Grants talk:IEG/Easy Micro Contributions for Wiki Source

Ready to submit?

Hi, Tshrinivasan - thanks for drafting this proposal! It looks like you've just about finished it, yes? If so, please update the status (in the Probox markup near the top of your page) from DRAFT to PROPOSED. Let me know if you've got any questions - today is the submissions deadline, so you'll need to mark it PROPOSED to move forward, but you'll still be able to continue editing your page further in response to community feedback over the next few weeks. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Hosting and integration needed for these applications?

Hi, Tshrinivasan, thanks for this proposal. Can you please tell us a bit more about how the web and mobile applications will be made available? I expect that you plan to make these as stand-alone applications (not needing any integration with MediaWiki's core), and that you've got a plan to host them either independently, or via a volunteer account on Wikimedia Labs. If you can confirm this soon we will be able to mark your proposal to move to the next step of review :) Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Scope

A web app and multiple mobile apps feel like a lot to develop in just 6 months. Have you considered limiting your scope at the start to deliver, say, just 1 or 2 apps to help concentrate your efforts on creating a first successful product? It may make sense to think about a second phase to grow into other apps after 6 months based on demonstrated success from a first pilot. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Siko. I added the required details in the Grant Page. Thanks for the guiding.

Thanks for the updates! Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2014

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2014 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 2 2014 begins on 21 October 2014, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Siko (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

One by one

I don't understand the question of typing one by one word. Do you mean that the user substitutes the OCR? --Ilario (talk) 22:30, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

The idea is to make the process of typing easier for desktop and mobile users. OCR is not available for languages like Tamil. The existing OCR efforts using tesseract require clear, high resolution images. There are many low resolution scanned books and handwritten manuscripts. This system can be used to get those books typed. The Desktop users can view a scanned page and type them. This can not be done using mobile, tablet devices. Once the system for displaying one small image with only one word, desktop/mobile/tablet users can easily see it and type it. --Tshrinivasan (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Easy or not easy

I don't understand the functionality and in addition I don't understand the role of a project manager having only one developer. Basically the application reads a text, split it in words and an user type the word in a text (previously it should be a scanned text, so an image). Is this the functionality? --Ilario (talk) 22:32, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

A scanned page may have 30 lines and 5 words per line. This application will split the one page image into 30x5 = 150 small images. one image per word. The web application will show one image and ask the user to type the content in that image. The mobile and tablet users can easily contribute to type the words. Once all the words are typed, a page is completed, stored and displayed. --Tshrinivasan (talk) 12:08, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiCAPTCHA

basically this is the same as the WikiCAPTCHA proposal discussed at mw:CAPTCHA and talk page: have you read those? For mw:GSoC we don't accept any application which doesn't come with a completed microtask; similarly, I propose that for this to be funded you first complete a microtask such as a patch in the existing WikiCaptcha proof of concept github repo. --Nemo 09:29, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

https://github.com/CristianCantoro/wikicaptcha This wikicaptcha is designed for only english words. It uses OCR in backend to recognize words and asks human to type unrecgnized words. My proposal is for the languages like Tamil, where OCR is not available still. We have to type all the words. Seeing a full scanned page and typing the words is not easy in mobile and tablets. It will be easy, if we split the scanned page into small images with one word per image, and ask the users to see one word and type them.

Now researching on finding the lines and words from a image.

If "completing a microtask" is necessary, I can do it. Please confirm. --Tshrinivasan (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not "designed" to be English only. That's just a proof of concept. Did you test it? I'd really love to hear some feedback from you about it, and ideas how it could be implemented and how it intersects with your project. --Nemo 09:03, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I tested wikicaptcha for non-english djvu files. It is not working for non-english words. But, This is the same concept I am planning to implement. i.e getting all words as individual images from a scanned page. --Tshrinivasan (talk) 19:38, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Easy Micro Contributions for Wiki Source

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weak alignment 10=strong alignment
(A) Impact potential Does it fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities? Does it have potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	5.7
(B) Innovation and learning Does it take an Innovative approach to solving a key problem? Is the potential impact greater than the risks? Can we measure success?	5.0
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in 6 months? How realistic/efficient is the budget? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	5.4
(D) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support? Does it support diversity?	5.9
Comments from the committee: The participants seem to have the level of technical knowledge and understanding of the infrastructure (Wikimedia Labs) that they would be able to use to scale their project on the assumption that it becomes popular to meet demand. Good community support, several endorsements. Has a clear focus on the Tamil Wikisource, though there is some risk of only focusing there. No clear plan for how other Wikisources could use this idea. Should consider conducting some research into other Wikisource language projects so as to see how other communities will be able to make use of this project, and develop their system considering requests that they may also have so that it can be adaptable to other projects. Unclear how many people and how much time such a project will truly take. Like the idea of making it easy for users to type these books into Wikisource. Although the proposer was unable to make WikiCAPTCHA work as suggested, we encourage the proposer to reach out to the existing users/developers of WikiCAPTCHA to see if they can utilise some of the existing framework before trying to start from scratch. Risk that a word cannot be translated or identified without a context. For instance "to get" has several meanings but how to determine which? We like the focus on mobile Measures of success may require some re-thinking

Thank you for submitting this proposal. The committee is now deliberating based on these scoring results, and WMF is proceeding with its due-diligence. You are welcome to continue making updates to your proposal pages during this period. Funding decisions will be announced by early December. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 17:05, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Round 2 2014 Decision

This project has not been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding, but we hope you'll continue to engage in the program. Please drop by the IdeaLab to share and refine future ideas!

Comments regarding this decision:
In general, we like this concept, but we felt some additional details are still needed in order to create a feasible plan. We hope to see this idea develop in future and would be happy to have you return to IEG as your plans develop in response to the feedback shared during this process!

Next steps:

1. Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
2. Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
3. To reapply with this project in the future, please make updates based on the feedback provided in this round before resubmitting it for review in a new round.
4. Check the schedule for the next open call to submit proposals - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in a future round.

Questions? Contact us.