Grants talk:Project/Rapid/USF SOLIS 2017 WikiEquality Series

Hi PersnicketyPaul. Thank you for your submission! It's great to see you and your colleagues editing and contributing beyond the classroom, and we value your enthusiasm in organizing these thematic events around social justice and human rights. Before we move forward in our decision, we have some comments and questions about your proposal.

1. We see that you and your co-organizers have some experience in editing Wikipedia, but have you also connected with other experienced Wikipedians who might have some expertise in these themes, or who might be local to your area? Community members are a valuable resource in providing some advanced guidance on navigating policies and context for your participants, and they may be able to offer more insight in running similar edit-a-thons. If you are interested in being in touch, we'd encourage contacting regional ambassadors as one place to start.

Thank you for pointing that out. As part of the Wikipedia & Knowledge Management class, we did actually have an experienced Wikipedian and administrator named Robert Fernandez sitting in on our class. I will contact Dr. Kathleen de la Peña McCook (the course's instructor and also an avid Wikipedian) to see about whether she and Robert can assist us in the facilitation of these events.

1. Do you expect new editors to attend these edit-a-thons? If so, the targets you provided are currently dependent on number of attendees, but we encourage you to set a goal of number of new editors or repeat participants you might have the capacity to engage over the course of this series, should some of them decide to attend more than once. They would also help gauge your focus and resources in addressing their expectations and needs.

Since our target goal for participants is 15+, I would say that we would like to engage at least 5 new editors per event. Our edit-a-thons will be held at a public library, so this should help to stimulate community participation outside of the university. Our current goal for repeat participants will be at least 10 per event following our first edit-a-thon of the semester. Additionally, our event space can accommodate many more individuals than expected, so we should have sufficient event space to conduct these events, and depending on the attendance of our initial community edit-a-thon, we will be able to better gauge future attendance and adjust our target goals as well.

1. Lastly, we have found that the amount of preparation and research play a major role in successful edit-a-thons. Seeding these events with a list of articles to create or edit, or providing sources for people to write articles are some ways organizers maximize their time during in-person events. We are pleased that you mention art+feminism and Women in Red in your proposal, as they have done a fantastic job in providing materials and examples for facilitating edit-a-thons with a similar focus, and we hope you continue to refer to them.

Unfortunately, this is not something I can answer at this time because I think this would best be determined by SOLIS as an organization rather than simply by myself; but this is something that I will look into and communicate with you after contacting my fellow executive members of SOLIS.

Looking forward to your responses! Cheers, MJue (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

MJue (WMF), Thank you so much for your time, patience, and consideration. I hope these responses are sufficient for the time being, and I am eager to move forward. PersnicketyPaul (talk) 02:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Funding decision

Dear PersnicketyPaul. Thank you for your thoughtful answers and approach. As communicated over email earlier by our Program Officer, we're happy to support USF SOLIS's events in the coming year! We are curious to see the involvement of the wiki community into this project, and how you might be able to further engage your local community with Wikipedia and social justice. Please be sure to look for our email correspondence about further information regarding your grant request, and have a wonderful rest of 2016! MJue (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

MJue (WMF), Thank you so much for your support and your excitement regarding USF SOLIS's WikiEquality Series. We look forward to moving forward in this process, and I hope you have a lovely holiday season as well! PersnicketyPaul (talk) 00:16, 24 December 2016 (UTC)