Grants talk:Project/Putnik/Wikidata editor for Wikipedia

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2017

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2017 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through 4 April 2017.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2017 begins on 5 April 2017, and grants will be announced 19 May. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Feedback on your proposal

Dear Putnik,

Thank you for submitting this proposal. I'm glad to see a known technical contributor seeking to address current needs for putting Wikidata closer to wiki editors.

My understanding is that there have been many discussions about this among Wikimedians and I want to ask you to use your problem statement to provide more context and background about the need you are seeking to address. If you haven't already done so, please watch the tutorial on the problem statement, the tutorial on the solution statement and the tutorial on goals. Because this is a big problem you are seeking to address, I think it would benefit your proposal to provide more specificity around how your project will feed into the larger solution that will probably continue to develop over time. Please feel free to ping me if you want more guidance about what I am asking for.

One of your goals is for your gadget to simplify the editing of Wikidata for Wikipedia users and increase the amount of statements added/transferred into Wikidata. You suggest that this can be measured by the number of edits made using the gadget, with a goal of at least 500 thousand edits in the first six months. How will you determine the baseline number of edits made without your gadget, so that you know whether or not your target reflects an increase in the amount of statements added/transferred into Wikidata?

Do you plan to get feedback from your target users about their needs prior to building this gadget? Do you plan to get feedback from target users after building the gadget? If so, with advance planning, you could easily come up with a survey question that would allow you to measure to what extent users experience your gadget as a simpler way of editing. If this interests you, you may wish to take a look at WMF's Survey Support Desk for help.

The Project Grants Committee will be reviewing and scoring proposals starting April 5, so I recommend that you respond to these questions before then. Ideally, it would be best to incorporate answers into your proposal directly, and also flag your answers on the talkpage, too.

Kind regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Questions from Superzerocool

Hi Putnik, thanks for your proposal. I have some questions:

1. Your activity description is vague... Do you have a timeline or plan to share?. I didn't see the i18n as part of your activities.
2. I don't see the community notification, how do you spread the word about your project to reach an initial support?.
3. Do you have a "community" priorities (ie: enwiki, eswiki, frwiki)?

Thanks for your answers. Regards Superzerocool (talk) 12:25, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Superzerocool: Thank you for your questions.
  1. I will publish a detailed plan this week. Internationalization will be. Which is very good when working with Wikidata, i18n almost always already exists and very rarely requires a manual translation. For example, on the right is my gadget for exporting data when the English language is enabled. It was created only for Russian Wikipedia, and so far no work has been done to translate it into other languages. Here also, most likely it will be enough to make a translation of the basic interface, and everything else will be taken from the elements of the Wikidata.
  2. Also will be very soon, I waited for eligibility review notice.
  3. I find it easier to work with communities with which I can interact. Therefore, Russian and English Wikipedias are more priority.

  — putnik 13:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Putnik:, thank you!. I really like the project and I don't want to wait to see it live! (if it will be granted). A last question, do you have a repo with the previous development or it's only on-wiki? (as you noted on proposal: the "simpler gadget"). Kindly Superzerocool (talk) 13:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Superzerocool: It's just on-wiki: ru:MediaWiki:Gadget-wikidataInfoboxExport.js. MediaWiki is not very friendly for scripting. — putnik 11:47, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@Putnik: Thanks for the link :). Regards! Superzerocool (talk) 11:53, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Questions from Atlasowa

Hi Putnik, this and this looks very interesting! A few questions:

• "Export of qualifiers and footnotes" is a really important, amongst the most important parts of the project! Will you rely on earlier/ other tools for this? Which? MediaWiki:Gadget-DuplicateReferences.js [1]? https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tools/User_scripts#Sourcerer ? https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/sourcery.html ? Or others?
• How will you inform users that their contribution will not be under CC-BY-SA/Wikipedia licence, but CC-0/Wikidata licence?
• Are you familiar with the outcome of Wikigrok experiments? (d:Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions/Bot/WikiGrok, mw:Wikimedia Research/Guerilla testing Wikigrok commons:Category:WikiGrok) and the MobileFrontend Infobox alpha project?
• This tool will allow vandalism on a new scale. Wikidata links in spanish WP infoboxes resulted in more wikidata vandalism (d:Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2015/06#Revert_analysis). How will you minimize the problem?

