Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Mala Project Audio project (ID: 22216346)

Feedback from the South Asia regional funds review team

Hello Akbarali, thanks for submitting this Rapid Fund request.

• The proposal is overall clear and the impact described is important for Wikimedia projects and the Malayalam community. It aims at collection and preservation of the lyrics of Malayalam malas on Wikimedia projects: Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. The proposal also highlights the importance of engaging local volunteers and following best practices for high-quality recordings and translations. We think it is a viable proposal that can contribute to the cultural heritage of Kerala and Malayalam Wikimedia community.
• Your learning plan is interesting and comprehensive. We appreciate your thoughts put into developing the learning questions and the plan.

Questions:

• It's mentioned that the malas selected for the project should not be public domain works. How will you ensure that the chosen malas meet this criteria? Have you identified specific published works that are in the public domain and can be used for the project? Could you please bring a few examples? Add your response to Question 6.
• How do you plan to promote and raise awareness about the Malayalam Mala Project within the Malayalam Wikimedia community? Add your response to Question 11.
• Have you considered establishing partnerships with local cultural and community organizations in Kerala to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the collected malas? Add your response to Question 6.
• You have three salaried positions. For salaried positions, we request a list of the responsibilities and description why this cannot be done with volunteer efforts. Add your response to Question 8.
• We think that the described activities may not be achievable within one month. Our recommendation is to extend the project duration at least by another month. Please let us know what you think on this page.
• Per the Rapid Fund criteria, an individual can have only one open grant. You already have one open grant for the Malayalam Wikimedia Educational Program project. We will make an exception this time and allow an overlay between two projects provided that the start date for this project is moved to September 30. Please confirm that this works for you on this page.

We sent the application back to you to add the responses to the questions posted into your original application on Fluxx. Please complete this by July 28, 2023. Thanks again for your contribution and time. Looking forward to hearing from you.

On behalf of the South Asia regional funds review team. --DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 11:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello @DSaroyan (WMF)

Thank you for reviewing my Rapid Fund request. I'm glad to hear that the proposal has been found clear and that the impact on Wikimedia projects and the Malayalam community is considered important. We appreciate the support provided by foundation on this.

Regarding the requirement that the malas selected for the project should not be public domain works, I have already had careful research on this. The selected 10 malas were already out in public domain since Copyright generally lasts for 60 years after the author's death or 60 years after the work publication.

Few examples are given as follows.

1.      Muhyudeen mala ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhyadheen_mala ) was composed by the poet Khazi Muhammad of Kozhikode four centuries ago.

2.     The author of Nafeesath Mala named Nalakath Kunhimoideen Kutty Ponnani published this work on 1890. Which is older than 132 years.

3.     Rifaee mala was in 1812. Ref

4.     Badar Mala,1864)

5.     Manjakkulam Mala, 1872 

Secondly we recognize the importance of engaging the community and maximizing participation to achieve the project's goals effectively. Here is our comprehensive plan to promote and raise awareness:

Communication : We will inform our community about this project and invite participation using Wikimedia mailing list. We also inform about the same in our monthly meeting. In addition to this we will also share about this  using our social media (facebook page), whatsapp and telegram group. We also will share the same in our community meeting on 13th august 2023 .

• Regarding partnership, Yes, we have made sure the authenticity and accuracy of the malas with the organization called  mappilakalaacademy runs with the help of Kerala government. In addition to this we have discussed with the scholars from Kondotty Bukhari college community who are experts with Arabic-Malayalam language and listed mala.
• User:Erfanebrahimsait – Collect and Scan all mala pages and make it as PDF. Upload them into Wikimedia commons and set up wikisource page. And track the progress of digitalization and coordinate the audio recording User:Luqmankvk – Type the Arabic-Malayalam content from mala to Malayalam language. Make sure the authenticity by consulting the scholars in this field. And choose the best singers and allocate malas to sings the same. User: Akbarali- Coordinate the entire project and meet the institutions to get involve in this project. Set up the recording facility and do the logistics for the recording. And assign the different malas. Prepare the report of project in meta page. :This cannot be done with volunteer efforts since we do not have active volunteers in wikisource. And we do not have volunteers who know this rare “Arabic-malayalam” language for reading as well as typing. So volunteers will be supporting for proofing.
• As you recommended, it will be good to extend the project duration at least by another month. So that all tasks can be done smoothly. And finally we agree that to the start date for this project is from September 30. We confirm that this will work for us.
  

Akbarali (talk) 16:11, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Akbarali thanks for submitting your responses. If you haven't done already, please add your reply to your application form on Fluxx under specified questions.

Additionally, I request clarification regarded the changes to the proposed budget. I noticed that you increased the grant request during the review period without talking to us or requesting our confirmation. You are not allowed to make any considerable changes to the requested budget after submitting the grant request if we did not confirm or request these changes in advance. Repeating this in the future may result in rejection of the grant request.

Please roll back all changes made to the requested budget or provide a detailed explanation about the changes and new need on this page. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 08:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your attention to detail and want to ensure that we are in full compliance with the guidelines and requirements of the grant process.

We are sorry for any oversight on our part in not seeking prior confirmation before adjusting the grant request budget.

Regarding the shared spread sheet, there was an unfortunate technical error. The sheet was initially prepared on July 1st, during which we updated expense type, expense details, units, unit price local, and expense total (local). However, the unit price in USD was inadvertently not updated. This error occurred while duplicating our previous proposal form. Although we identified the mistake, it was unfortunately brought to our attention just before the impending deadline. At that point, we anticipated that the grant administration team would revise the budget shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, we deeply regret not communicating this situation to the grant administrators.

Furthermore, as part of our resolution to address this matter, we will provide our responses to the specific questions on my application form on Fluxx.

Thank you for your understanding. Akbarali (talk) 17:38, 2 August 2023 (UTC)