Grants talk:PEG/Vishwanatha Badikana/Kannada Wikipedia Thirteen years Celebrations

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

GAC members who support this request with adjustments

1. --DerekvG (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC) I do support the project however in line with some of teh comments i would like to see some indications of how women are recruited/ sensitised to join the project and I would suggest our indian friends to plan for actively trainign some of the female particiapnts as editiahon-TAś such that tehy can plan and organise them too in the future --DerekvG (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

GAC comments

Dry Martini

First of all, thank you Vishwanatha_Badikana for submitting your request, it is a good idea and has adequate fit to strategy. I would like to see more detailed scheduling (where, when and how will the pre-event editathons take place?). Take for example this grant proposal which is under discussion right now (try also browsing its talk to see what changes were made and how your grant request might benefit). Also, I think you could take a look to another, older, funding request, to its talk page and to its report. The core issue in your case is providing more detailed info, the rest is just some (I hope) helpful material. Please do share your considerations on the matter. --Dry Martini (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Given the details relating to the PEG grants for Mangalore, Bangalore, Shimoga, Mysore workshops. --Vishwanatha Badikana (talk) 04:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear enough: I think your proposal can be evaluated much better if you provide a breakdown, detailed schedule (what will you do in detail? what will you talk about in detail? what incentives do you have for women-oriented projects? why should users choose that topic?). I read the whole proposal again, and I noticed it is aimed at current Wikimedians, it doesn't really aim at increasing reach in the sense of securing new contributors. In general, WMF does not sponsor Wiki-meetings for current Wikimedians (except for Wikimania, of course, but that's a different thing), the focus is rather on funding live events that actively increase the number of contributors. Editathons between people that are already active Wikipedia users can easily be carried out via the Internet. IMO, the current proposal is not properly aligned with Wikimedia Foundation's strategic goals and with its best practices. The installation of Kiwix and other offline options can be carried out without costs worth of funding (and in any case it doesn't look really connected with other initiatives: it could easily survive as an IEG grant). --Dry Martini (talk) 15:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

About 80 new editors are expected to be generated from the 4 pre-event editathons. This has been mentioned in each project page of the respective editathon in Kannada Wikipedia. I forgot to add this under measures of success earlier. Apologies for this oversight. I have corrected the grant request page also. Thanks for your understanding and patience.--Vishwanatha Badikana (talk) 12:06, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Ilario

Has Kannada community received other grants in the past? Sorry but from India there are several requests and I don't remember well. --Ilario (talk) 18:15, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Grants:PEG/Hari_Prasad_Nadig_-_Wikimedians_in_Mysore/Wikipedia_10_Mysore this is an earlier grant requested. Omshivaprakash (talk) 18:41, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Community comments

My few bites as someone who have been trying to build effective wiki editors on Kn:Wiki. Editathon's won't bring in quality content if the focus group is totally new to the community. The effectiveness also depends on how many active editors really participate (PS: Active Editors are not New editors, those who have significant valuable edits on wiki) who know how to edit Wiki effectively matters a lot. The ediathon's conducted around Kannada wikipedia so far, doesn't seem to have built the active editors. Article counts have gone up without sufficient references, citations and copyvios. This has become a big concern for Kannada Wikipedia as a whole. Many questions raised about these issues are not addressed effectively for various reasons.

Yes, we do require activities around Wikipedia to build the community but at the same time training the new editors to be made effective with constant followup and hand holding is more important than just covering the news in media or having 'x' number of articles on wiki. Reviewing the wiki articles on Kannada wikipedia has been difficult for me as a long term editor already on Kannada wiki. I would suggest to relook what needs to be achieved as a part of the celebrations. These are not just thoughts but from experience what I have seen is the earlier wiki birthday celebrations have not added value and we haven't achieved any significant results apart from creating buzz in news. Once we have news in media, people who come on wiki should feel the availability of community and valuable content to return back on a regular basis. Number of edits of an editor/ No of articles doesn't matter but the quality of edit is what matters. The village pump discussions also shows how much dedicated and active wikipedians are available to add value in these events. Please note, the effectiveness of the activity starts after the event and we need more hands to address that requirement. As of now we don't have editors who look into recent edits which are violating wiki rules on Kannada wiki or to followup on the editors coming back on wiki space.

I would like to see more effective programs to be planned around Kannada Wikipedia for celebrations such as these. We should have a broader goal to take the quality of existing articles to be measured and increased to next level. Make wikipedians who are on kannada wiki aware of wiki policies, help them understand the mistakes they are making to create a learning space. I had expressed this concern during the discussion where the community had gathered already. -Omshivaprakash (talk) 11:46, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thank you for this request. This seems like an exciting opportunity for the Kannada Wikipedia community!

This application was completed on 10 December, for events beginning 15 December. As you may know, we need at least a month to review grant applications before they are scheduled to begin. If you have already incurred expenses for this grant, you will be responsible for the entire cost of these activities if your grant is not approved. Therefore, we'd suggest you hold off on making any future expenses until you get a final decision, since funding is not guaranteed.

In general we are concerned about the cost and scale of this project, and especially the large amounts budgeted for travel for organizers and participants. Therefore it is very likely that we will ask you to scale back this project significantly by conducting fewer events and requesting less funding for travel. First we want to make sure we understand more about your plans and your budget.

