Grants talk:Project/Mental health within the community

October 11 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

The deadline for Project Grant submissions this round is October 11th, 2016. 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. If you have any questions about finishing up or would like to brainstorm with us about your proposal, there are still two proposal help sessions before the deadlne in Google Hangouts:

• October 11th, 0200 - 0300 UTC
• October 11th 1600 -1700 UTC

Warm regards,
Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:16, 6 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.

Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Kritzolina (talk) 05:22, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Questions by Joalpe

Hello. This is very serious business you are trying to address. Thank you for your proposal. I have some comments, and I apologize in advance for my poor English:

1. A fundamental part of your research design is that it will necessarily lead you to data that is biased. The sampling process will provide you with no more than anecdotal data from people who were strongly inclined to respond to your questionnaire or strongly inclined not to feel that they do not belong onto your research agenda. We also know that any data is better than no data, as long as we are able to understand the limitations of our data. Given this situation:
   • Wouldn't it make more sense to drop this project and work on more ambitious, robust research project to diagnose mental health in the projects? For instance, there are automated softwares that through written patterns are able to identify mental health characteristics, in a general area of computational psychiatry. Just to give a reference: this.
   • Wouldn't it be important to bring up studies on mental health on other social media platforms?, so we can have a good sense of how peculiar or similar interactions on Wikimedia projects are. We know from the literature that for instance Facebook is strongly associated to status stress, especially in unequal societies. Wouldn't it be enough by the way to just have a literature review on mental health and social media, including Wikimedia projects, be the object of your research?
2. I am concerned, let me say, about the intention to create a stress management tool on the ground of data that is not strongly reliable. Moreover, a generic tool might not be the most appropriate way of dealing with stress that might be related to various causes, situations etc. Wouldn't it make more sense to think as an output of your research, at least at an initial stage, a set of talks with the community, eventually in the process of establishing a community capacity development module on mental health, about this serious matter you are willing to engage with?

I hope these questions make sense. Thank you for your proposal. --Joalpe (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Joalpe, thank you for your input and thoughts. Your questions do make sense and I hope my English is as good as ours - we should all be forgiving each other mistakes here, since many posting on meta speak and write English not as their first language.

But to come to your points:

1. You are absolutely right, my research will only provide us with very basic knowledge and topline keypoints of what is really going on concerning mental health issues. There are probably quite a variety of different approaches to go deeper into those issues - thank you for bringing those two to my attention. I am sure, if we ask more people, we will get more ideas. And hopefully some knowledge and experience in working with those ideas. That is one important outcome, that I hope to get from my project - to find people that are interested in these issues and know how to approach them from different angles. It would be great, if we get them to share their knowledge and work together. I'd be very happy, if you would be willing to share more ideas with me and join us in discussing strategies and tactics in the process of our work.
2. Again you bring up valid points, that I considered myself before creating this proposal. I do believe that stress management is a big issue, that needs more than the tool, that I plan to create. However I also do believe very strongly, that a lot of users suffer from high stress and some seem to have only very limited strategies to deal with it in the wikimedia context. This is why I do think, that my approach to develop an online tool that is easily available and directly connected to the wikimedia context is a good idea. It will not be directly reliant on the data I gather, although of course I will incorporate any valid ideas or interesting finds from my research.

Now I do hope my answers make sense to you - do not hesitate to ask again if not! --Kritzolina (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Related link

Hi! Kritzolina! In India there is a body (Indian Association of Life Schools Education) [1] which concentrates on Life Skills. Hopefully this may help you to understand and present your case. By the way this is a road less traveled but very vital. Hope for the best for your project.--Drcenjary (talk) 02:16, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Drcenjary, I am a bit confused, your Link does not lead to a page that I see as connected to my project in any way. Could you explain, or was this a mistake? --Kritzolina (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2016 (UTC).

Hi, Kritzoline. Ofcourse it is not a mistake. The site exists. 31st Oct. was a dead line for the renewal of the site, what the new office bearers failed to renew the same. Any how you please write down your e-mail. Hopefully I may send forthcoming seminar's brochure.--Drcenjary (talk) 10:52, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for assuming the possibility of a mistake. You can find a way to email me, if you go to my userpage and look in the lefthand column for "Email this User". Still not sure, what connection an Assosiation, that considers fashion trends, luxury cars and mortage rates important, has t my project. --Kritzolina (talk) 13:49, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I am afraid, I am unable to send a brochure by the said means. you may respond to wncenjary@gmail.com. Also to noth that the Association mentioned by me is not dealing with fashin trends, luxury cars etc. It is a body of academicians dealing with life skills education.--Drcenjary (talk) 15:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, the said link is ready. You can visit [2] here.--Drcenjary (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Support and Methodology Suggestions

