Grants talk:Project/Rapid/B.Korlah/Art+Feminism 2022:Follow-up Editathon for Edo State NYSC Corp members

Comments from DSaroyan (WMF)

Hi B.Korlah, thank you for submitting your grant application. After reviewing your grant proposal, we have some questions to learn more about the project and planned activities.

• Could you please provide more information on how specifically you plan to increase the skills of existing editors?
• What are your strategies for engaging female participants specifically?
• How would you make sure that the created content is aligned with your goals? Do you plan to prepare a list of suggested articles to edit?
• Since this project is focused on women participation, have you discussed this proposal with your female community members in advance?
• Do you have any female team members in the community who would like to be a team member of this project?
• Could you please notify about this proposal to relevant communities in advance? How do you discuss similar proposals in your community before you decide to apply for a grant?
• We will only support expenses for local facilitators. I don't see a clear need for involving facilitators from other hubs because as you mentioned you already have active community members who can support you in this project. Please remove related accommodation and travel expenses.
• Additionally, given the project scope, we will not fund 550 USD of prizes and swags. Please reduce the swags budget by half.
• What are your strategies for involving newcomers? Could you, for example, offer one of the prizes to the newcomers? It would also be good to give prizes specifically to female participants given that engaging them is one of your goals.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your time, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 15:26, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Response from B.Korlah

Hi DSaroyan (WMF), thank you for taking your time to review my application and also wanting to learn more about the project and the planned activities. I will answer all the questions below:

• On how I plan to specifically increase the skills of existing editors, the previous event was a promotional event on the Wikimedia Project, although there was a bit of editathon by enthusiastic editors, but there hasn't been an intense practical session (editathon) to really practice and gain more experience and skill in creating and editing articles on Wikipedia, so this project would specifically build and improve on the skills they have gained during the promotional event, for example, during the promotional event, lot of participants didn't know they could edit Wikipedia before then and during the event, that was adequately treated as well as editing practicals where we actually edited some pages and a couple of them are now "confirmed users", so this editathon would also aim at actually creating new articles and improving existing skills at improving already existing articles. As the saying goes, 'Practice makes Perfection', the editathon aims at actually making participants practice and improve upon all that was learned during the promotional event, so as to further increase their skills.
• Strategies for engaging female participants specifically; Thankfully, the event is centered around creating and improving articles about Nigerian women, this has helped to avoid gender-biased content (for them), I will also create a model inclusivity by curating a diverse cross section of facilitators, (both male and female facilitators), this will further interest female participation and give them some sense of belonging. I intend to specifically tell them about inclusion and the importance of Women also contributing and helping to promote their fellow Women's visibility online. Also, as stated on my proposal's page during the promotion program, we recorded more female participants than males, so with this record, we will also use the existing female participants to create the interest in more female participants.
• Created content would align with my project goals, as one of the project goals is to add and improve the content on Nigerian Women on Wikipedia, so the project would solely be about Nigerian Women, and a list of suggested articles to improve or create would also be made available to further assist participants in making their choice on the page to create or improve.
• YES!, this project has been discussed with the female community of Wikimedia Nigeria in advance, and some female community members have shown interest in supporting the project to their best capability.
• YES! User:Princess of Ara who is an active editor and contributor on the English Wikipedia has indicated her interest to be a team member for this project. Ebubechukwu1 would also be part of the team members for this project.
• This proposal has been shared with the Wikimedia Nigeria Usergroup talk page in advance, there has also been some one-on-one discussion of this proposal with some community members. The proposal is usually first discussed internally on the Wikimedia Nigeria usergroup platforms and after the discussion within the community, an application for a grant can then follow.
• Accomodation and Travel expenses removed.
• Swag budget reduced by half.
• Thank you very much for that input, I'd offer a prize to the highest contribution made by a newcomer and another prize to the highest female participant, this will help them to be more engaged and feel welcomed.

I hope I have been able to adequately answer your questions, if you need clarity on anything, kindly let me know. B.Korlah (talk) 20:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Notification for postponement of the end date of project

This is to appeal for the postponement of the end date of my project.

The first phase has been done but the date for the second phase which was supposed to be this Month had to be postponed cause the participants (the Corpers) had to travel for a general cause and it won’t be so good for the event to go on without the adequate participants.

I hereby hope that my appeal for postponement of end date of project to September 6th as against August 6th would be approved.

Thank you B.Korlah (talk) 11:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello B.Korlah, thanks for posting your request. I have reviewed and formally approved it. The new grant end date is September 6, ,2022, and the final report is due on October 6, 2022. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 08:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)