Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Exploration Program 2024-25 (ID: 22598669)

Follow-up Questions and Observations on your grant application

Hello @Amitabha Gupta,

Thank you for putting in your grant application. Here are the consolidated questions, comments and observations from the reviewers. Would you be able to provide a response to them? Thank you.

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Feedback on activities proposed:

1) I see that some of these activities are now in their second or third phases but there is no information on the success/failure of the previous phases. Could you elaborate more on this?

Merit of the idea

2) The proposed application looks good and the budget is very comprehensive given the outcomes. The community is active and synchronised.

Recommendations and Comments

3) Overall, it might be worth funding but it would be important to understand why these places are chosen and what is the current state of Wikimedia projects around them and what they are planning to change? Also, I see the focus is to bring a huge amount of contributions to Commons but there is no plan to integrate it with other Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia where this content will probably have the most impact.

4) Given the large amount of media files you are uploading on Wikimedia Commons on a regular basis, what are your pain points in using it and how have you overcome some of these challenges? How do you vet for quality of media content uploaded and net content re-use?

Implementation team

5) For each field visit, could you provide more details on what are the pre, during and post trip preparation that is needed and the amount of time one has to allocate to these activities? Given you have done this multiple times, do you have standard operating procedures and guidelines around the project management to share as part of knowledge management contribution to the movement?

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of SA Regional Funds Committee and WMF staff who have contributed to the review of your application. JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Jacqueline, Please find my answers below. Hope that helps.

1) I will answer this question project wise :-

1. Wiki Explores Nadia, Phase III: The first two phases of Nadia exploration programme has been successfully completed. The photos have been uploaded to commons and details of these projects have been submitted in the reports submitted by West Bengal User Groups in 2021 and 2022. Wikidata items of all these built heritage structures have already been created and linked with relevant categories. You may check these commons categories to see the media files - Wiki Explores Nadia I and Wiki Explores Nadia II. The present project (Phase III) is being conducted to document the list of structures declared built heritages by West Bengal Heritage Commission.
2. Wiki Explores Coochbehar, Phase II: The first phase of the Coochbehar exploration programme had been successfully completed. The photos have been uploaded to commons and details of these projects have been submitted in the reports submitted by West Bengal User Groups in 2019. Wikidata items of all these built heritage structures have already been created and linked with relevant categories. For accessing the media files related to this project, you may visit this commons category - Wiki Explores Cooch Behar I. The proposed project of Phase II is being conducted to document the list of structures recently declared built heritages by West Bengal Heritage Commission.
3. Wiki Explores Sikkim, Phase II: We have just completed the field work part of the exploration project, Wiki Explores Sikkim, Phase I which was funded by the Centre for Internet and Society - Access To Knowledge. In this project we mainly covered documenting the monasteries and other build heritages located in East Sikkim, West Sikkim and South Sikkim. We have already started uploading the media files related to this project on Wikimedia Commons and we have a deadline to finish uploading the media files and submit the report. North Sikkim is not completely open to visitors at present, which is why we could not visit the area and propose to document the built heritage of that area as soon as it is accessible. Wiki Explores Sikkim, Phase II is thus about covering mainly built heritages of North Sikkim.

2) Thank you for this observation

3) I will first answer the "why" part of these projects

My role as a contributor is mainly related to documentation by photography. With my team I choose built heritages which have a) zero or minimum presence or, b) unorganised presence on Wikimedia Commons.

There are various criteria to choose these places. For example in the Nadia and Coochbehar district, the places chosen are on the basis of the updated list of structures declared as heritage by West Bengal Heritage Commission. There is a plan to come up with a complete list of monuments declared heritage as West Bengal Heritage Commission the way it has been done for ASI Protected monument and State protected monuments of West Bengal in Wikipedia. The photographs will be immensely helpful to build up the list. We have already documented the majority of the previous built heritage structures under these lists.

North Sikkim is also an important part of the built heritage of Sikkim, however almost next to nothing of it is documented on Wikimedia Commons. We hope to document the majority of built heritage of Sikkim within another year. We have a good number of team members to do so.

