Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Wiki Loves Uniformed services (India)

Comments and questions by WMF

Dear Krishna Chaitanya Velaga. Thank you for your interest and your submission. I find the idea extremely interesting and it seems to be a creative extension of the Wiki Loves... contests, so thank you for thinking about it and putting this project together. Here are a few questions concerning your project:

• The link to the uniformed services ends up on a page that does not exist, can you please fix this and give us some better vision of the potential scope of the project.

Link fixed. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• We do not fund cash prizes, and it is not clear in your budget whether you are aware of this. Please make sure to make this is clear in your budget lines (ie. mention that these are going to be gift cards, or things, etc.). I am also not sure about the alignment of prize amount with previous/other contests so I'll need to look it up (I feel that the overall amount of prizes is very high, and the amount for each prize might also be on the higher and of what we're willing to fund, but I'll get back to you on this).

Forgot to mention the note, made it clear. The prize amounts are taken with consideration from Wiki Loves Monuments 2016 in India, where the prize amounts total to 95,000. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• I believe there is an error in your total (a missing digit maybe?).

I've checked the totals keenly. I did find no error. Please specify clearly where you think it has gone wrong. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Krishna Chaitanya Velaga In the line total, the number is 1,30,500, which is... not a number I can recognize in all the standards I usually work with, probably because there is a comma too many actually. Would it be 130,500? Thanks Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, sorry for that. Actually "1,30,500" is the Indian format of representation. Fixed it. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 01:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, my bad then, I didn't know about this format. :) Thanks for changing it. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 09:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

So Delphine, do you have any other queries? What is the status of the request? Wikimedia India Chapter has also extended its support for the project, may be have a look at the endorsements. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 13:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• Could you please list all experienced Wikimedians involved in putting this together?

Please elaborate on this; do you want the list of organizers/coordinators and jury members, or also the Wikimedians who have provided valuable suggestions and helped me in getting here?

• Could you also please make a timeline of what is going to happen when? For example: when you will know about your partnerships, when you will choose the jury, when you will advertise the contest etc. In any of the cases, where on the grant should this be mentioned? --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I am more interested in who is going to help you organize and/or who is really closely associated with developing this project. You can add those names anywhere you see fit, maybe the "what do you want to tell us about this project" section is the easiest? Actually, you can just link this page on Commons anywhere to list the organizers. :) Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Added. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 01:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

We're in process of contacting different institutions, possibly we'll contact every service mentioned in the scope. We're likely to have their replies before the first week of May. We're encouraging them to upload the pictures themselves, so that they'll keep on doing that in future. The jury was already selected, we just need to update a profile of one member, will be done by tomorrow. What else do you want me to include in the timeline (one by one)? --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Forget about the timeline, your link answered a lot of my questions. I was really wondering when you are contacting the services, and also, more importantly, how? This is really curiosity, as I am not sure what restrictions may apply to publishing people in uniforms, their weapons, etc. so I was looking at understanding what kind of "partnership" you'd be expecting from them. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll try to contact the services through the contact modes listed on their respective official websites. Regarding the restrictions, I've already listed some images on Commons as example images. If you need more, please check out the following categories from Commons—m:c:Category:Army of India, m:c:Category:Air Force of India, m:c:Category:Navy of India, m:c:Category:Police of India etc. The images from these cats, as you can see, they are the general scenarios that publicly available. We just want the sort of these. "Partnership", for example consider the Indian Navy, it has already released its images on website under CC by SA 2.5 IN license. Now we'll ask to them to directly donate (upload the images themselves) their images to Commons explaining about the Wikimedia Movement. Similarly we'll contact the other services. So at least if some of them agree, we might have a good count of images. Also by doing so, there are chances that they might continue donating even after the contest ends. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 01:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Dear Delphine, not only as said above, but also as the Wikimedia India Chapter is supporting this, we'll have a website in a day or two. After this, we'll also have partnerships with various photography clubs across the country. So this is likely to gain good popularity. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 02:32, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Dear Delphine I've addressed all your comments, do you have any more? --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 00:58, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your help on clarifying this request! Best - Delphine (WMF) (talk) 08:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Dear Delphine, many thanks for the comments, please have a look. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 15:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

---

@Delphine (WMF): Greetings, following the suggestion of Morgan, I propose a new budget, which is as follows:

