Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 (ID: 22894603)

Feedback regarding your rapid grant application

Dear ZI Jony,

Thank you very much for applying for a rapid grant that brings together diverse Wikimedians across various regions to support the Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 competition. We clearly see that this competition is a great effort for cross-regional collaboration, leveraging diverse expertise will enhance the project’s inclusivity and impact. After a thorough review of your proposal, the WMF Community Resources team has a couple of follow up questions and points before reaching a final decision:

• Number of organizers. Your Meta application states that there will be 35 organizers for this competition, meanwhile your budget mentions internet compensation for 50 organizers. May you clarify the exact number of organizers that will participate in this project?

  We initially estimated over 50 organizers, including local coordinators and international team members, and accounted for 50 in the budget for internet compensation. However, we acknowledge your concerns and have revised the number. In the updated budget, we have reduced the organizers for internet compensation while maintaining sufficient support for local coordinators and our core team.

• Cooperating with other user groups in the MENA region. You will notice that other user groups are also engaged in documenting knowledge related to Ramadan, e.g. the Wikimedians of the Levant often has special activities dedicated to Ramadan and raising awareness. Have you considering working in collaboration with these user groups as well?

  While we did not directly collaborate with the Wikimedians of the Levant user group, we have received strong interest from several MENA community members, including Abdulqayum (User:غلام الأسمر) of the Wikimedia Libyan User Group and Mossab Banat (User:Avicenno) from Jordan. There are many MENA community and UG members interested in Wiki Loves Ramadan, Some of their active involvement in our international team reflects broader regional engagement. We are open to exploring formal partnerships with other user groups, such as the Wikimedians of the Levant, to enhance collaboration in the future.

• Ambitious number of metrics, languages and projects engaged. We see that the planned activities across 26 language platforms is ambitious. Can you list the specific language platforms involved and clarify if this number is manageable within the project scope and how you intend to deliver impactful results across all of the language projects? We are wary that scaling up so fast may dilute impact and we are curious to know how you plan on ensuring impact across the various projects. We are also concerned about the quality of the articles produced, how can you ensure that the 5,000 contributions will be quality contributions that are not overlapping content across the Wikimedia projects?

  We conducted a Community Engagement Survey, receiving positive responses from 26 languages (Arabic Wikipedia, Assamese Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bangla Wikipedia, Commons, Dagbani Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Hausa Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Kashmiri Wikipedia, Luganda Wikipedia, Malay Wikipedia, N/A, Simple English Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, Swahili Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia, Malayalam Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia) communities across 32 countries (Algeria, Antarctica, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Estonia, France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Maroc, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, UAE, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom). To ensure the project remains manageable, we have implemented a two-tier structure of international and local teams.

  • Quality Assurance: International team members will oversee local activities and provide mentorship, ensuring content quality. Training sessions and review guidelines will help contributors create impactful articles while minimizing overlap.
  • Metrics Management: We aim for an average of 200 articles per community, amounting to over 5,000 contributions, but we prioritize quality over quantity, adjusting targets if needed.

• Prize allocation. While the idea of awarding prizes at both global and country levels is appealing, the distribution of prizes could be more consolidated to reduce complexity and to maximize participation and contributions. Small cash prizes for 26 language communities might dilute the overall impact. Can you explore alternative approaches, such as fewer but more substantial prizes, to better incentivize participation?

  We appreciate your suggestions regarding prize distribution. In the revised plan, we propose simplifying the local prizes into two categories: "Top Contributor" and "Best Newcomer." This adjustment reduces complexity while still recognizing exceptional contributions.

• Budget considerations. We advise to remove the $750 allocation for a website and to explore existing Wikimedia tools or platforms to achieve the same goal. Also, the current allocation of $300/month for the project coordinator seems high for a rapid grant. Reducing this to $150/month ($450 total) would align better with budget expectations.

  Your guidance on budget adjustments is greatly appreciated.

  • Technical Costs: Developing a dedicated website involves a one-time cost, alongside the annual Google Workspace subscription for communication and hosting online meetings. This expenditure supports a more efficient workflow, especially for coordination across diverse time zones and languages.
  • Project Coordinator Allocation: After careful review, we reduced this allocation to $1,000, encompassing the lead coordinator's compensation and internet expenses over five months.
  • Swag Items: These were inadvertently excluded from the initial budget but are now itemized with a detailed breakdown in the revised budget.

  The revised total budget is $6,453 (23,699.40 AED). However, we will reduce and align within the $5,000 limit based on actual participants, including an unused balance of $73 (268.23 AED) from WLM in UAE 2024.

May you please review the above recommendations and adjust your budget and proposal accordingly? Thank you very much and wishing you a wonderful start to the 2025.

On behalf of the WMF Community Resources team, FElgueretly-WMF (talk) 10:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

FElgueretly-WMF, Thank you for your thoughtful review of our proposal and for providing valuable feedback on our Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 grant application. We appreciate the opportunity to address your points and provide clarifications (see the responses in green above). We have incorporated these into our revised budget and proposal to ensure the project is impactful, sustainable, and aligns with community expectations. Please let us know if further clarification or adjustments are needed. Wishing you a wonderful year ahead and looking forward to your decision. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 17:27, 7 January 2025 (UTC)