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Hi everyone, this is a proposal to promote wiki culture among the student community of Bangladesh and recruit new Wikipedians to work for Wikiproject Bangladesh. I made the first proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh/Outreach. The idea is - there will be a competition of improving Bangladesh related articles. Please add your comments below. And please, like any talk page, please sign your posts. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the Competition

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Shouldn't we assign a name? I am thinking of something similar to "Wikimania". If you have any good name in mind, please suggest. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

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The target group

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The initial proposal was to include HSC+ students. User:Dwaipayanc suggested that we should include younger students as well. I still think we should start with HSC+ students, because for junior students, we probably need a different format / different level of supervision. But we can certainly keep it as a plan for future. Comments please. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

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Proposed format for competition

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The initial proposal is as follows:

Interested participants will first submit their names and educational institution details by email to a "Competition committee". The committee will assign them articles to work on (each competitor a different article randomly choosen from Category:Bangladesh articles needing attention). They will be assigned 3 months to raise the assigned articles to GA status. After 3 months the successful performers will be required to submit proof of their actual identity and educational details. Then the second round will commence when they will be assigned different Top/High important B-class articles and they will be asked to improve those articles to FA status.

After these two rounds are complete, a third round may be arranged among the top 5 performers, in which, they work on their articles of choice (Article must be Bangladesh related) on next 3 months.

The selection committee will have the sole discretion in short-listing and finally selecting the winner. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other comments on the format were as follows:

  • User:Nichalp suggested that in the competition, all the rules about wikipedia should be detailed. (Free content, NPOV, citations, references, well written, summary style, free images etc.)
  • User:Aditya Kabir added the followings:
    • The office that hosts Bangla-Wiki meets can be used to make on-ground contacts.
    • Instead of random articles, may be the contest page can list out high importance articles that needs attention. May be a hundred of such articles can be prioritized as such. That would ideally build the core of Bangladesh articles.
    • A special contest page can be created under the Bangladesh Wikiproject to guide contestants through the policies and guidelines. There can also be a Q&A service maintained by a couple of experienced editors.
  • User:Ragib added this:
    • The Bangladesh Open Source Network / Bangla-wiki office can definitely be used as the local contact/postal address/office for this competition. Prothom-Alo and/or other newspapers can publicize this.
      • All that is need is an office bearer, who can be present at the office for a certain time-frame (say Fridays and Saturdays 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM) at the office to handle people who may walk up to the office. Other volunteers can help the office bearer to deal with hard-mails and other documents. How about someone like User:Bellayet, who visits the premise often enough. Aditya(talk • contribs) 13:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reward scheme

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After the completion the winner will be given a reasonable award (I propose monetary value of BDT 5,000/-) and another 4 good candidates would be given consolation prize (worth Tk. 1,000/- each). Prizes may be given in cash or "books".

Although Cash reward for writing Wikipedia article is not always viewed positively, there are earlier instances of similar competitions; like the one User:Ragib pointed to: Wikipedia:The_Core_Contest. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Funding

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I suggest, just like Wikipedia, we DO NOT go to any corporate house for sponsorship, rather we arrange the financing through donations. If active wikipedians in Bangladesh are willing volunteer their time and effort to organize the whole event (which I don't think will be a huge undertaking anyway), I promise to personally sponsor the prizes (to the amount I mentioned) for the first round. Of course, if there are other willing donors, we can increase the number / value of prizes. The promotional expenditure of this project should be minimum, as the announcement of the competition should be via email and website only. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To get youngsters attracted to the competetion (yes, I am talking about acquiring fresh Wikipedians) we might have to deliver fliers (though may be the debating clubs), posters (to be posted on college/university noticeboards), direct mailers (to faculties of colleges/universities) and press releases (to be sent to newspapers). There may be other hidden costs. Donations should be able to cover the expenses. Problem is where do we donate? A bank account? A trusted person? Some place else? Aditya(talk • contribs) 14:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy

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  • User:Aditya Kabir mentioned, "The Wikipedia maintains a very strict idea of privacy and anonymity. We probably can't ask for identities, though there is nothing against volunteering to provide so."
  • User:Nichalp proposed a solution: "For the competition, allow the users to create a pseudonym account. This account should be linked to their real names and addresses, but this information shall only be made known to the organization committee. If the contestants optionally wish to disclose their real identity, they can state so during registration. This information will be kept confidential."
  • User:Aditya Kabir Further suggested, "Every Wikipedia editor account is supported by an e-mail account. Therefore, the winners can be identified by that e-mail account (may be sending a wiki-mail first to tell them to contact a certain address to collect the award)."

