Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Angkor in detail (ID: 22642668)

Why should I from India be considered for taking photos of temples in Cambodia?

I am an active Wikipedian for the last 18 years mainly contributing to Wikimedia Commons. If the uploads by bots are not taken into account of, I would be among the top twenty (if not 10) contributors to Wikimedia Commons, as seen here. I am at number 90 when my upload count was 94834. Now it is 113853. A few areas where I upload most are:

1. Historical buildings, like old temples, forts etc. They would be around 40 percent of all my uploads.
2. Plants: their leaves, flowers, fruits, habitats etc. They would  be around 20 percent.
3. Butterflies: Mainly Life cycles (from early stages of caterpillar to pupa to adults). I have now life cycles of 69 butterflies at Commons. They would  be around 10 percent.
4. Travel, nature, etc. remaining

Cambodia is very different in biodiversity from India where I am coming from. It gives me chance to see and photograph the biodiversity of Cambodia, mainly plants and butterflies which too would  be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. 2. Some photos of (mainly) old temples I have taken and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons

A) Old forts and temples of Karnataka

B) Temples of East Tamilnadu

C) Eastern Tamilnadu

D) Maharashtra forts and old temples

E) Hampi

My Butterfly life cycle images can be seen here

Last 18 years of my life is full of Wikimedia. A few links below which might speak of that:

The India Biodiversity portal had transferred around 1800 plant and butterfly photos taken by me from Wikimedia Commons and are available here

The Business Standard has published an article about my contributions to Wikimedia Commons as how it helps on conserving biodiversity after listening to my presentation at WikiConference India held at Chandigarh in 2016

All these years I have purchased many cameras, travelled taking photos, sorted, categorized and uploaded (even when the internet speed was counted in KB/s) these one hundred thousand photos with money and efforts and time solely borne by me. Now I wish to plug a big cap on Khmer history of Cambodia by photographing and uploading thousands of photos from Angor wat and surroundings to Wikimedia Commons which would be possible only with some financial assistance from the foundation, that is why this Rapid request is put forth. I intend to use iPhone 11 pro and Nikon Z50 with 18-140 lens for taking photos of Angkor temples. Vinayaraj (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Netha Hussain (talk)

Vinayaraj is an active Wikimedian from the Malayalam community, who has uploaded a large body of work related to historical monuments and biodiversity on Wikimedia Commons. I believe that this endaveour would bring significant and important details related to Angkor Wat to light, particularly the intricate details related to the wall sculptures as well as the culture of Cambodia. The rich metadata that accompanies the images are likely to be useful for researchers and GLAMmers. Furthermore, this endaveour is likely to reduce the diversity gap on Wikimedia Commons by representing the culture and history of an underrepresented region in South Asia. --Netha Hussain (talk) 18:26, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Shyamal (talk)

1. Support - I endorse the project since it is going to be definitely more effective (on a per person per dollar measure) than say a project like Wiki Loves Butterflies - especially given the background of the grantee and past contributions on Commons and ml.wiki . Given that most of the carvings in Angkor are easily understood by people from India - I am sure Vinay will find especially interesting material to cover - and given my own experience at Angkor, the 2/3 day pass for a visitor does not allow for sufficient examination of Angkor. Shyamal (talk) 04:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Jacob (talk)

Support I have known Vinayraj for more than 13 years as an editor and then as a fellow administrator in the Malayalam Wikipedia. Vinayraj has contributed numerous photographs to Wikipedia Commons, many of which have been used in Malayalam Wikipedia. These photographs have increased the readability of articles and the reach of these articles to common folk in Kerala.

Photographing the intricate architectural work of temples requires not only a certain level of dedication and commitment, but also an aptitude in documentary photography. Many of the current photographs of Ankor Watt were taken by casual travellers. Work from a dedicated professional who is committed to open source documentation of such valuable historical work will be an invaluable asset to the Wikimedia Commons project and to the individual language wikis.

