Grants talk:Conference/Sivakosaran/Tamil Wikipedia 16 Years Celebrations

Hi @KHarold (WMF): We may need to make some changes to the following sections:

• Event overview
• Community Input
• Friendly space policy
• Participation
• Scholoarships
• Risks
• Budget

We will appreciate if you can allow us to make the changes before 11th March. Thanks. Copy: @Sivakosaran:--16:17, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Sivakosaran:, please answer the three questions in the community engagement section of the grant request. Specifically, please let us know how many people you sent the survey to and how many people responded. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @KHarold (WMF):, sorry for the belated reply. I had indicated there that I did not send out a survey. I did not notice the dates for the application deadline for Conference Grants and I had initiated discussion on village pump. Hence I used that inputs to prepare this application. Do you want me to send out survey and answer these questions in a week? Thanks. --Sivakosaran (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sivakosaran, The grant guidelines and the instructions in the grant application do make it clear that a survey is required. If there has been significant discussion on the village pump, then we may be able to use that input instead. Please link to the discussion on the village pump and tell us how many people participated in the discussion by adding specific input about what they want and need to do at a community meeting. I will review the village pump discussion tomorrow and give you instructions about next steps. Thank you, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 01:42, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @KHarold (WMF):, here are the discussion pages:

1) https://ta.wikipedia.org/s/72j4 - This is the recent discussions about the 15 years celebrations

2) https://ta.wikipedia.org/s/5wsv - This is the discussion that held a year ago when we got a grant to conduct an article contest, as a starting point of 15 years celebrations.

I had closely followed the grants procedure for the 10th year celebrations in 2013 and I didn't realize a new guideline is in place until late February. Hence I thought it was too close to the deadline to conduct a survey and went with the inputs from discussion pages. Let me know what we can do now to make sure to comply with the guidelines. Thank you for your kind consideration. --Sivakosaran (talk) 15:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sivakosaran, thank you for sharing these links so quickly, and explaining why you did not do a survey. A lot has changed in grant processes in the last 5 years - it is unfortunate that you didn't see the new conference application process until close to the deadline. I sent messages to Wikimedia-L in January telling people about the new requirements for community input. It would be helpful to know what other communication channels I should share this information on for future grant rounds.

It seems clear from the village pump discussions that there is interest from several people in having a gathering that brings together Tamil Wikimedians from both Sri Lanka and India, however there was no discussion about what specifically your community wants to work on during an in-person meetup. I do not think that there has been sufficient planning at this stage to send this proposal to the grant committee for review.

• Conduct a community engagement survey. I will send you a template by email that I think will help your community prioritize the trainings and discussions they want to have together.
• Reconsider the location of the event. We generally advise conference organizers to choose a location that is within 1 hour of the airport so that participants do not have to spend a significant amount of time on travel to the venue, and to simplify planning for travelers with different arrival and departure times.
• Sightseeing should be limited to a 1/2 day.
• If you plan to invite 50 academics and students to the 15th anniversary event, you will need to explain why they would be chosen and what kind of follow up you would do after the event.
• We will need to pay close attention to planning the budget, since unused funds from grants to India cannot be returned.

I am going to change the status of this application to draft. I will send you the survey template by email today. In June we should schedule a call to discuss the next steps in planning so that I can support you to prepare an application for the next funding round in September. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @KHarold (WMF):, thank you for your review. It makes sense to not submit for this round of funding. I should have checked the process earlier. I'll pass on the message to the community and we'll work on a better proposal to have a meet-up in early 2019. --Sivakosaran (talk) 15:01, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

16th Year Celebrations Submission

I am re-submitting the proposal after following the proper procedure this year, to conduct an event later this year. We'll add a few more points to the proposal within a couple of days. But that will not affect the budget. Thank you. --Sivakosaran (talk) 15:19, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Sivakosaran, thank you for submitting this proposal. We are happy to see your community's interest in hosting a regional conference. However, the current proposal is missing significant information required for us to determine the impact the community will gain from funding this conference. In general, we do recognize the benefits from social gathering, but we also expect to see clear goals and objectives, followed by real progress in creating impactfull and measurable activities. Therefore, we would ask you to clarify and elaborate some of the issues bellow.

Community input

1. Strategic discussions

Please give further details on what kind of Policy Decisions are you referring to. Please specify on:

• What specific policies does the community suggest to discuss?
• Have there been recent challenges in making policy decisions? What were those challenges?
• What efforts have been made to overcome those challenges?
• What impact have these challenges had on the community?
• What are you hoping to achieve in regards to this issue? What would progress/success look like?

2. Capacity development: You mentioned working on Wiki tools as an important skill.

• Which wiki tools? How do you know which are the most needed to the community?
• Ways to attract more participation - What kind of participation would you like to attract?

3. Working groups:

• What do you mean by 'Cleaning up some articles'?

4. Community building:

• What kind of collaboration has happened in the past?
• Were there specific challenges or successes?
• Are there specific opportunities around collaboration you want to work on?

