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Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/Kannada-Tulu Wikilearn

Possible corrections, clarifications for budgeting & others

Latest comment: 10 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
  • Timeline: Considering previous iterations last minute workshop requests, other unforeseen delays due to festivals around that time, I have decided to take 2 months time for submitting report.

Correct Project End Date: 31 October 2026

Budgeting

Staff-related expenses: In the budget sheet, staff-related expenses is mentioned for 12 months. However, the intended duration is 10 months. The number of units and total calculations are correct. The amount has been fixed based on benchmarks from other similar rapid projects.

Food, Travel, Prizes, and Awards

Coordinators
  • Coordinators & Co-Trainers are mostly comprise of users from Kannada-Tulu_Language_Group who are vital for assistance during workshops.during my previous project Experinced Users namely Kavitha, Babitha, Vinodha Madam, Bennet Sir have coordinated some workshops. some students from Canara college-Mangalore, Beasant College-Mangalore, Vijaya College-Mulky also assisted in workshops, I would like to continue with same team by adding few more volunteer users/students who are interested in contributiong further on wikimedia.
    • Planned to provide Travel remuneration and Gift sets provided to workshop coordinators as a token of appreciation for their voluntary efforts and assistance during the workshops.

Overlap with Other Projects in Kannada/Tulu Languages

A review of other approved rapid and proposed General support projects in Kannada/Tulu has been undertaken to avoid any potential overlap. In my previous rapid project, I worked on Kannada and Tulu Wikisource, Kannada and Tulu Wiktionary, and Kannada Wikiquote as these projects that were underrepresented and some were newly created(Tulu wikisource and Tulu Wikitionary). Through this new project, I aim to further expand outreach activities across other Wikimedia projects for example i would like to conduct workshops on Wikipedia/Wikidata/Wikicommons topic where I conducted wikisource workshops in previous rapid project.

Proposals from Karavali Wikimedians User Group

I am not a member or affiliate with Karavali Wikimedians User Group. The following projects may have minimal overlap either in topic or participation:

