Grants talk:IEG/Colours of Bangladesh

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Lists[edit]

Project draft lacks mention of whether government lists exist and in what status they are, as well as of WLM status in the country. --Nemo 14:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. I was preparing a list and updated the Project Components section of the project. I am updating the list of monuments in my native Bengali Wikipedia (link, bn:WP:WikiProject_Colours_of_Bangladesh/List). This list is prepared based on the list created by the archeology dept of Bangladesh (http://www.archaeology.gov.bd/allsiteslist.php). This govt list is not updated at all. Now we have 7 divisions in our country but it is showing only 6. There is no date mentioned when the list was updated but at the bottom of the page there is a copyright text Copyright © 2005, All rights reserved by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh. So i assume that after the 2005 the site might not updated.
Last year we (the Wikimedia Bangladesh Chapter) added or name to the list of organizers. But we removed our name at the 11th hour. Because WLM is a big event and on that time we did not had enough active volunteer to do the offline tasks. And we are not participating for the same reason this year. I was working on the list with the help of few other volunteers. But it was stopped.
WLM is just a contest, but here the goal is to improve the quality of the articles. At the same time through this project a new set of volunteers will participate to the Wikimedia projects.

--Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 07:32, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I don't understand the answer: are you planning to use the official lists or not? --Nemo 19:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Of course we will use the official list. The official lists will be the base and we will expand the list based on the discussion. Here we are not creating a list of heritage places nor it is for the WLM, it will be a list of those important monuments/place/event (in phase one, mostly architectural monuments) which should have an article in Wikipedia. We are going to improve/create all of those articles, in different phases of the project.
If we are writing an article on some monuments/place/event then a photograph of that topic is a must and without an image the article is incomplete. So here we are planning to start from the photograph. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 19:49, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. So shouldn't you including in your roadmap the step of getting authorisation/free licensing of the official lists? Or how do you plan to legally use them? --Nemo 21:32, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I found a list of archaeology sites in the govt website. For this project we are going to prepare a list. If we start from scratch it will end with something similar to the govt list. So we are using it as a base and prepared our own list. We will work on our own list and it do not have any copyright/licensing issue.
I may not understand your question, please let me know if i did not understand it.--Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 17:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter affiliations[edit]

What chapter affiliations do you have for this project? What does Wikimedia India and Wikimedia Bangladesh say about this? How would you feel about getting feedback from those chapters about this project? Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I want to get feedback form everyone and make this a successful project. Wikimedia Bangladesh is not fully functional now, so i am not sure how far it will help the project officially. But the project is going to host in Bangladesh, improve the Bengali Wikipedia (along with English Wiki) and expand the community by engaging the photography community, so i believe there will be a lot of options where the chapter can give their input. Along with this I talked with a few executive committee members of the chapter, active Wikipedians and few photography community of Bangladesh. They appreciate the project and wanted to get involved.
At the Wikimania i meet many wikimedians form different chapters. I discussed about the project with them, they game some advice and their thoughts about the project. I talked with some of the members of Wikimedia India there and in my last visit to Nepal i also met the Nepal community there. They were very hopeful about the project and wanted to start similar/same project in their own country. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 18:22, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As the president of the Wikimedia Foundation Bangladesh, I could say that we will help him in all possible way. Unfortunately, our chapter legalization is yet to be completed as the application for the registration is yet to cleared by few government agencies. That's why, we are still not taking any big initiative from the chapter itself. Nasir had has talked to me about the project and I think this could help us to enrich our wikipedia as well as to create awareness for the same. I am endorsing Nasir's idea. Munirhasan (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

British Museum photos[edit]

I believe that en:user:AroundTheGlobe has been trying to get historical photos from the British Museum for some time. If you want to preserve Bengali heritage then I expect that the British while they were there took some interesting photographs and drawings of interest to both sides of Bengal. I really would like to support demands for free access to these things, and maybe that would be of interest to this project also. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would be great. At the very beginning i do not have the plan to search for the historical photos. But as you have mentioned that some other user is working on a similar goal, so we may try to get those photos from the very beginning of this project. As we are preparing a list, so initially i am interested to get the photos of those topics first, and then the others.
I support this initiative taken by en:user:AroundTheGlobe, and i am interested to join that team. Is there any project on this? or are you involved with this initiative, or should i talk to the user:AroundTheGlobe?--Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 18:38, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Local partners[edit]

