Grants talk:Project/Wiki meets Sustainable Fashion

Eligibility confirmed, Round 1 2021 - Community Organizing proposal

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

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--Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Feedback from Campaigns Strategy perspective at WMF

I am really supportive of this grant in both its clarity of audience and strategy for engaging a wide number of stakeholders -- it is the kind of topic, network and audience that has the potential to grow into an Art+Feminism style community which draws in a diverse community (both in that the fashion sector is very gender-diverse, and sustainable fashion is very geography-diverse). I also think it is aligned with the movement's request for alignment with Sustainability more broadly as defined by the movement strategy process -- so it would be strategic to invest in this community as a pilot in growing our impact in that domain. I also have a lot of confidence in Sophivorous supporting effecting onwiki coordination and communication for the project.

I do have a few recommendations on the project itself, that may help with the overall success of implementation:

• First, I think the measures of success are too ambitious -- I would recommend cutting the goals in at least half. We have a history of grantees setting very large goals for success, and getting overwhelmed or stressed because of a goal that they set is in tension with the amount of community-facing negotiation/learning that needs to happen with a pilot project. In particular we learned this through Art+Feminism suddenly scaled out of control in the first few years the combination of a) new contributors and b) a focus on creating newer content, led to a lot of conflict on some of the larger Wikipedias -- because enthusiastic newcomers didn't understand notability, editing practices, etc. I think we have gotten better at organizing since then, but also: grants that have smaller more realistic goals set for learning, i.e. bringing 200-300 people on-wiki in a quality way working on 500-1000 articles, demonstrates the potential for scale, while minimizing the opportunity to overwhelm the organizers and create a bad experience for the onwiki communities.
• Creating and translating full or new articles may not be the best place to start especially for the international editathon portion of the campaign -- in recent years, we have seen more and more evidence that expanding and growing existing articles is a much better activity for new editors (see this editing week on Climate change or this editing week on the SDGs). Small repeatable edits to already high impact pages, have much higher impact and much lower community conflict than writing new articles about living people or businesses (which I expect would be a major part of this campaign). I recommend finding small edits that you can do to existing fashion pages on Wikipedias (i.e. this edit I made in my personal capacity to the article about Sneakers). Or for example, expanding information on company/brand pages that already exist with little or no critical reflection on their business practices.
• I am excited that you have both an education program project and a campaign project in the same design. I highly recommend connecting with the Wikipedia Education community and Wikimedia Argentina to learn about successful classroom programs and use their training materials for students. However, I am a little bit worried about the timeline between the student projects and the translation campaign. Student content tends to have some quality issues that may require a little bit of time to process as an organizing team -- and turning those lessons learned into good instructions for new participants as part of the campaign. Also, training international organizers to successfully run events can be a full time coordination activity (as we have learned with projects like #WikiForHumanRights and Art+Feminism). Also, COP26 is happening during the proposed time window -- so many of the folks interested in Sustainability may be distracted/invested in broader political and communications environments. Is there a strong demand for that time? Or could it be run a little bit later to allow for breathing room between the two projects? The Wikimedia Movement has some campaigns running in January/February but they aren't that full of a calendar at the moment (also acknowledging that this is a holiday window in Argentina and other Southern Cone countries). Whereas Wikipedia Asian Month, the New Year/Christmas Holiday, and other competing climate/sdgs focused events may absorb existing movement capacity/awareness.
• Also, the funding of so many individual ambassador/organizer roles is rather unusual for campaigns in the Wikimedia movement -- usually there is a small team of funded coordinators (at most 3-7 people for our biggest campaigns), working with many more volunteer organizers. It would likely be helpful for the grant committee to explain your rational for why fund so many people: does it help with equity and regional growth? Does the nature of the organizer's employement require organizing stipends? Why is that capacity not concentrated in a smaller number of people with clear deliverables? etc.

@PulloJesicaNoemi, Sophivorus, and Irinarosarina: Anyway, all my comments are suggestions -- please ignore if they don't make sense -- and I am excited about this proposal and really encourage the committee to consider it seriously -- the sustainable fashion movement has a lot of knowledge and information concious activists, with broad reaching relationships in spaces we have strengths (i.e. Art+Feminism and the biography gender gap communities) but also places that we don't have a lot of community on yet -- including international coverage of fashion, fashion industry, and sustainable industry more generally. I hope this feedback is helpful, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF):Thanks so much for your careful comment!

