Grants talk:PEG/KSarkar/Bengali Wikipedia 10th anniversary in India

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC members who oppose this request

1. --Ilario (talk) 10:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. I totally second Ilario's comments. I would also prefer 10th anniversary celebrating more collaborative between various languages/regions/communities. Depending on the upcoming comments from submitters, I'll see on which side I will finally incline.
   — Danny B. 02:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

GAC comments

Hi dear colleagues. Congratulations on the 10th anniversary! Thank you for this submission. I saw Alex's questions, so for now I do not have extra one. I am looking forward to see answers. I am happy to see good budget presentation. I see you put as one of your measures of success, at least 50 new contributors in Commons. My experience in photo contests shown me that numbers of participants who uploaded their photos on Commons, are not actually the "new users". They are "new uploads", but only few of them remain standard Commons users.--MikyM (talk) 16:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

We already have quite a few new users, but I don't have the exact numbers to share with you at this moment. Maybe 50 is too high. Let us decide what could be a reasonable expectation. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:33, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I explain my opposition

Grants_talk:PEG/TMorshed/Bangla_Wikipedia_10th_anniversary#I_explain_my_opposition. --Ilario (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Kindly note that there has always been a collaboration between the Bengali Wikipedia community of India and Bangladesh to the extent that is possible given the political separation between the two. Initially we proposed a joint conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, however that did not happen. For the conference to be held in Kolkata, India we are providing full travel and accommodation scholarships to Bangladeshi Wikimedians and 16 20 persons have already applied. Please see here. So its not that we are not collaborating. We are trying as much as possible. Regarding the collaboration between the Indian and Bangladeshi chapter, I have nothing to say as a community member. BengaliHindu (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Please note I have left a response here: Grants_talk:PEG/TMorshed/Bangla_Wikipedia_10th_anniversary#I_explain_my_opposition. Thank you both for your engagement in this discussion. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:06, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Community comments

Hi, Kalyan, Rangan, et al. I'm delighted to see a project that might embrace both Indian and Bangladeshi speakers of Bangla (80M and 160M people, respectively, I recall).

1. Has a message been conveyed to the new Bangladeshi chapter? Will travel assistance be available to Bangladeshis?
2. Just to clarify, registration will be for the conference or to enter the competition? I guess it might be hard for some people to pay, even with the student discount—and there's no budget to help bring a small number of disadvantaged people to Kolkata.
3. Local sponsors—row is not filled in.
4. It doesn't actually say that WMIN and CIS have agreed to co-fund. WMIN's board is in a state of flux, I seem to think.
5. SWAG—what is it? Abbreviations like that should be spelled out once.
6. I believe the budget for physical items (nearly US$6000) is far too high. I have yet to hear a convincing case that handing out stickers, bruchures, badges, school bags, keychains, pens, t-shirts, will have any impact on reach, editor numbers, gender gap—all the priorities we are desperate to improve. I wonder why these objects will have any motivational effect on people who might be or become commited editors/uploaders, and would be pleased to see a revised budget for this category.
7. Prize money looks good. Best three photos have small prizes compared with first prize, etc. Hard to understand.
8. Award for judges: good, this will make it easier to get some quality input from experienced judges. Could I suggest you ask for their formal advice on improvements to quality, at the end, and publish it onwiki and in your report?
9. The costs of the two-day venue look rather high. How is the auditorium different from the hall? PA system extra at $400?? And at very large cost for the venue, you have to pay $64 for a stand-by generator as well? Have you researched better-value venues, and doesn't WMIN or CIS have a projector and PA system to lend you?
10. Measures of success: these are very vague. Normally we expect numbers—your good estimate of what you hope for (even if you don't make the benchmark, we need something) ... and what does the last bullet mean?

Tony (talk) 14:27, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I will try to answer your questions as much as I can.

1. Yes message has already been conveyed to the Bangladesh chapter. Earlier, a proposal was even sent to the Bangladesh chapter for a joint celebration. However, it hasn't happened somehow. Anyway, we've have planned to provide 15 scholarships to Wikimedians from Bangladesh. The scholarships includes reimbursement of full travel fare and the accommodation for two nights stay in Kolkata. Out of the 15 travel reimbursement, 5 are flight travel and 10 are non-flight travel (train/bus).

