User:West.andrew.g/Flow funding

Welcome to the individual "flow funding" portal of West.andrew.g:


 * More about flow funding: The Flow Funding Initiative (FFI), currently in its pilot stage, is a component in the larger WMF grant structure. Relative to other funding avenues, FFI is unique in that it: (1) Decentralizes the funding process by placing large amounts of discretion/responsibility in individual "flow funders", and (2) Is a process with a (hopefully!) minimal amount of bureaucracy (e.g., no fixed deadlines, little formal paperwork) that is most appropriate for small monetary needs (i.e., <= $2000 USD).


 * The purpose of this page: Here, I provide a public portal by which community members can submit funding ideas for my consideration. I hope to achieve some clarity on the research/funding plan, come to an agreement on any expected deliverables, and make public my funding decisions.


 * My funding interests: Since I have funding discretion, I would prefer to oversee ideas that are *broadly* related to my research/editing interests. This will also prove helpful when I must report on how my funding decisions have furthered WMF strategic objectives. My userpage and C.V. should give you some idea of my expertise. I would love to see requests pertaining to: (a) Wiki security, (b) traffic analytics, (c) machine learning, (d) tool development (especially involving increased editor efficiency), (e) quantified wiki research, and (f) other efforts in the computer-science/HCI realms. That being said, I emphasize that this is a pilot project and encourage submissions that challenge these expectations.


 * Eligibility and other notes: My position only allows me to fund requests that meet WMF eligibility criteria. I also cannot grant any more than $2000 USD in any single instance (although one can re-apply at a later time). Funds cannot be used purchase labor that should normally be performed as the result of volunteer work. Given my computational focus, I would expect computing resources and corpus tagging (e.g., MTurk) to be among the requests; but as this is a pilot, please challenge the system. If I turn-aside/reject your request, you are free to contact another flow funder and try your luck with them.

To submit a request, please copy the "example section" below and populate it with your data:

Example request
Username(s) and affiliation(s): Who are you? What projects do you participate in? Any real-life institutions that are relevant?

Participant project roles: What does your project/research history look like? Why should I believe you can complete this work?

Concept abstract: What do you want to do? Why? What is the eventual output? How long will it take?

Impact on WMF initiatives: How does this help the project(s)? What is the expected impact/scope?

Amount requested & budgetary justification: How much do you want? Why is that amount appropriate? Why are cheaper/free alternatives inappropriate?

Video Tutorial Creation Request
Jackson Peebles: I am a Wikipedia editor with reviewer, rollback, course instructor, and account creator permissions. I primarily focus on welcoming new users, reverting vandalism, and minor copyedits. I regularly use the STiki and Twinkle software/scripts. I am an undergraduate student who is majoring in Behavioral Science at Western Michigan University and a member of the American Red Cross DSHR System and the IFRC, where I have specialized in digital media on behalf of the international organization.

Community Trust and Training: I wish to fully disclose that I have never undertaken a grant project for the Wikimedia Foundation nor made tutorials for others. However, I have vast experience in using the tutorials of others, including those of the IFRC, American Red Cross, Western Michigan University, FEMA, and numerous other entities. I have completed Adoption training from long-time Wikipedia editor User:Go Phightins! and am undergoing the final stages of CVUA training from user:Nerdfighter. I have garnered sufficient community trust to receive the account creator, course instructor, reviewer, and rollback rights. I am also open to editor review. Furthermore, I have been the recipient of multiple grants for my own research in other areas (mainly Speech Pathology and Audiology) and have never been found to have misappropriated funds, and all of my projects have been either successful or are still in progress.

Video Tutorials and Guided Learning: Per suggestions on project talk pages, I seek to create video tutorials using Adobe Captivate to guide users on how to utilize the STiki tool. I also hope to combine the CVUA and Adoption programs into a multi-stage tutorial that I would then incorporate into the US Education Project on Wikipedia in its own course page, which users could enroll in. Finally, I would seek community input for other tutorials and guided learning.

Impact on WMF initiatives: This project would benefit Wikipedia by enabling a greater amount of users to utilize tools that streamline Wikipedia vandalism correction, edit review, and good faith reversion. Furthermore, it would result in editors who are more experienced and able to deal with complex situations. It further ties in the Education Program, garnering additional publicity for the project and benefiting its users.

