Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Houssem Abida/Write for the rights

Questions about your proposal

Dear Houssem Abida,

Thank you for submitting this proposal.

First, I want to say that I think that organizing Wikimedia events in tandem with a film festival is a great idea, and doubly so for a Queer Film Festival, since it allows you to capitalize on the geographic convergence of so many people who have specialized knowledge to offer in an area that is underrepresented on our projects. Such a good idea!

My understanding is that the NGO Mawjoudin will be hosting a training for festival organizers to upload photos to Commons, partnering with Wikimedia to make open source contributions of festival media, where possible. And, that this part of the project will not require any grant funding, because it will focus on local contributors and Mawjoudin will host.

So, when you say you are organizing four events (2 WikiCommons workshops for the photographers of the festival, an editathon and a visit for the Queer film festival as journalists), can you help me understand which of these events require grant funding? Is it correct to say that:

• only one of the four events, the editathon, requires funding
• the reason this one event requires funding (unlike the other 3 events) is that it will not be directed toward local contributors; instead this event will focus on non-local Wikimedians will travel in and spend 2-3 days together translating written content
• the goal is to translate existing articles about LGBT in the MENA region in the biggest number of languages and also to translate articles related to sexual education

If this is correct, it seems to me that while the Commons trainings are directly tied to the festival, the editathon is not tied to the festival, except by virtue of both being focused on queer knowledge. In other words, the editathon will be very general, rather than focused specifically on the festival. If this is correct, can you say more about why you think it is necessary to have international participants travel to the festival to do this editathon? Could this be done as an online editathon rather than an offline editathon, and perhaps avoid the cost of travel and accommodations?

In general, we like to have editathons focus on local contributors who can continue to sustainably meet offline, rather than editathons that require people to travel from afar. This is because the latter is very high cost, and so not sustainable.

Please let us know your thoughts, and thank you in advance for your feedback!

Kind regards,

Marti

Dear :@Mjohnson (WMF):

Thanks for these important remarks. Here are my answers:

*What the funds will be used for: Yes only the ultimate editathon will need funds as the 3 first ones will be hosted in Mawjoudin's HQ and will focus on locals. These three workshops will be to train the media team of the Queer Film Festival on using Commons to upload their photos regarding the festival activities, while the third one will be a pre-editathon where we will try to write articles in english so that we make international participants mission easier. In fact, most of references related to LGBT Cause in Tunisia (and basically in any topic) are in french so participants will find it hard to use.

*What's the goal of the final editathon with internationals: I think my presentation here needs more details. International participants will take part of the Queer Film Festival as journalists thanks to the partnership I managed to make. This way, participants will be able to document the festival by themselves (photos, videos, etc) but in the same time respect the festival policy to protect identities. Then, these participants will write Wikipedia articles in their languages about the festival and other LGBT related topics in MENA (I'll answer this in more details in the nest question). Also, these participants will get to meet leaders and activits of LGBT NGOs in Tunisia to interview them, take photos of them and see what our LGBT User group can do as activities to support their achievements throught a panel or a round table (We are still discussing the shape with Mawjoudin and the logistics). The final reason behind this editathon is it will be an opportunity for the LGBT User group members to host a meetup and discuss our strategy and futur work.

*What the editathon should focus on: As I said, the mains goals are to focus on LGBT subjects in the MENA region and Sexual education. But to be even more precise, the work that is being done by NGOs in MENA such as the Queer Film Festival. So we will write about the festival, the NGO, and similar movements in Tunisia and MENA.

I am looking to hear your thoughts about this. Your questions are really helpful and make me realise that I need to work more on the grant proposal.

Best, Houssem

Hello @Mjohnson (WMF):,

If I may add to this: This event would be part of the Wikipedia for Peace series. The intention behind this is to have Wikimedians from different regions and language versions come together in order to discuss how they can support each other in a better way and also in order to find solutions on how to solve problems that a specific community face. The general idea was better described in this blogpost: https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/11/09/europride-stockholm/ We think that it would be great if we could come together in Tunesia or by wider means in the MENA region as it would set an important statement for the LGBT community to have an event take place there. We already gathered participants who would want to take part in the event. The event itself would be part of a series where the first one took place in Madrid in 2017, the second in Stockholm in 2018 and the third would be this event in Tunis. A general contribution to the LGBT user group for example was that we set up a list of articles related to LGBT topics that should exist in every language version. This helps to focus efforts. Something like this could specifically done for the LGBT community in the MENA region as well but it would be great if the Wikimedians from Spain and Austria, that constructed the list and programmed the table so that it's easy to translate articles, would both be present and could work together with experts from the LGBT community in the MENA region on that. For this a face to face interaction and actual meet-up within a multi- day- edit-a-thon would be very helpful. That said it is easy to come together and walk in a parade in Stockholm or Europe but it is harder to come together and meet likeminded people in the MENA regions as it is in general more dangerous. It would just set an important statement and it would be the first Wiki LGBT event in Africa that I'm aware of. As you see I'm connected to the LGBT User group and have gotten other users from within that group to support the proposal. We would be able to gather participants, who's chapters would pay for the flight costs. If the grant committee would only support a more modest budget for the rapid grant, I would suggest that fewer people come in total. For example only 5 specific international participants that we know are experts and can make specific contributions and work with the local community swiftly and efficiently. Please let me know if this changes your opinion about the proposal and ping me in your reply. Best regards, Saskia --Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 18:45, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Additional Comments from WMF

Hello Houssem Abida, I'm responding on behalf of my colleague Mjohnson (WMF). I really appreciate your answers and the care you're taking in approaching this program. I also want to thank Sparrow (麻雀) for his comments and explaining the context further. Houssem Abida are you ready to move this proposal into "proposed" from "draft". Please let me know if you're done working on it and are ready to propose. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi User talk:WJifar (WMF). Thanks for the comment. I changed the status of the proposal. Thanks User:Sparrow (麻雀) as well for these details. --Houssem Abida (talk) 22:03, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Houssem Abida. Thank you for submitting your rapid grant request. We are currently experiencing a high volume of proposals, which might delay our response. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you and will review yours as soon as possible. Please be sure to watch this page for comments and questions. If you have any questions about the grantmaking process, let us know. We're here to help you with a successful grant! Best regards, LSmith (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Approval

Hello Houssem Abida, thank you for your work in organizing this event. I am approving your grant request. Looking forward to reading your report on this and the positive outcomes of this event. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 29 November 2018 (UTC)