Grants:Conference/Sivakosaran/Tamil Wikipedia 16 Years Celebrations
Event overview
editPurpose and vision
Commemorating Tamil Wikipedia's 16 years thereby increasing reach and participation.
Please give a brief description of the event you are planning. What do you hope to accomplish during the event? Why is this event important for your community? This gathering can be thought of as a WikiConference for Tamil Wikimedians.
We expect around 40 core Tamil Wikimedians from India, Sri Lanka and Europe to attend this event besides participants from like-minded organizations which work towards a common goal. More than a hundred persons are expected to attend the 2nd day evening event. A good number of these will be like-minded people from the academia, press and other FOSS projects.
The first day of this gathering will be marked by a tour to places of cultural interest in and around Jaffna. The objective is for the participants to get to know each other, engage in informal brainstorming and also to capture as many snapshots for Wikimedia Commons as possible.
The second day will have two sessions. In the morning, there will be tutorials for Tamil Wikimedians. In the evening, there will be a public event to celebrate the 16 years of Tamil Wikimedia.
Important details
Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.
| Proposed date(s) | 28, 29 September 2019 |
| Proposed location | Jaffna, Sri Lanka |
| Number of participants | 100 |
| Event page | Event Page |
| Primary contact person | Sivakosaran |
Background
editCommunity input
editUse the results from the community engagement survey to fill in the table below. Since you cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important. Please rank the priority of each topic, skill, project or problem as high, medium or low. Finally, please answer the questions below the table.
| Description | Priority | |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic discussions:
What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person? |
Making Policy Decisions: A number of policies/rules specific to the Tamil Wikipedia community needs to be discussed and finalized. This includes Administrators selection and removal policy, Usage of non Tamil characters in titles, etc. | High |
| Capacity development:
Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn? |
Wiki Tools: Number of Tamil Wikipedia contributors participated in Wiki Data introduction program and Project Tiger Training program were given introduction to Wiki Tools. The community understands the need for more training/awareness on the tools and will discuss and decide on more specifics before the event. Ways to attract more participation: Number of active contributors remain unchanged over the years. Need to discuss and come up with some project proposals to attract more contributors. |
Low |
| Working groups:
Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person? |
Cleaning up: Some articles created during the Teachers Training initiative conducted across Tamilnadu, India, lack Wikipedia standards. Some articles need merging, some need expansion, some need to edited in Wiki style, etc. | Medium |
| Community building:
Are there other in-person activities are important for community building? |
Bridging the Tamil Wikimedians from India and Sri Lanka for collaboration on projects. Tamil Wikipedians from Sri Lanka visited India for 10th year celebrations, Wiki Data training and Project Tiger Training. These visits helped the Tamil Wikipedians from Sri Lanka to understand the culture and language styles of Tamil Wikipedians from India and understand the issues in on-wiki discussions. But the Indian counterparts haven't had an opportunity to understand the lifestyle of Sri Lanka. Holding an event like this in Sri Lanka will give the Indian Tamil Wikipedian community an opportunity to mingle with the Lankans and see the culture there. This will lead to better understandings during the on-wiki discussions on controversial cases such pronunciation of transliterated words. | High |
Survey analysis:
- How many people did you send the survey to? We posted the Survey Link on Tamil Wikipedia Sitenotice for 2 weeks. How many people responded to the survey? 32
- Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? Yes. What were the top 2 goals? Strategic Conversations, Community Building.
- Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals? Community Discussions, Training.
We discussed priorities in Village pump and discussion pages. (This is the discussion about the 16 years celebrations discussed last year, and this is the discussion that held a year ago when we got a grant to conduct an article contest, as a starting point of 16 years celebrations.)
Context
editIt is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.
- 1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?
- The success of 10th Year Celebrations held in 2013, that helped for community building and outreach.
- The 10th Year Celebrations paved the way to Tamil Wikipedian community to meet each other and collaborate in more productive ways. Intelectuals including Tamil Wikipedian Prof. Selvakumar helped a lot of books getting re-licensed so that they can be used in Tamil Wikisource and other Wikimedia projects. There is a high potential for Jaffna University to get involved with Tamil Wikipedia in some way, if the event is hosted in Jaffna.
- The success of 10th Year Celebrations held in 2013, that helped for community building and outreach.
- 2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?
- We had a contest for article improvement. Also plan to do a new users articles contest.
- 3. Please list the priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?
- Improving quality and increase participation by conducting more outreach events.
- 4. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what key lessons were learned, and what would you like to improve on?
- The 10th year celebrations had too many plans and the team struggled to get them done. One important lesson learnt was to not plan too many activities and keep the gathering easy to implement.
Plan
editVenue and Logistics
edit- 1. If the venue is more than 1 hour away from a major airport or transportation hub, how will participants travel to the event venue?
- The venue is in Jaffna, which is around 400 km from the Colombo airport. The travel grant includes travelling from Colombo to Jaffna and return.
- The nearest airport as of now is Colombo. With not many contributors to do arrangements in a place close to Colombo, there are no other options than to conduct the event in Jaffna. There are talks of upgrading the airport in Jaffna to start Civil aviation with flights to India. But it is highly unlikely to start operations before the event.
- The venue is in Jaffna, which is around 400 km from the Colombo airport. The travel grant includes travelling from Colombo to Jaffna and return.
- 2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?
- The exact event venue is not finalized yet. Arrangements will be made to transport people from hotel to venue, with a small cost.
- 3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?
- This will be taken in to account when selecting the venue and hotel, depending on the needs of participants.
