Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/ Enhancing Teacher Training for Content Creation on Northern Cyprus (ID: 22946504)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hello and thanks for your proposal supporting activities in Cyprus supporting the AÖA Wiki Club. Unfortunately, we will need to decline the proposal for the following reasons:

• As you are a member of the Wikimedia Community User Group Cyprus, you are likely aware we have recently started to fund the User Group through General Support Funding. While members can sometimes be eligible to apply for Rapid Fund separately, I am requesting that you discuss how the User Group could support these activities financially, especially because the User Group is also broadly focused on supporting education and gender initiatives, and that AProdromou, a leader of the user group, has some involvement in the proposed activities. In general, we are not able to support supplementary activities in Rapid Funds in the same community with what is already being supported through General Support Funds.
• The proposal hinges on substantial international travel and accommodations to be successful, and Rapid Funds is not designed or resourced to support these activities. Rapid Funds in general supports projects and activities that are local in nature.
• It is helpful to see that the involved team is supporting different aspects of project implementation, such as scheduling, communications/outreach, and public relations. However, it is a significant concern that only one member of the team has substantive on-wiki experience considering the complexity and number of different events where this expertise is needed. While I understand that some proposed guests in the proposal can support providing this kind of expertise in some areas, we cannot support extensive international travel as noted earlier. Speaking generally, it is important that volunteers develop a more substantial level of on-wiki experience before applying for funding in the future. Historically, we have observed that projects and initiatives that depend on a single dedicated person with on-wiki experience have not been successful or sustainable, or often leads to burnout and exhaustion for that individual.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello I JethroBT (WMF) thank you for your comments.

I am currently member of WM Turkey, WMCUG Cyprus and Turkic Wikimedians. I mostly take part in WMTR's activities. Atatürk Teacher Training Academy Wiki Student Club has established with the support of Student Clubs Türkiye which is a youth project of WMTR. I discussed every planning step of this projects and fund application with Wikimedia Turkey affiliates. I don't believe it is suitable for support from Wikimedia Cyprus.

There are not any experienced Wikimedians beside me and ToprakM from North Cyprus. To provide detailed wiki education, we needed different Wikimedians' support from Cyprus and Turkey. AProdromou was also invited to one of our planned seminars.

Sincerely thanks, Biologg (talk) 01:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, I have to agree with you that, as this activity concerns Cyprus, it is something that could be funded by our community. We would be more than happy to examine that possibility, provided we have the necessary information on the matter.

Dear Biologg, the Wikimedia Community User Group Cyprus (WCUGC) was established to represent Cyprus as a whole. All our actions have been focused on that direction, embracing and including everyone who lives here. I would strongly encourage you to bring your idea to our monthly meetups, where we, as a group, can explore ways to support your initiative collectively. AProdromou (talk) 05:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Biologg: Thanks for your response, and elaborating on your interactions with different affiliate groups in Türkiye and Cyprus. I appreciate your preparation and consultation with these groups to support this proposal. Unfortunately, we are still not able to fund the current proposal. As I noted earlier, models or programming where this expertise is brought in from other communities on a short-term basis is too resource-intensive for us to support. With regard to the fact that there are few experienced Wikimedians in North Cyprus, I want to make a broader argument here that more community members in Cyprus need to build this fundamental experience over time on a voluntary basis before applying for funding, which is how nearly every active Wikimedia community has developed. Our past experience with funding communities where a very small number of experienced editors exist is that funding is not an effective way to create a group of active editors and sustain them. In addition, the impact of that funded work in these situations tends to be low and it is hard to sustain. Conversely, when there is an active base of experienced volunteers in a community -- even as small as 5-10 experienced contributors -- funding for events and activities can have greater impact and the work is easier to sustain over time with more engaged involved in it. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 06:59, 19 February 2025 (UTC)