http://openitp.org/?q=openitp_first_round_of_2013_project_funding_now_open_…
OpenITP's first round of 2013 project funding is now open for proposals!
Deadline: 31 March 2013
"OpenITP project grants are meant to support specific technical efforts
to improve users' ability to circumvent censorship and surveillance on
the Internet. "Technical" doesn't have to mean software or hardware --
for example, we also consider efforts to improve user experience through
translation, testing, projects to improve documentation, meetings that
get developers together in person to solve specific problems, etc. The
main thing we're looking for is that your proposed project is finite
(e.g. has a deadline, is scoped) and contributes to OpenITP's core
mission of enabling freedom of communication on the Internet.
We're interested in all good proposals, but note we're especially
receptive to proposals that improve user experience (UX) and in
translation (of both software and documentation). Don't take that as a
filter, though: if you have a good proposal that's not about UX or
translation, we still want to receive it.
While our grants don't have a hard limit, they tend to be in the
$5k-$30k USD range: enough to fund a specific piece of work, or to
provide seed funding for a new idea, but not enough to be a primary
long-term funding source. Therefore we try not to burden applicants with
a lot of bureaucratic overhead and paperwork to apply for a grant. It's
enough to send us a brief description of what you have in mind, and
point to public URLs for further details. Since we only fund open source
work, we expect that most proposals we receive will already have been
discussed in publicly-archived forums anyway, and perhaps written up on
a public web page -- though there may be exceptions, such as projects
that are becoming open source but aren't all the way there yet. In any
case, we're comfortable clicking on links and reading stuff on the Web.
You're not required to package everything up in one PDF to make a
proposal. Just tell us what you want to do, make it easy for us to find
what we need to find, and we'll take it from there. We'll ask you
questions as we have them."
The page also includes examples of things OpenITP funded in their last
round. Please take a look! It would be *amazing* if someone could use
this opportunity to help people read and contribute to Wikimedia safely.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
https://maletsabisam.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/usability-guidelines-for-open…
FLOSS Outreach Program for Women intern Maletsabisa Molapo is working on
a usability guidelines project
"For our User Experience-at-large project, we are working on producing a
guidelines document on how human-centered design techniques can be best
incorporated into the development of Open Source software, to improve
the usability of open source tools....
"Our guidelines document will also seek to answer the question of how,
then, can open source tools be developed to cater for
internationalization and diversity? Recommendations will be made after
our discussions, surveys, and interviews with developers, designers,
product managers, and users.....
"The target audience of the document we are working on is the developers
and designers who contribute to FOSS projects, with focus on developers
of internet surveillance and censorship circumvention tools (free and
open internet tools), the kind that OpenITP particularly works on."
She's tsabi on IRC in case you want to ask her more.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://opensourcebridge.org/blog/2013/01/2013-call-for-proposals-now-open/
"Some talks from last year that we really liked and felt captured the
spirit of our event include:
Identity, Reputation and Gratitude: Designing for a Community,
Brandon Harris"
Congrats, Brandon! :-)
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
https://wiki.mozilla.org/MDN/Development/Contribute/Design
"Are you motivated to make software better? Do you have an eye for
design, usability, or user experience? The Mozilla Developer Network is
looking for motivated individuals to share their thoughts on changes we
make to the site. ....
"Explore your options. Take a look at our progress board
<https://mdn.kanbanery.com/projects/32137/board/>. Everything in the
Design column is ready for discussion. Graphic design, usability, user
experience, and even just opinion. Nothing it out of the question here."
Thought volunteers on this list might be interested in giving it a try!
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
I don't have a preference for whether we add the buttons or not, so long as
we don't do anything like what was suggested on the bug, i.e., add a list
of all the userjs- options and let users delete them one by one. I think
that'd be ridiculous and unnecessary.
*--*
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015
Major in Computer Science
www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo(a)gmail.com
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:26 AM, James Alexander
<jalexander(a)wikimedia.org>wrote:
> Thanks Siebrand,
>
> Hopefully we can get more comments in general but I'm going to sleep on
> this and try and respond tomorrow. I'm really worried that there is no good
> way to do this without making it really confusing ... but trying to come up
> with a good alternative. The only option I've come up with so far is
> a separated out 'repair' type option for people having issues (especially
> if it's just one button).
>
> James
>
> James Alexander
> Manager, Merchandise
> Wikimedia Foundation
> (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 8:28 PM, Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) <
> smazeland(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear designers and other stakeholders,
>>
>> Your input on the following please. If at all possible, please use the
>> bug -- https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/43960 -- for feedback.
>>
>> MediaWiki has a feature that allows JavaScript to set arbitrary user
>> preferences starting with "userjs-". They are currently in no way exposed
>> in the user interface. The bug requests "Arbitrary userjs- preferences
>> should be shown in the GUI, with the possibility of clearing them
>> one-by-one".
>>
>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/48576/ contains a patch set by Tyler
>> that "adds two new buttons to the reset form of Special:Preferences that
>> allow users to reset only registered site settings or only userjs- custom
>> settings. The main reset button still resets all settings as it has always
>> done."
>>
>> We know that our preferences can be very confusing. Adding two more
>> buttons to "do stuff to it" could potentially increase user confusion. I
>> have added Brandon, Munaf and Pau to this patch set as reviewers and I
>> added them as a CC to the bug.
>>
>> Before we are going in a direction with our Special:Preferences that may
>> be contrary to where (a) Wikimedia's designers want to go, or (b) could
>> increase user confusion, I think it is wise to gather some opinions on this
>> issue, and possibly the wider issue of preferences, that James Forrester[1]
>> at one point indicated he would be taking up as a project, but seems be
>> have stalled since then.
>>
>> Thanks for your input!
>>
>> [1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/27258/ (bottom comment states
>> "[..] we're waiting on availability of someone in Product (possibly me) to
>> work out a socialisation plan for informing the community of our intent to
>> significantly simplify preferences."
>>
>> --
>> Siebrand Mazeland
>> Product Manager Language Engineering
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>> M: +31 6 50 69 1239
>> Skype: siebrand
>>
>> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
>
Dear designers and other stakeholders,
Your input on the following please. If at all possible, please use the bug
-- https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/43960 -- for feedback.
MediaWiki has a feature that allows JavaScript to set arbitrary user
preferences starting with "userjs-". They are currently in no way exposed
in the user interface. The bug requests "Arbitrary userjs- preferences
should be shown in the GUI, with the possibility of clearing them
one-by-one".
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/48576/ contains a patch set by Tyler
that "adds two new buttons to the reset form of Special:Preferences that
allow users to reset only registered site settings or only userjs- custom
settings. The main reset button still resets all settings as it has always
done."
We know that our preferences can be very confusing. Adding two more buttons
to "do stuff to it" could potentially increase user confusion. I have added
Brandon, Munaf and Pau to this patch set as reviewers and I added them as a
CC to the bug.
Before we are going in a direction with our Special:Preferences that may be
contrary to where (a) Wikimedia's designers want to go, or (b) could
increase user confusion, I think it is wise to gather some opinions on this
issue, and possibly the wider issue of preferences, that James Forrester[1]
at one point indicated he would be taking up as a project, but seems be
have stalled since then.
Thanks for your input!
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/27258/ (bottom comment states "[..]
we're waiting on availability of someone in Product (possibly me) to work
out a socialisation plan for informing the community of our intent to
significantly simplify preferences."
--
Siebrand Mazeland
Product Manager Language Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
M: +31 6 50 69 1239
Skype: siebrand
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate