Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/TermBox project (ID: 23553622)
Add topicRecommendation to fund
[edit]Hello Plantaest, thanks for submitting this Rapid Fund proposal. We finalized the proposal review process and we are sharing with you the summarized recommendations from the review team.
We believe that the project plan is solid with an experienced team and with clear community demand.
We note that two proposals from this Rapid Fund cycle: WikiTermBase 2.0 (R-RF-2508-20079) and TermBox project (R-RF-2509-20123) are effectively similar proposals aimed at different wiki language versions. While each proposal is interesting on its own, we request that both teams collaborate so the impact could be greater with coordinated efforts. We also request that the team aligns its strategy with the Content Translation team efforts to avoid any duplication or conflict. From a product standpoint, it is important to ensure this tool does not conflict with or duplicate functionality of the Content Translation tool.
We also want to highlight that TermBox already refers to a Wikidata component with a distinct but related purpose, and that could cause confusion if this project gains widespread adoption. We recommend considering a different name for this tool.
On behalf of the review team, --DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:58, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
- @DSaroyan (WMF): Thank you, Saroyan and the review team,I will consider implementing your suggestions as much as possible. Although everything seems fine, I have a couple of quick questions:
- Normally, my grant proposals are reviewed by Jacqueline Chen, but I'm not sure where she is now or how the process has changed.
- If I don't use the name "TermBox" for this project as recommended, would it be acceptable to use the name "Lexis"? I just came up with it, and it seems quite fitting if the tool needs to expand in the long run. However, I wonder if it might face the same issue as "TermBox".
- Regards, Plantaest (talk) 10:29, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Plantaest, thanks for your reply and sorry for any confusion caused. Your application has been reviewed as part of Rapid Fund Tech review process. My role is to coordinate this review process. Jacqueline Chen is still your Program Officer. She will get back to you and make the funding decision based on our recommendation. She is currently out of office, but you can expect updates from her soon. I cannot further advise on the name selection, but whatever you decide please make sure to avoid any potential confusion with other existing products/tools. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
Review responses, questions and action items for your application
[edit]Hello @Plantaest,
Thank you for your application. We have completed the initial review of your application. Here are the combined comments from the team (ESEAP Regional Funds Committee and ESEAP PO).
To summarise:
- Section 6 requires your response.
We look forward to your response by 19 October 2025. Please let us know if you require more time to respond. We can adapt.
Thank you.
Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of ESEAP Regional Funds Committee
--
| Review questions | Collated responses |
| 1) Is the proposal clear in terms of the change it wants to make? Does the proposal indicate value/impact potential? Is the proposal viable? | TO SOME EXTENT
Explanation 1a) Could you help me understand the added value of the TermBox tool, given that we already have Content Translation (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation)? Termbox can save time with embedded tools, however there is a possibility that it won't be effective without a comprehensive database/dictionary. 1b) Once the tools are built, how would you maintain and keep developing this shared dictionary which potentially needs participation from the community. |
| 2) Does the applicant have the experience (technical / organizing) capacity to implement this project? Does the applicant or team have experience on target Wikimedia projects? | TO SOME EXTENT
Explanation
|
| 3) Does this proposal have support from Wikimedia community members? Has there been sufficient engagement of community members through the endorsement and feedback process? | YES
Explanation This has already been under discussion with the community since October of last year. https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%E1%BA%A3o_lu%E1%BA%ADn_Th%C3%A0nh_vi%C3%AAn:Plantaest/TermBox |
| 4) Does the proposed budget adequately reflect the investment needed to achieve the proposed goals? | YES
Explanation Yes, the same as the three previous proposals. No further comments. |
| 5) Does the applicant show clarity in what they hope to learn from their work given the change they are hoping to achieve? | YES
Explanation 5a) Would be great to see this following added as a qualitative metrics: feedback received from the community after Termbox launched at VN Wikipedia. Either through Wikipedia page or blind survey. We have initial feedback and support but I have not seen the feedback post-project implementation as yet from Citron, etc. |
| 6) Questions or feedback to the applicant based on your review | We need a response to these questions
