Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Mompati Dikunwane/Wikipedia-meet-up and workshop

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, we are happy to see the plan you have submitted to restart Wikipedia Wednesdays in your town. I understand that they were successful in the past. We have a few questions about your plans:

1. Hosting lunch for 200 people is expensive relative to the other costs of the program. Do you think it would be reasonable to offer snacks, instead?
2. Do you and the other editors on your team have experience teaching people how to edit? If not, you might consider asking a librarian to help you plan what you will teach people during each event.
3. It might be a good idea to focus your events on a particular set of content that people in your community are familiar with or that they would be interested in. In the first event, you could even ask people to work in groups to make lists of topics or articles that are missing, or that need to be expanded. You could use the large event to teach people how to search Wikipedia and even how to create red links. Then in your smaller events on Wednesdays, people could work on creating or improving articles from the first event. Does this sound like something that would fit with your idea, or do you have other ideas for how you will keep people engaged in the event series?

Please let us know if you have any questions or would like to discuss your project more. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Answers to the questions from WMF (Questions/Comments and Answers)

1. Hosting lunch for 200 people is expensive relative to the other costs of the program. Do you think it would be reasonable to offer snacks, instead?

Hello KHarold (WMF), Thank you so much for acknowledging my request. Yes we have good wikimedian community in Botswana and we hope to engage more people through this event and other workshops.

• I want to thank you again for giving me a great advice to save costs, the idea of providing snacks instead of lunch because lunch is a bit expensive compared to other costs.

1. Do you and the other editors on your team have experience teaching people how to edit? If not, you might consider asking a librarian to help you plan what you will teach people during each event.

• I personally will be leading the workshop teachings since i have a lot of experience and trainings i attained from the previous conferences i attended ( Wiki indaba 2014 in Johanesburg, Oral Citations Workshop in Otjinene and Wiki indaba 2017) therefore i will be teaching newbies what Wikipedia is, how simply Wikipedia works and how they can be a part, and engaging the existing editors into using tools available in Wikimedia projects, in addition i will consider your advice to engage the librarian to help out with other topics to work on to make things easier.I have notes/ Slides on 5 Wikipedia pillars,Templates,Categories, Wikipedia infoboxes and Wikipedia Citation and Referencing that will help me to lecture especially the newbies, i am also going to share the slides with the members to learn more.

1. It might be a good idea to focus your events on a particular set of content that people in your community are familiar with or that they would be interested in. In the first event, you could even ask people to work in groups to make lists of topics or articles that are missing, or that need to be expanded. You could use the large event to teach people how to search Wikipedia and even how to create red links. Then in your smaller events on Wednesdays, people could work on creating or improving articles from the first event. Does this sound like something that would fit with your idea, or do you have other ideas for how you will keep people engaged in the event series?

• We will first start with what people are interested in to avoid boredom in the first place, and try to make a set of groups to come up with topics that are missing or that we can work on, the libririan will be engaged here to help out.
• People are going to be taught how to search and find if an article exist or not, and how to put it into existence if not available for instance the red link will mean that an article is missing therefore the use of a sandbox to test or draft and article will be taught to people to avoid speedy deletions of their articles which may frustrate them.
• We will make the first event a big one to welcome people and teach them more about Wikipedia and its policies, missions, visions and objectives and later use our Wikipedia Wednesdays as small event meet-up to improve articles from the first event.

Funding decision

Hi Mompati , I apologize for not responding to your comments sooner, I did not communicate with the other program officers who are reviewing rapid grants about how and when to respond to this request. Thank you for your thorough responses to my questions. It sounds like you have a good plan in place for the kickoff event and the series of Wikipedia Wednesdays. We would like to approve this request, however, first I need you to update the budget for the first event to show the cost of providing snacks instead of lunch. Once you have updated the budget, either Wolliff (WMF) or I will approve the request. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi KHarold (WMF), thank you so much for accepting my request, i have updated the budget estimates.
Best
Mompati Dikunwane.

Request for change of event date

Hi KHarold (WMF)
I am kindly requesting for changing the date at which our project starts, this is because we are experiencing heavy rainfall in Botswana due to the tropical cyclone dineo which made her way through to the Limpopo province, so according to the metereological services the weather conditions will get better by mid March or end of March. People will not come in numbers as hoped during the period we chose that is 10^th of March because of the rain, so i kindy ask to change to the date 24^th March 2017, i will make it clear to everyone about this matter thank you.

Links of reference:

• Heavy rainfall in Botswana

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, thank you for noting the circumstances of your start date; it makes sense to us. We've taken note of the new start date. Let us know if the weather doesn't improve by then, but we hope it will cooperate in time! Cheers, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Morgan Jue (WMF), i still have this problem of weather conditions being un cooperative, i will now take it from your advice on what i should do, either to wait a little bit for this weather to cooperate or to disburse back the funds and wait for another opportunity to come forth, i am kindly requesting for some days to see if this will get well, thats if you find it okay also. Thank you for understanding.
Best Mompati Dikunwane

I am happy to announce that the event started on Tuesday 04 2017 and can be followed here:

• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia-meet-up_and_workshop

Request for local transport funds reimbursment after the event/report submission

Hi again KHarold (WMF), this is a kind request for reimbursement of local transport fees to be used on the project activities for instance the cab/bus fares. The reason here is because i will have to get a bus to buy/collect printed t-shirts, banners/tags, travelling to the meeting venue e.t.c. an estimate of up to $150, this is just an estimate to allow for the foundation to budget for the costs and i shall provide all the receipts at your convenience.Thank you so much for your time in reading my request.

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, please use the $100 USD included in your budget to cover unexpected costs to pay for these expenses. We can discuss increasing the grant amount later if you get close to exceeding the budget. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Request for increament of grant funds Hi KHarold (WMF) hope you are well, we have ran short of funds, and i tried reaching out to you via email to let you know that we will resume other events when we are assistance with other funds. Thank you.
user:Mompati Dikunwane

Hi KHarold (WMF), hope all is well, i tried several times reaching out to you, it seems you are quite very busy, i have requested to have grant funds increased to resume the series of events, i will again request for extension of the of the report submission deadline, thank you so much for your attention. Mompati Dikunwane