Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Kashkadarya Regional Program:Season II (ID: 23940413)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
MirfayzbekAbdullayev (talk • accounts • contributions • edit count)
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Kashkadarya Regional Program:Season II
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2026-09-01 - 2026-09-04
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
Uzbekistan
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) Regional Program
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
The Kashkadarya Region suffers from a profound information deficit on Wikimedia platforms that limits global access to its cultural, historical, and scientific heritage. Wikivoyage content for the region is critically outdated and skeletal, with the main city page lacking essential practical sections such as "Do," "Buy," "Drink," "Go next," and "Get around," while only 2 out of 16 districts have any dedicated pages at all. Simultaneously, Wikimedia Commons lacks high-quality visual documentation for the region's heritage, leaving internationally significant sites like the Maydanak Observatory, one of the world's top four observatories for atmospheric seeing and the only one on a dry continent, completely undocumented, while thousands of other historical sites across the region remain visually absent. The existing Wikipedia articles on heritage sites provide only superficial data, such as construction dates and official registration numbers, which is insufficient for researchers, educators, or travelers seeking meaningful information.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
Our project will be implemented through a carefully structured 4-day program followed by a two-week online edit-a-thon. On Day 1, we will conduct an intensive workshop focused on Wikivoyage, teaching participants the specific syntax for creating travel guides, including how to structure pages with sections like "Understand," "Get in," "See," "Do," "Buy," "Eat," "Drink," "Sleep," and "Go next," and participants will begin drafting the missing sections for the Qarshi city page. On Day 2, we will hold a Wikipedia and Commons masterclass covering advanced article writing techniques, sourcing from scientific literature and official heritage data, and uploading media files with proper categorization and licensing, while also preparing participants for the upcoming phototour by assigning them to district teams. On Day 3, we will organize a coordinated phototour where participants divided into six teams will visit six different districts of the region to capture high-quality images of historical and cultural sites, including architectural details, panoramas, and crowd-free documentation. On Day 4, we will conduct a dedicated expedition to the Maydanak Observatory to produce the first comprehensive set of quality images of the telescopes and infrastructure for Wikimedia Commons. Following the field activities, we will host a two-week online edit-a-thon where participants will upload their collected media files, create new Wikipedia articles about the documented heritage sites, and develop complete Wikivoyage pages for the districts they visited, ensuring all content is properly formatted, sourced, and integrated into the respective projects.
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
MirfayzbekAbdullayev - Head of Core organizing team and reponsible for general matters
Sardorablokulov - Wikimedia mentor for training participants
Zakovatium - mobile videograper, responsible for social media pages
YUI 3414 - volunteer, responsible for registering the participants
AzizaSarvarovna - volunteer, logistics manager
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
First of all, we will announce the workshop and open the application form. In addition, I plan to collaborate with local government departments to help select participants for the workshop. For example, the Regional Department of Education is ready to provide a list of school and university students who are passionate about spreading free knowledge. Furthermore, the Regional Department of Youth Affairs has agreed to voluntarily provide a large monitor and laptops, which will be ideal for the practical sessions during the workshop. The workshop itself will be promoted on-wiki through publishing CentralNotice banner in Uzbek, Karakalpak, Russian and English for any users from Uzbekistan.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
Yes
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
All contacts with them are made under Law of Republic of Uzbekistan №139. (https://lex.uz/docs/1297318)
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
We discussed the idea of this project extensively with the Uzbek Wikimedia community through our monthly online meetings, where we presented the concept of Season 2, shared the lessons learned from Season 1, and received strong support and constructive feedback from community members. During the May monthly online meeting, community members actively participated in refining the project scope, suggesting the inclusion of Wikivoyage as a primary focus based on the identified content gaps, and recommending specific districts and heritage sites to prioritize for documentation. We also coordinated with local Wikimedians who have experience in travel guide creation to ensure our training materials and methodologies align with community standards and best practices. Additionally, we consulted with contributors who have worked on similar documentation projects in other regions to avoid potential pitfalls and incorporate successful strategies. The Uzbek Wikimedia community has endorsed this initiative as a priority for expanding the reach and quality of free knowledge about Uzbekistan, and we will continue to keep the community informed of our progress through regular updates and open invitations to participate in the edit-a-thon phase of the project.
Event discussion page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:Wikimedians_of_the_Uzbek_Language_User_Group_Monthly_Meeting_May_2026
Kashkadarya Regional Program:Season I article is available on Diff: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/12/05/the-great-leap-on-uzbek-wikipedia-how-we-are-expanding-our-community-with-youth-in-uzbekistan/
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Culture, heritage or GLAM
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Age (diversity of age groups)
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
Through the implementation of Kashkadarya Regional Program: Season II, we hope to learn several key lessons that will inform our future Wikimedia initiatives and potentially serve as a model for other regions. First, we want to understand whether a structured training program combining Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, and Commons documentation can effectively activate a previously inactive language version of Wikivoyage, and specifically, whether participants with no prior experience in travel guide creation can successfully produce complete, practical Wikivoyage pages that meet community standards and are actually useful for travelers. Second, we aim to learn how the expansion of Uzbek Wikivoyage content affects user engagement and readership, and whether the creation of comprehensive travel guides for one region encourages further contributions to other regions by the same participants or inspires other Uzbek Wikimedians to follow suit. Third, we want to evaluate the effectiveness of our capacity-building approach by measuring how many participants continue contributing to Wikimedia projects after the program concludes, and what factors most influence their long-term retention and motivation to remain active in the community. Fourth, we seek to understand the challenges and best practices for documenting scientific heritage sites like the Maydanak Observatory, including how to capture and present technical and scientific information in an accessible way for general audiences while maintaining encyclopedic accuracy and quality. Fifth, we hope to learn about the practical logistics of coordinating large-scale phototours across multiple districts simultaneously, including the most efficient methods for organizing teams, managing equipment, ensuring safety, and producing consistent quality of media files across different locations. Finally, we want to assess the impact of partnerships with regional government and scientific institutions on the success and sustainability of Wikimedia projects, specifically whether such collaborations can be replicated in other regions to unlock access to previously undocumented heritage sites and scientific facilities. By answering these learning questions through participant surveys, contribution tracking, qualitative feedback, and analysis of content quality and readership metrics, we will gain valuable insights that can strengthen future proposals and contribute to the broader Wikimedia movement's understanding of how to expand and diversify content from underrepresented regions.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 30 | |
| Number of editors | 35 | Newly Registered Users: 30
Organizers: 5 |
| Number of organizers | 5 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 250 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 300 |
| Wikidata | 50 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | 14 |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
N/A
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wFpgnyA2187JhB9BoFo6xp0DsvIYATc6jGdKv8zta3I/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
59659497 UZS
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
4985 USD
- By submitting your proposal/funding request you confirm that you have read and agree to the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy, and the Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).