1a, 1b, 5a 6a) Do you have a Wikimedian expert with a list of specific terms used in Wikipedia translation articles to help on this project? General feedback In the spirit of collaboration, adding official team members could benefit the project. For example, they could: i) Help ensure the project is completed on time according to the timeline. ii) Support the early stages of testing. Also, the team could assist with non-technical tasks, including preparing reports and facilitating communication with the community. iii) Provide perspectives from non-technical backgrounds, making the project easier to understand and more accessible to a wider audience. |
JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:40, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF): Hello Jacqueline,Thank you and your team for reviewing this grant proposal. I would like to respond to the questions as follows.Question 1a) Could you help me understand the added value of the TermBox tool, given that we already have Content Translation? Termbox can save time with embedded tools, however there is a possibility that it won't be effective without a comprehensive database/dictionary.Content Translation can be considered a computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool, but it is not fully designed like professional CAT software such as Trados or Wordfast. Content Translation lacks terminology management—a key function of a typical CAT tool. Therefore, the TermBox project was created to fill this gap, allowing translators to easily manage terminology systems and improve the translation process. This has been clearly documented in the project draft.Will TermBox be ineffective without a comprehensive database or dictionary? There are three points to consider:
- Without TermBox, the translation process itself is already inefficient. Translators spend a lot of time looking up terms. That is why the community agreed with my proposal.
- Without TermBox, there would be no opportunity to integrate data from databases or dictionaries to support the translation process, and thus no way to evaluate whether creating such tools would be effective.
- It is not necessary to use massive or comprehensive databases or dictionaries. Sometimes you only need to translate a few articles on a very specific topic—for example, U.S. coins. The number of terms is not too large, and you can build a small dictionary in TermBox to better support the translation process. You can also share this dictionary with others working on similar topics, helping standardize terminology usage. These goals have been thoroughly recorded in the project draft.
- I agree that having a comprehensive database would be a great advantage for TermBox, but within the scope of this grant, that is not necessary. TermBox will still function effectively with an amount of data suitable to the user's own needs. We do not need more data—we need accurate and relevant data.Question 1b) Once the tools are built, how would you maintain and keep developing this shared dictionary which potentially needs participation from the community.I believe this question goes beyond the scope of a purely technical project. The development of a shared dictionary depends on community needs. If the community has agreed to let me build this project, they also share the responsibility to use it once it has been created. I cannot force them to use it—that would be unreasonable, especially considering the project's original purpose. My role is to create the platform; maintaining the content (the shared dictionaries) on this platform depends on the community. I am not responsible for maintaining or developing those shared dictionaries. My responsibility lies in providing technical support—this should be clearly stated.Question 2) The non-technical aspects definitely require a dedicated team for implementation. This is no longer a small project, as it marks the development of the fourth software. While the proposal outlines the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and the bigger community (Viettech Initiative), what’s missing is an official team to handle the project’s non-technical components. Especially when the lead hands over the project to the community, the team can learn together and avoid learning from scratch later on.I don't think TermBox is a large software project, and I don't quite understand how numbering my projects has any relation to determining their size. If this were my 10th project, would that automatically make it larger than the 9th one, even though the two might be unrelated? I find that reasoning confusing. Again, the scale of a project does not depend on its sequence number. In fact, some of my earlier projects were technically more complex than this one."The non-technical aspects definitely require a dedicated team for implementation." → How can you be so certain of this? Why is a team required? I find this statement rather vague and unconvincing. To respond, I would like to ask: which specific non-technical aspects actually require a team to execute, given that this is still a small software project under the Rapid Fund framework? Furthermore, if those non-technical tasks can be effectively supported by AI, would it still be necessary to form a separate team?The Viettech Initiative is not purely a technical community. For instance, one of our clearly stated non-technical goals on our homepage is: "Write and translate documentation on software