1. We need more details what will happen at each of these events. You list activities like partnerships with schools and competitions, as well as pre-event edit-a-thons, but it is not yet clear how these activities are related, or how they will lead to your goals. Exactly what activities will you be doing as part of each event? How are these events related to school partnerships and the competition? What is happening during the pre-event edit-a-thons?
2. We are concerned about your plans to hold events at locations where organizers will not be present to follow up after the events. It could make more sense to have a local team organize each event, because they will be available to follow up with the community in the location where the event happens. This would also cut costs significantly. It may make sense to scale back this plan to focus on one location where organizers are already present. If one of your goals is to involve new people in editing, this plan should include some details about how you plan to follow up with participants after the event.
3. You are investing large amounts in travel allowances and accommodation for event participants from remote locations. How are these participants selected? Will they be existing Wikipedians or new editors? What are the benefits of bringing in participants from remote locations for an event like this? We suggest scaling back this aspect of the workshops.
4. You specifically mention female participation in this grant application, but it is unclear how your project targets female participation in any way. Please provide some more information about your plans to involve female contributors in your activities.
5. You have budgeted 10,000 INR for food at pre-event edit-a-thons. How many people are expected to attend each event? What are the objectives of the pre-event edit-a-thons?
6. Large gifts such as bags and flash drive aren't appropriate for edit-a-thon type events. We might provide some funds for smaller items like stickers and pens, but we won't 50,000 INR to give large items to all the participants.
7. We cannot fund any miscellaneous costs unless more details are provided, so please provide more details or remove these from your budget.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, and for your work supporting the Kannada Wikipedia community. We are happy to clarify any of the questions here if they are not yet clear. After you comment on these questions, we can continue this discussion. We want to work together with you to make some version of this plan happen!

Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 21:49, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Clarification. Answers to queries by User:Wolliff (WMF)

1. In pre-event activities, theme based edit-a-thons will be organised at 4 locations. About 80 new editors are expected to be added to Kannada Wikipedia by these editathons. 4 themes have been selected for the editathons and they are already mentioned the Grant request page. Creating partnerships to target offline populations (Schools and colleges without internet) mentioned in the Grant request page is different from the pre-event edit-a-thons. Here we are planning to create offline Wikipedia and distribute to those populations without Internet.
2. The locations have been chosen such that, there are active Wikipedians available locally to organise the event and continue helping the new editors after the edit-a-thons. 2-3 experienced senior Wikipedians will be traveling to these locations to help and guide the local Wikipedian who will later continue interactions with the new editors and drive the momentum.
3. Recently active Wikipedians will be brought to the event location to help them to mingle with other Wikipedians and help in growing the community spirit. The Kannada Wikipedia community is not so much active in mailing lists and onwiki. There is only a handful active persons are seen onwiki. Bringing these people at one place helps in strengthening the community. They will be guided on using various onwiki platforms during the event.
4. One of the pre-event edit-a-thon is exclusively for addressing the gender gap in Kannada Wikipedia. The theme and focus of the edit-a-thon is to add articles related to women writers of Kannada and women achievers of Karnataka. The participants for this edit-a-thon are all women. Thus we are addressing the gender gap effectively – both adding articles related women and creating more women editors.
5. Each pre-event editathon is expected have 20-30 participants. Most edit-a-thons are of 3 days duration. It costs approximately INR 125 to 150 per head per day for food.
6. The flash drives and bags are not given to everyone. About 50 select active Wikipedians get these. Flash drives will have offline Wikipedia, tutorial files and videos and some other useful tools. Remaining flash drives will be distributed to schools and colleges without Internet connection.
7. Miscellaneous costs on event day will comprise of expenses for banners, pamphlets, handouts, writing pads, pens, other stationeries, etc

Thank you for the comments. Cheers,--Vishwanatha Badikana (talk) 03:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Funding decision

Hi Vishwanatha Badikana, thank you for replying to our questions. We are pleased to support this request with 237,916 INR (3,556 USD). We recommend that you adapt your budget by either limiting the number of people traveling, hosting shorter editathons or only offer partial travel funding and cut the SWAG budget. In general we do not encourage grantees to spend a significant portion of their budget on travel to outreach or new editor training events. However, we understand that experienced editors will be training less experienced volunteers in how to lead editathons and support new users after the event. You should plan to follow up with participants who receive funding for travel and accommodation to find out how many hosted local editathons or supported users after the event. Satdeep Gill recently used surveys to learn about how his community benefited from benefiting from in-person workshops in Punjab, you might find some useful ideas for surveys and event planning in the report: Punjabi Wiki Workshop Chandigarh Report. Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing about the outcomes and lessons you learn through this event series. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the support. We will keep in mind your valuable suggestions and will re-design some of the activities as for your suggestion. Once again on behalf of Kannada Wikipedia community I am offering my thanks. --Vishwanatha Badikana (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Extending last date for follow up activities

As the funds have reached us about a week after the planned program, and also it was suggested to do follow up programs for the pre-event programs, can the spending period for the current fund be extended to April 20? We have lined up follow up activities till April 17, 2016. --Vishwanatha Badikana (talk) 05:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Vishwanatha Badikana, thank you for checking in. Your grant will now end on April 20, 2016, with your report due on June 19, 2016. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC)