Grants talk:Project/Pavanaja/Tulu offline Wikipedia to schools

This page is for the discussions of this grant application.

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 12, 2018.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2018 will occur March 13-March 26, 2018. New grants will be announced April 27, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 02:22, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Karavali Wikimeians and Tulu Wikipedia community discussed this project in their meetup held at Mangaluru on March 03, 2018. Deliberations -in Karavali Wikimedins page and Tulu Wikipedia.--Pavanaja (talk) 05:51, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Tulu offline Wikipedia to schools

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.6
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	5.8
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	5.3
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.9
Additional comments from the Committee: Fits with strategic direction of knowledge equity by focusing on an emerging community as well as by facilitating offline access to content. Project has potential for online impact, specifically as relates to increased content coverage on Tulu Wikipedia. Little details are provided on project’s sustainability. There are several small languages not having an encyclopedia. This project may be a pilot. The project may fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities or may not - it is not entirely clear as WMF is not in business of providing the primary education. I also doubt the sustainability of the project in the long run as results of the planned in-person events may be quite modest and quickly forgotten. I like the goal of the project but I am scared for the relevance, however I am tempted to trust the judgement of an entire community. I read several times the section "What is the problem you're trying to solve?" in order to understand the problem and the idea. Unfortunately, many basic information about the problem and the idea is missing. Good impact potential: the project is working with an emerging community and is targeting all three aspects crucial for development of such a community: improving content on key topics, increasing editor base including inviting experts and increasing reach via promotion in schools. It is at least planned to be sustainable via increased editor base. The major risk I see is burnout or being stretched too thin. I’m impressed by the aims of this project but think the applicants are trying to achieve too much. The project is not particularly innovative. The potential impacts are not clear especially for a project with such a large budget. The success can be measured in part at least. The quantitative metrics are clear and states how each will be measured but the qualitative are not clear how it can even be attempted to be measured. For example a survey before and after to showcase the impact of the project. some institutions are sensitive to the issue of official educational tools. therefore, more cooperation with them is needed. it's unclear what articles and what topics will be on USB, how the distribution will be done. lack of specific and clear measures of success, too. This is a mix of innovative and iterative features: this very community has never been working on similar projects before, and the idea to mix writing of vital articles and reaching schools is also somewhat new, but the components (workshops to recruit new editors and Kiwix in schools) were already successful elsewhere. Targets are good and reasonable. The applicants seem capable but to me the project reads like 2 separate ideas: 1) a series of editathons and 2) a school partnership focused on making Wikipedia content accessible. I think it makes sense to focus on only one of these for now (and then potentially expand the scope later through a grant renewal request). The scope can be accomplished in the requested 6 months. However the budget seems to be too large. It consists mainly of remunerations to managers and various in-person events. It is not clear how necessary all these events are for fulfilling the project goals. On-line events may be not much less efficient. I personally strongly support the use of the local language and local currency when someone is submitting a proposal, if it is easier for the applicant himself. here we have two budgets and both are in local currency. It would be much easier for the committee to evaluate and the process itself would have been faster if it had a budget in dollars / euros. This is a proposal for the WMF too, to consider helping in conversion, if the applicant is not in a position to do so. About budget: what can be Miscellaneous and what falls under administrative costs? I am pleased to see the existence of local partnerships and I support such initiatives as they are good for developing partnerships. I am not sure that this approach will work. What will happen if not all 732 articles will be ready (metrics gives 600 as a target for example)? I am not convinced by the budget either: not sure three people managing Wikipedians who have to write specific articles is really an efficient approach. If we include funding for this part of the project I would rather do it as a contest with prizes, say, for highest-quality articles or for the highest number of quality articles, and potential remuneration to the jury of Tulu scholars, as this concept seems to work pretty well in India. The current plan with 20kUSD three staff members does not seem efficient as there is no proof this model will effectively encourage people to write *that specific* articles Tulu Wikipedia needs. Nice to see the Karavali Wikimedians User Group so active and interested in organizing/leading new projects after its recent approval. The community engagement is present. This project has high community involvement and its great to see a group of people believe in a thing. even though endorsements is displayed there is a lack of discussion at the local wiki. project information was left in early March, so we are not sure if there is real community support. There is a support from target community, a sound engagement plan with local community and a strong commitment to diversity. Scale back scope of work to avoid burnout and focus on outcomes Combining offline step with editathon is not a good approach. I suggest to split it: generation of content and after outreach with offline content. I am not sure that the project should be funded at this stage. It seems bloated with a large number of expensive in-person events, which may not be needed to achieve the project goals. I will like the team to put in ways to measure the qualitative parts of the project. For example how to determine the difficulty in obtaining learning resources by these audiences and how providing this has impacted their lives This is a very interesting and ambitious project, with a clear and well-identified goal. However, since its perimeter is highly correlated to the education system, I think some kind of support from the government of Karnataka as financial, material or human resources, would be critical to its success. No for now . the applicant has an earlier good history of wiki activity. There is a certain community support. however, the problem, the idea for the solution and the measures of success are poorly presented and from the shown there is no clear security that project will be succeed. The idea is worth supporting, and overall the plan of combining content development + new editors recruitment + schools outreach is reasonable. The major concern is budget as roughly 2/3 of all costs will go into staff administrating the project, although it is not clear how this staff will motivate editors to write articles about very specific topics Tulu Wikipedia needs. I suggested moving it to some sort of article contest with prizes and professional jury above, we can discuss other approaches, but the project is lacking a part that would encourage a group of rather random editors work on specific topics that lack coverage, and without that the project has a significant risk of failure. No, because of these reasons: 1. This project will cost more than $20,000 in Remunerations, Photography, and Administrative. 2. The Projected metrics for this project are very strange. 3. I am not sure that this project has the support of the community.