The Competition Committee

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  • User:Aditya Kabir rightly noted that: Apart from the few really unavoidable structures (like administrators, bureaucrats or arbitrators), a few fringe groups that are continuously challenged (like esperanza), and some activities run by the Wikimedia Foundation (like Wikimania), hierarchies are not really encouraged by the principles of Wikipedia. This is a free encyclopedia that puts everyone on the same platform, well almost. Informal Wiki-meets notwithstanding this "comittee" probably needs an approval of the Foundation.
  • User:Nichalp said, The judging panel should consist of people experienced with wikipedia article writing.
  • User:Aditya Kabir later suggested the following:
    • Editors like User:Ragib and User:AA (both admins from Bangladesh), as well as User:Armanaziz, User:NAHID, User:Niaz and User:Tarif Ezaz (non-admin editors from bangladesh who are highly experienced), and even volunteers from other countries can fulfill the task more than adequately.
    • Editors living in Bangladesh (like Nahid, Niaz and Tarif) can actually go down to the schools/colleges/universities to put posters/flyers/etc. calling for participation.
  • A few follow-up comments on Aditya's suggestions:
    • User:Niaz has left Bangladesh for higher studies.
    • User:Tarif Ezaz has agreed to volunteer for this drive. On my talk page, he left the note below:

we hardly get a chance to meet physically actually, our best place is probably in bangla_wiki@yahoogroups.com where Wikipedians both in and outside of the country share their views. You can let all of them know about your plan there, Ragib Via is also coming to Dhaka for a month next month and planning to a lot of work. An idea like yours can help a lot there. There are actually a lot of dedicated people out there, specially Belayet bhai and Munir Hasan (who also runs the Bangladesh Mathematics Olympiad), they will do whatever they can, Munir sir is also related with Prothom Alo and already wrote a number of Wikipedia related features there. By the way, now I live in Kallyanpur, so more closer to Mirpur now. Bangladesh Open Source Network is backing the bangla_wiki group here and any good and effective idea like yours would have all of their backing. And, for me, I'm always here to help. You'll see a lot of work from me hopefully from this December. Regards --Tarif from Bangladesh (talk) 11:14, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I think you (Aditya) are being too genorous by living yourself out of the list of "highly experienced" editors from Bangladesh.
  • Here's my suggestion about the committee. The committee should comprise of at least 3 sub-committees: a) An organizing committee: who will promote the program and do all necessary administrative task. This should be headed by a "Secretary" who will be the key person on the ground. b) An advisory committee who will advise from their experience, especially on Wikipedia policy procedure etc. c) A Judging panel, to select the winner.

Organizing Committee

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This committee should ideally comprise of Bangladeshi people only. Committee members will disqualify from entering into competition. However, they should be free to encourage their family and friends to compete. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Secreatry

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I propose User:Tarif Ezaz to be the secretary, but of course, if he volunteers to do this job. Other proposals / suggestions are welcome. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll gladly take any reponsibilities given to me. Regards --Tarif from Bangladesh (talk) 13:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other Members

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I think we need 4-5 more volunteers. Even Bangladeshi Wikipedians who are not very active on English Wikipedia (like Belayet bhai and Munir Hasan sir) can play an important role in this committee. I would give the Secretary the discretion to organize this committee and defining new roles (like: Chairperson, Vice-chair etc.). Volunteers please sign below, and indicate the area where you can add most value:

Advisory Committee

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This is the committee where we invite "expert" wikipedians even from outside Bangladesh. Let me have the honor to invite User:Nichalp, User:Ragib in this committee. Others suggestions are welcome as well. Arman (Talk) 05:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Judging Panel

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The task of judging in the initial phase would be easy as there are clear performance benchmarks like moving an article into GA or FA. However, in the final stage if there are 2 or more almost equally brilliant competitors, it may be quite difficult to judge the winner. It may even be difficult to come to a consensus on such a decision.

So, I suggest we give this difficult task to one person only. To take that role we need a person who fully understands wikipedia policies and procedure, is an excellent editor and most importantly has widespread acceptance among the Bangladeshi wikipedia community. Fortunately we have such a person: Ragib bhai. I humbly request Ragib bhai to take the "all important" Judging Panel chairperson role.