The quality of images that he has uploaded to Wikimedia Commons has been excellent. I have used some of those in my facebook articles like this article in Jan 2022 since these were the highest quality open source images on the plants in certain species that I could find on the web.

I believe the requested grant would be well spent to enhance the knowledge of future generations to come and endorse the project.

--Jacob (talk) 04:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Razimantv

I am a member and administrator at mlwiki. Vinayaraj has clearly stated a significant missing component not only for mlwiki but for all Wikipedia projects. The value that the photographic documentation will add to articles on culture, religion and history will be tremendous.

I have years of experience interacting with him on mlwiki. He has consistently demonstrated his meticulousness in photographically documenting natural, cultural and historical subjects. His photos regularly feature in the front page due to their quality and the value they add to articles.

His proposal here shows a clear plan and sets out important and achievable targets. Also considering his past contributions, I have no doubt that it will be successful in returning in value many times the cost of the grant. It is this my pleasure to endorse him.

--Razimantv 18:39, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Manojk

User:Vinayaraj a highly active Wikipedian with a passion for documenting India's biodiversity, history, and cultural monuments, is a significant contributor to Wikimedia Commons in these areas. I strongly endorse this proposal. Manojk (talk) 09:25, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Follow-up questions/ comments

Hello @Vinayaraj,

Thank you for putting in a grant application and for the additional information provided - Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Angkor in detail (ID: 22642668)#Why should I from India be considered for taking photos of temples in Cambodia?.

For this 20-day field visit, could you provide more details on what are the pre, during and post trip preparation that is needed and the amount of time one has to allocate to these activities? Given you have done this multiple times, do you have standard operating procedures and guidelines around the project management to share as part of knowledge management contribution to the movement?

Do you also track statistics of viewerships and content re-use of your photos? How can you increase the visibility of your contributions on Wikimedia commons?

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 06:57, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Let me thank you first for the questions. 

For this 20 day field visit I will be planning meticulously the itinerary in advance. On the technical side I would make sure that the camera and phone are in good condition with plenty of storage media like hard disk, memory cards, power-banks are always ready with me. Already virtually travelled many times through all those places via Google map and street maps so that anything that has historical or artistic values is not left out. Past experience having seen different temple architecture should help me find similarities and differences of Khmer architecture. For very distant places from Siem Reap, like Prea Vihear I expect to go by an arranged trip. But for the temple around Siem Reap I will be going alone, with ample time to explore the intrinsic architecture. The knowledge of ancient Hindu texts and stories are an added advantage to understanding Khmer architecture, I feel. And the post trip: Naming, categorizing and uploading: This will be done back in India.

The second part of the question is very interesting. 

One can spend hours composing a scene before taking an excellent photo of an ancient temple. It would have excellent artistic value. But covering a vast area of millennia old temples with so much artistic precision would take years to complete. So my style is a bit different from that. More than the artistic value I go for the documentary value of ancient places. Recording as much as possible and preserving them for the future. I consider Wikimedia Commons as a very long project in Time rather than getting immediate visibility. Not using our images in any Wikipedia articles or their viewership does not matter at all. A researcher from the future from some other part of the globe comparing the same species recorded from various locations might stumble upon their variations. Our duty is to record them and preserve them. 

While answering this question I searched for my images used elsewhere and surprised to see that at hundreds of places they are used with attribution and there could be many without attributions at all. For example the cover of this book is my photo taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Thank you

--Vinayaraj (talk) 17:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Your grant application has not been successful

Hello @Vinayaraj

Thank you for your rapid fund application and for taking time to respond to the follow-up questions.

Your grant application has not been approved at this time. We were looking for a stronger and more sustainable wikimedia community engagement, with content contribution across wikiprojects.

We hope you will continue to contribute to the Wikimedia movement and look forward to connecting again if you wish to explore other ideas for your projects.

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 05:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)