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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)

Why is Israel included in Western and Northern Europe

Geographically Israel is neither in Western or Northern Europe. --Minilammas (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Given the complex geo-political dynamics between Israel and other countries in the MENA region and closer economic and political ties with the European Union, we included Israel in the North Western Europe region. ABruszik-WMF (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

FTEs (full-time equivalents)

In my understanding, FTE is a unit of workload, and if an organization has staff members, their FTEs would be more than 0 (although it could be less than 1, if they have only one part-time worker). Why do some grant applications claim 0 FTEs? Does it matter if people work without pay? whym (talk) 08:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, I think they might just be doing it wrong. I don't think you can just say "we only have consultants" - you're meant to estimate the hours and figure out how many full time (40-35hr/week depending on the employer?) employees it's equivalent to. I mean, if they're not getting paid, that's fair enough, but is that actually the case, or is their rate just not specified? If they're working for free they should probably be called "volunteer staff" or the like. GreenReaper (talk) 05:26, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, in the first link they received 1/6 of the requested funding, and when they revised the grant application to match that, the FTE number was changed from 1 FTE and 2 consultants to 0. --Zache (talk) 07:41, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Good point that the funding was reduced, but I'd expect something like 0.1 or 0.2 FTEs instead of 0 in that case.

Some activities, especially volunteer driven ones, might be done on-demand and spontaneously and you might not even know if you are going to spend all of the fund eventually. However, it seems like the general support fund is more for regular, well-planned and predictable things. whym (talk) 08:49, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Is this FTE question not a priority in general? A grantee said that the WMF and/or the committee never brought up the issue when discussing the grant application privately. It's still not clear to me the "0" answer was a mistake, or there was a valid reason. The question is in Grants:MetaSync/Application templates/Wikimedia Community Fund v4: "19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)" whym (talk) 03:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

You could directly ask the reasoning behind the number from the grantee? About that the commitee never brought up the number in mid-term conversation, i dont think that is suprising. The discussions are generally pretty practical orientated (ie. what you have achieved, any highligts/problems, any differences compared to plans etc). So even if there is discussion about amount of employees it is not single number level, but more like if one have capacity and/or skills to targetted things. Btw. If you tried to ask JAUG to update the FTE number in application I don't think that grantee by themselfs can edit the application after it is approved. --Zache (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I asked and it's now confirmed that it was indeed a misunderstanding. I pointed out the possible misunderstanding in early May. If it was too late, when was not? (Or is there a better way to communicate other than a talk page thread?) whym (talk) 06:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Whym Sorry for the late question: I just checked (as person who submitted a grant). Grantee cannot edit the grant application when it is under review. Afaik 19 March 2024 was the date when the review started (diff) -- Zache (talk) 13:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC) (update: --Zache (talk) 13:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC))

Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund says "Applicants have a set time to make necessary adjustments or clarifications" after receiving review. So proposals can be "adjusted" as a result of reviews including community reviews, and it seems like the talk page is the venue for that. I admit that I made the comment late in the review period, but am I understanding it correctly that it would have been okay to talk about revisions in March-April at least. (Again, assuming that a "revision" is done by saying something like "the number X was wrong, Y is the right number", on the talk page.) whym (talk) 10:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

About the correct place: the talk page of the grant application is the venue. About the changes after the review. Based on my personal experience: We have only made changes that were requested (by the grant liaison or grant committee). For example, in 2024 WMFI applied for 130,000€ and the decision was 105,000€. Before the decision, there was a question in feedback on how the reduction would affect the project. After our answers, we got an email containing information on the expected approval sum and requests to update the sums and budget to match the lower sum. At this time, there was no need to update the application text itself. However, in some years there have been text change requests, also. In any case, in the 2024 application the reduced funding affected the full-time equivalent (FTE) as it reduced the work time of 2 persons from 12 months to 9 months. However, I didn't update the FTE number or program content as the only thing that was requested was to update the sums.(diff to my changes) --Zache (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

In my understanding, misunderstandings were made, and we can help preventing similar mistakes in future by making the question clearer - adding a few words (something like "In other words, this is asking your total working hours"), having a section in an explanation page, etc. How can we make that happen? Or is there reason not to do that? whym (talk) 10:14, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Here is current questions and help text: General Support Fund application form (documentation, v3.0) chapter 19. --Zache (talk) 13:16, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. So it seems like I was mistaken, too. I thought FTEs might include unpaid hours, but it sounds like they don't. (But it also sounds like I was right in that applicants failed to paid hours of part-time workers where they should have been.)

To make the guidance better, illustrative examples might help. We might want to include something like "For example, if you have 0 full-time employees and 3 part-time workers who only work in January-September, 40 hours per month, then your answer would be ____" The concept of FTE might be commonplace in some countries but not in other countries. I think examples help to have everyone on the same page. It can be especially confusing when many groups are too small to have even one full-time employee. whym (talk) 10:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It would be a good idea that grant applicants would explain how their FTE figures are calculated.