Do you have any local partners planned for this? In other places museums and universities are typical partners, but if that is not possible, what about a social group of any kind? This could be an NGO, a society, a club for arts of any kind, or just any non-Wikipedian community who might be interested in participating in this project with you? Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am very active in a volunteer organization named "Bangladesh Open Source Network", they are contributing a lot from the very beginning of starting the Bengali Wikipedia Project. They have several (around 20) local groups, mainly at universities active in different districts of Bangladesh. They will assist me communicate and arrange events with the local photography community.
In this project the main target groups are the university based photography community, i will conduct an workshop and a photowalk for each community. I will encourage those universities to become a partner of the project, i hope they will join.
Along with this i will welcome any other community, organization to join this project. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 19:02, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's great! Besides them helping you, is the group willing to do anything more? For example, will they host you to present at meetings, give written feedback on your work for you to share here and in your reports, or even provide volunteers to assist you in what you do? I am especially interested in this project as a way to create lasting relationships between existing organizations and the Wikipedia community. to what extent do you expect that this open source network will continue to wish to learn about Wikipedia even after this project is complete? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

City base[edit]

Is this project based in Dhaka? How will any photohunts outside the city be organized? Is there any Wikipedia community outside of Dhaka? Just to get started, can you make proposals for three places - perhaps the first three places - where you would organize photo collection in this project? Imagine that you would do three one-day outreach events in different places. Where would you go and what would you do? Do you already have some idea of where all these bn:wp:WikiProject_Colours_of_Bangladesh/List places are and how you can visit them? Also, you want more places than what are on this list, right? Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The project is not only based on Dhaka. Most of the active wikipedians are based on Dhaka, but we have an active community in Chittagong and Rajshahi district. Apart form Dhaka other 3 places would be Chittagong, Rajshahi and Bagerhat District. All three places have a big list of heritage places, the Bagerhat city is a UNESCO heritage site.
The event plan would be, 2 active volunteers (at least) of this project will go to the venue. They will conduct an workshop and guide them to the photowalk. photo donation counter will remain open all the day. The local volunteer will assist us to run all the programs smoothly.
In Dhaka i know almost all the places added in the list and many of the places of the other districts i mentioned above. At the same time in Chittagong and Rajshahi we have active wikipedians and other volunteers of the local community( mentioned above section). Before the main event we will try to mark all the place in the map on event date the local volunteer will lead us. We will have a photo donation booth so others can just submit their photos instead of visiting that places and for Dhaka it is not that tough to visit all the places. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are the people in other districts engaged enough to introduce themselves here, either in English or Bangla? I am curious about what kind of other people will be participating outside of Dhaka and how they came to be interested in this project. I am not expecting much, but if 1-3 other people identified themselves and posted statements of support then I think that would be supporting evidence of some community engagement. Is anyone else willing to put their name on this project at this time? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Plans to develop articles[edit]

Have you found any fundamental texts that could be used to develop Wikipedia articles to go along with any pictures? If so, could you share a citation to 2-3 of them, even if they exist only in Bangla? I am just wondering how much work it will be to develop articles to go with pictures, should anyone wish to do this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:52, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned in the proposal that, contributors will be asked to upload the photograph with at least 2/3 line of caption. The reason is we have not visited all the places and we do not know the names. So in the captions we will search for the name of the monument and some other related info. As all of the places are heritage place, we can go to the national museum, read the books related to the archaeology and the national encyclopedia (named Banglapedia) has related information about all of those places. We can use those information to write the articles. At the same time many of the articles are availabe in Wikipedia, if required we may replace the image with a better one and image caption will help us to fine the related article.
I am leading the Banglapedia team to migrate all their content to a Mediawiki based site. Within December the new site will be published. On that time it will be easy to get the contents and write the articles on related topic. Example: Here is a link of the photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasir-khan/6130105993/ and related article on Banglapedia http://www.banglapedia.org/HT/S_0494.HTM --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 19:58, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What commitment has the Banglapedia team made to partnering with Wikipedia, if any? Once the content is on a MediaWiki site, will they still retain a non-free copyright? What are you expecting of the relationship between Banglapedia and this project?
How will contributors make the caption to go along with their photographs? What if someone photographs a place about which they know nothing? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deadline reminder, and some questions[edit]

