Grants talk:IEG/Magic expression

Proposal deadline reminder

Hi Pavel Astakhov, thanks for starting this draft! I just wanted to remind you that the IEG proposal deadline is less than 2 weeks away! To complete your proposal, you'll need to push that button at the bottom of the page that says "Finish creating proposal." That will walk you through the rest of the sections you need (and it looks like you will be able to move some of the info you've got in your goals sections into these new sections). I'd encourage you to do this as soon as possible so you can begin filling in details about your project plan, budget, etc as soon as you're able - we're happy to give feedback or answer questions as you continue to develop this plan :) Best of luck, Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

About eligibility rules for software development

Please also have a look at the eligibility requirements for proposals, particularly the point about technical components, to be sure you've got a plan that can be accomplished without relying on WMF engineering to deploy. Extensions are generally considered ineligible because they have to go through WMF code-review to be deployed, and we can't guarantee that WMF engineers will be available to make this happen on the kind of timeline that IEG needs. We'll want to better understand your plans for hosting and deploying your software when you've got a completed proposal. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko, thanks for the notice. Yes, my solution is an extension of MediaWiki and apparently it does not fit the conditions. It's my fault, I still do not know much English and it is impeding me. It all started with the fact that I wanted to use MediaWiki for the tasks for which it is not designed. Using Semantic Mediawiki extension I was able to get some results, but further development has become impossible due to some serious limitations in flexibility and performance. I found a way to fix this and wrote a working code. Tests show that it works fast enough to even replace Lua scripting. It might bring many benefits to everybody who uses MediaWiki. Now I'm ready to make the final push to finish the job over this decision, but I need financial help, as there is still a lot of work. I'm sorry to put it off indefinitely because there is no anyone to review the code. Or is there some other way to succeed? --Pastakhov (talk) 11:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Pastakhov. Hmmm yes I see how this is a challenging problem! Paging Quim, in case he has any ideas that might help you :) I also wonder if you've sent a message to the wikitech-l mailing list to collect people's input there? I will let you know if I come up with any other ideas. I think the key issue for you to accomplish something like this via any means is going to be code review...if this was something volunteers could integrate or accomplish then you'd be closer to a solution... Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Siko, I'm afraid that this problem is even more difficult. I did attempt to discuss this idea on the wikitech-l and Talk page, but I got no answer that would satisfy me. I have not seen that someone understood this idea. I cannot understand the reason for this. May be my bad English, my tongue-tied or my very alternative viewpoint. Maybe all at once or maybe I need to be more pushy. Responses were approximately as follows:

• Lua (Scribunto) the fastest, best, widely used...
• My idea is way to direct execution of arbitrary code, slow, reinventing the wheel, it seems unlikely to succeed.

But all this nonsense. My idea solves a performance problem at its source. Even if you use it same way as use the Lua scripting, you get a double saving CPU time. If it will be used as intended, the benefits will be much greater. At that time I could not prove their case, but now I can. I would like to finish my proposal before contacting wikitech-l, because I do not want to be misunderstood again.

Thanks for the advice, I will turn to Quim. What exactly do you mean mention about "volunteers"? --Pastakhov (talk) 09:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pastakhov, all I meant about volunteers is that as long as your project needs staff to integrate it into MediaWiki (which I imagine it does), your proposal won't be IEG-eligible....volunteers and grantees alone would need to be able to complete a project from start to finish in order to have this project be funded via IEG. Regardless, even if we determine the proposal to be ineligible for this kind of grant, you will always be welcome tocontinue to develop the page and use it for other purposes, so perhaps this can be useful to you regardless. Wishing you best of luck as your conversations continue, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for helping, Siko (WMF). It's always nice to talk with you. --Pastakhov (talk) 10:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Updates?

Hi Pastakhov, I see you edited your page recently so I'm checking in again to see if you're thinking about proposing this project for an IEG this round. If you're not planning to propose it this round (or if it still seems like there are the same blockers that will make it ineligible for a grant, as discussed above), we will mark its status WITHDRAWN next week to clear it out of the review queue and still allow you to keep editing your page at your leisure. If you are thinking of picking it back up again at any point, though, please let me know and I'll be happy to help you update the page to our new proposal format. We're also hosting a few more IEG proposal help sessions in Google Hangouts and IRC next week, so please join if you'd like to discuss further in real time. Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko, this project no longer needs to grant. I've implemented the main part of what I described in the draft. But it seems other developers are too conservative for experiments such as this project. In any case, even if this idea will be continued, it will be another project. Thank you for inviting, have a nice day :-) --Pastakhov (talk) 03:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for confirming. I'll update the status now. Wishing you best of luck, meanwhile :) Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)