Brian, I just want to say Thank You for the time you took going through the proposals and writing this insightful email. CCing Siko because, even if you particular comments about certain proposals are interesting, they can be taken as samples, and what really matters are your meta observations.
On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 7:08 AM, Brian Wolff <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10/10/14, Patrick Earley <[email protected]> wrote: > > *(cross-posted to wikimedia-l)* > > > > Hello all, > > > > For our second round of Individual Engagement Grant applications in 2014, > > we have a great crop of ideas. Wikimedians have dropped by to offer > > feedback, support, or expertise to some of the proposals, but many > > proposals have not been reviewed by community members. Over half of > these > > proposals involve new tools, new uses of our databases, or have other > > technical elements. Some will be hosted on Labs if approved. > > > > Members of this list may have key insights for our proposers. If there > is > > an open proposal that interests you, that you have concerns about, or > that > > involves an area where you have experience or expertise, please drop by > the > > proposal page to share your views. This will help the proposers better > > hone their strategies, and will assist the IEG Committee in evaluating > some > > of these fresh new ideas to improve the Wikimedia projects. Working with > > an IEG proposal may even inspire you to serve as a project advisor, or to > > propose one of your own for the next cycle! Comments are requested until > > October 20th. > > > > Tools IEG proposals: > > > > > > - IEG/Semi-automatically generate Categories for some small-scale & > > medium-scale Wikis > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Semi-automatically_generate_Categories_for_some_small-scale_%26_medium-scale_Wikis > > > > - IEG/WikiBrainTools > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/WikiBrainTools> > > - IEG/Dedicated Programming Compiler > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Dedicated_Programming_Compiler> > > - IEG/Gamified Microcontributions > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Gamified_Microcontributions> > > - IEG/Enhance Proofreading for Dutch > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Enhance_Proofreading_for_Dutch> > > - IEG/Tamil OCR to recognize content from printed books > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Tamil_OCR_to_recognize_content_from_printed_books > > > > - IEG/Easy Micro Contributions for Wiki Source > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Easy_Micro_Contributions_for_Wiki_Source > > > > - IEG/Citation data acquisition framework > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Citation_data_acquisition_framework > > > > - IEG/Global Watchlist > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Global_Watchlist> > > - IEG/Automated Notability Detection > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Automated_Notability_Detection> > > - IEG/Piłsudski Institute of America GLAM-Wiki Scalable Archive > Project > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Pi%C5%82sudski_Institute_of_America_GLAM-Wiki_Scalable_Archive_Project > > > > - IEG/Revision scoring as a service > > > > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Revision_scoring_as_a_service> > > > > > > Full list: > > > > - IEG Grants/Review > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-reviewing> > > > > Regards, > > > > > > > > <[email protected]> > > > > -- > > Patrick Earley > > Community Advocate > > Wikimedia Foundation > > [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > A lot of these proposals seem poorly written from the perspective of a > technical proposal. Many appear to be more like sales pitches intended > for a non-technical audience (Which I suppose kind of makes sense, the > people who get lots of wikimedians to endorse them, "win"). > > I'm generalizing here, as it seems there's a lot of variation, but > there's a lot of "what I am going to fix", not "how am I going to do > it". They mostly don't have mock-up screenshots for the one's who > propose new user facing things, there is largely no schedule of > milestones, or even concrete minimum viable product specifications. If > they were GSOC proposals, they would largely be rejected gsoc > proposals. > > For example > [[meta:Grants:IEG/Tamil_OCR_to_recognize_content_from_printed_books]] > you can't even tell that they intend to create a website instead of a > desktop app, unless you read the talk page. > > Second, its hard to comment on the appropriateness of scope, since > there's not really any set criteria (That I've seen). In particular > its unclear what is considered an appropriate asking amount for a > given amount of work. For example, > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Global_Watchlist asks for > $7000, which seems excessive to essentially make a user script that > has a for loop to get the user's watchlist on various wikis. That's > the sort of thing which I would expect to take about a week. A very > experienced developer might be able to pull it off in a day provided > the interface elements were minimalist. (Although that proposal has a > small little note about being able to mute/unmute (non-flow) threads > on a per thread basis, which depending where you go with that, could > be the hardest aspect of the project). > > Similarly, people asking thousands of dollars so they can get > computers to test the user script in different OS environments seems > like an odd use of resources. No libraries available that have both > Mac and windows available (Guess there's a lot of libs that only have > windows computers). Even still, is multiple OS's really necessary to > do browser testing? Almost all modern browsers are cross platform. > Even IE can be run in wine on linux afaik. > > Then there's proposals like > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Dedicated_Programming_Compiler, > where it appears the grant requester isn't entirely familiar with the > meaning of the technical jargon that is in use in the proposal. Which > should raise instant red flags. > > Now that I've complained a lot, I should say its not all bad. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Revision_scoring_as_a_service > for example is a fairly well written proposal. > > Hmm, not entirely sure where I was going with all this. Looking at all > the proposals takes time. Maybe there should be some sort of minimum > quality standard (e.g. Having a roadmap) to advance to the next step > of proposal selection, and only ask the larger Wikimedia community to > review those proposals that were sanity checked to have at least > enough information on them that one could reasonably evaluate the > proposal. > > --bawolff > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > -- Quim Gil Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
