Grants talk:IEG/More books in the Bashkir language at Wikisource

This project has not been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding, but we hope you'll continue to engage in the program. Please drop by the IdeaLab to share and refine future ideas!

Comments regarding this decision:
Thanks for sharing your idea - we hope to see more from you in the future, and wish the Bashkir-speaking community much luck meanwhile.

Next steps:

1. Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
2. Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
3. To reapply with this project in the future, please make updates based on the feedback provided in this round before resubmitting it for review in a new round.
4. Check the schedule for the next open call to submit proposals - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in a future round.

Questions? Contact us.

Aggregated feedback from the committee for More books in the Bashkir language at Wikisource

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weakest 5=strongest
Potential for impact
(A) The project fits with the Wikimedia movement's strategic priorities	3
(B) The project has the potential to lead to significant online impact.	3
(C) The impact of the project can be sustained after the grant ends.	3
(D) The project has potential to be scaled or adapted for other languages or projects.	2
Ability to execute
(E) The project has demonstrated interest from a community it aims to serve.	3
(F) The project can be completed as scoped within 6 months with the requested funds.	3
(G) The budget is reasonable and an efficient use of funds.	3
(H) The individual(s) proposing the project have the required skills and experience needed to complete it.	4
Fostering innovation and learning
(I) The project has innovative potential to add new strategies and knowledge for solving important issues in the movement.	3
(J) The risk involved in the project's size and approach is appropriately balanced with its potential gain in terms of impact.	3
(K) The proposed measures of success are useful for evaluating whether or not the project was successful.	3
(L) The project supports or grows the diversity of the Wikimedia movement.	4
Comments from the committee: 500-book threshold seems ambitious but even 200 new books and some new users in the project would be worth a try. Could be a huge help to the language community. Without a plan to utilize the equipment after the 6 month period, it does not seem cost effective. Paying students may discourage them from pro-bono contribution in the future. Persuading authors to release their materials seems unrealistic. They live on royalties, and it is unlikely they would give it up in exchange for small gifts. Measures of success appear unrealistic The impact this project may not be large enough to justify the expense.

Questions

Hi Рөстәм Нурыев. Thank you for sharing your proposal to increase the number of books in Bashkir language. Let me ask you a couple questions to brush up your proposal.

Hi Tomo suzuki. Sorry for my bad English.

As you probably know, IEGrants does not fund activities that are considered as a replacement of volunteer actions. To me frankly, it seems that you are planning to directly create contents. Do you think it’s possible to use different approaches such as encouraging more people to scan and upload books that are in public domain?

Thank you. I will change the conditions. Yes, can use the method encouragements large number of participants. It is difficult, but possible. Russian law requires the employment contract with each performer works. Easier to conclude an agreement with the five performers than fifty. I need money to reward students, then I can ask the state subsidy of the same amount. Thanks to a grant will work five students. From the state for another five.

Secondly, if I understand correctly, you are planning to scan copyrighted books as well. Signing agreement with copyright holders may require extensive legal knowledge in order to avoid potential legal conflicts. Are you prepared for that? How much time do you think it is necessary to satisfy each author out of 30 you are trying to meet?

I plan to organize a lecture. Copyright protection under license Sreative Commons. I invite the expert to lecture. I have a contact with the Union of Writers of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Two writers have placed their works in Wikisource. I will conduct individual negotiations within a year.

Thirdly, what kind of books do you plan to upload? It would have bigger impact on project when you choose books that are in high demand.

Tutorials, guides, reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries the Bashkir language for convenience in editing Wikipedia articles.

Thanks!--Tomo suzuki (talk) 20:04, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry for my bad English. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 05:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Бэрт дии!

Отлично, Рустам! Обязательно тщательно изучу сам, сегодня даже специальный выпуск рассылки сделаю. Кстати подпишись, если еще не сделал этого. И расскажи нам как пришел к этой мысли:) --HalanTul (talk) 22:16, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Спасибо, Николай! В 2012 году число активных редакторов Башкирской Википедии выросло с 44 в январе до 69 в декабре. Провел экспресс-опрос новичков путем личной переписки и узнал какие затруднения они испытывают при редактировании статей. Большинство участников пожаловались на недостаток в интернете словарей и справочной информации на башкирском языке. По данной проблеме провел "мозговой штурм" с молодыми ребятами. Один из них и предложил отыскать такие источники, отсканировать и выложить в интернете. Молодые же быстро соображают. Идей у них много, но не знают как их реализовать. Опыта мало. Так устроен мир. Вот я ищу деньги, чтобы реализовать эту идею в ближайщее время. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 03:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Donation of existing scanned materials

