Talk:Project grants/Awaken the Dragon

A week has passed. Anybody?

Hey Blofeld, there might be potential for some overlap here with my war memorials project. I'm writing lots of articles about war memorials and Chris and I are looking at putting in a grant request to drive round and photograph some of the most significant. I've mostly been focusing on England, partly because it's an extension of my interest in Lutyens and the vast majority of his memorials are in England and partly because Historic England's database is online and searchable. I'm certainly not averse to expanding the scope to cover Wales, and a project to go out and take photos of significant memorials in some of the more remote parts of Wales could get you a lot more photos than otherwise. It would be great if we could get hold of Cadw's database though, or better still get them to put it online like HE's. Harry Mitchell (talk) 16:27, 4 February 2016 (GMT)

Hello HJ Mitchell. March is going to be a very busy month for everybody on there haha! I've included a women's history focus but I can certainly include a war memorials focus. Perhaps WMUK could give a book prize for whoever photographs the most war memorials in Wales/writes the highest number of quality articles? Things like this are great I think when projects and editathons mutually support each other. The book prize for war memorials for Wales could be a book of the editor's choice up to £20 on Amazon or something. I think encouraging people to buy books is good because it encourages content creation at a later date. You and anybody you know is welcome to participate in the editathon, even if prizes are not your thing. Perhaps we could combine grant requests and overlap on Wales with this? Something which support editors driving through Wales and photographing war memorials and monuments? If there was funding to cover travel costs travelling England/Wales for war memorial photos it could also cover listed buildings when in Wales, so whatever village you pass through we'd also benefit with a few photos on listed buildings too?Dr. Blofeld (talk) 20:54, 4 February 2016 (GMT)

@HJ, I've started mentioning photographing war memorials at here. Feel free to elaborate there on what is needed and try to do something which may get us a lot of war memorial photographs! If there is a list you've compiled on wiki of needed photographs linked it there too.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 21:13, 4 February 2016 (GMT)

OK, we're now 18 days in and only 13 days left. I had expected some discussion to unfold already about the budget and the bonus prizes and all that. We do need some time to publicize this!Dr. Blofeld (talk) 10:45, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

I'm going to run the contest anyway now, we have 15 odd participants already, and a lot of work has gone into drawing up article banks by a number of people who want this to happen. So even if WMUK feel unwilling to support this initial one it's not a big problem, especially as half the people who have signed up would rather not win anything for their efforts anyway. There's a lot of interest for this sort of thing across wikipedia, beyond myself. But I do think we would get better results with a good prize and bonuses and it would give it a fair chance as just a trial to see what works and what doesn't. If WMUK would feel better just stepping back on this initial one and see how it goes then I'd be fine with that. I'll come up with some prizes myself, like Welsh cakes ;-) If you genuinely need a few more weeks to get around to discussing this and making a decision we could possibly put it back to April, as I don't want anything to feel rushed or pressured. I had thought a month was enough time, but I appreciate that people are busy. We'll see where things are this time next week anyway.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2016 (GMT)

This proposal seems well founded to me. I like the creativity behind the prizes i.e. offering books as well as vouchers. I do wonder if a £375 budget may be a little excessive and some trimming here and there may be appropriate e.g. I think a £100 voucher for first place is sufficient. However, as you point out, the books can probably gotten for a lower price than indicated and not all prizes may be won, and the outcomes for this contest could be very strong, so the budget doesn't really concern me. I'm not sure what's happening right now in regards to Wikimedia UK approval, but this proposal has my support. CT Cooper · talk 01:59, 17 February 2016 (GMT)