2. Registration is only for the conference. We had the same concerns regarding the registration fees for students and any other such persons and then decided that INR 200 was the amount which should be reasonable. However, we would still discuss this once again when we meet internally and try to find out if there is more that can be done.

3. There are no local sponsors yet. However, we are hoping to get a few. In the worst case if there isn't any, we'll have to take that.

4. True. However, there is verbal confirmation from the President and the EC of WMIN and we are going to formally apply to WMIN for grant very soon. We also do have verbal confirmation for Vishnu Vardhan of CIS.

5. I think swag stands for [1]. I'm not sure if it is an acronym.

6. We've already had news users signing up for the photo contest and 100 images have already been uploaded. We expect numbers to go high up as we approach the day of the conference. We are expecting similar behaviour pattern with the edits. We believe that physical items as token of appreciation for their effort would help keep the motivated into the continued edits. Moreover, in a country like India with huge population some sort of promotion is actually required to get into the masses.

7. I think there is a mistake here. We'll correct it.

8. We'll include their suggestions in our report. Regarding including them in Commons, let us discuss it from there on.

9. For PA, yes it may be required. It holds true for the generator as well. These are the maximum costs that have been considered keeping the worst scenarios in mind.

10. The last bullet emphasizes the growth in the community, which would reflect in the higher numbers in participant in the next event.

Hope to have clarified at least some of your doubts. Please feel free to ask for clarification on any item.

BengaliHindu (talk) 18:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

BH, thanks for your responses. Item 10—I think the measures of success should be reframed. Perhaps you might take a look at a few other PEG applications for good examples (they're not all good, but most are). Item 4—perhaps you might write emails seeking at least in-principle confirmation: they're such large proportions of the proposed budget. Item 5—could you confirm the meaning of SWAG and (explain) on first occurrence in the application, so that other reviewers are clear about this? Item 1—I've pinged the Bangladeshi chapter. Tony (talk) 00:16, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Tony, a few more clarifications from my side.

4. We are in touch with the WMIN. As I mentioned before we'll apply for the grant from WMIN separately in WMIN's grant page.

7. Thank you for pointing out. We have corrected the mistake. Please have a look once more.

10. We'll discuss in in our next meet and update the relevant section.

BengaliHindu (talk) 17:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi BengaliHindu. Please let us know if there is any update regarding commitment from other funding sources. It would be helpful to know where you are in the process of securing additional funding, and if funding is not granted from CIS or WMIN, how this would impact your project plan. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alex, I would like anaser your quiries on behalf of a community member of this grants.We have requested grand from the three organization i.e WMF, WM IN, CIS A2K as listed below amount.

• WMF-3,82,100.00 ( in this grants)
• CIS-A2K Program-3,00,000.00 ($4,800)requested here
• Wikimedia India-3,00,000.00 ($4,800) (expected that will be approved)requested here

Definitely We are depending on grants of WMIN and CIS. As per latest update from WM IN they have got ₹3,325,000 ($53,000), which is unspent, we can not any latest report from WMIN and their programmatic/events activities in future. So we expect 10% ($4,800) of that. If WMIN will not support us, we have to pray CIS or WMF. On personal mail Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director,CIS-A2K, has express his support us about grants/logistis etc. Simply If all of them (WMF, WMIN,CIS) will not approve the grants, we have to cancel our program. although we are trying to find some local sponsor, but that is not sufficient for program. At first time Kolkata community is trying to organize two days Conference program with BN10 celebration and trying to tie up with face to face interaction with Wikimedia community of Bangladesh. If We succeed, we can thought our next program i.e 2nd Wikiconference India at Kolkata. --Jayantanth (talk) 06:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

