Hello, I am grateful to you for sharing your inputs on this thought. Sushant, I was trying to get an estimate of how many such emails might come. If needed, we can count only those grants or supports which are slightly larger in size. Starting from Rapid Grant, I do not have the exact count of how many Rapid Grant application from/related to the regions per year. I guess it will be around 10–12/year. Other grants such as Project Grant, Simple APG, APG etc open up at a specific time (mostly twice a year). I glanced through the recent grants pages and my hunch is actually it won't be too many. However you are right, possibly we can check how many emails the list could have got in 2020. In case if there could be too many emails, I think the suggestion you have made— fortnightly/monthly email works pretty well. If needed, the email can be treated as "for information purpose" and as much as possible the discussion can take place on the relevant talk page on Meta-Wiki. Thanks, Sushant for your inputs.

Thank you, Pavan for sharing your thoughts. I am not sure about this, I feel the moderators/managers can work to fix it if the emails are getting delayed somehow. Some time ago, I don't remember where exactly, I saw a similar post on some other large mailing list. On Telegram Wikimedia General Chat also I remember seeing volunteers came in to help in moderation.

(On a similar note: an email to Wikimedia-l a few days ago informed about an upcoming plan to review the grants strategy. Our this discussion is not directly related to that. However as this is going to be an important activity, one may consider reading: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2021-January/096086.html )

Thanks As User:Titodutta

রবি, ১০ জানু, ২০২১ তারিখে ১২:২৩ PM টায় এ pavan santhosh < pavansanthosh.s@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:

Hello Tito,

Many of us are already doing this but before making it a more formal process/ part of a best practice some issues need our attention. This brings the question of active adminship of the Wikimediaindia-l mailing list. Many times, mails to Wikimediaindia-l mailing list did not appear in the list even after several days. Sometimes mails got published (do not know technicality, so excuse me for using these terms) even after several days of the deadline/event/activity. I do not know the reasons or issues in maintaining the list, but thought it would be helpful to bring this up now.

To sum up: If we aim to get state-level, project-level, and other kinds of grants posted here, we need to help several communities and many community members understand the necessity, but in the first place, we need to fix issues in maintaining this space before asking them to come here and post. I believe we can do it together and would like to see comments from other community members too.

Regards, Pavan.

On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 10:55 AM Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:

...

Namaskara, This might be some food for thought, and inputs are welcome. India mailing list is the largest and most widely used Wikimedia mailing list for the Indian community. Could we have a practice that all grant requests from the country (or related to) are informed on the Wikimediaindia-l mailing list?

Whether it is a state-level, project-level, language-level etc, or whether it is a rapid grant, project grant etc it would be good to see the plan details on this mailing list in advance. It will ensure greater visibility, and it will also ensure the community's understanding/knowing of each other's projects.

If we can have a practice like this, we can inform Wikimedia, or CR team or relevant support structure(s) as an India community practice.

This post is in my personal capacity. Please assume good faith Regards, User:Titodutta

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-- Pavan Santhosh. _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l

I strongly oppose this Idea, once again. Some more reasons are listed below:

- This thread or any such future thread in no way represents Indian Wikimedia communities. For example, there are tens of Wikipedians who don't know that Tito proposed an idea to "Major Indian grant requests should come to India mailing list" & also trying to make it "mandatory". This list excludes several Indian Wikimedians who never voiced in this list. Essentially, this would increase barriers for community members instead of reducing it. - It would be an interesting idea for Tito individually or CIS-A2K institutionally to conduct a small study to map platforms that Indian language wikimedians discuss & understand how much they are missing/present in this "so called Indian mailing list". I believe several Wikimedians who are doing a lot of work on wikis are not here. - Instead of mandating grantees to publish their grant here and hoping that the members of the thread would follow some of the "best practices" which are very hard to impose, It would be better to see someone (not grantee, ofcourse) post links of relevant grants and encourage interested members of this list to comment on talk page itself. - You mentioned "excessive canvassing, votestacking, back-scratching, meatpuppetry" but not harassment, mockery, attacking grantees, etc., But, a range of policy violations do happen in mailing lists, and people easily got away with it. I don't see value in mandating people to have a discourse on Non-wiki platforms and then try to impose policies which are very difficult. This difficulty can not be mitigated after a level because this is not our platform (off-wiki platform). I see this as a futile exercise. - Food for thought: If we start asking people to post in mailing list, why not fb groups and whatsapp groups? Where should we start when we mandate using an off-wiki platform as an official channel for users? Is it just because some of us who are elite enough believe this as a decent platform?