Ie. something like this:

• 1.5 FTE as as total
  • 1 FTE = coordinator 100% work time for 12 months
  • 0.5 FTE = project employee 100% work time for 6 months

--Zache (talk) 19:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Whym and @Zache, thanks for highlighting that the FTE-related questions can be confusing. We did not include the question descriptions into the meta pages but these descriptions are available on Fluxx, where applicants add their proposals. For question 19.1., the description states:

Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms (period of work)..

Would it be helpful if for future proposals, we add "Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period with their FTEs" into the question description? This will highlight the need to share FTEs for each staff member and clarify how the total FTE (Q9.2.) is calculated. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Time to archive?

This page has 26 sections now. Is it time to archive some of the older sections? I might suggest setting up automatic archiving with a 1 year threshold. whym (talk) 08:52, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Whym, thanks for suggestion. I tried to set it up. Would you please take a quick look? I was also not sure if it archives sections from past years as well; if not, I will move them manually. Thanks again! -- DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 12:32, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I changed it a bit, and this should work. [1] This is going to archive inactive sections retroactively, not just for sections created from now on, if that is what you asked. whym (talk) 23:31, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much! DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:38, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund: Sorry for marking as closed

I marked a grant application as closed at special:diff/26666393/26936975. I am told that I was in error, and I apologize.

My explanation is that I read the page and did not see information about when the grant would reopen. I am a native English speaker and sometimes when I do not understand, then if I study a page, I make the edit that would have informed me. I feel like if I cannot understand, then a non-native English speaker might also have trouble.

I read on the page that grants go in 2 rounds only, and that round 2 was over. Because of this I marked the application as closed until next year. I do not think there was information on the page saying that it would reopen. If I understand correctly now, the year starts with round 2, then round 1 begins in late summer. This confused but what I could have done differently is ask for clarification.

Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Bluerasberry, thank you for adding your note here. I see where the confusion was coming from and I appreciate your edit on that page. It created some misunderstanding because some viewers thought that the upcoming round 1 in 2024-25 fiscal year would be cancelled, and we would only have a round in 2025 (calendar year).

I agree that the round naming can be confusing, especially for those not familiar with the Wikimedia Foundation fiscal year dates. And you are correct that the round 1 begins in July-August; we call it "round 1 of the 2024-2025 fiscal year" to make it a bit clear.

If you notice other unclear details or missing info, please let me know on this or my talk page and I'll be glad to clarify and edit them in a timely manner. Thanks again! -- DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Renaming : Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund

Hello all, hello User:DSaroyan_(WMF),

I've been browsing and readings about possible grants and may have some suggestions.

Given the second leg (Technology) of the Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund have never opened and has officially been dismissed this past June 2024 (2024.06: « a decision has been made to not have a dedicated Technology Fund. »), could we formally reshape and rename this branch of 2~3 pages ?

• Grants:Programs
  • Level 1 subpage …/Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund should be further depreciated.
    • Level 2 subpage …/Wikimedia Research Fund, which is still active, should stand up by itself. Likely moved to Level 1 subpage Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research Fund, currently a redirect, you may ask an admin to fix it.
    • Level 2 subpage …/Wikimedia Technology Fund never existed, good ! Nothing to do.

Yug (talk) 13:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Technology Fund : alternatives

Hello @Addshore, Sophivorus, GreenReaper, SCP-2000, Rowe Wilson Frederisk Holme, I JethroBT (WMF), and KEchavarriqueen (WMF):,
In past 2+ years we kept in touch for possible start of the …/Wikimedia Technology Fund grants. As it staled I eventually looked for alternatives supports for my WM projects (Lingua Libre & SignIt) which critically needed tech support. Since March 2024 to September 2024 I therefore became a double Google Summer of Code mentor. As of June 2024 it was announced « a decision has been made to not have a dedicated Technology Fund. ». Also, sharing my experience navigating across WMF grants and partners programs may be beneficial to our discussion and the larger WM community, to help us WM tools leaders to reach out to relevant alternative programs. Below are the avenues I identified, successfully relied on (GSoC24), and the ones I still see as being at reach :

Grant avenue	Application and support	Comment
mw:Google Summer of Code	Once a year, Google sponsoring an intern for 75h, 175h, or 350h.	GSoC gave major boost to our project's visibility among junior devs. Applications process pointed ~7 relevant junior devs CVs to us. About 4~5 made a commit to our repository as part of the selection process. We successfully pursued the GSoC24 with 2 projects and 2 Indian interns, respectively, leading to major build up and progress. GSoC24 ended in September 2024. Post GSoC24, each project needs further support for « the last mile » at production level. Project 1, Lingua Libre Django: WMFR is on track to provide ~15,000 US$ for UI polishing, data migration, prod-level review, prod deployment in 2025. Project 2, SignIt : see « Grants:Rapid » below.
mw:Outreachy	Twice a year, Wikimedia Foundation sponsoring a minority intern dev with overall budget of 7,000US$ and 3 months workload.	I considered it but didn't knew of any junior developer from marginalized community (women, ethnic minority, LGBTQ) and suitable skill sets.
Grants:Rapid	Every 2 months, under 5,000US$.	I applied on Oct. 1st, 2024, with 15 workdays 3,000 US$ for coding for (former GSoC24 intern) and 8 workdays <2,000 US$ for managerial, communication, documentation & co (me). Result by November 15, 2024.
Product & Tech department	Anytime, budget to discuss. Send concise statement of the situation of required specifications (2024.06: « if community tooling is needed, the Product & Tech department will work directly with volunteers to develop a plan for building it (potentially using contract agreements vs. grants), alongside a plan for maintaining it. »)	I'm considering them, seems an avenue to master and the future of WMF community projects developments.