With these considerations in mind, I am open to making any necessary suggestions, revisions or adjustments as may be suggested to ensure effective implementation of this rapid project.--A826 · ✉ · © 03:27, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Dear @A826,
Hope you are well. Thank you for applying for India rapid project.The previous project's impact data had negligible contributions from new users. Before reaching a final decision, we have below clarifying questions related to the submitted project proposal:
  1. How many participants from previous workshops made 5+ edits, 10+ edits, and remained active at 3 months and 6 months post workshop?
  2. Were you able to analyse and document factors for such low level of contribution?
  3. Which 3-5 campuses showed the best participation and retention? What made them successful? And what engagement plans do you have to retain the participants?
  4. What were the top 2-3 factors or failures from the previous iteration that you wish to avoid repeating this time?
  5. Do you have editor retention plans to retain the previous participants rather than conducting one time workshops?
  6. Your projected impact appears very low relative to funding requested and relative to the number of workshops and participants. Why the current metrics mentioned in this project proposal represent good value when previous iteration showed minimal impact?
  7. What specific strategies will you use to motivate and support beginners so that they continue participating?
  8. The committee strongly recommends to focus only on following up with few selected colleges which showed better participation last year or have potential new colleges this year. Have more intense engagement with them this year. Document best practices and scale up next year.
  9. In your previous project in the last Rapid cycle 2, the coordinator honorarium was budgeted at ₹6,000/month and in this cycle it is at ₹10,000/month. Could you explain the rationale for this increase? Also, Apart from the coordinator will any other team members or volunteers receive honorarium or reimbursements? If yes, please specify.
  10. We also recommend that it may be beneficial to allocate a slightly higher budget for participant goodies/schwags, as these can motivate contributors and enhance retention. Kindly make the changes and reshare the budget.
Looking forward to your response by 30th Nov, 2025. Thanks PDas (WMF) (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@PDas (WMF) I am doing well & I hope your are also doing well, Thanks for review and query for my rapid proposal from committee, considering suggestions I have updated our program plan with following activities mentioned below. Our initial project model doesn't rely only on new user recruitment it also programmed to provide knowledge sharing program opportunity to other active users of Wikimedia, so we had planned to extend support in training not just primary editing on Wikipedia, in previous iterations we had successful training sessions on Wikisource, Wikidata, Wikiquote and commons, increased activities on these project significant from active users, I also provided training to them on non core elements such user scripts, other tools such as TABernacle, PAWS to make some repetitive edits easier, further we had sessions on role of admins on Wikimedia projects, best practices on hosting a wiki workshop. Around 50% out of 186 editors have 10+ edits, By utilizing the existing community support within institutions which also provided us venue for offline meetups with other wiki users in the region, as most of active users are from this regions, and there were no known active outreach programs in this region at the moment. Another instance of success would be Kannada Wikiquote 20th anniversary Edit-a-thon where all participants were editing Wikiquote for first time, they had created 688pages in span of 20 days for the competition, this type of event participation was good learning experience for both participants and I learnt participation increased for this cause.
  • Series of 8 offline workshops at various institutions
    • Workshops at 2 new institutions: SDM College-Mangalore, MAPS College-Mangalore (decreased from planned 4-5 new institutions )
    • Followup workshops at 3 institutions: Canara College (follow up), Vijaya College (follow-up), St Agnes College -Mangalore (followup) (decreased from 6 follow-ups initially planned)
  • Monthly 1-2 online google meet sessions, topics for online session will cover unexplored part(wikispecies/wikifunctions/wikivoyage etc.,) of Wikimedia
  • 1 offline 1day workshop to support translation of help pages on Kannada and Tulu languages (kept as it is)
  • 1 month edit-a-thon in the month of November for Internship program for Wikipedia and Wikisource advanced editing practices such as adding reference, cleaning-up unformatted pages on Kannada and Tulu languages​ (added this edit-a-thon to encourage further editing recurring/ active users), editing guidance will be provided by weekly google meet sessions, with 1 offline editing workshop.
  • Wikisource 20th anniversary edit-a-thon June- July 2026
Response to Committee Queries & Updated Strategic Plan
# Committee Question Response / Strategic Action
1 How many participants from previous workshops made 5+ edits, 10+ edits, and remained active at 3 months and 6 months post workshop? While the previous project successfully attended by 199 editors (150+ new users, 30+ and created/improved approx 3000+ pages on Kannada Wikisource/Wikipedia/Wikiquote,Tulu Wikisource, Wikidata & Commons) https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Kannada_language_workshop/Wikimedia_project_workshops,
