Grants:Conference/UG HI/Hindi Wiki Conference 2020/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Conference Grant approved in FY 2019-20 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Conference/UG HI/Hindi Wiki Conference 2020.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email conferencegrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

General overview

This conference was exceptional in many ways as we experienced 'David and Goliath' kind of situation while tackling down gender gap and reviving dead projects. We can keep aside religious overtone and just take the very common-sense of this context that many 'Davids' made it possible to bridge the gender gap and revive at least 3 projects of Hindi Wikimedia. Needless to say that it was gender gap and dead projects as 'Goliath' here. Participants shared their experience themselves how they got propelled towards the free knowledge movement. We are sharing some of the stories here for a general overview.

"On 18th January, 2020 a team of 4 Wikimedian Aniruddha, Ajit, Sanjeev and Neelam came to our college Jamashedpur Women's College and brainstormed more than 150 female students (Undergraduate to Ph.D. level) and faculties to edit Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikibooks. After that we got to know that we could also be a part of Wikimedia editors' world. We got opportunity and permission (from our families) to come here and attend conference. We are amazed and promise to contribute continuously." This was Neelu Kumari, one of the 3 participants who came from Jharkhand, who was addressing goal and feedback session on 23rd February in Hindi Wiki Conference 2020.
This conference gave exceptional opportunity to newer participants who came from diverse academic backgrounds including sciences and social sciences. Participant from New Delhi, a Geography honours student Seema said that "The Geography content on Wikipedia specially in Hindi is very poor. I Will definitely improve it after learning a lot in this conference like map editing, SVG translation etc." She complete 2 books on geography on Hindi Wikibooks after conference. A math graduate and first timer in a Hindi Wiki Conference Saurabh Tiwari was a part of the organising team and also had a presentation on proofreading tools on Wikisource. He committed to edit on Wikipedia after the conference and now he is an active reviewer on Hindi Wikipedia. Describing the effect of the conference and Wiki movement, a participant from West Bengal, Rohit Shaw said, "Wiki movement especially Wikisource has changed my life. I bought my first book after my acquaintance with Wikisource. Before it, I used to read secondary notes/materials. Wikisource taught me the importance of authentic books and primary sources. Now I am also developing Wikibooks for my courses. I also pledge to edit frequently on Wikipedia and Wikiversity." Rohit is now one of the most active editors on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikibooks and Wikiversity after the conference.
This Conference has also been a land mark for diverse participation in various ways. Three workshops held in three different states and institutions. The conference participants were from 8 different states of India. First time we had presentations on Wikipedia and 5 sister projects. We also had participants from Marathi and English. Marathi Wikipedian QueerEcofeminist described in its report that "This was my first conference with Hindi Wikimedians and I found many things to learn. I got to know how Wikisource and Wikibooks is functioning by Hindi community. It was excellent to know the adopted process and policy in better understanding one of the best community amongst Indic languages.”^[1]
This conference was organized with three pre-conference workshops and backed by one month long editathon. These events had multiple effect which resulted in multidimensional goal achievements. Neelam our female organizer and part of trust & safety team, expressed that "This was really tough but if community permit I want to do it again and again. I learned a lot, now I can understand well what is actual hurdle in getting female editors or participants on board for these kind of events and how to manage it." Neelam was the winner^[2] of the 'Quality Enrichment Editathon' on Wikipedia and is a reviewer on Wikisource. She is an intrinsic flag bearer of female editors on Hindi Wikimedia movement now.
This was first time when full scholarship was given to 12 female Wikimedians. To achieve zero gender gap 8 local scholarships out of 10 were given to female Wikimedians.
The organizing team also did meet-ups regularly before the conference to keep the coordination and proper planning amongst the team. This resulted in successful and well planned conference.

Organizing team

Team	User Names
WMF Liaison	संजीव कुमार
Logistics	अनिरुद्ध कुमार हिंदुस्थान वासी Abhinav619 नीलम
Conference Program	संजीव कुमार अजीत कुमार तिवारी
Scholarships	अनिरुद्ध कुमार संजीव कुमार
Communications	हिंदुस्थान वासी
Volunteer Coordinators	नीलम सौरभ तिवारी 05
Editathon reviewers	SM7 संजीव कुमार (w) नीलम सौरभ तिवारी 05 (s) अनिरुद्ध कुमार अजीत कुमार तिवारी (b)
Report	अनिरुद्ध कुमार अजीत कुमार तिवारी नीलम

Goals

Did you meet your goals?

Yes. Overall most of the goals for 6 months and 1 year has also been achieved well within the time. Despite being behind in two areas, we have performed extremely well in other 11 areas. Detailed data can be seen in below table:

No.	Particular	Status as on 1st nov, 2019	Targeted outcome for 6 month	Targeted outcome for 1 year	Achieved outcome within 8 months	6 months goal achievement %	1 year goal achievement % (in 8 month)	Explanations
1	Live wiki projects	2 Wikipedia and Wikisource	4	5	4	100%	80%	Now Hindi Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikibooks and Wikiversity are live projects.^[3]
2	Active female editors (100 edit per month)	2	10	15	17	170%	113%	We have got excellent response in narrowing gender gap. On Wikisource we have more active female editors than male editors.
3	Wikipedia new articles	700/month	6000	12000	5851	98%	49%	6 months goal has almost been achieved and growth graph is heading towards right direction.
4	Wikipedia featured level articles	1 in last one year	2	4	3	150%	75%	Articles with satisfactory qualifications has been developed and in the review process to get featured.
5	Wikisource new pages	2000/month	15000	30000	41917	279%	140%	Participants have done tremendous work at this project. We have passed 100 thousand pages mark on Wikisource and amongst top three Wikisource who have added most number of pages within a year span till date.^[4]
6	Wikisource proofread pages	150/month	1000	2500	11342	1134%	454%	Participants have achieved more than expected.^[5]
7	Wikisource transcluded books	1/month	8	16	13	163%	81%	6 months goal has been well achieved and growth graph is heading towards right direction.^[6]
8	Wikibooks pages	5/month	120	250	475	396%	190%	Proper participation and guidance resulted in excellent goal achievements.^[7]
9	Wikibooks featured book	0/month	2	4	13	650%	325%	Active and goal oriented participation achieved 3 times more than the projected 1 year goal well ahead of time.
10	Wiktionary page format correction	0/month	6000	12000	84	1%	1%	Less interested participation in Wiktionary has been the real challenge and still needed proper attention of the community.
11	Wikiversity lecture	0/month	70	150	26	37%	17%	Although Wikiversity has become alive to an extent, yet less active participation resulted in less goal achievement.^[8]
12	Active editors on whole Hindi Wiki projects	1500/month	1650	1700	1920	116%	113%	Active editors on all Wiki projects has been increased so this goal has been well achieved.
13	Average of all goal achievements					275%	136%	Overall, most of the goals for 6 months (even for 1 year also on some projects) has been achieved.

Next steps

Please share a brief update about the status projects, important discussions and/or capacity building that took place at the event.

