Grants talk:Start/2024

Timeline for "Wikimedia Technology Fund"

Hi there, I have come to the grants pages a few times this year but the technology fund pages continue to say "coming soon". Is there a timeline for these? ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 16:43, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Me too. Any updates? Sophivorus (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @I JethroBT (WMF) & @KEchavarriqueen (WMF) who I have seen replying to other threads here. ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 23:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Sophivorus and Addshore: Thanks for checking in with us about the Technology Fund. We don't currently have a schedule or timeline for when this funding program is expected to begin, so I will remove the "coming soon" language until we have more certainty about when the program will begin. We had hoped launch this program much sooner, but due to a number of factors mostly internal to the Foundation, have not been able to do so. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 01:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for the update. ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 15:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to tell someone that might be suitable for this program to apply for to the Rapid Fund in the interim? The example I have in mind relates to a QuickStatements Lexeme creation feature that's been languishing on Phabricator for four years (task T220985) and that'd be useful both in Wikimedia projects and outside of it - it was brought up on our affiliate's mailing list. GreenReaper (talk) 10:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF) and KEchavarriqueen (WMF): I have heard that "The Technology Fund was permanently placed on hold. It means that we will not launch it in the near future. This means that we cannot fund long-term software development projects." replied by WMF. Does this mean that the Technology Fund is permanently closed and what is the alternative fund that developers could apply for? Thanks. SCP-2000 11:32, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I have the same problem and I'm maintaining some longer-term projects. Due to various reasons, such as the number of development members, insufficient funds, etc., it is impossible for me to complete all development goals in the short term at once. I would like some periodic and sustainable funds.

However, I noticed that the only ones I could find suitable for me to apply for so far seemed to be the Rapid Fund. But in the introduction, it mentioned that:

Proposals that depend on multiple or continuous Rapid Funds for long-term maintenance or development goals are generally ineligible.

Does this mean that we don't have any friendly help for long-term development projects? In other words, we can only wait for the long period of full feature development to be completed, and cannot get any financial help for post-maintenance. Rowe Wilson Frederisk Holme (talk) 13:30, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

@SCP-2000 and Rowe Wilson Frederisk Holme: Thanks for your questions. While the Rapid Fund program offers some possible opportunities for funding small-scale software development as Rowe has pointed out, there is no such alternative for specifically funding large-scale or continuous software development at this time. More information on eligibility for this kind of work in the Rapid Fund program is available here: Grants:Project/Rapid#Eligibility_criteria. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I understand that there may be some difficulties, but it is bit disappointed that there is no alternative for funding long term development. Whether it is short term or long term development, it is valuable to the Wikimedia project and it would be great to see support for their project. SCP-2000 13:53, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF), KEchavarriqueen (WMF), SCP-2000, and Rowe Wilson Frederisk Holme: hello,

You may find the template {{Grants}} useful for guiding grants requests. This template is too little known. Feel free to share and update boldly this template which gather a clear map and properties of available WM grants. Yug (talk) 15:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The template previously cited here –{{Grants}}–, listing major WMF grants with grant budget, next deadline, who, how, has be supersede by Grants:Programs, Grants:Alternatives, and Grants. The template has therefore been speedy deleted due to obsolescence.

@Yug: Thanks for preparing this table, for working to update it, and the invitation to boldly update it! This table is fairly comprehensive and shows some useful points of comparison. I'll share it with the Community Resources team to see if and where it might make sense to integrate it in our documentation pages. A few initial points of feedback just from my personal perspective:

• Rather than provide an estimate of the length of the application in A4 units (applications are rarely printed out these days), I think it would be better to link directly to the application itself.
• It will be very difficult to provide comprehensive information on "What we fund" in a table format, if only because the scope of movement activities and eligible expenses or is excessively large, so I would prefer linking to sections in each funding program where this scope is described. I don't support providing a few examples in these sections without more substantial context, because historically, people unfamiliar with the funding programs have misunderstood this we only support certain expenses.
• If we move ahead with this, I suggest we use this to replace the general information on the Grants Meta-wiki page, which has not been actively maintained. Furthermore, I would want to message affiliates to invite them to add their info to this table as well.