  • 18 Users who created account but didn't make any edits
  • 68 users who created account at workshops with 10+ edits
  • 68 Users who created account during workshop with 1-10 edits
  • 32 editors who didn't created account during workshop, around 5-10 members who either participated on an online event which is either of Wikipedia Asian month, feminism & folklore, Wikiquote 20 anniversary edit-a-thon
    • The sharp drop-off suggests In my opinion that while new user outreach was good, but the transition to habitual editing didn't happen from students, this may requires more sustained mentorship model.
2 Were you able to analyze and document factors for such low level of contribution? Yes, My analysis (documented in the Final Report learningCommunity_Resources_and_Partnerships/India_Rapid_Project/Kannada_Language_Workshop/Final_Report#Part_2:_Learning & output sectionKannada_Language_Workshop_2024-25) identified some points:
  1. One-Off Nature: Student edits stopped once the workshop ended.
  2. Technical Curve: Beginners may struggled with complex, But we did train simple tasks in our workshop. Those who stayed were mostly those who received extra support on projects like Wikidata etc.,
  3. Generic Content: Participants who are active were less motivated by generic editing tasks but showed high activity during specific thematic campaigns (e.g., WIkipedia Asian Month, Feminism & Folklore, Wikiquote 20th anniversary edit-a-thon).
  4. Mobile Editing: Will plan to add mobile editing session to encourage new users to edit on mobile.
3 Which 3-5 campuses showed the best participation and retention? What made them successful? And what engagement plans do you have to retain the participants? The most successful groups were:
  • Kannada & Tulu language speaking community in Mangalore: Success driven by strong regional pride and an existing offline community bond.
  • Canara College & Vijaya College: Success driven by enthusiastic student leaders who also acted as peer coordinators.
    • Would also like to mention that few students from Beasant college who acted as peer coordinators even though we didn't actually hold offline sessions, but they attended online google meets.Their involvement in project's sustainability was not due to the institutional workshop. but by volunteering as co-trainers came from their interest in improving the wiki in Kannada and Tulu languages, an goal they were able to achieve by this project.
  • St. Aloysius College: Strong institutional support for online campaigns, Since there's already existing Wikimedia student association which has strong wiki presence I would like to continue support their training externally.
  • Engagement Plan: through our workshops I plan to convert the students who are more inclined towards volunteering from these campuses into Co-Trainers further they could become trainers. We will hold advanced workshops specifically for these groups to deepen their skills rather than repeating basics.
4 What were the top 2-3 factors or failures from the previous iteration that you wish to avoid repeating this time?
  1. Factor: Institutions with existing Wikimedians served as beneficial for recurring/retention which can be seen on Institutions such as Canara College and Aloysius college.
  2. Failure: Treating workshops as isolated events. this can be fixed every workshop would include follow-up track.
  3. Failure: Spreading resources too thin across too many new colleges, for this Per committee I have planned to fix this by focusing deeply on the top 3 performing institutions.
  4. Factor: Lack of recognition for small edits. will implement Introducing "Micro-contribution(such as adding references, formatting cleanup needed pages)" challenges for those who continue editing post workshops with immediate recognition.
5 Do you have editor retention plans to retain the previous participants rather than conducting one time workshops? Yes. The core of this proposal is moving from recruitment to retention.
  • Mentorship: We have establishing a structured mentorship program where experienced editors pair with newcomers. We Intend to increase partcipation of students as
  • Regular Meetups: Monthly online "Office Hours" on Google meet to solve blocking issues instantly.
  • Advanced Tracks: Offering training on Tools, Scripts and Wikidata to keep returning participants intellectually engaged.
  • Continue thematic campaigns: would like to continue supporting/hosting thematic campaigns as done in previous iteration
6 Your projected impact appears very low relative to funding requested and relative to the number of workshops and participants. Why the current metrics mentioned in this project proposal represent good value when previous iteration showed minimal impact? I am aware that Quality is needed than Quantity: I have learned training 200 people who leave after 1 edit yields less. Investing in 20-30 committed editors who actively manage the Wiki for years yields exponentially, but through these workshops I am trying active increase number of active editors for both Kannada and Tulu Languages by collaborating with active editors. The sucess part of last project relied on active users contribution considering which I have provided target metrics for this edition.
7 What specific strategies will you use to motivate and support beginners so that they continue participating?
  1. Personalized Support: Every interested participants are being added to a specific WhatsApp support group.
  2. Thematic Campaigns: Focusing on local culture (History, Folklore) which users are passionate about documenting. periodic organizing of thematic events such As Asian Month, Feminism & Folklore etc., with small rewards to build habit formation.