Area	Activities during the conference	4 months after the conference
Strategic Discussions: Were any significant issues your community discussed at the conference?	We discussed and set the target to make at least 3 Hindi Wikipedia's sister projects (Wikibooks, Wikiversity and Wiktionary) active where 3 or more editors should edit continuously. We had a presentation and training session for all these projects. Bridging the gender gap among contributors and team leaders on Wikimedia projects was a major concern. We had continuous discussion on inclusion of female Wikimedians at all levels. We had discussion on awareness and partnerships at academic institutions.	We successfully made two almost dead projects Wikibooks and Wikiversity alive, on Wikibooks more than 30 editors are active. Our efforts brought Hindi Wikibooks within top 30 Wikibooks overall. We also succeeded in bridging gender gap among contributors and team leaders. At present we have more than 30 active female editors on Hindi Wiki projects who are continuously active. Amongst them 17 are doing more than 100 edits every month. In fact we are witnessing reverse gender gap on Wikisource. We had made partnerships with three colleges and created awareness through workshops and editathon. It brought more than 30 active editors on Hindi Wiki projects.
Capacity Development: Please list capacity building sessions or workshops.	We had a presentation on leadership skills. We also had a training session on community capacity development skills. We had an editorial session on template, infobox creation. We demonstrated proofreading tools and skills on Wikisource.	Several new editors including female editors are showing their leadership skills. Enhancement of community capacity development skills resulted in quality improvement on all Hindi Wiki projects through newly created article pages (on Wikipedia), books (on Wikibooks) and classes (on Wikiversity). More than 100 templates, infoboxes were created, modified or translated by participants. More than eleven thousand pages has been proofreaded after conference till date.
Projects or Working Groups: What are the most important projects that were started or improved during the conference?	We had a presentation on Wikimedia Education Program. We also had presentation on several Wikimedia contests (eg. Wiki Loves women, Wikipedia Asian month) We formed conference goal achievement group and monthly follow-up team.^[9]	We are developing Wiki projects specially Wikisource, Wikibooks and Wikiversity as key tools for Wikimedia Education Program. More than 125 students of 3 Universities have worked on Wikisource, Wikibooks and Wikiversity and developed their academic curriculum and study materials of undergraduate and postgraduate level courses. We held 2 contests (Wiki Loves Women and Quality Enrichment Editathon 2020) successfully. Our conference goal achievement group worked well and achieved most of the goal within 4 months. Monthly follow-up team meeting was held 4 times online and took necessary steps to achieve goals. It resulted in 'Quality Enrichment Editathon 2020' and timely report preparations.

Learning

Conferences and events do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well at the event?

1. Inclusion of female Wikimedians at every level-

First time we had/have female wikipedian at every level from planning to participation and report making. We had at least one female Wikimedian in all important teams - organising committee, resource person and presenter in workshops and conference, trust and safety team etc. Inclusion of female Wikimedians resulted in huge increase of female participation in workshops, conference, editathon thus we found reliable wiki editors. We believe that gender inclusiveness must be from bottom to top level in whole conference planning and Wikimedia movement.

2. Early travel booking:

The organising team booked participants' train and flight tickets at least 2 months before conference date. It proved very cost efficient and resulted in huge saving. We got confirm reserved seat in trains, which would have been a matter of concern otherwise, just because of early planning.

3. Targeted sessions and goal oriented interactions-

At the event, targeted sessions and goal oriented interactions worked pretty well. We tried to engage each and every participant according to their area of interest. Thus, we found that participants set individual goals themselves and worked towards it. Most of the resources were amongst the organising team and most active users of Wiki projects, thus their presentations and experiences were quite reliable and relatable to newer participants.

4. Dedicated 3+1 seating arrangements-

We had seating arrangements in such manner that every table had at least one experienced Wikimedian with 3 or 4 newer participants, so that they could go through presentations seamlessly. We had practical interactions after each sessions, although it took a bit more time and effort, it proved very beneficial.

5. Online outreach:

Due to COVID-19 related restrictions, the organising team decided to change outreach mode from offline to online. We used social sites and most importantly our sitenotice on all three most active projects for running a month long editathon. It worked very well and helped us to meet our conference goals. We recommend aspiring organisers to add these types of follow-up events.

What did not work so well?

1. Focus on 5 Wiki Projects:

We experienced that in such conference we should not focus on more than 3 projects. We could have cut down sessions on some Wiki projects to be more focused. Extended sessions and interactions worked well, yet it did affect time management and could have been avoided.

2. Extra efforts for zero gender gap:

Female participation to bridge gender gap was a really tough challenge. We did workshops and got 50% female scholarship recipients. Unexpectedly what happened as some of the female participants couldn't attend the conference just because their family did not allow them to go so far alone. Although our female organizer tried her level best and achieved 40% participation but our idea of having zero gender gap could not be achieved. However, we can proudly say that after the conference we got extremely well response from the female participants and we are experiencing reverse gender gap on Hindi Wikisource. We recommend continuous effort for achieving zero gender gap.

3. Post conference meeting and review:

We faced COVID-19 challenges like lockdown and no offline activities. It affected our planning and outcome at eleventh hour. However we adopted new work pattern and achieved our maximum goal. We recommend upcoming organizers to have a 'Plan B' also to tackle such situations.