--Atlasowa (talk) 11:51, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• @Atlasowa:
  • References: I do not yet understand how I could use some of the existing scripts. In fact, there is nothing special there, just using the API, and all the code needs to be adapted for specific use.
  • License: I added a notification to the description and the gadget window as soon as you wrote about it. I think that in the long term the best option will be the same use as in the Wikidata (a notice that can be hidden).
  • WikiGrok: I studied the materials that I found, and I think WikiGrok is very interesting. But still, this project is based on a fundamentally different approach. WikiGrok offers to guess the facts to casual users who read the article. I'm offering a tool for the editors of the article, which supposedly understand the subject of the article.
  • Vandalism: I believe that any tool that reduces the entry threshold, simultaneously increases the number of both vandal edits and useful edits. For Spain, the percentage of vandalism is not the greatest of all. Reduce the percentage of vandalism is worth, including through tags and verification of restrictions. But I do not see a critical problem in the fact that some percentage will still remain.

  — putnik 00:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

WikidataInfoboxExport gadget example (en)

• @Putnik:
  • Re: References: Can you please explain how you will do "Export of qualifiers and footnotes" (ru:Википедия:Гаджеты/Экспорт в Викиданные / gtranslate to english)? Apparently you don't plan to actually build that. The gadget should at least prompt for a reference URL (P854) for added statements. That is the absolute minimum.

--Atlasowa (talk) 08:13, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

• • • @Atlasowa: Oh, now I understand your proposal. I think that the possibility to indicate the source is a very good idea. Now the gadget exports the source to Wikidata only if it is already specified in the HTML code. I do not think that there should be very strict restrictions, considering that all the same can be entered from the Wikidata itself without restrictions. But there should be clues that help the user to do better. In the gadget for editing, fields for entering sources will be unambiguous, and I will try to make them as clear and automated as possible. In the export gadget, they are not yet available, but I'll think about how they can be added to it, without making the form more complicated. — putnik 11:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Fix Wikidata first

One of the most common types of infoboxes is for a person, and contains the person's birth and death date. However, Wikidata is not prepared to receive this data because it insists all dates are unambiguous instants in time, with a mandatory associated time zone. However, precision better than 1 is not supported and entering any time zone except Universal Time is not supported. Wikidata should be fixed to accept local time with no indication of time zone, so that editors can simply copy the date from the source. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

End of data quality?

One of the main activities at Wikidata is to try and reduce the amount of error; these errors are often imported from Wikipedia. An obstacle is that many users won't stop importing errors from Wikipedia (if it is in Wikipedia, it must be true!).

At the moment it is already fairly easy to edit Wikidata coming from a Wikipedia page, and the results are mixed. If it is made easier, vandalism and errors will increase in Wikidata. - Brya (talk) 16:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• At the moment, for the average user, it is rather difficult to understand in general that he/she need to go somewhere from the page to edit the information displayed on Wikipedia (if you are talking about using data in Wikipedia). In general, the same problems that were discussed at the moment of enable of the VisualEditor (now editing will be even easier), but so far there seems to be no statistics showing that the VisualEditor has increased the number of errors or vandalism. But at the same time for many new users, editing has become much easier. — putnik 02:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Basically this proposal is about allowing users who don't understand what Wikidata happens to be to enter data into Wikidata. When it comes to items where there are multiple items with the same name I would fear that users choose the wrong one. Ideally I would want a system where constraint violating edits can't be made via this interface. ChristianKl (talk) 10:08, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
    • @ChristianKl: I think that this is possible, at least in part. In the gadget that works now, the part of the restrictions specified in the properties is checked. I think that working with them should be very accurate, for example, it's possible to show warnings. — putnik 23:45, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
• "Increasing editing difficulty increases data quality" is not a Wiki principle. We believe that the opposite is true. Syced (talk) 03:14, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Editing of Wikidata properties directly on the linked Wikipedia page, without opening Wikidata

In the past that way a lot of errors (e.g. wrong external id's) are copied from ruwiki to Wikidata. So I don't think this approach will improve the overall quality. --Succu (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you provide more details here? I remember you were reverting some of my changes in taxons, but most of them were not imported from ruwiki. May be we can do some more quality checks in gadget to reduce probability of errors --Ghuron (talk) 16:31, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Three concerns

I have three major concerns with this project proposal:

• As indicated already by other users on this page there is a huge problem of data quality. I understood wikidata in part as a project which could help to improve the data quality and consistency in wikipedia. This aim would be undermined by the project as is. This concern could be taken care of by including measures into the project which would help to check the accuracy/consistancy of data. But as far I can see neither here nor in his proposal user:Putnik addressed this serious concern.
• The project is addressed not only to the Russian wikipedia, but as priority also to wikidata and the English wikipedia and in the end to all wikimedia users and all wikipedias. This would imply for me that at least users of the English wikipedia and people on wikidata understanding English should in some way have a possibility to get involved (testing, pointing to bugs, pointing to special problems on sites other than the russian wikipedia, adding feature requests ...) during the time of the project. The experience with Grants:Project/Putnik/Wikidata module doesn't bode well in this regard. I don't see any way I could contribute to this project in the ways indicated, although the project already is past its midterm report.
• user:Putnik didn't react to any comment on this page after 5 April 2017 (the date of the begin of the formal review). The last time he interacted with his user page here except by archiving it was 13 May 2013. The last time he responded in English on his wikidata discussion page was 11 February 2016. I think somebody doing development for the wider wikimedia community should do better in this regard. 123 (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

About your first bullet: Some people believe such a tool is a bad idea, some people believe such a tool is a good idea. The only way to go forward is to develop the tool and test it on a small scale, then measure the results.