Once I've discussed this with my team, I'll let you know how we plan to move forward. Thanks again for your work! I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Yug: Thanks for your effort. However, Jethro has already stated that "Rapid Fund program offers some possible opportunities for funding small-scale software development" rather than long term development. TBH this comparison table is bit useless for the current problem of lack of support for long-term development. Thanks for your understanding. SCP-2000 17:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Problems caused on Wikidata

I wanted to elevate this discussion. If these contributions are indeed related to this grant, then the fact that we have already deleted many of them and are poised to delete the remainder should be a matter of some concern. Should we be making grants if they're just going to waste time and resources and give people a bad impression of our projects? Bovlb (talk) 22:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

See also continuation in Grants_talk:Project/Rapid#Assessing_grant_proposers_as_Wikidata_trainers. Bovlb (talk) 17:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Suggest new categories for research proposals beginning March 2024

At Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Research_&_Technology_Fund/Wikimedia_Research_Fund#Review_submissions the grant designers set up a category for "Submissions by Regional Focus", but the majority of submissions are classified as Category:Wikimedia_Research_Fund_applications_in_FY_2023-24_-_Regional_Focus_-_No_identified_focus.

I am looking at these entries in this category, and think they would better be described as "policy", "design", "global infrastructure development", or "community insights". "Region" is not a fit.

Perhaps in the next round have another category for submissions which are neither specific to a Wikimedia project nor a region. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Bluerasberry.

I'm Kinneret, Lead Research Community Officer on the WMF Research Team and the workflow chair for the fund.

Thank you for this feedback! This is the first year we created categorizations for the submissions in hope that they are helpful for people exploring the different submissions. I agree that the categories were far from perfect. We will improve this for the next round and I'll make sure we keep in mind the descriptions you suggested. KGordon (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Use of open review website

I was just curious about what some of these grants were, and wanted to read the proposals (I was wondering what Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Research_Fund/Edit_History_Growth_Rate_Analysis was about). However it seems like you need an OpenReview account to do so, and the site will only let you register if you are currently at an institution. (This does not feel very "open" for a site called "OpenReview"). Could the PDFs of grant proposal be uploaded to commons and linked so that the rest of us could read them? Bawolff (talk) 18:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello Bawolff,

We are currently in the Stage II review period and we needed to restrict the viewing of the proposals for this time. All proposals will be reopened for viewing via the OpenReview link in a few days. KGordon (WMF) (talk) 08:33, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Why is Israel included in Western and Northern Europe

Geographically Israel is neither in Western or Northern Europe. --Minilammas (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Given the complex geo-political dynamics between Israel and other countries in the MENA region and closer economic and political ties with the European Union, we included Israel in the North Western Europe region. ABruszik-WMF (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Time to archive?

This page has 26 sections now. Is it time to archive some of the older sections? I might suggest setting up automatic archiving with a 1 year threshold. whym (talk) 08:52, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Whym, thanks for suggestion. I tried to set it up. Would you please take a quick look? I was also not sure if it archives sections from past years as well; if not, I will move them manually. Thanks again! -- DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 12:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I changed it a bit, and this should work. [1] This is going to archive inactive sections retroactively, not just for sections created from now on, if that is what you asked. whym (talk) 23:31, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much! DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund: Sorry for marking as closed

I marked a grant application as closed at special:diff/26666393/26936975. I am told that I was in error, and I apologize.

My explanation is that I read the page and did not see information about when the grant would reopen. I am a native English speaker and sometimes when I do not understand, then if I study a page, I make the edit that would have informed me. I feel like if I cannot understand, then a non-native English speaker might also have trouble.

I read on the page that grants go in 2 rounds only, and that round 2 was over. Because of this I marked the application as closed until next year. I do not think there was information on the page saying that it would reopen. If I understand correctly now, the year starts with round 2, then round 1 begins in late summer. This confused but what I could have done differently is ask for clarification.

Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Bluerasberry, thank you for adding your note here. I see where the confusion was coming from and I appreciate your edit on that page. It created some misunderstanding because some viewers thought that the upcoming round 1 in 2024-25 fiscal year would be cancelled, and we would only have a round in 2025 (calendar year).

I agree that the round naming can be confusing, especially for those not familiar with the Wikimedia Foundation fiscal year dates. And you are correct that the round 1 begins in July-August; we call it "round 1 of the 2024-2025 fiscal year" to make it a bit clear.