Just to help him shortlist the candidates, I propose the following panel (unless anyone opts out):

To reinforce, I propose that in all matters relating to shortlisting and winner selection the judgement of chairman be the final word. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline

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I suggest the following target dates:

Arman (Talk) 03:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the competition timeline (9 months) is too long to have sustained public attention over this period. A shorter timeline can be more manageable. For example, a 3 month period can work better ... here is why: 1) You can't expect media coverage of the competition over 9 months. 2) Having people participate on something where the result won't be known for 1 year to 9 months is difficult. 3) Even having the organizers involved over such a long time period is difficult. So, perhaps the timeline may be shortened to 3 months, with result being published on March 26, 2008. --Ragib (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the concerns of Ragib bhai. However, here's why I think a longer timeframe is appropriate:

  • It will take some time to familiarize the contestents with Wikipedia rules and regulations; I'm anticipating that may take 2 wk - 1 month.
  • Once the competitors understand what wikipedia is all about they will be given articles. I was thinking all candidates should be first given a GA article assignment. This round itself should last at least 3 months (including the initial learning period) as the students need time to develop article. The GA review also takes time.
  • At the end of three months only those candidates who will be successful in their GA assignment will be given the FA assignment. Even being very optimistic I think number of competitors will be less than 10 at this stage. By this time, I hope the competition will be self sustaining. People who have once promoted an article to GA should be able to work on their own with least amount of additional directions. This FA round should last another 2 to 3 months.
  • After these two rounds we can close the competition. However, if several articles get promoted to FA, then deciding the single winner may be difficult. That's why I proposed some additional time of "free editing" just to see how the competitors do when they are asked to work on their own discretion.
  • I think, the longer the competition the better will be the direct output to wikipedia (both in terms of quality and quantity).
  • Media attention: We need the promotional support only for the initial period (up to enrollment). Then it is all up to the candidates.
  • Candidate attention: I have attended many essay competitions in my student life. Thinking from a candidate's perspective, I would say a long time to work with ease is actually preferable. If we can make the candidates love wikipedia, I don't think they'd mind spending time here. But if they are here for quick cash, then they shouldn't win it. In other words a longer timeframe would help to identify candidates who really have the potential to become regular active editors.
  • Organizer availability: I don't see why organizers need to be very involved for the later part of the competition. All there is to do is to assign them article (the bulk of the work will happen in the beginning) and review their work. All of these can be done remotely, and even non-resident wikipedians like me, Ragib bhai and others can easily run this task without spending a lot of time. The administratively intensive on-the-ground tasks are all in the promotion period which ends by enrollment (within first 3 months).
  • Just as a prior success example: the "11th grade Book reading competition" organized by Bishsho Shahitto Kendro also runs for a full year and requires the candidates to read 10-12 books. That program is much more administratively complex and yet it is running successfully for years in Dhaka.

Arman (Talk) 02:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other matters

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If you have any comments on any other matters relating to the competition, please post here. Arman (Talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I had three/four meetings with Star Campus authority early this year and they agreed to leave a page for Wikipedia. But, in the mean time I had to leave BD and couldn't accomplish that goal. We can request Star Campus once again to give us few space so that we can regularly publish our discussions and updates there. Besides, we can publish competition news, information about how to participate, what to do etc. Please let me know. I will then call Shahnoor Bhai (Star Campus Editor) and discuss in detail about this issue. Besides, I think, we should start working through a yahoo group (may be through the existing one). - Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 19:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll move the page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh/Deshipidian 2008, if no one has any objection. Arman (Talk) 02:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deshippidian 2008 Page

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Deshipidian 2008 page has now been created. Please contribute to improve the page. Then we can start the publicity campaign. Arman (Talk) 04:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Publicity

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I have also drafted an email for mass circulation to promote the competition. Please review the draft email and let me know if there are any comments. I'm proposing that we circulate the email widely starting February 1, 2008. In addition, if BDOSN can help to promote this competition through some newspaper coverage that would be more than excellent. Arman (Talk) 03:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Finalizing the committees

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It has been proposed that the name of the committee members be posted on Deshipidian 2008 page and I also think that is a good idea. Based on the proposals and interests expressed so far, I am short-listing the committee member names as follows. If there are other proposals / volunteers who are interested to join either committee, please let us know now. We'll move this list to Deshipidian 2008 page on February 1, 2008.

