Grants talk:PEG/Rahmanuddin - Telugu Wikimedians/Telugu Wikipedia Ten years Celebrations

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Evaluation by the GAC[edit]

GAC Members who read the grant request without comments[edit]

GAC Members who approve this grant request[edit]

  1. --Mayur (talk•Email) 18:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) (talk) 18:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. --Manuel Schneider(bla) (+/-) 09:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I approve in light of somewhat problematic success measures. I think that mostly this looks like a reasonable grant NLIGuy (talk) 12:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. -- Roel (talk) 13:47, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. aegis maelstrom δ 14:17, 27 January 2014 (UTC) While one can discuss particular budget items (see below), I find the end sum giving a good Return on Investment. Although, after the Tony1 comment and a lack of details on the schedule page I have some serious hesitations.[reply]
  7. Fine for me, reasonal cost and I see more structure after comments of the GAC here. --ProtoplasmaKid (WM-MX) (talk) 01:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GAC Members who oppose this grant request[edit]

GAC Members who abstain from voting/comment[edit]

  1. I would keep the abstention because the measures of the success indicate in my opinion that the program is too ambitious and gives numbers without a correct evaluation. The increase from 71 to 200 active editors is connected with a specific analysis? Is Telugu able to attract 200 editors and how manage the retention plan? Basically the idea is good, but the plan and the measures have been created without a clear analysis. That's my feeling, I hope that is a wrong feeling. --Ilario (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That sounds like an oppose! I, too, have concerns about the lack of detail. But then, most GAC applications concern me thus. Tony (talk) 13:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it should be, but I am convinced is that they can do the project but not that they can reach all objectives. My feeling is that the measures would give more strengthen to the approval but this is bringing more problems than advantages because the ambitious objectives are creating some bad feeling. Anyway the project itself is good. --Ilario (talk) 11:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • We respect your decision to abstain from voting and we would continue to improve upon further. We are taking the liberty to clarify a bit more about the efforts that are ongoing.
  • With regard to increase in active editors and retention of the increased strength, please note that, until recently, there was no proper organised way of doing collaborative projects on Telugu Wikipedia. But due to various efforts during this year we as a Telugu community can proudly say, that we would continue to work with the same spirit as revealed in the statistics for December. This is evident from the successful completion of Lilavati Kutullu project (A project aimed at creating articles on Lady scientists of India), 1000 Telugu Pramukhulu (A project that created and improved articles on 1000 eminent Telugu personalities). And we are sure that we would repeat same spirit and implement good practices/projects and improve upon flaws with each new project being announced.
  • We are also reaching out to experts in particular area of interest and making them realise importance of Wikipedia and helping them start editing at Wikipedia - the retention of these new contributors is very much encouraging thus far.
  • We have ramped up Telugu Wikipedia outreach efforts and plan on to continue them beyond the event.
  • Some users are committed to improving quality of articles. In fact over the last few months we are putting out the list of stubs created in that month on VP and collaboratively try to improve them.
The very important thing to note here is that Telugu Wikipedia has a high potential to grow. The Digital Library of India, for instance, has more than 27000 books available in public domain. These form a potential base for creation of many articles. For the cultural, sociological, anthropological and political richness of Andhra Pradesh, the number of articles today - around 55000 are way too less. Though we are ambitious, at the same time we believe that we are not looking at impractical and impossible aims. We are working within our possibility and potential and am sure you will also join us to wish that your feelings are proven wrong :) --Rahmanuddin (talk) 09:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Budget[edit]

Thank you for submitting your proposal! As you can see, I added a column for USD totals to the budget table. I also found a few discrepancies in the budget on the line items specified below. Please check and verify both the individual amounts and the sum.

