Wikipedia:GLAM/Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa/The whole GLAM package/Review and promote
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Review[edit]
With the project complete, you should allow some time to assess how it went and what you got out of it. This step helps you reflect on what you might like to do differently, and helps you build a story for your organisation to get support for the next project.
What went well? What didn't?[edit]
Checklist task: Retrospective
Project debriefs can be boring or scary, but it’s possible to genuinely enjoy and learn from them. Here’s a few things that help:
- Only involve the team members. This is about your perspective, not reporting to your boss
- Assume everyone did their best. Focus on what happened and why, not trying to assign blame
- Keep collaborating. While it helps to have someone facilitate this session, everyone has the same say
Set aside at least a couple of hours to make sure you’re not stressed about time. Take a look at the lists of exercises linked below and choose ones that make sense for your team.
- Retrospective playbook – Atlassian
- Retrospective exercise toolbox – Andy Cleff
- End of the project - Timbo
What counts as success?[edit]
Checklist task: Report outcomes
It can be easy to fall back on simple numbers, but those tell you very little. Instead, think back to your goals.
When building the story of the project’s success, don’t miss out on the fact that the Wiki ecosystem is an amazing thing, and contributing to it is genuinely impactful in all kinds of ways:
- Science is shaped by Wikipedia
- Wikipedia points people to sources using DOIs
- Article visitation shows interest in biodiversity
Your project might feel small in comparison, but the ecosystem of Wiki platforms has been built from small contributions. You’re allowed to claim credit for some part of the impact these websites have on the world.
Often the way to get people to understand this perspective is by finding examples that illustrate this impact:
- Content from an article being circulated to other websites, like a species page on iNaturalist.
- Qualitative feedback from in-person conversations, email, or talk pages, like getting an email from a colleague involved in conservation work who used the Wikipedia article on a threatened species to find the relevant scientific papers about it.
- An image showing up on an article you didn’t work on, like someone deciding a collection artwork is a perfect fit for a high-traffic page.
- Proof of your contributions being valued by the community, like one of your articles being featured in the Did you know homepage section.
Numbers might still be useful, so long as you give them the appropriate context. Try the tools on the Outreach Wiki or use the Wikimedia REST API to get traffic statistics for your contributions.
| Analytics metric | What it can tell you |
|---|---|
| Pageviews for articles your images have been added to | When compared with how many views it got on your own site, this can give you a comparison of the size of the available audience. |
| Pageviews for an article before and after you edited it | If the use of an article increases after you edited it, you can infer that your improvements have made it easier to find and the people thinks it’s worth sharing. |
Promotion[edit]
This work is worth celebrating and promoting, so don’t miss the opportunity to let the wide wiki community know what you’ve done. It will mean more people see and use your material, could lead to further connections, volunteers, and projects, and – this matters – helps you feel a sense of completion.
Public[edit]
Checklist task: Promote publicly
Places to promote the project – do any or all of these:
- Your own organisation’s blog, newsletters, and social media
- This Month in GLAM
- Diff
- Talk pages of WikiProjects you found and got help from
- Other organisations’ topical newsletters, for example if you are working on a biodiversity project, these could be conservation groups, scientific organisations, or specialist magazines
_-_The_Noun_Project.svg){kind=small} | Example Te Papa put up two posts on our blog, one about the project overall and one covering more technical details for sector colleagues. We added an item to This Month in GLAM, and our subject matter expert talked about the project when presenting to the Botanical Society of Otago. |
Get in touch with your peers in the sector and ask them to spread the word around as well. (Te Papa would love to hear about it – get in touch with Avocadobabygirl.)
Think about how promoting the project could roll into something new. You could give a public talk about the work that includes time to sign up the people who come as new editors and show them how to get involved.
Inside your organisation[edit]
Checklist task: Promote internally It’s also really important to promote the work internally, and you can start that before you even publish your contributions.
Start a series of informal lunchtime drop-in sessions where people can ask questions or get started. Even a small group can start making Wikipedia feel more familiar for the wider organisation.
Offer to give talks at team or all-staff meetings to show them the results and relevance of your work. This is a great place to show the extra benefits your colleagues (and bosses) might not have thought about, like improved data.
And of course, take every opportunity to talk to managers about the project. You worked out at the beginning how it fits your strategy and benefits your audience, so you’ll be able to communicate that to them. In turn, it’ll be easier to ask them for time, resources, and advocacy.
In your team[edit]
Checklist task: Celebrate!
Finally – well done! You’ve made a really solid and rich contribution to global access to knowledge. You deserve to get your little team together, with your community contacts if possible, and celebrate.
