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Presentation on UX design, mental models, and behavioral vs. survey data
by Pine W 09 Jun '18

09 Jun '18

I thought that this video, published in May 2018, was somewhat interesting and I am sharing it in case others are also interested. The presenter uses a change of design of Wikipedia's front page search box from 2010 (see https://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/06/15/usability-why-did-we-move-the-search-…) as an example, though I would hope that the lesson from this video isn't that it's okay to frequently disrupt the workflows of existing users with design changes regardless of the amount of complaints from existing users. The main points that I drew from this presentation are that interfaces should be intuitive and should have relatively light cognitive load. Those points may sound obvious to experienced UX designers, but may be of interest to people whose areas of expertise are in other domains. I also appreciated that the presenter shared an example of a situation in which people said one thing in surveys but behaved in the opposite way in practice. Here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxzK4sWfvH8 Regards, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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What percentage of digital assistants cite Wikipedia?
by Stella Yu 09 Jun '18

09 Jun '18

Curious, what percentage of digital assistants (Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google) cite Wikipedia when a person asks a question? Does the current Wikipedia mobile app support voice search? Are there any reports on this? Thanks in advance! Sincere regards, Stella -- Stella Yu | STELLARESULTS | 415 690 7827 "Chronicling heritage brands and legendary people."

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EventStreams offset reset - June 5 2018
by Andrew Otto 05 Jun '18

05 Jun '18

Hi all! *If you are not an active user of the EventStreams service, you can ignore this email.* We’re in the process of upgrading <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152015> the backend infrastructure that powers the EventStreams service. When we switch EventStreams to the new infrastructure <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T185225>, the ‘offsets’ AKA Last-Event-IDs will change. Connected EventStreams SSE clients will reconnect and not be able to automatically consume from the exact position in the stream where they left off. Instead, reconnecting clients will begin consuming from the latest messages in the stream. This means that connected clients will likely miss any messages that occurred during the reconnect period. Hopefully this will be a very small number of messages, as your SSE client should reconnect quickly. This switch is scheduled to happen on June 5 2018, at around 17:30 UTC. Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks! - Andrew Otto Senior Systems Engineer, WMF

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Machine-utilizable Crowdsourced Lexicons
by Adam Sobieski 01 Jun '18