Organizing Committee

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Advisory Committee

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The next phase of the Competition

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Dear members of organizing committee - Our first deadline for enrollment into deshipedian contest is now over. We have so far got 14 contestants. Although it is not clear how committed these contestants would be, I recommend to get started with this lot. I suggest we announce the following steps now:

  1. Change the name of the competition from "Deshipidian 2008" to "Deshipedian 2008" and move the competition page accordingly.
  2. Ask the contestants to start working on their articles. The assessment will begin from July 1, 2008. So only edits made before that date will be considered for evaluation
  3. To be eligible for any award the selected article must meet the GA-Criteria and must be worthy for a GA nomination by June 30, 2008. If the article can be "quick failed" from GA candidacy due to serious lacking in any GA criteria (especially incomplete coverage, poor text, inadequate sourcing/citation and use of materials with unclear copyright status), the respective contestant will not be considered for any award. if none of the 14 articles get to B-Class (i.e. "GA candidacy standard") by June 30, 2008, there will be no award and the competition will be closed.
  4. For all matters relating to the award, the decision of the organizing committee will be final.

Please give your opinion on these. Arman (Talk) 02:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changing competition's name from "Deshipidian 2008" to "Deshipedian 2008" is a nice and timely decision. I was about to ask this issue but you have already noticed it proactively. But, I think duration of the competition is too short, at least, for a newcomer who is still in his learning phase. Articles that they have selected are in start or even semi-stub class and it will be really difficult to convert them to a GA within 30 June 2008. I strongly believe that we should reconsider the time-span and it should be at least 31 July 2008. BTW, 14 is not a bad number for its very first event. I am sure, it will increase gradually in upcoming years. Regards, -- Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 08:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed to everything above, and I mean both posts. I also think these greenhorns would need a helpdesk, where they can drop in to ask for guidance. May be the members of the organizing committee is assigned three articles each, to guide them through Wikipedia guidelines and policies. Both the propositions will speed up the process, and will act like Wikipedia:Admin coaching or Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User programmes. Thanks. Aditya(talk • contribs) 09:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good suggestions. Unless no one objects to 31 July 2008 we'll go with that. The helpdesk suggestion is very timely one. We do need something like that. Any suggestions on how that can be maintained? However, I don't think assigning contestants to specific organizing committee members would be a very good idea. This could potentially create question on neutrality when the organization committee members will be in the role of judges. Arman (Talk) 10:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very valid, that neutrality issue. I was just trying to think up a monitoring system that works tighter than usual Wikipedia process. But oh, well, we all can put the contest articles on our watchlists and keep an eye on them collectively. 31 July is fine. About the helpdesk now. Let's begin with a page created (subpage of Deshipedian may be?) with a few "very helpful" and "very easy to understand" links to policies and guidelines (like those welcome templates). Follow that up with a "Post your question" section, and put that on our watchlists. Whenever someone asks a question we jump in to answer. Ragib and Dwaipayan may have a lot to contribute there. That page can be promoted on the Deshipedian page, and also on posts to contestants talk pages. Aditya(talk • contribs) 16:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I have created a tab header for easy navigation between Deshipedian-related pages. I also have started the helpdesk page, sans the introduction part where helpful and easy links should belong. Aditya(talk • contribs) 17:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The tab header looks excellent! Great job! BTW, the small [edit] link that comes with each subsection seems to have disappeared - is that because of the tab structure? Arman (Talk) 02:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the eligibility for participation is (HSC+)?? I think this criteria must be removed as there are many editors and admins aswell who have not passed this exam and have some FAs under their banner. Amartyabag TALK2ME 16:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A: The reason is to focus on a specific target group. The organizers felt that a competition for below HSC (i.e. 12th grade) students may very well be possible, but that should be done with different set of rules, and probably higher level of supervision. If this competition is successful, arranging a separate competition for younger students is a possibility. However, I really doubt the assertion that there are many editors and admins aswell who have not passed this exam and have some FAs under their banner at least for Bangladesh. Is there solid example? Arman (Talk) 01:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are still some admins who's not passed HSC or A level exam (age is 15+ or 16+). I personally went through their user page and contribution (but forgot their name). And some of them have contributed on FA. As for Bangladesh, it's not happening.--NAHID 20:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Small question about spelling ... shouldn't we use "Deshipedian", instead of "Deshipidian"? To make it rhyme with Wikipedian? --Ragib (talk) 07:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you are 100% right. However, making this correction at this stage could be confusing. So, I'd say we stick to the mistake made previously at least till the end of registration period. Once registration is closed, we can notify all participants and correct the name. Arman (Talk) 01:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was also confused with that name, it should be Deshipedian. Sorry to all, as I did not get enough time to give to Wikipedia lately. I'll be available from now on. Regards--Tarif from Bangladesh (talk) 05:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Participants are waiting for what?

