Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Expand Wikimedia movement's reach in South Asian low-resourced languages

Follow-up questions on your application

Hello @Psubhashish,

Thank you for submitting your general support fund application. The SA regional funds committee has completed the preliminary review of your application and here are the consolidated responses, comments and questions.

As a next step, we would like to invite you to respond to the questions (and comments if you feel a response is needed) on the talk page. We require a response by 14 May 2025. We'll also be reaching out to invite you to join a conversation with the SA Funds Committee on 15 May 2025. More details to follow via email. Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of the SA Funds Committee

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Overall strengths of the proposal

1) A very important project; a proposal that is so clear and well written reflects the experience of the grantee/project lead.

2) I think the activity plan is fairly clear. The delegation of responsibility is also fair. The timeline could prove a little tight. The financial budget also seems fair. They mentioned that they are going to engage 10 service providers. I would be interested to know more details about what kind of services they are looking for and how they will choose the service providers. (procedure for finding a service provider).

3) I think the project team is very clear in terms of its goals and those have been presented well.

Theory of Change

4) One of the key assumptions of your theory of change is that there is a potential pool of community archivists within the wikimedia movement who are keen to tap on the tools that you are creating/ workflow/ processes that you are creating. Do you know if this is a valid assumption?

5) Could you walk us through your thought process on how you think we can go from building a tool/workflow process -> awareness -> training -> using the tool -> producing content that is valued and accessible within and outside of the Wikimedia movement? Which parts of this flow will be covered by your project? Or if I am understanding the process inaccurately, could you provide further clarifications?

Budget, Project deliverables, Team, Timeline

6) While a lot of different individuals have been listed on the project page, it's clear what prompted this type of project which focuses primarily on creating a limited number of documentaries. It's not clear how this project is the correct approach for the problems at hand.

Other general questions and comments

7) The whole project seems to be a fully paid one done by professional service providers based on content that the applicant seems to own. My preliminary sense is that a rapid grant could be more suitable for such individual approaches. My understanding is that a general support fund should be reserved for larger, community oriented projects which are recurring in nature and that could be emulated across communities and regions.

• 7a) Purse further rounds of Rapid Grants. 2.
• 7b) Come up with a solution for the identified problem that doesn't depend on the individual's content. A massive content drive with volunteer engagement should be attempted. Perhaps a contest could be launched to collect video and audio resources from less represented languages.

8) I recommend further assessing the goals of the project. There are overlaps with other initiatives in the region and perhaps there can be some collaboration on that front.

Overall recommendations or opportunities to explore

9) My only recommendation is to think of regional language media outlets who can help disseminate information about the work being done and increase access to the resource.

10) This is a scale up from their previous activities. So I think on this iteration they are already expanding their horizon and exploring. I would recommend to focus on the process of the implementation of the current plan, rather that exploring more.

11) Currently the majority of the request budgeting is going towards editing, subtitling, of the 10 documentary films. It's not clear how much of a priority that is for our projects and communities. JChen (WMF) (talk) 06:26, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @JChen (WMF), thank you and the SA regional funds committee for these valuable input. Please note that we're working on the responses and will update soon before the deadline. Psubhashish (talk) 03:15, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @JChen (WMF) and SA Regional Funds Committee, thank you so much again for your thorough review, questions and input. They allowed us to flesh out more details below in our responses below. Like Wikipedia, this is a work-in-progress initiative and we remain open to your further input. We are also open to clarify and rethink.

2. I think the activity plan is fairly clear. The delegation of responsibility is also fair. The timeline could prove a little tight. The financial budget also seems fair. They mentioned that they are going to engage 10 service providers. I would be interested to know more details about what kind of services they are looking for and how they will choose the service providers. (procedure for finding a service provider).

Kind of services: The ten listed service providers will contribute primarily for some of the services such as Media review, Subtitles creation and Multilingual subtitling listed in Strategy 1 (S1: High-quality, accessible language media creation), and for services such as Tools testing and improvement and Tools user documentation and communication listed under Strategy 2 (S2. Tools, workflows and OER creation)—see the budget for details on both strategies.

Service provider selection process: We’ve selected the service providers for four reasons. First, they are fluent, native speakers to serve as language experts of the ten focus languages and are bi/multilingually fluent to contribute with translation and subtitling. Second, most of them are also interviewees of the focus language videos, adding an extra layer of consent and knowledge ownership. Third, as representatives of their communities, they will also be well-positioned to disseminate the oral knowledge within their communities when published on Wikimedia projects. Fourth and last, they will join as peer-mentors for Strategy 3 (Community & Capacity Building), contributing in training language archivist-Wikimedians about building audiovisual language media for Wikimedia projects.

