Grants talk:Project/MSIG/Oral Culture: African History Representation on Wikipedia

Feedback for improvement

Hello @Papa Baiden

Thank you for your commitment to advancing Movement Strategy. Following reviews the feedback below is shared for the team. Please provide responses to this feedback and the questions raised, following which a final decision will be shared with the team.

Overall, the project demonstrates a promising approach to addressing an acknowledged issue within the Wikimedia knowledge system. This project plan, if successful, could offer valuable insights that might be applicable across multiple language communities. However, reviewers have shared som constructive feedback and queries to help refine and strengthen your application and project plan:

1. For a project as this, it is important for the team to demonstrate existing awareness of similar Wikimedia-funded projects. Is the team aware of those and if so, have you considered reaching out to those project leads for interviews or advice? Learning from similar initiatives could provide valuable insights and potentially enhance the effectiveness of your project. It is implied in the application but not distinctly stated.
2. While the project does appear to have some alignment with the Movement Strategy, it would be good for the team to explicitly highlight how your project contributes to or advances the specific initiatives you have targeted in your proposal.
3. In relation to the last point, please provide more details on how the team intends to measure and share the outcomes of this work across the Wikimedia movement. Specifically consider the questions below:
   • How will you outline project outcomes? For instance, how many individuals do you plan to interview?
   • How do you intend to apply the findings within Wikimedia projects? More clarity is needed regarding how this project will impact Wikimedia projects.
   • Have you considered common obstacles to applying oral history knowledge to Wikimedia projects? If so, will you address these challenges in this project or future iterations, and if so how?
4. The team needs to provide more clarity on the calculation of translation costs because clear budget breakdowns enhance transparency and facilitate better understanding of resource allocation.

Overall, the application shows promise, and by addressing the feedback shared, the team could further strengthen its impact and feasibility. Reviewers encourage you to consider these suggestions as you refine your project plan. YPam (WMF) (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Yop, and wider reviewing team.

Thanks for the comments on our application. Please see the below responses:

1. On knowledge of similar projects:
   • We as a project team appreciate the importance of familiarising ourselves with past efforts, and learning from them. We’ve discussed briefly existing awareness of other language projects, and have come to note how different our project is by way of focus (historical) and method (oral). A significant effort will be made in Phase 1 to get beyond the anecdotal layer of information commonly shared with us about existing projects, which do differ significantly from what we are trying to do.
   • We will engage relevant members of the movement either as questionnaire respondents, or as interviewees in the limited number (4) of interviews we will hold with advisors, some of whom will come from outside the Wikimedia movement (i.e. university lecturers/historians).
   • In the application, we mention our awareness of the CapX project (Tochi is a steering committee member) but found it to have little similarity or relevance to our project aims. We’re also aware of Wiki Tongues, and of the Indic Oral Culture project. Tochi has reached out for a meeting, but it’s also worth noting here too that after reviewing their project aims and methods, we see enough similarity in what we’re doing to benefit from a conversation, but also note significant differences in our aims and methods:
     • The Indic Oral Culture project (which is amazing!) has digital preservation of culture as a rationale, and mention an over-reliance on the written word. Their point of entry to this is folklore. Our rationale is increasing representation/challenging bias. And our point of entry will be history, not folklore, as it is less contendable.
     • Their methodology involved training sessions for contributors to become Wikimedians. In our methodology we didn’t imagine training everyone. Our project is about ironing out an approach, alongside focal communities. Not a ToT model.
     • Their language focus was VERY wide. Ours is narrower, but considers knowledge produced in location being made accessible to some European languages, in order to bridge knowledge gaps across cultures.
2. On relevance to the movement strategy:
   • Under “innovate in Free knowledge”, initiative 42, WMF states: "The goal is to allow the inclusion and preservation of all forms of human knowledge in all socio-cultural contexts (e.g. encourage refining reliability criteria to provide guidelines to identify reliable sources from oral or non-Western knowledge resources, encourage ensuring that notability criteria are relevant in all contexts)."
   • By innovating a new methodology to increase uptake in African (non-Western), oral knowledge sources, we are helping to increase the representation on the platform, and expanding the ways in which communities can add to the sum of all knowledge.
3. On more clarity with metrics of success:
   • The overarching objective we’re aiming for here is the creation of a solid plan communities can follow to record oral history in a podcast format. Under this, we can state the following as key results:
     • Critical understanding of past projects is codified (one document).
     • Collaborating communities approve of the final plan, and feel sufficiently consulted in the process (at least 3 of 5 representatives from each community).
     • Advisors approve of the final plan (No remaining major concerns, advisors are aligned with the plan as expressed).
     • The final output (the podcast plan document) is translated in all primary focus languages (4x translated documents).
     • We stated up to 5 interviews per community. These can be individuals, or group consultations. So the number of people interviewed in community engagements will vary, whilst the time spent in each community should remain about equal.
4. On translation costs, our logic was:
   • We’re assuming the base document will be written in English.
   • Translation into the 4x languages of primary focus will be done by professional translators. For this we’re assuming up to $500 each, based on experience with translation projects mainly in Ghana and South Africa.
   • If there are remaining funds, we may pay for translation services in Italian.
   • Any unused funds on translation will be returned. Our funds will be held via an agreed and appointed fiscal sponsor.

I hope this helps clarify our plans. I remain available for any further queries or points.

Many thanks,

Papa Papa Baiden (talk) 09:21, 30 May 2024 (UTC)