Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Bay Area WikiSalon/Bay Area WikiSalon

Not sure this is the right process

I support the concept behind this grant. There is a history of good events here than need present and future funding. The request is modest and of the sort that is routinely granted.

Support aside, it is confusing to ask for so many community members to learn so many changing grant processes. This request is currently classified as a "Rapid grant", which I think is for a fast response to one-time events. Since this grant request is for a series of events, this might not be the intended process. However, doing a rapid grant might be appropriate for this stage of organization. You ought to be able to make rapid grant requests every month, and if you did this, the reporting requirements would be lowest.

Since the request is for funding to do a series of events, then I think the intended request process is the simple annual plan grant at Grants:Simple. That still should not be a complicated process for an application, but since it does mean a year's money upfront, there are some additional questions to answer which are not asked on month-to-month disbursement. Either process might work but they ask different questions and have different community safeguards for alerting different reviewers.

See what the WMF grant reviewer says, but I think by starting with a 1-3 month request and trying the system, that would make this group a better candidate to get a year's funding. Either way, the intent would be to keep the grant request process at approximately the same level of time commitment. For groups with less history of requesting grants, it helps to request a little in the short term before requesting more over a year period.

My first thought is that considering the history of past events, how would you feel about revising this to $500 for 3 months, then submitting the exact same request around month 2 to check in about funds for the rest of the year? The difference in that scheme would be that there would be 1-2 monthly reports in before getting the year's funding. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry . Thanks for your engagement with this grant and support for the project. We realize that changing the grant process may be confusing, but hopefully after we are finished with the grants restructure and rollout of all the programs (August), the new programs will be more clear. While this project is a series of events over an entire year, it is more appropriate for a Rapid Grant due to it's simplicity and budget. A Simple Annual Plan is meant to fund a group or organizations programs and operating expenses over the course of a year. Typically, organizations have a strategic plan that involves multiple programs. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

AWang (WMF) Thanks - I am glad this was funded, and glad also for this project as a precedent of what others might do. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Grant approved

Hi Ben Creasy. Thanks for putting together this grant request. It's great to see more regular activity and momentum for organizing events in the Bay Area! We are happy to support this project. We would like to see event pages for each month's event, including a list of any content created (if that is focus -- for example, an editathon) and usernames of participants. This will also make it easier for you to report on Global Metrics in your final report. I see you've already done this for the April 2016 event. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

6-month update

Hi Ben Creasy. Now that you're half-way through the grant period, it would be great to get an update on your progress! I know you've been holding regular events. Are you happy with how they have been going and the level/type of participation? Are you planning on changing anything for the remainder of the project period? Can you provide a few highlights? Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 05:07, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey AWang (WMF) (talk · contribs). I'm satisfied although the participation could always be better. Since I have a full-time job I can't dedicate a ton of time towards organizing fancy events. A good place to read about highlights would be at the Wikipedia page Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Bay_Area_WikiSalon. There's also some photos on Commons at Commons:Category:Bay_Area_WikiSalon and videos up see this for example. We're going to start doing every other month outside of the WMF headquarters and we might end up going to an every other month event to increase the quality. We currently have $1,000 remaining in the bank in the account Wayne and I have access to at Pacific Credit Union. Ben Creasy (talk) 08:03, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Ben Creasy Great update, this covers everything that I want to know. You all are smooth as always and keep a great work/life/wiki balance. WALRUS is tomorrow if any of you can give a voice update then. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm usually on the train home from work around then. And that evening I was out scouting a place for us to hold the event at Noisebridge. Checkingfax (talk · contribs) really does the lion's share of work. Ben Creasy (talk) 06:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

9 months later - adapting strategies

Our activity has slowed down a bit and we've decided to make some changes - we currently have $705.64 in the bank:

• we switched over to an every other month schedule to allow more time for planning
• we are planning to do events with more structure - the one in a few days is "Talk Page Theater" (described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bay_Area_WikiSalon_November_2017)
• Nikikana (talk · contribs) has started to help us (Checkingfax (talk · contribs) and I out, which is great particularly since I am hyper-focused on my career.

Lots of good notes on strategy over at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bay_Area_WikiSalon_September_2017

Possible themes include:

1. Administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators) and Requests for Admin process
2. Articles for Deletion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion) + Notability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability) and Inclusion policies
3. Conflict of Interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest) policies
4. Did you know (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Did_you_know)
5. Dispute resolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution) , 3O (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion) (third opinion)
6. How to organize a successful edit-a-thon
7. Introduction to principles and practices of editing
8. Local Bay Area topics, history / Local Wiki (https://localwiki.org/)
9. Requests for Comments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment) + Request for Feedback forum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Feedback_request_service)
10. What is a Reliable Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources) now, and in the future?
11. WikiProjects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject) : What are they, and how to participate
12. Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) + role of visual media in the encyclopedia
13. Wikimedia Sister Projects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_sister_projects) (Wikitionary, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Commons, etc.)

I'm a bit conflicted on this ambitious initiative - I'm hoping some of my career stuff will come into focus allowing me to spend a bit more time volunteering, but I'm not sure about that. Ben Creasy (talk) 08:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Quick update

The ambitious agenda sketched out above has not come to fruition thus far - Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon is up-to-date. I've been pulled away by a focus on work, personal items, and my stronger interest in writing code. I still plan to at some point come up with modules - I'm putting some skeletons together using (https://github.com/gnab/remark) but nothing worth sharing yet. CC Nikikana (talk · contribs), Checkingfax (talk · contribs), Slaporte (talk · contribs). We currently have $590.36 over at https://www.pacificservice.org/ - I may do a call for organizers or something. Ben Creasy (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Ben Creasy (talk · contribs) (CC Checkingfax (talk · contribs), Slaporte (talk · contribs)),

I think that having this ambitious agenda is helpful for the future no matter what. For now, I also don't have the bandwidth to help realize all of these ambitions as we laid them out as I have become involved in some new projects. But I would be interested and open to helping organize something very simple in the coming weeks. For example a very casual meetup where we have free time for editing and could open the floor to discuss the Salons and see if there is anyone else interested in helping to organize future salons. Something very simple. Nikikana (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)