4. One of the key assumptions of your theory of change is that there is a potential pool of community archivists within the wikimedia movement who are keen to tap on the tools that you are creating/ workflow/ processes that you are creating. Do you know if this is a valid assumption?

We certainly know that there are some community-based language archivists within the Wikimedia movement. For instance, I coordinated two panels and some other activities at the 2024 Global Voices Summit and interacted with some such Wikimedians. I have been an advisor to two such Wikimedians who are also WMF grantees. I was previously an advisor to Wikitongues and I am a founding designated contact of their Wikimedia affiliate. I know Wikimedian-archivists who have contributed to Wikitongues and concurrently to Wikimedia projects. I have also worked closely with fellow language archivists-Wikimedians, providing technical and other assistance and mentorship.

5. Could you walk us through your thought process on how you think we can go from building a tool/workflow process -> awareness -> training -> using the tool -> producing content that is valued and accessible within and outside of the Wikimedia movement? Which parts of this flow will be covered by your project? Or if I am understanding the process inaccurately, could you provide further clarifications?

Our larger, long-term plan has three phases: a) Phase 1 (our pilot and this proposed project): Mentorship-based community building and training using new content, tools, open educational resources (OER); b) Phase 2: Strengthen community engagement by contributing to content, supporting self-paced learning modules like WikiLearn, and collaborating with local communities to document cultural knowledge; c) Phase 3: Showcase tangible documentation of oral culture, expand GLAM partnerships, and empower local archivist-Wikimedianss through train-the-trainer models and peer learning networks.

Our processes are not linear but include a series of interconnected approaches. As outlined in the proposal, particularly in the “Approaches” and “How our strategies help lift barriers” sections, our larger, long-term goal is to support language archivists and enrich Wikimedia projects with historically marginalized knowledge. One such source of such knowledge is oral history.

Workflow and Content: To demonstrate and train language archivists about building oral history media, we’re going to demonstrate a working model (workflow). The workflow is a set of processes such as community-based oral history documentation, making the documented media citable (and hence, source of knowledge and not representational media), and using the media within Wikimedia projects as embedded multimedia and citations. Since this project is a practical-oriented project, we will process actual media to demonstrate. Our first (High-quality, accessible language media creation) and second strategies broadly cover this part.

Tools: This is the output from our second strategy. From an earlier pilot mentioned in the proposal we’ve identified tools critical to bringing oral history to Wikimedia projects. Oral history documentation in low-resourced languages is not new. However, these tools do not exist yet. So, we’ll co-build them together with communities and developers and release them as open source software. To ensure that the workflow to be available beyond this project, we will document its use and avail as an open educational resource (OER).

Community Training and Awareness: This is the output of the third strategy (Community & Capacity Building) and the most important one as it’s tied to the Wikimedia Movement Strategy’s first recommendation (Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement). We recognise that creating and publishing media is the most time and resource-consuming process. However, creating such media will be a one-off effort without training that process to others. We will create a curriculum, provide the media, tools and OER we create to language archivists, and train them the entire process. They can then independently document oral knowledge and use and cite the same on Wikimedia projects.

6. While a lot of different individuals have been listed on the project page, it's clear what prompted this type of project which focuses primarily on creating a limited number of documentaries. It's not clear how this project is the correct approach for the problems at hand.

Two clarifications: a) creating a limited number of documentaries is not the primary goal. The broader goal is manifested through four strategies (refer to the proposal and my response above to question number 5 for details).

Approach: Our overall strategy is based on the past theoretical frameworks (such as Oral Citations by Prabhala et al.), other language archivist-Wikimedians’ work within the movement (ref. “Open Speaks Archives: Learning from A Pilot to Enrich Wikipedia with Citable Oral History in Low-Resourced Languages”) and learning from a pilot.

Why: We've tested the theory of change on-ground, established a workflow based on experience, documented the available and needed resources, and most importantly, have also identified the weaker areas in need of improvement.

Past studies underline the need for citability of oral knowledge. Other language archivist-Wikimedians’s work validates how audiovisual language media compliments Wikipedia or Wikidata entries. However, inability to cite such media, lack of technical tools and training remain critical barriers. Our pilot indicated that privately held multimedia can significantly reduce the high cost involved in the overall documentation. By remunerating those whose knowledge is documented is a starting point, not an antidote, against extractivist practices. We were able to fully identify and partially address these gaps within a limited-scope project.While the issue at large is much larger and systemic, this proposed project aims at moving the needle towards addressing the issue.

7. The whole project seems to be a fully paid one done by professional service providers based on content that the applicant seems to own. My preliminary sense is that a rapid grant could be more suitable for such individual approaches. My understanding is that a general support fund should be reserved for larger, community oriented projects which are recurring in nature and that could be emulated across communities and regions.

a. Purse further rounds of Rapid Grants. 2.

To clarify, the entire project is not done by professional service providers at all. On the contrary, content processing, which has a significant contribution from service providers, is only one of the four core strategies. However, due to pro-bono support, Wikimedia community involvement and GLAM and other external partnerships, the expense for the other three strategies are lesser. Our terms like “Services” and “Professional Service Provider” are highly reductive to match budgetary categories but can also be confusing. We can further elaborate and clarify the actual process and expenses in the proposal based on your input.

To elaborate, everything outside of Wikimedia volunteering is tagged as “professional service” unless it strictly falls under another category (e.g. venue). It involves many different things that might be uncommon in other grants. As the project deals with Indigenous knowledge, we adhere to the CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. Publication of individual and community-owned knowledge from historically marginalised peoples blurs the line between free knowledge and knowledge extraction. Indigenous communities have widely advocated against pro gratis knowledge extraction, alternatively preferring remuneration for intellectual labour. Note that all Wikimedia and other volunteering contributions (which is also intellectual labour) are kept aside and not mentioned in the budget. Similarly, pro-bono support for hackathon and training including space and amenities, without which the Strategy 2, 3 and 4 expenses will be significantly high, are not mentioned in the budget.

This project is indeed a larger, community oriented project, and not an individual one. The direct, short-term plan to engage GLAM partners, engage and train Wikimedians to improve Wikimedia projects in multiple languages, and grow citations and content. But the long-term plan is to push for equity of marginalised knowledge. The pilot (Rapid Grant) fell quite short to achieve even 10% of everything planned in this project.

Furthermore, the language experts will also join as mentors when we move to training (Strategy 3). We have conservatively mentioned one in-person training workshop, co-locating with Wiki Conference India or one such larger Wikimedia gathering. But we plan to organise multiple online events, invite archivist-Wikimedians both as participants and mentors, and co-organise editathons. We also plan to build technological tools, primarily by engaging developers within the Wikimedia movement. As outlined in the pilot, we could only make a tools wishlist and build makeshift tools enough for internal use. In this proposed project, we plan to not only create full-fledged tools, but also test, document for users and disseminate among other language archivists. This is where we also plan to apply for external grants and engage the open source developer community.

b. Come up with a solution for the identified problem that doesn't depend on the individual's content. A massive content drive with volunteer engagement should be attempted. Perhaps a contest could be launched to collect video and audio resources from less represented languages.

There are two things pertinent here. First, the CARE principle, widely adhered by Indigenous groups, advocates against massive Indigenous data collection by external parties to prevent exploitation. However, volunteer engagement will be prominent. Just to reiterate what is mentioned above, the archived media will be processed primarily to use later for a practical-oriented training whereas the service providers will mentor/train Wikimedians. As outlined in the proposal, it is not the lack of content per se, but the citability and multilingual use of content will be determined by the content quality, acquisition and processing. To reiterate, large-scale content drives have resulted in a large number of files. However, such content is used merely as representational media (i.e. a video of an elder speaking X language used in the article about X language as a mere representation of the language). Such use undermines Indigenous knowledge. Instead, we will be training Wikimedians how to work closely with native speakers, co-create content consciously, create citations, use the content for Wikimedia projects with multilingual transcripts (subtitles) and cite the content.

Why we plan to use archived media: The use of archived media is for various reasons. First is a practical one: it can be time consuming for external partners to acquire and provide citations. For this reason, we cannot train about citability, a critical element of our project, in the training without using archived media. Secondly, irrespective of copyright, the moral right and knowledge ownership of the content I own lies with the respective communities. This is the basis and underlying idea behind the project and is an important context to understanding. Some of the media have high historical value and would be very hard or impossible to get (near-extinct language or unavailability of elders). That said, irrespective of the source media, we will engage greatly with the Wikimedia community, and ensure that they learn and implement practically. While we will measure their contribution, we are also conscious of not claiming their contribution and are conservatively including in impact. We can still amend the estimate with the caveat if that would be helpful.

8. I recommend further assessing the goals of the project. There are overlaps with other initiatives in the region and perhaps there can be some collaboration on that front.

Absolutely and thanks for this suggestion. As mentioned earlier, one of the experts is a former WMF grantee. We already have engaged (as an advisor 12 to two previous grantees; our OpenSpeaks toolkit was used to create a toolkit for a WMF-granted project; as advisor, contributor and affiliate contact to a major initiative) and plan to engage with other regional language documentation initiatives. We certainly plan to invite some as trainers/mentors to our training. We also plan to share the tools with them so that they and their collaborators can better existing workflows with the same.

