Grants talk:Project/Commons app/Commons app Android v4

Why iOS

It might sound like a stupid question, but why are we supposed to be interested in spending money to support a completely proprietary system like iOS? I would like to see a comparison of alternatives, for instance how would it cost to just ship an Android device to all the active Commons users who complain they cannot use the Android app? Nemo 13:12, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Nemo, I am personally an Android supporter/user as well, for the reasons you mention. However, there are a lot of Wikimedians who use iOS, and both the Wikipedia app as well as the legacy Commons app (when it was maintained by WMF several years ago) have/had dedicated iOS versions.

Unfortunately the alternative you propose does not solve the problem, because a large part of the convenience of the Commons app relies on the Wikimedian in question having that app on their primary mobile device, i.e. the one they carry with them all the time. If they had to transfer their photos to a secondary Android device, that would be almost as inconvenient as transferring their photos to the computer. And we cannot expect everyone to switch to using Android as their primary mobile device just so they can contribute to Commons easily. Misaochan (talk) 15:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

When you say "a lot of wikimedians", do we have some solid numbers on how many current or likely Wikimedia Commons contributors fall in that population? If I'm not mistaken, the Wikipedia iOS app has consistently had underwhelming usage and other specialised iOS apps from Wikimedia have disappointed.

We can't indeed force people to switch primary device, but we can calculate how many photos we could get on Wikimedia Commons with that method. For instance, if a significant portion of the additional photos from an iOS app would come from people going on a Wikiexpedition or similar focused effort at photo-taking, then it might be cost-effective and efficient for them to use an Android device just for the purpose. (Assuming they're people used to taking photos from the phone who would not consider using a proper camera.)

Of course this isn't an ideal solution but it could be a baseline for cost comparison. I have trouble imagining even the order of magnitude of the expected usage, from the current proposal text. Nemo 16:01, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

It would be great to have solid numbers on how many Commons contributors use Android vs iOS - do you have any suggestions on how we can get these numbers? I was basing my estimate on the sheer number of requests that we get, but the majority of those are informal.

When you say that the Wikipedia iOS app has consistently had underwhelming usage, do you have a source for that? I was actually looking for statistics on its number of active users or at least downloads, but could not find them anywhere (and obviously I don't have access to their developer console). I reckon I'll ask the WMF team and see if I can get any statistics.

Hmm, it might be a good idea indeed for me to include an estimate of "total number of iOS uploads" in the Goals section of the proposal - we already have a total estimate (from both Android + iOS) in order to simplify the already-lengthy section, but you are correct in that it doesn't convey how many would come from iOS vs Android. Let me think on this and get back to you. I don't expect the majority of uploads to come from focused photo-taking events, though, as a primary strength of mobile phones as a camera is that you don't have to plan ahead - if you see something interesting on your walk home from work, you can take it.

I still have other reservations on your proposed alternative (for one thing, app usage can scale and continue after the grant period is over, whereas sending people phones requires continuous investment), but I'll take a crack at the numbers... let's take the number of our active users of Commons Android (6131) and extrapolate that based on the iOS market share vs Android market share (which is likely a huge underestimate due to the fact that the majority of Android users are in global south countries, whereas Commons contributors are underrepresented there, but let's go with that as the baseline minimum), then multiply it by $160 (the cost of a Nokia 4.2, which is the cheapest Android phone I could find on AndroidCentral's list with a decent camera). 6131 * 13.4/86.6 * 160 USD = 151,788 USD. This does not include shipping and time costs.

Best, Misaochan (talk) 16:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Nemo bis:, it's crazy idea. If someone use the iOS device, its not possible to force him to use Android device for upload some pictures to Wikimedia Commons. At endorsements you can see, that some people uses iOS devices. And iOS users are Wikimedians and Wikimedia Commons uploaders - its freedom of choice. And most importantly - some iOS users, which are not wikimedia commons users now, take a photos of certain things and places and can upload that ... --Frettie (talk) 18:48, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to share a page that is possibly related to the discussion: Why apps?. It covers in general the app teams rationale for writing native apps. Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 18:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Add structured data elements?

