Talk:Wikicite/e-scholarship/Joseagush

Dear Joseagush and colleagues,
Thank you for your application for an e-scholarship for this important project. Firstly, I must say: I think the example that you have given which shows a sparql query demonstrating the lack of any palm leaf manuscripts in Wikidata (?item wdt:P31 wd:Q1641020.) is a very effective method of explaining your story! I also appreciate that this proposal is tied to and supporting another existing project, improving the value of that project (and its grant) in the process. However I have some questions/comments for you.

If I have misunderstood I apologise, but it seems your project description requires that people travel to different houses to discover and record the existence of the different manuscripts. Also, the maximum size of the e-scholarship is for 5 people for 4 days (each). The original intention was that this would mean that each person in a team would be doing the project simultaneously - on the same 2, 3 or 4 days - but actually that is not required. If you wish to have different people doing different things on different days, then that is also possible. You have specified up to 8 days in your project description, can you clarify what you mean by the number of days?

In the 'your qualifications' section of the application, you have described who you are, but you have not described your team. There are 5 wikimedians listed as participating - and in the e-scholarship system they would each receive financial support for the project. Is that your intention? If so, you would need to explain their role and qualifications for the project too. If you meant that only you would be the person applying for the e-scholarship, then you should ask those people to list themselves in the 'endorsement' section at the bottom of the application document.

If you are intending to propose a project that would pay a scholarship for 5 people to work for 4 days each, then you will need to explain in high detail what they will all - together and individually - achieve in this time. I see you have said '50 manuscripts' as the measurement, but it would be important to explain what is involved in the 'collecting and cataloguing' work. Do you mean physically collection? Do you mean transcribing the text? Do you mean creating a Wikidata item?

Finally, I would like to suggest something else:
From reading this description it seems as if your project - in the amount of time, the kinds of activities, and the number of people - might perhaps be more appropriate for a wikicite 'project and event' grant: WikiCite/grants. This is much more flexible (and allows a request of a specific amount of funding between 2 and 10 thousand US$ equivalent). The e-scholarship is meant for people to do small projects while staying at home. I am not saying that your application is ineligible for e-scholarship, but perhaps you didn't see that other grant possibility and you might find it more useful for your project. Please tell me what you think, and please edit/improve your grant application document as much as you would like (before the deadline on 1 October). --LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 15:14, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi @LWyatt (WMF):, thank you for your fast respond, Here some answer which i can summary.

First, it is still a draft for me, as we as community still try to figure it out what is the best proposal we can ask. Yes it will be travel to different houses to discover and record the manuscript itself (right now, we already has 2 houses which ready to cooperate, hopefully it will expand more) OR if its not appropiate regarding COVID-19 wikimedia policy (that is why i propose the project starting next year), I would like to suggest they bring the manuscript to one of our homes (which may burden them as its big data in volume) or just one or two member going to collect the manuscript. The amount of 8 days (maximum, may be less) just depend on the sum of manuscript. For rough estimate 2 days to collecting (one per house), other 2-4 days to make the catalog, other 2 days to editathon. Why e-scholarship not grant? The reason is simple, cheaper. I don't want to burden Wikimedia, I forget also to mention you can still grant us just for max 4 days.

Second, I forget to explain who is the other team member. Anggabuana working as the Alliance of Balinese Language Care under the local government which bring the project idea and has connection to the owners of manuscripts, Carma citrawati working as balinese literature lecturer and the rest is final-year students in balinese literature and the current member from palmleafwiki which can translated the script to latin or balinese and working as translator in palmleafwiki (upcoming balinese wikisource). I myself not have many experience in balinese script but knew a bit more how wikidata or wikipedia works, so i will help them to creating the wikidata items. All of them is local balinese Wikipedian.

Yes, it can expand to WikiCite/grants, but as it is our first proposal from small community, I am still not sure to propose there. Otherwise, if travelling is not allowed, I think better we make just editathon to existed manuscript which already in archive and palmleafwiki. What do you think?

Please tell me what you think for this rough proposal. Joseagush (talk) 01:31, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

The e-scholarship value for Denpasar is $83 per person per day [Calculated as 75% of the the 'meals and incidentals' rate here]. For the 5 people you have listed in the project that is $415 per day. If we then expand to 4 days, that is $1660. So, to give context, that is the amount your grant is currently talking about.

However... the e-scholarship system has certain restrictions - because it is meant to be simple - which might make things difficult for you:

1) the amount of money is fixed at this per-diem rate calculated above - all people in the same city have the same. That means we don't have to debate the 'value' of work and time in different locations around the world.

2) It can only be used for 'staying at home' projects - for a small number of people, for a small number of days. No travel.

So, in your case - it might be more appropriate to look at the normal Wikicite Grant program, because it is more flexible: We can have people, more days, more variety of activities (including editathons, physical actions (like travel to visit the houses). Also, we can negotiate a different/more nuanced 'value' for the work for different people: some people might be specialist experts, some people might only be involved for a small amount of time (not a full day), for example.

WikiCite grants program officially states that the "minimum value" of the grant is $2,000 (USA equivalent in local currency), but - because I am the project officer for that project I am happy to provide your project with an exception, based on the description and discussion we have had here. If you would like to move your application over to that program - you are welcome to ask for a grant which is lower than $2,000 if you wish. You can also increase the request if you wish, and include more activities and complexity. That is your choice.

I would recommend that you explain in greater detail - in the grant application itself - the Specific tasks required to work on a manuscript (travel, photograph, transcribe...); How much time and how difficult each of these tasks is; and the specific task each person in the team will do. I also recommend that you describe some examples of what these manuscripts are, and why they are important. It is impossible for me to know this information from outside your cultural context. Also, I recommend That you inform the Indonesian and the general WikiSource community about the project proposal because each grant application also has a endorsements and comments section - it would be good to see their responses too. --Wittylama (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Wittylama:, thank you for your respond, Yes it will be great if this project going to WikiCite grants program and nice to have endorse from you and Liam. Here we are also excited to follow the suggestion. We still discuss it more with community what is the best for this proposal as I need to be more detailing about the process we will take. Thank you. Joseagush (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Joseagush: - I see that you have created a new page Wikicite/grant/Balinese WikiLontar for this proposal under the other grant process. I have therefore changed the category for this page from "open" to "closed" - to make it easier for me and the committee to know which proposals are in what status. I hope that is clear and acceptable for you. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi @LWyatt (WMF):, Yes this proposal closed. Thank you. Joseagush (talk) 14:51, 15 September 2020 (UTC)