Hi Nasir and all, Thanks very much for what you've got in this draft so far - I know it is a lot of work to put together a project proposal :)

Just a reminder that the deadline to propose IEGs for this round is 30 September. I hope you'll finish adding your budget request and information about all grantees who will participate in this project (note I've added some parameters to your infobox so that you can specify which participants might be advising or volunteering vs acting as grantees, feel free to move names around as needed!), and make any other additions to your page. What that's done, please let us know that you're ready for review by updating your infobox to status=PROPOSED!

I've got a few first questions:

  1. I'm curious why this project would need an IEG? Why would this not be an initiative that Wikimedia Bangladesh supports instead (perhaps via a Projects and Events Grant, if the chapter needed money to do so)? As an on-the-ground, workshop and outreach-style project that is very much focused on content related to local geography, this project seems like it might be best supported via local chapters. Your reasons will probably become clearer to me once you've added your budget request, of course, to understand better what kinds of costs you expect this project would involve...it might also be helpful to hear from Wikimedia Bangladesh about their thoughts on the proposal, if they're willing to endorse or give feedback on your idea? If they don't have the capacity to take on the project, but still think it is a good idea, that would be helpful to hear.
  2. I'm a bit concerned about sustainability of this project after the grant ends, so I'd like to hear more about what specifically you think you might create or do during the 6 months to help other volunteers can do more like this in the future (either in Bangladesh, or in other countries).
  3. Can you provide some targets in your measures of success section? I'd like to have a clearer idea of the scale you're looking for - how many photos/images/contributors would you want in order to call this project successful?
  4. Do you think there is any alignment with WikiLovesMonuments, or do you see this as entirely separate from that program?

Let me know if you have any questions that I can help with as well!

Wishing you best of luck completing this proposal. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Dear Siko, thanks for your comment.

Here is the reply of your queries.

  • I am interested to start this project for a long time. There are several reasons for this. First of all, information related to the Bangladesh heritage places are not available in the internet and due to several reasons many of the places are lost by now. So I believe start the initiative soon.
I agree with you that Wikimedia Bangladesh could do this project. But i think Wikimedia Bangladesh is not in a position to start this project right now. It is a offline project and we need some volunteers to move this project. We did not host the WLM this year and in the last year we had to step back at the very end. There are few specific reasons for this. Now the chapter only have an executive committee and chapter is not recruiting new members. Because the in our bylaws it is mentioned that we could not recruit new members until the local registration is completed. Again the general secretary of chapter moved to Germany recently. And we do not have that much active members right now.
It is a long term project and we are moving for a big goal. In the first phase we will arrange 20 events in 20 different locations of Bangladesh. For this we have to communicate to different groups and related authorities and there are other lots of tasks. So a coordinator is must, but from chapter we could not recruit any member (mentioned the reason above). So if i run this project (first phase) then i can assign a new coordinator and assistant coordinator as well.
This project is based on Commons and Wikipedia (BN and EN) and every one can join here. And the chapter is also included here, (in the budget) i have mentioned that 3 core member of the project will travel to the place where the event is happening. This members could be the chapter EC members, because all of the members are experienced contributors of wikipedia and they represent the chapter. At the same time we could ask the experienced/ well known photographers to travel with us so teach the participants.
The president of the Wikimedia Bangladesh endorsed the idea of the project and also mentioned the reason, why the chapter can not start this initiative now.
  • I have mentioned in the sustainability section of the proposal that this grant will be used to initiate and complete the first phase. After this phase the chapter will lead the project. I have mentioned that why i think that the chapter is not in a position to lead the project now. Within this 2 month our local registration will be completed and the chapter members are discussing internally how we can recruit new members. But the EC has not concluded to any discussion yet(I believe within next 6 month it will be done).
Through this project we will try to collect good photographs, enrich the wikipedia articles and the expend the community/contributors. We have planned to arranged to 20 events in 20 different locations, so there is a chance to meet a big number of peoples out there. the project structure can be used in other countries who want to achieve the similar goal. The steps are like this, prepare a list of important places, search the existing images/categories to the commons, search and mark the related articles of the wikipedia and update the list. Then communicate with the photographer community of the location where the monuments are located and organize photowalk, photo donation booth, workshop, group discussions and other different type of events. After the first have we will be able to publish move fine tuned work plan roadmap which might be helpful for others.
  • We will organize 20 events in this first phase. 15 events will be outside of the Dhaka and 5 events will be in the Dhaka city. We will try to cover all the places listed in Dhaka city. We did not set the locations of the outside Dhaka yet, but will try to cover all the places of the specific place. For example, we will go the Bagerhat city and update all the related articles of that city. We will need to discuss with the local community to finalize the locations outside Dhaka. As the project has not started yet we can not convince the local group to participate the project, because the project dose not exists yet. We will complete this as soon as we got the approval.
Beside the offline events we will communicate with all the online photographers community. We are updating the tutorials of the Wikipedia and localizing the brocure recently published for the Wikimedia Commons. We will ask then to participate and contribute by themselves and we will open a photo donation method where they can send their photos and will will upload those on behalf of them.
  • This project has some similarities with the WLM. But there are some major differences. WLM is a photo contest, there is no plan to retain the participants, and it is not required to use the best image to the related article. On the other side this project is not a contest, we will try to extent the contributor community and engage more photographers to the Wikipedia and we are asking this photos because we want to enrich the related wikipedia article. But wikimedia commons has some standard process to certify the quality of the photos via the Featured Image, Valuable Image and Quality Image. We will encourage the participants to join that process and at the end of the phase 1 we have a plan to arrange an exhibition and display the images which has achieved those qualities.--Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 18:16, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the replies, Nasir. It is useful to see folks from the BN chapter weighing in here as well. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Hi all, having read the proposal and discussions I think, this type of proposal with broad aspects needs more man-power, ground support from an organization. I hope it has that.

