Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Global Open Initiative/Activating Local Language Communities/Dagbani

Comments from WMF

Hello Global Open Initiative, thanks again for submitting this Rapid Grant request. We are excited that you are planning to work with the Ghanaian local languages and contribute to the Wikimedia projects in these languages. I have reviewed your application and have the following questions and requests:

• If the Dagbani community has been long dormant on the Wikimedia Incubator, why are you convinced that this community will stay active after the project completion?
• Please increase the project duration to include any activities after the contest completion as well.
• For this contest you expect to have 10 participants, while the number of prizes you have budgeted is 18 (with prizes for female participants — 36). I think that the number of prizes is too high, given the project scope. That’s why I request to reduce the number of prizes, offering maximum 2 prizes for each Wikimedia project (Dagbani Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, and Wikidata) and 1 prize for a top female contestant.
• Please update your budget breakdown and total requested budget after you make the reductions.

I’m looking forward to your responses. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:20, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Davit, Thank you for reviewing our rapid grant request.

Please find the answers to your questions and requests:

• Q1 If the Dagbani community has been long dormant on the Wikimedia Incubator, why are you convinced that this community will stay active after the project completion?

Answer Dagbani language in the incubator was started by existing Wikipedians who understood Dagbani. With less than 3 people at that time, no major efforts were made to recruit/expand the number of contributors and so the project went virtually unknown to outsiders.

What is different this time is that the GOIF foundation team has adopted a more structured approach to included non-Wikimedians who could potentially become editors. For example,

1. We have revisited plans to engage members of the academic community
2. We have opened-up and created multiple avenues for people to find us and join the project. See Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn.
3. We are actively seeking prospective editors and have created a WhatsApp platform that currently has 140 participants participant all of whom speak Dagbani
4. We are working towards a User group status that should strengthen the structures we’re building to support and manage a full language community.

• Q2. Please increase the project duration to include any activities after the contest completion as well.

Ánswer We would like to start the contest a week earlier than proposed on the 24th of September to allow for up to 5 weeks of competition. After that, we will keep the project open for another two weeks, during which time people can still compete to add entries but not win prizes for that. We will also continue to hold community training to introduce people to other aspects of Wikimedia projects aside from Wikipedia and Wikidata.

• Q3. For this contest, you expect to have 10 participants, while the number of prizes you have budgeted is 18 (with prizes for female participants — 36). I think that the number of prizes is too high, given the project scope. That’s why I request to reduce the number of prizes, offering maximum 2 prizes for each Wikimedia project (Dagbani Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, and Wikidata) and 1 prize for a top female contestant.

Answer I wish to clarify that for this contest, we expect to have 20 participants as budgeted although it could be more, instead of the 10 in the grant proposal we wrote which is a mistake. Sorry about that. We expect that different people may have a preference to contribute to specific categories, i.e. working only on English entries, Dagbani or Wikidata. As such, we would like to spread out the prizes to include more people. Therefore, we would like to keep the original budget but are open to improving it following your next feedback. Also, we usually have fewer women participating in similar contests, that was the reason.

• Q4. Please update your budget breakdown and total requested budget after you make the reductions.

Answer Done. Regards. Shahadusadik (talk) 13:04, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello Shahadusadik, thanks for your responses. I'm glad to learn that you have structured communication and engagement plans.

• If you want to start the project earlier and complete later than planned, please update the dates in the probox accordingly.
• Even in case of 20 participants, offering 18 (36) prizes is not acceptable for us. Prizes should not be the only factor driving participants to make contributions to Wikimedia project. Therefore, I still request to reduce the number of prizes to 6 maximum (plus 1-2 additional prize for female participation). As I mentioned above, you can still award prizes for different Wikimedia projects, so to ensure contributions to all projects. Additionally, you can also budget small symbolic wiki souvenirs or certificates to offer to all participants after the contest. But these appreciation tokens should not have substantial prices.

Please make the requested changes and update your budget. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 13:44, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Davit, Thanks again for the corrections. I have updated the budget accordingly. Regards. Shahadusadik (talk) 18:07, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Approved

Hello Shahadusadik, thanks for making the requested changes. I am approving your grant request! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Davit, Thank you so much for approving our grant request. Looking forward to the next steps. Shahadusadik (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)