Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/WikiGameJam Bay Area 2026 (ID: 23653481)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
barrythrew
- Organization
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
WikiGameJam Bay Area 2026
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2026-01-16 - 2026-06-30
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
United States of America
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Wikimedia Hackathon
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
WikiGameJams are creative hackathons that brings together developers, designers, and Wikipedia enthusiasts to collaborate and create original games inspired and powered by the world's largest free encyclopedia. It is designed to spark creativity and collaboration across gaming, technology, and open knowledge communities.
Creators will collaborate to build new experiences that bridge knowledge and play—from browser games built on Wikipedia's live edit feed, to trivia apps powered by Wikidata, to bold new ideas no one has imagined yet. By combining the spirit of open access with the creativity of game development, WikiGameJam https://wikigamejam.org/ highlights the boundless potential of games as tools for learning, exploration, and joy.
After the inaugural hackathons in New York City, resulting in two dozen games that can be played on https://playwiki.games/, we are seeking a rapid grant to expand these efforts and reach more communities of developers, in particular aiming at non-US game designers and developers.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
We are planning a weekend-long hackathon developing digital games based on or powered by Wikipedia and its sister projects. This will be co-located with the Game Design Conference (GDC - https://gdconf.com/), the largest video games conference.
The weekend will include: Keynote presenting existing game and the future audiences initiatives; Presentations by Wikimedians and game designers; Workshop sessions for designers, developers and Wikimedians to co-develop games; Social activities to strengthen collaborations; Presentation of the games, closing ceremony with prizes
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
In addition to the participants:
- Barry Threw [[User:]]: representative from Gray Area. Gray Area is the main grant recipient and will receive and administer funds, host the hackathon, and oversee the event’s logistics.
- User:e_mln_e: president of the Bay Area Wikipedians User Group, a local group of Wikimedians comprising 12 main organizers and a community of 300+ contributors. The group organizes events every month and has successfully implemented multiple large events such as Wikipedia Day and Wiknic in the past. E_mln_e will liaise with local Wikimedians, handle communications and advertising, as well as being present during the weekend as a facilitator and designer.
- Jennifer 8. Lee User:Jennifer 8. Lee: Adviser, co-creator of WikiGameJam in NYC and thrilled she doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting on the logistics because the Bay Area Wikipedians are very well organized!
- Kevin Payravi User:SuperHamster: Adviser, and WikiGameJam webmaster. Will coordinate the upload of games after the events.
- Samuel Klein User:Sj: Adviser, speaker, organizer of early game jams and keynote speaker at past GDC serious games summit; help with coordinating.
Volunteers from the local Wikipedians community will also help run the event.
The Game Jam will be hosted by Gray Area, a premiere venue for digital arts and experimentation, just 4 subway stops away from the GDC. Gray Area has a long history of hosting and managing hackathons, including a Wik ix AI hackathon in April 2024. It also has strong ties to the open knowledge community. For the most recent example, it worked with the Internet Archive to commission artworks celebrating the trillionth page archived on the Wayback machine (https://grayarea.org/press/trillionth-webpage-net-art-commissions-internet-archive/).
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
The target participants are attendees of the GDC - in their words “everyone who makes games happen” as well as local indie game enthusiasts in the Bay Area. GDC attendees come from all over the world and represent the full spectrum of game development. Bay Area is full of enthusiastic developers.
We have joined the relevant Discord communities, and we will advertise the event on the GDC parties noticeboard (https://gdcparties.com/). We will also advertise the event on Gray Area’s newsletter and the Bay Area Wikipedians mailing list.
The event page will link to examples of previous games and collect ideas from participants, to be elaborated on during the hackathon.
Participants will be invited to join the WikiGameJam and Bay Area Wikipedians mailing list, as well as their Discord servers. Games will be added to the Wiki Arcade (https://playwiki.games/). Participants will be invited to future events from both groups, and to continue developing their ideas.
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
The original idea for a WikiGameJam originated from the Wikimedia Foundation in the spring of 2025. They were looking to do a pilot and had a limited budget within their current fiscal year. The first WikiGameJam was organized by Jennifer 8. Lee and Kevin Payravi in partnership with Hex House, a creative tech space in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
In conversations among U.S. organizers, the Bay Area Wikipedians group became interested in hosting a similar event, and we connected with Gray Area, which was willing to partner for the event as it is of interest of their community of creative technologists, and suggested that it should be held in coordination with the Game Developers Network in March to expand the reach of the event series to international participants.
The Bay Area Wikipedians group comprises several members also involved in game development and supports a working group on wiki-tech. This would help strengthen the technical wiki community.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Not applicable
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Not applicable
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Not applicable
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
The event aims at further understanding how to engage a global community of creative technologists and game designers/developers to expand Wiki projects audiences.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 30 | |
| Number of editors | 10 | returning editors, there to collaborate on designing games |
| Number of organizers | 5 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 0 |
| Wikimedia Commons | |
| Wikidata | 0 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | 0 |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | 0 |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
not directly applicable, although we aim for some of the games to be focused on encouraging more edits.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
We will use surveys of participants, and case studies of games developed if they directly support the addition of content. The broader WikiGameJam team will also monitor the number of players engaged on WikiArcade.
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y6y6lHdU9ofCdJC6Fe8NLmSAsQgXStYH4jo7st6S8ks/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
4971 USD
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
4971 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).