About your second bullet: Interesting, I did not follow that project, so could you please be very specific and include examples of actual problems that happened?

About your third bullet: That talk page only contains automatic weekly bulletins, if I am not mistaken. Why should Putnik "respond" to them? Cheers! Syced (talk) 05:08, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

First I find it noteworthy that I posted my concerns on 12 April 2017 and only on 23 May 2017 somebody bothered to address them - after user:Putnik on 19 May 2017 announced "the last stage of consideration". Then to the three bullet points:

• First bullet: To go just by trial and error is very bad policy. Trying to address concerns directly and intelligently a much better one.
• Second bullet: My concern is that people outside the Russian wikipedia and not knowing Russian don't have any way to accompany a project (which claims to be relevant to many other wikipedias and wikimedia projects) in any meaningful way. After I raised this concern it would be Putnik's (or yours) responsibility to indicate ways how peoples not knowing Russian could accompany this project. Nobody bothered to do so. (And of course, I didn't simply rely on people telling me how to accompany this project, I actively searched for such ways, and didn't find any one.)
• Third bullet: I spoke about three different pages and on at least two of them Putnik isn't answering questions put to him. On his wikidata discussion page he actually reacted to my question of the 8t of April on the 12th. On my immediate reaction he never answered. And he never answered to a question put to him on the 22nd of April by Jura1. 123 (talk) 01:53, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Wikidata editor for Wikipedia

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	7.6
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	7.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	7.8
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.8
Additional comments from the Committee: The project may not point to a strategic objective of WM, but it will help users to improve the quality of data in Wikidata. The online impact would be great! The project fits with Wikimedia's strategic priorities and has potential for a big online impact though not necessarily a positive one. Since it is a gadget I think that it can be sustained, scaled and adapted quite easily. While the edits done with the tools would be nice, the main impact I see with this proposal is the improvement of Wikidata's acceptance within Wikipedia communities. It might enable more people to edit Wikidata. It is probably not sustainable at all -- as Lydia says, there will be a better long-term solution. The metrics are clear: one gadget written, and users who use the gadget to contribute in Wikidata will be quantifiable. The project is more iterative in nature. The risks appear to be small in that a gadget will be eventually developed. The success can be reliably measured. I am concerned that there is a very significant risk of rejection of this idea by the Wikidata community in the same way as Commons community rejected cross-wiki uploads. I would like to see a strategy to prevent this. The budget and skills are fine. The project can be accomplished in the specified 16 weeks and the budget appears to be realistic. The participant appears to have necessary skills/experience. *Applicant has the necessary skills/experience. Budget (salary) could be less. Budget is OK and the grantee has necessary skills and experience. My major concern is that if the problem is complicated for WMDE, then probably this is something that cannot be done in 3 months by one person. Limited only to two wikipedias. There is definitely a community support but outreach efforts could be better. Community support is noticeable. The applicant has not been responding on the talk page, not sure he will be able to meaningfully engage with the Wikidata community if they perceive his gadget to be harming Wikidata in some way. In addition, there is no diversity support (the gadget may work with ruwiki only, and not clear how much efforts will be needed to adapt it to other wikis). I'm concerned because there is no progress report for March for the previous project, but it isn't completely clear that the project is complete. (It appears to be, though, since they are moving it to Udmurt wiki.) There is some feedback from Erik Zache about frwiki and fiwiki that I think is important but it seems to have been heeded. Lydia P's endorsement shows that this is useful experimentation. I think that is helpful. Low cost for a valuable, needed feature. I support funding this project but the applicant should take into account some valid concerns that community members have expressed: that the gadget will increase amount of vandalism in Wikidata, that the quality of information in Wikidata will be undermined and that some quality checks should be built into the gadget. Not the way we should proceed because this is a temporary solution and WMDE will generate a long term solution. Second, because this may be hard to internationalise, since it’s based out of ruwiki, without clear plan about how adaptation would happen to other wikis. And finally, there is a chance it will add potentially poor-quality data, make vandalism easier, or generate other potential problems that WMDE is currently reckoning with,so it might not be appreciated by the Wikidata community.

Round 1 2017 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee was supportive of this project, but they ultimately decided against funding it in light of the work already underway by Wikidata staff at Wikimedia Deutschland. They were reluctant to duplicate efforts through a grant-funded project.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

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