in Portugal was very welcome, and we believe that work towards creating a strategy and strategic action plan, in consultation with your community, will be a constructive way to provide operational stability moving forward.
• We also appreciated the intention to take actions to improve the sense of community in Portugal, as well as providing a rather healthy balance of staff and programmatic costs in your budget to support this area of work.
• Your focus on language communities, including specific activities for small language communities, such as Mirandese, was identified as a strong value in the proposal.
• The committee noticed in your proposal that you plan to build on your previous achievements, as well as on lessons learned from other chapters, so as not to ‘reinvent the wheel’ unnecessarily. Connected to this, we were delighted to see the intention to prioritize partnerships and activities in light of your operational and technical capacities. We are concerned that the number and scope of planned activities listed in your annual plan are too broad to be successfully delivered with our current capacity, and there is a risk of either putting significant burden on staff or implementing less impactful versions than those presented. Such prioritization will therefore benefit your workload, your strategic planning, and help consolidate the indicators/metrics of your impact.
• The committee welcomes your plan to improve documentation of the implementation of the work, as the lack of visibility of results has been somewhat hindering the deeper understanding of your impact.

While elaborating on your proposed plans, the Committee members made the following specific recommendations for WMPT that the Committee would like to see implemented in the coming year to foster your professionalization efforts:

• Focus on the time and resources needed to produce a strategy and action plan in consultation with your community. The committee urges you to not underestimate the time and resources it will take to produce, however, this is a timely investment and will structure and support your planning and activity for the next 3-5 years.
• Developing a fundraising approach, including the expansion of WM Portugal’s membership base, will be an important part of your new strategy. In this aspect, this WMF resource will be helpful.
• Developing a community engagement strategy will also be a critical part of your new strategic plan, and will:
  • Improve the co-design and delivery of activities,
  • Help monitor the satisfaction of the community and the impact of your community work
  • Improve capacity of your members,
  • Understand the communication needs of m the community,
  • Improve the on-wiki online Portuguese community, which is currently not clear in your application.
• When developing the strategic vision, providing clarity on how the different partnerships and activities respond to challenges in Portugal, and how some consolidated metrics would be good measures of the impact of your lines of work. This strategic review could be usefully guided by a thorough Theory of Change exercise. A useful grid to guide your thinking in this process can be found here.
• The committee also reminds you of the importance of making the knowledge equity aspects of your work as explicit as possible.

It would be supportive of the Committee’s understanding of your plans if you’d be so kind as to elaborate on our following specific few questions:

• You list 18 governance sessions to enable you to produce your strategic vision. Can you confirm what the group is committing to producing by the end of the year, and how it will ensure your community engagement is efficient, and how you will publicize and make use of the outcomes of this work?
• While we were glad to see that you plan a meeting in Porto targeting the Mirandese community, how do you define the participants of that meeting, what is the planned agenda of topics, and what impact and follow-up activities are you foreseeing after the event that benefit the Mirandese community?
• Can you please provide more details about your budget item: “Wikimedia Events / conferences”, in the form of a breakdown of planned budget per event and the events’ expected impact.
• Can you please give us an explanation about how and how many volunteers are currently involved in your decision-making, and in the implementation of the activities, and how the new volunteer / staff organization would work with the addition of a new staff member?
• In response to the critical review received on META of the work of WMPT on Wikimedia Commons, how do you plan to improve the workflows and the skills of your community members and partners to avoid the technical issues that led to content deletions in the past?
• Regarding the communication personnel: The committee reminds that the underspent amount of €3,637.50 was not reallocated to hiring a permanent employee. While WM Portugal needs help from a communication professional, the committee agrees that this expertise should be used on creation of a communications strategy and understanding community needs before expanding your FTE headcount. Additionally, we recommend you make use of WMF resources in this matter (Agnes will provide you with more details).

In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to the committee feedback by May 05th, 2024. In case after receiving your responses, it will be still necessary to find clarity in some specific aspects, we will be happy to provide the opportunity for further responses or offer a meeting to further understand specific elements of your plans. After this period, the Regional Committee will begin a final review of the proposal to make a formal decision.

Thanks again for your work on the proposal and supporting our review.

On behalf of the NWE Regional Committee,

Anders Wennersten (talk) 05:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Dear members of the Northern and Western European Regional Committee,

Wikimedia Portugal board has taken the committee feedback in consideration and wishes to declare the following:

We are pleased to see the feedback from the committee. It is important for us not only to feel our efforts recognized, but also to see the constructive help and advises this committee is giving to our plans.

Regarding the high number of activities, we might have a detailed breakthrough, but most of the activities and associated metrics presented are not for isolated events, but rather sessions incorporated in events. WikiCon, for example, hosts several governance and community development activities, in the Free Software Party we are planning to host some training activities, and community gathering events. This helps us define the events sessions regarding our global targets.

Question: You list 18 governance sessions to enable you to produce your strategic vision. Can you confirm what the group is committing to producing by the end of the year, and how it will ensure your community engagement is efficient, and how you will publicize and make use of the outcomes of this work?