Amount requested & budgetary justification: I desire $299.00 for an educational Adobe Captivate license, $17.94 for applicable taxes for said software, $249.95 for a professional-grade headset (Sennheiser USA PC 360) for recording tutorials, $12.50 for shipping/handling for said headset, and $500.00 for an estimated 100 hours in labor compensation in excess of normal volunteer activities for the Wikimedia Foundation, including electricity and internet fees (which may be in excess of norms encountered). This totals $1079.39 USD.

--Jackson Peebles (talk) 05:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for proposing this! And of course the output of the project would be released under a free license so it could be incorporated into Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, etc. (see Licensing), right? It seems like there might be ways to trim costs. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 18:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * What do you propose to trim costs? Those are the best prices that I could find for the software/headset.  And yes, the output of the project would be the property of the Wikimedia Foundation (I would relinquish the license to them), and they would likely publish it, in turn, under the CC-BY-SA license.  --Jackson Peebles (talk) 22:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have a favorable view on the proposal and have forwarded it to my superiors for their review/consideration. If anything, this notion of "compensation in excess of normal volunteer activities" may prove problematic. It might also be helpful to start iterating towards possible tutorials that might be worthwhile. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I can see how that would be problematic. Go ahead and remove it.  I think that I've gotten to used to being compensated even for my "volunteer" research.  Let's bring this down to $579.39.  That can be passed along to your superiors, and I'm glad that you're enthusiastic about it.  I'd like to seek community input on what tutorials should be made.  --Jackson Peebles (talk) 05:06, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Assuming we proceed w/o the "compensation" aspect, I think all is well and I am prepared to approve the expenditure. I would like for you to make some formal statement regarding deliverables, though, just to get it on the record. I'm not sure what this should look like, but maybe something along the lines of: "I commit to produce a minimum of X tutorials with Y months time. They will uploaded to Commons. I will track my progress and be open to community input at location Z." With that, I will start the paperwork along. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 21:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Should there be a rough draft video submitted half-way in so that those with STiki familiarity could provide feedback on the editing process? How long should it take to explain STiki well? I think there should be a time limit. Maybe there could also be an outline draft proposal that can evolve (created as a User subpage, User:Jackson Peebles/STiki tutorial perhaps?) For example: Seconds 0 to 15 introduce vandalism concept on Wikipedia, mention other methods, introduce STiki of tutorial; seconds 15 to 25 introduce how to get STiki started on one's computer; Seconds ...; Seconds 150 to 170, how to report problems with STiki... This could help others provide useful feedback. Biosthmors (talk) 21:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I commit to produce a minimum of 5 tutorials, likely more, on the topics of STiki, Twinkle, the Reviewer right, the Rollback right, and the Account Creator right within 3 months time. They will uploaded to Commons. I will track my progress and be open to community input at User Talk:Jackson Peebles/Tutorials. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 04:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The request has been formally filed via the WMF:. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 05:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Jackson, there is a comment over at the above (talk) page, if you could give it your attention. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 05:48, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Due to conflict of interest concerns, this proposal has been moved out of the flow funding space and is now pursuing funding via the traditional WMF grants process. Interested users can follow along at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:Jackson_Peebles/Video_and_Interactive_Tutorials -- Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Wiktionary context labels extraction and analysis
Andrew Krizhanovsky: I am researcher in Institute of Applied Mathematical Research of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAMR).

My project is devoted to an extraction of information from Wiktionary and construction of machine-readable dictionary (database + GUI). Project page: http://code.google.com/p/wikokit/

I) The maximum goal (in distant future) is to extract all information (i.e. all sections of entry) from all wiktionaries and convert data to machine-readable database.

II) Today's result. Now machine-readable Wiktionary contains the following information extracted from Russian Wiktionary and English Wiktionary:
 * word's language and part of speech;
 * meanings / definitions;
 * semantic relations;
 * translations;
 * (*) quotations (text + bibliographic data).

(*) Quotations were extracted only from Russian Wiktionary.