  • Can you answer again the above third question asked by Siko, please be specific this time? Also I find few of your points and messages kind of repetitive, please try to be concise and precise.
The goal of the project is improving the wikipedia articles by using the better images and also we will create articles which are not available now. We will call this project successful if we can improve/create 300 articles within the time frame. We do not have any exact target regarding the photos. Along with this we have planned to organize 20 events in 20 different institutions/areas of Bangladesh.
All the places are in Bangladesh. but the list is not completed yet.
  • I think it'd be easy for the committee to review, if we get to see the lists (not necessarily complete) mentioned in the first 4-5 points of section "Scope and activities".
Here is the list bn:WP:WikiProject Colours of Bangladesh/List where you will find these informations. If you check the history of the page then you will understand that at the very first i have populated a list and then other user extended the list and updated the name and link to the related article of the list items. On the list many of the items have red links, means the articles are not created yet. We will create that articles. We cam prepare several pages to show these activities but i think it is better to have in one place.
  • You may be known to many, but i think here on meta we'd like to know more of you, your work and experience details in Wikimedia movement. Could you please add the same at the Participant section? Thanks. Good luck. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 10:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The participants list has been updated. At the same time you have to understand the number of wikipedians may not that big. Only a few are interested in heritage and that is the key point of the project. We want to increase the number of contributors. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2013[edit]

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 review. Please feel free to ask questions here on the talk page and make changes to your proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 2 begins on 23 October 2013, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Siko (WMF) (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Community Notifications[edit]

Hi Nasir,
As you know, the IEG committee will begin their review of round 2 proposals on 23 October 2013. To expedite proposal review, I'm looking over the community notifications section of each eligible application. It looks like your Bengali Wikipedia Village Pump announcement links to the main page of that Village Pump. Please re-link it to your post's present location so that the committee can more easily follow up. Thanks.
Best of luck!
Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anna, Thanks for reviewing the proposal. I have updated the village pump link and also added the mailing list announcement link. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 20:07, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Equipment expenditures[edit]

