Grants:Project/MSIG/Wikitongues Accelerator II

statusfunded

Movement Strategy

bogreudell/Wikitongues Accelerator II

Renew the Wikitongues cohort model for onboarding new language communities to Wikimedia, especially Wikipedia, Commons, and Wiktionary.

targetWikipedia, Commons, and Wiktionary, and other WMF tools TBD

start date1 January

start year2024

end date28 February

end year2025

budget (USD)$51,750 requested
$30,000 approved funding

grant typeorganization

non-profit statusyes

grantee• bogreudell

contact(s)• danielwikitongues.org

organization (if applicable)• Wikitongues

friendly space expectations

browse all requests

Share your results

Applications are not required to be in English. Please complete the application in your preferred language.

Project Goal

Challenge

7,000 languages are spoken or signed today, but as many as 3,000 languages could disappear in a generation, erasing half of all cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge. But language extinction is not inevitable. With the right mother-tongue resources, adults can learn their ancestral languages and teach their children, raising new native speakers and keeping their cultures alive. In a word, language revitalization is possible. Sadly, a majority of endangered languages are also under-resourced, so the grassroots creation of mother-tongue materials is both a method of safeguarding cultural knowledge and a critical first step in the process of language revitalization. In that sense, mother-tongue contribution to Wikimedia projects represents a valuable opportunity for global language revitalization efforts. To date, that potential remains largely untapped. In fact, only about 5% of the world’s languages and 8% of the world’s writing systems are represented across the spectrum of Wikimedia projects, implying a significant gap in the Wikimedia movement’s mission to effectively safeguard and disseminate the sum of human knowledge on a global scale.

Our Approach

This project builds on ongoing work by Wikitongues, a Wikimedia User Group and Language Diversity Hub (LDH) observer member that accelerates language documentation and revitalization projects. We represent a network of stakeholders dedicated to expanding language diversity across Wikimedia projects and, more broadly, improving language access across the Wikimedia movement. We host events like translate-a-thons and record-a-thons, facilitate Wikimedia contributions to under-resourced languages, and directly support mother-tongue contributions to Wikimedia projects.

As part of a 2022 Movement Strategy Grant, we identified 10 Wikimedians from under-resourced language communities and are in the year-long process of helping them realize their communities’ Wikimedia goals, including: creating new language versions of Wikipedia, adding oral knowledge corpora to the Wikimedia Commons, and adding new languages to Wikidata. We have also begun developing free resources for mother-tongue contributions to Wikimedia that expand on earlier research by the LDH, as described in our previous grant proposal. With continued support, we can guarantee resources for another 10 mother-tongue Wikimedia projects, extending this work through April 2025 and further expanding language diversity in the Wikimedia movement.

Our long-term vision is to build a dedicated support track for endangered language communities to contribute their languages—and by extension, their knowledge—to the full spectrum of Wikimedia projects. This program will exist within the wider context of infrastructure proposed by LDH, which will offer grants and training to mother-tongue contributions to Wikimedia. However, while LDH programs will serve all under-resourced languages, Wikitongues will focus on supporting endangered languages specifically, allowing for a clear separation of responsibilities between our user group and the rest of LDH. Our objective for this grant is to build a second cohort of rising Wikimedians from up to ten endangered language communities, help the members of this cohort set and implement measurable Wikimedia goals for their communities, and, based on their experiences, expand our freely-available resources for anyone to add their language to Wikimedia. (These resources, which will be extensively translated later this year, are now part of the foundation of Wikitongues and LDH resources to support new mother-tongue Wikimedia projects on an ongoing basis, at scale.)

