Grants:Project/Krishna Chaitanya Velaga/Edit-a-thon series 2018 (India)
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Project idea
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What is the problem you're trying to solve?
editWhat problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
- Given its diversity of languages, India has a great potential to emerge as one of the most instrumental Wikimedia communities on the international front. But as of now, the Indian Wikimedia community is not as big and as diverse as the country in general is. With both the WMF partners in India—Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K—based from Bengaluru, Karnakata, most of the community as seen from an external view, is concentrated around the Southern region of the Country. Even the National Capital, New Delhi, hardly has any community, with only 4–5 active editors. Even though there are a lot may contributors from other parts of India, they are isolated from the community for whatsoever reasons. States like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, etc. which are very advanced in terms of both, education and technology, and have their own language-specific Wikimedia projects, they have been ignored ever since the inception. If continue the same way, we'll be losing a big number of contributors as time passes.
What is your solution to this problem?
editFor the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem.
We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
- So my intention is to conduct various outreach activities (mostly edit-a-thons) at diversified locations across India, to activate the community across the length and breadth of the country. I've prepared a list of cities as explained in the further sections, which are spread all over the country to conduct the events, so that the above mentioned problem is solved, at least to some extent. Apart from Wikipedia, I would also like to conduct a very few workshops for Wikidata and Wikisoruce at the initial stage, because these two projects can really revolutionize the Wikimedia movement in the coming future.
Project goals
editWhat are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
- To activate the Wikimedia community across India.
- To crack down the Wikimedia community concentration around Southern India.
- To strengthen the exiting communities having relatively weak dynamics.
- To improve the community of other projects of Wikimedia Foundation; the Wikidata and the Wikisource
- To involve the participants from various iterations of Train-the-Trainer in the project activities and help them to do further events at their locations.
Project impact
editHow will you know if you have met your goals?
editFor each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:
- During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
- Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)
For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (i.e. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents).
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
Answer to Q1
- During the project, we;ll make this sure that the goals are achieved by following numeric targets, and plan our further course of action towards the goals.
- 5 Wikipedia Edit-a-thons: 200 people will participate in Wikipedia Edit-a-thons. 160 of them will be new editors.
- As a intro to Wikimedia Commons is conducted on parallel to Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, so at least we intend to get 100 new contributors to Commons.
- 2 Wikidata workshops: 40 people will attend Wikidata workshops. 30 will be new contributors.
- 1 Wikisource workshop: 20 people will attend Wikisource workshop. 15 will be new contributors.
- Create/improve at least 500 articles on Wikipedia.
- At least 500 images to be uploaded to commons.
- At least 50 Wikidata items to created, and 400 to be improved.
- A small book and a few documents to be scanned to Wikisource and 10 documents to be proofread.
Answer to Q2
- We hope at least 40 of the new editors will continue to contribute to Wikipedia with at least 20 edits a month.
- We hope at least 25 of the new contributors to Commons will continue afterward with at least 20 uploads in 3 months.
- We hope at least 10 of the new contributors to Wikidata will continue afterward with at least 50 edits a month.
- We hope at least 5 of the new contributors to Wikisource will continue afterward with at least 20 edits a month or a few proof readings etc.
- Above all we intend a build and strengthen healthy and inclusive communities across India, in and around regions where Wikimedia communities hardly exist at present.
Do you have any goals around participation or content?
editAre any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable.
- Same as explained in the answer to previous question.
Project plan
editActivities
editTell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?
- As a part of this project, I wish to conduct at least 8 events with 2–3 resource persons for each, and if budget permit I'll do more. As mentioned in the earlier sections, I figured out list of target cities and the list is presented below. Each and every workshop conducted as a part of this project shall run for two days, so that a strong base can be formed.
| S.No | Location | Target project(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Delhi | en Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons |
| 2 | Guwahati | |
| 3 | Lucknow | |
| 4 | Ahmedabad | |
| 5 | Shimla | |
| 6 | Bhopal | Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons |
| 7 | Chennai | |
| 8 | Hyderabad | Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons |
| 1 | Gandhinagar | en Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons |
| 2 | Dehradun | |
| 3 | Panaji | |
| 4 | Panaji | |
| 5 | Jaipur | |
| 6 | Visakhapatnam | |
| 7 | Varanasi | |
| 6 | New Delhi | Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons |
- If we have left over funds at the end of the project, we'll try to do more events, and we'll follow-up with the participants of previous events, through meet-ups.
Involving TTT participants
editCIS-A2K has done four iterations of Train-the-Trainer program to increase the outreach activities in India. As they have been trained to conduct worksops, we'll reach out to them and if possible, we'll support them to do events at their locations. This will not only help us to reduce the costs of travel and accommodation of resource persons, but also increase the number of workshops being done, and also help the TTT participants to continue further in building the communities at those locations.
Budget
editHow you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!
| S.No | Details of Expense | Expense amount (for one event only) | External support (for one event only) | USD equivalent (as of 04:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resource persons (travel, food, accommodation etc.) | ₹35,000 | ₹5,000 | |
| 2 | Swag for participants | ₹5,000 | ₹2,000 | |
| 3 | Food for participants | ₹17,000 | ₹3,000 | |
| 4 | Logistics (venue, internet etc.) | ₹24,000 | ₹1,000 | |
| 5 | Unforeseen / incidental | ₹14,500 | ₹500 | |
| Total | ₹95,500 | ₹11,500 | ||
| Total (for eight events) | 8 * ₹95,500 = ₹764,000 | 8 * ₹11,500 = ₹92,000 | ||
| Total expense | ||||
| 6 | Contingency fund | |||
| 7 | Indirect cost | |||
| Grant Total | ||||
| External funding | ||||
| WMF funding | ||||
Community engagement
editHow will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve at various points during your project? Community input and participation helps make projects successful.
