Hi Craig,

Your message had many interesting insights and I thank you for them. You are right that the contest seems a bit haphazard in its goals, but considering that it is the first attempt at something like it, and given the little time that we have (and as Aubrey said, few volunteers to run it), just to run *anything* it is already a challenge by itself. Yes, the main goal is to cellebrate the anniversary, and proofread, and give and have an extra incentive.

As for the prize I must say that it is well-suited for the small community size of the Catalan group (about 6 very active contributors, plus some coming and going), but for larger communities I can imagine that they would be happier to have better prices (high-end tablets and good scanners are in big demand too) or more quantity. The voucher idea is indeed very interesting too (even if it is delivered at random in addition to the regular price), I will ask to see if we have enough budget to add it to our version.

About the outreach, well, I think the first thing to do is to show ourselves that we can run a contest :) I don't know about other communities but for us it is the first time and we need also to build the confidence and the experience. If we can make it work, next year we could try again with partnerships and to be more ambitious with the goals.

Anyhow, I really appreciate the effort put into this.

Cheers
David --Micru

On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 2:03 AM, Craig Franklin <craig.franklin@wikimedia.org.au> wrote:

Hi David,

A couple of thoughts on this, based on Kerry Raymond's earlier post to the WMAU list:-

1.  What is the purpose of this competition, other than to celebrate the 10th anniversary?  Is it to attract new users?  Is it to get some key works transcribed very quickly?  Is it to distribute movement-funded prizes to long-term contributors?  The purpose of the competition will drive how it is structured.

2.  As has been pointed out, an e-Reader, at least in Australia (and probably most other developed English speaking countries) is not all that impressive a prize, especially if you already have one or don't have an interest in having an e-Reader.  I think a slightly better prize would be a gift certificate to somewhere like Amazon or Fishpond, so at least the winner can choose something they know they'll like.  This may be different in other countries, of course.

3.  A point-based system like what you propose is easy enough to administer, but if the approach is to attract new users, they'll probably notice that anyone that doesn't get in within the first couple of days is probably at a massive disadvantage to getting the prize.  In turn, this will make the motivational aspect of the prize disappear for anyone that comes late.  If we're counting on the prize to get users to do some work, I think we'd be disappointed.  This can be solved a bit by having a prize pool that can be broken into smaller pieces, so rather than a $100 e-Reader you can distribute a $20 voucher every day (for example).  This would mean that those who arrive late still have a chance of getting something.

4.  My experience with running competitions like this is that if you approach it with a "build it and they will come" mindset, the only entrants you'll get are people who are already contributing in that fashion anyway.  There needs to be some hook to get people who have not previously heard of or contributed to Wikisource to contribute.  Otherwise they're never going to hear about it and we're never going to get our new users.  Is there some mechanism to advertise this widely beyond just existing Wikisource users?

5.  WMAU's experience with the "Pitch In!" project, where we did have the support of a major public institution as a hook to get those new users in, is that it's actually quite hard to get new users to Wikisource to 'stick'.  I think we can expect a lot of users to do a single page, and a lot of new users to vanish once the contest is over.  If recruitment is the goal, then there needs to be a strategy to continue engaging with users who arrive for the competition so that we retain them.

I don't want to be the one that pours cold water on the whole idea (I do think it'd be wonderful to do *something* for the 10th anniversary), but I'm not clear on what we're actually trying to achieve with this competition.

Cheers,

Craig Franklin

On 7 November 2013 09:40, David Cuenca <dacuetu@gmail.com> wrote:

Since this is the first time we do it and we don't have enough organizational capacity, it will be easier to hold independent contests.

For the Catalan edition we are planning to do as follows:

- the contest will be open from Nov 24th 00 UTC till Dec 1st 23:59 UTC.

- 2 organizers select 3 books in secret (more will be added if needed). The books have OCR of acceptable quality and they are not too hard to format. The books chosen will be disclosed when the contest begins. One sample page will be offered, plus links to relevant help pages. We are putting it all together here:
https://ca.wikisource.org/wiki/Viquitexts:Viquirepte_10%C3%A8_aniversari
- the participants get 3 points for each completely corrected and formatted page, if they validate someone else's page, they get 1 point
- the organizers can disqualify a participant if they mark pages as done without actually working on them

- the prize will be an ebook reader (model TBD)

KRLS has told me that he will try to have a counting script ready, if not, we will count it manually.

So how many contests are we going to have? Italian, Catalan and, maybe WM-DC or WM-AU organize the English version?

When everything is clear we should prepare an annoncement and publish it next week on the Wikimedia blog.

Cheers,

Micru

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:34 PM, Andrea Zanni <zanni.andrea84@gmail.com> wrote:

Regarding the cotest:

how do you like an international contest, with both local wikisource and single user chart?

Something like Wiki Loves Monuments, like this:

https://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wlm/stats.php

The real problem is that we *don't* have a way (right now), to associate clearly proofredings and validation with single users.

I don't know how phe's tools count them, but I'm sure something could be done.

toolserver.org/~phe/statistics.php?diff=1

Aubrey

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Craig Franklin <cfranklin@halonetwork.net> wrote:

Well, that would be well within the realm of what the WMAU "Volunteer Support Programme" would be able to fund, if one of our members were to apply:

http://www.wikimedia.org.au//wiki/Volunteer_Support_Programme

Cheers,

Craig

On 4 November 2013 22:18, Andrea Zanni <zanni.andrea84@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I'd be 100 dollars/euros, something low budget (like a Kindle or a Kobo).

Aubrey

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Craig Franklin <cfranklin@halonetwork.net> wrote:

Hi John,

What sort of cost are we looking at to buy some nifty gadget as a prize?  Is it something that could be done through our Volunteer Support Programme?

Cheers,

Craig Franklin

President - Wikimedia Australia

On 1 November 2013 16:55, John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:

Great concept.

I think this would a great little project, and worth the expense for the WMAu chapter.

I helped run a small wikisource competition with Wikimedia Indonesia (esp. Ivonne & Siska) to transcribe a 550 page dictionary, and found it to be very successful, but does require quite a bit of time to run and help newbies.

Ill write up a proposal if another WMAu member is willing to second and help organise the competition in Oz.

--
John

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "David Cuenca" <dacuetu@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 31, 2013 10:09 PM
Subject: [Wikisource-l] Wikisource 10th aniversary proposal : Proofreading contest
To: "discussion list for Wikisource, the free library" <wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc:

Talking with some members of Amical Wikimedia about how to celebrate the 10th aniversary, one of the proposals was to organize a proofreading contest.

Basically, we would select some books for the participants to proofread and validate and they would gather points for each page without errors. The person with the most points would win a Kindle donated by Amical Wikimedia.

However, we have been thinking that with the help of some members of the Wikisource User Group and other Chapters, then we could escalate it to an international proofreading contest, instead of being just regional. I guess ideally we would need 3 kindles and at least a volunteer from each community to organize it.

What do you think of the idea? Would you or any chapter that would like to get involved?

Micru

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