Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Community Malta Simple Annual Plan 2023

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

Hello ToniSant and Nevborg,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your General Support Fund proposal in the Northern and Western Europe region. We are pleased to have reviewed your application and we really appreciate your solid work focused on a small population and the centering advocacy and engagement of this proposal.

There are a few areas where we would like to request more information:

• We would like to know more about your plans for the partnership with the newspaper Times of Malta. What do you envision about how your work with them might grow or expand? Have you considered developing partnerships with Maltese-speaking newspapers as well?
• Have you considered partnering with educational institutions or with the University of Malta?
• How has your capacity grown or changed over the last year in light of having a staff person?
• You mentioned that you struggle with metrics. We would like to see you grow your capacity there. You might consider working with other affiliates, with WMF staff or finding other methods of increasing your capacity. We encourage you to review this new guidance from the Community Resources team for additional ideas: Quick tips for applicants to include Learning, Evaluation and Sharing efforts in proposals
• It would be interesting to know your opinion and your approach to learning from other minority language communities like yours, as well as the way you share information with those communities. Have you considered seeking mentorship from other more established groups from a similar size or style country, or building peer learning relationships?
• In cases where campaigns are attracting a very small number of participants, what are your reflections? Does this meet your expectations? If so, how do you expect to adapt or redirect your strategy? Generally speaking, how do you prioritize resources around impact?
• Can you share more about the scope of the organisation and its active participants to help us get a sense of your current capacity and scale?
• The Maltese Wikipedia is quite small for representing an official European Union language. What do you see as the reason for this, and do you plan to address that problem?

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

On behalf of the NWE Regional Committee,

–- Darwin ^Ahoy! 22:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback and questions @DarwIn.

@Nevborg and I have discussed your request for more information and we're able to provide the following responses:

• We would like to know more about your plans for the partnership with the newspaper Times of Malta. What do you envision about how your work with them might grow or expand?  Have you considered developing partnerships with Maltese-speaking newspapers as well?

We are still optimistic about the possibility of developing a partnership with the Times of Malta, particularly as they have expressed a strong interest in working with us to share their audio-visual and archival material for use in Wikimedia projects. We maintain a close relationship with key decision-makers within the organization and will soon be exploring the key issue of establishing the way in which this partnership will function in practice. The central challenge in this respect is establishing a suitable way to organize their material and maximize the resources available.

As far as Maltese-speaking newspapers are concerned, these are currently facing a difficult time in the sense that all but two of them are in the process of closing down. The two that remain belong to the two main political parties in Malta, so we'd need yo engage with them equally to ensure NPOV.

• Have you considered partnering with educational institutions or with the University of Malta?

Yes. We have conducted an exploratory pilot exercise in 2022 to explore possible formats for engagement with the University of Malta.  Since writing our original grant application for 2023, we have also managed to confirm a summer course to take place in 2023 over several weeks, Details of this are still in progress and therefore there isn't really any scope of adding much to our application about this right now. You can see more about this here.

• How has your capacity grown or changed over the last year in light of having a staff person?

Having a staff person has made it possible for our organization to  consistently deliver a program of events and activities. This is precisely why we engaged a staff person.  As in 2022, we have only asked for them to work the equivalent of 1 day a week as  we are still establishing how to grow our program of events and activities beyond 2023.  It is envisioned that from 2024, we will likely need a staff person for the equivalent of at least 1.5 days per week, or possibly even 2 days per week.

• You mentioned that you struggle with metrics. We would like to see you grow your capacity there. You might consider working with other affiliates, with WMF staff or finding other methods of increasing your capacity. We encourage you to review this new guidance from the Community Resources team for additional ideas: Quick tips for applicants to include Learning,  Evaluation and Sharing efforts in proposals

In our discussions with Marti Johnson, we have established that rather than relying fully on quantitative metrics, we should also be exploring qualitative goals, especially in light of the size of our community and operations. We shall continue to consult Marti about this, in the first instance, and  then proceed to work with other affiliates and/or WMF staff to increase capacity in this area.

• It would be interesting to know your opinion and your approach to learning from other minority language communities like yours, as well as the way you share information with those communities. Have you considered seeking mentorship from other more established groups from a similar size or style country, or building peer learning relationships?

We are active members of the Wikimedia CEE group and currently involved in the steering committee developing the Wikimedia CEE hub. We find great kinship with a number of affiliates within this grouping. We participated in a number of events organized for and by the CEE group, including ones dealing with minority languages. We also have participated regularly in gatherings intended for minority language communities, such as Celtic Knot and Arctic Knot, and have maintained a close affinity with Wikimedia Community Ireland for 5+ years, as they similarly have to contend with their national language and English as an official language within their country. Moreover, we remain open to further explorations on this matter.

• In cases where campaigns are attracting a very small number of participants, what are your reflections? Does this meet your expectations? If so, how do you expect to adapt or redirect your strategy? Generally speaking, how do you prioritize resources around impact?

We have learned that rather than going for large numbers of participants who taper off after one or two significant engagements, we would rather focus our time and energy on enabling more substantial participation from a smaller number of volunteer editors, uploaders, and other collaborators. We generally prioritize resources around impact to ensure that any volunteer contributor who seeks to engage with Wikimedia platforms meaningfully finds as much support as possible from our user group, enabling them to feel that their effort is greatly appreciated, and thus encouraging them to remain committed to the projects.

• Can you share more about the scope of the organisation and its active participants to help us get a sense of your current capacity and scale?

We are a small user group that has consistently grown over the past six years. Our greatest achievement is the successful delivery of seven consecutive editions of Wiki Loves Monuments in Malta, and the active engagement with the Maltese language Wikipedia, where over the past three years, we have enabled the creation of twice as many articles as wer previously created between 2004 and 2018. We achieved this through our program of events and activities, which includes regular Wikipedia editing workshops and edit-a-thons, including participation in CEE Spring.

• The Maltese Wikipedia is quite small for representing an official European Union language. What do you see as the reason for this, and do you plan to address that problem?

The Maltese language Wikipedia has suffered greatly from not being aligned with an WMF-affiliated user group between its inception in 2004 and 2018/19. Since WCM took on the challenge of improving the Maltese language Wikipedia, the number of new articles and active editors has approximately doubled compared to editing activity in the equivalent previous period. We aim to continue maintaining our program of events and activities to ensure that the trajectory of growth we established over the past 2+ years remains steady. This will enable the Maltese language Wikipedia to grow steadily into the size you'd expect from an official European Union language by 2030.

Many thanks for all your support. -- ToniSant (talk) 09:55, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Round 1 2023 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to fund your proposal in full for 38,756.00 EUR

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, –Marti (WMF) (talk) 08:50, 5 January 2023 (UTC)