What would you do differently next time?

We shall work on 3 Wiki projects only at a time to be more focused.
We Will keep ratio of experienced and new participants 50-50, so that newer participants can be given proper guidance and, along with experienced editors, can also discuss about Wiki policies and ideas well.
We will include more female leaders at organiser level and try to achieve zero gender gap in all areas.
We will give more importance to online activities.

Financial documentation

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Budget table

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions. Review the instructions here. These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses.

Bill No. 1	Particulars	Budgeted amount in INR	Budgeted amount in US Dollars (1USD=71INR on 9 sep, 2019)	Actual expenses in INR.	Actual expenses in US Dollar (1$=74.75INR on 10 july,2020)	Description
1.1	Telecom and Internet cost for 3 months	3,976.00	56	3614	48.35	Telephone calls and Internet cost for LOC members for planning of the event
1.2	Awareness meet-up and contest	63,900.00	900	47129.1	630.49	Meet-ups in three major cities and online contest for awareness
1.3	Project Management (Postage cost, T&T for meetings, food during meetings etc.)	7,100.00	100	6408.96	85.74	This item will focus on every activities involve in the planning of the event eg. Periodic meeting, Control, Executing, Refreshment, Logistics etc
	TOTAL BILL Number 1	74,976.00	1,056.00	57152.06	764.58

no.	Particulars	Budgeted amount in INR	Budgeted amount in US Dollars	Actual expenses in INR.	Actual expenses in US Dollar	Description
2.1	Venue and Conference rooms	95,850.00	1350	54450	728.43	Conference rooms/$450/ each day for 3 days
2.2	Lunch ( Buffet) and high tea	1,70,400.00	2400	126475	1691.97	Lunch ( Buffet) and high tea ($20/person) for 40 person for 3days
2.3	Travel including Flights	2,40,264.00	3384	126027.04	1685.98	Travel including flights (Average cost) @ 141 USD/ person (Cap)
2.4	Accommodation (for 3 days)	2,55,600.00	3600	240000	3210.70	$50 USD/participant/day, one room shared by at least 2 participants
2.5	Customized T-shirt, bags, Event badges etc.	42,600.00	600	42600	569.90	T-shirt, bags, badges etc. for 40 participants and volunteers
2.6	Printing materials	39,050.00	550	23414	313.23	Pamphlet, posters, proceedings etc.
2.7	Outreach activities	28,400.00	400	27685	370.37	travel, food etc.
2.8	Post conference monthly review meet-ups for 3 months	29,820.00	420	0	0.00	Due to COVID-19 maximum post-event reviews and report preparations periodic meetings were converted into online meetings and contest.
	TOTAL BILL Number 2	9,01,984.00	12,704.00	640651.04	8570.58

No.	Particulars	Budgeted amount in US Dollars	Actual expenses in US Dollar	Actual expenses in INR
1	BILL NO. 1: PRELIMINARY & GENERAL	1,056.00	764.58	57152.06
2	Bill No. 2: Conference Days including scholarships	12,704.00	8570.58	640651.04
3	INCIDENTAL COST & CONTINGENCIES	500	0	0
4	TOTAL	14,260.00	9335.158528	697803.1
5	remaining amount in INR	-	-	314656.9

Summary of funding

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission):

$14,260/ USD

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission):

$14,260/ USD

Total amount spent on this project (this total should be the total calculated from the table above):

697803.10/- (INR) or 9335.158528 (USD) where 1 USD= 74.75 INR (on 10th july 2020)

Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project:

697803.10/- (INR) or 9335.158528 (USD) where 1 USD= 74.75 INR (on 10th july 2020)

Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? List them here.

no.

Remaining funds

Are there any grant funds remaining?

Answer YES or NO.

YES.

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

314656.90 (INR)

Remaining funds are due to WMF. The grantee should return these funds to WMF by bank transfer. Contact grantsadmin at wikimedia dot org to let WMF know to expect the funds. Instructions for returning funds to WMF are at Grants:Return unused funds to WMF.