I just mentioned some of my objections in this mail and not articulate enough. But, please consider this idea is not acceptable for me and may be for many of the Wikimedians who are not still in this list. Until there is some sort of wider-discussion, consensus backed by strong study, This list is and should be just another useful discussion forum, nothing more and nothing less.

Thanks, Pavan.

29 డిసెం, 2021, బుధ 10:31కి, Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com ఇలా వ్రాసారు:

Hello, After the launch of the current grant process, formation of the Regional Grants Committee, announcement and commencement of round 1 applications, it is probably good to revisit this thread. I hope that the Wikimedia Foundation grants team and Regional Grants Committee (SAARC) would kindly consider these over-all process-related notes.

Here are a few observations about the "over-all process"— A

1. Major Indian grant requests should come to India mailing list. The term

"major" can be defined by an amount (more than "₹" amount) or any other criteria (region coverage, project coverage, duration etc). Possibly RGC (SAARC) can kindly set up criteria? 2) I would suggest separate email threads for "major" grant requests, however if this list gets too many emails, I would suggest to please send at least a digest email clearly briefing the grant proposals. 3) Please consider making this step a mandatory one, and mark applications "invalid" or "incomplete" unless the step is properly done. 4) This should not be done only as formality, and the community should be allowed at least 7 to 10 days' time to comment. I would request RGC to start reviewing only after this period. 5) There might be moderation and other issues in the list, and can be handled separately.

B

1. Please consider working on an "Appropriate notification/canvassing

policy" (or guideline). This can be a document covering best practices, and also possible inappropriate behaviours such as excessive canvassing, votestacking, back-scratching, meatpuppetry etc. Please see a similar thread I started on Wikimedia-l at [1] 2) It would be good to have a direct communication option with RGC (SAARC). I suggest kindly make this on-wiki. Possibly this can be created in form of a noticeboard at Grants_talk:Regions/SAARC or at Grants:Regions/SAARC/Noticeboard

This or similar process may be replicated in other SAARC countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, and other regions also depending on the relevant community request.

I'll be happy to voluntarily add inputs or work on any of the things mentioned above such as A1, B1 etc.

Thanks, User:Titodutta (In volunteer capacity)

Footnotes [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...

রবি, ১০ জানু, ২০২১ তারিখে ১০:৫৫ AM টায় তারিখে Tito Dutta < trulytito@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:

...

Namaskara, This might be some food for thought, and inputs are welcome. India mailing list is the largest and most widely used Wikimedia mailing list for the Indian community. Could we have a practice that all grant requests from the country (or related to) are informed on the Wikimediaindia-l mailing list?

Whether it is a state-level, project-level, language-level etc, or whether it is a rapid grant, project grant etc it would be good to see the plan details on this mailing list in advance. It will ensure greater visibility, and it will also ensure the community's understanding/knowing of each other's projects.

If we can have a practice like this, we can inform Wikimedia, or CR team or relevant support structure(s) as an India community practice.

This post is in my personal capacity. Please assume good faith Regards, User:Titodutta

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Hello Tito,

Thanks for the response.

My issue is not mainly about agreement or disagreement, not at all about head count. I am concerned about vast majority of community members getting atleast informed about these kind of threads due to the very nature of mailing lists. (I am not entirely against mailing lists, but only when it becomes mandatory for Community members)

This is not a Wiki and there are barriers for participation here on various levels. Language, privacy, and knowing that there is a list are a few.

This platform allowed us to have this proposal, discussion and summary happening on very platform where many users who gets affected by changes are not even present. That is the concern I wanted to stress while I am writing that "This thread or any such future thread in no way represents Indian Wikimedia communities." May be wrong choice of words.

I also just wanted to clarify and rest the case here. See you!

Best, Pavan.

4 జన, 2022, మంగళ 20:51కి, Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com ఇలా వ్రాసారు:

Hello, Thank you.

...

"This thread or any such future thread in no way represents Indian Wikimedia communities."

— This *does *represent a viewpoint. This argument may not show a majority, a very large or unanimous representation, still this is a particular viewpoint and the argument is represented here. My viewpoint as a community member stays, so do your viewpoints, and so do other viewpoints. If we count how many people voted or if everyone on a project agreed to something, most of the proposals or plans on village pumps or noticeboards will never go forward. In a process, there are views and counter views, and finally the merit of the arguments is checked generally. The proposal is not entirely new, but most of the mentioned parts are standard practice.

Anyway, I have already shared my thoughts, and I do note that there are other opinions also. I'll rest here. (Happy new year, stay safe...) ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta (মাতৃভাষা থাক জীবন জুড়ে)

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