I genuinely hope there has been some misunderstanding here. While I'm all for "let's use AI consciously and not put AI on Wikipedia," I do not see how using it in a third-party instance that is likely never going to be deployed on any Wikimedia project is relevant to the WMF especially in the context of Google Summer of Code, where the funding for the project is not even coming from the WMF to start with.
Even putting aside the AI issue, I'm also personally not currently a very big fan of how this year's event is playing out. The docs were unclear, and the "we need microtasks before submission" requirement was not clearly communicated. More importantly, the previous year's events had been "chill" in that there was never a competition/selection process to get projects in time, and whenever we fell short of the requirements as mentors, we were given gentle nudges to fix them, not entirely removed from the program. Regards, Sohom Datta --- Open-source contributor @Wikimedia On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 7:31 PM Pine W via Wikitech-l < [email protected]> wrote: > Speaking in general (emphasis: I have not done a deep dive into the > information presented in this specific scenario), I'm not a fan of > requirements being sprung onto folks (this would include being sprung onto > WMF staff) who have designed a project according to specifications that > they thought they understood, and then after time has been spent to design > a project according to the known specifications, the goalposts are moved, > an undocumented expectation is cited as a reason for rejecting a proposal, > or a new requirement is implemented, especially if the people planning the > project are not given a window of opportunity to align with the revised > goalposts or the new understanding of requirements. In general, I believe > that surprises during review processes should be minimized, especially > after an opportunity for revisions has closed. And I would hope that, if > such surprises happen, there will be deep dives into the review procedures > to understand what happened and why. > > Thanks, > Pine🌲 > > On Mon, Feb 2, 2026 at 8:29 AM Yaron Koren via Wikitech-l < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> I've been mentoring Google Summer of Code projects for the Wikimedia >> Foundation for over 15 years now, and in all that time, I don't recall a >> technically viable project suggestion being rejected by the WMF. This year, >> six were. [1] Three were rejected for technical reasons (a few hours past >> the deadline, no microtasks yet) - which seems harsh, but those are the >> rules now, I suppose. That still leaves the following three rejected >> projects: >> >> - Agentic editing capability for Wanda [2] >> - Improve Commons Android app using privacy-friendly edge AI [3] >> - Querying of structured data for Wanda extension [4] >> >> Wanda is a MediaWiki extension that provides an AI chatbot, so all of >> these are AI-related. I'm involved with the first and third one; the third >> one was a last-minute substitute after the first one was rejected - we >> thought that perhaps the issue with the first one was that it >> related specifically to AI *editing*, so we switched to just AI querying >> instead. To no avail, though. >> >> (And yes, the third one was ostensibly rejected not because it was AI but >> because I was a listed mentor for two different projects - but I offered to >> replace myself with someone else, both before [5] and after the rejection, >> and got no response, so I'm guessing that was not the real reason.) >> >> The Wikimedia Foundation is free to set any rules it wants about which >> projects to accept and reject. However, if the rule is now that no AI-based >> project will be accepted, I think that should be stated publicly, to avoid >> wasting potential mentors' time. And it should be clarified whether this >> policy applies just to the Google Summer of Code, or also to other >> mentorship programs, or even other things like development grants. >> >> [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/8423/query/all/ >> [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T414281 >> [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T414881 >> [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T415465 >> [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T414617#11523658 >> >> -Yaron >> >> -- >> WikiWorks · MediaWiki Consulting · http://wikiworks.com >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
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