Microgrants/Core Contest (prizes)
- Overview
- An amount of money for vouchers as prizes for a three week contest in early January outlined here. The idea is that there would be (say) a £75 voucher for first prize, £50 for second, and £25 for a number of "honorable mentions". Vouchers could be for some worldwide digital organisation, such as Amazon, I-tunes or something similar. Amazon is probably the easiest.
- Budget
- See above - I guess it depends - £250 would give me a first, second and five "honourable mentions" as outlined above. The rationale for using vouchers is to distance the idea from paid editing.
- Timeline
- Three weeks in January. All done by early february.
- Expected outcomes
- Hopefully some improvement in core/broad/vital articles on the English wikipedia, much of which needs a good buffing.
- Who I am
- I am Casliber on english wiki, and admin, arb and content editor, and very familiar with content in mainspace, which is why I am thinking this is a good idea.
- Discussion
I think this is an excellent idea myself, but I will wait for the board's opinions on whether or not we should fund this. If people are concerned about the 'monetary' aspect, bear in mind that this in in the form of book vouchers, and that the money spent is in line with our objectives. We could potentially give donations in kind instead, for example, tickets to exhibitions, or other incentives. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 02:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
- I feel that users should not be incentive's with money that can be spent for anything, instead we should help support education. I feel that maybe some sort of small scholarship should be given instead or some sort of grant for books (maybe a gift card to a book store?) Thoughts, questions, concerns? Peter.C 03:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
- This sounds like a great idea to me; going for book vouchers sounds like the best option (Amazon, or possibly National Book Tokens); iTunes doesn't really sound appropriate. We haven't funded something like this through microgrants before, and I know that other people have useful viewpoints about this, so I'm not going to approve it just yet - we can decide in a few days time.
- BTW - from what I've heard about the last core topics competition, the stumbling-block was judging at the end of the competition, since it's rather complex (and a bit subjective). That's just something to think about, rather than a blocker here, though. Mike Peel 08:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
- I would like to hear a bit more about how this can be structured to recognize good collaboration rather than just the person who made the most edits. I am also cautious about prizes that are only available for :en rather than recognizing other languages such as Welsh or Scots. A form of prize more neutral than Amazon or iTunes vouchers might be a good idea. -- Fae
I think we need to be relatively cautious about providing competition prizes. There is a risk that if we start doing so, we set a precedent that could scale badly and end up with lots and lots of different Wikimedia UK-supported competitions going on on-wiki, some of which attract virtually no entries and basically result in giving editors cash for articles they might have written anyway. We have used competitions with prizes as incentives before though generally as part of a wider collaboration, and I think that well-designed competitions are a good use of our funds and meet our objectives very well. However, prizes in themselves are only part of what appears to make a successful competition. Wikipedians love recognition, not just Amazon vouchers. So before we agree to this microgrant (or other microgrants of a similar nature) I would prefer to see the competition fleshed out rather more. In particular;
- The criteria by which the prizes will be awarded
- Defined circumstances under which no prizes will be awarded (e.g. if the competition attracts less than 10 entries)
- The (wiki) names of the judges
- A plan to publicise the competition
Regards, The Land 14:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC) (Wikimedia UK trustee)