I will update this section further in coming months to share more. I would also like to create a community portal page such as Grants:Alternatives to documents together such grants-like support programs on the model of Grants:Programs.

I encourage you to explore those avenues to support your coding projects. Yug (talk) 10:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

A question about "fiscal sponsor"

Hello, I have a question about fiscal sponsor: Grants talk:Fiscal sponsorships § Open Source Collective. I hope someone can provide advice if possible. Thank you very much! Plantaest (talk) 19:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Grants table or dataset?

Can someone point me to a table or other dataset of historical WMF grants?

I'm summarizing NARWHAL programs and their status, and the historical and current grant-funded programs and associated reports are the best available starting point, but I haven't fond them all in one place. It would also be helpful to do some analysis across different subsets of the historical data. If that's not already gathered, it would be enormously useful... do we have internal research on grantmaking? cc @DSaroyan (WMF) as I believe you've been involved with most parts of the ecosystem lately :) –SJ talk  23:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sj, there is no public dataset available but I might be able to create one for your analysis. I just need to specify your request because we do not collect NARWHAL programs separately.

• Would the list of grants in USA, Canada, and Mexico work? Note, that in WMF's regional categorization Mexico is in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
• Do you only need grants by groups and organizations, or also by individuals? We fund individuals, unincorporated groups, and nonprofits. Wikimedia affiliates can be both unincorporated groups and nonprofits.
• Grants from which fiscal years do you want? WMF's fiscal year is from 1 July to 30 June, but I can also include grant dates for your reference.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello DSaroyan (WMF), thanks so much! For my current analysis, US/Canada/Mexico would work; I can also start with just US/Canada if that is easier. We're interested in groups, organizations, and individuals -- sometimes the question of what sort of org applies is secondary to the project and depends on what seems like the most expedient way to get support, and that's one of the facets we're interested in. (only grants that had public applications or reports)

I'd appreciate all dates that are convenient, since 2016 if possible, when this reports format started to be used. Including whatever programs were available each year (rapid / conference / research / tech / alliances / hub / general support / APGs &c.) –SJ talk  21:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Sj, I'll send the datasheet tomorrow. I'll include all years and programs for US, Canada and Mexico. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sj, here's the list.

• I have cleaned the list and removed some unrelated and cancelled grants.
• Individual grantee names are removed due to our privacy policy. You may find some of them on the grant application pages, but most of the usernames should be listed on the proposal pages.
• Midterm report link is also included if the grant program had such a requirement.
• Some reports are missing because their are either pending submission, or the grants are incomplete.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

This is absolutely fantastic. Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving! Two additional questions:

- Do you also have grant amounts handy?

- Do you have similar data for grant requests that were not funded? –SJ talk 

Hi @Sj, happy Thanksgiving to you too!

• Added grant amounts to the same table. For simplicity, I just included approved amount in USD.
• We don't have complete historical data on declined grants.

DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

FLUXX request: autosave

Please add autosave 😅. I lost 3 applications in process at this point for a small rapid grant, and there are so many steps... especially problematic when applying on the go / via mobile. The 100&Change tool is a nice counterpoint, for usability. –SJ talk  16:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC) (It autosaves in the form, shows you what % of the way through you are, and highlights required but empty fields. It also cleanly separates a one-minute "name, abstract, and team" for each application from the full details, and the former is used to generate initial visualizations of the field of applicants each round. –SJ talk  15:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC))

Hi @Sj, sorry for it. We know it is annoying and inconvenient and we raised this several times with Fluxx. For now, I can confirm that they are aware and working on the autosave feature, but I'm not aware of more details regarding the expected dates. DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the reply. I also just realized that every time one 'saves' it creates a new page on Meta at the end of that day if the title has changed, so a) for clarity the autosave I'd like is within the form itself, not on meta, partly for the title reason & for clarity about whether what one is writing is on a wiki or not, and b) it would be nice to have some indication when 'save to meta' is happening and what the target page will be.

I created a manual redirect on Meta for one such instance I generated (22894757 --> 22894808), couldn't find another way to indicate that the original name should no longer be associated with a draft proposal. –SJ talk  15:21, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Timeline for Wikimedia Research Fund

It would be great to have a standard annual timeline for the Wikimedia Research Fund cycle. The last cycle applications closed December 15, 2023, so myself and colleagues thought that this year's cycle would be announced by December 2024, but they haven't. Any details on when applications will open up would be helpful for research planning. Hexatekin (talk) 00:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)