Grants talk:Project/Rapid/WMROMD/Photo expedition before WLE 2018 in Moldova/Report

Extending report deadline?

Hi @WJifar (WMF): Could I use one more month to prepare the report? I would very much like to add images in the report, along with conclusions of how much they've (and the expedition itself) helped, and I cannot upload them now, because they would not make it into the contest's stats. Wiki Loves Earth in Moldova starts on June 1 and ends on June 30. Thank you. Gikü (talk) 10:13, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Approval of report date extension

Hello Gikü, thank you for requesting for a report extension here. I have approved your request and updated our records to show your report is due on June 30, 2018. Please also note MJue (WMF)'s email regarding the requested information for your grant so we can proceed with next steps to process your grant. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Report accepted

Hi, Gikü, congratulations on completing your grant!

Your complete grant report has been reviewed and accepted, and documentation of expenses has also been accepted. Thank you for your engagement with the reporting review process, and with your work throughout the grants process. We appreciate you sharing the outcomes from your project and what you learned with WMF and the community.

Congratulations on the many beautiful images of Moldova's protected areas that your teams took during the expedition!

• We noticed that the images were used to varying degrees on various Wiki projects. What do you think determined whether a category of images had a high percentage used (for example, Zăbriceni landscape reserve) or a low percentage used?

We warmly welcome any updates you would like to provide us about your completed project. We thank you for your work for the movement, and offer you our best wishes for your future work.

Thank you!LSmith (WMF) (talk) 02:33, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@LSmith (WMF): Hi, thanks for your message!

Yes, the images are used to varying degrees on various wiki projects, because as of now only the Romanian Wikipedia has a comprehensive collection of articles about protected areas of Moldova. So the majority of usage naturally happens on that wiki.

Categories are used in a greater of lesser measure mainly depending on the length of articles they are associated to. For example, we have Baurci nature reserve, a short article that cannot hold more than a handful of images. On the other hand, we have Park of Rediul Mare, a longer article, in which it makes sense to insert more media. Then, we have c:Category:Halophyte meadow near Bănești, which has no associated article at all, and a single image is used to represent the area in a list (but please observe that the list gives a link to the commons category so that all the images can be viewed).

I think there are multiple things we could have done better for certain protected areas. Especially parks / dendrological gardens. The article on the aforementioned Park of Rediul Mare extensively describes the flora of the site. Unfortunately we lacked the time and most importantly the botanical expertise to localize specific flora and make photos of it. As a result, the majority of files under c:Category:Park of Rediul Mare represent nothing but scenery, and can't be used to properly illustrate an encyclopaedic article.

As for updates, I'd like to tell you that the two photo expeditions we've done through rapid grants did not go unnoticed. Just recently, the partners from Eco FM – as a result of travelling in the photo expedition two years in a row – recommended WLE Moldova to a big name in Moldova's tourism and ecology, a guy who extensively researches settlements of Moldova in his tour guides. I am planning to have him join us in improving Moldova in Wikivoyage and Wikipedia, perhaps under a new rapid grant. I hope stars will align well for this to happen, but again this acquaintance would not have happened if not for the photo expedition. I'll make sure to ping you here and attach the link in the event a grant request is created.

I'm available for further questions or comments :) Best, Gikü (talk) 12:37, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Gikü! Thank you for such a detailed reply! That explanation of why some images were used more than others, and what could be done to increase utilization, makes sense. Even if they aren't used in an article immediately, it's still a valuable resource to have these photos.

And that's wonderful news about your connection to the Moldova tourism and ecology employee. We'll keep our eyes out for another possible rapid grant application! Whether or not you apply for another grant, I hope your connection to him and collaboration with him is fruitful :-)

Happy New Year! LSmith (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2019 (UTC)