If you notice other unclear details or missing info, please let me know on this or my talk page and I'll be glad to clarify and edit them in a timely manner. Thanks again! -- DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Assessing grant proposers as Wikidata trainers

This is a continuation of a discussion that started at Grants_talk:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Rapid_Fund/Wikimedia_Awareness_in_Nafada_(ID:_22280836)#Problems_caused_on_Wikidata

I'm an administrator on Wikidata, and a large part that job is in dealing with the flood of new items that don't meet our notability criteria, most of which end up having to be deleted. We want to welcome new editors to the community, we want to see better coverage of traditionally under-documented regions, and we want to help editors to grow and improve. We don't want to just throw away items that people have obviously worked hard on but, if they're not done correctly when first create, and the the editor doesn't return to fix it when they receive feedback, then we have no choice but to delete. This is an enormous waste, not only of our time, but also of theirs.

A particularly frustrating aspect of this is that we often see patterns in the creation of non-notable items by new users, typically associated with a specific geographical region. We usually suspect that this is the result of some misconceived educational program or community outreach where the instructors themselves fail to understand how to use Wikidata and are therefore unable to train participants effectively. In effect, the program magnifies the errors of the trainer by reproducing them in the participants. I have to imagine that this does not leave community members with a good impression of Wikidata and the foundation if they are encouraged to contribute, and then everything is deleted.

Any effective Wikidata training program must cover the basics of establishing notability and responding to feedback. Editors who neither appreciate our notability criteria nor the need for communication should not, in my view, play any role in training others to contribute to Wikidata. This is not meant to say that such editors are ill-intentioned, but we should have a higher threshold for those entrusted to train. I believe that the foundation has a key role to play here, in ensuring that we do not encourage people to train others unless we have some reason to believe they will do so correctly. In the context of the rapid grants, this is at least partly enshrined in the criteria, which include "Within the last year, applicants have not been repeatedly blocked or flagged for the same issue and/or have not been banned on the Wikimedia Projects."

I have reviewed a number of grants proposals that mentioned Wikidata, some granted and others under review, specifically evaluating editors as suitable Wikidata trainers. I found many editors that were not suitable, some of whom had already been flagged, and some of whom had not. (I would be glad to give more information about how I did this evaluation and what factors I considered.)

The specific issues I would like to see resolved are:

• What does the WMF do to ensure that grants are not simply funding disruption and making extra work for volunteers?
• How did we come to approve grants that did not meet the criteria?
• How can we improve the grant review process going forward?
• How are people accredited as "Wikidata trainers"?

Bovlb (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Lgruwell-WMF, @MeganHernandez (WMF): Can you help me out here? I don't think these are unreasonable questions. Why have I been asking them for a month now with no substantive response from WMF staff? Bovlb (talk) 23:55, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Bovlb,

Yael here, VP of Community Growth. I responded to your comment on the other thread (and noted that Megan does not have oversight over grantmaking - you're always welcome to tag me if you need to escalate.

Here is where I responded to a similar comment on the same grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)/Archive_6#Grants_to_organizations_intending_to_be_active_on_the_English_Wikipedia_(Community_Response)

I'd be happy to set up a call to discuss this further, if you'd like, or happy to continue the conversation here. - Yael RWeissburg (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Some projects have a user group for trainers and people running editathons (e.g. ENWP's eventcoordinator). Would it make sense to require that if a grant involves such events, a team member should seek this permission on relevant projects? (Wikidata does not currently have such a user group, but it could be created.) Bovlb (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Renaming : Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund

Hello all, hello User:DSaroyan_(WMF),

I've been browsing and readings about possible grants and may have some suggestions.

Given the second leg (Technology) of the Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund have never opened and has officially been dismissed this past June 2024 (2024.06: « a decision has been made to not have a dedicated Technology Fund. »), could we formally reshape and rename this branch of 2~3 pages ?

• Grants:Programs
  • Level 1 subpage …/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund should be further depreciated.
    • Level 2 subpage …/Wikimedia Research Fund, which is still active, should stand up by itself. Likely moved to Level 1 subpage Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research Fund, currently a redirect, you may ask an admin to fix it.
    • Level 2 subpage …/Wikimedia Technology Fund never existed, good ! Nothing to do.

