Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Technical support for WMF's projects

Not funded

This grant submission from an group, organization, or individual in 2013-14 was not funded by the Wikimedia Foundation.

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Legal name of chapter: Wikimedia Česká republika
Grant contact name: Petr Novák
Grant contact user-name or e-mail: che
Grant contact title (position): chairman
Project lead name: Jan Lochman
Project lead user-name or e-mail: Juan de Vojníkov (juandevojnikov@gmail.com)
Project lead title (position), if any

Full project name: Technical support for WMF's projects
Amount requested (in USD): 8000
Provisional target start date: 2009-07-01
Provisional completion date: 2010-06-30

Project scope

This project aims to provide technical support for Wikimedia Projects, especially Wikiversity, through several subprojects focusing on lecturing volunteers as well as direct funding of software development and translation.

If this project is funded, we will advertise selection procedures and/or competitions for solving problems specified in #Subprojects. Afterwards, we will choose the best offers to complete these projects, analysis, workshops and others. Professionalism and costs will be the decisive factors. Some of the problems to be solved as part of this project are:

technical workshop for administrators of Czech Wikimedia projects to be skilled in technical issues
development of a technical lectures about MediaWiki and other related (e.g. CSS, JavaScript, PHP, HTML) software issues on the Czech Wikiversity
raising volunteer interest in technical problems of Wikimedia projects
file upload extension and software support on Wikiversity
development and implementation of extensions or tools for easier use of the projects etc.

Project goal

The goal is to improve technical situation of Czech and other Wikimedia Foundation projects, raise awareness about MediaWiki and possibly attract volunteer programmers to the wiki community to help with technical issues also in the future.

Specific goals are mentioned within each individual subproject, including teaching common administrators the technical issues to reduce the need of other investments to this area in the future. Successfully finished projects such as extensions will also help editors and readers in using WMF projects.

Budget

The funds will be used for individual #Subprojects. Their estimated maximal costs follow.

Technical workshop for administrators of the projects of WMF: 500 USD
Support of interest in technical needs of the projects of WMF: 1750 USD
Study of upload possibilities on Czech wikiversity: 350 USD
Software support for the upload extension on Czech Wikiversity: 1000 USD
Analysis on the possibilities of the user databases implementation to the WMF projects: 750 USD
Periodical changes of the highlighted resources on the Main Page, Special characters menu (Czech Wikiversity): 60 USD
Development of extensions and tools: 3000 USD
Translation of the new extensions and special extensions used on the Czech Wikiversity: 500 USD

(These numbers add up to 7910 USD which we rounded up to 8000 USD.)

Non-financial requirements

We will need a developer support for deployment of extensions developed as part of the #Development of extensions and tools subproject.

Fit to strategy

This project will increase efficiency of collaborative wiki projects, which form the basis of Wikimedia Foundation operations. Increased technical skills of the administrators will reduce workload of MediaWiki developers who are rare in the Czech wikicommunity.

Other benefits

We believe that the promotion action we will prepare together with the lectures on MediaWiki on the Czech Wikiversity will attract volunteer programmers to the wiki community, who will help with technical issues in the future.

Measures of success

The project will be considered successful if all #Subprojects are successful.

Subprojects

The units or subprojects that form this project are listed here. Each of these units is having a priority set, 1 being the highest. The most important subproject focuses on people training i.e. there will be not as many external inputs necessary in the future to tackle the technical problems as there will be skilled administrators and/or volunteer programmers.

For all prices calculations the actual exchange rate of the Czech National Bank was used 1 USD = 20 CZE was used (April 21, 2009).

Technical workshop for administrators of the projects of WMF

Priority: 1
Introduction: most of the administrators of the Czech WMF projects are not skilled in the technical settings which they can modify as administrators. It has been about one year when the possibility of the creation of "technical administrator" was discussed on the Czech Wikipedia. The use of MediaWiki is not difficult, the administrators should be able to use of technical knowledge in favor of the projects. In fact, there is nobody to educate Czech administrators the technical knowledge. Thus workshop on this issue for all Czech administrators and other interested people might help.
Objective(s): the aim of this project is to organize a one day workshop focused on WMF administrators on technical topics. The technical specialist will prepare a presentation to explain and answer the questions previously set. Workshop will be open also to other people interested.
Budget: 10 000 CZK (500 USD) (5000 CZK (250 USD) for the lecturer; 4000 CZK (200 USD) room cost; 1000 CZK (50 USD) other (i.e. Internet connection, light, heating, computer and projector, projection screen, audio/video recording etc.).
Positive evaluation: this project will be considered successful, if 95 % of the points to explain and answers will be explained and answered.

Support of interest in technical needs of the projects of WMF

Priority: 1
Introduction: To solve the present technical problems is one thing, but to have a technical support and/or solutions for future is another one. At present there are just a few users within the Czech community who further understand MediaWiki software and who are able to change and write it.
Objective(s): The aim of this project is to support a volunteer interest in technical needs of our projects. The secondary need is to develop e-learning course on MediaWiki and related software topics such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), Java Script, PHP or HTML on the Czech Wikiversity.
Budget: 35 000 CZK (1750 USD) (25 000 CZK (1250 USD) price for the winner of the competition for the best MediaWiki e-learning course + 15 000 CZK (750 USD) winner presentation and promo action).
Positive evaluation: MediaWiki e-learning course on the Czech Wikiversity.