Between 2023 and February 2025, we will take the following steps to achieve this:

Help launch or accelerate 10 new mother-tongue Wikimedia projects:

1. Between November 2023 and January 2024, we will draw from our global user bases to identify ten geographically diverse individuals on the cusp or in the early stages of launching mother-tongue Wikimedia projects in their communities;
   1. First, we’ll publish an open call for cohort applicants to the Wikitongues and LDH networks, which include endangered language communities from over a hundred countries. Anyone in the world will be able to apply.
   2. Next, we’ll select 10 finalists based on a criteria matrix that includes: the applicant’s language vitality or endangerment level, language resource level (implying the urgency of contributing to Wikimedia), overall application strength (clear and measurable objectives), and our confidence in the applicant. We will only accept applications for projects led by community members, as opposed to outside researchers.
   3. We will do our best to ensure the cohort is globally representative by selecting a pool from diverse genders and geographical origins, as well as from across the urban-rural divide — representing different structural challenges for language revitalization and Wikimedia contribution alike.
   4. Since this is a pilot, we’ll restrict support to three types of mother-tongue Wikimedia projects: 1) creating a new language version of Wikipedia, 2) adding language content to the Wikimedia Commons, and 3) adding lexicon data to Wiktionary. At scale, this program would ideally support any other mother-tongue Wikimedia project.
2. Between April 2024 and April 2025, we will work with this cohort to identify and implement measurable Wikimedia objectives, such as adding linguistic corpora to Commons, building new language editions of Wikipedia, or adding lexicons to Wiktionary.
   1. Each cohort member will receive a project stipend of $2,000 USD and a year of training and in-kind assistance, including: support for setting and refining their community’s Wikimedia objectives, onboarding to Wikimedia guidelines and best practices, technical training, an introduction to project management and fundraising, and networking opportunities.
   2. The success of each project will be evaluated according to goals and impact metrics set by each cohort member (with advice and guidance from Wikitongues and LDH). However, we can expect the following output: for new Wikipedia editions, up to 30 articles each, for Commons projects, up to eight hours of audio recordings (or a written equivalent) each, and for Wiktionary projects, up to 5,000 lexical items (words, phrases) each. Moreover, since each cohort member will be the leader of a community project, we can expect up to 100 people directly involved (up to 10 people per project).

Evaluate the process of mother-tongue contribution for Wikimedia projects and identify pressure points that make it hard for smaller communities to get involved:

1. Between April 2025 and May 2025, we will survey the aforementioned cohort about the challenges that each member faced in adding their language to Wikimedia, from the technical hurdles of learning to use Wiki software, to potential structural obstacles within the Wikimedia movement. (It should be noted that part of this research will take place within the wider context of the LDH mandate to identify the technical and structural challenges that smaller-language Wikipedias face. See more below: 'Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?.'
2. By May 2025, we will publish the results of this survey on MetaWiki.

Further translate the previously developed toolkit for mother-tongue contribution to Wikimedia projects, into major lingua francas for global accessibility:

1. Translations of the already developed toolkits to encourage contributions into the newly added and already existing language Wikipedias
2. In addition to being a freely available resource, this toolkit will serve as a roadmap for LDH and Wikitongues to onboard new language communities more efficiently. It will inform a list of proposals for the Foundation to improve internal protocols that may inhibit participation by under-resourced language communities.

Project Plan and Activities

What specific Movement Strategy Initiative does your project focus on and why?

This project will focus on Recommendation 8, Initiative 37: Bridging content gaps. By identifying linguistic gaps in nearly 95% of all languages, and facilitating mother-tongue Wikimedia contributions by these local communities on a global scale, we will measurably improve linguistic representation and by extension, expand cultural and historical knowledge across the full spectrum of Wikimedia projects. Moreover, given the intersectional nature of language, this project will impact other Movement Strategy Initiatives, most notably Recommendation 2, Initiative 11: Resources for newcomers, in that our core deliverables will include culturally accessible resources for new contributions to Wikimedia projects.

In order of relevance, this project would also impact:

• Recommendation 8, Initiative 38: Content initiatives in underrepresented communities
• Recommendation 4, Initiative: 25 Regional & thematic hubs
• Recommendation 1, Initiative: 2 Funding for underrepresented communities
• Recommendation 2, Initiative: 9 Methodology to improve the Wikimedia platform UX research, design, testing, and community engagement

What Wikimedia movement activity will your work support?

This project will support broad contributions to the Wikimedia movement, including creation and development of new language Wikipedias, content creation on Commons, Wiktionary, and WikiSource, data items descriptions across various languages on Wikidata, and organizing events in service of the same: specifically, edit-a-thons, record-a-thons and translate-a-thons.

If you are translating any materials or doing live translation, in what languages will you support these needs? Who will be responsible for doing the translations?