About participation of Bangladeshi Wikipedians

Hi Kalyan and all, Bangladeshi Wikimedia community is also planning to stage two months long events to celebrate 10th anniversary. Initially we thought about inviting Wikipedians from India, especially from West Bengal. However, because of some recent incidents near the border between India and Bangladesh, it has become very difficult to get visa from both sides. We have also read in newspapers that the border is now closed. I know people here who didn't get visa serial for months. Given the situation, I don't think it will be possible for Wikimedians from both sides to travel to each others country because of the visa problem. --Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 21:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Now, could there be evidence of problems in applying for visas for mutual participation in WM-funded events, please? This report appears to frame the problem as concerning border villagers, whereas here we're presumably talking about Indian and Bangladeshi speakers of this language group seeking proper visas for mutual visits. Tony (talk) 05:53, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Tony1:, the news of the link you have given is irrelevant in this context and mainly discussed about citizenship issues for people who immigrate to India. Getting a tourist or even medical visa to India has become very difficult for a long time. I'm sharing a news here that was published few months ago. You will see how difficult it was to even get an appointment date back then, and getting an appointment date does not guarantee you are getting a visa. The situation is even worse now. There are some other recent issues that I've discussed here. Hope it will clarify. --Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 03:50, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tonmoy the Border related issue that you mentioned above is for the illegal immigration across border from Bangladesh to India. There has been recent upgrade in security measures along the border for that matter. But we are expecting delegates having proper visa. And there is no extra hassle in creating Visa now for India or Bangladesh than ever before. The usual Bus/ Train or Airways are plying in normal frequency. -Pasaban (talk) 14:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Pasaban, it's good to know that (apparently) citizens of both countries can still fly between them for WM purposes. If this is not the case, can someone say so and I'll raise the matter with the WMF; this becomes a systemic problem if it persists, whereas we need to know that this huge language community is being effectively and efficiently served by both organisations—that can only really happen with some collaboration, I believe. Tony (talk) 04:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I would like to clarify few issues raised by Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) about " Border closed", as already mentioned by Pasaban, we are not talking not about illegal migration, our all delegated will come with proper visa. Personally I have talked with few Bangladeshi, they are expressing that visa is not a problem but it sometime lake time long due to huge application.

Earlier I had proposed to WM BD chapter ( assuming that WM BD will organize the program not "BD community") for common program at capital city Dhaka. But unfortunately the chapter hadn't reply their acceptance about our proposal about one month. After that we had started our arrangement.So the Kolkata community always trying developed commons platform for the same language Bengali, We will award 15 wikipedian from Bangladesh for our Kolkata conference. There are already 12 wikipedia have self nominated.--Jayantanth (talk) 05:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Systemic inter-chapter liaison on improving shared WMF language sites

The Bengali/Bangla WP is an extremely important instrument for shared knowledge, and I suspect the WMF is very keen to support improvements in the quality and expansion of that project. You have my strong support, too, in your efforts in relation to the site we want to celebrate in this proposal.

However, when funding is being requested for essentially the same purpose from both sides of the post-colonial border, it seems like a good time to ask a fundamental question that has wider implications for the sometimes awkward fit between national chapers and language communities:

Will we see the designation of one board member or employee from the Indian chapter and one from the Bangladesh chapter as liaison officer to organise, promote, oversee, and report on collaboration between the two chapters on improving WMF sites for this single language community?

I'm posing the same question at the parallel funding proposal by the Bangladesh chapter. It's a question I'm going to be putting over the next few months to other sets of chapters that appear to be serving a single language community, notably the German–Austrian–Swiss chapters, and the Canadian–French chapters (we'll get to others in due time, including the Spanish- and Portuguese-language affiliates in relation to whether Iberoconf is achieving sufficient collaboration).

Where value for money is at issue, setting up enduring systemic structures for officially coordinating the hard work and talent of both chapters in relation to this language community would almost certainly be met with the approval of millions of donors around the world.

I look forward to your response.

Tony (talk) 10:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tony, As I earlier already mentioned that I had proposed to WM BD chapter (assuming that WM BD will organize the program not "BD community") for common program at capital city Dhaka. But unfortunately the chapter hadn't reply their acceptance about our proposal about one month. I, am serving as a president of WM IN, will oraganise the program at Kolkata.My personal plan is to work togather as a team in South Asia WM In and WM BD, if WMBD agreed that. I am always happy to work with WMBD. I have invited all EC member of Bangladesh chapter to our program in Kolakata.--Jayantanth (talk) 05:57, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

