Grants talk:Project/Development of Open History Map

September 26 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

As posted on the Project Grants startpage, the deadline for submissions this round is September 26, 2017. To submit your proposal, you must (1) complete the proposal entirely, filling in all empty fields, and (2) change the status from "draft" to "proposed." As soon as you’re ready, you should begin to invite any communities affected by your project to provide feedback on your proposal talkpage.

Warm regards,
--Marti (WMF) (talk) 04:44, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Comments of Glrx

Siege of Alesia

Troy at several times

Port Royal at several times

I would decline this proposal. The basic idea is intriguing, but the reality seems much different. I need more information about how it will be used and guesses about its benefits.

With Google Maps, I can go anywhere in the world with fine detail and often get street images. There's plenty of data, and the panning is continuous. If I set the clock to say 1776, the number of available map sources dwindles, and the dates between maps may be far apart. I won't get a smooth time scale, and if I pan too far, I'll fall off the map. For an arbitrary spot on earth, how many historical maps will I find? A couple months ago, I searched for historical maps of w:Rancho San Antonio County Park area to look for a creek name. I found a few maps, and I had no trouble panning and zooming those maps as images. I didn't need a tile server; I just needed an index of maps of the area.

I've read about Revolutionary, Civil, and World War battles, and then gone to Google Maps to look at the current terrain. Yes, some areas have changed a lot, but I can still get a sense of the past by ignoring modern buildings and roads. I've also done that for paintings and photographs. w:Vincent van Gogh's w:The Yellow House has disappeared, but the nearby railroad bridge is still there (sans railroad). The vicinity of w:Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico has changed a lot in 75 years, but the church, graveyard, and mountains are still there.

When I go back 2000 years, the images are less satisfying. I don't get a good sense of w:Julius Caesar's w:Siege of Alesia. I love using the current street views, and I doubt the terrain has changed a lot since Caesars time. I don't see a tile server helping me out. It could erase some farm houses and other modern features, but it could only guess at what Alesia looked like back then.

The proposal mentions archeology, but that application seems specialized. Viewing the available maps from separate sources seems a more reasonable practice. If I'm researching w:Troy, I can find excavation maps that attribute different digs to different times (mapping a range of times). Before funding a tile server for such excavations, it would be more appropriate to show a time rendition for a single site. Then we can ask the value of varying time. And the data may be suspect; many archaeological time estimates are crude.

I have been interested in historical changes, but that interest has usually been focused around significant events that have interested others. w:Port Royal is an example. The earthquake is the notable event, and others have prepared maps that show the impact.

It is appropriate to tag maps with metadata, and such specifications exist (I cannot find the RDF map information spec I'm thinking of).[1][2] A simple goal would be given a point on earth, find all the available maps within a time interval.

Glrx (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 12, 2018.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2018 will occur March 13-March 26, 2018. New grants will be announced April 27, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

too vauge

In my opinion this project is much too vauge. It is totally unclear what the software aspects of this actually are and what success would be (beyond talking about it at a conference). It also doesnt seem to make sense to gather a community around a project that doesnt exist yet (which seems to be a main goal of this grant). I would reccomend declining this proposal. Bawolff (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree that it is vague. In addition, it is not in any way connected to the Wikimedia Movement goals. WMF does not produce its own maps and improving existing maps like Google Maps or OSM is not one of its goals. It is better to request funding from some other source. Ruslik (talk) 18:15, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

I too agree. I fail to see the connection as well. I can see it is a collection of knowledge, but it looks to be aimed at publication and conference presentation. I agree another source of funding might be better suited for this project. Best, Jackiekoerner (talk) 16:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Budget presentation

Hi and thank you for your proposition ; Could you detail the budget a little bit ? Expecially, could you give us the amount of worked hours, the utpout expected, and their connexion to the spendings ? Léna (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I would also like a little more detail about the budget. The information seems a bit vague and I would like to know more about the event planning and engagement. Thank you for taking the time to submit a project proposal and I look forward to your response. Best, Jackiekoerner (talk) 16:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Community involvement

Are you already connected to OSM and/or archeologist communities that could work as advisers on this project ? Léna (talk) 22:19, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Software maintenance