Yug (talk) 13:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Technology Fund : alternatives

Hello @Addshore, Sophivorus, GreenReaper, SCP-2000, Rowe Wilson Frederisk Holme, I JethroBT (WMF), and KEchavarriqueen (WMF):,
In past 2+ years we kept in touch for possible start of the …/Wikimedia Technology Fund grants. As it staled I eventually looked for alternatives supports for my WM projects (Lingua Libre & SignIt) which critically needed tech support. Since March 2024 to September 2024 I therefore became a double Google Summer of Code mentor. As of June 2024 it was announced « a decision has been made to not have a dedicated Technology Fund. ». Also, sharing my experience navigating across WMF grants and partners programs may be beneficial to our discussion and the larger WM community, to help us WM tools leaders to reach out to relevant alternative programs. Below are the avenues I identified, successfully relied on (GSoC24), and the ones I still see as being at reach :

Grant avenue	Application and support	Comment
mw:Google Summer of Code	Once a year, Google sponsoring an intern for 75h, 175h, or 350h.	GSoC gave major boost to our project's visibility among junior devs. Applications process pointed ~7 relevant junior devs CVs to us. About 4~5 made a commit to our repository as part of the selection process. We successfully pursued the GSoC24 with 2 projects and 2 Indian interns, respectively, leading to major build up and progress. GSoC24 ended in September 2024. Post GSoC24, each project needs further support for « the last mile » at production level. Project 1, Lingua Libre Django: WMFR is on track to provide ~15,000 US$ for UI polishing, data migration, prod-level review, prod deployment in 2025. Project 2, SignIt : see « Grants:Rapid » below.
mw:Outreachy	Twice a year, Wikimedia Foundation sponsoring a minority intern dev with overall budget of 7,000US$ and 3 months workload.	I considered it but didn't knew of any junior developer from marginalized community (women, ethnic minority, LGBTQ) and suitable skill sets.
Grants:Rapid > /Tech	Every 2 months, under 5,000US$.	I applied on Oct. 1st, 2024, with 15 workdays 3,000 US$ for coding for (former GSoC24 intern) and 8 workdays <2,000 US$ for managerial, communication, documentation & co (me). Result by November 15, 2024.
Product & Tech department	Anytime, budget to discuss. Send concise statement of the situation of required specifications (2024.06: « if community tooling is needed, the Product & Tech department will work directly with volunteers to develop a plan for building it (potentially using contract agreements vs. grants), alongside a plan for maintaining it. »)	I'm considering them, seems an avenue to master and the future of WMF community projects developments.

I will update this section further in coming months to share more. I would also like to create a community portal page such as Grants:Alternatives to documents together such grants-like support programs on the model of Grants:Programs.

I encourage you to explore those avenues to support your coding projects. Yug (talk) 10:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

A question about "fiscal sponsor"

Hello, I have a question about fiscal sponsor: Grants talk:Fiscal sponsorships § Open Source Collective. I hope someone can provide advice if possible. Thank you very much! Plantaest (talk) 19:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Initial feedback on SA proposals delayed (Round 1)

I am very much concerned about the delay happening in the review process of South Asian rapid proposals this time. There are a total of five proposals, with four having start date as 30 Sep/1 Oct. The reviews were supposed to come around 13 September per what we have at Grants:Project/Rapid#Cycle 1 (Deadline:_August 1, 2024). I can hardly find any "under review" proposal from other regions where feedback for improvement has not been provided by now. Our next activity plan is also scheduled to start from October 1, and we don't have the initial feedback available to work on any issues, that might make the work smoother.

While I understand that it is difficult for a single program officer @JChen (WMF) (who has been doing very incredible as my experience working with her is concerned) to handle two regions but this brings an important question: what is the Foundation doing in here to lessen the load? By when should the SA region expect to have a regional officer who comes from the same region? _signed, Aafi (DCW) ^(talk) 06:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Aafi (DCW),

Thanks for your patience. I am in the process of reviewing the South Asia rapid fund grants and hope to provide an update (and where possible outcome) by next week. I'll also provide an interim update on all the talk pages of the South Asia grants for this cycle.

Thank you for the ping.

Regards,

Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Dear @Aafi (DCW),

Thank you for your patience as we address the concerns raised regarding the delay in grant reviews and the inquiry about having a dedicated South Asia program officer. We may not have interacted in the past; my name is Veronica, Manager of Regional Programs. My role is to support the regional program officers in the Community Resources team.