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page.
2. Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

Please note that these comments were presented by the committee prior to the interview, and so shouldn't be interpreted as a follow-up to the interview. --Marti (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I am going to native place tonight for a family function and will be without Internet. I will respond to the feedback after Friday.--Pavanaja (talk) 15:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Community is fully endorsing this project. We Community feel this is very important and useful project. Even Tulu Sahithya Academy Of Government of Karnataka is already agreed to work together for this.

Since Tulu doesn't have any printed Encyclopedia. So this project will make a great difference. Tulu is considered as one of the endangered languages by UNESCO. This project will really help the language to come out of that situation. Yes we want more number of Editathons to be organized. --Dhanalakshmi .K. T (talk) 17:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Response for Aggregated feedback from the committee for Tulu offline Wikipedia to schools

We thank the committee for going through the grant request in detail and making the comments. We have tried to address some of the queries and concerns as below.

What is the problem is trying to solve?

Students who opt to study Tulu as one of the languages in schools have no encyclopedic books to read other than the prescribed textbooks. The project has been designed such that supplementary or complementary topics related to the prescribed topics in textbooks have been chosen to be added to Tulu Wikipedia. The project page in Tulu Wikipedia has the topics listed. These topics will also help general public, media people, researchers, etc., who look towards encyclopedic content in Tulu. Offline Tulu Wikipedia will be created and distributed to schools. One faculty from each school will be trained on using the content.

Little details are provided on project’s sustainability.

The project is the brainchild of Karavali Wikimedian User Group (KWUG), which is working towards popularising Tulu, Kannada and Konkani Wikipedias. KWUG has already been established by conducting various programs and established the credibility. KWUG will be devising various programs including short term and long term plans. Regular updation and distribution of new versions of offline Tulu Wikipedia to Schools will be one of the activities. Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, a body under Govt of Karnataka, is actively supporting this project. They are sponsoring some of the activities of this project. They will also chip-in on the activity of updating the offline Wikipedia, creating new updated version and sending to schools. Another fact to be noted here is that the school syllabus is revised once in 5-6 years and hence there is no real need to add new topics on yearly basis targeting the school students. Nevertheless adding new content and distributing, is always useful.

The quantitative metrics are clear and states how each will be measured but the qualitative are not clear how it can even be attempted to be measured. For example a survey before and after to showcase the impact of the project.

Please look at the item no.12 in list of activities. This has been taken care.

The applicants seem capable but to me the project reads like 2 separate ideas- 1) a series of editathons and 2) a school partnership focused on making Wikipedia content accessible. I think it makes sense to focus on only one of these for now (and then potentially expand the scope later through a grant renewal request).

Editathons are needed to add the articles. Once the articles are ready, offline Tulu Wikipedia will be created and distributed to schools. These are two parts of the same project. Both have to be executed.

The scope can be accomplished in the requested 6 months. However the budget seems to be too large. It consists mainly of remunerations to managers and various in-person events. It is not clear how necessary all these events are for fulfilling the project goals. On-line events may be not much less efficient.

Budgets are actually worked out such that the amounts are much lower than the industry standard payments. These are NGO standard payment and and hence actually lower than the payments done in software industry. Dedicated involvement of project leader and project manager is a must. Secretarial assistance is also a must. Events are a must as most participants who will be adding the articles don't have access to computers and Internet at their homes. They will be adding articles at the lab provided during the events. Some colleges have agreed to provide the labs to the volunteers during the free time when their students are not suing the lab. These also will help.

