Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Mompati Dikunwane/Masunga Village graduates want to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia

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Comment[edit]

Hi Mompati_Dikunwane and thanks for submitting this grant request. Introducing graduates students to Wikimedia projects sounds like a brilliant idea to me especially in region that is underrepresented. However, I do have some questions and advise.

  1. I think 50 participants are much. Is it possible to do a pilot project, perhaps start with 20 participants?
  2. How many experienced editors will help to coordinate this project and can you list them on the grant request page?
  3. $150 for stationery is much. What do you need stationary of $150 for? can you break it down?
  4. You mentioned that you need $300 for Wikipedia T-shirt printing. I think high value merchandise such as t-shirts should be given only to project organizers, and as prizes for writing contest winners (where applicable)
  5. Who will lead the training on how to contribute to Wikimedia Commons? If you will lead the training, I recommend that you read and understand m:Common Licensing before the start of the project. For example, you recently (as at April 14, 2017) uploaded m:File:Mompati.jpg as "Own work" when you are clearly not the photographer who took the image. You also uploaded m:File:Miss Bechuanaland 1965.jpg as own work when you are clearly not the copyright holder of the image. These are the ones I picked at random. This suggest that you do not have enough experience to lead training at the moment. I'll go through your uploads later to get rid of the copyvios but I am not suggesting that this project should not be funded if you have a more experienced editor to lead the training. Regards. Wikicology (talk) 21:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your comnents/advices Olatitude it really means a lot. However the reason why I say 50 participants is because the awareness workshop more than 40 participants attended it. See here: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_initiative_meets_WIkipedia_half_way

Again I will be leading the training and thanx for sending to me a link to refer to, I think I fix the errors. Thank you again. Prices this side aRe sometimes too high that's why I estimated 150 for stationery, if it happens that the funds remain, they will be disbursed back to the foundation or used on future projects. Mompati Dikunwane (talk) 17:09, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We really need help like yours in order to improve...no body is perfect. .for one to become an expert or have experience you have to learn from mistakes and from other people..thank you so much.. Mompati Dikunwane (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that 50 people participated in the awareness program does not mean you can effectively manage them. I agree that you may want to accommodate everyone who wants to learn to contribute to Wikimedia projects, but it is important to know your capacity and limit how many people you work with. In Nepal, User:HempalShrestha and others organized a presentation about editing Wikipedia and 150 students participated. At the end of the presentation, they selected 50 people who were most interested for a 3 day training. They later selected 25 students to participate in three month course that was offered in addition to their regular coursework. Students who completed the three month course were awarded a Wikipedia Drivers License. I think adopting similar method would be fine. BTW.... You only partially answered my first question, others were left unanswered. More importantly, competency is required to lead training. My understanding is that the official language of Botswana is English but based on what I can read here and what you wrote elsewhere, it seems you are learning to speak English language (beginner's level). I don't think you can effectively teach graduate students on how to contribute to Wikimedia projects in English language. Are you a native speaker of Lesotho language? Can you effectively teach, using this language? Is there any experienced editor in Botswana who is fluent in English language? Wikicology (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum

Mompati Dikunwane, Will you consider to put this project on hold until you have enough experience? I am concern about your experience at this time. For example, you only made 1012 edits to all Wikimedia projects since 2013 (4 years) from which over 40% is to Meta-wiki. You created 7 articles on the English Wikipedia but 5 of the articles were deleted, the most recent one was in March 2017. You recently uploaded this and this as "Own work" when you are clearly not the author (the copyright holder) of those works. This is a clear evidence that you do not have sufficient experience at this time. Yes, Africa needs attention but I think we shouldn't be desperate about it. Well, I'm not a WMF staff who will take decision on this project. Wikicology (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Comment-- Hi Mompati Dikunwane, I do sincerely appreciate your effort in promoting Wikimedia projects in Botswana. Reading this thread again, I noticed I must have made some offensive comments like grading your spoken English skill. I believe such assertion is inappropriate and lacked the respect you deserve. I want you to know that it was not intended to humiliate or subject you to ridicule. Please, do accept my sincere apology. If you have any thoughts in this, please feel free to share. You may also contact me at your convenience on my talk page. Good luck. Wikicology (talk) 20:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wikicology I really appreciate your comments and concerns in my discussion page, well i guess this page is not for expressing feelings but you have made me to tell you how you made me feel. Instead of you advising me you judged i dont know if its because you know everything in this movement or what, and you made some offensive comments in my discussion page that itself discouraged me from learning or contributing to the movement. Sorry for replying to you so late i have been out of town and again i have been using my mobile device to reply to your comments thats why maybe there were some errors in my spelling. It has come to my attention that i will not be the first person to complain about this kind of behavior you are showing in my discussion page. Other volunteers too are complaining about you. Please refrain from doing that as you are destroying the Vision of Wikimedia.
PLEASE STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM CONTRIBUTING TO WIKIMEDIA, GIVE THEM ADVICES AND CORRECT THEM IN AN ACCEPTABLE MANNER Thank you again for your comments and i have learnt a lot from you.