Hi Nasir,

In general, as grantmakers, we try to be very careful around funding used to purchase expensive equipment. The reason for this is that electronic equipment is a significant up-front investment in stuff that will have a long-term life even after the grant is finished. If this project is not successful, for example, and Wikimedia Bangladesh does not later scale a program up from this experiment, what happens to equipment like laptops, cameras, and phones after this IEG ends? If it is successful, what would you plan to do with the equipment when you are no longer a grantee? In addition to this question, I wonder if you can comment on the extent to which this equipment is critical to completing this project. If we were, for example, to offer only partial funding for this project, and not include funding for things like laptops and cameras, would you still be able to complete your project? Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:13, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Siko, Thanks for your comments. Yes i understand that purchasing electronic equipments are a big investment. But few equipments are critical to completing this project.
I was thinking in all positive way and considered the best cases, like the project will be successful and the Wikimedia Bangladesh will help to extend and continue the next phases. But if it will not, then the equipments can be used for the projects and events related to the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Bangladesh.
I think it is discouraged to purchase expensive equipments, in that case i can rent those equipments for the event days. We will need a good camera, appropriate lens, and a good tripod. As i am not going to purchase the camera equipments then desiccators are not necessary. But it is a six month long project so rather rent regularly i should purchase an appropriate camera bag. Laptop are not that critical for the project, but it would better to have one. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 16:56, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it better to purchase two high-quality cameras for 150000 taka (USD 1900 / 1400 euro) rather than purchase 6-8 less expensive cameras to loan to volunteers? Is the goal of this project to organize traveling photo hunts for groups of people? Is it more important to get the best pictures or is it about recruiting participants? Who has the skill in this group to operate professional cameras - people typically go to school to learn to use equipment this complicated, right? Who will be the owner and manager of all this equipment - Wikimedia Bangladesh? The total cost for computers and photo equipment is about 560000 taka/7000 USD/5250 euro, and I am wondering how this equipment will be a long-term benefit to the community. How many people would take pictures with each camera in the six months of the project? Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:49, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for your queries.
Here the plan is to arrange workshops to inform the participants about the wikimedia commons and ways to contribute there. The expected participants of the workshops will be the members of the local photography community and there will be other type of participants as well. We will recruit new contributors and will collect the best images. Commons and Wikipedia are online platforms and the tutorial and other instructions will be available online(i could not finish the translation and writing yet), so there are ways to participate the project without attending the workshops. All the end of the project i am expecting to have some people who will contribute to wikipedia and wikimedia commons regularly. And through this project we will get some
In the project budget it is mentioned that a team of 3 peoples will travel to different places. And these 3 person are not fixed for all the trips. So if i purchase 6-8 less expensive cameras then at least 3-5 of them will not be used. Because i do not want to lend any camera to the participants. But participants can use the cameras of the volunteers.
It is not a traveling photo hunt. But we will travel to different places of the country to meet the local community there and inform then about the commons. And as we are traveling to a place and there are historical places around there, we (the traveling team the local community) will go for shooting. I mentioned earlier that enriching the wikipedia is one of the main goals. We want to use good images and will encourage the participants to submit quality and featured images. So we will try to get better images and here the high quality cameras will be helpful.
I have the quality to operate the high-quality professional cameras and also i own one. There are other volunteers who also have this quality. High quality cameras are useful to get super quality images and we can also capture videos related to that place and the event as well, also i own a 27inch iMac and purchased the the Final Cut Pro video editing software, which i use as a video editing panel. That is why i want to purchase/lend these cameras.
In the project time period I will be the manager of these equipments, then the Wikimedia Bangladesh will be the manger. I proposed to purchase laptops which could be used for the Wikimedia Bangladesh office purpose later on. and the camera equipments will be used in this project and then these could be used for other similar project purposes.
This project is based on photography. We will capture and collect photographs and update the related articles. So some quality equipments will help in may ways.
Now I am thinking to lend the cameras for the event date instead of purchasing. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 20:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Removed the camera and lens purchase as those are expensive and has a long-term life and there are other concerns. But laptops are not removed because i think those can be used for the office purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation after the completion of the first phase. High quality cameras are important for the project so I have added the cost to rent cameras only for those event dates. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 20:07, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Example of a similar grant[edit]

I was looking at other grants and found this one by the Czech chapter.