Response: From those 18 governance sessions, 5 are specific to designing a strategic vision, the rest of those sessions are related to governance and leadership capitation. The answer is related to the previous one. By the end of the year, we plan to have a preliminary draft of the strategic vision, and new bylaws approved or in a final stage of approval. The sessions will be publicized in Portuguese projects’ village pumps, our mailing list and social networks, according to the target audience of each session.

Question: While we were glad to see that you plan a meeting in Porto targeting the Mirandese community, how do you define the participants of that meeting, what is the planned agenda of topics, and what impact and follow-up activities are you foreseeing after the event that benefit the Mirandese community?

Response: The Porto Meeting, co-organized by Wikimedia Portugal, Wikimedia Spain, and Porto University's Digital Humanities center, aims to build a sustainable Mirandese community, a network for Iberian minority language projects and the capacitation of academics and researchers in wikimedia language related tools and platforms. Held at Porto's Arts and Humanities Faculty through our partnership with CODA-FLUP, it engages native speakers, academics, and researchers from Iberian minority language projects. The 2025 edition may dedicate a day to academics, showcasing Wikimedia projects as tools for language preservation, while the rest focuses on community editors. Each project may have 2 seats, selected through a public announcement and selection process.

Anticipating 30 participants, including academics and community members, training on language topics and technologies like lexemes and lingualibre will be provided, fostering collaboration among communities, and potentially leading to an Iberian cooperation platform.

The main problem of Mirandese wikipedia community is the lack of native speakers involved. We are fostering a local network of partnerships to be the backbone of a sustainable community, and this event is crucial to let them know the value and potential of wikimedia, and engage them in the movement. The last event already catalyzed several events that lead to the presence of WMPT in the newly formed Mirandese Language Council, and the collaboration on research projects that will use wikidata and other wikimedia projects in minority language preservation. Additionally, following the previous meeting, we've initiated a pilot project with a Mirandese language instructor to integrate Wikimedia tools into language teaching. We anticipate increased motivation and support for such projects from local entities and academics.

Globally, the Porto Meeting is expected to catalyze more local events with mutual support, facilitating easier organization of edit-a-thons or training days in places like Miranda do Douro, Asturias, or Galicia, and online training events on common interest topics.

Question: Can you please provide more details about your budget item: “Wikimedia Events / conferences”, in the form of a breakdown of planned budget per event and the events’ expected impact.

Wikimedia Events / conferences

Wikicon Portugal 2025: 10 000,00 €

WikiData Days: 9 000,00 €

Porto Meeting: 9 000,00 €

Festa do Software Livre: 1 000,00 €

Public Domain Day: 300,00 €

Academia Wikimedia: 700,00 €

Total: 30 000,00 €

Question: Can you please give us an explanation about how and how many volunteers are currently involved in your decision-making, and in the implementation of the activities, and how the new volunteer / staff organization would work with the addition of a new staff member?

Response: It really depends on the activity. We have had situations where a volunteer or group of volunteers tells us that they are planning an edit-a-thon and ask us if the chapter is willing to support with communication and/or onsite training, to large conferences that are planned with months in advance and staff organizes travel and scholarship, communication with partners and speakers, etc. The board of directors is in daily contact with each other and with the staff, and there are a number of volunteers that are either involved in organizing a particular activity, are contacted for example to help with Wiki Loves campaigns or are more or less kept up to date with activities and planning. We would say that at least 20 to 30 different people are involved on a yearly basis on implementing activities, which involves of course decision-making. The board usually makes a decision if someone proposes an activity that was not in our yearly plan to support it or not. Also, please note that number of members of the chapter has been rising steadily every year since the 2018 revival (with the exception of 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic reducing our activity)

Question: In response to the critical review received on META of the work of WMPT on Wikimedia Commons, how do you plan to improve the workflows and the skills of your community members and partners to avoid the technical issues that led to content deletions in the past?

Response: We are working with the staff to build a practical guide for partners to properly license and upload images to commons, including cases where the rightsholder had already published the images with a license that is incompatible with Commons but wishes to relicense the work with a free license. This will include either explicitly changing the license, or multi licensing, on the original item (for example, published on the partner’s website) or through the volunteer response team ticketing system. The guide should cover most common cases, with customized paths depending on a small set of choices reflecting the situation of the images to contribute.

We are also working so that they can feel safe editing and in closer contact with more experienced contributors. There is an obvious learning curve for new contributors, and it’s very important to promote a safe and welcome environment on the projects for our staff and partners.

Question: Regarding the communication personnel: The committee reminds that the underspent amount of €3,637.50 was not reallocated to hiring a permanent employee. While WM Portugal needs help from a communication professional, the committee agrees that this expertise should be used on creation of a communications strategy and understanding community needs before expanding your FTE headcount. Additionally, we recommend you make use of WMF resources in this matter (Agnes will provide you with more details).

Response: Yes, we were aware that the underspent funds were not to hire a permanent employee. We were asking during this funding round to have a part-time contractor to execute the communication plan that the communication consultant would delineate (this could be the same person, or another). We would also like to clarify that Wikimedia Portugal does not have permanent employees, our staff is hired with fixed term contracts (“contrato de trabalho a termo certo”) bound by the duration of current WMF grants. We are unfortunately not able to offer our employees permanent contracts (“contrato de trabalho sem termo”) because the chapter does not have fixed income. Alchimista (talk) 12:07, 5 May 2024 (UTC)