We’ll do translation of the already developed toolkits as well as live interpretation of meetings. Live interpretation will be conducted by a combination of human interpreters and the AI service Wordly. The translations would be carried out by a combination of volunteers and paid translators. Also, the arrival languages would be determined by the selected participants of the cohort.

How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project? Please add the names or usernames of these individuals responsible for updating the community

Progress and outcomes of the project would be shared through Diff articles, our social media, project report on meta as well as other community spaces such as: Wikimania, Wikimedia Language Conference, Wiki Indaba Conference and WikiArabia Conference if we get presentation opportunities.

Who will be responsible for delivering on this project and what are their roles and responsibilities?

The daily administration of this project will be executed by our Wikimedian-in-Residence, Tochi Precious and directly overseen and supported by Kristen Tcherneshoff, the Programs Director at Wikitongues, with input from the LDH steering committee.

If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive? Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions.

We will cultivate a safe and supportive environment for all participants by 1) hosting a UCOC and Friendly Space Policy onboarding session with all participants, 2) offering digital “HR office hours” for participants to book one-on-one meetings with the organizers, in order to discuss concerns or air complaints, 3) offering an anonymous form for reporting problems, with guaranteed communication in English and other lingua francas relevant to the cohort members, and 4) requiring partners to create a mother-tongue version of this form, in order to support local HR solutions within their own projects.

If your activities include in-person events or activities, you will need to complete the steps outlined in the Risk Assessment protocol. Please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool.

With the potential exception of any locally in-person events organized by cohort members for their communities, this project will be executed remotely. If your activities include the use of paid online tools, please describe what tools these are and how you intend to use them.[edit | edit source] We'll use Zoom Pro to coordinate cohort meetings and the AI interpretation service Wordly to increase accessibility to cohort members who aren’t comfortable in English. These services are currently paid for by Wikitongues, but some of this grant’s technology funds may be allocated to renewing licenses for these tools.

Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?

This project builds on earlier work by Wikitongues and LDH. In November 2021, we organized a series of roundtable discussions with diverse Wikimedia contributors, including a conversation with Maryana Iskander as part of her listening tour, in order to initiate dialogue about how the Wikimedia movement could be made more accessible to under-represented communities, in under-resourced languages. Our long-term goal is to be the launchpad for new language projects, bridging a gap in the movement’s social infrastructure and growing linguistic representation from year-to-year.

As described in our previous grant proposal, this project exists within the wider context of the LDH mandate to expand language access across the Wikimedia movement. December 2021, the Language Diversity Hub submitted a Rapid Grant proposal to support an assessment of the challenges faced by new and upcoming Wikipedia projects and their communities. This research will draw from the experiences of the cohort and contribute to the development of the toolkit described in this proposal.

This project is also an extension of the Wikitongues Language Revitalization Accelerator, will run at least until 2025, and demonstrates our capacity to run a large-scale application process, distribute international grants, and manage a distributed cohort.

Outcomes

After your activities are complete, we would like to understand the draft implementation plan for your community. You will be required to prepare a document detailing this plan around a movement strategy initiative. This report can be prepared through Meta-wiki using the Share your results button on this page. The report can be prepared in your language, and is not required to be written in English.

In this report, you will be asked to:

• Provide a link to the draft implementation plan document or Wikimedia page
• Describe what activities supported the development of the plan
• Describe how and where you have communicated your plan to relevant communities.
• Report on how your funding was spent

Your draft implementation plan document should address the following questions clearly:

• What movement strategy initiative or goal are you addressing?
• What activities will you be doing to address that initiative?
• What do you expect will happen as a result of your activities? How do those outcomes address the movement strategy initiative?
• How will you measure or evaluate your activities? What tools or methods will you use to evaluate your activities?