Study of upload possibilities on Czech Wikiversity

Priority: 1
Introduction: Wikiversity is an educational and research project which needs to work with various file formats. The community of the Czech Wikiversity has agreed that all files which can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons can be uploaded there. However, number of file formats that are possible to upload on Wikimedia Commons and/or to the Czech Wikiversity is currently very limited.
Objective(s): the project analyst will have to get in touch with the needs of the Wikiversity, file politics and safety risks. He will have to negotiate the intended file extension with propper people, apply for this extension and take care for approval. Also the communication with Wikiversity community will be necessary. There will be also a requirement to prepare effective guidelines for future file upload extensions. He will have to negotiate the possible extension setting, which will help to the operations with new uploadable files. At last, he will have to estimate the time and code size for the programming of these extensions.
Budget: 7 000 CZK (350 USD) (price of a study on this topic and the possible subsequent implementation).
Positive evaluation: Czech Wikiversity will be configured for an extended file upload.

Software support for the upload extension on Czech Wikiversity

Priority: 2
Introduction: This project may be implemented if the previous project will be fulfilled. See #Study of upload possibilities on Czech Wikiversity.
Objective(s): The aim of this project is to write extensions supporting the extended display, upload/download and export of uploaded files (e.g files with curves representing measured data, possible conversion to svg, etc).
Budget: 150 CZK (7.5 USD) per hour (max. 20 000 CZK (1000 USD)).
Positive evaluation: at least beta version (support of the text files), which can be implemented to Wikiversity, alpha version for the professional graphics adjustment.

Analysis on the possibilities of the user databases implementation to the WMF projects

Priority: 1
Introduction: WMF projects contain lot of data, which would be useful to organize in a database-like structure with search options and automatic generation of lists. This project aims to investigace possibility of introducing these user-side databases to MediaWiki. Detailed description of the problem is available on Czech Wikiversity (in the Czech language).
Objective(s): The applicant will get in touch with the problem of the data organization within WMF projects and he will write an analysis including an estimate of difficulty of the solution. This analysis will be available for the discussion with the community. The applicant will be participating in the discussions.
Budget: 15 000 CZK (750 USD) (for the analysis).
Positive evaluation: This approved analysis will be used for a pilot project and it will be possible to evaluate the difficulty of the project (implementation difficulty, estimated time to fulfill this task).

Periodical changes of the highlighted resources on the Main Page, Special characters menu (Czech Wikiversity)

Priority: 2
Introduction: At this time, the highlighted resources (i.e. Featured project (Nejlepší projekt) and Highlighted resource (Představujeme…)) are inserted to the main page of the Czech Wikiversity manually. Featured resources are available from "Wikiverzita:Nejlepší projekty" (Wikiversity:Featured resources), Highlighted resources via "Wikiverzita:Představujeme…". Highlighting of the featured resources on the Main page is intended to show the quality of the project and alongside it to attract new possible participants. Those resources are usually the stable versions of e-learning courses and community learning or research projects, which are performed for the longer time, by more participants. The second highlighted resource "Představujeme…" is intended to support educational and/or research projects in development. Featured resources are linked directly from the main page, while "the list" of highlighted projects is available via the main page talk page. See also: v:cs:Wikiverzita:Technické potřeby/A (in the Czech language).
Objective(s): a) set the periodical changing of the highlighted resources on the main page of the Czech Wikiversity, b) create and implement a table with special characters available for all users, c) create new buttons for cs.wv default user tool bar.
Budget: 1200 CZK (60 USD) (price for whole contract).
Positive evaluation: the periodical rotation of resources on the Czech Wikiversity main page works, administrators are able to change them. Buttons added to the toolbar work as the table with special characters.

Development of extensions and tools

Priority: 2
Introduction: MediaWiki software was primarily designed for Wikipedia. Developing extensions for other wiki-projects is a way to make MediaWiki more usable for these projects, both for contributors and readers.
Objective(s): some of the extensions to be developed:
1. forum discussions visible in recent changes (LiquidThreads/AWC Forum)
2. quizzes with feedback (extension of current <quiz></quiz>)
3. sound, picture, video editors
4. musical notation editor
5. bookmarking, link and literature sorting (Bibwiki extensions)
6. better watchlist (chapter tracking for changes within one page)
7. etc.
Budget: 60 000 CZK (3000 USD) (price for all extensions (1 000 CZK/50 USD for a theoretical idea, design demonstration and synchronization with the submitted needs + 100 CZK/hour (5 USD/hour) of programming + 2 000 CZK (100 USD) per the activation and well performing of a new extension/tool.).
Positive evaluation: tested extension behaving according the assignment will be implemented to the project.

Translation of the new extensions and the special extensions used on the Czech Wikiversity

Priority: 3
Introduction: The presence of extensions and/or localizations in the Czech language allows their use not only within the projects of Wikimedia Foundation, but also in all open projects using MediaWiki software in the Czech language.
Objective(s): The aim is to translate all necessary localizations to the Czech language.
Budget: 10 000 CZK (500 USD) for all translations (1 CZK (0.05 USD) per word + 50 CZK (2.5 USD) per 1 extension proof read).
Positive evaluation: all requested localizations translated.