Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Pratik/VideoWiki 2019

Application received

Hi, pratik.pks, thank you for submitting this new rapid grant application! Please note that we have received a high volume of applications, which may delay our response. Also, please see our email about the status of your report for your previous VideoWiki grant. Many thanks, LSmith (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@LSmith (WMF):Thank you for the prompt response. Since we won't be putting any previous grant funds towards this new request (as the previous grant funds will have a runway only till 15 February 2019), and as instructed by you in the email response, I will mark the first grant report for review by its deadline - 31 March 2019.

If you have any further queries, do let me know. --Pratik.pks (talk) 09:12, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Comments from WMF

Hello pratik.pks, thank you for your patience as we review your proposal. I really appreciated you including the draft report from your previous proposal. I have a few questions for you.

1. It looks like your initial proposal is wrapping up on March 31st. But you've proposed this project to start on February 25th. The overlap doesn't quite add up for me. Since this project is a follow up to that one. It would make more sense to me for your new project to begin on April 1st. Does that make sense to you?
2. If you're already done with your project in less than the six months you've initially proposed, do you feel like you need to adjust your new proposal for a shorter timeline as well?
3. Do you think you'll be finishing the tool by the end of this proposal? The idea of rapid grants is to have a stand alone project however from your proposals I'm understanding that you're building a bigger project piece by piece. If that's the case this is a better proposal for project grant. If you would like to continue with this proposal I would advise you to get it to a point where it can be tested well and after August take it into Project grants so you can do it as a larger project.

Looking forward to getting your answers to these questions and proceeding to next steps. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Response from Applicant

@WJifar (WMF): Thanks for going through the application in short notice and raising valid concerns. I hope my answers are satisfactory.

1. The initial proposal's wrap date was mentioned as March 31st. However, if things go well, we will be able to finish the first grant's work by February 15th. I had kept a 10 day buffer (for any contingencies/delays), and consequently proposed this 2nd grant project date to begin on February 25th. That was the logic behind the arbitrary sounding February 25th start-date.

2. The project features mentioned in this grant would be completed in approx. 5 months (ideally). However, what I have learnt from the first grant is that we will have a lot of important feedback/requests from the users which we will have to incorporate on a continuous basis (apart from building the features mentioned in this grant). A few examples of such features not mentioned in the 1st grant but we had to work on it because of user feedback are:

• Auto-update Button for users to update a VideoWiki article on real-time basis.
• Optimizing VideoWiki's front end to load VideoWiki's home page from 15 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Verifiability - Building Visual and Audio References for each slide on VideoWiki.

Further, this time around, I am conducting a community call (instead of a 1-to-1 chat) to update the progress of VideoWiki and will solicit feedback on the features that we are building. Therefore, based on the 1st grant's leanings, I feel that a 1 month buffer is reasonable to accommodate the features that will be suggested by other users during this community call.

3. Ideally, I wanted to apply for a Project Grant this month (January) so that we have a continuous steam of funds to support the software development process; however, since Project Grants are bi-annual in nature, Round 2 of 2018 grants is already closed and if we apply to the next round which will open in a couple of months, the funds will be disbursed to us in August/September 2019. Therefore, this Rapid grant will allow us to continue the software development process till August and allow us to be in a good position to demo this tool to the larger wiki-community by August. As advised by you, post August, the funds from the Project Grant (if selected) will be used to continue the software development of VideoWiki.

Thanks for patiently reading the responses. If you require further clarification or have any other queries, do let me know. I would be happy to clarify. --Pratik.pks (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Additional Comments from WMF

Hello pratik.pks, thank you for providing these responses to my questions. I understand the timing issue and totally understand how you're going about that. I also appreciate you listing out the different project features you've been able to accomplish. That's great. I have two follow up questions for you:

1. I see in your grant report that you've already expended $1182 in software development as opposed to the $850 you initially proposed. Is that going towards the additional features you mentioned? Also if you could in your report show the number of hours as you have done in your report it would be easier to follow the budget from proposal to reporting. I know your report is not complete yet so I thought I would offer that feedback now.
2. I absolutely understand the reasoning behind approaching rapid grants with this request given the timing of the Project Grants rounds. However, I would like to reiterate rapid grants is meant for stand alone projects therefore I would like to ask what your plan would be if you receive this grant but you're not selected for a project grant in August. Would VideoWiki be able to function without the additional funding or would you need to return to rapid grants? If so, that would be outside the scope of the rapid grants program and we wouldn't be able to continue to fund this project.

Please let me know your answers to these questions and we can proceed with next steps. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Response from Applicant

@WJifar (WMF): Thank you for giving valuable feedback and raising genuine queries. I hope my answers are satisfactory.

1. Yes, the already expended $1182 in software development (as opposed to the $850 initially proposed) is going towards the additional features I mentioned. Thank you for your feedback. You are absolutely right, I will get back to Hassan (the developer) and ask for a detailed hour by hour breakdown for each feature and update the First Grant Report by the end of next week.

2. Even though VideoWiki's tech can be currently "demo-ed", the "core features" of VideoWiki is still not complete. Using this rapid grant, we will be able to reach the stage where VideoWiki's video editing technology will be more or less complete. With respect to our fundraising plans, we are also actively looking to seek external funding and hoping to close a deal by August 2019. Therefore, if we receive this grant but do not get selected for a project grant in August, we will hopefully have some external backing to rely on.

I have understood the scope of rapid grants and will ensure that we won't return to rapid grants if we aren't able to secure a Project Grant or external funding during August.

Thank you for once again for patiently reading my responses. Let me know if you have any further queries. I will be happy to clarify.

Approval

Hello pratik.pks, thank you for responding to all my questions. I am approving your grant request. Looking forward to seeing the outcomes of VideoWiki. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

@WJifar (WMF): Thank you for asking some really crucial questions and accepting the request in such a short turnaround time. Appreciate it.