I see the value in this project. I am a researcher and scholar in topics of disability and education. I have wondered myself about the composition of the community regarding all disabilities, both mental and physical. I endorse this project because this information and the potential implications for practice are important to community health. I do, however, see some concerns with the method. I have experience with review board standards and doing research with human subjects. For example, I know by asking respondents to post their responses directly on-wiki with user names attached would not be desirable to people who are not comfortable talking about mental health publicly. Due to societal stigma regarding mental health and varied personal attitudes and perceptions of mental health, by having respondent respond in this way, this might change the depth of responses or prevent candid honesty of the respondent. I apologize for the long response, but please do take my critique as a compliment. I wouldn't respond with such depth if I did not want this to be a successful project. I am glad to discuss the methodology further with you. Jackiekoerner (talk) 22:45, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it looks like, that you too need a job, Jackiekoerner! Don´t you think, that one Wikimedia Foundation-Job in a family isn´t enough! Or try to start a new grant, because 12000 $ isn´t really much money for one year.

But my fair question is: How do you know, that Wikipedia and Wikipedians needs a service like this, and who than should benefit from this? Have you ever met some wikipedians, who has mental problems which exist not only as an assumption but in real? And if there are actually these problems occurs, how do you want to deal with these problems especially without the participation of exactly those people for solving it? In fact, you and Kristolina are not really credible persons, who does have an experienced view to possible problems like this in Wikipedia.

My recommendation: If you want to make something for Wikipedia, then participate in the creation and development of the encyclopedic work here! And don´t talk about mental health issues of wikipedians, when you and Kritzolina are not psychiatrists. Wikipedians are not guinea pigs for people who have no idea about the project itself. And try to realize for yourself, were the money comes from. Not from people like you with very little activities. Or the work of your husband! It´s the daily work of many thousand, not disabled persons, doing that, what we started 15 years ago. If you start a survey, who wants to be a guinea pig for some dubious studies (from non specialist!!), do these studies with them. Wherever and whenever you want. But not with people (unasked!), and paid with the money they earn with their work here. --Hubertl (talk) 20:40, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Hubertl I appreciate and respect your passion for Wikipedia. This whole movement wouldn't go anywhere without people passionate about the work. This is work, but it's work worth doing. I, myself, am passionate about disability, education, and lots of other topics. This is why I chose to continue with school and the (often unpaid) work I do - because it's important.

[Your original edit] is cowardly and detracts from the conversation. I encourage you to assume good faith. Being critical is great, but personally attacking people does not move anything forward. I am guessing Kritzolina thought better of your initial comments and that is why your edit was revised.

Let's get back to the proposed project, shall we? No one is suggesting that the grant is going to provide services. Now I will address your "fair questions":

• "How do you know, that Wikipedia and Wikipedians needs a service like this, and who than should benefit from this?"

That is the best part about searching, you get to learn more. There have been several instances of Wikipedians publicly speaking about their mental health in recent. I think getting a perspective on the community needs would help grow the community.

• "Have you ever met some wikipedians, who has mental problems which exist not only as an assumption but in real?"

Yes.

• "And if there are actually these problems occurs, how do you want to deal with these problems especially without the participation of exactly those people for solving it?"

Actually, I'm not suggesting to exclude the people with disabilities at all. I encourage their inclusion, as we can't possibly know about their lived experiences without them.

• "In fact, you and Kristolina are not really credible persons, who does have an experienced view to possible problems like this in Wikipedia."

If Kritzolina and I are not qualified, what are your qualifications to make that judgement?

Are you psychiatrists? No! You both are not. What other qualification do you need, to deal with the mental illness of people? Even to diagnose someones mental illness, you have to be an psychiatrist. Maybe not in the wild west of the United states but for sure in Europe. --Hubertl (talk) 22:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• "My recommendation: If you want to make something for Wikipedia, then participate in the creation and development of the encyclopedic work here! And don´t talk about mental health issues of wikipedians, when you and Kritzolina are not psychiatrists... If you start a survey, who wants to be a guinea pig for some dubious studies (from non specialist!!), do these studies with them. Wherever and whenever you want. But not with people (unasked!), and paid with the money they earn with their work here."

Psychiatrists treat people with mental health disabilities. I am not trying to treat anyone with mental health disabilities. I do, however, like doing qualitative research with people with disabilities, and other under-researched populations. Any research project approved should not be an automatic opt-in, as people have to agree to participate, as with any credible investigation.

• "Wikipedians are not guinea pigs for people who have no idea about the project itself. And try to realize for yourself, were the money comes from. Not from people like you with very little activities. Or the work of your husband! It´s the daily work of many thousand, not disabled persons, doing that, what we started 15 years ago."

I'm not going to rise to your bait about my activities or my husband's work.

