Grants talk:Project/Yorg/Wiki Loves Africa 2017/Final

Final Report approved

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Dear Anthere and Islahaddow,

Thank you for submitting this Final Report. I am accepting it now with the following comments.

First, I'm so sorry for how long it has taken me to review this report. There are a number of factors that delayed this review, but none of them have to do with you or this project. It was such a joy to read this report and to look at the photos that came out of this campaign.
- You'll see in my comments below that I've posted a number of questions. In light of how long it's taken me to review your report, it's completely up to you if you want to respond to these or not. I wanted to share my curiosities as a way to engage, but definitely don't intend to make extra work for you.
So apologies and caveats aside, I want to say congratulations on a hugely successful campaign. This report is full of outstanding accomplishments (and the report itself is extremely thorough, well-written and well-organized report. So hooray for the hard work and strong outcomes to the two of you, along with all of the local organizers who made this happen.
The growth is contributors (tripling!) is especially exciting to read! Of course, doubling content is also outstanding.
While recognizing that, by the very nature of the transition from central to local organization, you may have less insight into the progression of the campaigns in Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mali, and Tunisia, I am still curious if you have any insight or feedback about how it worked, and how it did or did not change things, to introduce the satellite Rapid Grants model for Wiki Loves Africa. We made the decision to try this out as an experiment to attempt to promote continued development of leadership and organizational capacity in each region. I wonder if you have thoughts about the outcomes. I am also curious how it changed things for you as the central organizers at the continental level. Did it shift your bandwidth in any way? Did it change how you approached your work with Uganda and Tanzania? What were the benefits and the challenges of this change?
I love the introduction of the photo essays. It's such a great idea, bringing more depth and context into the photos you are collecting through this campaign. You mention that, "The entries to the photo essay categories were of amazing quality." It's outstanding that you have found this concrete structural frame that invites in a higher level of engagement with the process of making high quality photos.
I appreciate your point that the universality of the theme was an important driver in the growth in contributions you saw in this year's campaign, compared to last year's (it seems like it probably plays a role in the growth of contributors, too, since it is so relatable to just about everybody). This is an insight I would love to capture in learning pattern(s) or other places that others running photo campaigns around the world can take into consideration.
Exciting to hear about the >3 million pageviews. A lot of activity generated by this campaign. How does this number compare to pageviews in previous years?
Sounds like the social media campaign is really contributing a lot to your outreach efforts. Is most of the social media outreach happening through central accounts that you, as continental organizers, are running? Are local organizers also using social media campaigns? If so, do they post through the central accounts, or do they use their own local accounts? If the latter, are their protocols or guidelines you set up to maintain some level of consistency of theme/messaging/etc? Asking just because I see social media as especially useful for large-scale, distributed campaigns like yours, and I am curious if there are any best practices or lessons learned that might be shareable with other grantees.
It's great that you are targeting skilled photographers in your outreach. You mention that "call-to-action" notices were sent out to some photography schools and groups which highlighted Commons as an option, even if they didn't actually enter themselves. Did you develop outreach materials specific for this audience (i.e. professional/dedicated photographers)? Or did you use the same fliers that were generally distribute? Curious if highlighting Commons was done in a unique way for photographers, who might have a wide variety of subject matter they might be willing to donate. In any case, I like that you are thinking about recruitment in a more generalized way, not just for this campaign, especially with people whose photography skills are more advanced.
It's disappointing to hear that things did not go well with Ethiopia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Great to hear that you are celebrating video contributions. I can see this playing an important role in the outcomes of this project.
"Despite the increase in the quantity of entries, overall the quality of the contributions also increased." HOORAY! This is so fantastic. I think this is a particularly excellent outcome of the 2017 campaign. Besides the introduction of the essays, are there any other factors you see as contributing to this change in quality?
"With the addition of a sub-prize category (Photo Essay Prizes : Rare, Fading or Threatened Traditional Craft, Style or Way of Working) this enabled people to celebrate crafts or ways of working that are not only under threat, but are also culturally specific and important." Yes, this is so important. I love that you are encouraging documentation of rare and potentially endangered work. Among other reasons this theme important, it's not uncommon for work to become endangered for reasons that touch on a variety of issues of equity, from the impacts of colonization, to the impacts of climate injustice. So, I see this work tying into the knowledge equity goals of the strategic direction on a number of levels.
You had a target of "Reuse on Wikimedia projects of at least 10% after a year." Any updates on this?
Thanks so much for your diligence in recording best practices. Such helpful documentation.
Fantastic survey results. Really great to hear there is so much excitement for continued participation.

This report was truly such a joy to read. A final, hearty congratulations on all the strong outcomes of this campaign.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the heart-warming comments :)

Some answers

While recognizing that, by the very nature of the transition from central to local organization, you may have less insight into the progression of the campaigns in Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mali, and Tunisia, I am still curious if you have any insight or feedback about how it worked, and how it did or did not change things, to introduce the satellite Rapid Grants model for Wiki Loves Africa. We made the decision to try this out as an experiment to attempt to promote continued development of leadership and organizational capacity in each region. I wonder if you have thoughts about the outcomes. I am also curious how it changed things for you as the central organizers at the continental level. Did it shift your bandwidth in any way? Did it change how you approached your work with Uganda and Tanzania? What were the benefits and the challenges of this change?