1. We’ve reduced our success metrics by half, as you suggested.
2. Yes! We fully realize now that it’s better to focus on improving existing articles rather than translating or creating new ones, especially on big wikis. I think our grant proposal doesn’t say otherwise so we didn’t have to change much, but internally we’re now even more aware of the importance of this distinction.
3. We’ve stretched and spaced the dates following your suggestion as well as local university calendar considerations.
4. We think the number of people involved is proportional to the scale of the project and the variety of skills needed. For example, for the mentoring part, there’ll be 40 students per mentor, and not all mentors are skilled to help with the translation or communication tasks. We’ve found another project with a similar-sized team. However, we could reduce the number of people involved by 3-4 if we also reduce some of the goals.

Again, thanks so much for your feedback, it has been very helpful!! PulloJesicaNoemi (talk) 14:21, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@PulloJesicaNoemi: Great I am glad the feedback was helpful! As for the #4: I personally, am supportive of keeping the size of the team (and as you point out other projects have teams of that size), f it is appropriate for your context and project. But I recommend explaining why you need so many people, and how you are framing it in that way. The Grant Committee reads grants from many parts of the world, with very different resource environments, and different levels of complexity in doing work professionally vs. volunteer. They may not always know "why" you are spending so much money on paid work, when volunteers could possibly be filling roles -- so explaining that with careful details, on how you think it corresponds to the success of the project in your context vs if you did it with fewer people, or asked folks to be volunteers. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF): Thank you for pointing this out! We understand that the process of creating and editing articles is to be carried out by volunteers. The end goal of this project is to attract more volunteers (mostly female). However, for this project to be carried out in our country, we can’t rely on professionals to donate their time. Due to the current local economic situation, most professionals work long hours to make ends meet, and they simply cannot commit to training and offering support to volunteers, attending meetings, etc. ad honorem. We've updated the budget section of our proposal to explain this. We’re grateful for your comments and for the time and effort you’ve put in to help us make this project come true and have the female community in Wikipedia grow further! PulloJesicaNoemi (talk) 15:08, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Questions from Superzerocol

Hi @PulloJesicaNoemi, Sophivorus, and Irinarosarina:, thanks for presenting this grant proposal. I have some questions about it, please feel free to answer in the same order.

1. About the COI, as far I understand, you will use your own information to create Wikipedia articles, is that right?
2. About the other wiki, why Wikipedia will use information from other Wiki?. In example, we don't want to use information from Wiki-dex (I can't remember if still exists), or Wiki Fandom, because these wiki are more specialized in this kind of information.
3. This project has some instances to paid to edit and creating of Wikiproject. In this case, you may abuse about cuentas de propósito particular policy, because you're doing paid editions and the Wikiproject is established by non-volunteers.
4. Why Wikimedia Argentina appears after grant start and not before? What is the role of Wikimedia Argentina in this grant?
5. How will be conducted the pre-training survey?
6. Your paid staff is larger than other established Wikimedia Affiliates, why? (in example, In Wikimedia Chile we have just one paid Communication person)
7. Why you don't spread the word in Spanish and English Wikipedias in Community Notification section?, I see a lot of Community Engagement in your networks, but in Wikimedia, nothing.
8. I see so unbalanced amount to be paid: consulting is earning more than mentoring team, is any explanation about this?.

Kindly, Superzerocool (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Superzerocool Thank you very much for reading our project and for your questions!