S.No	Item	Amount
1	First prize	₹6,000
2	Second prize	₹4,000
3	Third prize	₹3,000
4	Fourth and fifth prizes	₹1,500*2 = ₹3,000
5	Top contributor	₹4,500
7	Photo books (25 units)	₹7,500
8	Logistic expenses	₹3,000
9	Contingency fund	₹1,000
10	Photo-walk	₹4,000
10	Promotions	₹4000 (already spent)
Total		₹36,000₹40,000

Looking forward for your inputs. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 13:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Dear Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, thank you for reviewing this. I first want to commend you for sizing down this project according to what you feel is fair given its level of success, I think it is a very good approach to making sure that our donors' money is well spent. Since this is a much smaller budget from the original one, I have to ask you whether you have other ideas that you would wish to pursue with the remainder of your grant. It would be great if you can, because the back and forth of funds between India and the US is a bit complicated, if not impossible. I would advise you to look around your community and see if you can help support other projects with the remainder of the funds and maybe start a new rapid grant. Morgan will be getting in touch with you for the administrative side of things. At this stage, we consider that you will be returning the funds, and that you owe the Foundation around 100,000 INR. Let us know what your thoughts are on this so we can proceed accordingly. Best, Delphine (WMF) (talk) 05:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Delphine (WMF): Greetings Delphine, thanks for those kind words . Yes, transferring funds back to US is a bit complicated task, even if we did, it'll incur a lot of banking charges (almost ₹8,000). Actually I have a few ideas that I can apply for a rapid grant, but as my project grant is underway, I don't wish to apply for any rapid grant until the decision on it is out. But I would like to support the other rapid grantees from the Indian community, because transferring the remainder funds to an Indian account is much easier and hardly costs any charges. Recently, one of my fellow editors applied a rapid grant (Hindi Wikimedians Technical Meet Nov 2017 at Jaipur of INR 125,000/- which has been approved a couple days back. If possible, I can transfer the remainder fund to the that grantee, and the remaining may be transferred by the Foundation. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 06:41, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Krishna Chaitanya Velaga: Oh! this is a great opportunity to make things easy for everyone. Let me see what is possible with the Grants admin team and get back to you on this! @MJue (WMF): for good measure. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 07:46, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Delphine (WMF): Hi Deplhine, I actually almost forgot about a photo-walk conducted in Bhopal, which may add upto around ₹4,000. I have updated the budget accordingly. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 08:05, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Request approved

Hello Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, this request is approved for 130,500 INR. Thanks for your patience and we are looking forward to seeing the results! Morgan will get back to you with the administrative details. Best regards, Delphine (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Delphine (WMF): Many thanks for approving this bold initiative. Will strive to get the best out of it. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 03:03, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Extension of report due date

Dear @Delphine (WMF): As you can see the contest is from 15 May 2017 to 15 July 2017, but the results will be published within 75 days from the date of end of the contest, and prize distribution and settling all the requirements will take another month. I can submit the report only after that. So I request you to look into this and make necessary changes in the grant agreement as required. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 00:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello Krishna Chaitanya Velaga. Since the terms within our grant agreement are fixed, it may be best to propose a new end date for this project to account for the prize distribution and results, while adhering to the 30-day reporting period after this date. If this sounds like a good way forward, please let us know what the new end date would be, and we will adjust accordingly. Thank you, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@MJue (WMF): Then the end date would be 30 November 2017. Please make the necessary arrangements accordingly. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 12:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, for updating the new end date. Your final report will be due 30 days after 30 November. Best, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Grant distribution

Delphine (WMF) Hi, hope you're doing well. I've share my concerns regarding the project. As mentioned in the proposal, the target was around 6,000 images, but the dynamics of this project didn't work well. So we have around 1,500 images only. So I feel that disbursing such large amount of grant for prizes would not meaningful. I wish to cut down the prizes. So in this context, I request you to give inputs on the further plan of action. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 11:56, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga. Following this development, could you propose an updated budget in anticipation of Delphine (WMF)'s reply? This will offer us an idea of how best to advise, and whether you might be able to re-allocate some of the prize money elsewhere within this project. As a reminder, for a more immediate response, please be sure to also ping rapidgrantswikimedia.org regarding this request. Best, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 21:22, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Militarism

By looking at commons:Category:Images from Wiki Loves Uniformed services (India) I'm concerned that we're founding some kind of nationalism/warfare campaign. How comes I don't see any judge, city police or even blue berets? --Nemo 12:44, 12 November 2017 (UTC)