Grants talk:PEG/T.K Sujith - WikiSangamotsavam 2013/Malayalam Wiki Conference 2013/Report

The grantees have been unresponsive for over seven months regarding the completion of this report. The draft report is marked incomplete and the grantees are ineligible for future funding until a complete grant report and documentation of expenses is submitted. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Plz find the report and account statements. Bills and vouchers already sent via E-Mail. After the Sangamotsavam, concerned persons, including me could not complete this report due to personal inconvenience. Sorry for the delay ! --Adv.tksujith (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

The report is completed now from our point of view. We are tried to answer all the questions with references. --Ranjithsiji (talk) 03:11, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

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Hi Ranjithsiji and Adv.tksujith. Thank you for completing your grant report after all this time. It sounds like the conference was a success in terms of introducing Wikipedia and editing to lots of new audiences, bringing together active Wikimedians in your area, and sharing experiences and skills. We have a number of questions/comments below and look forward to your responses.

1. A number of the activities focused on outreach to new audiences, including Wiki youth meet, Cycle rallies, and Wikipedia for differently abled. It's great you were able to engage such a diversity of people and there was high attendance at these events. Do you have any sense of if and how these participants have engaged with the Wikimedia projects since then? Were you able to follow-up with some of them in any way?

Indeed, we have been monitoring the effect of this massive program for which almost all active Malayalam Wikimedians took whatever efforts they could put in.

The one important aspect we wanted to pursue and accomplish was to make the existence of Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) itself to the common lay man. As you could observe from any google search, Kerala is one of the top ranking state in India when it comes to welfare index and social indices including very high digital and mobile computing penetration. Almost all citizens down to the lower middle class, including students, women and senior citizens in Kerala use a smartphone or tablet. Typically there are at least two devices per family. However, most people did not know (and would not have known even now) about a site called Wikipedia. Even if a minority knew about the English Wikipedia, seldom ones were aware of the existence of Wikipedia in their own native language, i.e.Malayalam.

The WS2013 at Alappuzha was very effective in broadcasting about the event through all possible channels including print, electronic and internet mass media. You would have noticed several newspaper stories appeared in connection with our programs. These were published in very popular newspapers which have some of the best readership ranks in India.As the number of people who read newspapers as one of their most essential duties everyday, these reports reached the right targets.

Subsequent to this, we also ensured a massive follow-up through our dedicated Facebook groups and other networking opportunities in social media. Linking through a multi-layer network pattern, we have been able to cease the opportunity and let even a casual neo-digital-literate to 'try' Wikipedia.

Today, we can proudly say that almost all those who use a smartphone, tablet or notebook computer in Kerala,knows what Wikipedia is. The majority among them also knows what Wikipedia is not. Going through the editing history, one can observe the quality of editing and virtual absence of vandalism.

ML Wikipedia has also become a de-facto standard for referencing on the local digital society. Whether it is a blog, social interaction platform or a print periodical, Wikipedia URLs are often pointed onto as reference links.

A large number of new users who are not regular Wikipedia editors are now keen to take photographs of Wildlife, monuments, persons and other subjects and upload to Wikimedia Commons. They are happy to see their creations appearing on week end editions of newspapers, school textbooks and other public showcase interfaces, with relevant IPR norms (CC-BY-SA etc.) strictly followed.

After the WS2013, we have been able to collaborate with many nstitutions both on and off records and manage to get hundreds of Malayalam original ancient and fresh books into WIkisource. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 15:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

1. A workshop for journalists is an interesting idea and we are curious to know what training was given and what follow-up there was, if any. What were the goals of this workshop and were they reached?

Although it was planned to conduct a full fledged workshop for working and student journalists, due to constraints in organizational arrangement, we had to give up the program temporarily. Instead, we had collaborated with several newspaper firms and the Press Academy itself. In association with them, we were able to achieve certain milestones although they occurred quiet a while later. Here are a few noteworthy gains among many:

• A report in Hindu about the Gundert Project
• The photos of the Gundert Legacy event in Commons
• Inspired and assisted by ML Wikipedians and associates, the prominent Malayalam newspaper group ventured into showcasing more than 500 important old Malayalam books on their web site. Although not directly available to WIkisource or Commons, these books are now frequently used for research and referencing not only by Wikipedia editors but also by many university students and scholars.
• At least five independent web portals came alive, some in open collaboration and some without, to publish digitized books and make them available on their own sites, downloadable without any restrictions.
• A senior Wikimedia, [[User:Shijualex| Shiju Alex], has dedicated his volunteer time fully into a vigorous search and find mission long lost earliest Malayalam publications. His painstaking efforts have now resulted in the discovery of several very important volumes crucially associated with Malayalam language and history of South India's printing culture. This includes 'samkshepavedartham', the first ever printed Malayalam book and first edition of sabdatharavali, the most authentic dictionary in Malayalam. Ardently enthusiastic Malayalam Wikipedians have assisted him in accomplishingthese goals. His project is still going on. We are still working on getting some of these books into Wikisource and Wiktionary after sorting out certain regulatory and copy right problems. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 15:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

1. The report states that there was a "plan to put more QR codes at important places of Alappuzha Municipality". Can you let us know how this project has developed?

The QR project could not go full steam at one go. Nevertheless, we have not given it up. Instead, we are still pondering on rejuvenating our plans, this time also trying to integrate the features with smartphone apps, mobile access and open street maps. We hope when resumed, it will be a newsworthy event that will also help many tourists, students and common public. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 15:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

1. You wrote that the presence of national guests representing other languages was a highlight of the event. Can you tell us more about this? What kind of sharing, networking, or learning happened as a result of their participation?

The invitation of delegates from other states was a very successful feet too. Later in 2014 and 2015, such invitations were reciprocated by those communities. Since then, our volunteers have collaborated or visited their events as well. They also participated in several TTT programs conducted and coordinated by A2KCIS. On social media too, volunteers from different communities who first got acquainted with their peers, have networked quite affluently. Today, most of the Wikimedia events conducted on a national basis are well participated by these communities. We believe our experiment was the first of its kind from a local community among Indic languages, which had triggered the later similar practices. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 15:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Again, we appreciate that you have submitted this thorough report. You have provided a lot of information regarding how activities were organized and who attended. However, we are especially interested in the more substantial results and impact of those activities in terms of longer-term engagement of participants, content creation on wiki, partnership development, etc. We want to know what kind of connections were made, if meeting in person led to new or improved projects or collaborations between editors. These are the types of stories that we hope will come through in a report. Here is an example of a conference grant report from the 2014 CEE Meeting that does an excellent job explaining the outcomes, impact, and lessons learned of the event. Hopefully it will be a useful reference when writing future grant reports.

We understand you are hoping to organizing another WikiSangomatosavam in the near future. Please see the new Conference Grants portal for more information. The pages on developing a conference grant proposal and conference planning resources will be especially useful.

Thanks again for completing this report! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you too, Alex Wang for approving this report! Unlike WS2013, now onward, we, the volunteers from ML Wikimedia will strive every ways to complete and submit our event reports within the stipulated time and format. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 15:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)