Content Partnerships Hub/Needs assessment/Research results/Wikimedia Bangladesh

Notes from meeting with Wikimedia Bangladesh [WMBD]

Date: 2021-09-27

Participants Name and Username:
1. Shabab Mustafa [User:Tarunno]
2. Masum-Al-Hasan Rocky [User:RockyMasum]
3. Ankan Ghosh Dastider [User:ANKAN]

Tore Danielsson
Axel Pettersson

Do you work with content partnerships today?

Most museums in Bangladesh are government owned, and most of them are not very cooperative with WMBD. Hard to get funding from the government as a lot of prerequisites are needed.

For the first iteration of WLM, WMBD tried to get a list of monuments from the department of archaeology for the government listed monuments so the WLM can be organised better. WMBD did not find that government officials were cooperative. Hard to get orgs to understand the concept of adding images under free license to Commons and explain who gave permission to take photos.

Government Museums are not ready to donate it’s contents. They think it might stop visitors from coming to the museums. Bangladesh air force agreed to release a collection of images under CC license for upload to commons. WMBD Contacted the Bangladesh football federation to get the images of the players. bad timing in approaching during the election and new members was not as happy in releasing images.

What is your normal work process in collaborations with partners?

Working out from personal contacts. Building up friendship from that and expanding further. “Someone” is needed as a door opener. WMBD was planning to roll out an education program before COVID, trying to use that to build trust and contacts among students and university teachers. COVID stopped most plans as uncertainty made planning hard.

Jago FM, a FM radio station in Bangladesh, agreed to take pictures of the celebrities who visit their station for interviews and release those pictures under CC license and upload to the Wikimedia Commons.

What are your desired content partnerships in the future?

Universities, to build education program. Both students and professors are good to work with.

Are you having a work plan for new partners and collaborations?

Use personal contacts to get a foot in the door to organizations.

What are your needs for a successful work with partners?

Lot of work to raise awareness about free knowledge and free licenses.

What does the best support look like for a successful partnership?

Lack of infrastructure is preventing a lot of work. Only voluntary work so far. Need resources to help with legal problems and get things up and running. Equipment needed to digitize books and material. Some technical help to make tools easier to work with. Some way to find help from other chapters when WMF is busy and unable to provide enough support or grants on time. Building relations with chapters through other projects like WikiGap and contacts found during Wikimedia Summit and such events.

Other questions or suggestions for other people who would be interested in discussing these issues?

Digital Library of India, who are digitizing books that are in Public Domain. Bengali wikimedians are adding material to Wikisource and Bengali and Bangladesh communities do proof reading at Wikisource.