Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/In-person Edit-a-thon in Tamil Wikipedia and Strategic Meet (ID: 22680236)

Endorsement from Nan (talk)

• This well-planned In-person Edit-a-thon in Tamil Wikipedia and Strategic Meet is required to enhance multiple onsite and online interactions between the Tamil community members to facilitate collaboration and better cooperation to enhance further growth of Wikipedia. The planned activities will certainly improve selected articles and over-all organisation of articles in Tamil wikipedia, which is essential to attract more new users and increase user frequency. Budget is appropriate. My further suggestion is to conduct this type of events regularly in the future as well to sustain community activities and enthusiasm among the community members.

--Nan (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Sundar (talk)

Edit-a-thons have helped increase article counts as well as quality significantly in the past in Tamil Wikipedia. Synchronising the otherwise asynchronous activity brings efficiencies, but also improves a sense of community because of interactions between editors.

--Sundar (talk) 06:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from சா அருணாசலம் (talk)

Previous meetings on Tamil Wikipedia have benefited users. (eg) Events such as Wikipedia:Vengai Project Training 2023, Wiki Marathon 2023 where users can learn new editing techniques. The quality of articles has also improved. A group of users can learn many new things. This will help improve Tamil Wikipedia.

--சா அருணாசலம் (talk) 10:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Sree1959 (talk)

1. Tamil Wikipedia has endured the initial hiccups arising out of scarcity of volunteers, inadequacy of training, sustained contributions, etc., and has marched ahead to a satisfactory level with committed volunteers who keep working hard to realise the aims and objectives of Wikipedia. However, there is scope for improving the quality of Tamil Wikipedia contributions by enriching the content for which a dedicated initiative is considered very helpful. This will motivate and help the volunteers to collaboratively focus the objective and reap the benefits for the common good.
   
2. The proposal encompasses all important aspects necessary to ensure the successful completion of the project and realisation of the intended goals. For instance, the roles and responsibilities of the organisers are clearly identified and assigned to capable hands with expertise in Program Coordination, Logistics, Design, Communication and Promotion. There are solid plans in place to engage with the identified audience not just during the event, but well ahead of the proposed event with follow-up activities in pipeline after successful completion of the event. The thrust of the event is on quality improvement of about six thousand plus existing Tamil Wikipedia articles with deficiencies such as absence or inadequacy of references, inaccuracy of the language or context due to dependency on machine translations, etc. Essentially therefore, experienced volunteers with good editing capabilities and proven overall skills need to be engaged. Given the number of participants fulfilling the expectations from various regions within India (and at least one participant from Sri Lanka) assembling at a centralised location to carry out their focused and collaborated activity, the budget put up sounds reasonable.
   
3. The proposed project seeks to focus primarily on improving the quality of existing articles that do not conform to the standards of good Wikipedia articles, by engaging experienced editors to fix the deficiencies in a solely focused activity.
   
4. The proposal, however, will contribute to improving the quality of articles to a large extent as this collaborative project's declared objective itself is that.
   
5. In my opinion, the proposal touches upon a noble objective aimed at improving the quality, the strategy for which is achieved through the thrust of a collective effort of like-minded volunteers in a focused environment solely for the single purpose. Given the noble end of the objective and engagement of experienced contributors, the budget proposed is justified.

--Sree1959 (talk) 11:54, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Kalaiarasy (talk)

In-person Edit-a-thon in Tamil Wikipedia and Strategic Meet will definitely benefit Tamil Wikipedia. Such arrangements in the past helped to improve the articles and this will do the same.

--Kalaiarasy (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from Booradleyp1 (talk)

 Support Programs like In-person Edit-a-thon will develop and improve group work among Wikipedians, and help in speeding up cleaning and updating the existing articles.

--Booradleyp1 (talk) 12:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement from மு. குணசேகரன் மு. குணசேகரன் (talk)

 Oppose It is important to understand why funds are collected, especially since volunteering and accessing resources are typically free. How can users ensure accountability for the funds? I recently created my account a couple of days ago and was blocked by this fund requesting Tamil Wikipedia admin without explanation. So, how can this administrator effectively utilize the funds he would receive? This question is pivotal, and I look forward to your feedback to continue this discussion. Thank you.

--மு. குணசேகரன் (talk) 14:35, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Follow-up questions/ comments

Hello @Selvasivagurunathan m,

Thank you for putting in a grant application.

Apart from the edit-a-thon, there are plans to tap on this series of activities to conduct a strategic meet. It is not clear from your proposal what you hope to achieve, do and plan for from the strategic meeting. Would you be able to provide more details about this segment?

You may find these useful - past applications and final reports on similar strategic planning meetings.

• Grants:Project/Rapid/MurielMary/Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand Strategy Workshop/Report; Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand
• Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Strategic Meeting of Indian Representatives Attending Wikimedia Summit in Berlin (ID: 22451561)/Final Report

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@JChen (WMF)

Hello Jacqueline,

Thank you so much for your review and for asking the question. I mentioned two key aspects for the event: improving the articles and engaging the participants in strategic discussions.

Day 1:

We will start with a discussion to derive strategies for improving the existing articles. Then, we will work on the articles. Our goal is to improve existing content in Tamil Wikipedia and establish standard articles that can be used to explain our processes and techniques to newcomers. This will involve a thorough review and refinement of the content to ensure clarity and effectiveness.

Day 2:

We will dedicate a few hours for detailed planning on subsequent follow-up activities and strategic discussions. The primary agenda will be to set a list of techniques and strategies for preparing policies to enhance article quality and discuss their implementation.

To make the most of this policy, we will also plan to collaborate with other communities and share these policies with them. This collaboration will allow us to gather valuable feedback and further refine our strategies. By working together, we can ensure that our policies are robust and effective.

I have created a META-WIKI page for this project: Tamil Wikipedia Edit-a-thon 2024. I hope this will provide better insight into the project and better documentation.

Please let me know if you need more information or details.

Regards, Selva - M. Selvasivagurunathan (talk) 09:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Your application has been approved

Hello @M. Selvasivagurunathan

Thank you for your responses to the follow-ups questions.

Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 408,000 from 21 July 2024 to 31 March 2025. With this approved amount, do submit a revised budget by adding tabs to your existing spreadsheet and labelling it revised. Please reply to this talkpage message once the adjustments have been made.

Let’s continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Please let me know if you require support in any way or would like to share your experiences with a wider community through the Let's Connect Programme or on South Asia Open Community Calls.

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Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 06:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@JChen (WMF) I have sent an email to you regarding approved amount of INR 408,000. Could you please check and clarify my questions? This will help me to proceed for next steps.

Thanks and Regards - M. Selvasivagurunathan (talk) 10:32, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Selvasivagurunathan m,

Thank you for your email. I've responded.

Regards,

Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 10:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@JChen (WMF) Please refer the revised budget as suggested: Rapid Fund Budget_In-person Edit-a-thon in Tamil Wikipedia_Revised. Please advise Whether I have to place this spreadsheet in Grants page.

I have revised the number of partcipants from 26 to 25 in Question # 18 to meet the approved amount in INR. I hope this is fine.

Thanks and Regards - M. Selvasivagurunathan (talk) 04:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)