  1. Facilitation of Community Members - Komarraju Lakshmana Rao Wikipedian Award
  2. Food and Local Transport - Local Transport
  3. Infra - Venue
  4. Public Awareness - Banners, Posters
  5. Public Awareness - Print Media
  6. Amount requested under "Financial Details" (₹.2,32,800) vs. Total amount requested from the WMF Grants Program under "Budget and Resources" (₹. 2,29,300)

Thanks for your attention to these details and we look forward to reviewing your proposal. AWang (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the updates. However, the line items in the budget table add up to Rs. 6,71,100 = US$10,895.26. Please confirm and then update all appropriate sections in the proposal. AWang (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For your information, we convert your totals in the local currency to USD on the date of submission using this website: oanda currency converter. Thank you! AWang (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for adding the subtotals. I just updated the USD conversion under financial details. We will be reviewing the rest of your proposal shortly. AWang (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Missing in this proposal[edit]

Thanks for this Grant request. As a past organiser of a similar event (WikiCon 2012) I have some experience in this topic. The occassion is definitely worth such an event and in general I agree that bringing a community together face 2 face is a really inspiring and motivating thing. I would, however, not expect that this event by itself helps raising the number of activ volunteers to 300. It just helps those already active (and of those just a fraction which wants to participate in this event) to remain active. Otherwise you would need an activity that tries to bring in people from externally - this would mean quite some effort, though.

Things I am missing in this proposal:

  • activities concerning press coverage (this question aims a bit in direction of finding new editors but is always useful)
  • program - I see this page on te.wikipedia but it is hard to understand for me. You could provide a short summary what activities you have planned. I guess something like editathons are taking place, maybe some talks and workshops? Do you have a program committee? Will there be a schedule with the program?
  • some details on how you invite the participants and select scholarship receipients
  • some details on the accommodation

Apart from the named items I agree with this proposal and would support it.

--Manuel Schneider(bla) (+/-) 10:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Telugu Wikipedians! Good work =)

I'm going to join Manuel and call for more details on the topics he mentions. Please care for his observations above.

In particular, it would be nice for us to understand the proportion of talks, hands on, and discussion activities, and how they're arranged in terms of small groups or large groups.

Also, I see in the impact session you mention two things that are not explained anywhere in the request: a "handbook", and something called "target 55555". While I can imagine what you're talking about, I really cannot understand what's the actual context of these and their relationship to the event. For example, is the handbook ready, or to be produced during the event? Is the target a number of articles, and has that been taken up by the community already or is it being introduced during the event?

Cheers,

--Solstag (talk) 13:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifications on Measures of Success[edit]

Dear Manuel Schneider & Solstag,

Many thanks for closely engaging with our Grant Request and for sharing useful and constructive feedback. We do need people like you who would help us by sharing their experiences about an event like this. You comments about measures of success/impact are well placed and pushed us to realize that we need to clarify in greater detail on how we have arrived at such projections.

Firstly and most importantly the community level discussions and preparations about celebrating Telugu Wiki 10 have begun in November 2013 itself. It was decided that we will undertake a series of on-wiki and off-wiki activities through December and January 2014 leading to the 2 day celebrations in Vijayawada during February 15-16.

You may have seen in the Telugu Wiki 10 Program Details page all the activities listed. As a community we have planned activities and many of them are being currently executed : a) to increase awareness about Telugu Wikipedia; b) for qualitative improvement of Telugu Wikipedia; c) for the Growth of New articles; d) to increase User base; e) for capacity building of users; & f) to recognize deserving and committed long-time Telugu Wikipedians.

This event's announcement has seen rejuvenation of Telugu wikipedia with otherwise dormant now, active (few years ago) members coming back to Wikipedia. Also, good number of new users who have known wikipedia for long but hesitated to edit turned into active editors with announcement of Wikipedia related activities such as edit-athons, Wiki training sessions and Wikiacademies. The active contributors on Telugu Wikipedia were 71 as of September, that was result of one such event that happened earlier in 2013 that turned 31 active editors to 71. Now with announcement of Tewiki10 and activities taking place in a region earlier not explored physically by wikipedians, has fetched good turn of new active editors. The number of active users (i.e. a user who has done atleast 1 edit in the last 30 days) has already gone up to 250 as can be seen here. Since December we have already organized 7 Telugu Wikipedia workshops reaching out to nearly 300 students.

In terms of content, as of December 11, 2013 we crossed 54,000 article mark and then we set the "magic target" of reaching 55,555 articles by the event dates in February. The Telugu Wikipedia community has already taken this up and is working towards reaching it. You will see the impact already in the December stats for Telugu Wikipedia here. In addition to this, the community is working towards completion of various projects like Lilavati Kootullu, which focuses on creating articles on notable Indian women scientists, The quality of numerous articles is also being developed by the community members. Overall we are positive that we will achieve most of the targets that we have mentioned in the proposal by the event date. Moreover, support and wishes from Wikimedians like you will surely ensure that we achieve these targets. The entire Telugu community is thrilled at how we are racing ahead and we would like to celebrate this high adrenaline growth with support from all of you at GAC. Should you need more details on any of the activities, we would be more than glad to share them.