Hi. I was wondering whether did you investigate the existence of already scanned materials at public libraries/archives and the possibility of donation of these materials to Bashkir Wikisource? Many libraries around the world are increasingly digitizing their books/manuscripts, but they either make them available for internal use at the library or offer them at the library website under restrictions. If possible it will be great to investigate the availability of such already scanned materials, and the possibility to share them openly on Wikisource, which might save a lot of efforts rescanning these materials. Thanks. --Haithams (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Haithams. Yes, investigated. I have a contact with the National Library named Ahmed Zaki Validi, State Historical Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Book Chamber of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The National Library has not yet begun to such works. Book Chamber is planning in the near future. Historical Archive scans texts of the ancient Russian documents. We need books in the Bashkir language, which were published in the last century. Written language is Bashkir language Cyrillic in 1940. We show an example of scanning books in the Bashkir language. Thanks. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 05:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Copyright

Hi, thanks for your neat idea. I'm wondering how you are going to handle and oversee copyright issues. Crowdsourced outreach initiatives have frequently ran into massive problems with copyright violations. Are you aware of those issues and prepared to deal with them? Cheers, Ocaasi (talk) 18:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I plan to make a list of necessary books. Above the list, I'm working. Then I will announce the list of books and order them digitized. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 15:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Content creation and eligibility

Thank you for updating your proposal to clarify that you do not plan to directly creating content yourself as part of this project, that is helpful! I'm marking this proposal as ready for review as a result of our understanding that this grant would fund the digitalization of books in question, but not a grantee's work to directly review or transcribing the uploaded content. Digitalization of copyrighted material remains a concern that will still need to be addressed for the committee during the review period. Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the responsibility. I am responsible for copyright protection. I am taking steps to eliminate of probable conflicts. I am consulting with experts from the Book Chamber of the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Institute of History, Language and Literature, Ufa Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 16:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Optical character recognition

Since I am not going to assume anything here, I have a question. Do you plan to digitalize the books with Optical character recognition?--Snaevar (talk) 11:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Some books I will scan from image recognition. However, most of the books will be in PDF format with the ability to image recognition in the future. Currently, there are still problems recognizers letters Bashkir language. The collection of fonts OS Windows has the fonts of the Bashkir language. However, the scanner can not recognize Bashkir font. This is a temporary problem. Until the problem is solved as follows. 1) Scanning a book with Optical Recognition of text. Of the letters of the Bashkir language strange characters. 2) Editing text in a text editor Word. AutoCorrect strange characters on the letters of the Bashkir language. However, this approach is not always successful. Thank you for your question. Pleased that you are interested in solving the problems of the Bashkir language and the Bashkir people. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 03:10, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Try to do an Optical character regonition (OCR) on the Internet Archive - archive.org. All you need is an free account, then upload a file to them and then the OCR is done on their servers. See if that gives you better results.-Snaevar (talk) 01:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Ok. --Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 16:06, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Questions from a librarian

Because I am a librarian, I like the idea of providing reliable written reference material for 1 million Bashkir speakers. And as a Wikipedian, I would like to see the public domain or Creative Commons types of material on a site like Wikisource, to make sure it will be usable on Wikipedia.

Questions and thoughts about possibilities for ongoing use of the equipment:

• Might there be teachers of Bashkir who could use the equipment with their students, and have the students write some material for articles? Perhaps the equipment could be used to start a Bashkir Wikipedia Club at a university.
• Would it be practical for your group to hold monthly meetups, editathons, or Wikipedia evening parties for the following year, using your equipment? If you have enough Bashkir speakers living near each other to make this possible, it would give you an opportunity to look over the materials you have digitized, and start using them in your Wikipedia. It would also give you a chance to speak Bashkir together, and could be a lot of fun.
• I don't know how long a scanner will be usable if you are scanning hundreds of books. Hopefully your scanner will still work when you are done with the project. Is there a historical archive, library, or university near you where you could continue to use the scanner, or other possibilities for scanning historical photos for Commons?

Another possibility could be modifying the request a bit to include food to feed students at editathons after you're done with the scanning phase. At meetings and editathons here in Washington, once people feel hungry, they start to get up and leave to go find food. It's been helpful to provide tasty cookies and sandwiches at events, so everybody can sit together and talk about Wikipedia, then go back to editing.

(I do not know if any of these ideas apply to your group. I'm making these suggestions because I would like to see your reliable sources become freely available, and I wouldn't want to see a concern about what happens to the laptop and scanner after you are done be a block to implementing your project!) Djembayz (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Djembayz.

• Yes, we planning not only teachers and students could use the equipment. And thanks for idea to start Bashkir Wikipedia Club.
• Don't worry about enough Bashkir speakers living near because near me lives only Bashkir speakers (ok, maybe not only, but most of them).
• Yes, there is. And not only one.

Thank you for a bit. We will think about how we could realize it.--Gataullin93 (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)