Grants talk:Project/Ле Лой/Fountain

Questions by Joalpe

Hi. Thank you for sharing your experience. This idea is interesting and is somehow in tune with the project of having a dashboard for educational uses of the projects, in which educators can manage easily their activity and the community may have a good and reliable sense of the impact of educational initiatives. I have three questions.

1. An important part of organizing an edit-a-thon is having its official page also work as a vitrine. Edit-a-thons are at the same time about producing bytes and outreach. Your tool seems to favor the productive part; so how will you deal with the need for design? Just to give an example, the group I am part of sets up edit-a-thons pages as go-to references, such as this, with pictures and other resources.
2. Where did the name of the tool come from? Perhaps a name that would be more connected to the goal of the tool would make more sense.
3. Could you please provide a descriptive assessment of the uses in the Russian community, so I may understand practical caveats in your proposal? (Is it correct that we are looking at only two pilot uses so far?)

Thank you for your proposal! --Joalpe (talk) 01:55, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Joalpe,

1. An important part of organizing an edit-a-thon is having its official page also work as a vitrine. Edit-a-thons are at the same time about producing bytes and outreach. Your tool seems to favor the productive part; so how will you deal with the need for design? Just to give an example, the group I am part of sets up edit-a-thons pages as go-to references, such as this, with pictures and other resources.

   My tool only deals with the submission and jurying part, it intentionally leaves all the design to the community. The general idea is that organisers design the landing page however they like and include a direct link pointing to their Fountain edit-a-thon page so the contestants can submit articles, view the scoreboard etc.

2. Where did the name of the tool come from? Perhaps a name that would be more connected to the goal of the tool would make more sense.

   The name of the tool is directly influenced by the jurying process, as it helps to deal with a stream of articles that contestants spurt, figuratively :-)

3. Could you please provide a descriptive assessment of the uses in the Russian community, so I may understand practical caveats in your proposal? (Is it correct that we are looking at only two pilot uses so far?)

   Currently there have been six Fountain-powered edit-a-thons (if I haven't missed anything out) and one is scheduled in November, see below.

• December 2015 II Cleanup edit-a-thon
  • The first edit-a-thon to use the Fountain. It was a userscript back then, and it looked like this.
  • 326 articles, 4 juries
  • 0-1-2-3 point system
  • Fountain was automatically checking if the article has already had a Cleanup template by the 1st day of the competition
• January 2016 Juniors edit-a-thon
  • 107 articles, 4 juries
  • Fountain was automatically checking the article's size, whether the submitter matches the creator, and whether the article was created after the edit-a-thon started
  • A complex point system: 1 point for satisfactory articles, one point for each of the four subjective criteria (no automated checks, decided by the jury), one additional point for 'good impression' and articles that have big flaws but still satisfy the rules could be penalised with −1 point.
• April-May 2016 III Cleanup edit-a-thon
  • 132 articles, 4 juries
  • Fountain was automatically checking if the article has already had a Cleanup template by the 1st day of the competition
  • 0-1-2-3 point system
• VII Inclusionist edit-a-thon
  • No automated checks were required
  • 0-1-2-3-4-5 point system
  • The last one to use the userscript
• September 2016: Juniors edit-a-thon, the first one after I've moved it to Labs. Its Fountain page can be found here
  • 123 articles, 5 juries
  • The same complex point system from the previous Juniors edit-a-thon
  • Fountain was automatically checking the article's size, whether the submitter matches the creator, and whether the article was created after the edit-a-thon started. Also users registered more than 1 year ago could not participate, so Fountain didn't allow them to add articles.
• October 2016 VIII Inclusionist edit-a-thon (still in action), Fountain page
  • 173 articles and counting, 7 juries
  • Fountain does not allow users to submit articles smaller than the minimum required size
  • A complex point system: 0-1-2-3-4-5 points for added text, +1 point for a Recommended article
• November 2016 Wikipedia Asian Month (planned)
  • More than 40 editions participating
  • Represented as ≈40 edit-a-thons (the way they are shown will change when I'm done with localisation)
  • Has four strict conditions (an article that does not meet them cannot be submitted): size in KB or size in words/characters, creation date (after 1 November), creator matches submitter

Le Loy 01:19, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Update: more than 50 language editions participating including Catalan Wikipedia and Catalan Wikiquote (answering Ruslik0's question about Fountain's ability to organise events outside Wikipedia). Le Loy 00:04, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments of Ruslik0

It is interesting proposal but I have some questions comments:

• As I understand the tool is only suitable for purely online edit-a-thons but not for offline (in person) or mixed type events, which are quite numerous. Is it true?
• Have you estimated how many online edit-a-thon are conducted every year?
• How flexible is the configuration of the tool? Is it capable of taking into account specifics of edit-a-thons on all Wikimedia projects?
• How universal is this tool? Can it be used for organizing other activities, for example, various events on Commons?
• Is this tool capable of automatically generating reports or/and producing some metrics to monitor the activity of participants (like https://metrics.wmflabs.org/)? Or all information needs to be entered manually?

Ruslik (talk) 13:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Ruslik0,

• As I understand the tool is only suitable for purely online edit-a-thons but not for offline (in person) or mixed type events, which are quite numerous. Is it true?

  It doesn't have the offline part, but I'm planning to allow the jury to manually add articles on other contestants' behalf, then it will be suitable for offline events too.

• Have you estimated how many online edit-a-thon are conducted every year?

  Yes, in Russian Wikipedia we have from 10 to 20 of them per year (14 in 2015, 18 in 2016).

• How flexible is the configuration of the tool? Is it capable of taking into account specifics of edit-a-thons on Wikimedia projects?

