Grants talk:Project/WMTR/Reintroducing Wikipedia to Turkey

Eligibility confirmed, Round 1 2020

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for Round 1 2020 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 16, 2020.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for Round 1 2020 will occur March 17 - April 8, 2020. We ask that you refrain from making changes to your proposal during the committee review period, so we can be sure that all committee members are seeing the same version of the proposal.

Grantees will be announced Friday, May 15, 2020.

Any changes to the review calendar will be posted on the Round 1 2020 schedule.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Reintroducing to Turkey

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	9.3
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	8.0
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	6.5
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	5.8
Additional comments from the Committee: The projects fits with Wikimedia's strategic priorities and there will probably be some results that can be sustained after it ends. Very high impact potential, getting a healthy and more sustainable Turkish community is clearly needed. Establishing an organisation will also make a work of Turkish community more sustainable in long term. Fit with strategic priorities as it exactly targets under-representation. Enormous potential for impact, though given this and given all the news the Wiki block has had in Turkey outside the country itself across the Movement, it is surprising to have received so little Movement notice or support for the plans. This has me concerned that the community building this proposal has not maintained or sought support outside Turkey for this proposal. This is an iterative project and its risks are relatively low. The results of the project can be measured and evaluated. It is an iterative project, as similar actions were already successful in multiple countries. However, planning is a very big issue: there is no clear plan on what the two Community contractors will do, there are no clear measures of success beyond the number of universities. More details are needed on this. This is a proposal to fill a clear need, using steps that have been successful outside Turkey. Yes, it can be accomplished in 12 months or less. The budget seems to be fine and the participants seem to possess necessary experiences and skills. It is hard to judge the ability to execute given the lack of clarity around the project. The budget is not clear, notably it is not clear what contractors will be doing, and I am not convinced an office amid the pandemics is the most necessary expense (it is if it is required by law, however). Participants are experienced in doing community outreach, but it is not clear if they have an experience with contractors management. All this seems doable for a team that clearly can manage itself and reach across the country, however I do not see any indication they have learned from others around the world who face similar challenges nor is there evidence they will use any guidance, learning, input, or resources outside Turkey for this to happen. This really concerns me that they seem to propose this in an isolated manner. Little so far. The target community is clearly identified, and from what I know the user group is quite representative of the online community. More work in Turkey is a step towards diversity. There were only two people who commented on this, one in favor and one who raised healthy concerns. There are no indications of connections already within the country where they want to conduct these projects. I am concerned that this community element, both local and global, is not present. I believe the community is happy to have Turkey back and will be happy to support them in any capacity. I am willing to support this project as it is important for the Turkish Wikimedia community. The project is definitely worth supporting but many changes need to be done. More clarity on community building online (as offline is not possible anymore), with associated measures of success. Details or project/community contractors: what they will be doing, who will they report to? I am not convinced an office is needed while everybody is working from home, acceptable if it is a legal requirement. More clarity on budget, particularly Taxes: if this is a permanent tax for a legal entity, there are questions about sustainability. Due to the limited community support and a lack of demonstration this is doable on scale, I would award partial funding for a much more scaled-down project that would have more of a realistic chance of being approved. I believe the community is happy to have Turkey back and will be happy to support them in any capacity. The budget is reasonable to me. But changes to this proposal could be discussed in our next meetings.

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

• Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal.
• If you have had an interview with a Program Officer, you may have orally responded to some of the committee comments already. Your interview comments will be relayed to the committee during the deliberations call.
• You are welcome to respond to aggregated comments here on the talkpage to publicly share any feedback, clarifications or questions you have.
• Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on May 29, 2020.

If you have any questions, please contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Round 1 2020 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, US$25,460

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support full funding to support training, collaborations with universities, and other community engagement activities to support renewed interest in Wikimedia projects in Turkey. The committee supports your efforts to engage institutions and communities in Turkey to counteract negative perceptions of and improve Turkish Wikipedia or other relevant Wikimedia projects.

We request that, early on during your grant, that we meet to develop more specificity around measuring your goals related to 1) Creating partnership opportunities, and 2) Increasing communication between local editors living in the same cities and communication with the global community.

We are especially grateful for the Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey’s resilience and dedication toward the the mission of Wikimedia projects, and for persevering both through the challenges of both a 2.5 year ban as the COVID-19 pandemic that affected your initial proposal.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Upcoming changes to Wikimedia Foundation Grants

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

-- On behalf of the Project Grants Committee, Morgan Jue (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2020 (UTC)