I think it was a good move. The only drawback of this solution is the next to impossible ability to report globally on how many events, where, when, by who happened on the continent. And I think it is a bit sad because the contest is meant to actually foster this activity and the promotion of our project. So it means there is a big part of the impact of the project that has become very difficult to measure. But the difficulty only come from partners being lazy and not reporting voluntarily ;) Hard to blame them... reporting is not so exciting, so it is easy to skip.

But aside from this missing global reporting, I think introducing the satellite Rapid Grant model was a good idea and should proceed this way in the future.

I love the introduction of the photo essays. It's such a great idea, bringing more depth and context into the photos you are collecting through this campaign. You mention that, "The entries to the photo essay categories were of amazing quality." It's outstanding that you have found this concrete structural frame that invites in a higher level of engagement with the process of making high quality photos.

Yes... I am thinking of reintroducing that in 2020 :) But I need to think about it first, because it was quite time-consuming to track those series and put them in order.

I appreciate your point that the universality of the theme was an important driver in the growth in contributions you saw in this year's campaign, compared to last year's (it seems like it probably plays a role in the growth of contributors, too, since it is so relatable to just about everybody). This is an insight I would love to capture in learning pattern(s) or other places that others running photo campaigns around the world can take into consideration.

Good point. I'll think of a learning pattern on this topic.

Exciting to hear about the >3 million pageviews. A lot of activity generated by this campaign. How does this number compare to pageviews in previous years?

Ah... Baglama !

Baglama always a good place to visit (images views on wikipedia)

Sounds like the social media campaign is really contributing a lot to your outreach efforts. Is most of the social media outreach happening through central accounts that you, as continental organizers, are running? Are local organizers also using social media campaigns? If so, do they post through the central accounts, or do they use their own local accounts? If the latter, are their protocols or guidelines you set up to maintain some level of consistency of theme/messaging/etc? Asking just because I see social media as especially useful for large-scale, distributed campaigns like yours, and I am curious if there are any best practices or lessons learned that might be shareable with other grantees.

I wish... but the practices in 2017 were a bit different from the practices in 2019. And I do hope that the practices will change again in 2020 :)

To make it short, in 2017... two central accounts, managed mostly by Isla and I, with support of someone helping us with messages. Several accounts managed by local teams. I (Anthere) checked those once a week and shared most of the local posts on the global accounts. So... lot's of posts and lot's of sharing. No clear messaging though. And a fairly time consuming work.

In 2019... two central accounts (I am not counting Instagram as it was never super active). 5 people had access to it, Isla, myself, two volunteers, and one paid social community manager. The messaging was nearly entirely run by the contractor. I decided that I would not spend all the time checking what was on local accounts and no one picked it up (and the hired contractor considered they would confuse the message, so never reshared). The two volunteers did not really have much time to help. So the postings were of much higher quality but less numerous. There was little sharing between all the accounts.

My hope in 2020... a real instagram (need to find its manager), more volunteers with access to the global account. Trying to have an editorial line, but also to share posts by local team. In such circonstances... it would be a good idea to have protocols and guidelines developed...

It's great that you are targeting skilled photographers in your outreach. You mention that "call-to-action" notices were sent out to some photography schools and groups which highlighted Commons as an option, even if they didn't actually enter themselves. Did you develop outreach materials specific for this audience (i.e. professional/dedicated photographers)? Or did you use the same fliers that were generally distribute? Curious if highlighting Commons was done in a unique way for photographers, who might have a wide variety of subject matter they might be willing to donate. In any case, I like that you are thinking about recruitment in a more generalized way, not just for this campaign, especially with people whose photography skills are more advanced.

Globally, same flyers. But I think some local teams may have developed more specific resources.

in 2017, our flyer were very targetted to 2017. In 2019, we tried to develop a more general flyer.

It's disappointing to hear that things did not go well with Ethiopia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

That's the way things are...

Great to hear that you are celebrating video contributions. I can see this playing an important role in the outcomes of this project.

2020 theme is transport. We might get videos as well...

Oh by the way... I found out that the two videos we made to celebrate Wiki Loves Africa were actually sometimes used on big screens during fairs (such as at Unesco during Mobile Week). Sound is off, but video can then be displayed in loop with a few other videos. Great reuse of the video after the contest is over.

"Despite the increase in the quantity of entries, overall the quality of the contributions also increased." HOORAY! This is so fantastic. I think this is a particularly excellent outcome of the 2017 campaign. Besides the introduction of the essays, are there any other factors you see as contributing to this change in quality?

A mix of reasons I guess. More photographers (this was confirmed in 2019). More aware and expert teams. Perhaps people slowly getting better quality cameras ?

You had a target of "Reuse on Wikimedia projects of at least 10% after a year." Any updates on this?

Not yet there, but not too far away !

https://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/glamorous.php

2014
Total image usages 1954
Distinct images used 974 (16.62% of all images of category)

2015
Total image usages 1383
Distinct images used 686 (9.32% of all images of category)

2016
Total image usages 781
Distinct images used 443 (5.71% of all images of category)

2017
Total image usages 2616
Distinct images used 1345 (7.52% of all images of category)

2019
Total image usages 785
Distinct images used 672 (8.18% of all images of category)

Anthere (talk)

Add topic