Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Mediagrant/Report/2013/10

Interim report accepted

This interim report for a Project and Event Grant has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Mediagrant/Report.
• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page.
• Please visit Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Mediagrant/Report/2013 to comment on or read the final report.
• You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

This is the 10th report on Mediagrant, which aims to summarize our progress from July 1st until October 15th 2013. It is also the last regular report, because a new grant request (Mediagrant II) has recently been approved. Members of the current Mediagrant 'eye' are still the same, Chmee2, Packa and Vojtech.dostal.

Overview of MG media collection topics

Current long-term topics (as of 1 November 2013)

Name	Description	Journeys ("tickets")	Objects	Photographs	Expenditures CZK	Paid out CZK
České zoologické zahrady	Czech Zoos	4	45	1305	3 593 ($190)	3 593
Foto českých obcí	Documentation of Czech Municipalities including the smallest ones	137	1 367	15 692	54 753 ($2,900)	52 521
Lidová tvořivost	Folk craft	5	5	563	3 852 ($210)	3 024
Obrazová dokumentace chráněných území a památných stromů v ČR	Documentation of protected Natural Areas and Memorable Trees in the Czech Republic	105	463	8 019	24 646 ($1,310)	24 512
Odborná fotografie	Scientific Photography	6	11	408	1 159 ($70)	880
Události	Documentation of important events in the Czech Republic	3	4	143	508 ($30)	473
Vodstvo	Water bodies of the Czech Republic	0	0	0	0 ($0)	0
Židovské památky	Documentation of Jewish monuments in the Czech Republic	14	205	2 062	7 818 ($420)	7 781
Summary		274	2 100	28 192	96 334 ($5,100)	93 199

Latest approved one-time requests (July – October 2013)

Name	Description	Photographs	Expenditures CZK	Paid out CZK
Akumulátory k blesku a nabíječka	Accumulators and charger	N/A	743 ($40)	743
Základní objektiv pro fotoaparát 1	Lens for camera	N/A	2 385 ($130)	2 385
Summary		N/A	3 128 ($170)	3 128

Remarks

• There will always be some difference between “Expenditures” and “Paid out” because there is always a time delay between recording expenditures into tracker and supporting them by documents and approving them. The second reason for this is that a few expenditures were decided not be approved in full extent.
• Number of journeys, objects, photographs and corresponding expenditures are from now counted strictly form tracker, so objects and photographs from one journey are not divided by themes and are counted under the main theme of a particular journey.

• The amounts in USD was rounded so the summary amounts should not correspond.

Summary

Total amount of all Mediagrant expenditures: 197 771.35 CZK (approx. 10,460 USD)

• one-time requests: 101 437.75 CZK (5,370 USD)
• long-term topics: 96 333.60 CZK (5,100 USD)

General remarks

What was happening

A prolonged summer enabled participants to continue in prolific photographing. In October, we announced that the grant was coming to a temporary end, meaning that we needed all the pictures and receipts by the end of October. This lead to a massive upload of pictures, some of which were taken significantly earlier. This does not concern us - the pictures have a lasting significance and we generally do not care when they are uploaded, as long as they comply with our requirements. The participants also undertook an unusual number of (valuable) photographic journeys, trying to "enjoy the grant" while it is still open for new tickets. The number of Czech Municipalities "journeys" in the last 6-week period was triple the amount in the same period in 2012. A new topic covering Czech zoological gardens started to live its own life in this period as well, with several journeys to Czech zoos made; comments were made from within the chapter concerning the expenses on zoological garden journeys and these will be carefully evaluated.

Overall, from 21.000 pictures at the end of June, we got to 28.192 uploaded pictures at the end of October. This increase is larger then this year's Wiki Loves Monuments contest in the Czech Republic. The final expenses on long-term activities during the whole course of the grant amount to about $5,100.

Accumulators, charger and a camera lens were bought to manage the currently owned cameras; however, these were rather minor expenses ($170 in total). Requests were made for macro lenses and aerial photography equipment, these were, however, rejected because no proof of a significant community demand was given. We also maintained that such high expenses would be very suspicious at the end of a grant term; moreover, aerial photography had not been mentioned in the original proposal years ago.

Future of the grant

Mediagrant is more than two years old now. Much has changes inside the Czech Chapter - people were leaving and coming. Many of the people who had conceived the grant already left the chapter and people with new ideas joined us. The original Mediagrant had no due date, it was theoretically planned to continue indefinitely. We were asked to prepare a new request that would suit to current WMF grant standards; we see this as an opportunity to improve and standardize the grant while maintaining its benefits: simplicity for end users (participants) and flexibility.

The new grant ('MG II') maintains the typical organisation of the grant; however, the 'content' of the grant is more well-defined as we are now more able to imagine what we can do in future. Still, some things do not change. Beware - more workshops to come, more people to join the photographic efforts, more pictures to be uploaded to Commons!