III) The next step (supported by Flow Funding grant, I hope) will be an extraction and analysis of "context labels" from Russian and English Wiktionaries.

"Context labels" are very important lexicographic information, which could be used in many tasks of Computational linguistics (e.g. sentiment analysis, word sense disambiguation).

Participant project roles: I am programmer and researcher.
 * 1) Programmer: The software module to parse "Context labels" will be written in Java. The developend software will be available online at project site with open license.
 * 2) Researcher:  During several years my research was devoted to the quantitative analysis of Russian and English Wiktionaries and comparison with WordNet thesaurus, where the number of words in Wiktionary, the distribution of words for each part of speech, the quantity of monosemous and polysemous words, etc. were analysed (see publication). See list of my publications related to Wiktionary:

Research goals:
 * 1) To make an alignment of context labels in Russian Wiktionary and English Wiktionary.
 * 2) * It will be an interesting research, because there are several hundreds of different labels in both Wiktionaries, and they are not always correspond each other. See labels in English Wiktionary (wikt:Category:Context_labels) and labels in Russian Wiktionary (ru:wikt:Викисловарь:Условные сокращения). So, the first task of this research is to make an alignment of these labels in two Wiktionaries, because the result machine-readable database should have the same list of languages, list of parts of speech, and list of labels for both wiktionaries.
 * 3) To analyse a coverage and intersection of context labels in these two wiktionaries, to get list of unique context labels which are used only in one Wiktionary.
 * 4) To compare Wiktionary context labels with Wordnet Domains (see paper).
 * 5) To do quantitative analysis of context labels (number of usage of each labels, list of labels ordered by frequency, list of rare labels - it should be checked manually - possible errors in Wiktionary entries).

Results and deliverables:
 * 1) The open-source Wiktionary parser (wikokit) extended by the module to extract "context labels" from Russian Wiktionary and English Wiktionary.
 * 2) The machine-readable Wiktionary database extended by "context labels" extracted from Russian Wiktionary and English Wiktionary. These two constructed databases will be available online at http://code.google.com/p/wikokit/downloads/list
 * 3) The research results will be published in the paper. In this paper the quantitative analysis and comparison of "context labels" in Russian Wiktionary and English Wiktionary will be carry out. The preprint will be available online.

Impact on WMF initiatives:
 * 1) The open-source machine-readable Wiktionary extended by context labels could be used in oder to solve many computational linguistics tasks.
 * 2) The developed free Android applications (kiwidict and kiwidict-ru) are based on the machine-readable Wiktionary. So databases of these applications will be extended by context labels. These applications provide unique search possibilities which are not available at the Wiktionary site. E.g. you can search words in one (or several) language using wildcard search (% and _ symbols). So, Wiktionary editors can use these applications in order to search some information in English Wiktionary or Russian Wiktonary.
 * 3) The comparison and analysis of Wiktionaries will help editors to understand:
 * 4) * gaps and shortcomings in context labels system (in comparison with other Wiktionary);
 * 5) * which labels are frequently used and which labels are rare used?
 * 6) ** list of rare labels (possible errors) should be checked manually. This list will be provided to Wiktionary editors in order to check and correct Wiktionary entries.
 * 7) * list of frequent combinations of context labels (label pattern) used in order to describe one meaning in the Wiktionary entry.
 * 8) * how many entries in the Wiktionary with labels in total and for each language?
 * 1) * list of frequent combinations of context labels (label pattern) used in order to describe one meaning in the Wiktionary entry.
 * 2) * how many entries in the Wiktionary with labels in total and for each language?

Amount requested & budgetary justification: 2000$ This project will require 6-9 month. And it will be finished in this year (2013). The money will be spent on my salary during this project. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 09:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Response: -- Hi Andrew. This is a well thought out proposal that has obvious benefits for Wikimedia project(s). Unfortunately, in speaking with grant coordinators, funds for labor seem to be outside the scope of the flow funding initiative (and possibly other WMF grants?). Unfortunately, these are not policies I can be flexible with. Best of luck with your research. West.andrew.g (talk) 18:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * OK. Thank you for explanation. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 10:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * See note here. Ijon (talk) 23:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)