To create a draft implementation plan, we recommend the use of a logic model, which will help you and your team think about goals, activities, outcomes, and other factors in an organized way. Please refer the following resources to develop a logic model:

• Overview of logic models on Meta-wiki
• Example logic models for reference for other movement activities (such as partnerships and edit-a-thons)
• Blank logic model template on Google Drive

Please confirm below that you will be able to prepare a draft implementation plan document by the end of your grant:

• Confirmed Bogreudell (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Optionally, you are welcome to include other information you'd like to share around participation and representation in your activities. Please include any additional outcomes you would like to report on below:

Budget

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

• Research (time needed to review, perform analysis, or investigate any information needed to support implementation ideas or planning):
• Facilitation (facilitation time including facilitator preparation, meeting facilitation time, and debriefing):
• Documentation (document preparation time, time spent documenting of discussion, post-meeting work):
• Translation (translation costs for briefs and global materials):
• Coordination (coordinator work to manage or support multiple workflows to prepare for meeting):
• Online tools or services (subscription services for online meeting platforms, social media promotion):
• Data (internet or mobile costs for organizers or participants to access or participate in activities):
• Venue or space for meeting (costs of renting a physical meeting space):
• Transportation costs (costs of supporting organizers or participants to attend the meeting):
• Meals (costs related to refreshments, lunches, or other meals during in-person activities):
• Other:

TOTAL AMOUNT REQUESTED USD:

	Amount	Notes
Compensation for translation-related work	$2,000
Interperter fees	$2000	$1300 for Wordly AI interpretation subscription 35 additional hours of human translation/interpretation support @ $20/hour
Online tools and services	$0
n/a	$0
Small equipment costs	$0
n/a	$0
Other	$43,000
Community stipends	$20,000	Each cohort member will receive a $2,000 stipend to power Wikimedia contributions in their community.
Project leader	$15,000	Wikitongues will maintain the services of User: Tochiprecious as the Wikimedian-in-Residence leading this project, under the supervision of Wikitongues and LDH staff.
Design and communication	$5,000	In addition to publishing the updated toolkit on Meta, we will design PDF editions for printing and mobile accessibility.
Discretionary	$3,000	Budget for unforeseen expenses
TOTAL	$51,750
Subtotal	$45,000	Combined translation and other budgets
Overhead	$6,750	15% of project total; our previous application included 10% of project total, but we have learned over the course of this past cycle that this project requires a bit more admin resources

Completing your application

Once you have completed the application, please do the following:

• Change the application status from status=draft to status=proposed in the {{Probox}} template.
• Contact strategy2030wikimedia.org to confirm your submission, as well as to request any support around your application.

Endorsements

An endorsement from community members (especially from outside your community) will be part of the considerations when reviewing your application. Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!

• Je soutien à fond ce projet... C'est une initiative unique en son genre pour revitaliser nos langues locales. #Ross.Patrick (talk) 21:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Language Revitalization is really important and wikitongue is doing a good job. So far wikitongue has provided funds for so many language revitalization projects preventing the languages from going into extinction using wikimedia platforms as such I strongly endorse this proposal. #AgnesAbah (talk) 22:13, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

• Languages play a crucial role in our world and the Wikimedia Movement, and I wholeheartedly support the commendable efforts of Wikitongues in promoting and preserving underrepresented languages. By providing resources and guidance to these communities, Wikitongues not only helps them establish their presence but also ensures the long-term sustainability of these languages. I enthusiastically endorse this initiative as it contributes to the diversity of languages.  Strong support. - Olugold (talk) 17:18, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• Wikitongues has provide funds for so many languages in the world. This funds are useful for them who are passionate to revitalize their language yet has not support. I think, this fund should be available for years ahead.  Strong support. Arcuscloud (talk) 15:21, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Wikitongues has created a unique method to support various languages, its continuation will ensure a more linguistically vibrant Wikimedia.  Strong support. Amrit Sufi (talk) 13:37, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• Really pleased with the work Wikitongues has done so far and happily endorse this work too. Two thumbs up also for it only being open for members of the actual language community! -Yupik (talk) 20:40, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
•  Strong support Through my engagement with the Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub I got to learn from Wikitongues approach with the language communities. I believe their work enables strong and active language communities, and I strongly endorse this proposal. Malikbr (talk)

• Wikitongues has been a great partner for the Language Diversity Hub so far. I have heard a lot about the accelerator program so far, and I am really excited about what it brings, so I wholeheartedly support this proposal. Jon Harald Søby (WMNO) (talk) 11:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• With the help of Wikitongues, some language in the world have same opportunity to preserve their languages. Volstand (talk) 12:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)