  It is very flexible, I have reviewed all the Russian, English, French, and Meta edit-a-thons, it's capable of dealing with all of them.

• How universal is this tool? Can it be used for organizing other activities, for example, various events on Commons?

  Yes, absolutely, it can be used in any WM project, even WikiData and WikiNews.

• Is this tool capable of automatically generating reports or/and producing some metrics to monitor the activity of participants (like https://metrics.wmflabs.org/)? Or all information needs to be entered manually?

  If I implement all the planned features, it will be able to do much more than that: not only show the numbers, but also generate various auto-updated charts and automatically close the edit-a-thon after all the juries push the corresponding button, sending out awards and congratulating messages that include statistics selected by the jury. Le Loy 01:19, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2016

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2016 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 2016 begins on 2 November 2016, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Fountain

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	7.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	7.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.5
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	7.5
Additional comments from the Committee: The tool will improve the quality of life for organizers of online writing contests: it does not have a direct online impact in terms of articles or editors, but in our affiliates will improve the response time in several tasks related with contests. The tool can be sustained and scaled after the grant ends. The level of impact depends on how often online writing contests and edit-a-thons are organized. My assumption is that they contribute to a small number of global edits. However, they often target content gaps and thus have large qualitative impact. The tool that is being proposed is useful. My community would use it, since manually typing outcomes of edit-a-thons is a pain. Big potential for online projects organizers. I met some users already using it for Asian Wikipedia month and with satisfying results. A tool like this is very much needed. I can vouch for that having organized a couple of article writing contests myself. The tool is innovative in that it is probably the first such a tool to attempt at full automation of edit-a-tons. The risks do not seem to be particularly high. The success can be measured but the measures of success should be improved. Easily maintainable and measurable. This tool could be part of a larger agenda of improving how our community works on edit-a-thons. I think the WMF tech team should take a look at this proposal, taking into consideration that some of the planned tools are more precisely described on talk page. Would be nice to see more robust measures of success and targets. Innovative approach. No risk seen. Success metrics are clear. I foresee widespread adoption of this tool like the jury tools for photo contests. The project seems feasible to develop in 13 weeks, but I have a some thoughts about the cost (~1000 USD per week), it seems a lot of money to improve a tool that already exists. The project plan and budget seem to be realistic. The author has necessary experience to accomplish the project. The costs seem quite high compared to similarly funded projects. The applicant already has a functional prototype. Ability to execute is very strong. It has a lot of endorsement. I didn't see it posted many places but there is obviously a good adoption rate and good reviews. There is evidence of community engagement. Strong support from the Russian community. This tool has the potential to be used globally, so I would recommend as part of the grant to include a communications strategy for the global community, on our newsletters and other venues. I want it... but I think that the budget can be reviewed This proposal is really costly for a relative niche impact ; it can be useful, maybe by scaling down the cost and scope. It should be promoted even more. Great idea to expand it through initiatives like Asian Month. The applicant is developing the tool in close collaboration with the Wikipedia community. It is evident in the fact that he is making the tool robust to support various scoring methods.

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. We recommend that you review the feedback and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page.
2. Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on December 16.

Questions? Contact us.

Round 2 2016 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, $13,433 USD

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support your efforts in developing a tool for organizing online contests in multiple-language and multi-project environments. We recognize the potential of providing a platform to review and score articles in a reliable way for contest participants, and would like to see future coordination with existing dashboards. We look forward to seeing the impact of this tool in future edit-a-thons and more.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Upcoming changes to Wikimedia Foundation Grants

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Internationalisation

Hello and congratulations for the grant. I'm glad you will i18n the software; please see translatewiki:Translating:New_project on how to join translatewiki.net. Nemo 06:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Source code availability

Hi,

In the grant you mention “All the source code is published under FOSS licence, it will be available on GitHub.”. Can you please make the source code available sooner rather than later? I’d be interested in having a look :)

Thanks, Jean-Fred (talk) 14:54, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Feedback from the Wikipedia Asian Month

Hey User:Ле Лой, here are some feedback I summarized from our post-event survey, that maybe helpful for you. Originally posted on Grants:Project/Rapid/Addis_Wang_-_UGCN/Wikipedia_Asian_Month_2016/Report#Outcome

• * 63% editors rate "Fountain" 1 or 2 (out of 7, 1 is very good), 74.8% rate 1, 2 or 3 (out of 7). around 400 valid response

The suggestions are randomly listed, no priority by the order.

• wmflab is not stable, broken many times in different regions, sometimes crashed. some back up? (Top request from the participants)
• Not very efficient
• should be able to add multiple articles at once
• Would be better if expanded articles can include
• Sometimes some browser has error message
• turning redirects into articles
• remove submissions (maybe at least on organizer's interface)
• Realtime statistics, one suggest global top 10 scores, wmcharts
• Make a statement in the tool, that imagine, template does not count into words
• The tool should not accept articles that are less than 300 words
• Mobile-friendly
• Small bug: Links to articles with titles finishing with a "?" were broken (example on French contest: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/O!RUL8,2%3F was redirected to https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/O!RUL8,2)
• participants can rename the entries
• what if the article is deleted, maybe auto-checking it and mark it?
• Use AJAX to avoid switching pages when adding articles, Add articles on the main page directly
• Direct language selector via parameter in URL
• Allow user to submit article even if machine does not allow that (Addis: I would say at least allow organziers do it for users in case of tool error etc)
• Allow extra-days to submit articles
• A notification via talk page once a day when an organizer evaluates the article
• Recent actions

--AddisWang (talk) 13:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)