Grants talk:IEG/WikInfoboxer

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April 12 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'[edit]

The deadline for Individual Engagement Grant (IEG) submissions this round is April 12th, 2016. To submit your proposal, you must (1) complete the proposal entirely, filling in all empty fields, and (2) change the status from "draft" to "proposed." As soon as you’re ready, you should begin to invite any communities affected by your project to provide feedback on your proposal talkpage. If you have any questions about finishing up or would like to brainstorm with us about your proposal, we're hosting a few IEG proposal help sessions this month in Google Hangouts:

I'm also happy to set up an individual session.

Warm regards,
--Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:02, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Old system?[edit]

I probably just don't get the proposal, but I don't see how this works with Wikidata. Would this end up storing data in Wikipedia in infobox format? --Jura1 (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments about the previous question: Old system?[edit]

WikInfoboxer is focused on helping editors: 1) to select the right templates/categories to create the infoboxes associated to articles, 2) to rank the attributes/properties available on those templates, and 3) to propose them values to fill those attributes by taking into account data available in Knowledge Bases, such as DBpedia or Wikidata.

WikInfoboxer exports the created infoboxes in different formats. As the main goal is to help in creating infoboxes for Wikipedia articles, it generates the code that can be directly copied and pasted in the Wikipedia article. Also, it can easily export the information in the Wikidata format and publish it in Wikidata by means of the Wikidata Toolkit (an open source Java Library to interact with Wikidata). Finally, it can even translate the content to RDF.

In conclusion, WikIinfoboxer can make the process of creating quality content easier and then export it in different formats to be published in Wikipedia and Wikidata.

raqueltl 13:17, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So it extracts data from Wikidata (or elsewhere) and stores it locally at Wikipedia? --Jura1 (talk) 10:49, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The proposed system extracts data from a Knowledge Base (Wikidata or other KB) and offers different possibilities as output: (1) traditional Wikipedia infobox code, (2) RDF code for a TripleStore, and (3) Wikidata format. As part of the grant, we will also work on developing the code to automatically push (3) to Wikidata by means of the Wikidata Toolkit. --raqueltl 09:30, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility confirmed[edit]

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for review and scoring. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period (through 2 May 2016).

The committee's formal review begins on 3 May 2016, and grants will be announced 17 June 2016. See the round 1 2016 schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at iegrants(_AT_)wikimedia · org .

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 05:14, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Aggregated feedback from the committee for WikInfoboxer[edit]

Scoring rubric Score
(A) Impact potential
  • Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both?
  • Does it have the potential for online impact?
  • Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?
5.6
(B) Community engagement
  • Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often?
  • Does it have community support?
6.4
(C) Ability to execute
  • Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe?
  • Is the budget realistic/efficient ?
  • Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?
5.9
(D) Measures of success
  • Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success?
  • Are they realistic?
  • Can they be measured?
4.4
Additional comments from the Committee:
  • Infoboxes are controversial on English Wikimedia projects, as they sometimes extend over 2 printed pages of text). They are used at an editor’s discretion, but there is certainly no infobox for all categories and we wouldn't want one. This sounds like a DBpedia fan who wants to use DBpedia in the way it used to work 5 years ago but based on infoboxes.
  • The project is predicated on the idea that the current infobox system is inadequate and requires significant improvement/investment, but no evidence is presented that this is the case, or that the proposed semantic approach will result in a significant impact to the quality of infoboxes.
  • WikiData is addressed in this proposal as an afterthought.
  • Infoboxes are maybe the most important templates across all Wikipedia articles. The template attempts to display simple facts to the reader which has been a great idea. It's constantly updated as a MediaWiki template, upgraded as Lua script. Global templates however have a long absence as a next potential update even it would be useful for all of us inside or outside the community. Moreover, it's so useful it can be semantic. Ages ago, SemanticWiki wanted to merge with MediaWiki, but that attempt epically failed. A subset of SemanticWiki was abstracted out as WikiData which is now an important and active project. It just speaks out the importance of semantics for the MediaWiki and Web. Infoboxes are quite complex when it comes to a sub-subsubject, in addition to i18n problems. It would be a great editing tool addition.
  • The percentage of articles with infoboxes is easy to compute--why should this project be justified?
  • The proposed measures of success are quite low for a project at this level of funding.
  • Assuming the applicant could deliver this project, it could be widely used. However, it sounds like their idea involves moving data in WikiData into infoboxes on more sites, but that isn't really addressed in their proposal.
  • The project is a great addition to the Infobox. A lot of semantics would be presented by Wikipedia. It would help reduce redundant manual edits by human. However, I am unsure if the integration plan could work in reality. Since I remember WMF had concerns about global template 3 years ago, it will be so hard to adapt different metadata (especially if they do not exist) across all Wikipedias. The most difficult part could be Wikidata and infobox template presentation.
  • The measurement metric is fine.
  • This project is probaby doable, but again, I do not see the justification for this project.
  • The participants each have fewer than 100 edits across all Wikimedia projects, which does not demonstrate a sufficient level of experience with Wikipedia/Wikidata editing, policy, or community interaction for a project of this sort.
  • Infoboxes are a critical part of Wikipedia's community. Where is community engagement? Would the community accept this project?
  • Scope is quite blurry about integration, which might need a second look by WMF team (Parsoid, I guess). I am not sure about its promotion in a science conference because SemanticWiki is widely mentioned as a reference implementation about semantic web in the community. I assume they will know if those big changes comes alive. Apart from other negative comments, the participants have adequate experience among MediaWiki and semantic web.
  • There is little to no community engagement. Most editors like myself are interested in how to get information into Wikipedia, not how to get it out of Wikipedia. We have Wikidata for the people who love structured data, so these people should try to work with the statement suggestor team who are trying to improve adding data to empty items
  • There is no evidence of community engagement or support for the proposal. Given the complexity, the high number of stakeholders in the current infobox system, and the controversy large-scale changes to it have attracted, this is a significant risk to the success of the project.
  • It's a general proposal that targets all Wikipedias. English Wikipedia has a good coverage of infobox template metadata, but this is not true in other languages. I am unsure whether all Wikipedia editors would understand this. RDF and semantics are hard to deliver to the normal editor, which should not be their concern. Automation and data integrity are. Due to substantial difficulty among the global template, WMF team should provide mentorship for the project.
  • I don't feel comfortable after read the project because we have Wikidata! I wanted to fund this project a few years ago but now the "silver bullet of data" is Wikidata, which has some interesting ideas for new editors in the demo pages. Neutral for me.
  • More community engagement is needed.
  • The project should first succeed before it can be showcased in conferences. Funding for those events should be considered separately, possibly after the conclusion of this proposal. The budget is also unclear to me. Will the mentioned salary be divided among the 3 grantees?

-- MJue (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 3 June 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the IEG Committee[reply]

Round 1 2016 decision[edit]

This project has not been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding, but we hope you'll continue to engage in the program. Please drop by the IdeaLab to share and refine future ideas!


Next steps:

  1. Review the feedback provided on your proposal and to ask for any clarifications you need using this talk page.
  2. Visit the IdeaLab to continue developing this idea and share any new ideas you may have.
  3. To reapply with this project in the future, please make updates based on the feedback provided in this round before resubmitting it for review in a new round.
  4. Check the schedule for the next open call to submit proposals - we look forward to helping you apply for a grant in a future round.
Questions? Contact us.