Grants:IEG/Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing/Renewal

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Goal: More of this

This project is requesting a 6-month renewal of the grant, to continue work in the areas described below.

Project scope[edit]

Our project has grown and now includes a large number of active editors and translators. During the period of the IEG we increased the number of languages in which we are working by 130%. In order to sustain this growth we've build improved systems to manage and organize the project using tables on Google docs. With that in mind a lot of maintenance, refining workflows and outreach is needed to reach our full potential. New editors sign up to our project fairly regularly, and it's important we have someone to introduce them properly and explain workflows. As I feel this is a very worthwhile cause I wish to dedicate myself fully during the summer and most of next semester. I want to work towards growing the project and hope I can do so on a full-time basis.

Our project logo was created as part of the IEG.

Much of the work I will be performing is similar to what I've done previously - engaging with the community, building growable infrastructure, and helping clean up and perfect the work-flows.

  • Major outreach program With the groundwork done, we're ready for a major influx of editors. From experience with previous outreach it's clear there is immense interest out there and an enormous community that lies untapped. Having a number of well defined roles makes it easier for new editors to engage with the project and we really need that engagement. An outreach program would have a very broad focus and requires significant time to engage with multiple communities at the same time. This is only possible with groundwork complete. This allows the project to continue with less oversight. One portion of the outreach is our talk at Wikimania 2015 which has received early-approval at: Ebola Translations: How We Did it & How to Get Involved
    • Finding and engaging with communities
      Each community on Wikipedia is unique and gathers in different places, such as facebook, the village pump, mailing lists etc. To properly engage with each group we need to work out a way to message and discuss with all the communities in their prefered manner.
    • Most important translations
      Each language community will have their own set of most important translations. By encouraging each community to take a lead on determining which articles they want to translate in what order we hope to improve engagement.
  • Contracting programmers We've had help with a number of programming issues, but are yet to tackle some major roadblocks, such as automatically messaging relevant user/projectpages once a translation has been completed. We believe we have had less editors engagement because once the work is done there is no easy way to inform those who are interested in carrying out the next steps. A number of different issues could also be solved, such as better integration with automated translation tools and simpler template-transfer cross-wiki. One major programming issue is described below:
    • Automessaging systems
      Once articles have been translated there is no easy way for editors to find out about it, without constantly checking the project pages. The simplest way to solve this is by building a system that automatically messages involved editors once an article is ready for integration.
  • Keeping track of expansion At the end of these months we've been able to ramp up the number of translations we've been sending out. We're currently expanding more into South American, Asian and African languages in a way we haven't been able to before. This also requires effort to keep track of where we have interested communities and to identify their unique problems and potential solutions.
  • Rolling news Wikipedia has a number of projects that faded away. Some of these are revived and some are lost forever. Our project is too large, important, and active and we want to make sure those who come across it know we are functioning. One way to do this would be to have a rolling news system on the home-page which updated weekly. Creating this system would require a bit of effort, but once it's there it can be used as a means to promote the project as well as creating an easy overview of activity for members of the project. Portions of the system could even be automated.

Budget[edit]

  • Total: ~$15,350 USD
  • 13,500 Community coordinator expenses
  • 1,000 Programming
  • 850 promotional merchandise and other expenses

Rationale[edit]

During the last IEG period the project grew in scope and reach. We were able to solve a number of issues making the project work flow run smoother and increasing our growth potential. There are still issues that need to be worked out, volunteers to be recruited and anti-translation sentiment that needs to be overwon (esp. Polish and some Arabic – very few editors oppose the project once they realize we are no using machine translation, but we still need to have the discussion). By allowing the project to roll for an additional 6-months we'll give it the best possible head-start, so that it can hopefully continue to grow and become an organic part of Wikipedia. No WikiProject is sustainable as long as it relies on one or a handful of individuals!

We're not working for immediate success here (even though we have a lot to show for), but rather for the long term. That's why I want to continue supporting the project for as long as I can.

Goals and Measures of Success[edit]

Deepen Continuity of Core Engagement
Have more editors who work consistently over many months on multiple integrations

  • Develop a system to measure editor-activity and continual-repeated-engagement
  • Run survey with responses from 25 language communities to better understand integrator and target-community needs and priorities
  • Write status/progress document with each unique community’s problems and solutions

Improve Efficiency
Reduce the time from translation to integration

  • Develop baseline for translation-to-integration timeline
  • Get editors permission to place TWB work orders
  • Code and implement ready-to-translate automessage

Expand Scale
Increase the scope and reach of our content

  • Number of articles for translation: 75+ new ready-for-translation English articles
  • Number of articles integrated: 300+ newly integrated articles in target languages on Wikipedia
  • Number of editors involved: 500+ editors engaged in the project in these 6 months
  • Number of communities involved: 5 new communities or chapters
  • Research a system to track number of pageviews of integrated articles

Build towards Sustainabilty
Plan for success without James and/or Carl

  • Write sustainability plan: goals and methods for the future of the project
  • Produce document ‘What James does’, in case he ever leaves
  • Mentor 3 editors to handle Carl’s main tasks
  • Develop Rolling News section on home page
  • Use Wikimania presentation to attract 4 new community leaders

Community discussion[edit]

Notification[edit]

Endorsements:[edit]

Do you think this project should be continued for another 6 months? Please add your name and comments here. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

  • Jane023 (talk) 08:19, 6 June 2015 (UTC) - I totally endorse the continuance of this project, even if it just succeeds in documenting "What James Does"!
  • Yes would be good to have Carl have extra time to work with us for another 6 months. Basically what I do is work a lot :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support This is one of the better loved projects by both the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation in terms of how much the outcomes of this project are presented as examples of good work. The translation project has always had broad support and I expect that continuing it would have broad support as well. Additionally, there is no major opposition to this project anywhere that I have seen in the past few years. The budget is modest considering the way other projects are funded and the impact of this one. CFCF has been an excellent communicator for as long as he has been managing this. Nothing should prevent this from being funded. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
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