Grants talk:PEG/Satdeep Gill/January 2016 Events

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members who support this request

1. Satdeep Gill does an awesome job for the Punjabi wikiworld and the requested amount (@Wolliff (WMF): - maybe update the sums in infobox as well?) is both reasonable as well as not significantly high, so I support this.
   — Danny B. 05:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
2. --DerekvG (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

GAC members who oppose this request

1. ...

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. ...

WMF comments

Hello, Satdeep:

Thank you for your request. It looks like you are planning an exciting few months for the Punjabi Wikimedians!

I've approved funds for your 2 January meetup as a reallocation of remaining grant funds, because this event is coming up soon and the amount is very small. Therefore, I've removed this from your current request.

We can't guarantee a decision in time to plan these other events, since it takes us about a month to deliver a decision and we have significant delays at the end of the year because we get so many requests. If you move forward with any expenses for the Wikipedia 15 celebration or the workshop before you get a decision on this request, remember that you could be responsible for all of these expenses if your grant application is not approved. If you're not able to take on that risk, we suggest that you postpone these activities until you have a firm decision about funding.

If you want to move forward with your application, we have a few questions about your plans.

About the workshop:

1. What do you hope to accomplish by hosting a workshop in a place that doesn't already have an active Wikimedian community? This isn't a strategy that we've seen be successful other places.
2. How was Kotkapura selected as the location for this workshop?
3. Are the travel scholarships for workshop organizers? If so, why is it necessary to send 10 people? It seems like 2 people, or at most 3, could organize this event.
4. Please provide some specific measures of success for this activity
   • You are expecting 50 participants. How many active editors? How many new editors?
   • How many articles will be created or improved? Are you targeting specific content?
   • You mention, that you "expect to increase the number of editors and active editors". How many active editors and new editors do you hope to gain through this activity?

For the Wikipedia 15 party:

1. Why are you requesting funds for professional photography services? Photography is normally a task that can be done by volunteers with relevant skills, and so we are unlikely to fund this expense.
2. It is unusual for travel scholarships to be included in the budget for a celebration like this. Can you please explain why offering scholarships is necessary for this event? Where will the event be located?

Thanks for your answers! Remember to also respond to Kacie's questions about your report.

Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:22, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Wolliff: thanks for approving the grant for the meetup.

About the workshop:

1. There are around 5 editors in the surrounding area (2-3 active editors) but this help them connect for the first time. These editors were not able to attend the Chandigarh workshop due to some issues. Moreover Chandigarh is pretty far from them.
2. One of our editor and sysop on Punjabi Wiktionary Stalinjeet belongs to this region. He currently studies in Patiala but he suggested that we should do a workshop in that area as well. We have a small organization which willing to help in organizing and participating. They are publishers as well and i was thinking about convincing them to publish some books in CC license.
3. Travel scholarships will also be for some editors who will come to Kotkapura as we can not organize an event in every city at once. So of these 10 scholarships "at least 5" will be very active editors (+100 edits in a month). We will also be inviting other active editors who were not able to participate earlier.
4. Out of 50 participants we are expecting around 10 active editors and 40 new participants.
5. Mainly we will focus on teaching basics to new editors and active editors will again help in benefiting from the Learning pattern Mix newcomers and veterans which we applied in Chandigarh as well. We can have a small target of 20 new articles.
6. We intend to increase to have 3-4 active editors with around 10 more editors. We might be able to get 1-2 very active editors as well.

For the Wikipedia 15 party:

1. Well we were thinking about creating professional interviews of Wikipedians telling their wiki stories but I was also thinking about removing this from the grant now. At this time of the year Professional photographers are asking double the money.
2. Scholarship is necessary to make sure every Wikipedian in Punjab is able to attend the event. The event is supposed to take place in Patiala where we have most of the editors.
3. We will be discussing the event on 3 January 2016 meetup and will update here about it.

--Satdeep Gill (talk) 05:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Change in Wikipedia 15 plans

Hi @Wolliff: and @KHarold (WMF): According to Meetup/Patiala/6 of Punjabi Wikimedians. An editor suggested that we can organize Wikipedia 15 at a School in Sangrur. A city not much from Patiala. We have one editor who belongs to the city. She had talked to a local school who were interesting in helping Wikipedia workshop for the students of 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Classes.

• Expected metrics: Around 30 new accounts and 30 new articles. We can use this event to celebrate Wikipedia 15 event as well. Here is a budget for this event.

1. 15 Travel scholarships x 400 = 6,000 (This the maximum amount and real cost is expected to be around 4,000)
2. Lunch - 20 x 200 = 4,000
3. Wikipedia 15 Cake = 1,000
4. Certificates 20 x 50 = 1,000

Total = 12,000 INR

Regards --Satdeep Gill (talk) 15:40, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Funding decision

Hi Satdeep Gill, thank you for your diligent attention to this request. We see that the Punjabi community has been gaining momentum lately, and we are pleased to support your community to continue to grow.

In general, we find it is best to limit the number of volunteers traveling to conduct outreach and new editor training workshops. However, in the comments from your previous grant report we learned that providing travel funding for current and previously active editors to meet in person for workshops to learn how to use new tools and projects led to several notable increases in editor activity and tool usage. This report also noted that new user retention among students trained at a workshop was very low, and none of them participated in local meetups following the training. For this reason, we suggest that you consider limiting the amount of time spent at these workshops on training students and instead build on the successes they you have seen teaching current and formerly active editors to use new tools and projects.

Given the rapidly approaching date of these events, we understand that it may be difficult to make significant changes to the workshop programs. We look forward to hearing about your upcoming workshops. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kacie, thanks a lot for your comments. I do realize that it is better to limit the number of volunteers traveling but we take this is an opportunity to meet the editors in person and work on projects as a team. In our next workshops as well, We are also going to give travel scholarships to those editors as well who have never participated in any meetup. We also understand that retaining new editors is a problem and that is why focusing on already active editors or formerly active editors has yielded great results. We to grow more and more. Thanks for all the support.--Satdeep Gill (talk) 05:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)