There are similarities between that project and this one, and that one was successful. I will read more about that and see what worked and what did not work. Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:42, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for mentioning this Blue Rasberry, those grant applications and project proposals might be helpful for this project. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 09:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Colours of Bangladesh[edit]

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background) Score
1=weakest 5=strongest
Potential for impact
(A) The project fits with the Wikimedia movement's strategic priorities 4
(B) The project has the potential to lead to significant online impact. 4
(C) The impact of the project can be sustained after the grant ends. 3
(D) The project has potential to be scaled or adapted for other languages or projects. 3.5
Ability to execute
(E) The project has demonstrated interest from a community it aims to serve. 3.5
(F) The project can be completed as scoped within 6 months with the requested funds. 3
(G) The budget is reasonable and an efficient use of funds. 2.5
(H) The individual(s) proposing the project have the required skills and experience needed to complete it. 4
Fostering innovation and learning
(I) The project has innovative potential to add new strategies and knowledge for solving important issues in the movement. 2.5
(J) The risk involved in the project's size and approach is appropriately balanced with its potential gain in terms of impact. 3
(K) The proposed measures of success are useful for evaluating whether or not the project was successful. 3.5
(L) The project supports or grows the diversity of the Wikimedia movement. 4
Comments from the committee:
  • A good idea in principle though not necessarily a new or innovative idea in the community. Could be useful to improve smaller projects.
  • A focus on improving content about Bangladesh would be very meaningful.
  • Although clearly detailed, the budget is too large - appears oversized in comparison to other projects (Polish WikiExpeditions, etc) which have taken on travel, food, press and lodging costs for far less expense. The proposal would be more attractive with a significantly smaller budget that made some compromises on expenses.

Thank you for submitting this proposal. The committee is now deliberating based on these scoring results.

Funding decisions will be announced by December 16. — ΛΧΣ21 00:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the aggregated feedback. Could you please share the link of the project Polish WikiExpeditions? --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 16:13, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Search/WikiExpeditions Poland -> e.g. Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Wiki takes Poland for the fifth time. --Nemo 11:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Nemo for adding the links. Previously Siko mentioned her concerns about the equipment purchase and i explained the reason and modified the budget. And none of the other committee member asked me anything about the budget. Though Blue Rasberry compered this project with some other similar successful projects. And in the aggregated feedback it is mentioned that the budget(expenses on travel, food, press and lodging) is oversized compered with the Polish WikiExpeditions. That is why i am interested to read the full project proposal and the budget of that project. I believe this will help to take the appropriate decision. thanks --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 19:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I might suggest having two budgets - an initial budget in which you do one instance of the media collection routine. At that event, you rent a camera or just hire a professional photographer to escort the team for the day, and then collect and present whatever you find. After that, make a presentation of what happened. If everything is in order then more funding could be sent to scale up the model. It is helpful to have a proof of concept that will provide estimates of costs and output. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:32, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment Blue Rasberry. First of all i do not think the IEG works in the same way as your suggested. I tried to add as much details i can, all the costs are added for single unit and then multiplied by the total number, So if you need a smaller budget then you can recalculate it and on that time multiple with a smaller number of events. thank again you for your suggestions. --Nasir Khan Saikat (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see that - 37780 taka (USD 485) per photo hunt, but that does not include equipment costs. This proposal asks for funding to do 20 of these photo hunts. It might be more practical to do 1-3 of these, and if those go as planned, then accept the money for the remaining ones. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Status update[edit]

This project has not been selected for an Individual Engagement 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, but we hope you'll continue to engage in the program. Please drop by the IdeaLab to share and refine future ideas!

Comments regarding this decision:
We appreciate this idea, and the goals of the project, and thank you for participating actively in the proposal process at every point. We also recognize that the size of this project’s budget and scope of the outreach initiative presents some challenges that we believe a local group may be better placed to oversee, instead of WMF directly working with 1 or 2 individuals. We suggest that, if Wikimedia Bangladesh believes this project should move forward at this scale, they submit it for a Project & Events grant. Individuals could also consider returning in a future round with a proposal to pilot on a smaller scale, as some community members have suggested here. And finally, we’d also suggest avoiding the purchase of cameras or other expensive equipment, and to focus on growing the base of local community volunteers that are likely needed to organize such a project, as we’ve seen this be useful for similar initiatives in other countries. Wishing you best of luck!

Next steps:

  1. Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
  2. Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
  3. To reapply with this project in the future, please make updates based on the feedback provided in this round before resubmitting it for review in a new round.
  4. Check the schedule for the next open call to submit proposals - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in a future round.
Questions? Contact us.