1. We understand there might be a COI if we write articles related to Fashion Revolution itself. If we do, we will make sure to write on the talk page first. But as regards the topics related to sustainable fashion, the information that Fashion Revolution has on those topics is compiled from data found elsewhere, for example from reliable sources like the United Nations. So when we create or edit an article, we will endeavor to cite the original sources (say, the UN), not the secondary ones (such as Fashion Revolution).
2. If by the other wiki you mean Appropedia, what we’ll bring from there is our experience in editing and software, not the actual content published there. We would keep all the non-encyclopaedic content in Appropedia and all encyclopaedic content in Wikipedia. Here’s the link to our Appropedia page (though it's still in early stages of development).
3. Our goal is to bring volunteers from the Fashion Revolution movement as well as from the general public. Though we’ll inevitably do some edits, the main goal of the funding we’re asking will not be to edit or to create content ourselves. The members that would get paid are the ones taking care of contacting universities, looking for and training volunteers, offering support to and following up on the members of the different volunteer teams.
4. Thank you so much for your suggestion! We have contacted Wikimedia Argentina but they have not replied yet.
5. We were thinking of carrying out the pre-training survey via an online form, but perhaps you are suggesting that we should consider user privacy? Are there any online forms or survey methods you would recommend? I’m asking this because I’m not sure I’m understanding the reasons behind your question.
6. Astiinson has raised a similar concern above, please check out our latest reply to him, and let us know of any further questions. Thanks!
7. You are absolutely right! We have now published this project at: Wikipedia:Café, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fashion, Discusión:Moda, Discusión:Moda sostenible, Discussion Portail:Mode, Discussioni progetto:Moda, Talk:Sustainable fashion, Talk:Fashion Revolution, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fashion, Wikipedia Diskussion:Projektdiskussion, Wikipedia:Bar, Wikipédia:Le Bistro, Wikipédia:Esplanada/anúncios
8. Maybe it wasn’t too clear, but the funding requested for Sophivours was not just for consulting, but also for early training and tech support. However, we’ve spoken to Sophivorus and he has decided to reduce his involvement in the project so that the required funding can be reduced too. We’ve just updated the proposal with the new numbers.

PulloJesicaNoemi (talk) 11:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Questions from Pa2chant.bis

Hello,

This project, built on the oxymoron "Sustainable" + "Fashion" is really a great challenge.

• However, many volunteers spend their time fighting advertising. The risk that this project generates new non-neutral articles should not be neglected, nor the discouragement of users involved in the neutrality of Wikipedia.
  1. What measures are planned to prevent the creation of promotional articles?
  2. Are they indicators or metrics to measure the discouragement of unpaid users (such as number of users ceasing to neutralize articles, or simply to contribute)?
• What about inclusivity ? The statement "The volunteers would be mostly fashion students and educators, so —together with the organisers— it would mostly be an all-female team." sounds a little strange for the french female I am, as both the fashion industry and the sustainable development movement are gender diversified in France.
• About the "wiki appropedia.org (aka “the sustainability wiki”), and the 11 of the team members of this grant project [...] already gaining training and experience on wiki software and editing practices", it would be great to have an access to the appropedia.org website. Should it be not possible, what about to improve en:Sustainable fashion?

Pa2chant.bis (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Pa2chant.bis! Thank you so much for your comments.

• Maybe our project proposal wasn’t too clear. This project has nothing to do with promotions. We don’t intend to create articles about brands, at all. Regarding brands, at most we would improve existing articles. However, our main focus would be sustainable fashion topics and as with any Wikipedia article, we would be using reputable sources as the basis for the articles, which you will be able to check out at the bottom of the page in the references section. Volunteer involvement would be closely followed up by the paid Mentors. Each Mentor is in charge of 40 volunteers; and their job is to train them to write and edit articles and to see that a particular amount of articles is created by each of them.
• I’m really happy to read about such diversity in France! Do bear in mind that this project is not intended for a French audience. It would be a group of Argentinian people working on articles that are both general and specific to our region. The reality in Argentina is that the vast majority of fashion students and educators are indeed female, but of course any person of any gender, background, etc. is absolutely welcome! The reason why we specified that there will be a lot of women is that we know that Wikipedia has few women editors and that more female engagement is an important goal of the movement.
• Here is the link to our Appropedia page. It is still a work in progress, but feel free to check out our progress! Were our Grant to be approved, we will definitely work on the article you suggested.