Thanks రహ్మానుద్దీన్ for your explanations and links. Honestly I was unable to follow your numbers on http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTE.htm but don't mind. I think this project should be done and I believe in your abilities as I see you answered questions quickly, thoroughly and with references. --Manuel Schneider(bla) (+/-) 09:38, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your support Manuel Schneider. Probably this stats link would give a better glimpse :) Pranayraj1985 (talk) 13:35, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on few more Items[edit]

Dear Manuel Schneider, thanks for seeking more details on few more items. We have attempted to share more details below.

Press Coverage related activities[edit]

We have sent press notes of each of the activities that we are taking up as part of the event. We will try to publish them on the event page as well (It would be seen in Documentation tab). We have already got about 10 news items published in local newspapers :)

The following activities are planned.

  1. Conduct Press Meets in Hyderabad and Vijayawada before the event (for which we will incur most of the expenses)
  2. Identify Media Partners. We are happy to share that we have just roped in 3 media partners for the main event. [:en:HMTV|HMTV] has agreed to be official electronic media partner and would telecast some programmes related to Telugu Wikipedia before and during the event days. "The Hans" newspaper has also agree to be one of the partner. A computer magazine in Telugu "Computers For You" has also come forward to be the Media partner. (They would carry a whole featured article in their magazine about wikipedia and would also cover the event). These will ensure huge visibility for the event and for Telugu Wikipedia.
  3. We are in touch with few FM Radio channels to broadcast programs about Telugu Wikipedia.
  4. The handbook would be released during the event.

Invitation, Scholarships & Selection[edit]

We are running site notices on Telugu Wikipedia about registration to the event, which will happen via a google form. Requirements for Travel scholarship is also being captured here. We will be putting up invitation to the event on every active Telugu Wikipedian's talk page soon. We have budgeted to give Travel scholarship to all active Telugu Wikipedians and it would be given on first come first server basis.
We have already sent out an invitation to the non-Telugu Wikimedia communities on the Wikimedia India mailing list. Also we will be sending an invitation mail to the India wide mailing lists and post on all the Indic Village pumps. We are about to finalize the modalities of scholarship selections. We will ensure that every Indian language community has equal representation (at least 2 Wikimedians from each language). If there are more applicants from any particular language, we may follow the first come first serve model for deserving Wikimedians (i.e anyone who has more than 500 edits on their home Wiki prior to December 2013). We are not anticipating a huge competition.

Accommodation[edit]

All the participants will be provided accommodation on a sharing basis and in the same hotel. Accommodation information is also captured in the registration form, where the arrival date and departure date are asked as questions; accommodation is provided to scholarship awardees.
Please let me know if you would like me to share more details. Thanks! --Rahmanuddin (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Measures of success[edit]

Hello again! So, I feel like you gotta work on your measures of success.

First, let's look at the first measure, as Manuel already commented above. You're saying you'll consistently quadruple the number of contributors with a two day event. Does that really sound feasible to you?

Now, about the second and third measures, I'm a little worried about those those, the way they're written. While we do love and support editathons, the purpose of WMF Grants should never be getting people to edit during an event. It would be better if the goal was formulated in terms of community, like the number of people learning wiki and experiencing the projects for the first time, the number of people who decide to keep contributing after the event, and the number of returning contributors motivated by the event. Just think of success in terms of community, instead of articles, and you'll get the language right.