I am not sure that this approach will work. What will happen if not all 732 articles will be ready (metrics gives 600 as a target for example)? I am not convinced by the budget either- not sure three people managing Wikipedians who have to write specific articles is really an efficient approach. If we include funding for this part of the project I would rather do it as a contest with prizes, say, for highest-quality articles or for the highest number of quality articles, and potential remuneration to the jury of Tulu scholars, as this concept seems to work pretty well in India. The current plan with 20kUSD three staff members does not seem efficient as there is no proof this model will effectively encourage people to write *that specific* articles Tulu Wikipedia needs.

One size does not fit all. Tulu community is different from Punjabi or Tamil community. Here the approach taken by us will work. We are confident on that. Contests may not work. Tulu Sahitya Academy is taking care of interacting with Tulu scholars, giving awards, and getting the articles written by them. Students and volunteers will be Wikifying those articles and uploading to Tulu Wikipedia.

Even though endorsements is displayed there is a lack of discussion at the local wiki. project information was left in early March, so we are not sure if there is real community support.

This project has been discussed heavily in the meetings of KWUG. Community is fully endorsing this.

Combining offline step with editathon is not a good approach. I suggest to split it- generation of content and after outreach with offline content.

This is exactly how is it is planned.
--Pavanaja (talk) 04:38, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

It is long term view involving scholars and school children in this project, so completely agree with Mr. Pavanaja-BHARATHESHA ALASANDEMAJALU (talk) 05:14, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

It is good project and Tulu learning students with teacher. I am completely agree with Mr.Pavanaja. --Lokesha kunchadka (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Round 1 2018 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Comments regarding this decision:
This was a very intriguing project idea and many reviewers were interested in supporting the project. However, this round there there many proposals submitted that the committee was interested in funding, and not enough funds to award grants to all of them. They determined that there were other proposals that were a higher priority for funding at this time. One reason for this was concern about some aspects of this project’s design, especially with regard to its capacity to engage an audience likely to continue to read Tulu Wikipedia on a sustained basis outside of the context of assigned educational coursework.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through January 2, 2019.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for round 2 2018 will occur January 3-January 28, 2019. Grantees will be announced March 1, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:19, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Question on partnerships

Hi, @Pavanaja:! This seems like a very ambitious and thorough project for which you're getting a lot of support! I'm wondering if there's any sort of partnership or formal relationship you're developing with education actors beyond the teachers who are included in your project scope. I'm thinking of local education counsils, departments, ministry representatives, etc. It seems like the impact of your project can be something of great relevance to them, and I'm curious to see if you've considered forming these alliances or not. Thank you in advance for your reply! --MGuadalupe (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi @MGuadalupe (WMF):, thanks for the query. Yes, we will be partnering with educational institutions apart from the schools mentioned in the grant request. Karavali Wikimedians User Group (KWUG) has already ongoing partnerships with St Aloysius College Mangaluru, S D M College Ujire and Alvas College Moodabidire where KWUG is helping them with their Wikipedia in Education Program (WEP) and Wikipedia Student Association (WSA). The editathons mentioned in the grant request will be conducted at these institutes. We will be partnering with Directorate of Education Research and Training (DSERT) of Karnataka Govt for rolling out the offline Tulu Wikipedia when it is ready. Apart from these we will also be partnering with Karnataka Tulu Academy, who developed Tulu syllabus for schools. They will be helping with the content for articles and also venue for the meetings.--Pavanaja (talk) 17:07, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply, @Pavanaja:! It sounds like you've made some really valuable connections that will benefit the project. Wish you all the best! --MGuadalupe (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Pavanaja/Tulu offline Wikipedia to schools