8 The committee strongly recommends to focus only on following up with few selected colleges which showed better participation last year or have potential new colleges this year. Have more intense engagement with them this year. Document best practices and scale up next year. Intitial program model was to engage in follow-up from previous year and focus 4-5 new institutions this year, i fully accept this and adopt this recommendation reducing workshop to 8 nos from 12nos which initially planned, as mentioned in project plan above will also see if I can accommodate more workshop in new institutions as follow-up.
  • I will restrict our primary efforts to the top performing & needed colleges (Canara College, Vijaya College, St Agnes College, SDM, MAPS ) and the Tulu community.
  • Intense Engagement: I had planned to implement a model where we conduct regular monthly Google-meet sessions rather than a single annual workshop so that participating students don't get disconnected from learning exercize.
  • Wiki learning program through wikilearn platform course link (UNDERCONSTRUCTION): This was planned for retention of students will figure out logistics for implementation in final quarter of next year i.e., October-November of 2026 along with 1 month edit-a-thon in the month of November mentioned in above program plan.
9 Rationale for Coordinator honorarium increase (₹6k to ₹10k) & other team payments? * With focus shift in less institutions I will update the budgets to 6k) The earlier Coordinator (₹10k): The increase was considered due to plan of increasing program management. The coordinator(myself) is also responsible for mentoring and managing the new team of co-trainers/coordinators and documenting the entire best practices model, increasing the required skillset and time commitment for Internship programs which may require more than 10-15days per month during that period and normal minimum 10 days time commitment to project initially worked on, Increase in remuneration seemed nominal.
  • Other Team Members: No other members receive a monthly honorarium.
    • The 14 volunteer Co-Trainers/Coordinators will only receive:
      1. Travel Reimbursement: based on local travel average for attending workshops.
      2. Tokens of Appreciation: 1 time Gift sets/Swag for their voluntary service.
10 We also recommend that it may be beneficial to allocate a slightly higher budget for participant goodies/schwags... Kindly make the changes and reshare the budget. Accepted. agree that tangible appreciation boosts morale.
  • I have revised the budget to increase the allocation for participant goodies (stickers, button badges).
  • The updated budget has been uploaded/updated on fluxx and has pasted below.
Description no of units cost/unit Total Updated Description Updated no of units Updated cost/unit Updated Total
Staff related expenses for project lead, who will also be trainer and organizer for this project, @10,000/month for 12 months, 10 ₹10,000 ₹1,00,000 Staff related expenses for project lead, who will also be trainer and organizer for this project, @6,000/month for 12 months 12 ₹6,000 ₹72,000
Internet and services Internet Dongle 1 ₹3,000 ₹3,000 Internet and services Internet Dongle 1 ₹3,000 ₹3,000
Internet and services Internet support for organizer & dongle 10 ₹1,000 ₹10,000 Internet and services Internet support for organizer & dongle 12 ₹1,000 ₹12,000
Travel and accommodation Travel & Accommodation, For organizer and training associates who are assisting offline workshop 12 ₹5,000 ₹60,000 Travel and accommodation Travel & Accommodation, For organizer and training associates who are assisting offline workshop 8 ₹5,000 ₹40,000
Food and beverages Per Workshop at 40 students at 350rs/per person 12 ₹14,000 ₹1,68,000 Food and beverages Per Workshop at 40 students at 350rs/per person 8 ₹14,000 ₹1,12,000
Prizes and awards Prize and awards for edit-a-thon 30 ₹600 ₹18,000 Prizes and awards Prize and awards for edit-a-thon 30 ₹600 ₹18,000
Prizes and awards Stationary & certificates 12 ₹1,200 ₹14,400 Prizes and awards Stationary & certificates 8 ₹1,200 ₹9,600
Prizes and awards Gift sets for Organizer/and those who assist in workshops 20 ₹1,000 ₹20,000 Prizes and awards Gift sets for Organizer/and those who assist in workshops 20 ₹2,000 ₹40,000
Earlier budgeted Total ₹ 3,93,400/- Updated New Budget Total ₹3,06,600/-
Above I have added my response and updated budget has been uploaded/updated on fluxx. As don't see examples of rapid/general support project which has better new user retention/recurrence for me to see if i can learn from it improve further on retention of new users so I have considered committee suggested, I am more happy to incorporate any further revisions or adjustments as you suggest to ensure effective implementation of this rapid project.--A826 · ✉ · © 16:43, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Your Project Application is Approved

[edit]
Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Dear @A826,

We appreciate your effort in responding to the questions. We have completed the review of the application and I am pleased to inform you that your project application is approved for ₹ 3,11,600.

Please make sure to document all of your activities and learning in the final report for review and others to learn from. Looking forward to seeing impactful outcome and collaboration in this project. Wishing you all the best for the project! Thanks PDas (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 8 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

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