Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Crystalclear10/GenderGap recruiting experiments

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

@Crystalclear10: Hello, and thanks for your proposal to crowdsource microtasks in an effort to reduce the gender gap on Wikipedia. I have some comments about the proposal in order to support our review:

• Unfortunately, grant funds cannot be used to pay participants to edit content areas on Wikimedia projects. Paid editing remains controversial on most Wikimedia projects, including English Wikipedia, and there are several community expectations as well as requirements in the Terms of Use on Wikimedia projects for paid editors that may be difficult or impractical for new contributors to follow.
• However, I think a different approach to this project could be workable and interesting. For instance, you can pay participants to test microcontribution tools in a manner that does not directly result in changes or improvements to the main content pages on Wikipedia. Test edits to the user or project namespace could be viable here to show
• Funding can also be used to pay for developer time to build / modify microcontribtution tasks.
• Ultimately, the goal would need be focused on the bigger picture question on whether others will use these microcontribution tools on a voluntary basis, since this is the community's and organizations's expectation for this kind of engagement (i.e. for Wikipedia, article content editing and creation). Paying participants to test these tools using this service is appropriate so long as they are not directly editing article content and are instead using a separate testing or drafting space.

Given these comments, would you be able to modify the proposal to meet these expectations? Please let me know if you have any questions. If you expect to be able to modify your proposal, please adjust your start date and end dates to take place sometime on or after 15 September 2020 to allow us time to process the proposal. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Hello, thank you for your review and your comments on my proposal to crowdsource microtasks in an effort to reduce gender gap on Wikipedia. I found your comments incredibly helpful, and I've made the suggested changes to the proposal. Also, just to clarify, when I mentioned microcontribution tasks, I was thinking of experiments to find the right messaging that could be used on wikipedia website to invite more editors. But when you say tools, I think of a process through which others can use it to invite more of their peers. I'm not sure what will more helpful, but I would love to hear your perspective on this!

@Crystalclear10: I am needing a little more clarity around the microcontribtuons tasks. I at first thought these referred to simple kinds of edits to our projects, like adding categories to pages, but based on what you've said, it looks more like rating different kinds of invitational messages to contribute. Is this correct? If so, once you've identified useful messages for inviting possible contributors, how would you use or share those messages with relevant groups or audiences? If not, could you provide more detail about these experiements? I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Yes, that's what I had in mind. Like when I first used wikipedia, I didn't know I could edit it, even though I knew it was open source. But if there is a message saying anyone can edit, and link me to videos/examples on how to edit - I would be more confidence to do it. The idea was to design an experiment to check if it works on mTurk. If it works, it can be added to wikipedia pages. Another idea was to have a fully online training course on how to edit wikipedia, and check if people completing the training are more likely to edit. It can be forwarded to relevant groups whose input is required. So the idea is to increase pipeline of people who know that they can contribute to Wikipedia.

@Crystalclear10: Thanks for this clarification. Unfortunately, I will be declining this proposal for funding as currently proposed. A few important concerns I have are:

• While you are familiar some major movement campaigns such as #1lib1ref and some activities with Wikimedia DC, your account shows no history of editing Wikimedia projects outside of this grant proposal. This is a concern because the messaging that community members do to encourage editing should be done with a goal of doing more than encouraging and inviting people to participate, but helping them understand the overall purpose and scope of Wikimedia projects overall. I would advise working together with another volunteer who has substantive experience working on Wikimedia projects.
• While the project is tied to reducing the gender gap, there is not a clear connection between your proposed activities how they would reach or support participation by underrepresented genders on Wikimedia projects. This connection between how your activities would effectively reduce the gender gap through better messaging would need to be more clearly established.
• The communication plan around the proposal does not make clear where these results will be shared or whether they are likely to reach important or interested communities either within or outside of Wikimedia projects. This is a concern because even if you were successful in identifying potentially effective kinds of messaging to invite editors, it's unclear how you would communicate those messages so they would be used to support participation by new editors.

While I am declining this proposal, we are open to reviewing it at a later time if you are able to to address these needs. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)