Hi Misaochan -- as an iOS user, I'm excited to see this proposal, for all the reasons you already know. Thank you for pursuing it. I looked over the list of features you're planning, and I'm interested to know if you considered including the ability for users to add structured data to the photos they upload. In particular, I am thinking about depicts statements, which are now part of the standard upload workflow from the web browser on Commons. I know you're probably planning a minimum viable version for the first release of an iOS app, so I understand if not everything makes the cut. I just wanted to flag that this could be a valuable inclusion, so that more images have structured data that makes them easy to find and use in the other Wikimedia projects. Thank you, and let me know! -- Cloud atlas (talk) 05:32, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Cloud atlas, thank you for your feedback! :) I agree that structured data is a valuable inclusion - we have this planned for the Android app already and it should be done by the middle of this year, but I couldn't seem to find a way to fit it into this proposal for iOS. Do you feel it would be worth it at the expense of other iOS features in the proposal - for instance, if we take out "Explore" in Phase 3 (the ability to browse other photos on Commons) and replace that with Structured Data instead? That could be doable if users want it. Misaochan (talk) 10:28, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response, Misaochan. I looked back over the list of planned features, and I think that structured data is not more important to me than any of the other features in Phase 1, but it is more important to me than most of the "nearby places" features in Phase 2. The reason is because I'm a strong believer in structured data, so I would want any photos I upload to have it. In other words, I kind of see it as a basic feature relevant to all photos, which I would also happily apply to photos I upload via "nearby places" and later features. -- Cloud atlas (talk) 06:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Cloud atlas Hmm, that makes sense, it is true that structured data is more relevant to core upload functionality than a few of the other features. I don't think I would remove Nearby from the proposed iOS features, as that is our most popular feature on Android, but I figure we can replace either "In-app user talk notifications" in Phase 2 or "Explore" in Phase 3 with structured data integration. I'll email the PG team and see if it's OK for me to make those changes at this stage, and if we get the green light we can do that. :) Thanks for suggesting this! Misaochan (talk) 11:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Cloud atlas: Done, made a modification to Phase 3 to allow for the addition of captions and depicts statements to uploads. Misaochan (talk) 15:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Some feedback and questions

Hi,

I'm just halfway though reading the proposal. I'm a bit daunted after seeing the amount of content in the "Project plan" section. Hoping to cover it soon. Just wanted to share some feedback that I've got so far.

1. A mail related to the proposal was sent to the mailing lists. It would be nice to link to it in the "Community notification" section.
2. There was a mention of "commons app stats" tool. Adding a link to it would be nice too. I'm suggesting this in the assumption that there's a GitHub repo for it. If not, kindly ignore :-)
3. Just for the sake of clarification. We don't have worry about expense of publishing the app to Apple's store as we publish using Wikimedia account. Is that correct? Have we asked them if they are fine with publishing the app once it's ready?
4. What is meant by "... preventing it from fitting with the Wikipedia app ..." Is it about interaction between the Commons app and the Wikipedia app?

-- Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 18:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Kaartic, sorry about the length! :) The "detailed breakdown of tasks" sections are mostly skippable - they are just implementation details that I included so that everyone is on the same page on what exactly we will be doing. The "deliverables" sections above them contain the "TLDR" versions.

1. Done.
2. The tool is broken at the moment. :( I pinged whym (the maintainer), so hopefully it will be fixed soon.
3. Yes, we have talked to Joshua Minor et al. from the WMF iOS team, they are OK with having it published under their account as long as it is a native Swift app.
4. This was related to publishing it under WMF's account, my interpretation of their words was that if they are publishing both apps, it would look strange for one of them to be completely thematically different (or inferior in terms of quality) I guess.

Thanks for your feedback! Misaochan (talk) 10:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Misaochan,

Please don't be sorry about the length. I really love things when they are comprehensive. The thing is, it inherently takes more time to read it. But it's for the good.

"The "detailed breakdown of tasks" sections are mostly skippable" - Thanks for this advice! I did just that. I've added my endorsement and have planned to read the "Project plan" section. :)

Thanks for the responses! Glad to hear that the WMF is fine with publishing the app in their account. It would help in a lot of ways. On a related note, it seems even the WMF doesn't have to worry about the Apple Developer Program membership fee anymore. Apple is waiving the fee for eligible organizations (ref). As WMF is a nonprofit organization they qualify for the waiver. -- Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 19:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Some checks in order to avoid copyvios

The project is great, but I fear that the app will be used to upload files taken over the Internet.

I know that it would be a strong limitation to the user's possibilities, but wouldn't be possible to restrict the uploads via the app only to files with EXIF data matching the uploading device? This simple check would give more guarantees that the upload is the uploader's work. Thanks --Ruthven (msg) 17:23, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ruthven, thanks for your feedback. I understand and share your concern about copyvios; however, historically the number of files uploaded via the Android app that required deletion, have been low. And even this low number has been decreasing in recent quarters, as we implemented tutorials/tooltips, warnings, and checks that guided the user into understanding what sort of uploads are appropriate. These features will be present in the iOS app from the very first minimum viable product in Phase 1.

The upload restriction that you mention would be harmful to a few of our power users, who use their camera (DSLR etc) to take photos of places that need them, and then upload them via our app to make use of the category suggestions, or automatic p18 edits, etc. While these users are few in number, they are the ones least likely to upload copyvios, so I'm not sure that restricting them is a good idea. Also it's quite frequent for users to buy a new phone, copy all their files/pictures over via automatic sync, and then continue uploading from there - again this is a situation where the EXIF would not match.

If you've looked at the upload histogram I linked above, and are still concerned, we could talk about alternative options to implement, perhaps.