Mompati Dikunwane, I don't know what you meant by It has come to my attention that i will not be the first person to complain about this kind of behavior you are showing in my discussion page. Other volunteers too are complaining about you. Please refrain from doing that as you are destroying the Vision of Wikimedia. PLEASE STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM CONTRIBUTING TO WIKIMEDIA, GIVE THEM ADVICES AND CORRECT THEM IN AN ACCEPTABLE MANNER. Well, It is a common practice for community members to comment on grant request like this. See Grants talk:PEG/Wikicology/100 articles contribution to Yoruba Language Wikipedia and Grants talk:IdeaLab/Project Accuracy for example. What I think you might find offensive here is the grading of your spoken English skill which I have apologized but I don't think you should find it offensive if your proposal is scrutinized. Wikicology (talk) 10:16, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WMF Comments[edit]

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, I apologize for the delay in giving your feedback on this request. It is wonderful that so many students from the Masunga Village ICT program want to learn to edit Wikipedia. We would like to support you to continue to build a relationship with these students and get them involved in using and contributing to Wikimedia projects, however I have some concerns about the current project plan, and some recommendations for ways you could proceed.

  1. It is wonderful that there are 50 students who are interested in learning to edit, but I think that it will be difficult to teach such a large group. I recommend that you start with no more than 20 students, but if you do choose to start with all 50, I strongly recommend that you focus on teaching them how to contribute in one or two basic ways, such as starting stubs, lists of redlink, or adding references or images to articles.
  2. The primary expense for this project is a trip to go and take photographs to add to Commons. This is a very expensive activity for a large group who have not yet contributed to Wikimedia. Do you know how many of these students have cameras? Perhaps you can offer a photo expedition as the final event for people who have come to the previous two sessions and have made a certain number of contributions, for example to join the photo trip each person must add 10 or 20 images to articles.
  3. Please clarify what you want the students to accomplish over the course of three sessions, and explain what you will do to help them meet those goals.
  4. Please reduce the budget for this project. We recomend only giving expensive swag like tshirts or hats as prizes or thank you gifts to people who have contributed a lot of work to a project. If you offer the photo trip as a reward for the completion of a set of tasks, it is not likely that you will have 50 people who are eligible. You might consider bringing the budget down by either limiting the number of people who can attend the photo event, or asking participants to bring their own lunch and refreshments.
  5. Finally, I looked at the articles that you have written recently that have been marked for deletion. Although I cannot see what you originally posted, it seems like at least one of the articles should not have been deleted for lack of notability, since you were writing about a government farming policy in Botswana. Have you considered asking other experienced editors from the Indaba community (or beyond) to help you and the students of the program by acting as advocates when articles get tagged for deletion?

Please let me know if you have questions about this feedback. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi KHarold (WMF), thank you so much for your responce, i really understand how busy you are and because you have shortage of staff to review rapid grants.
I am really happy that you want to support me to continue with these students, i am also motivated to do more, thank you for your recommendations.
Back at your questions

  1. I think because i had all of them present at the awareness program i will love to engage all of them, 50 will be okay to start with, let me just give it a try. We will focus on red links, start stubs usually in Setswana Wikipedia and add Images to Articles or stubs which do not have Images.
  2. Only 2 people have good cameras, but others have smart phones which i think can be used to snap pictures, i will try and make a photo expedition for those who came in the two sessions and i will select them based on how they contributed, i will select participants who have 5-10 images uploaded to commons to join the photo trip to the heritage site in the last event, in that way i think costs will be reduced.
  3. I want these students to learn how to contribute to Wikimedia/ learn how to use Wikipedia tools in order to avail the content of Masunga Village Online and improve the content of Botswana at large in Wikipedia, we have respect places/ heritage sites in Masunga which are not available in Wikipedia therefore i will help these students and make follow ups after the event through Whats-app and continue to hold meetings and edit-a-thorns to make sure they continue to add content to the tn.wikipedia.org
  4. I will reduce the total number of people who will attend the photo trip to 28, and they will be selected based on their contributions as stated (Adding 5-10 or more to the articles will make an individual qualify for the trip), this is just an estimation
  5. I haven't yet asked anyone to help but i will consider asking other editors to act as advocates to help us when our articles are tagged for deletion.

Best
Mompati Dikunwane

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, Thank you for making changes to your plans. I am still concerned about the number of people you will have participating in the editing workshops and highly recommend that you find at least one or two experienced editors to help review articles and check the student's work so that their edits do not get reverted. Also, in the future if articles that you or students in your program have articles that are nominated for speedy deletion, please ask someone from the Indaba community to help you either protest the deletion, or understand what you need to do to avoid speedy deletion in the future. Perhaps Flixtey would be willing to help as a mentor. Thank you for all of your hard work planning this project. We look forward to learning about your experience in the report. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi KHarold (Wmf), I am requesting to change the project date to May/June 2018, this is because the graduates have gone for holidays and preparing for christmas day and other holidays, I have discussed with them about the date change and seems to be fine. Sorry for this inconvenience. Best Mompati Dikunwane, I hope this is understandable. Mompati Dikunwane (talk) 12:42, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mompati Dikunwane, could you propose new start and end dates for this grant? Thank you. Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Morgan Jue (WMF). the final dates will be ː 17 september to 20 September 2018

Regards

Mompati Dikunwane

Hello Mompati Dikunwane, thank you for providing the new dates for your project. However, can you explain why the new dates are now in September instead of May/June as you mentioned in your earlier comment? The project is now taking place almost a year after the initial proposed date of November. Please let us know the reasons for this change before I approve the change. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 12:03, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Woubzee(WMF) I understand that it has taken almost a year, I will by all means make sure it is done, please bare with me. The reason for changing the date again is that I wanted to accommodate for other projects and again I have more work to do with my employer, I am so sorry and will make sure to do better in future. Kind regards

Mompati Dikunwane

Approval of change of dates[edit]

Hello Mompati Dikunwane, thank you for providing an explanation for change of dates. Hopefully, these will be the final dates for this project. We look forward to finding out the outcomes of this grant in October. The new due dates for the final report and expense documentation is October 20, 2018. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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