Hi All,
I recently joined the Wikimedia Foundation as Program Officer for the Project and Event Grants Program https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG(PEG). One of my main duties is to review grant proposals and reports. Many PEG grantees participate in WLM and I have noticed a trend in their reporting on WLM activities -- there is a decrease in volunteer participants year-on-year and a desire to strategize on how to address this issue.
It would be great to start a discussion around new strategies for engaging WLM participants. The proposed session at Wikimania on "What can we learn from the WLM participants' survey" https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/What_can_we_learn_from_the_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_participants%27_survey%3Fwill be a great place to discuss this issue, but please also feel free to share ideas on this email thread. If there is a better place to have this conversation - perhaps on the WLM 2014 page -- please feel free to move it there!
One idea that some grantees have been implementing is to organize *photo expeditions* to places that are under-represented. These photo expeditions have two benefits -- (1) they allow people to travel to places they may not normally have the chance to visit due to transportation issues and (2) they travel to places where monuments have not been photographed. They also promote community!
Another interesting strategy is to introduce *photography workshops*. Skills training can definitely be appealing to participants and will increase the quality of photos on wiki projects. We are encouraging grantees who have organized photography workshops to share their materials.
Excited to hear your ideas!
Thanks,
Alex