Abraços,

--Solstag (talk) 13:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]


If I may also add, is 300 active editors achievable? Though I do not doubt the community's ability to reach this target, it seems this is uncharted territory if I were to base it on available statistics. Telugu WP has an average of 30–40 active editors monthly, except for the spike in active editorship last month which reached 79. I am just worried this may be an exhaustive effort (which can burn you out) rather than a sustainable one. Would an average of 100 active editors be ideal for a target let's say in 6 months, and maintain it from there. 10:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


Hi Roel, Thanks for your feedback. Please note that here we are considering active users as people who made at least 1 edit in the last 30 days. As per this link we now have nearly 250 active users. Such active users were under 100, but since November because of a series of activities we have grown to 250 active users. Due to our continuous efforts we hope to cross 300 active users by the event. Our aim is to maintain this active user base between 250-300 even after the events. Thanks Pranayraj1985 (talk) 15:14, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing me to that direction, I guess it won't be difficult for you to achieve that mark then. Wouldn't it also be a good measure to increase the depth of Telugu WP articles? With "18" as depth, it appears that these are mostly stubs, just like with some Philippine language Wikipedias. -- Roel (talk) 09:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Roel,we will certainly take your feedback into account and will try to improve the depth of the Telugu Wikipedia. Thank you! Pranayraj1985 (talk) 12:08, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you too. Good luck on your project! -- Roel (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Timing[edit]

What took so long that made you people submited a proposal so late? Béria Lima msg 18:01, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A potential model that can achieve results[edit]

After my own experience with the two somewhat similar programs conducted by the ml(Malayalam) community, it seems annual conferences with a theme is the way to go outreaching as far as Indian communities are concerned. Even before we can garner enough editors and tangible measurable parameters, the Wikimedia projects need to get exposed to the common mass among these communities. Such conferences can have three layers of impact: (1) A face to face interaction among the already established editors and outreach volunteers (2) A new set of aspiring Wikipedian editors and readers and (3) Significant publicity and awareness among the mass.

Considering the fact that a large percentage of the population in India are just entering the digital information world, time is now ripe to talk out about ourselves (Wikimedia mission). The recently concluded ml grand event, WikiSangamothsavam-2013, was surprisingly popular among the local news media. The level of Wikipedia awareness among the people of Kerala have now crossed a critical value. After having tested many methods and work-outs, by now, we can consider the above model (of an annual Wikipedia conference for each individual Indic Wikipedian Community) as one that has huge potentials. My hopes and expectations on the results of such programs are quite ambitious, although they may be yielding some observable results much slowly.

I support this grant request with the following additional observations:

1. The grant request could have been prepared somewhat early. Success of any major event is purely dependent upon its early planning and assessment of resource availability. The later a request, the less we can propose any fine tuning and recommend it with confident and positive endorsements.

2. The grant request could be more elaborate particularly on media coverage plans (see comment above) and on strategic alignment. I am sure that my friends in Telugu community would imbibe every little lessons from this event's experiences and improve upon those faculties in the coming days.

Best wishes, Telugu Wikipedians! ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Beria Lima & ViswaPrabha, you are certainly right that the grant request could have been submitted earlier. Though we had a shareable draft ready by mid-December, we were uncertain about the support from the WMIN Chapter. The delay was inadvertent. We will certainly factor in much more lead time the next time around. Thank you for considering the request benevolently despite the delay. Pranayraj1985 (talk) 13:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Minor details[edit]

Hi there,

I need to ask a couple of questions to understand the local circumstances better e.g. for the future.

  1. The Infrastructure part mentions WiFi/Internet for $243.48 (which is quite a number for 2 days of Internet access) and a projector for $129.86. Are these rental fees or are you purchasing routers for future events? I don't know the local circumstances in India: in my home chapter we try not to rent such things on a commercial basis: rather find a venue with such equipment, a partner organization renting it us for free or: if we want to use it more often - rather buy it and keep it (in the long run it is cheaper). This applies to things like a projector or some mobile Internet.
  2. Travel expenses: this is your estimation which can be higher, maximum returned cost or just you give 1000/2000 INR to each person? Btw I see the expense per "India Community" is twice as much as in "Telugu Community" - is it because of geographic reasons?

