Re: [Wikimedia-l] Defining "impact" for Wikimedia programs, grants and evaluation

Hi, I spent a few minutes searching on Meta for how "impact" is defined. What is the WMF definition? Some examples of places where "impact" is used: * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/Impact_report_form * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Impact_report_form_Q%26A * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Learning/Round_1_2013/Impact * https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/02/beginning-understand-what-works-measu… * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_evaluation_basics:_efficiency,_effe… I am not fond of the Boulmetis / Dutwin definition used in that last reference because short-term effects can be important and much easier to measure than long-term effects. For example, an administrator protecting a page can have the short-term effect of preventing editing and preventing an edit war, and the long term effects of that can be impossible to know, such as whether preventing an edit war prevented the situation from escalating to an Arbcom case with imposition of long-term blocks, and also whether preventing editing prevented important information from being added to the page by an occasional IP editor. I might suggest a rewrite of that entire page on "program evaluation basics" to make it simple. Right now it's a wall of text that's difficult to follow and, I feel, at least partly wrong. I think that Edward Galvez is working on some of these issues and I would be happy to have him or someone else in Evaluation thoughtfully redesign and rewrite that page to make it easy to follow for everyone including non-native English speakers. If I have a hard time with that page, you can imagine how difficult it is for someone who only understands English at an intermediate level. I would like to start with having a clear and simple definition of "impact" that makes sense in Wikimedia contexts, and some examples that are easy to follow. Thanks, Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>