Grants:IEG/WikiTrack/Final

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Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the Individual Engagement Grantee's 6-month project.

Part 1: The Project[edit]

Summary[edit]

In a few short sentences, give the main highlights of what happened with your project. Please include a few key outcomes or learnings from your project in bullet points, for readers who may not make it all the way through your report.

Outcome[edit]

  • We were able to complete WikiTrack on both Android and iOS platforms with the initial set of requirements we had set out to reach.
  • Additionally, we were able to add modules to collect data for metrics which wasn't part of the original ToDo list. Presently, we're collecting this data on a Drupal based back-end.
  • Further, we were able to build a "Remember project" feature which could be quite handy for editors who work on multiple projects.
  • The app now covers all Wikimedia projects namely Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Commons, Wikibooks.

Learning[edit]

  • In retrospect, we spent too much time trying to get the in-line Diffs to work. We should have probably started off with better planning earlier. Going through the status of mediawiki API and the ongoing developments is quite crucial for projects like these. With an ongoing RfC for in-line Diffs, we were undecided for a while on what solution to go for to handle the Diffs. We finally went for an in-house Diff that just does the job though.
  • We were lagging behind on the iOS version as we decided to write the program in Swift. We used bridging headers to reuse code from the Wikipedia app. The idea was to develop keeping future versions in mind. However, this ended up eating too much of time. In turn, it affected the overall quality and we were not too happy with the code on both platforms (although the app does what is needed). Timelines can get affected drastically with such decisions half way.
  • Working with Diffs - we had plenty of learning on how to work with Diffs.

Methods and activities[edit]

What did you do in project?

Please list and describe the activities you've undertaken during this grant. Since you already told us about the setup and first 3 months of activities in your midpoint report, feel free to link back to those sections to give your readers the background, rather than repeating yourself here, and mostly focus on what's happened since your midpoint report in this section.

Continued from the earlier report,

  • We completed WikiTrack for Android. Reviewed the UI, pepped it up a bit. Some screen captures:

- Android:

- iOS:

  • We completed WikiTrack for iOS and wrote it in Swift.
  • We improved the Diffs - spent another round trying to work through the best way to handle this.
  • User Login was a bit scratchy, we had to redo it a bit.
  • Handled RTL support on Android version.
  • Added collapsible lists for redundant changes on Android version.
  • We were not quite happy with the way we were collecting data on temporary space on cloud. We had to redo this a wee bit with a custom setup on server side with Drupal as back-end.

Outcomes and impact[edit]

Outcomes[edit]

What are the results of your project?

WikiTrack app has been built now for Android and iOS.

The app shall be uploaded to iTunes store in near future.

Please discuss the outcomes of your experiments or pilot, telling us what you created or changed (organized, built, grew, etc) as a result of your project.

We have been able to build a tool that can be helpful to editors on Wikimedia projects. We're yet to do a pilot to assess the usage of the tool as that is quite closely tied with releasing them on relevant app stores and publicizing them.

Progress towards stated goals[edit]

Please use the below table to:

  1. List each of your original measures of success (your targets) from your project plan.
  2. List the actual outcome that was achieved.
  3. Explain how your outcome compares with the original target. Did you reach your targets? Why or why not?
Planned measure of success
(include numeric target, if applicable)
Actual result Explanation


Think back to your overall project goals. Do you feel you achieved your goals? Why or why not?

Global Metrics[edit]

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across all grantees. In addition to the measures of success for your specific program (in above section), please use the table below to let us know how your project contributed to the "Global Metrics." We know that not all projects will have results for each type of metric, so feel free to put "0" as often as necessary.

  1. Next to each metric, list the actual numerical outcome achieved through this project.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome. For example, if you were funded for a research project which resulted in 0 new images, your explanation might be "This project focused solely on participation and articles written/improved, the goal was not to collect images."

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. Number of active editors involved
2. Number of new editors
3. Number of individuals involved
4. Number of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages
5. Number of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects


Learning question
Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?

Indicators of impact[edit]

Do you see any indication that your project has had impact towards Wikimedia's strategic priorities? We've provided 3 options below for the strategic priorities that IEG projects are mostly likely to impact. Select one or more that you think are relevant and share any measures of success you have that point to this impact. You might also consider any other kinds of impact you had not anticipated when you planned this project.

Option A: How did you increase participation in one or more Wikimedia projects?

Option B: How did you improve quality on one or more Wikimedia projects?

Option C: How did you increase the reach (readership) of one or more Wikimedia projects?

Project resources[edit]

Please provide links to all public, online documents and other artifacts that you created during the course of this project. Examples include: meeting notes, participant lists, photos or graphics uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, template messages sent to participants, wiki pages, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter accounts), datasets, surveys, questionnaires, code repositories... If possible, include a brief summary with each link.

Learning[edit]

The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you took enough risks in your project to have learned something really interesting! Think about what recommendations you have for others who may follow in your footsteps, and use the below sections to describe what worked and what didn’t.

What worked well[edit]

What did you try that was successful and you'd recommend others do? To help spread successful strategies so that they can be of use to others in the movement, rather than writing lots of text here, we'd like you to share your finding in the form of a link to a learning pattern.

  • Your learning pattern link goes here

What didn’t work[edit]

What did you try that you learned didn't work? What would you think about doing differently in the future? Please list these as short bullet points.

Other recommendations[edit]

If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please list them here.

Next steps and opportunities[edit]

Are there opportunities for future growth of this project, or new areas you have uncovered in the course of this grant that could be fruitful for more exploration (either by yourself, or others)? What ideas or suggestions do you have for future projects based on the work you’ve completed? Please list these as short bullet points.


Think your project needs renewed funding for another 6 months?




Part 2: The Grant[edit]

Finances[edit]

Actual spending[edit]

Please copy and paste the completed table from your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed the actual expenditures compared with what was originally planned. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided to explain them.

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation[edit]

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadmin(_AT_)wikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

Confirmation of project status[edit]

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

Grantee reflection[edit]

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being an IEGrantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the IEG experience? Please share it here!