Best Regards and have fun & productive talks,
aegis maelstrom δ 14:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Hi aegis maelstrom, thanks for your wishes and for closing engaging with the grant request. We certainly hope to make this occasion memorable.
  1. With regard to the Wi-Fi.. Yes we will be renting a wi-fi hotspot set-up (which will be available in about 3 different rooms and public space) that could give unlimited internet for about 60 connections simultaneously. I am not a hardware geek so do not know the exact details But we have rented a similar set-up for an earlier community event at the same cost. The host institution does have a Wi-Fi but cannot support our requirement and they have suggested that we go for a wi-fi set-up. We are also renting the projector and these are the market prices in Vijayawada. Your suggestion to piggy-back on the partner institution is useful. We will certainly try to save up on these costs to the best of our ability and use the movement resources optimally.
  2. Yes the travel scholarships for non-Telugu Wikipedians are double than for the Telugu Wikipedians as most of them will have to travel long distances and will incur more expenditure. The travel scholarship amount in many of the cases will be just about enough. We have decided to give a flat travel scholarship than to reimburse the actual costs. The later could be much higher and logistically cumbersome. Thanks Pranayraj1985 (talk) 15:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My two cents to further clarify about the travel costs:
In India, a country where long distance travels are involved in every such inter-regional events, the principal mode of long distance travel is by train. The trains in India have different classes among which, the most common is 'second class non a/c 3 Tier sit/sleep coaches'. This class is quite affordable by common men and has a fare pattern that is hugely telescopic (i.e. the longer the distance, the cheaper the rate per kilometer.) In effect, the ticket charges for this class have a tendency to center around a value roughly around the scholarship amount that is being provided.
AFAIK, the Telugu community is providing allowance (scholarship) for this class. (These coaches are not as comfortable and cozy as the kind of similar travel facilities in other parts of the world. Despite that, the notion from the program team is quite laudable in that they solicit interaction and synergy from their peer communities. In fact, not just the event conductors, but also those who care to take up this scholarship and are willing to spare their time, and travel and live with such moderate arrangements deserves special appreciation. ViswaPrabha (വിശ്വപ്രഭ) (talk) 18:31, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your response. Indeed, the willingness of volunteers to save needs to be appreciated. If I were to advise, I would recommend to consider own access points, maybe mobile Internet access etc. in the future - as the prices drop this may be more cost effective in the long run and I guess such one-time purchase should be fundable via GAC. Best, aegis maelstrom δ 10:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1 comments[edit]

I haven't read the other comments, so sorry if I repeat anything. This project I generally support (and I just LOVE the Tulugu script, I can't resist saying—nicely done typeface, too). It would have been good to have linked to, say, en:Telugu Wikipedia, to which I've just appended a "needs additional citations" tag, by the way. The budget mostly looks like good value, although in places it's vague, so it's hard to tell from an auditing point of view.

I have some quibbles:

  • Why is the application so late???
  • Where's the link to the Telugu WP? Here is where the event would be held—why not provide the link? And here, presumably, is the list of village articles. Google translate isn't too bad, at least from Te into English. I'm struggling to know why standard navigational links aren't provided in GAC applications. It's as though we're totally disinterested.
  • Village stub improvements. Anyone taking photographs, since they're in the vicinity?
  • "To commemorate 10 years of Telugu Wikipedia and to strengthen Telugu Wikipedia community and its outreach efforts." I find this too vague to be worth writing or reading. Don't worry now: let's concentrate on the important stuff.
  • Measures of success: again, numbers please so at least we know what you wished for when it comes to reporting and learning lessons. How many stub village articles of those districts would you like to see significantly improved during the event? How many stub articles are there?
  • Nice fat sum for the Rao award ... I like big prizes, strategically. A prize is iconic and motivational. I hate momentos; and don't tell me there are t-shirts again? And stickers. Why? What benefit do WMF sites get from them?
  • "Print media" $325 ... what is it? (please round currency values to the nearest whole unit).
  • Video shooting: well, is it a company or an individual, or vid equipment hire? Bit vague.
  • What is "Documentation"? Memo to WMF staff: can we provide a better guideline about the level of detail in budgets? And examples of undesirable vagueness? I know I undertook to do something along these lines, but I can't until May.
  • Why are there budget items of $0????
  • "Fit to strategy" I ignore as irrelevant, as usual.
  • Importantly: I looked quickly at the linked page for the schedule. I'd be much more comfortable if—at this late stage—there were more concrete details: what, who, when? Mostly what? Q and As? Brief summaries of anticipated content/themes? I'm just not happy with last-minute scrabbling together when this much money is being invested.

Tony (talk) 13:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, actually I need to join Tony1, especially in the last and the most important point: the programme. This page offers only a vague template of the schedule. As the conference is in two weeks, where can we learn the details? Best, aegis maelstrom δ 09:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some replies and Clarifications to Tony[edit]

Hi Tony, Glad to know about your love for the Telugu script.
Thanks for thoroughly engaging with the grant request and for the detailed comments and feedback.