To address the valid point under debate, there are actually quite a few Wikipedians with disabilities. There are probably more than we know, as some people do not openly disclose their disabilities. Having a disability does not mean one is not smart and unable to contribute to society. I'd post the many names of the Wikipedians who have disclosed their disabilities here to prove my point, but I worry that in doing so might open them up to discrimination or harassment.

I also hope you'd be more receptive to new people joining the community with their unique knowledge, considering valuable experiences do not just happen on-wiki. Jackiekoerner (talk) 19:25, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Again I am sorry, if my proposal was not clear enough. I do not want to do any direct research, I want to do an Metaanalysis and find out what projects and studies have been done in and around the Wikiworld, that in any respect have a connection with mental health issues, like this one for example. If somebody wants to tell us about more personal experiences, they are welcome, but I will encourage users not to post this onwiki, but to send me an email to an especially created Mailaccount. And I will in no way do any research on unwilling subjects! --Kritzolina (talk) 17:52, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

As we all know, you both - especially Jackie - don´t have so much experience with Wikipedian and Wikipedians (Jackie almost none!), so I will badly suggest not to try do do anything with mental illness. At first, you will fail, second, you won´t get those special kind of people on your scope to deal with it. And third, this is the most important thing: Don´t try to do nothing of this kind, you both are not specialists. Even a so called meta-study is necessarely to be accompanied by someone with specific knowledge to get a creditable result which gives us benefit. I just hope, that the Grant Commitee will do it right. It´s the money of the community. It is not our job to make any deals with mental illness issues of community members. --Hubertl (talk) 22:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Mental health within the community

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?	4.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	5.6
(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?	4.1
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.8
Additional comments from the Committee: I do not think that mental health issues are within the scope of WMF grants. It requires an expertise that is lacking in this context. The grantee does not demonstrate that they have sufficient training and skills to be authorized to handle such a delicate issue. This project is likely to shed more light into the behavioural patterns and mental health issues of the members of the Wikimedia community. I hope the toolkit developed by the grantee will be useful to make the Wikimedia space more inclusive for people with mental health issues, provide a platform to discuss about concerns regarding one's own mental health, and seek for help if needed. I am not sure of the sustainability: grantees plan to post their findings on meta but as one of hundreds of essays on Meta, impact is unclear. I see no plan for recruitment of active volunteers in chapters or communities, and no work on results afterwards. Nevertheless, I appreciate the focus on the work of supporting diversity, for sure. A robust assessment of mental health in our community--of which this project might eventually be a part-- is necessary. The program that is associated to this proposal seems to me counterproductive, since there is no large-scale solution for an issue that should take seriously into consideration people's own incentives and contexts. The measures of success outlined seems a little too vague and overly ambitious. How can you be sure that such a large sample size may respond to your requests? There are no specific plans for contacting them explained in the plan for the project. This project is addressing a problem that has been ignored for quite a long time. The first step towards answering the problem is to gather data about the extend of the problem and create a set of recommendations/potential solution to approach the problem. I hope this project will be successful in achieving this goal. I see no innovative approach here (though one was proposed on the talkpage - automatic detection via known patterns of people with mental problems) and no measurable results in the end - the results of research should be somehow applied. Again, my comment is strongly supportive of the need to develop research on mental health, but negative towards the development of a program at such an early stage with only one developer. Am unsure about the ability of the grantee to meet the real needs of such a delicate issue. Although there are no indications about anonymization of data, I hope it will be done with due care and respect to participants' dignity. Since mental health is a sensitive issue to talk about, it is unsure if the researcher can find sufficient number of subjects, so as to be able to derive a generalisable conclusion regarding mental health (and stress) in Wikimedia community. It is also probable that Wikipedia editing as a hobby is a stress-reliever in itself rather than a stress-creator. 25$ per hours seems too high for me and there is no recruitment of volunteers as a goal - we just get completely paid work The research that is being proposed seems feasible There is no proof of actively engaging a wider hosts of stakeholders that will be measured at the end of the project. A project of this kind could be successful only if the researcher is able to mobilize participants from the community to take part in the research. I think that the grantee is capable to accomplish this goal. I see objections on the talk page and on the page of grant itself Very strong support, which indicates that the topic is urgent. Being a long time Wikipedian, I think that the mental health may be an interesting topic, mainly to know if behind complicated users and Wikipedians may be a more serious problem, but the approach of this project to the question seems too simple. I think that the project is not completely in scope of WMF grants. I am not confident in the solutions given by the grantee. High budget rate for grantee, no sustainability and I am not sure that posting a Meta essay will bring any help to people with mental health issues I don't see stress management program as a priority asset I recommend dropping the development of a tool for stress management at such an early stage. I would recommend including a literature review on social media and Wikimedia mental health into the project, which seems more interesting than relying solely on biased data that researcher will get from consultation with the community. I recommend partial funding, focusing exclusively on the research goal.

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.