Grants:IEG/Automated inventory pages for all WikiProjects

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project:

Automated inventory pages for all WikiProjects

project contact:

biosthmorsgmail.com

participants:

grantees: User:Biosthmors

summary:

The English Wikipedia WikiProject Medicine page needs a complete redesign and all WikiProjects could benefit from inventory pages

engagement target:

English Wikipedia

strategic priority:

Improving Quality, Increasing Participation

total amount requested:

9010 USD

2013 round 2

Project idea

WikiProjects are a classic way to collaborate on Wikipedia, but despite all of their successes, all WikiProjects are technologically restricted from becoming more effective at collaborating to meet group-based quality goals. Higher productivity is possible with improved sofrware. The famous ^{[citation needed]} tag is a clue to what is needed in a software packgage.

The WikiProject I am most involved with, WikiProject Medicine (English Wikipedia), just recently started tracking the number of en:WP:TC (cleanup templates) we have in all 28,000 of our articles. But where is this detailed information currently? It is on the toolserver, "locked" inside of a staid black and white page. And when I just visited it said: "Could not connect: User 'svick' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 15)". Instead of this technologically limited format, all WikiProjects would benefit if they could use a tracking feature for to-do items that is inspired by the kind of model wikiHow uses on their community dashboard. I was first introduced to this page from Jack Herrick during his Wikimania 2012 talk (see minute 54). He cited dramatic increases in community participation after its implementation.

The information that is "locked" inside of the toolserver should come alive into the project space. I want WikiProject Medicine—and all WikiProjects—to have an Inventory Page to collect and display all of this valuable data in thier own WikiProject space. This software will aim to create approximately 1000 to 2000 pages in the English Wikipeda which will help organize and motivate quality-based contributions. This software might be adaptable to other language Wikipedas as well.

Project goals

I will manage the development of inventory pages so that all WikiProjects will hopefully have Wikipedia space pages at en:Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Inventory pages.

Project plan

Scope:

Scope and activities

The project will organize coding capabilities behind a WikiProject Inventory space for all WikiProjects.

Tools, technologies, and techniques

There should not be much technical trouble with the WikiProject Medicine page. If something gets complicated, en:WP:VPT should be able to help.

As for the technical idea, hopefully money will attract talent! If not, then I will return the money back to the WMF.

Budget:

Total amount requested

$9010 USD

Budget breakdown

$8000 coding $1010 management

Intended impact:

Large!

Target audience

With the WikiProject Inventory pages, I aim to give an attractive place to motivate edits. I hope to boost the productivity of any active WikiProject and also to help reactivate old WikiProjects with attractive "to-do" places.

Fit with strategy

With the inventory pages, Wikipedia has known quality issues. That's why so many articles are tagged with cleanup templates. This project seeks to serve editors with nice software to organize the inventories of logged "to-do" items.

Sustainability

With the inventory pages, hopefully they will exist as long as Wikipedia does. =)

Measures of success

This project will be successful if it can help develop a model for Inventory Pages that can be applied to all English language WikiProjects (and in possibly all languages eventually). The grant seeks to catalyze efficiency gains in all WikiProjects.

Participant(s)

I, Biosthmors, am the sole grantee. I have been active with WikiProject Medicine for around 18 months now. I have experience editing the project space by doing things such as setting the goals on the project page. I am also active in the Education Program as an Ambassador (Campus, Online, and Regional). I like designing course pages with professors and TAs. I meet with professors and TAs on Skype to support those projects. I'm also on the board of Wiki Project Med, so I have an interest in promoting and improving WikiProject Medicine on the English Wikipedia.

Given that Wiki Project Med has been doing outreach, such as with this (with coverage from the New York Times), if WikiProject Medicine can have a more effective page where needed tasks are tracked and logged, it will be a better "advertisement" for uninvolved people to get involved. A redesigned page will seek to channel more volunteer energy into effectively collaborating and improving content (quality).

Discussion

Community Notification:

• WikiProject Medicine notification

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

• Community member: add your name and rationale here.