  • Regarding delayed application - As shared above, though we had a shareable draft ready by mid-December, we were uncertain about the support from the WMIN Chapter. Initially our plan was to request the entire money (other than CIS-A2K component) from them. The delay was inadvertent. We will certainly factor in much more lead time the next time around.
  • Navigation Links... Further to your suggestions, we have improved the Grant page with necessary links Also while filling the Grant application, which is our first experience, we felt we were filling mostly text boxes. But thanks for nudging us!
    Thank you. We need clearer instructions to applicants on this matter. Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Village Stub improvement: Apart from photographs we are also trying to collect information on soil, irrigation, roads, transportation, temples, fairs, etc. Information that would make the articles richer from stub class to minimum of start class articles. Though this is a long term work, for now we are adding map templates and feeding in whatever data that we can get easily on the net. For instance, in Krishna District out of 1140 village articles about 1053 were stubs and less than 2k bytes. Because of community efforts almost all of these articles now have more useful information and are above 2kb.
    Sounds excellent. Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Swags and momentos: T-shirts are also a good way to spread the word about the existence of Telugu Wikipedia. Believe me, unlike English Wikipedia, there are many who have not heard of the existence of Telugu Wikipedia. The digital context in India is quite different. Internet is equated with English, which is something we are also changing with Indic Wikipedias. We will be doing a customized Telugu Wikipedia T-Shirt with the url. Especially for India, it is better that we distribute as many T-shirts as possible to spread the word. Same with other swags that will popularize Telugu Wikipedia. Momentos are for Chief Guests, Media partners, etc and are a necessary part of the local event culture. Rao award is decent but not that fat. The best reward, we think, is the interaction that each Wikimedian will get to have with others in the community.
    Do we have any data on whether the thousands of t-shirts we pay for in this scheme are actually worn after the events at which they're distributed? (This question is directed generally to the GAC and staff.) Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Currency rounding off: Could we please request you to refer to Indian currency, which is rounded off.
    Could you not use weird commas in the Indian currency amounts, then? No one outside India understands them. And I ask, why not round off the conversions? Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Video Shooting: We would be spending Video shooting money for a community proposed company that would do a full video coverage of the event.
    OK; I guess the question is why I had to extract this basic information. Next step would be to have already got a quote from the company, and to name the company in the budget. That's the kind of detail I think the PEG scheme should be encouraging. Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Documentation: From our previous experiences, we have found that documenting the proceedings of all the sessions, especially in an event of this scale, needs good Document writers. So we have thought of employing people from within the community to do this task. Otherwise we will end up with poor documentation.
  • $0 Budget items: Budget items marked as $0 are those that we do not foresee incurring expenditure. It would be mostly human effort. But, we may end up spending some money on these items as situation demands, which would be petty amounts. Also we wanted to highlight these to map the budget with the Program Activities that we have listed out.
    I'd rather not see them in the budget table. If you need a room-to-move contingency, include that and return unused funds. Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Schedule: You are right about suggesting to have the concrete details. We have been working on it and had a series of discussions. More or less the details are kind of finalized and should be up soon.

Possible Topics/Activities (yet to be finalized in consultation with the community):