How do you see the maintenance of the software going on once the grant period is over ? Léna (talk) 22:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Development of Open History Map

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?	4.4
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.3
(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?	3.7
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	2.6
Additional comments from the Committee: The projects seems poorly aligned with WMF projects and our strategic view. In its favour, the project could bring us a way to understand the battles or conflicts, but there are a lot of free maps in Wikimedia Commons. Confusing proposal. It's not clear how the integration will be done and it mix outreach with software development. I am not sure that the map development has anything to do with Wikimedia's strategic priorities. It is difficult to say if it can be sustained or adapted elsewhere as there are too few details about what will actually be developed. The proposal is interesting,even though details are missing, but I'm not sure whether it is realistic at this time. This actually *does* fit with our 2030 strategy as this about infrastructure of free knowledge. However, the impact on Wikimedia projects or even any other known free knowledge project is hard to measure as applicants are not clear about the solution they are working on (I have found a project called Open Historical Map but not Open History Map). I love gathering of historical information and really do personally enjoy looking at maps. I do not know how this project would be successful and have an impact for the Wikimedia movement. There is no way to measure the success of the project (there is the metrics but itsn't described how they take the numbers). There are a few caveats about the potential impact on Wikimedia projects, because create a software to mapping the past has many risks and it breaks the normal workflow of volunteers -I didn't see if anyone can change the information, like Data namespace in Commons- The risks seem to be significant. The measures of success are not very detailed. success measures are not clearly defined and there is no certainty that the proposed technical solution will be found in real use. I don't even know if this project is innovative or iterative as applicants are not clear if they are developing an already existing solution or whether it's something completely new. In any case measures of success are very vague. These outcomes outlined are clear and certainly can be measured, but they are not outcomes that would impact the Wikimedia movement. These outcomes seem focused on promoting the research and the researchers, while a side effect of those outcomes is the information would be available for Wikipedia. This outcome could also run into challenges with the “original research” guidelines if the authors are themselves publishing their findings on Wikipedia as free knowledge resources. Too ambitous, the budget isn't well explained and the activities seem too vague to establish if the funds will be used in a correct way. The user haven't a large experience in Wikipedia or Wikimedia projects. The budget is not well developed and it is difficult to say whether the participants have ability to execute the project as it is not clear what they are actually going to do. Participants seem to have relevant skills, at least based on their self-declarations. However, the scope is too vague (we are starting from scratch - in which case gaining adoption in 12 months is hardly realistic - or are we developing a known solution) and unfortunately so is the budget (what community management means? which universities and colleges in which countries will we engage with? etc.). I would expect way more details for a grant of that size. Lack of answers on the talk page does not help as well. This plan is certainly realistic, and the budget appropriate for such work, but I fail to see the impact on the Wikimedia movement in a way that aligns with our strategic direction right now. There is no notification in any community; it hasn't considered the project's volunteers as part of this project, this could be a barrier to adopt the new idea about maps. The community engagement is non-existent but should be important if the project results are to be used anywhere in Wikimedia. Unfortunately, the proposal does not show that there is clear community support. no discussion or endorsements Not clear what the target community is (there is probably a target community but not within the Wikimedia movement), nor what is the exact engagement plan is (there is a mention that there will be some community building but without being specific). It has almost no community support (more opposing comments than supporting ones). I like that the proposers are about publishing and presenting at conferences, but I fail to see where the proposers have engaged with or plan to engage with the Wikimedia community. Too vague proposal. The integration with Mediawiki is critical but there is not an explanation about that point. This seems to be an interesting but vague project which has only tenuous connections to the Wikimedia movement goals. insufficiently developed proposal; the proposed solution is not the best; it does not have community support; uncertain use of this or a similar solution To sum up, this seems to be out of scope and in any case to be too vague for that level of funding. This is more of a "no" that I might reconsider only if the applicant will provide specific information on their project, its current stage, development plan and the place of all this in the Wikimedia movement. While I do enjoy the desire for more content on Wikipedia and sister projects, I fail to see how this project will directly benefit the Wikimedia movement. It seems as though the benefits to Wikimedia would be realized as a by-product of the research activities.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

Round 1 2018 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project 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. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

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.