Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Establishment of SKAP WikiClub Cebu (ID: 22765282)
Add topicFollow-up applications on your grant application
[edit]Hello @QueenCityCebu,
Thank you for putting in a rapid fund application. We are sharing the list of consolidated feedback and questions from the review process. Would you be able to take time to respond to them?
A) Clarity of proposal - change it wants to make; value and impact potential
1) The proposal is viable and has a potential impact, however need to be clarified about their focus themes. At the beginning it is about human rights, but not heavily reflected in their project activities which are varied from gender, heritage, etc.
2) The proposal is clear in terms of the change it wants and some value, but it is vague and hard to determine ultimate impact and viability.
3) Yes, the plan is good but it can be more valid if can show reference about the stat in Cebu Wikipedia.
B) Applicant and project team's experience
4) Unknown
5) Unclear
6) It is a new account. I do not see any contribution. So, I may say no experience at all.
7) I wonder about the applicant's ability to carry out such a plan. The main applicant, QueenCityCebu, has 0 edits to date, which makes it hard for me to believe that he has enough experience and ability in the Wikimedia movement.
8) Could you provide more details about your team's background? Do they have experience in advocating for free or open knowledge? Or any volunteering before?
C) Community Engagement
9) No evidence of endorsement but there is consultation and support from SKAP member in the country.
10) No consultation, it is attempting to create a community
11) They got support from Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific (SKAP). However, it is no clear statement that the people from SKAP will be the trainers or any other roles during the event.
12) The applicant stated his motivations and the background of the proposal, but I cannot confirm whether the proposal has received support from the local Wikimedia community
D) Budget
13) The provision of laptop need to be justified: why it is required at this stage and how it will be maintained after the project done in 6-months time. If there is no sufficient justification, would not recommend to fund this item.
14) The budget is both high and undetailed. It does not evidence clear planning and has some odd inclusions. An external hard drive to do what?
15) The budget is too high level. There needs to be more justification, details and unit cost assumptions so that people can better understand their thinking process.
E) Learnings - Does the applicant show clarity in what they hope to learn from their work given the change they are hoping to achieve?
16) No, the goals are ambitious and not match by the organizing to get there.
F) Feedback/ additional questions or comments
17) Can use Wikimedia outreach Dashboard to monitor their metrics
18) What activities have already been undertaken to lay the groundwork for this proposal?
19) The applicant is quite new in the movement. My suggestion: please apply smaller project such as learning to SKAP, or capacity building for a month or so before conducting any bigger projects.
20) Applicants should enhance their experience with Wikimedia campaigns and conduct extensive consultation with the community before proposing.
21) Could you share statistics about the Cebuano Wikipedia? How many active users does it have?
We are aware that the start date of your project is indicated as 8 October. If you are able to provide a response by this week, we will also look to provide a status update on your project before then.
Thank you for working with us and looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of the ESEAP Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
- Hello Jaqueline,
- Thank you for the chance for us to clarify our proposal and our grant application. Here are the answers to the questions.
- A) Clarity of proposal - change it wants to make; value and impact potential
- 1)Yes it is correct that we are gearing towards human and digital rights, but since we will start from scratch, we decided to dip our hands first on the basics of editing Wikipedia. As we are mostly newbie editors, we wanted to learn first about the easy ways to make contributions on WkiProjects such as on WikiCommons, Cebuano Wikipedia on Women articles and those are what we asked from SKAP to teach us the basics first so we can familiarize ourselves and progress later on.
- 2) We agree with this feedback, although we would like to be understood as the WikiCub under the auspices and guidance of SKAP. Since Cebu Wikipedia already has substantial content, our scenario is like a carriage without a horse. There is a massive amount of content created by the LSJBot but there are invisible human editors that may grow the WikiClub. That is why we wanted to be the horse that shall pull the carriage. At first, it is hard to determine the ultimate impact because it is like starting from Ground Zero. But as to the viability, we knew and we will grow since our club sees the online media community and the blogging community as our prospective partners and pioneer editors for the SKAP Cebu WikiClub.
- 3)The highly controversial Cebu Wikipedia was mainly populated by a bot called Lsjbot, which was a program created by Swedish programmer Sverker Johansson whose wife happens to be from Cebu and the bot was responsible for growing the Wikipedia entries in Cebuano language which were mostly flora and fauna. But then after a few years, human editors were not active, in fact there is no activity, there has been a gap until SKAP decided why not to start again and grow a community in Cebu so that human editors can create articles and contribute to Wikiprojects since Cebu Wikipedia has been there in dormancy. We admit that we are all new, we are newbies but we trust that SKAP will guide us as we navigate growing our WikiClub.
- B) Applicant and project team's experience
- 4)
- 5) I as the applicant am a media practitioner in Cebu. Our prospective Wikiclub members will come from the same community of online media practitioners, a few bloggers and content creators, some women advocates, college student organizations and law school students in Cebu. We already have identified our prospective partners and members and we are just waiting for SKAP to guide our capacity development, edit-a thon workshops, teaching us what we need to know to start, reactivate and grow a WikiClub.
- Coming from the media, we believe that our voices and influence among our readers, viewers and partners will fasttrack our growth.