• It would be nice if this could happen but I would not want it to happen only for the sake of making the connection. It is true that both organizations do work in Bangla language but even more chapters do work in English without ever having strong ties with any other chapter, so I see no reason to force a relationship between India and Bangladesh. If there could be slow progress toward collaboration and increased talks then that would be nice, but in the case of both chapters, communication inside their own organizations is still growing and to coordinate with another organization might be difficult. I would not want either chapter to feel pressured to rush. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree with a word of this. If both chapters want donors funds to spend on the same language community sites, there needs to be some kind of official collaboration, or at least cooperation. Without it, I'm going to recommend reduced or no funding on WMF Bangla/Bengali-language projects. Tony (talk) 02:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I have replied here and I/we are very much agreed with Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy). Jayantanth (talk) 18:04, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Tony. We understand where you are coming from and your hope to encourage and support more collaboration between geographically disparate communities that contribute to the same language Wikipedia. However, as discussed on the Bangladeshi proposal, these two constituents of one online community have a history of collaboration. In terms of organizing offline events, there are both political and practical reasons why this would be challenging. Considering these challenges, we are comfortable with supporting two events. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Alex. "have a history of collaboration"—I'd like evidence of that. And no one has responded to my suggestion at both application talkpages that one board member or officer of each affiliate be an official point of liaison with the other on matters concerning the single language community they both serve. That would be a first step. Tony (talk) 06:54, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thank you for submitting this grant request and your engagement in the discussion. Congrats on 10 years of the Bengali Wikipedia! We are excited to support celebrations around this event and the community who help build this important resource. We have a number of questions around the scope and content of the request and look forward to your response:

Participants

Wiki Conferences and community celebrations are most effective (and fun!) when they are targeted at the Wikimedian community. The celebration should be a community event to celebrate the community, not a general outreach event. It is extremely difficult to develop a program that caters to both experienced Wikimedians and the general public. We encourage you to think strategically about who should participate and adjust the numbers accordingly. We have found that one-off general outreach events do very little in terms of engaging new volunteers (either online or offline). If you want to use the anniversary as an opportunity to promote Wikimedia projects to the general, you can think about organizing a series of training workshops leading up to the event, similar to what the Telugu Wikimedians did last year (see report).

We will try to follow the success of all past Indic (Grants:PEG/Rahmanuddin - Telugu Wikimedians/Telugu Wikipedia Ten years Celebrations,Grants:PEG/Ravidreams - Tamil Wikimedians/TamilWiki 10 years,Grants:PEG/Kannan Shanmugham - Malayalam Wikipedia/10th Birthday Celebrations) 10th year celebration program. Jayantanth (talk) 14:03, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

This is not a general outreach event. We are targeting the existing Wikimedia community of India and Bangladesh. The participants shall have to register by paying a small amount. I think, we are targeting not more than 500 Wikimedians for the meet. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The community context the team provided us states, "Wikipedia statistics shows 66 active editors and 15 very active editors as of July 2014. At present, in India, there are 8 editors actively contributing in the various Bengali Wikimedia projects - Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wiktionary. Apart from that we have around 15-20 volunteers who work mostly offline or little bit in the English Wikipedia and others." According to updated statistics from September 2014, there are now 104 active editors (a significant increase!) and 11 very active. Even with this increase, it does not seem likely that 500 Wikimedians would attend this event. Please let us know how you arrived at this number and why it is important to budget for so many Wikimedians rather than a more conservative number like 150 (since not all active editors will be likely to attend and this still leaves room for guests, etc.). Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

The event would be attended not only by the Bengali language Wikimedians from India, but also by other language Wikimedians from India and Bengali language Wikimedians from Bangladesh. Apart from that we are expecting enthusiastic participation from the student community in Kolkata. The Wiki Conference India 2011 was attended by around 1,000 participants. We are targeting half the number. With our limited infrastructure, we can manage up to 500 participants. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:59, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Last weekend we had an offline meetup, where we discussed on the no. of participants. Initially, we had made a ballpark estimation of 500. However, after discussed we have reduced it to 350, out of which 250 would be Wikimedians from India and Bangladesh, 50 from the student community and the remaining 50 would consist of volunteers, organizers, guests and the Jadavpur University authority etc. Among the 250 Wikimedians from India and Bangladesh, 45 persons (30 from India and 15 from Bangladesh) would receive travel and accommodation scholarships for the program. Each and every participant would have to register for the event by paying the registration fees. BengaliHindu (talk) 07:45, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Photography contest

Please note that many of the photos do not have descriptions that are helpful for use in articles. It would be great if you could remind participants that they need to add information, like the location of the photo, so that they can be later used in related articles.