9. My only recommendation is to think of regional language media outlets who can help disseminate information about the work being done and increase access to the resource.

Great suggestion. We will certainly contact regional media of the provinces where the languages to be processed are spoken. We plan to promote the Wikimedians that will join as participants of our documentation workshops. As a bonus, if any of the mentors or media contributors are interviewed by a popular media channel, the chances of adding a citation to their contributed media will be higher.

10. This is a scale up from their previous activities. So I think on this iteration they are already expanding their horizon and exploring. I would recommend to focus on the process of the implementation of the current plan, rather that exploring more.

This is definitely one of the goals. The previous pilot is a foundation to this project. The pilot included a small-scale editathon and Wikimedia community engagement. This one has a much elaborate plan to implement community training and editathon. The pilot helped identify the required technological tools and this project creates and disseminates them. While the pilot created a basic workflow, the same will be elaborated and refined in this. The community-based language documentation will continue in this project. Citability was a focus in the pilot and will be implemented on a larger scale and the Wikimedia community will be trained on this.

11. Currently the majority of the request budgeting is going towards editing, subtitling, of the 10 documentary films. It's not clear how much of a priority that is for our projects and communities.

Thank you for flagging this. As clarified earlier, documentary creation is not a project priority. However, Strategy 1, focusing on media creation and having a larger budget allocation than Strategy 3 (S3. [Wikimedia] Community & Capacity Building), a key strategy, might indicate so. As mentioned earlier the subject experts will contribute towards S3 as mentors and trainers. That said, S1 does not stop merely with content creation but widely extends to S2 and S3, creating resources (S2) to be used for community building and training (S3). In hindsight, we might have oversimplified the budget, clubbing such things. We also plan to bring external resources for S2 and 3 such as event space and amenities, volunteer developers as well as support from Wikimedians. Lastly, we have managed to create tools and documentation through pro bono collaborations, and have received event space and amenities for pro gratis in the past for other projects. That gave us some confidence to lessen the S2 and S3 budget allocation. Psubhashish (talk) 23:53, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Your application has been approved

Hello @Psubhashish,

Thank you for your responses to the follow-ups questions and for joining the call with the SA Regional Funds Committee.

Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of CAD 33,529.12 from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.

Here are some comments from the review team that were captured from the final deliberation round

• It would be more effective to focus solely on training the archivists through a separate Rapid Fund grant, as the primary value lies in the contributions they may eventually upload to Wikimedia Commons. Broadly speaking, the General Support Fund should be reserved for established, larger communities that can demonstrate accountability and deliver high-impact outcomes.

Recommendations

• We would recommend reviewing the questions and comments from the review process with your Programme Officer. We would also suggest working closely with your programme officer to identify 1-2 priority areas that you plan to work (or build skillsets on) based on your project plan. These could be in areas such as (but not limited to)  community outreach, engagement or training etc.

Disbursement of Funds

To facilitate the funds disbursement process, we seek your prompt response on Fluxx and via emails with the WMF Grants Administrator team (grantsadmin@wikimedia.org). We highly encourage you to submit all supporting documents and endorse the grant agreements within the stipulated time frame. When in doubt, proactively reach out to the WMF Grants Administration team and copy your programme officer.

Change in implementation plan

We know even the best thought through plans may change.

In the event that there are changes to your implementation schedule, you can reach out to request for a grant extension (i.e. extend end date). Similarly, if there is a surplus budget or changes to your planned budget, you can reach out to me about reallocation (via email and on this talkpage). There is also the option to have the unspent funds deducted against a future grant. More details here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Return_unused_funds_to_WMF

Additional resources which may be useful

• The reporting requirements and templates for the grant can be found here. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.
• Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or on Fluxx.
• Instructions for post award: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Processing/Grantee_Portal/Post_award
• Documenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses

We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. Good luck!

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of the SA Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:47, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @JChen (WMF), thank you and SA regional funds committee once again. I'm really excited to hear this news. Look forward to working together to make changes based on the committee's input soon. Psubhashish (talk) 03:11, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Open Speaks Archives: Learning from A Pilot to Enrich Wikipedia with Citable Oral History in Low-Resourced Languages

Hello @Psubhashish,

Thank you for sharing your wiki workshop paper. I am also including it here as part of the updates and documentation process. Thank you.

https://wikiworkshop.org/2025/paper/wikiworkshop_2025_paper_49.pdf

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for this, Jacqueline. Psubhashish (talk) 02:34, 8 June 2025 (UTC)