Grants talk:PEG/Community of Wikimedians in India/WikiConference India 2016

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

Community comments

Budget for accessibility and childcare

My name is Rohini and I am on the Diversity and Inclusion team. I would like to draw attention to some good practices followed in conferences of the 'open' movement worldwide. I would recommend -- and, as a Wikimedian, would be very glad to see -- WCI 2016 aspire to emulate them.

Could someone with knowledge of the lay-out of the venue enlighten us on whether the conference rooms and washrooms would be accessible to participants with limited physical mobility? These participants could be seniors, physically challenged, or those with mobility-related illnesses. Are there lifts? Washrooms at the ground level? Ramps? In the event that we need to construct temporary infrastructure to accommodate speakers and participants with these needs, we need to set aside a portion of the budget for it.

For participants who wish to bring their children along, is there space at the venue for a dedicated room for children? We'll also need to hire a nanny or two or probably more depending on the number of children likely to be present. This is important, because lack of childcare facilities at the venue, or simply not having the option to bring a child along, could hinder some Wikimedians' participation. They may choose to not come to the conference at all. We would be grateful if the local team in Chandigarh pass on contacts of a few reliable nannies to us. We will get a few price quotations and add an approximate amount to the budget. -- Rohini (talk) 01:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Rohini, Thanks a lot for your precious comments. We have confirmed that all the facilities such as lifts, ramps, accessible washroom etc. are available at the venue. Childcare facilities will also be available at the venue. Our venue coordinator has confirmed that we don't need additional budget for this. --Satdeep Gill (talk) 09:56, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Food Budget

@Satdeep Gill... Dear, you missed adding the expenses for Lunch in the estimated expenses section for food and accommodation. --Dr. Manavpreet Kaur (talk) 16:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

There arewere some errors in the final output showed in this page. I Will have corrected them notonight. Dr. Manavpreet Kaur,Thanks for noticing, ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 17:46, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Have corrected them. Please point out any more errors or omissions. Thanks ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 20:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Early call for scholarship applications and program submissions

@KHarold (WMF): We are working to improve this application with early inputs from WMF grants team. Meanwhile, we are going ahead with the call for scholarship applications and participation (draft) in order to demonstrate the community participation and interest. This also helps us to have enough time for arranging logistics regarding scholarships and program design. These calls will carry the disclaimer that the PEG application is still pending approval. Please let us know if you have any feedback. Thanks.--Ravi (talk) 18:50, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Is this going forward?

@Satdeep Gill and Ravidreams: Are you in touch with a reviewer at WMF about this? I see that the conference is soon, and I do not see WMF input on this, and still it is tagged as a draft. I am wishing the best for your event. I know that a lot of people have been planning this for a long time. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Blue Rasberry, Yes this is going forward. We are in touch in Kacie. She has asked us to do a survey to learn what people want to learn and share at this event, so that we can have a good Program. We are accepting scholarship applications already.--Satdeep Gill (talk) 11:47, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Satdeep Gill If you have not already made your survey, then please look at this one that we just used in the United States. Maybe this example could help you with yours. We sent our survey to people who had attended previous Wikipedia conferences. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:54, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Also, I think JSutherland (WMF) is interested in Wikipedia readers in India. The survey should stay short, but he might have interest in helping with a survey if you checked in with him. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Blue Rasberry (talk), we have prepared a draft. I will talk to the rest of the team and accordingly we will take help from JSutherland. Thanks for all the support.--Satdeep Gill (talk) 16:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

WMF Comments

Hi Satdeep Gill and Ravidreams, thank you for all of the hard work you and the organizing teams have put into planning this conference, writing this request, and the time you have committed to phone calls with me to discuss many elements of the proposal. We appreciate and have been impressed by how responsive you have been to our requests for additional information such as community notification, surveys to assess the level of interest from potential conference participants, and needs assessments to identify priority topics and prefered session formats for the conference. Our two initial concerns were (1) that it would be difficult to get 400 active Wikimedians from 22 language communities to register for the event and travel to the conference location which is not in a central location and (2) that planning a conference of this size would be overwhelming for the Punjabi Wikimedian community, who is relatively new but has been increasingly active over the last year.

• Your team demonstrated that there was high demand for the conference when you reported that 250 active Wikimedians had applied for scholarships in two weeks, and a total 450 applied within a month. We were pleased that the organizing team adjusted the budget to make more funding available for travel scholarships. We are confident that you will be able to attract 400 active Wikimedians to participate in the conference.
• Our concerns about burn out in the Punjabi community have been reduced because we have seen that the community has remained active in planning local projects and requesting grants during the conference planning period. The organizers have assured us that they recognized this risk as well, but that the community is both enthusiastic about the conference, and they are the only community who has the capacity to plan this kind of event at this time. Additionally, it is good to see that there is active representation on the planning committees from leaders in several different language projects and communities across India, including the former ED of Wikimedia India and the Center for Internet and Society, who both have extensive experience with managing budgets and reporting on larger Wikimedia grants.

We understand that that although the scope of this conference is unusually large and the goals are not yet well defined, it has been five years since the last conference that involved all Indic language communities, and we are optimistic that this will be helpful for your communities to share knowledge and work together on common challenges. We will set up a weekly phone call with the program committee to check in progress and offer our support to develop an effective program in the six weeks left before the event. In the future, we would like to begin working together much sooner. We request that you do a survey immediately after the conference, and again six months after the conference to understand the longer-term outcomes of the event and to plan appropriate follow up to ensure that communities are able to continue the work they begin at the conference. Thank you again for all of your hard work, and congratulations. We look forward to working closely with you in the coming weeks and months. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Kacie and WMF PEG team, thanks for approving this grant request. We are excited and look forward to an intensive month planning and executing WCI 2016. We appreciate CIS for being an institutional partner for this event. We also thank all community members who endorsed and contributed to this initiative. --Ravi (talk) 07:24, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Kacie. We are really excited to host WCI and we hope to put up a great show.--Satdeep Gill (talk) 12:18, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Request to extend report submission deadline

Hi @KHarold (WMF):, we have concluded all activities and expenditures for WikiConference India 2016. We are writing the grant report here. However, we will need some more time to tally all the expenditures and log a proper expense report. Please let us know if it would be possible to extend the report submission deadline until December 31st, 2016.--Ravi (talk) 19:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Ravi. The request for an extension on the report is approved. I am really looking forward to reading the report and I completely understand that the expense documentation for a project this large has been complicated and time consuming to finish. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Kacie.--Ravi (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Kacie, the report is 95% complete. A sandbox version can be found here. Expenses have been finalized, and a summary has been added. We need to double check the global metrics, expand more about the impact and also add a section about learnings from implementing the Code of Conduct. We hope to complete the report by 24th March 2017. We request you to extend the reporting deadline until the same date. Thanks. --Ravi (talk) 15:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Ravi, thank you for updating me on the status of the report. I will approve an extension of the report until March 24th 2017. If it is not complete by then, please submit it anyway. It is better to close the report with incomplete information than leave it open much longer. If you have not already done so, please send in the financial documentation. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 12:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)