- 4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?
- No.
Friendly space policy
editPlease link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.
Participation
editIt is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.
- 1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.
- Around 40 Wikipedians expected to participate in the 2 day program. Another 50+ participants expected for the second day event that will include students and academics.
- Tamil Wikipedians will be selected through the Scholarship program, as many as possible. Invitations and leaflets about the program will be sent to prominent institutions such as Jaffna University, Technical College, Advanced Technical Institue and leading schools. A small advertisement will be published in local newspapers to attract enthusiasts.
- Around 40 Wikipedians expected to participate in the 2 day program. Another 50+ participants expected for the second day event that will include students and academics.
- 2. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?
- Apart from reaching out to media for the coverage of the gathering, there are no specific outreach component planned.
- 3. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.
- No. Ravishankar, who is a WMF staff and a Tamil Wikipedian, is interested in participating in this gathering. That should help.
Scholarships
edit- 1. How many scholarships would you like to offer?
- 20 Scholarships for Wikipedians from India
- 10 Scholarships for Wikipedians from Sri Lanka, who live outside Jaffna
- 10 Scholarships for Wikipedians from Sri Lanka, who live in Jaffna
- 2. What expenses will the scholarship cover?
- 20 Scholarships for Wikipedians from India - covers round-trip travel, travel from Colombo-Jaffna-Colombo, accommodation and food for 2 days.
- 10 Scholarships for Wikipedians from Sri Lanka, who live outside Jaffna - travel from their home town to Jaffna & return, accommodation and food for 2 days, if required.
- 10 Scholarships for Wikipedians from Sri Lanka, who live in Jaffna - travel from their home to the venue. Food during the gathering.
- 3. How will scholarship recipients be selected?
- Based on the applicants on-Wiki and off-Wiki activities.
Resources and risks
editDescribe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.
Resources
edit- Organizing team
| Team | User Names |
|---|---|
| WMF Liaison | Ravishankar |
| Logistics | Sivakosaran |
| Conference Program | Sivakosaran |
| Scholarships | Kalaiarasy |
| Communications | தமிழ்க்குரிசில் |
| Volunteer Coordinators | Shriheeran |
| Other team members | More team members will join |
Risks
editWith the community deciding upon the venue to be in Sri Lanka, the best possible man power is in Jaffna. The team is small and will need to carry out the offline activities in an efficient manner to make this event a success. That is a challenge.
Budget
editPlease provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.
- Event budget table
Tamil Wikimedians gathering
edit| No | Item | Amount (LKR) | Notes |
| 1 | Conference hall | 50000 | Attempts will be made to get a hall free of charge. Some expenses like audio, lighting arrangements may still cause expenses. This amount is allocated to cover that and if we could not get a hall free of charge. |
| 2 | Sponsorship for Accommodation | 180000 | LKR 3000 per day per person for 2 days for 30 persons. |
| 3 | Sponsorship for Travel | 860000 | Travel sponsor breakdown (Only for attendees from Sri Lanka and India)
|
| 4 | Food | 48000 | * Lunch for 40 persons on day 1 at LKR 200
|
| 5 | Felicitation Certificates and Postage | 10000 | For 100 active contributors |
| 6 | Cultural Tour in and around Jaffna | 50000 | Tourist bus per day rental |
| 7 | Professional video and photo coverage | 50000 | Photo/Video coverage with focus on shooting profile pictures and videos, promotional videos for outreach, recording of second day sessions. |
| 8 | Miscellaneous | 100000 | |
| Total | 1348000 |
- Total cost of event
- LKR 1348000
- Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program
- LKR 1348000
- Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded
Tamil Wikipedia community is contacting CIS-A2k for funding travel expenses for Tamil Wikipedians from India. If we receive funding, we will try to accommodate more Wikipedians from India.
- Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.
YES
Discussion
editEndorsements
editDo you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.
- Due to this project we have more than 800 new articles from the new wikipedians. Apart from the articles we have 262 users had been registeed for the competition. It's a highly valuable thing. [1] we see the page view of this project. This kind of projects are very useful to bring new users. Thanks ஞா. ஸ்ரீதர் (talk) 01:34, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
- I support the conference cum celebration as its needed for the growth of Global Tamil Wikimedia Community. -Neechalkaran (talk) 01:58, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Strong support A Considerable amount of Tamil population is outside India, especially in Sri Lanka. Majority of the Tamil related events are based in India. For further collaboration and deeper understanding between the community it is essential that such kind of cross country meetings to be held. That to celebration of 15 years completion of Tamil wikipedia is a like fresh energy into the community. -- Balajijagadesh (talk) 06:36, 21 March 2019 (UTC)- I support the conference cum celebration as its needed for the growth of Global Tamil Wikimedia Community. Deepa arul (talk) 06:43, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
- Strong support The conference and celebration is need for the development of Tamil Wikimedia community. A considerable amount of contribution in Tamil wikipedia is from Sri Lanka. But their lifestyle, language application, celebrations and etc are different from Tamilnadu. For further collaboration and deeper understanding between the community it is essential that such kind of celebration and meetings to be held. It is a Rejuvenation and Encouraging activity into the community.Parvatisri
- Strong supportThe conference and celebration is need for the development of Tamil Wikimedia community. User:hibayathullah
- Strong supportIt will increase outreach of Tamil Wikipedia and improve the understanding betweenTamil Wikimedians in various countries in the word. உலோ.செந்தமிழ்க்கோதை (talk) 11:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