Best, Misaochan (talk) 09:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

@Misaochan: Thanks for your feedback. I understand your concerns, and I understand them perfectly. Actually the statistics you liked are not very encouraging (but for the very last quantile). It looks that the deleted uploads are generally around 10%, which is HUGE. I would aim at 0,001%. But of course we don't know if the files were deleted because some users downloaded their entire photostream, using Commons are they use Flickr of Facebook. We have had some cases like that in the past.

This arises another concern: to put some limits to the number of uploads, or to recognise how similar are the images in one upload batch. I fear that users upload tons of non-educational photos, taken with the "burst" option for instance, and that the Commons' users have to check them and open Deletion Requests, wasting everybody's time. Again, I know that using automated techniques for performing this task is challenging, e.g. the concept of "distance" between images in not clear even to researchers in Machine Learning. But we have to prevent abuses before even having to delete the files. Cheers --Ruthven (msg) 10:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ruthven, I've been meaning to ask, are there statistics for the deletion % of images uploaded via the Upload Wizard? From everything that I have heard our percentage is not any higher than the "usual" deletion %, but I have not been able to find direct statistics about this. While of course we should all aim for 0.0001%, I don't think that the app will be singlehandedly capable of doing this if the default/official upload option is not.

Machine Vision is actually something that we are talking about implementing for the Android app. :) We have not got all the details yet, and I am not certain what the outcome will be. But if it turns out to be workable, it could be a future addition for the iOS app.Misaochan (talk) 10:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, Round 1 2020

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for Round 1 2020 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 16, 2020.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for Round 1 2020 will occur March 17 - April 8, 2020. We ask that you refrain from making changes to your proposal during the committee review period, so we can be sure that all committee members are seeing the same version of the proposal.

Grantees will be announced Friday, May 15, 2020.

Any changes to the review calendar will be posted on the Round 1 2020 schedule.

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia  · org.

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Reason for removal of iOS app

Dear Misaochan,

I am following up on our recent call to publicly post the reasons I shared with you that we cannot review your proposal for the iOS app, though we are happy to proceed with review of your revised proposed for work on the Android app. No response is required from you to this post, since we have already discussed it in a live call, though of course you are welcome to post feedback.

Project Grants Guidelines and criteria allow the Wikimedia Foundation's software development staff to make an eligiblity determination based on perceived sustainability of the proposed project. The goal of Project Grants is to fund sustainable software projects that can be fully maintained by the volunteer community and are not dependent on ongoing support from the Wikimedia Foundation. The current Commons app on Android has not yet demonstrated sustainability, having so far been significantly dependent on ongoing funding from the Wikimedia Foundation, with three grant awards approaching $100,000 in total. Your work on the Android app has been successful, but we would like to see the app reach a sustainable state, in which ongoing maintenance and support can be independently managed by the volunteer community without support from the Wikimedia Foundation. Because this is not yet clear, technical staff in the Wikimedia Foundation have recommended against developing a new iOS app at this time. Software proposals that are recommended against by Foundation technical staff cannot proceed with review.

Staff acknowledges that setting the iOS target is understandable given its reach, but believe this work would require dedicated staffing, either through Wikimedia Foundation staff, or ongoing grant support. So, again, the concern is about the sustainability of a grant-funded iOS app, not about the development of an iOS app, in general.

I regret that the Program Officers who over see Project Grants marked this proposal eligible for review prematurely, not realizing that your proposal had not fully cleared the eligibility check from software development staff. As we shared in our call, this oversight did not become apparent until much later than would usually be the case because of the significant disruption to the review process caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm sorry for any impact this delay caused you.

Misaochan, we appreciate your work to update the proposal and are glad to be able to proceed with review of your project at this point.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 01:55, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Round 1 2020 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, US$76,500

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support further improvements to the Android app for Commons, including campaign integration focused on Wiki Loves Monuments. As discussed over email, we are increasing your award by $15,000 over what you have requested, per your feedback on what it would cost to integrate the requests from Wikimedia Foundation software development staff, as follows:

• The test coverage target should be “80% - 90%”, not 50%.
• The crash rate target should be 0.1%, not 0.5%.
• The team should discuss with the Commons community acceptable ways to make app installation as an option more prominent in the Commons user experience (e.g., tasteful native app install prompt, addition to mobile web Special:Upload page for Android anons, presence in Commons:Welcome and/or possibly other parts of the funnel, www.wikipedia.org placement once crash rate acceptably low - requires coordination with Web team, there may be more).
• Collaboration with the Wiki Loves Monument team design for campaign integration, including ways to make sure the app is discoverable through WLM landing pages, emails or whichever mediums are relevant, in order to increase awareness and user acquisition.

In addition, WLM international organizers have requested the following:

• engagement with WLM organizers throughout the process of work on the app
• measure number of countries that adopts the app
• measure number of individual uploaders (rather than uploads) through the app for the competition

We will follow up with you to discuss their requests further. Congratulations on your award.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
2. Review the information for grantees.
3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
4. Start work on your project!

Upcoming changes to Wikimedia Foundation Grants

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.