As for Aurangabad district, there are certainly a number of media files on Commons but in a haphazard fashion and not in an organised form. Also photographs have been restricted to only certain built heritage and not all of them. Wikimedia Exploration projects are definitely going to change the digital presence of these built heritages in an organised way.

Although it has not been mentioned, the photographs are always integrated into other Wikimedia projects like Wikidata. Whenever we upload photographs on any built heritage structure, the Wikidata item of that structure is created and the photographs are added there. The photographs are then utilised by any language Wikipedia projects, which has integrated Wikidata into their workflow. The photographs are also used in different Listeria based lists used in photo-competitions like Wiki Loves Monuments. Not only Wiki Exploration, but in almost all our user group projects, this has always been our workflow in the background from the beginning to store the photographs centrally on Wikidata and harness its power maximally to other projects, instead of randomly adding photographs to different language Wikipedias individually and manually. As a result, exploration project photos have received more than 20 million views till now.

4) The major stumbling block is the uploading interface of Wikimedia Commons itself. The interface for uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons is antiquated and very slow. Plus one has to fill up a lot of things before actually uploading the photographs. I am used to this now and I understand that there is practically no solution to this problem. It becomes tedious to explain this to team members. I inspire them to go on with the uploading process on a regular basis highlighting the fact that this documentation will help many Wikimedia users and researchers in near future. It is important to note many of the built heritage which I have documented over these years have ceased to exist in the present date.

Regarding for quality of media content uploaded, I used my old Nikon D5300 with 18-140 lens to document monuments but on the later stage I found that I was not happy with the quality as a photographer, especially the sharpness part. Also in many places, especially temple or other structure interiors, I had to use mobile cameras for photography because of low light. So I had requested the Wikimedia Foundation for a better camera during our previous grant application and the photographs taken by it on latest projects have improved considerably. I am also taking professional and award winning photographers in my team who have top class photography gear.

5) The Exploration project activities are done in six phases. There is a flexible guideline which is somewhat like the following :-

1. Making a list of the proposed places to visit, pointing them on Google map, having a team meeting on the navigation and logistics and getting access to local contacts and sometimes to local authorities. The whole process is done mainly on the basis of personal contacts and rapports. Also a list of books to refer to is made. Places like Sikkim or even Darjeeling for which not many comprehensive books on their built heritage is available, government websites and personal blogs list are jotted down.
2. Make a budget of the total project after making necessary queries and submit it for approval.
3. After the grant is approved, we sit for a team meeting to allocate time for visiting the places and approximate period of the day to visit the place. We do a detailed research on each monument from which side it is facing, to the sculptures, structures and paintings inside it. Internal documentation is done and the same is shared between team members which include proposed sequence of visit, highlights of the structure and google location (wherever available).
4. Based on this research we do the booking of our accommodation based on the number of days we propose to stay at each place, communication mode and transportation.
5. The actual exploration is done based on the plan with necessary improvisation on spot.
6. After coming back, we sit together and look at the total media files, giving us a deadline for editing and eventually uploading the photos. For newcomers a small workshop is done to explain the uploading process, adding description, categorization and geo tagging. Wikidata items are created for the heritage structures and photographs are linked there.

I hope this provides the answers to your queries. Please feel free to ask me any other questions on any further doubts on the exploration project grant proposal.

Regards

Amitabha Gupta (talk) 16:04, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Your grant has been approved

Hello @Amitabha Gupta,

Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 416,425 from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.

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 on South Asia Open Community Calls.

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/IndividualsDocumenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses

Plug

We are actively recruiting community members to join the South Asia Regional Funds Committee and hope you can help spread the word and recommend people to apply. For more information, refer to Grants:Regions/South Asia/Committee Call 2024.

Future grants

We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and we hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. For future grant applications, we encourage you to get in touch with the regional programme officer early before submitting your grant application. This allows lead time to support you in putting together an application and also work through fiscal sponsor options (if required) with you. The timeline for future rapid fund grant rounds can be found here - Grants:Project/Rapid#Timeline and for general support fund here - Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund#Timeline

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of the SA Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 05:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)