Context

• How did the 10th Year Celebrations in 2013 had helped strengthen the community and create outreach opportunities? Can you please provide examples so we can understand the potential impact this event can have on the community?
• It sounds like some of the struggles of the 2013 conference could have been a bit easier with more team members. Do you now have the capacity in terms of manpower, to host such an event?

Plan

• As I understand, it takes about 7 hours drive to get to Jaffna from Colombo airport. Do you have any other options for closer locations?
• Target audience - please elaborate. What kind of skills are required from participants? And how will you reach them?

Risks

Please fill in the Risks part of the proposal.

Budget

• Certificates for 100 active editors - will all 100 expected participants will receive Certificates? or do you mean sending those to the most active editors on Tamil Wikipedia?

Not all participants will be given a certificate. Certificates will be sent to selected Wikipedians - up to 100. We probably won't give away 100 certificates. It could be 70-80. We are rounding up to be on the safe side, if needed.

• Professional photographer/videographer - what will the promotional videos be used for?

The videos can be used for future outreach activities. Videos from 10th year event are available in Wiki Commons.

• The Total amount does not match the 'Total cost of event' line.

Fixed

• Can you please refer us to where this event has been discussed in the community (since the talk page indicate it was last discussed in early 2018)?

There were 21 Tamil Wikipedians gathered in Amritsar, Punjab, India for the Project Tiger Training in Dec 2018. We had a special discussion outside the training sessions for this event. On wiki discussions took place in early 2018 when we wanted this event in 2018, but could not secure the funds.

• If it's the 16th Year Celebrations, and not 15th, then please amend the proposal headline.

Edited.

Please complete this information at your earliest convenient so we can review the full proposal again. Best,CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Reply

Thank you for the inputs CAlmog (WMF). I have updated the proposal based on your concerns. I have answered the questions under Budget in-line. Please review again and let me know if further changes needed.--Sivakosaran (talk) 08:58, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Sivakosaran, Thank you.

I still have a few more concerns.

Hi CAlmog (WMF), see my replies in-line below.

1. Venue location - 7 hours of drive each way seems a lot for a two days conference. Would you consider making the effort to host the event in Colombo, or near?

The venue is the home city for most Sri Lankan Tamil Wikipedians (including those contributing from outside Sri Lanka) and a team of at least 6 members can work on the arrangements here. It is extremely difficult to change the location. Also, for the Tamil Wikipedians from India, the majority expressed views that the Indian Tamil Wikipedians should see and experience the culture of Tamils in Sri Lanka. To do that, it is necessary for the even to be held in an area where Tamils live prominently.

2. How many nights does the accommodation scholarship include?

2 nights. I mentioned as 2 days in the budget.

3. Video coverage - what kind of outreach do you hope to do with the videos? Also, could you provide the view rate of videos from the 10th year event? What was done with those (apart from being published on Wiki Commons)?

I need to find out more info from Ravishankar who was the primary organizer for the 10th year event, as to how the videos were used other than social media promotions. In this regard, I followed the 10th year budget and estimated for the 2 day coverage. We can go for 1-day coverage (2nd day only), with someone from our team taking photos/videos for the first day events. We can rely on amateur photographers (Wikipedians) for the entire event, if we find out from Ravishankar that the professional videos did not make an impact. Thank you. --Sivakosaran (talk) 11:10, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 10:46, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Candidates for Scholarship

Candidates from India

Candidates selected based on availability, having 500 edits before 2019 May 1 (to account for the edits before the announcement of the event) and recent activity:

1. Arularasan. G (M)
2. Balajijagadesh (M)
3. Balu1967 (M)
4. Balurbala (M)
5. Deepa_arul (F)
6. Hibayathullah (M)
7. Info-farmer (M)
8. j.shobia (F)
9. Neechalkaran (M)
10. Ravidreams (M)
11. Sridhar G (M)
12. Thamizhpparithi Maari (M)
13. Tshrinivasan (M)
14. Vasantha Lakshmi V (F)
15. Yercaud-elango (M)
16. காந்திமதி (F)
17. கி.மூர்த்தி (M)
18. தமிழ்க்குரிசில் (M)
19. தென்காசி சுப்பிரமணியன் (M)
20. Mohammed Ammar (M)

Candidates on the waiting list:

1. உலோ.செந்தமிழ்க்கோதை (M)
2. Abinaya Murthy (F)
3. Rsmn (M)
4. Joshua-timothy-J (M)
5. TVA ARUN (M)
6. RUPA MANGALA R (F)
7. திவ்யாகுணசேகரன் (F)

Candidates from Sri Lanka

1. Sancheevis (M)
2. ஜெ.ஜெயகிரிசாந் (M)
3. prasadbatti (M)
4. Thivasel (M)
5. Fahimrazick (M)

Delay in submitting the report

Hi CAlmog (WMF), The report is ready for review. There was a delay of 10 days in preparing the report and I apologize for the delay. Thank you for all the support and guidance. --Sivakosaran (talk) 15:50, 9 February 2020 (UTC)