Kind Regards, PulloJesicaNoemi (talk) 13:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much PulloJesicaNoemi for these explanations. --Pa2chant.bis (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Greenwashing

I see one major problem here: sustainable fashion has mostly failed to prove that it is... sustainable. The proponents seem totally unaware that their project could end up being a very successful greenwashing enterprise, free online promotion for a variety of fashion brands. Worlds apart from creating encyclopedic articles. Braveheidi (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@Braveheidi: Hi! I moved your comment from the Endorsements section to here because it doesn't seem like an endorsement. As to the comment itself, the goal of the project is not to create or improve articles about sustainable fashion brands, at all, but to create and improve articles about sustainable fashion topics. Does this relieve your concern? Kind regards, Sophivorus (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Wiki meets Sustainable Fashion

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.0
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.8
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	3.4
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.2
Additional comments from the Committee: The project fills an interesting and contemporary topic. What a very interesting, and unique proposed project. It could be helpful to understand the impact if a numeric target was included and there was a clearer description of evaluation processes throughout the project. A traditional series of editathons. The single innovation is on the topic. A little bit skeptical about the experience of the group to manage a big project like that. Very innovative focus on one specific area of need. Budget in the application is 28400 USD the grant amount is 29600 USD. Is there something missing from the budget table? Approx 94% of the project's costs are going towards staffing - this seems very high. Are there no other costs associated with the project? Most of the training emphasis seems to be on the subject area rather than editing Wikipedia. How will the volunteers be supported in learning how to edit Wikipedia? How will project make use of existing materials to support students working with Wikipedia? There is no clear idea behind the translation across the 92 active countries. It would be helpful to identify challenges, which they might face during the project implementation. Being aware of the challenges could help to overcome them. This project is overly ambitious based on the number of proposed participants and contributions. Too ambitious, which makes me question how realistic it can be managed. A very ambitious project with a team that seems to have limited experience working with Wikipedia. Would have liked to understand better how the broader team would be trained to support the students and universities participating in the project. I did not find any parameter behind the budgeting. For example the allotted USD 2600 to Jesica Pullo. The question is how they will distribute the money? Monthly, day or yearly basis? In case, if a person left the project then what will happen? Budgeting should be allotted for a position, not for a person and there must be a clear parameter behind it. I do not think all the participants have the necessary skills/experience, as most of them are very new in Wikipedia. There are many people who have offered to help, though little community engagement beyond the project group itself. It would be good to know the reason for the limited community support or engagement? I did not find any clear idea to engage the participants globally. As they say, to engage 92 countries. Not enough community endorsement, only 1 endorsement. Involvement of students and women for a topic that has a huge interest. There is a need to check if the group has sufficient experience to manage the project and to train new editors and students. I need to understand what exactly the budget will cover, and believe the sheer scope of potential impact should be reduced to make this more doable. This project could make a significant improvement on content around sustainable fashion, it would be great to see an approach to project delivery that incorporates activities that support both the staff team and participants, and addresses more specific targets for evaluation. I think to proceed with this kind of project requires lots of homework needed. The intention of this project is good. There are many things that can be modified. I like to mention 2 points. 1. There should be a clear idea to engage the global community and the budget breakdown should be in a professional way. 2. Idea or outcome should be specific. For example, they say "1000 pages created or improved", but they did not mention what should be the minimum length of the pages.

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page.
2. Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on Friday, April 22, 2021.

Questions? Contact us.

Mercedes Caso (platícame) 02:03, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Round 1 2021 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, $19,765

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support this project as it fulfills a worldwide content gap about sustainable fashion, a very relevant, current, and urgent issue involving the environment, gender equality, and human rights, about which there is a need for information and updating in the Wikimedia movement. The committee appreciates the willingness of the grantee to explore ways of collaboration with the Wikimedia Argentina community. They also recommend connecting with the WikiWomen's User Group and with the User Group Wikimedians For Sustainable Development.

NOTE: Funding of any offline activities (e.g. travel and in-person events) is contingent upon compliance with the Wikimedia Foundation's COVID-19 guidelines. We require that you complete the Risk Assessment Tool:

• 14 days before any travel and/or gathering event
• 24 hours before any travel and/or gathering event

Offline events may only proceed if the tool results continue to be green or yellow.

Next steps:

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Upcoming changes to Wikimedia Foundation Grants

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Mercedes Caso (platícame) 03:59, 23 April 2021 (UTC)