  1. "Wikidata-Demonstration"; "Wikidata Telugu Lable-a-thon" (awaiting confirmation from Resource Person);
  2. "Telugu computing over the last 10 years";
  3. "Discussion with creator of Peddabalashiksha (a popular Telugu encyclopedia)";
  4. "10 nimishalu 10 mandi vishishta Telugu Wikipedianlato (10 minutes with each of the 10 Best Telugu Wikimedian awardees);
  5. "Charcha Goshti (Community members will introspect about the growth of Telugu Wikipedia in the last year and plans for next year)"
  6. "Key note speech by two eminent guests (Mandali Buddha Prasadand the other is a Media channel head)
  7. Certificate presentations to Telugu Wikipedia Ambassadors (about 25 students) of KBN College
  8. Felicitation of 10 Best Telugu Wikimedians
  9. Inauguration of QR codes at KBN College (we are leaving Wikipedia footprint on the host institution where about 25 QR codes linked to Telugu Wikipedia articles will be put up. Articles include Telescope; Sun dial clock; rare botanical plants on the college premises, etc). This will be the first public installation of Telugu Wikipedia and will act like an exhibition for walk-through.
  10. "Ishta Goshti (Community Discussions which will go late into the evenings)"
  11. DIY Digitization (tentative in English)
  12. Both the days Telugu Wiki Academies will be run parallel to the sessions. If there is demand we also have created provision for running Wikidata label-a-thons (inter-language)
  13. There will be hack space for those interested in FOSS, Localization and Mediawiki.
OK, perhaps you could update the on-wiki schedule as the planning is firmed up. Memo to WMF staff and the GAC: can we include explicit encouragement for conference schedules to be in reasonable shape by the time of application? "Reasonable" needs to be defined without being a straightjacket; but I've been pretty dissatisfied with the level of planning of content in conferences for which funding is applied—that includes Berlin and the US ones, too. Tony (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do let know if we could give more details. Pranayraj1985 (talk) 11:58, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the future - request for the reasonable event schedule in submissions[edit]

Hi, @Tony1 raised a good question: Memo to WMF staff and the GAC: can we include explicit encouragement for conference schedules to be in reasonable shape by the time of application? "Reasonable" needs to be defined without being a straightjacket; but I've been pretty dissatisfied with the level of planning of content in conferences for which funding is applied—that includes Berlin and the US ones, too.

Personally I would go for it, however with an adjustment for the submission schedule - if the submission is say 3+ months before the event it might be very difficult to provide anything near to the final time schedule (as the call for papers, bookings etc. may be not finalized), hence descriptions of a few key points / presentations / speakers etc. would be fine for me. However, submission a few weeks before the event calls for a detailed time schedule with topics, hours and people responsible provided.

Any suggestions (including where to discuss such issues)?

Best, aegis maelstrom δ 12:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support from WMIN[edit]

WMIN requests the GAC to positively consider this request. Though I haven't had a look at the exact budget breakdown, in principle Wikimedia India supports this event and grant request. The chapter is not in a position to provide funding at the moment and humbly request GAC to grant funds requested so that the community can seamlessly conduct this important event. AroundTheGlobe (talk) 06:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This was probably done in good faith; but really, it's seriously weird to reject their bid for funding from the chapter, then for the chapter to tell us they support the bid (just don't ask us for money). Would have been more diplomatic to say nothing. Tony (talk) 13:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Escalation in Budget requirement from GAC[edit]

As it can be noted from the Grant request we had also approached the WMIN Chapter here and CISA2K here requesting part support to this event. In our application to GAC, we have stated that in case of an eventuality that the WMIN Chapter cannot fund us, we would like to approach the WMF-GAC for additional support of Rs. 200,000/-. WMIN Chapter EC has informed us that though they would like to support this community event, currently they are unable to financially fund it, and have suggested that we approach WMF-GAC. We have henceforth revised the quantum of request from WMF-GAC have made corresponding modifications to the budget request. Please note that the total expenditure planned for the event remains unchanged. The change is only in terms of source of funding through which the movement resources could be allocated to this community event. We request you to consider this. Thanks --Rahmanuddin (talk) 09:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's cost-shifting from the chapter to the PEG budget. I'm not happy about it, particularly at this late stage; it should have been worked out much earlier, and it appears there was a reliance on a vague, unwritten half-promise from WMIN. It needs to be clearer from the beginning—and in writing. Tony (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Tony, We accept your warning in true spirit. It was an inadvertent delay. We must avoid the same in future. Pranayraj1985 (talk) 11:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback from WMF[edit]

Thank for your proposal and to the GAC for their engagement on this request. As communicated over email and emphasized by GAC members above, the belated submission of this proposal does not provide adequate time for review and may result in difficulties in disbursing funds. While we understand the delay is due to circumstances not entirely attributable to the organizing committee, in the future please submit proposals in a more timely manner. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above we will certainly factor in more lead time while making a Grant application. The feedback received from GAC about the grant request is also being shared on the project page on Telugu Wiki, so that any other Telugu Community member who may want to approach with a request in the future would be better informed. We are thankful to GAC and WMF for closely engaging with our grant request in such a short time.--Rahmanuddin (talk) 06:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please see our comments/questions regarding the proposal below.