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	5.6
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	4.2
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.2
Additional comments from the Committee: The project may fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities - it is not entirely clear as WMF is not in business of providing the primary education. I also doubt the sustainability of the project in the long run as results of the planned in-person events may be quite modest and quickly forgotten. A paragraph about sustainability was added to the prior version of the project, which basically that it will be a responsibility of the government as primary education should be. There needs more explanation in why the Wikimedia is so crucial to solving this situation. The project does fit the strategic direction of Wikimedia by trying to create more awareness about underrepresented knowledge. However, the project has very poor online impact, and I am also not very confident about scalability and sustainability of this project. It is good to see the project having an outreach component to improve the content on Tulu Wikipedia. However, focusing on knowledge production and creating offline versions of it at the same time is too risky. Especially considering the fact, the Tulu is a relatively new community with a low number of active editors. It would be better the project only focused on the outreach component (completely removing the idea of offline Wikipedia). It would be more useful if project aims to use their network to build the community by encouraging students to edit Wikipedia, and probably tuning in an education program from a scale with the schools. This would be more aligned with the strategic direction than the current plan. The project is not particularly innovative. The potential impacts are not clear especially for a project with such a large budget. The success can be measured in part at least.The vast majority of the trained editors will probably never edit Wikipedia again as always. I cannot get more detail about how this proposal would change education. Even there are no goals about this. Offline Wikipedia is always an interesting idea to pursue, there have been successful models in the past where the offline versions have been successful in bridging the network issues and lack of access to internet. However, such initiatives are only advisable when the language Wikipedia (Tulu in this case) has a decent number of articles. Creating an offline version of a Wikipedia is which has less than a thousand articles (as of 15 Jan 2019) is not an idea worth pursuing. Before engaging in such a more massive project, it would have been better, and a pilot has been done on a smaller scale (maybe through 1-2 rapid grants) and learns about the potential risks and opportunities involved. The scope can be probably accomplished in the requested 6 months. However the budget seems to be too large. It consists mainly of remunerations to managers and various in-person events. It is not clear how necessary all these events are for fulfilling the project goals. Online events may be not much less efficient. In-person events are justified by lack of access to computers and Internet at their homes. However it is not clear how they will contribute to the Wikipedia in such a case? That's almost $ 19,000. The budgets in Remunerations, Photography, and Administrative NEED to be reduced. Though edit count is not a right way to assess the skill of the participants, I would like to highlight the point that both the project personnel have less than 1000 edits on the project’s focus project (Tulu Wikipedia). Further investigation reveals that the articles created by these users are of poor quality. Though the project goals can be achieved over a span of 12 months, the budget doesn’t seem reasonable for the targeted online impact and community building, also relative to the overall project’s activities. Since it is a project focused on a regional community the costs don’t seem to be reasonable. Moreover, the amount paid as compensation for personnel covers more than 50% of the budget, which seems too much for the proposed target and outcomes. This budget (including inclusion of paid staff of more than ₹9,00,000 (>50%)) is not reasonable for the potential impact and overall project goals. The community engagement is present. The project has the support of the local community and specifically focuses on a regional community which is good. However, since the community relatively is new and small, this project is not worth pursuing. There should be projects more focused on community development and editor retention along with content improvement. Quite skeptical on the possibility that less than a thousand articles can create an encyclopedia. Probably it will be a book. Ambitious project with several risks. I am not sure that the project should be funded. It seems only to be slightly different from the last year version: bloated with a large number of expensive in-person events, which may not be needed to achieve the project goals. Detailed breakdown of the budget and breaking the project into phases The link between the solution and the results you would like to have of this proposal still needs to be improved. Offline Wikipedia might be an idea worth pursuing if the particular language Wikipedia has good count of articles to make offline versions. There should be more focusing on developing content and the number of active editors in the first place and then engage other outreach plans.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

@Pavanaja, Kishorekumarrai, and Vishwanatha Badikana: Please see note above about the opportunity to respond to committee comments before they finalize a decision on your proposal. Please let me know if you have any questions. With thanks, --I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 04:09, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Response for Aggregated feedback from the committee for Pavanaja/Tulu offline Wikipedia to schools (2019)

Thanks for the feedback. Some of them are repeat of last years comments which we have already addressed. Nevertheless here we are trying to address the concerns and answer the queries below.

The project may fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities - it is not entirely clear as WMF is not in business of providing the primary education. I also doubt the sustainability of the project in the long run as results of the planned in-person events may be quite modest and quickly forgotten. A paragraph about sustainability was added to the prior version of the project, which basically that it will be a responsibility of the government as primary education should be.

There needs more explanation in why the Wikimedia is so crucial to solving this situation.

• We thank for understanding and appreciating. No doubt education of the prerogative of the government. The fact they have created textbooks implies that. But there is no supplementary reading material. This is what this project is aiming to fill in. But that is not the only aim of this project. We are also trying to help the Tulu community which does not have any encyclopedic book or webiste.

The project does fit the strategic direction of Wikimedia by trying to create more awareness about underrepresented knowledge. However, the project has very poor online impact, and I am also not very confident about scalability and sustainability of this project.

