Grants talk:Project/Puku/Wikimedia Language Cohort

Project Grant proposal submissions due 30 November!

Thanks for drafting your Project Grant proposal. As a reminder, proposals are due on November 30th by the end of the day in your local time. In order for this submission to be reviewed for eligibility, it must be formally proposed. When you have completed filling out the infobox and have fully responded to the questions on your draft, please change status=draft to status=proposed to formally submit your grant proposal. This can be found in the Probox template found on your grant proposal page. Importantly, proposals that are submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for review during this round. If you're having any difficulty or encounter any unexpected issues when changing the proposal status, please feel free to e-mail me at cschillingwikimedia.org or contact me on my talk page. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through January 2, 2019.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for round 2 2018 will occur January 3-January 28, 2019. Grantees will be announced March 1, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Questions from KCVelaga

Hi @Legendphambuka: thanks for working on this grant proposal, and your interest to address the content gap on African language Wikipedias. To get a better understanding of the project plan, I would like to have responses to the following questions:

• What is the kind of work that "Puku" as an organisation has already been doing, and how will engaging with Wikimedia projects/movement can be of mutual benefit? Though in the proposal you've mentioned that there is a "clear intersection between Puku’s project to recruit and invest in African language editors for Pukupedia and Wikipedia’s need for such editors", I would like to have more specific points on this.
• establish a cohort - or defined group of individuals. Following up on this;
  • how many individuals are you planning to train?
  • who are these individuals going to be? (potential trainees)
  • "specifically trained and convened to develop content in South African languages" are you going to pay them for developing content on Wikimedia projects?
• At a later stage in the proposal you mentioned that you will be running edit-a-thons. Will the above mentioned trained individuals be running these edit-a-thons or anyone else?
• I would say "a target of 750 articles in two edit-a-thons each having thirty participants" is a bit ambitious goal. But since you might have already had a plan for this, please explain your plan to achieve this goal. Sometimes edit-a-thons may continue for three days or even online campaigns after the edit-a-thon etc.
• Since "Wikimedia ZA" has been mentioned several times in the proposal, I would like hear more about the communication that you've already had with them regarding this project proposal.
• The "Community notification" section of the proposal doesn't contain any links to where the relevant Wikimedia communities have been informed about this proposal. Since community engagement is an essential aspect for any proposal, please direct me to the notification links.

Thanks again for working on this proposal. Looking forward to hearing from you. KCVelaga (talk) 05:53, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Puku/Wikimedia Language Cohort

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	5.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.3
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	3.7
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	3.0
Additional comments from the Committee: Fits with strategic direction of knowledge equity; seeks to increase coverage of African language content. The project is interesting but the high cost doesn't seem to give it a sustainability. I am not convinced this project will necessarily translate into constant articles. As the problem is not training or engagement as its mainly socio-economic and willingness. Overall the project goal is a good fit with strategic priorities by helping expand content and develop communities of Wikimedia projects in indigenous South African languages. There is a significant potential for online impact if the project succeeds and really transforms these plans into involvement of local communities. There are, however, concerns of sustainability as there is no plan on how to retain these editors after the end of the project I cannot identify how the proposal can be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends. It aligns with the strategic direction of Wikimedia. It doesn’t have a very impressive online impact. Going through the project plan doesn’t make me confident that this project will be sustainable because the program is not good enough to retain these editors after the project. This project already has a large budget, and I don’t think this is scalable beyond this. Also, this is not very feasible to adapt. Proposal shows creative thinking around how to address the low number of African language editors; idea of establishing a language cohort of engaged and trained individuals who can contribute to both Wikimedia projects and Pukupedia is an interesting one. However measures aren’t totally clear, nor is the connection between Wikimedia and Pukupedia engagement. Content goal (# of articles) seems very ambitious. I am quite skeptical that a cohort can become Wikipedians. WIkipedians are not something that can be made (https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Theory_of_change). This is a mix of innovative initiatives and re-using initiatives successful elsewhere. Workshops in indigenous languages were already done elsewhere, they were successful in some countries (I can think of Canada), not that much in others. Cohorts of active interested volunteers were used in many of them and were crucial for success. On the other hand, there is a significant risk related to lack of Wikimedia training anywhere in the organising team which makes risks greater than potential impact. These risks can be overcome by WMZA involvement in the project. The project has very high risk and low output. Also, I think it is difficult to see the project have a lasting impact. The project involves a lot of risks. It is good that they are training a specific set of individuals to contribute to African languages Wikipedians. The number is too small for a project of this scale. The plan doesn’t seem to involve any local Wikimedians (including Wikimedia ZA) for training activities. Also, it has been mentioned that they’ll have two edit-a-thons with 30 participants each, and produce 750 articles in total. This is a very ambitious goal, according to me, it is next to impossible, unless if their edit-a-thons run for weeks. In any other case, the quality of the articles produced would be compromised, which is not welcoming. The overall project goals are vague and don’t mention any specifics. It is said that they’ll form partnerships with ten organizations, but there is no plan how they are going to make sure these organisations or their staff members/members, contribute to Wikimedia projects. I believe the plan and the activities are too limited for a project of this scale. Participants appear to have no Wikimedia experience which is very worrying. Besides good intentions, there is little evidence to suggest this approach to engagement will be successful as it does not address issues cited by applicants as barriers to editing (economic issues, free time, connectivity, etc.) Lack of any Wikimedia experience by participants is a major concern. There is no involvement with small but still existent communities of Wikimedia projects in the target languages. Costs for trainings are very high, and honestly bringing qualified trainers who are already Wikimedians (from WMZA or not) would be more justified than "comprehensive review and Wiki editing training process" made by non-Wikimedians. Without any community involvement this project is likely to fail. I can't see any people who experienced on Wikimedia will leading or be part of the team. It makes the proposal would very hard to execute. In addition, the budget of the proposal looks not clear and too big. The budget is not at all reasonable for the mentioned project plan, activities, editor engagement and eventually the online impact. 72,994 USD to train 15 editors, two edit-a-thons (30 participants each) and producing 750 articles, is too much. This can be done with a much lower budget. Would like to hear from Wikimedia ZA chapter and better understand their role in this. In a project like this that would make wikipedians, the community is not involved. I think this project needs to be announced to the South African Wikimedia community for their comments and thoughts. On one hand, target communities are well-identified, and project does support diversity. On the other hand, the project has literally no plan to engage with existing communities (be it local Wikipedia communities or WMZA community) and has no support from these communities. I thus have serious concerns about success of this project. Such a project usually requires strong support from the local Wiki community, but I did not see it. The project also fails to involve the local Wikimedia community for its activities. Since the project aims to train 15 Wikipedians, I would expect some endorsements or comments from active contributors to those projects. I think the communities are not well informed about this. In my opinion the costs for many workshops are really high and the project doesn't seem to be able to build a community. I have the feeling that the goal is to make or to build wikipedians but I am skeptical that this can be done. I don't see value to have this cohort to Wikimania, but it seems more interesting to have them in a regional meeting (WikiIndaba). In case of acceptance, the budget should be drastically reduced. Globally I have the feeling that the proposal is created by an idea but without a clear planning or analysis. I don't think this project is different from the regular Wikipedia trainings that go on in South Africa, I only admire the capacity to organise and constantly follow up. This though does not change the fact that people contribute when or if they want and not as it is pitched as though the solution will completely solve the problem. I would support this project *only conditional on WMZA involvement in it*, and only if the project is done in collaboration between Puku, WMZA and local communities and reshaped together. The idea is good, and potentially impactful, and Puku's involvement is an interesting opportunity for our movement. However, lack of any involvement from active Wikipedians in the current state will mean failure of the project. If Puku is doing this project alone without any support from WMZA or local communities, my vote will be "No". The project’s activities are not reasonable for the proposed budget. It doesn’t engage the community at all, and also project involves too much in terms of remuneration.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

@Legendphambuka: Please see note above about the opportunity to respond to committee comments before they finalize a decision on your proposal. Please let me know if you have any questions. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Round 2 2018 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

On behalf of the Project Grants Committee, KCVelaga (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC)