Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Improving computational biology Wikipedia articles and closing the knowledge gap between English and Spanish Wikipedias (ID: 22989888)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hello Propicee, and thanks for this proposal to support reducing knowledges gaps across Spanish and English Wikipedia projects with respect to topics in bioinformatics and computational biology. I'm Chris, a program officer supporting funding needs in this region. I appreciate your ideas to address language-based gaps and support contributions across Wikimedia projects in a manner that involves communities with expertise in scientific areas. Please see my questions and comments below:

• Can you provide any documentation or links to pages that show the past annual collaborations and related outcomes between ISCB and Wikipedia?
• Because you will be supporting newer editors, please confirm who on your team will be supporting the introductory session for newcomers that covers Wikipedia editing policies and best practices. Importantly, when we are funding activities that support newcomers, trainers need to have considerable on-wiki experience, and should be relatively active editors. This is especially important as the activities will partly support the creation of new articles, which is a complex level of work for newcomers, even ones coming from an academic background.

Please let me know if you have any questions or needs for clarity on my feedback on the proposal. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello I JethroBT (WMF)

Sure, thank you for asking. Here are links that show the past annual collaborations between ISCB and Wikipedia.

i) Here is a website that summarizes the Wikipedia ISCB contest for the years 2012-2024. In the links to “competition entries,” you will find by year which articles participated in the contest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Molecular_Biology/Computational_Biology/ISCB_competition

ii) Here is an example of the 2024 editathon in Spanish with the help of Wikimedia México https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Encuentros/Editat%C3%B3n_Biolog%C3%ADa_Computacional

iii) Here is an announcement of the 2022 Spanish editathon by the ISCB https://www.iscb.org/wikicomp

iv) The ISCB Wikipedia committee (which we are part of) have published the following articles on computational biology on Wikipedia:

1. Kilpatrick (2016) “The 5th ISCB Wikipedia Competition: Coming to a Classroom Near You?” PLOS Comp Biol https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005235

2. O’Neill, et al (2017) “​​The International Society for Computational Biology and WikiProject Computational Biology: celebrating 10 years of collaboration towards open access” Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btx388

3. Kilpatrick, et al (2020) “Ten simple rules for designing learning experiences that involve enhancing computational biology Wikipedia articles” PLOS Comp Biol https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007868

4. Kilpatrick and Rahman, et al (2022) “Characterizing domain-specific open educational resources by linking ISCB Communities of Special Interest to Wikipedia” Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btac236

5. Sélem-Mojica et al (2024) “Closing the computational biology ‘knowledge gap’: Spanish Wikipedia as a case study” Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btae247

The introductory session will be supported by Alastair Kilpatrick ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Amkilpatrick 7316 English Wikipedia edits) and Nelly Sélem ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/NellySelem 302 English Wikipedia edits and https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Contribuciones/NellySelem 144 Spanish Wikipedia edits). Dr. Kilpatrick and Dr. Selem have experience in running editathons and introductory Wikipedia sessions. However if you consider that we need additional support, we can ask for help from Wikimedia México, who have collaborated with us previously and supported us in previous introductory Workshops.

Please let us know if you have any further comments.

NellySelem 16:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

@NellySelem: Hi Nelly! Thanks for this response and documentation, and it's very helpful to see the long history and outcomes behind these activities and how they are supporting improvements to articles in this discipline. Congratulations to you and your team for supporting this endeavor.

With respect to running the introductory Wikipedia sessions and editathons, I am concerned that even if the team has conducted trainings before, a few hundred edits is not typically sufficient to provide introductory training on Wikimedia projects, especially if some newcomers will be supported to create entirely new articles. New article creation is a complex task that can sometimes result in quality issues or deletion of those articles if new editors are not aware of important editorial policies and guidelines, which are not the same as policies and norms in academic-level writing. This need is especially important for Spanish Wikipedia, where your team has less experience. Please reach out to Wikimedia México and confirm here that they will be able to support this work, and what particular involvement they will have. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Hi Chris,

Thank you for your patience. We are actively working on addressing your queries and will get back to you as soon as possible this week.

Thanks a lot. 188.214.12.112 17:01, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello I JethroBT (WMF)

First of all, thank you for your feedback on the proposal for this project. I'm supporting the organisation of the introductory session for newcomers in this editathon. I have experience taking this role before in a previous editathon we made (ediathon announcement: https://x.com/RSG_ISCB_Mexico/status/1843316336958791885) in the context of the bigger 14th ISCB Student Wikipedia competition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Molecular_Biology/Computational_Biology/14th_ISCB_Student_Wikipedia_competition_announcement). As we did in that previous introductory session as a virtual meeting, we will guide the participants trough the most important topics regarding Wikipedia editing polices and best practices: 1) How to create a user profile; 2) What are the Wikipedia five pillars 3) and the manual of style. The complexity of creating brand-new articles and the risks of these being deleted due to poor quality will be explained to the participants; closing the knowledege gap in computational biology and bioinformatics articles between Wikipedias will be presented as the main goal. Therefore, our approach regarding this would be to recommend, as a first contribution by newcomers in Wikipedia, translations over new articles creation, showing how to use the available translation tools and encouraging the use of their personal sandboxes and drafts editing for testing anything during the process. Images uploading to Wikimedia Commons will be also introduced to the participants, as well as describing the copyright rules in detail.

Regarding my on-wiki experience, I'm an active editor, mainly in Spanish (3150 edits) over English Wikipedia (492 edits), collaborating in improving and translating articles on computational biology and bioinformatics (as well as others (non-)related topics) (https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/es.wikipedia.org/Aar%C3%B3n%20Mayo).

Looking forward to your feedback. User:Aarón Mayo 23:16, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello all

Wikimedia México has confirmed its support, and with the help of Wikimedia México and Aarón Mayo we are confident that we can give a good Welcome Workshop. NellySelem (talk) 01:20, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I confirm that we will be present at this activity.

Saludos, Carmen Alcázar (WMMX) (talk) 05:52, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

@Propicee: Thank you for you and your team for the outreach requests based on my previous comments. In the current round of Rapid Funds, we have received an unexpectedly large number of eligible proposals. Consequently, we are not able to fully fund all events and projects we have received. I am therefore approving the proposal for partial funding in the amount of 3000 USD, and request that you reduce your merchandise budget. To address this need for merchandise, the Wikimedia Foundation's Merchandise team offers various items to organizers of movement events, particularly those receiving Rapid Funds, free of charge. Please check out Grants:Project/Rapid/Requesting swag to review what options are available and to make a request for your activities. Please CC me on the request (cschillingwikimedia.org) and I will be happy to approve it. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Wonderful news! Thank you we are very happy NellySelem (talk) 13:11, 28 March 2025 (UTC)