Grants talk:PEG/Bojana Wiki PG/Trace of a Soul 2016

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members decisions

GAC members who support this request

1. --DerekvG (talk) 20:49, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
2. --MikyM (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
3. The budget sounds reasonable according to the goal. Although see my note bellow...
   — Danny B. 00:39, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

GAC comments

Hosting + domain

You mention 150 €. How much is hosting, how much is domain and for how long both are? Can't WMF labs be used to host? Thanks.

— Danny B. 00:41, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The entire package includes hosting and domain for €150, as well as the maintenance of the site. This price will cover all our websites like community website and our blog. --Bojana Wiki PG (talk) 18:13, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Please reply to remaining questions as well. Thank you.
— Danny B. 21:44, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Bojana Wiki PG, we are happy to see that the Wikimedia Community of Republic of Srpska will be hosting Trace of a Soul again this year. We understand that last year the contest was successful in terms of recruiting new volunteers, working with partners to promote the contest and gain media attention. The cost of this project is high relative to the number of images expected, the award ceremony is particularly expensive at 1620 EUR (20 EUR per person). Have you considered asking one of your partners to provide space or catering for the award ceremony? We would prefer to see you spend less on the awards ceremony and more on events that encourage participation during the contest, such upload events and editathons. You might consider purchasing SIM cards with large amounts of data to create mobile hotspots for those events to ensure that people are able to connect. We have a few questions about your new proposal:

• Last year you had 40 participants and a lot of promotion through the media and on Facebook, what will you do differently to meet your goal of 80 participants this time?
• Can you estimate how many of the listed monuments have already been photographed? Will you do anything to encourage people to photograph different monuments this year?
• In your report, you note that many participants were not able to upload their photos due to slow internet speeds, and error messages. Is there anything you can do to avoid this problem again this year?
• Why are there 2 prize packages?
• Will travel and accommodation be given to jury members for a judging event, or for the awards ceremony? How many jury members need
• It seems like the photo tour was very popular last year, so it is good to see that you will be offering more photo tours this year. Are the 3 photo tours going to different locations this time?

Thank you for all of your hard work so far! We look forward to your responses to these questions so that we can learn more about your project. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kacie, thanks you for your comments and question! Following are the answers to your questions.

This €1620 includes the hotel and travel expenses for members of the jury, which is very important to attend the above-mentioned reasons. The price for the venue is already at a discounted price and it includes technical support, set-up photos, gallery adaptation, microphones, cleaning. The space will be used not only for this ceremony, but for a ten-day photo exhibition. In the catering price is included price for service, cutlery, plates, glasses, delivery and we asked for the lowest price. The material on which photos will be printed is one of the cheapest and smaller in size compared to the costs of printing and sizes in some other countries where the wiki photo contest are organized. As well for promotional material too. We must point out that the entire budget is like last year (when we worked with Alex), and had even decreased by 5% despite the increased number of activities, such as photo-tours. Using SIM card to send photos is very expensive and will not solve the problem, but during the event such as photo-tours and ceremony of awards Internet and laptops will be provided by our partners.

• Wikimedia community of Republika Srpska last year was relatively new, and its work was unknown to the general public. Despite the fact that the project was well covered by the media, he was the first of its kind in our region, so there was a dose of reservations from some potential participants. Also Wiki platform on which they sent photographs was unknown to most users, which affected the number of participants, and there was problems with the Internet that we have already been written about. Other, we believe that number of participants will increase, given that the number of photo-tour is increased too. The community has become recognizable in the Republika Srpska. Several media reported about the project after we finished it. Several participants asked for further of project, too. This is all in favor of that interest of the project has increased.
• We do not have precise statistics, according to the estimate it is covered about 140 cultural and natural sites.
• Slow internet is factual situation in the Republika Srpska and we can not do so much to improve the situation, however, it can be installed temporary upload booths in major cities with high speed Internet and related infrastructure like the solutions applied in the South African Republic, but it would be very expensive. Last year, in Visegrad users who have a fast internet offered it to colleagues. This will be practiced this year. Also will provide a telephone and email technical support. We will provide an advice for early uploading.
• Like last year project is conceived as a mix of WLM and WLE competitions. More precisely, under this name we will collect two categories of photos: first will be natural monuments and second will be about cultural and historical monuments. For each category we anticipate major awards I, II, and III prize and consolation prizes for the IV and V place (t--shirts and thanks you letter).
• The jury will participate in the awards event and they will stay in a hotel just one night. We believe it is very important to the jury to cover these costs, given that all members work as volunteers, and a live meeting is an excellent opportunity to show appreciation for their work and discuss further cooperation. Jury will be composed of experts from the relevant fields: photography, art, architecture and digital media and Wikipedia user. In total there will be 5 members (4 experts and 1 long time Wikipedia user).
• Photo-tours will be organized in different parts of the Republika Srpska, in order to provide territorial equality for all participants to participate in our activities. In each single tour there will be one representative from the community who will inform and provide information about our other activities to participants in order to get then interested in our work and projects. --Bojana Wiki PG (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Funding decision

Hi Bojana Wiki PG, thank you for responding to our questions and comments. It is good to hear about the different strategies you are thinking though to overcome difficulties with connectivity this year. I checked the category for images from Trace of a Soul 2015 and saw that nearly 20% of those images are now in use on Wikimedia projects - congratulations on that accomplishment. We hope you have similar success this year. You might find the following learning patterns helpful for these photography projects:

• Create maps using monument lists
• Strategies to increase number of photos in use

The 218.23 EUR remaining from Grants:PEG/Bojana_Wiki_PG/Wikimedia_Start_Republika_Srpska_2016/Report will be deducted from the payment for this grant. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 17:39, 12 May 2016 (UTC)