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You can start a "How to start" section at the contest page and contents can be like this:

  • Gathering information about desired topic.
  • Collect the resources like books, journals, news articles, website, pictures about the topic.
  • Make a numbered list of information about the resources. Suppose for book you should make the numbered list with book name, author name, publisher, year of publish, edition, ISBN etc.
  • Read the resources and collect the information and do mark the information with proper reference number. If you find same information in more then one resource mark with all reference number.
  • To know what should insert in a article.
  • Do search for similar kind of articles.
  • Study the articles. You should care about intro, sections of the article, section titles, contents, caption of the pictures, visual style of the article etc.
  • Start writing at Wikipedia
  • Study the existing contents of the article.
  • If there is any reference in the article then these are bonus to you.
  • Putting your reference list at the discussion page, so that others can know from which sources you are using.
  • Discuss with others and ask help for collect sources/reference on particular information.

Please encourage participants to start their work from beginning of enrollment. So that they can get more time to collect the sources or references.--Bellayet (talk) 17:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should we start rewarding for every 10 edits made by a single editor or something? In the first 10 days not a single edit has been made by the participants. I wonder why. Would it require a bit more encouragement or something? Aditya(talk • contribs) 07:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I share your concern. Probably this whole competition is going to fail. Not sure whether the failure in our publicity effort or the lack of interest among the younger people in the country is to be blamed here. Arman (Talk) 08:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia editing workshop

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This is just a proposal, Before start the contest officially, we should arrange an workshop for the participants to teach them how to edit and use wikipedia tools to edit an article, though the number of participants is not satisfactory. At least we can call the participants to BdOSN office and we can arrange there a open discussion session about wikipedia and deshipedian contest. BdOSN office has a pc without internet connection, if any one can volunteer a GPRS modem or ZOOM, we can also show them how to edit in wikipedia. Through some discussion we can fixed plan. Thank you.--Bellayet (talk) 18:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting proposal. If the BDOSN office takes the initiative a workshop can very well be arranged even independent of the Deshipedian contest. It may be scheduled in early April so that the contestants can take advantage of the workshop. However, I would request not to make the workshop attendance mandatory for this competition for the sake of the contestants from outside Dhaka. Arman (Talk) 06:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evaluation

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Although very disappointing, I believe we cannot but admit that the Deshipedian 2008 competition has failed to achieve its goal of finding new wikipedians to work for Bangladesh related articles. The only contestant who made any sort of attempt to improve the chosen article was User:swakkhar17 (worked on Prostitution in Bangladesh). But this article is still far from a good article standard. So, I propose to close this competition without naming any winner. I also suggest to award swakkhar17 a consolation prize (equal to earlier announced runner-up prize money of Tk. 1,000/-) for his effort. As expressed earlier, I'd be honored to finance the prize. Other members of the judging panel, please feel free to express your opinion. Arman (Talk) 03:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the consolation prize. But, well... we failed. :( Aditya(talk • contribs) 15:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


There are several issues that I think contributed to the failure:


  1. Publicity: Definitely, a publicity campaign would have helped. Not in traditional media, but via Facebook and other viral media.
  2. Vague goals: One big issue I still see with the campaign is how the edits are going to be judged. I think many people were confused about that as well, and didn't participate in it for that reason.
  3. Timeframe: As I had mentioned in the past, the timeframe was too long. It is impossible to sustain people's interest for such a long time. If it were a contest that would take place within 2 weeks/3 weeks or so, people would have more interest in it.
  4. Organizers: Most of the organizers are out of BD, and it is difficult to get media coverage and publicity with no organizer physically present in BD.

In the end, I think the time frame and judging criteria should be considered in any such contest in future. --Ragib (talk) 03:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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