- Primarily we'll make use of the mailing lists and also use social media channels to spread the news.
- We'll work with various user groups across India, to help us achieve our goals in their geographical convenience.
- We'll reach various educational institutions to engage their students and staff to participate.
Get involved
editParticipants
editPlease use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.
| S.No | Role | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grantee Project lead Resource person |
Krishna Chaitanya Velaga | Contributing since 2014, is currently serving on the Board of Wikimedia India, and also a coordinator of WikiProject Military History on en Wikipedia. |
| 2 | Adviser Resource person |
Titodutta | Administrator on en Wikipedia and bureaucrat on test Wiki. Currently Program Officer at CIS-A2K. |
| 3 | Adviser | Col. Ashwin Baindur (retd.) | One of the top editors from India with expertise on diversified domains and community dynamics. |
| 4 | Adviser Resource person |
Abhishek Suryawanshi | former Vice President of Wikimedia New York City, was an ambassador for the Wikipedia Education Program in India, also a team member of WikiConference India 2011, WikiConference USA 2015 and 2016. |
| 5 | Resource person | Yohann Varun Thomas | former President and present Secretary of Wikimedia India, well versed in community dynamics |
| 6 | Resource person | Yann Forget | Administrator on Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource, fr Wikitionary, fr Wikisource, gu Wikipedia and hi Wiktionary. |
| 7 | Resource person | Viswanathan Prabhakaran | Administrator on ml Wikipedia and Wiktionary. Former Treasurer and current Board member of Wikimedia India. |
| 8 | Resource person | Suyash Dwivedi | Current Board member of Wikimedia India, co-founder of Hindi Wikimedians User Group, and chief organizer of Hindi Wikipedia Conference 2017. |
| 9 | Resource person | Satdeep Gill | Administrator on pa Wikipedia, Wikisource. Co-founder of Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, and present Treasurer of AffCom and member of Language Committee. |
| 10 | Resource person | Abhinav Srivastava | Former Executive Committee Member of Wikimedia India |
Community notification
editYou are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc.--> Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?
- Notified the Indian Wikimedia community mailing list. Thread can be seen here.
Endorsements
editDo you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).
Support As initiator. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 01:01, 21 September 2017 (UTC)- Support It seems interesting activity. I am sure that many new editors will be interested in Wikipedia and existing editors will also get a boost by gaining information about projects like Wikidata which are not known to many but which holds lot of potential. Congratulations to Krishna who has come up with this activity and are ready to dedicate his valuable time. Thank you. -- Abhijeet Safai (talk) 05:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- Support. For an event of this scale (With tens of new active editors in 8 different cities), I believe it is a worthwhile investment to make. Such events are likely to build a stronger editing community for India and can, in the best case scenario, end us with a hundred more active editors for Wikimedia projects. Soni (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- I have long felt personally this need of advancing the Movement throughout the length and breadth of our country. It's sad to see that even after seven years from the first WCI; there are states where a activity is zero and communities are non-existent. It's yet unfortunate to note that in states like Assam- where the community used to be vigorous once- it is becoming weaker by the day. Shall Support this initiative- keeping in mind that this will help expand Wiki community to more and more states and give a shot in the arm to states where the Movement is fast losing enthusiasm- only if the Budget is revised and cut down by nothing less than 50% of the initially proposed Amount. -- Mouryan (talk) 03:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
- Support - Much needed outreach in new cities/areas. Sounds like a nice doable plan within reasonable budget. Great to see external support and positive interest from other organizations AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
Strong oppose, This is an extremely over-budgeted proposal, INR 900,000 for 8 one-time events is lot more than sufficient. I also do not see any local community involvement. There is also no community discussions and consensus regarding this proposal. I have raised my concerns in the grants talk page. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 04:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
Comment - I think the core rationale or basis needs evidence. The fact is that there is HUGE amount of editing by Indians most of which I suspect is vandalism or poor quality additions (this is especially so on the English Wikipedia and I am basing my comments on a rather informal survey that suggests that about 10% of all BSNL dynamic IPs have warnings on their talk pages). I am not sure how conducting editathons in general would enhance quality. As someone who has conducted several sessions with Indian academics I can say for sure that there are other issues, especially the lack of access to reliable sources apart from the vast majority being unaware of what reliability means. A very large number of (even prominent) editors for instance have never heard of the concept of peer-reviewed journals. These are hard problems to work on especially for ordinary volunteers but good ones to work with educational systems using "insider-champions" (university faculty) as is being done by WikiEdu. As a suggestion to make this an endeavor with a useful outcome, it would be good to alter the main goals as being to work along with prominent academics and their students on specific fields or to establish collaborations with high quality libraries that could host the potential participants for a sufficient period and work on very specific high-impact areas that are pre-identified. Shyamal (talk) 09:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)- Strong oppose, A2k is doing train the trainer program for last 2-3 years. Where are those trainers from across the country? Have you interacted with them before raising the proposal? Just co-ordinate with them and ask them to take up sessions locally or in nearby areas. You can be project co-ordinator and planner for the same. I believe WMF wants quantitative output/results from the programs they give funding. What is the plan for it in the proposal? I am also objecting on the statements related to the community/activity happening only in south India. There are many people in the other areas also and they do lot of work. I believe that they are not as vocal compared to south (or they don't get due publicity) Please reconsider the whole thing again. Sudhanwa (talk)