We have already initiated 6 Photowork program ( en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Kolkata,en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Kolkata II,en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Takes Kolkata III and en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia takes Asansol, en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Treks Sammed Sikhar, en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Treks Madhyamaheshwar, but all participants are not so use to with wikipedia system. So there may be some incomplete information in uplaoded file. Please give us few time, we will inform all user to their talk page and organized one/two workshop for that during this course.--Jayantanth (talk) 14:16, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes. There are images which don't have proper description. However, please consider the fact that most of the people are new to Wikimedia. I guess reminders may not be enough, because some of them might not even know how or where to put the relevant information. As Jayanta da said, we'll have to conduct workshops. I agree with him. However even workshops might not be enough. Eventually, some volunteers will have some role to play here. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Funding sources

As mentioned above, please provide an update on the committment of other funding sources. Do you know WMIN and CIS's timelines for making a decision on supporting the events? If they do not co-fund, how will this impact your plans?

Hi Alex, I would like answer your queries on behalf of a community member of this grants.We have requested grand from the three organization i.e WMF, WM IN, CIS A2K as listed below amount.

• WMF-3,82,100.00 ( in this grants)
• CIS-A2K Program-3,00,000.00 ($4,800)requested here
• Wikimedia India-3,00,000.00 ($4,800) (expected that will be approved)requested here

Definitely We are depending on grants of WMIN and CIS. As per latest update from WM IN they have got ₹3,325,000 ($53,000), which is unspent, we can not any latest report from WMIN and their programmatic/events activities in future. So we expect 10% ($4,800) of that. If WMIN will not support us, we have to pray CIS or WMF. On personal mail Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director,CIS-A2K, has express his support us about grants/logistis etc. Simply If all of them (WMF, WMIN,CIS) will not approve the grants, we have to cancel our program. although we are trying to find some local sponsor, but that is not sufficient for program. At first time Kolkata community is trying to organize two days Conference program with BN10 celebration and trying to tie up with face to face interaction with Wikimedia community of Bangladesh. If We succeed, we can thought our next program i.e 2nd Wikiconference India at Kolkata. --Jayantanth (talk) 12:56, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

CIS has confirmed that they will fund half of the requested amount, up to INR 150,000. How does this impact your planning and budgeting? Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes it definitely impacted our planning. We have revised our budget by cutting down expenses on promotional material. Please refer to the grant page for details. BengaliHindu (talk) 07:48, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Program

Please provide more information on the program (you can add in the information on the agenda you sent via email). If you have started a discussion on wiki with the community, please provide a link. Celebrations like these are a great opportunity to discover the needs and interests of the community. Demonstration of how you have gathered input from the community on building an agenda that is engaging and useful is valuable for our review.

I have added the tentative schedule in the grant page. Please refer to [2]. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

It is still useful for us to know how this program was developed and how it addresses the interests of the active Wikimedian community. The program is currently quite general and most of the Day 1 sessions are targeted to a more general audience/new users. Again, we encourage you to think of this event as an opportunity to celebrate your community and discuss issues that are of interest to those active volunteers. If you would like to develop a larger outreach plan for engaging students or "differently-abled" users, we would be happy to discuss this with you as a distinct project.

The draft schedule of the program was arrived at after a discussion at offline meet. Some of the sessions are targeted for general audience or new users because there will be some first timers, because this is first program of such magnitude in the city. However, there will also be sessions specifically targeted for the existing community. BengaliHindu (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Budget

Please indicate which of the expenses you are requesting funding from WMF for.

We have not indicate any specific expenses of grants from WMF, we are requesting grants about 32% of total expense mention at Expected resources. --Jayantanth (talk) 08:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Accommodation

Whose accommodation will be covered (70 people in the budget)?

As We have already mentioned, We will give the accommodation of maximum 70 scholarship grantee with twin share room (35 rooms). We are working on this logistics, We will announce the same when it will be fixed with advance booking. Expected 15-20 Wikimedian from Bangladesh and 30-45 wikimedian from all Indic Wikimedia and 10 Wikimedians of Bengal. All number may be varies depending upon demands,but we will accommodate max 70 wikimedian.-- Jayantanth (talk) 08:24, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Swag

Even if you cut down on the number of participants, the amount of swag is too high. T-shirts should only be give to the active Wikimedia community. Otherwise, stickers and pens are appropriate giveaway items. It is not necessary to also have bags, keychains, and general mementos.