We acknowledge the delay in the grant review and approval process. In some instances, this was due to pending information from specific applicants, which may not have been visible to the wider group. However, the affected applicants were aware of these details. To prevent any misunderstanding on status of grant applications, we are committed to enhancing communication, ensuring all applicants are regularly updated on the status of their requests. We hope this will foster greater transparency and alignment in the grant process moving forward.

As for the request for a South Asia-specific program officer, Jacqueline Chen will continue to serve in this capacity. She continues to be dedicated to deepening her understanding of the region’s needs and will receive ongoing support from the Community Resources team and colleagues like Praveen Das and Rachit Sharma to ensure the region's current and emerging priorities are met effectively.

We are always open to learning and continuously improving how we resource our communities. Thank you for your valuable feedback. VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 10:34, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Grants table or dataset?

Can someone point me to a table or other dataset of historical WMF grants?

I'm summarizing NARWHAL programs and their status, and the historical and current grant-funded programs and associated reports are the best available starting point, but I haven't fond them all in one place. It would also be helpful to do some analysis across different subsets of the historical data. If that's not already gathered, it would be enormously useful... do we have internal research on grantmaking? cc @DSaroyan (WMF) as I believe you've been involved with most parts of the ecosystem lately :) –SJ talk  23:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sj, there is no public dataset available but I might be able to create one for your analysis. I just need to specify your request because we do not collect NARWHAL programs separately.

• Would the list of grants in USA, Canada, and Mexico work? Note, that in WMF's regional categorization Mexico is in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
• Do you only need grants by groups and organizations, or also by individuals? We fund individuals, unincorporated groups, and nonprofits. Wikimedia affiliates can be both unincorporated groups and nonprofits.
• Grants from which fiscal years do you want? WMF's fiscal year is from 1 July to 30 June, but I can also include grant dates for your reference.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello DSaroyan (WMF), thanks so much! For my current analysis, US/Canada/Mexico would work; I can also start with just US/Canada if that is easier. We're interested in groups, organizations, and individuals -- sometimes the question of what sort of org applies is secondary to the project and depends on what seems like the most expedient way to get support, and that's one of the facets we're interested in. (only grants that had public applications or reports)

I'd appreciate all dates that are convenient, since 2016 if possible, when this reports format started to be used. Including whatever programs were available each year (rapid / conference / research / tech / alliances / hub / general support / APGs &c.) –SJ talk  21:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Sj, I'll send the datasheet tomorrow. I'll include all years and programs for US, Canada and Mexico. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sj, here's the list.

• I have cleaned the list and removed some unrelated and cancelled grants.
• Individual grantee names are removed due to our privacy policy. You may find some of them on the grant application pages, but most of the usernames should be listed on the proposal pages.
• Midterm report link is also included if the grant program had such a requirement.
• Some reports are missing because their are either pending submission, or the grants are incomplete.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving! Two additional questions:

- Do you also have grant amounts handy?

- Do you have similar data for grant requests that were not funded? –SJ talk 

Hi @Sj, happy Thanksgiving to you too!

• Added grant amounts to the same table. For simplicity, I just included approved amount in USD.
• We don't have complete historical data on declined grants.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

FLUXX request: autosave

Please add autosave 😅. I lost 3 applications in process at this point for a small rapid grant, and there are so many steps... especially problematic when applying on the go / via mobile. The 100&Change tool is a nice counterpoint, for usability. –SJ talk  16:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC) (It autosaves in the form, shows you what % of the way through you are, and highlights required but empty fields. It also cleanly separates a one-minute "name, abstract, and team" for each application from the full details, and the former is used to generate initial visualizations of the field of applicants each round. –SJ talk  15:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC))

Hi @Sj, sorry for it. We know it is annoying and inconvenient and we raised this several times with Fluxx. For now, I can confirm that they are aware and working on the autosave feature, but I'm not aware of more details regarding the expected dates. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the reply. I also just realized that every time one 'saves' it creates a new page on Meta at the end of that day if the title has changed, so a) for clarity the autosave I'd like is within the form itself, not on meta, partly for the title reason & for clarity about whether what one is writing is on a wiki or not, and b) it would be nice to have some indication when 'save to meta' is happening and what the target page will be.

I created a manual redirect on Meta for one such instance I generated (22894757 --> 22894808), couldn't find another way to indicate that the original name should no longer be associated with a draft proposal. –SJ talk  15:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)