Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia/2020

Questions to the user group

@Mehman97: Hello dear Georgians, thank you very much for your proposal! It is encouraging to see new groups take on the challenge of becoming more organised and formulating strategic plans! I do have a few questions though, feel free to answer underneath each question directly :-)

• The budget for prizes seems very high, especially for Georgian standars. Is there a necessity to spend 2.000 USD on Wiki Loves Caucasus? You don't mention it in the proposal, so it is unclear what exactly this contest is about. Also, 400 USD for one smaller competition also seems very high.
• I would also strongly advise to rethink if every contests needs that much prize money or if (especially in the case of the marathon) more immaterial prizes would be better - not every contest will require such high profile prize money, or do you think that the prize money is the main motivation of people to participate?

Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 15:00, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Philip Kopetzky:, glad to hear you and thanks for the questions.

1. I agree with you that the budget for the prizes seems large, but you need to know that these amounts include not only prizes for specific participants, but also different branding souvenirs for all participants of the contests (both for winners and all other participants). As regards specifically the Wiki Loves Caucasus, you can read specifically about this contest here, we held this contest for the first time this year, in collaboration with Wikimedia Russia, Azerbaijan and other regional user groups. The budget for this contest is certainly large, but we are asking for money not only for users of Georgian Wikipedia, but also for participants of Azerbaijani, North Caucasian languages (Chechen, Lezgi, Ossetian) Wikipedia and for participants in the international part of the contest (this year, users of Ukrainian, Arabic, Spanish, Armenian and other Wikipedia took part). Unfortunately, due to legal issues, neither Azerbaijan nor Russia (including the user groups from Russia) can't receive funding from WMF, so we took on this issue, precisely because of this the budget of this competition is too high.

1. For two years now (starting from 2017) we haven't been giving cash prizes to the winners of contests, instead of this we are giving gift cards (more often gift cards of the American online store Amazon.com, which calculates in USD), as well as valuable gifts. Of course, cash prizes motivate people, but we have seen from our own experience that gift cards (especially from Amazon.com) and vouchers from bookstores more motivate the audience and high interest.

I hope, I could satisfy your interest with my answers, if there are still questions, I will answer them with pleasure. Kindly, --Mehman 97 18:49, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

simple APG Committee recommendation

We recommend that Wikimedia User Group Georgia receive a grant for 24,000 USD.

The committee is glad to see Wikimedia Georgia enter the APG program and is looking forward to see how their plan develops this year. The committee is however concerned that a great part of the plan is composed of contests and that the prizes level for this part of the world is extremely high. We would like to see WMUG Georgia readjust its prizes to reasonable amounts in their context. We find Wikimedia User Group Georgia's plan otherwise quite straightforward. It has a number of activities that have proven they can bring good impact.

For the committee, Islahaddow (talk) 11:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia User Group Georgia APG approved in the amount of 24,000 USD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 24,000 USD with a grant term starting 1 January 2020 and ending 31 December 2020.

Wikimedia User Group Georgia has worked in the past on successful projects and is entering the APG program for the first time, with a coherent annual plan. WUG Georgia's strategy for 2019 reads more as a justification for the annual plan than a strategy, and it will be interesting to see how WUG Georgia works on aligning it with the Movement Strategy outcomes in the coming months. It would also benefit from community scrutiny to bring different voices to the table. The annual plan is clear and well articulated, and programs make sense, but it is not clear how they are relevant to Georgia's specific context.

WUG Georgia Program "Content Gap" lists as activities article contests and Photography contests that are aimed at tackling content gaps identified by the community. We would like to better understand how these are identified, and we are looking forward to good results in this area, as has been the case in the past with previous contests.The idea of a Wikidata training to train Wikidata enthusiasts the Georgian community is interesting and hopefully will leverage that enthusiasm to develop content in Georgian in Wikidata, as well as open doors for partnerships with institutions which might be interested in Wikidata information.

The Program "Increase participation" is geared on events that hold high motivational value, such as Wikimarathon (on the anniversary of the Georgian Democratic Republic), as has been developed in Ukraine, and two Wikicamps to bring together experienced Wikimedians and young new editors to work together on editing Wikipedia. These high touch events seems to enhance motivation and produce some content, and we would really appreciate a good evaluation scheme around them to make sure that we understand how they should be supported in the future.

The Program around Community Support rests on the creation of at least one Wikiclub, and aims at bringing editors together in offline events through a local conference and the general meeting, which will allow for exchange between participants. Scholarships for travel will allow Georgian editors and volunteers to exchange in the region as well as internationally.

The committee has recommended to lower the amount because of the really high level of prizes. We understand that WUG Georgia has been able to do contests with prizes of that nature in the past, but we want to uphold the committee recommendation and urge WUG Georgia to rethink its prize scheme, which seems much too high for their context. We are happy to discuss further with WUG Georgia to review the prize scheme together.

We are looking forward to working with WUG Georgia on developing their organization, strategy and annual plan further this year.

Best regards, Delphine (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks you all for your support and we will eliminate all problems as soon as possible. Kindly, --Mehman 97 20:56, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Midpoint Report Accepted

Hello Mehman97 and WMC UG Georgia Colleagues, thanks for submitting your midpoint report. We have reviewed the metrics, budget, and report and marked them as accepted. Thank you for your work for the Wikimedia Movement! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 12:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks DSaroyan (WMF). Sincerely, --Mehman 97 13:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for an extension of the deadline

Hello @VThamaini (WMF):, I would like to ask on behalf of Wikimedia UG Georgia from you to extend the deadline for submitting the final report until January 30th. Unfortunately we will not be able to submit the report by January 15th. Kindly, --Mehman 97 12:01, 14 January 2021 (UTC)