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)