  1. A more significant measurement of success would be the number of active editors (defined as 5 edits/month) reached in a specific time frame after the event. For this event we would suggest the following: Measured 2 months after the event, there will be 100 active editors, according to Wikimedia statistics, and 300 active users, according to Telugu Wikipedia statistics. Please note that the Wikimedia statistics site is always a month behind in reporting. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • We certainly welcome your suggestion about the time frame of measuring the success 2 months after the event. We are sure that we will achieve 300 active users and would like to maintain it between 250-300 event after the event. However, reaching 100 active editors (i.e. 5 edits/month) may not be realistic. We would like to explain why. Most of the contributors on Telugu make large contributions in just a single edit. There are various reasons behind this. Some (especially those who are not from cities) work offline in writing a section or an entire article and then come and post on wiki. Some spend a significant amount of time over a weekend and it could result in just one edit but a good contribution. While we encourage more active editing on wiki, one cannot assume that a single edit contributor in a month is not useful. Of course there are some who do many smaller edits in a day but it does not mean they are adding huge value. So realistically speaking we would be happy to see the active editor (i.e. 5 edits/month) to continue around 70. This itself is a significant growth! This is not to mean we are complacent. We are just being honest and would not like to jack up stats just for the sake of this grant. Hope you will consider our reply. --Rahmanuddin (talk) 06:50, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the useful explanation. An active editor goal of 100 is just a suggestion and it's fine not to include it if you think it's unrealistic. However, in general, active editors (5 edits/month) should be used as one way to measure success. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  1. What is the Komarraju Lakshmana Rao Wikipedian Award for? Is it based on edits or the result of a competition? 10 awards for $162 each is a considerable amount. Significant awards are fine for similarly large contributions, but we need to know more in order to justify the budgeted amount. Of course, we expect that none of the organizing committee will be eligible for the award. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Komarraju Lakshmana Rao Wikipedian award is given in recognition of all round efforts put in by a Telugu Wikipedian. This announcement on the Wikimedia India mailing list should give you an overview of the award. Every effort has been put by the Selection committee (none of the Organizing Committee members were part of it to avoid COI) that consisted of long time senior Telugu Wikipedians constituted on-wiki. Please note that the members of the Selection Committee of the award and the members of the Telugu Wiki 10 Organizing Committee were not eligible for the nominations or award. This page on Telugu Wikipedia gives a comprehensive picture of the selection process. Members of the Selection committee may put out a blog post on the entire process in English soon.--Rahmanuddin (talk) 07:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for all the background information on the award and nomination process. It looks like you took great care to make it a transparent and fair process. While it sounds like you are very aware of conflict of interest issues, please make sure no one on the current nomination list is on the organizing committe. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  1. It looks like you expect to have 100 attendees. If so, 150 T-shirts might be a more appropriate number. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes we are expecting about 100 Wikipedians as attendees (80 from Telugu and 20 non-Telugu). And we are looking at having an additional audience of 3-400 to come for the event. We would need 100 more T-shirts to be given as an incentive to 25 Telugu Wikipedia ambassadors (i.e. students at the host institution) who are helping with the organization of the event. Also we will be giving T-shirts for Guests, students who have taken part in article writing competition, media and hospitality partners, etc. We have initially budgeted 300 T-shirts but based on discussions with CIS-A2K (which is providing these) we have arrived at a realistic number of 200. If there are any left-over T-shirts, we will be using them during various Wikipedia training workshops and other events. --Rahmanuddin (talk) 07:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you again for your proposal. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the above comments. We look forward to your response. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Report overdue[edit]

Hello! This report is now past due. Please update us on the status of this report. Thank you, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Alex Wang (WMF),

Thank you for reminding us. The report has been created at Documentation page. Please let us know, where else do we need to report it. --Rahmanuddin (talk) 19:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rahmanuddin. Thank you for the link to the documentation page. We also require a grant report following our template, which you can complete here: PEG Grant Report. In addition to listing the activities, we ask that you report on your proposed measures of success, lessons learned, and provide us with reporting and documentation of expenditures. Please let us know when you think you'll be able to complete this report and if you have any questions. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:PEG/Rahmanuddin_-_Telugu_Wikimedians/Telugu_Wikipedia_Ten_years_Celebrations&oldid=8240491"