For the growth of Bengali Wikipedia and build awareness, we need promotion, so it is not too high.We should give T-shirt to all registrant participants ( Rs 500+). We will give a "welcome kid" ( containing T-shirt,small carry bag,batch,brochure,pen,pad..which is common for every wikipedia conference) to every participants. Please think, this is wikipedia, we have already setup a standard. --Jayantanth (talk) 13:43, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

We are not supportive of the idea that Wikimedian events must be accompanied by a large amount of swag. Yes, larger items for active volunteers are a nice gift of appreciation and small items may help with general promotion, but there is not clear link between merchandise and longer term impact. Please propose a more reasonable swag budget. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Certificates

Who will the certificates be given to and how will they be awarded?

On advance request only student participant will given a participant's certificate. Jayantanth (talk) 13:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Are these students part of a formal Wikipedia Education Program? Please provide a bit more context on why students would receive the certificates. Certificates and prizes should only be given to participants for reaching a certain goal, but not for general participation. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Printed materials

What is the purpose of the posters and notices? As discussed above, please adjust your numbers based on the number of community members who will participate.

We need to promote off-line to every University in West Bengal about Bengali Wikipedia and related sister project. We will send the same to Every university and colleges in Bengal. As of now we have 10 dedicated community member on-line and Off-line work hard.--Jayantanth (talk) 13:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

As discussed above, general outreach to students (or other populations) should be separated from this grant request. We agree there should be resources allocated for issuing a press release, inviting media to the celebrations, and or/publishing op-eds or features in media outlets, as the anniversary provides a great "current events" hook that most media need to justify a story. Please see this learning pattern, "Let the media know" for more ideas on how to do this. It does not make sense to invite (and feed) random university students that you will attract through a general university poster campaign. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Please let us know if you have any questions about the above feedback. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 01:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Additional comments

Thank you for the updates to the grant request. We have a few remaining questions:

Program

Please provide more details on the program. It would be helpful for both us and participants to know more about what each session is. The Malayalam conference proposal had similar topics, with little explanation on what participants could expect to gain from those sessions. For example, is the "Wikipedia Editing Workshop" for new editors or will experienced editors learn new skills? What are "Wiki friendship" programs? Do you have a sense of what topics will be covered in "Presentations on various topics related to Wikipedia and knowledge freedom"? Have you engaged with the "differently-abled" community and understand what their specific needs are in relation to participating in Wikimedia projects? Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

We have published a tentative schedule. BengaliHindu (talk) 19:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi BengaliHindu. Thank you for the updated program here. We would like to see more details around the proposed sessions. For example:

• What are the topics you're hoping guest speakers will address?
• What are the topics you're hoping the paper presentations will address? How do those topics respond to the interests and needs of the community?
• Are presentations the best forum for engaging your participants? What about brainstorming sessions, panel discussions, or workshops around certain tools?
• How have you facilitated input from community members on building the program?
• What are your goals for the Wikipedia Students Meet, Friend Program, and Wikipedia Quiz? Please provide more detail on what each of those sessions are.
• There is only 30min scheduled for the community collaboration between the India and Bangladeshi communities. It is a rare to get theses community members in the same room to talk about shared experiences, challenges, and future collaborations. It would be great to make the most of this opportunity!

Additionally, one of your main measures of success is a 50% increase in the number of active editors in the 6 months following the event. Do you have thoughts on what follow-up activities (online or offline) you will be doing to take advantage of the interest developed through the anniversary celebrations?

Thank you, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:31, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Please find our reply below.

• The guest speakers will speak about Wikipedia and open knowledge. Our principal guest speaker is Pabitra Sarkar, a linguist, literary critic and a prominent figure in the Indian academic circle. As a former Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, former Vice Chairman of West Bengal State Council for Higher Education, former President of Bangiya Sahitya Parishad and incumbent Vice President of Paschimbanga Sahitya Akademi, we hope that he will enlighten us how the Bengali Wikipedia community collaborate with the academic institutions.
• We are hoping that all the abstracts submitted would be related to Wikipedia and free knowledge. We'll select only those papers which caters to the need and interests of the community.