• Thanks for appreciating that this project fits into the strategic direction of Wikimedia. Tulu is definitely an underprivileged language. This project is trying to help that language. Scalability and sustainability have already been addressed in the grant application page. There is a section on that.

It is good to see the project having an outreach component to improve the content on Tulu Wikipedia. However, focusing on knowledge production and creating offline versions of it at the same time is too risky. Especially considering the fact, the Tulu is a relatively new community with a low number of active editors.

It would be better the project only focused on the outreach component (completely removing the idea of offline Wikipedia). It would be more useful if project aims to use their network to build the community by encouraging students to edit Wikipedia, and probably tuning in an education program from a scale with the schools. This would be more aligned with the strategic direction than the current plan.

• Outreach component will help growing the Tulu Wikipedia/Wikimedia community with a lot of impetus. Offline version is the outcome of the project. The student community whom the offline Wikipedia is targeted are between grades 6 and 10. They may not be the right candidates to edit Wikipedia and create content.

The project is not particularly innovative. The potential impacts are not clear especially for a project with such a large budget. The success can be measured in part at least.The vast majority of the trained editors will probably never edit Wikipedia again as always.

• Totally disagree. This model is already in working places like Senegal. Impact will be really high since Tulu language does not have any other printed encyclopedic materials available. This will produce an editor community which will be asset to Tulu Wikipedia and Tulu community.

I cannot get more detail about how this proposal would change education. Even there are no goals about this.

• Full details are given in the grant request page. Goals are clearly specified there.

Offline Wikipedia is always an interesting idea to pursue, there have been successful models in the past where the offline versions have been successful in bridging the network issues and lack of access to internet. However, such initiatives are only advisable when the language Wikipedia (Tulu in this case) has a decent number of articles. Creating an offline version of a Wikipedia is which has less than a thousand articles (as of 15 Jan 2019) is not an idea worth pursuing.

Before engaging in such a more massive project, it would have been better, and a pilot has been done on a smaller scale (maybe through 1-2 rapid grants) and learns about the potential risks and opportunities involved.

• This is classic example of "chicken and egg situation". The whole project's aim is to increase the number of articles albeit with a topic focus addressing the school syllabus. But these are also will be read by the Tulu community which does not have much online content of encyclopedic nature.

The scope can be probably accomplished in the requested 6 months. However the budget seems to be too large. It consists mainly of remunerations to managers and various in-person events. It is not clear how necessary all these events are for fulfilling the project goals. Online events may be not much less efficient. In-person events are justified by lack of access to computers and Internet at their homes. However it is not clear how they will contribute to the Wikipedia in such a case?

• Budgets are actually worked out such that the amounts are much lower than the industry standard payments. These are NGO standard payment and and hence actually lower than the payments done in software industry. Dedicated involvement of project leader and project manager is a must. Events are a must as most participants who will be adding the articles don't have access to computers and Internet at their homes. They will be adding articles at the lab provided during the events. Some colleges have agreed to provide the labs to the volunteers during the free time when their students are not suing the lab. These also will help.

That's almost $ 19,000. The budgets in Remunerations, Photography, and Administrative NEED to be reduced.

• Already answered above. We can't receive foreign funds of this huge amount directly and hence the amount has to be routed through another agency like CIS. Hence the administrative costs have been added to take care of that.

The project has the support of the local community and specifically focuses on a regional community which is good. However, since the community relatively is new and small, this project is not worth pursuing. There should be projects more focused on community development and editor retention along with content improvement.

• One of the aims of the project is community building also.

Quite skeptical on the possibility that less than a thousand articles can create an encyclopedia. Probably it will be a book. Ambitious project with several risks.

• This is beginning. The contents will be increased by the community over time.

Offline Wikipedia might be an idea worth pursuing if the particular language Wikipedia has good count of articles to make offline versions. There should be more focusing on developing content and the number of active editors in the first place and then engage other outreach plans.

• The project's main idea is to increase the article count albeit with a focus on school syllabus topics, which will also be consumed by the community. The project will increase the number of active editors.

I hope we have addressed most of the concerns.--Pavanaja (talk) 10:43, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Round 2 2018 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Comments regarding this decision:
We will not be funding your project this round. The project itself has not substantially changed since it was proposed last round. The committee was concerned that there is a disconnect in the proposal between the goals around developing encyclopedic content and the goals related to changes in school curriculum/pedagogy. The committee also agreed that content and local community development should be better established before coordinated outreach efforts to educational institutions -- in this case, to distribute offline Wikipedia and encourage integration of its content into classroom curriculum -- are pursued.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC)