Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Gikü/Wiki Loves Earth 2021 in Moldova

Comments from WMF

Hi Gikü, thanks so much for submitting this comprehensive grant request. We are delighted that you are planning to run another WLE campaign in Moldova. I've reviewed your grant request and have only two comments:

• We now require all grantees to announce their projects and receive the community feedback in advance. Could you please announce this project and grant on the relevant community pages on the target wiki(s)? Community notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talk page, or mailing list. Please paste a link into the proposal page to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.
• In the proposal you mentioned that the project is organized by Wikimedians of Romania and Moldova User Group members. In such cases we request to credit the grant to the user group and apply for it on the user group's behalf. So, please change the grant type, and add the user group's name and a secondary contact to the probox. I understand that you've applied as an individual to avoid the financial challenges; however, even with the "group" grant type, we might be able to send the funds to your bank account in Moldova.

Thanks again for all your contributions! We look forward to hearing from you. Best, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@DSaroyan (WMF): Thank you for the initial review! I have added an announcement to the Romanian village pump at ro:Wikipedia:Cafenea#Caut să obțin undă verde pentru Wiki Loves Earth și Wiki Loves Monuments în Moldova, 2021. Before submitting the grant requests, I had also shared them to the Facebook community "Moldovans on Wikipedia". At the village pump, someone asked to clarify whether the grant is for WMROMD or not. Which is, I believe, what you are suggesting to address as well. After I clarified the bureaucratics within WMROMD, I am OK to change the grant type. Please confirm that in this case the funds can still be wired directly to me (in Moldova), as was the case in the previous installments of WLE. All the best! Gikü (talk) 14:51, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Gikü! Yes, I confirm that funds will be transferred directly to you. Please note that we'll request the current bank account holder for Wikimedians of Romania and Moldova User Group to co-sign the grant agreement with you. Kindly make the requested changes. All the best, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 09:14, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Approved

Hi Gikü, thanks for your work on this grant proposal. We are happy to approve it and support your project. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Change request

@DSaroyan (WMF): et al.: I would like to request an extension on the time-frame reserved for the photo-expedition and, as a consequence, on the grant period as well.

Reason for the change request.

On May 9, the photographer that initially agreed to collaborate and go in a photo-expedition funded within WLE, Botnaristefan, announced that he would not be able to proceed, because he had a car accident the same day he was traveling to his first spots. Later I tried to find another photographer who would do the task, but was unsuccessful and was ready to leave the funds unspent and to file them as remaining funds in the grant report. However, recently I got in touch with our former partners from the Society for Protection of Birds and Nature of Moldova (SPPN), who took part in a similar photo-expedition in 2018. They expressed their interest in collaborating this year, thanks to their shared passion for the Moldovan nature.

We agreed that I would transfer the funds to them instead of Botnaristefan, but they do not believe that they would be able to cover the initially planned quantity of areas (as stated in the grant request, Botnaristefan would use the opportunity to create artistic photos, non-Wiki, for his own portfolio, so part of the expenses would've been covered by him personally). We lowered the expected number of covered areas to 25. Given the fact that they can only travel on weekends, they will not be able to do their trips in June only. Hence I request for the photo-expedition time-frame to be requested until end of July. This would mean that the grant end date will need to be postponed accordingly.

So I would like to make the following changes to the funded grant request:

• end date: 'July 31' instead of 'June 30'
• in Calendar / schedule: 'June–July: Photo expedition' instead of 'April–May: Photo expedition'

Thank you. Gikü (talk) 08:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello Gikü, thanks for posting this update on your project.

• Thanks for adjusting your initial targets, we support it too.
• We approve the proposed new dates for the photo expedition.
• Additionally, we changed the grant end date to July 31. The final report is now due on August 31.

Good luck, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:13, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Change request 2

As per Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Gikü/Wiki Loves Earth 2021 in Moldova/Report, I would like to request a further extension of the report deadline.

The context is described at matter #2 in Grants:Project/Rapid/Gikü/Wiki Loves Earth 2021 in Moldova/Report#Remaining funds. Unfortunately, ever since the winners were announced a month ago there were few chances for me to meet with the winners. I needed several days at the start of August to gather winners' preferences about which $60 gift each one of them wants, and also to wait for the printing company to print out the postcards. August 6–15 I was in a vacation. Afterwards, I managed to meet 4 winners (IurieSvet – 2nd place; Criss90kf – 3rd place and Most prolific participant; Tanyaofearth – Best fresh image; MrWorldWandere – one of the lottery winners) but as of August 31 I still have 3 winners who I could not meet:

1. Emile var Emreis, 1st place winner, is temporarily abroad
2. SerKo Photography, one of the lottery winners, is temporarily abroad
3. Elena Ioan, one of the lottery winners, cannot be reached... neither by email (thru Commons) nor by the Facebook posts instructing her of him to contact WLE ([1] [2] [3]).

To mitigate the issue of not distributing all the prizes within the agreed time frame, I have been advised to request a further extension. Please review if this is possible to:

extend the report due date to September 30 instead of August 31

• If the request is not approved, please let me know how to proceed with the funds I had used to purchase the prizes for these three participants
• If the request is approved, my immediate action items are: 1) to meet with Emile var Emreis and SerKo Photography once they return from abroad; 2) to run a new iteration of the lottery in order to find another winner besides unresponsive Elena Ioan.

Thank you. CC DSaroyan (WMF). Gikü (talk) 10:43, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello Gikü, thanks for the update, your request is formally approved. The new grant end date is September 30, 2021 with the reporting due date on October 30, 2021. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 08:26, 1 September 2021 (UTC)