- Since we are just new to the Wikiverse, we admit that we still need a helping hand. But we are committed to start and make this Wikiclub work now and in the future,
- 6)Yes, you are correct. I just created an account. I have not yet edited and I may have no experience but it is because I am waiting for our trainer and mentor to teach us the things we need to know.
- 7)I trust that I can since SKAP pledged commitment that they will help us build from ground up. We have been discussing best practices, events organization and how to engage with prospective members. In fact we already have created a two (2) year plan for the Cebu WikiClub and how to sustain our organization.
- 8)Our team’s background comes from mostly media practitioners and content creators. We each have our own outlets where our voices are heard by the people of Cebu. Content creation is our everyday thing. But we wish to expand our content creation into open knowledge which is through the Wikiprojects.
- For volunteering, we are not new to that, volunteering and advocacy is very strong in our blood. Our profession is proof for that. As to open knowledge, we all use Wikipedia, we reference Wikipedia in our reports and articles, we upload our content in other platforms for free so it is not a novel advocacy for us. In fact it is the Cebu Wikiclub members who sought SKAP to help us organize ourselves.
- C) Community Engagement
- 9)To clarify, the Cebu WikiClub is incubated by SKAP, we are just located in Cebu. So we believe that they can not only endorse us but they will build us from ground zero.
- 10)
- 11) The SKAP officers are the ones to train the WikiClub Cebu.
- 12) For this concern, it was discussed with SKAP. But since SKAP does not have the budget this year to capacitate the WikiClub Cebu, to do projects in Cebu, this is the reason why I and our team applied for a rapid grant.
- D) Budget
- 13)To justify our need for laptop, we have a small space in our media office where we could allow visitors to lounge around and edit Wikipedia. Since our WikiClub is here to stay for good, we wanted to sustain our editing activities not only during the events we proposed but also during the times where our members can drop by, visit and do some editing. Also, this laptop will be heavily used in 2025 for our Legislathon sessions with the Cebu Law Students.
- 14)Our hard drive will be the repository for the photos we may collect and upload in Commons, the documents that we can scan to digitize and upload on Wikisource, the hard drive will serve as storage for our documentation for the projects we do moving forward and other legitimate uses that is relevant for the WikiClub.
- 15)As to the budget, we think it is just and fair. Cebu is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines. Costs are almost equivalent to Manila, the capital. We wanted to do more activities and we wanted to launch in a way that our value will be seen as the Open Knowledge community in Cebu.
- E) Learnings
- 16)We beg to disagree here, ambitious is a subjective word. It depends on the capability to do what we aim for. Our being neophytes should not prevent us from achieving our goals because our commitment is solid and burning.
- F) Feedback/ additional questions or comments
- 17)We will definitely use Wikimedia Outreach Dashboard to monitor their metrics.
- 18)We have had numerous consultations with SKAP Officers, we also had identified our mini office, our members, the need for capacity building, we have aligned with their 2025 Annual Plan and integrated our activities in line with their goals. We have identified our prospective partners and our theme for next year. We just have to be capacitated this year so we will be able to contribute effectively next year.
- 19)The application includes capacity building. And after capacity building comes the editing workshops and training. We are preparing for 2025, when we align with SKAP’s Annual plan. We should be equipped and capable by that time.
- 20)We did consult with SKAP. We strategized together. We lean upon them for guidance. They are the ones who entertained our idea of having a Wikiclub in Cebu because they believed in us.
- 21)As of September 2024, Cebuano which is the second most spoken language in the Philippines has about 6,117,000 articles most of which are created by Lsjbot.
- We will have the number of active users next year. We are all aware that active users come with a small ripple started by the community. Without community members making noise, doing events and activating the WikiClub, there will be less users of Cebuano Wikipedia and that is what we are trying to solve.
- I hope this helps clarify the doubts and justify our request for funding.
- Best, QueenCityCebu,
- Cebu Wikiclub Co-Lead QueenCityCebu (talk) 13:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
Your grant application has been approved
[edit]Hello @QueenCityCebu,
Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of PHP 250,000 from 8 October 2024 to 31 December 2024.
Observations/ Recommendations / Notes
- 1) We recommend that you set up a meta page to start documenting your group activities/ members etc. For example, this could be a subpage of SKAP's meta page. If you require examples, this page could be of help.
- 2) We also recommend putting up a Diff post to share your experiences post project as well as setting up a meta user page for yourself and your team mates.
- 3) Here are the grant applications of the Wiki Clubs which could be useful for future references. a) KlubWiki UB, a Wikimedia user group in Universitas Brawijaya, affiliated with Wikimedia Indonesia (example 1; example 2) b) Kent Wiki Club (Malaysia) (example 3; example 4). The talkpage discussions may also be of interest to you.
- 4) Before putting in your next grant application, I'll encourage you to meet with the Programme Officer for a conversation and discussion about your proposed plans. The intention of this is to hold space to reflect on the learnings from this grant to inform/ feed into the next project. The rapid fund cycle timelines can be found here. Do note that for this to happen you will need to proactively plan ahead so that there is sufficient lead time for the conversation(s) to happen as part of your next proposal iteration process.
- 5) Do consider including a fiscal sponsor for your next project. Do reach out to your programme officer if you require support in identifying one.
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. Let’s continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Please let me know if you require support in any way or would like to share your experiences with a wider community through the Let's Connect Programme or at ESEAP community meetings.
Thank you.
Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of ESEAP Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2024 (UTC)