• Great. How are you gathering information on the "needs an interests of the community"? Please see below for suggestions. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• Please refer below. We have one doubt. BengaliHindu (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Kindly note that the program that we had published was a tentative one. There were no brainstorming sessions. But we have a added one more venue, the K.P.Basu Memorial Hall (annexe), where we'll hold open discussions only. Kindly refer to the updated program schedule. These open discussions will act as brainstorming session. We haven't listed any panel discussion yet. However, we are in talks to include one or two panel discussions also. Regarding workshop on specific tools, let me state that Bengali Wikipedia is not as much advanced as English Wikipedia. Of course we'll cover the usage of tools for general editing. However, we think that we should put more focus on basic and intermediate levels rather than advanced topics.
• We are thinking of creating a online form for the registrants to suggest, what kind of topics they are interested in during event. In that way we plan to gather inputs from the community.

• This is a good idea, but it would be even more productive to have community members providing input before registering. By the time folks register, the program should already be in a relatively final state so that people know what they are registering for. Creating a forum for discussion on the program discussion page or on the Bengali Wikipedia would be great. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• Is it a good idea to ask the would be registrants to discuss on the program talk page or is it better to create a mailing list for this? BengaliHindu (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• I think the program talk page is the most appropriate place to solicit input. But having additional ways people can let you know their interests is great, so the registration form and the mailing list (if you have one for the event) work as well. You will also want to conduct a survey at the end of the event to gather people's feedback. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• The primary goal of these three events is to make inroads into the academic institutions with the sole objective of the growth of Bengali Wikipedia. In the Wiki Students Meet, we would allow one student representative from each institution to share their plans on Wikipedia related activities at their campus. In the Friend Program, the representatives of various organizations to share how they wish to collaborate with Bengali Wikipedia. This particular event is not final. It may be dropped. In the Wikipedia Quiz, we are thinking of institution based teams to participate in a competition. Again 30 minutes may not be enough for that. We may have to stretch it for 1 hour.

• Thanks for the explanation. Are the expected participants for the Wikipedia Students Meet and the discussion on collaboration with academic institutions different? Otherwise, they are scheduled at the same time. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• They are different. The first group are the students who are mostly from colleges and universities. The second group constitute of the academicians from educational and research institutes, like professors.BengaliHindu (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• In these 30 mins, we'll draw conclusion on the open discussion on joint activities of the two communities that would be held on the previous day. Kindly refer to the updated schedule.

• Open discussions are great, but we would strongly suggest that significant preparatory work go into these collaboration sessions. For example, creating a space on the conference pages where participants from both communities can list items for discussion -- challenges, areas for cooperation, project ideas, expected outcomes from the discussion, etc. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• We have created a space in Bengali Wikipedia for discussion who would serve as the preparatory work. BengaliHindu (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• As a outcome of these conference, we are expecting a few engagements with the academic institutions in and around Kolkata. We would like to follow up on them and hold workshops, editathons and other events to bring in more contributors to the project.

Thank you. BengaliHindu (talk) 12:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Budget

Please provide a few more details in the notes section related to "general mementos" and "transport for guests". What are the general mementos and what is their need in addition to the other conference gifts (bags, stickers, pens, notebooks)? What guests will receive transportation reimbursement? Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The general mementos will be given to 30 noteworthy contributors in Wikimedia projects as a mark of recognition. They include the judges and winners of the photography contests, top contributors in the editathon and noteworthy Bengali Wikimedians. Bags, stickers, pens and notebooks are part of the conference kit. They are not exactly gift items. The conference kit will be given to all the attendees. The guests who would be invited as speakers will receive either transport (car) or travel allowance. The guest speakers will be mostly from the greater Kolkata area. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:13, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Grant Approved

Thank you for the updates to the grant request and information on program planning. The request is approved. We are excited to support these celebrations for the Bengali Wikipedia community in India and to see what type of shared understanding and collaboration between the Indian and Bangladeshi communities develops. Best of luck! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for approving the grant. This is going to be the first event of such kind in the Bengali Wikipedia fraternity. 17 Bangladeshi Wikipedians are attending the event. Looking forward to a constructive discussion between the two communities. BengaliHindu (talk) 14:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)