Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Scanning of Turkish sports periodicals (ID: 23273876)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hello Nanahuatl, and thanks for your proposal. The text of the proposal appears to be mostly unchanged from the previous proposal, which we could not fund due to an eligibility issue that has since been resolved. While we sometimes can support funding for digitization work because it is often sometimes difficult to do on a voluntary basis, we will not be funding this proposal at this time based on some broader concerns about the overall programmatic approach:

• The main impact of the project involves uploads of these periodicals to Wikimedia Commons, and then doing another pass to convert those scans to a format that is machine readable. Once this is done however, there is not a clear plan for how to mobilize volunteers to use these sources improve other Wikimedia content from them. This is a risk in terms of funding because even when high quality content gets uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, it cannot be assumed that this content will get meaningfully used, or that contributors will even become aware of it. As a general rule, funded work that is limited to contributions to Wikimedia Commons is not sufficiently impactful on its own, and a project plan should include efforts to integrate that content onto other Wikimedia projects. I would be more open to funding a proposal that includes a clear plan for integrating scanned content onto other Wikimedia projects outside of Commons.
• Related to the above point, while the funded work involves no specific prizes or competition as such, the proposal does not clearly support any voluntary activity either. While there are sometimes roles and responsibilities that benefit from some funding, Rapid Funds projects should be to develop programs and events that support volunteer contributions. This could be addressed by providing more opportunities for volunteers to engage with and contribute to the project.
• I want this project to be an example and expand it for the next ones. Not just sports but other areas such as arts, culture, women rights, politics etc. That's why I don't ask for a huge budget until I can see the results. This is also somewhat problematic because you've requested the maximum budget for this funding program, so expansion is not likely to be possible if it requires additional funding. I understand that in a previous proposal, a smaller budget was requested and was rejected, but this proposal has the opposite problem in this regard. I would be more open to funding a smaller version of this proposal under a reduced budget, especially as it is the first time you are organizing it.

You are welcome to revise and resubmit this proposal in a future funding round provided that you you are able to address these needs. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 07:02, 4 November 2025 (UTC)