usage." Therefore, it is unnecessary to form a new "official team" solely to handle non-technical aspects of one small project, when Viettech Initiative can already support multiple projects—both technically and non-technically.Additionally, regarding cost: in general, the hourly rate for personnel in this software development project is already much lower than similar grants and even less than half of my external project rates. Therefore, it would be difficult for me to agree to allocate additional funding for a separate non-technical management team. If I were able to apply for a General Support Fund for the Viettech Initiative, I would expect to offer better compensation to the lead developer and related contributors.Question 5a) Would be great to see this following added as a qualitative metrics: feedback received from the community after Termbox launched at VN Wikipedia. Either through Wikipedia page or blind survey. We have initial feedback and support but I have not seen the feedback post-project implementation as yet from Citron, etc.Thank you. Recording community feedback has always been included in my reports for previous projects, and I am committed to doing the same for this project.Regarding the Citron project, there has indeed been ongoing feedback after it became stable. For example, I recently fixed a major issue on the Citron server and announced it to the community, and there have been several scattered reports about it in other Vietnamese Wikipedia spaces.It seems that the real issue here is that you were not aware of those updates. So, could you please clarify what mechanism exists to address this communication gap? As far as I know, I am required to submit a Final Report for a Rapid Fund, but I have never heard of an additional report being required after the Final Report.Question 6a) Do you have a Wikimedian expert with a list of specific terms used in Wikipedia translation articles to help on this project?Yes, I do—and that expert is myself. I am a biologist with a degree in Crop Science Engineering and am currently pursuing a Master's in Experimental Biology. I have translated many biology-related articles on Vietnamese Wikipedia such as Lục lạp (Chloroplast), Ty thể (Mitochondria), and Hệ thống nội màng (Endomembrane system). I am familiar with key biological terms and their proper translations in Vietnamese. During the development of this project, I will use the articles I have previously translated to test the tool's capabilities.General feedback: In the spirit of collaboration, adding official team members could benefit the project. For example, they could: i) Help ensure the project is completed on time according to the timeline. ii) Support the early stages of testing. Also, the team could assist with non-technical tasks, including preparing reports and facilitating communication with the community. iii) Provide perspectives from non-technical backgrounds, making the project easier to understand and more accessible to a wider audience.I agree that having more people involved could help address some issues. However, this would only make sense if the grant were a General Support Fund rather than a Rapid Fund, with larger and longer-term funding that can support multiple personnel. Essentially, like other Rapid Fund projects, TermBox remains a small-scale software project, and in such an early stage, I believe working alone is faster and more flexible—especially at a time when AI can already support many of our tasks efficiently. Reporting and community communication are not difficult for me. At a later stage, once the software becomes stable, it would then be appropriate to add more members to ensure maintenance in case I become unavailable.Regards, Plantaest (talk) 21:07, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
Your application has been approved
[edit]Hello @Plantaest
Thank you for your application and for taking time to respond. Congratulations, your application has been approved in the amount of VND 130,500,000 from 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2026.
- I extended the implementation timeline. If you complete your project ahead of time, please feel free to submit your final report early via Fluxx.
- Related to question and responses on (5a), in your next application, if you have any updates on your previous projects that you would like to share, you can add them to "Is there anything else you’d like to share about your project? (optional)". It is not mandatory, though could prove useful based on the curiosity of the review team.
Additional resources which may be useful
- The reporting requirements and templates for the grant can be found here. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.
- Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or on Fluxx.
- Instructions for post award: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Processing/Grantee_Portal/Post_award
- Documenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses
We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. Good luck!
Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of ESEAP Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:31, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF): Thank you, Jacqueline. Regarding the issue related to question 5a, I understand now. Thank you once again for your support. Regards, Plantaest (talk) 02:53, 21 October 2025 (UTC)