Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Pine/Continuation of educational video and website series/Archive 2

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Removing inaccurate information about organizational involvement[edit]

Hi @I JethroBT (WMF) and WJifar (WMF): I would like to remove information from the main grant page that refers to this grant being executed by an organization, instead of by me individually. May I have your permission to do this? --Pine 04:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Pine: Of course, please feel free to make these changes to accurately reflect who is carrying out the activities for this project. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 04:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks I JethroBT (WMF). I was considering striking out the info on the page so that it would remain visible, but I think that this looks messy, so I removed it completely. The info will remain accessible in the page history, and our discussion about this will remain accessible in the talk page archives. I think that the only part of the main grant page that needed editing was the probox. --Pine 04:50, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications to non-English Wikipedias[edit]

Hi @I JethroBT (WMF) and WJifar (WMF):, in my project plan I said that I would send notifications to three non-English Wikipedias which I knew had received notifications regarding the predecessor project (LearnWiki). To conserve the time of myself and the volunteer translators, I would like to suggest that I translate my notification only into Spanish at this time, because Spanish Wikipedia is the most likely to receive a translation of the first video within the scope of the current funding. I propose deferring a decision regarding whether to notify Wikipedias other than English Wikipedia and Spanish Wikipedia until after the English version, and possibly the Spanish version, of this tutorial are complete. I think that conserving my budget for the English and Spanish versions of this tutorial would be best until I know that there will be leftover budget that I can use to request translated notifications for additional languages, and also I want to be judicious with my requests of volunteer time from skilled translators. Thanks, --Pine 06:40, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Pine: This change in your project plan to limit translated notifications to Spanish Wikipedia, based on your own time and budget needs, is reasonable. Thanks for letting us know about these changes to the project scope. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@I JethroBT (WMF): Thank you for the speedy reply. I made this revision. --Pine 21:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Existing videos[edit]

Creating an article (and adding a reference) in VisualEditor
Spanish language video

Hi, you probably have already made a list of existing explainer videos, but I just wanted to make sure this one is on it. --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 10:27, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi Gnom, I recall reading that WMDE had made tutorial videos but I had not searched for which subjects were covered. Thank you very much for that link. As far as I know there is no central place to catalog all Wikimedia tutorial videos, so I will start one here. I, or someone else, may move the page to a more central location later, but for now I think that this is okay. Thanks again for the link. --Pine 21:45, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @I JethroBT (WMF) and WJifar (WMF): I have recently learned of the Spanish language video that I am adding below the German language video in this discussion. The Spanish language video has significant overlap with the video that I am developing in this Rapid Grant project, so I would suggest that I plan not to translate the video that I create into Spanish, and accordingly that I not place notices on Spanish Wikipedia regarding this mini-project at this time. However, I think that it is possible that volunteer translators would agree to translate the subtitles of the video that I create for this project into a language other than English, Spanish, or another language that already has an instructional video that covers very similar information. Would you agree that I should drop from my plans the goal of creating a Spanish translation of the video that I create during this mini-project, and not notify Spanish Wikipedia? Later in this project, after the script has been finished, I think would be a good time to begin contacting volunteer translators to ask whether they would be interested in translating the video subtitles into languages other than English, Spanish, or another language that already has an instructional video that covers very similar information. Thanks, --Pine 01:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Pine: I think you can make a decision at your own discretion here-- this is not a decision that requires any particular approval from us. It sounds to me that you are leaning toward not translating your video into Spanish because an existing video already covers the topic well. That seems sensible enough to me. Next time, you are welcome to simply notify us of these changes-- we know that in the course of many projects, the scope of work changes because of these discoveries or changes in circumstance. The only thing we require approval of is when you anticipate spending funding differently than what you proposed. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 02:19, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@I JethroBT (WMF): thanks. I didn't know whether WMF would consider this to be a scope change that requires approval. I think that I've responded to almost every piece of community feedback and question that I have received so far. There may continue to be minor modifications as new issues emerge. Perhaps WMF doesn't want to be notified about every minor design change, and I can understand that. At this point in time, I continue to believe that the budget for this mini-project is sufficient and I do not see a need for any significant changes in scope. There might be a reason for me to request to move the finish date of the project by a small amount, but I won't know that until probably mid-week next week, although I continue to target March 15 as the finish date. --Pine 21:32, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Pine: Yes, thank you for bringing that up. Changes to your grant completion date also require approval and notice in advance, so let us know soon if you anticipate a change there. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@I JethroBT (WMF): sounds good. The reason that I'm thinking of requesting a small extension to the finish date is that I want to ensure that community members have at least a few days to review the script before I start to work on production. This might look like lag time but actually I think that there is a good reason for this waiting time, because the further along a video is in production, the more time consuming and expensive the changes are. I would rather make changes during the script revision phase than during production. It's likely that I will continue to make minor changes as I receive feedback and review my own work, but I'd like to keep late changes to a minimum, and I imagine that WMF would too. --Pine 21:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Video editor and video editor project file[edit]

Hi @I JethroBT (WMF):, my intention is to produce both the script and the finished video under CC-BY-SA licenses. A third element of production is the video project file. By video project file I am referring to a .prproj or similar file that the video editing software uses as a set of instructions to create the finished video output. A difficulty is that the software that I would like to use, and which seems to have a relatively moderate learning curve according to reviews, is proprietary software, and the project file will likely be in a proprietary format. I think that sharing the project file (note that the project file is different from the rendered video output, and the rendered output shouldn't have this problem) could be problematic because it will very likely contain nonpublic information regarding the computer(s) on which I create the video, such as some names of directories in the computer(s) where I use the video editing software, and I am concerned about the security and privacy risks that are associated with sharing a file that likely includes nonpublic information. I could likely save some time for future video productions by reusing portions of the project file, but I think that I should not share the project file. Is that OK with WMF?

I did not request funding for the video editor software in this grant because the cost is relatively moderate and I do not want to be required to sell the software after this grant ends, so I purchased the software without using WMF funds.

Thanks, --Pine 02:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Pine: I would like you to make a decision about this on your own. Again Pine, I want to reinforce the notion that these kinds of decisions do not require any sort of permission from us, and indeed, you are better positioned to make decisions over your own project than we are, particularly over your own privacy needs. I understand that it may be helpful to seek approval from us on some matters, but I am requesting that in the future, that instead of seeking our permission on project decisions and changes, you come to your own conclusion and let us know only if decision changes the project substantially. That said, if you need support because you're genuinely uncertain how to proceed or don't know how to solve a problem, you can of course reach out to us. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]