01 Jun '18

INTRODUCTION Machine-utilizable lexicons can enhance a great number of speech and natural language technologies. Scientists, engineers and technologists – linguists, computational linguists and artificial intelligence researchers – eagerly await the advancement of machine lexicons which include rich, structured metadata and machine-utilizable definitions. Wiktionary, a collaborative project to produce a free-content multilingual dictionary, aims to describe all words of all languages using definitions and descriptions. The Wiktionary project, brought online in 2002, includes 139 spoken languages and American sign language [1]. This letter hopes to inspire exploration into and discussion regarding machine wiktionaries, machine-utilizable crowdsourced lexicons, and services which could exist at https://machine.wiktionary.org/ . LEXICON EDITIONING The premise of editioning is that one version of the resource can be more or less frozen, e.g. a 2018 edition, while wiki editors collaboratively work on a next version, e.g. a 2019 edition. Editioning can provide stability for complex software engineering scenarios utilizing an online resource. Some software engineering teams, however, may choose to utilize fresh dumps or data exports of the freshest edition. SEMANTIC WEB A machine-utilizable lexicon could include a semantic model of its contents and a SPARQL endpoint. MACHINE-UTILIZABLE DEFINITIONS Machine-utilizable definitions, available in a number of knowledge representation formats, can be granular, detailed and nuanced. There exist a large number of use cases for machine-utilizable definitions. One use case is providing natural language processing components with the capabilities to semantically interpret natural language, to utilize automated reasoning to disambiguate lexemes, phrases and sentences in contexts. Some contend that the best output after a natural language processing component processes a portion of natural language is each possible interpretation, perhaps weighted via statistics. In this way, (1) natural language processing components could process ambiguous language, (2) other components, e.g. automated reasoning components, could narrow sets of hypotheses utilizing dialogue contexts, (3) other components, e.g. automated reasoning components, could narrow sets of hypotheses utilizing knowledgebase content, and (4) mixed-initiative dialogue systems could also ask users questions to narrow sets of hypotheses. Such disambiguation and interpretation would utilize machine-utilizable definitions of senses of lexemes. CONJUGATION, DECLENSION AND THE URL-BASED SPECIFICATION OF LEXEMES AND LEXICAL PHRASES A grammatical category [2] is a property of items within the grammar of a language; it has a number of possible values, sometimes called grammemes, which are normally mutually exclusive within a given category. Verb conjugation, for example, may be affected by the grammatical categories of: person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, case, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, interrogativity, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, reciprocity, agreement, polypersonal agreement, incorporation, noun class, noun classifiers, and verb classifiers in some languages [3]. By combining the grammatical categories from each and every language together, we can precisely specify a conjugation or declension. For example, the URL: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/lookup.php?edition=2018&language=en-US&… includes an edition, a language of a lemma, a lemma, a lexical category, and conjugates (with ellipses) the verb in a language-independent manner. We can further specify, via URL query string, the semantic sense of a grammatical element: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/lookup.php?edition=2018&language=en-US&… Specifying a grammatical item fully in a URL query string, as indicated in the previous examples, could result in a redirection to another URL. That is, the URL: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/lookup.php?edition=2018&language=en-US&… could redirect to: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/index.php?edition=2018&id=12345678 or to: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/2018/12345678/ and the URL with a specified semantic sense: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/lookup.php?edition=2018&language=en-US&… could redirect to: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/index.php?edition=2018&id=12345678&sens… or to: https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/2018/12345678/4/ The URL https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/2018/12345678/ is intended to indicate a conjugation or declension with one or more meanings or senses. The URL https://machine.wiktionary.org/wiki/2018/12345678/4/ is intended to indicate a specific sense or definition of a conjugation or declension. A feature from having URL’s for both conjugations or declensions and for specific meanings or senses is that HTTP request headers can specify languages and content types of the output desired for a particular URL. The provided examples intended to indicate that each complete, language-independent conjugation or declension can have an ID number as opposed to each headword or lemma. Instead of one ID number for all variations of “fly”, there is one ID number for “flew”, another for “have flown”, another for “flying”, and one for each conjugation or declension. Reasons for indexing the conjugations and declensions instead of traditional headwords or lemmas include that, at least for some knowledge representation formats, the formal semantics of the definitions vary per conjugation or declension. CONCLUSION This letter broached machine wiktionaries and some of the services which could exist at https://machine.wiktionary.org/ . It is my hope that this letter indicated a few of the many exciting topics with regard to machine-utilizable crowdsourced lexicons. REFERENCES [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Index:All_languages#List_of_languages [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_category [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_header_fields#Request_fields

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Reader use of Wikipedia and Commons categories
by Pine W 24 May '18

24 May '18

Hi Research-l, My impression is that volunteers on Commons and ENWP spend a lot of time on categorization. I have seen references to analyses of how categorization is done, but I can't recall seeing an analysis of how much use readers make of categories on Commons and ENWP. My guess is that readers often use categories on Commons for media searches, but that ENWP categories are rarely used by readers, although maybe WMF Discovery uses categories to inform search results. Is there data that shows how extensively readers on ENWP and Commons use categories? Thanks,Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Fwd: [Wikimedia Education] Evaluation report on Wikipedia Fellows pilot
by James Salsman 23 May '18

23 May '18

LiAnna, is there any way the filter rules could be adjusted to allow my followup questions, please? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <education-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Tue, May 22, 2018 at 5:50 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] Evaluation report on Wikipedia Fellows pilot To: jsalsman(a)gmail.com Message rejected by filter rule match ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> To: Wikimedia Education <education(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Cc: Bcc: Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 17:50:48 -0600 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] Evaluation report on Wikipedia Fellows pilot LiAnna, thank you so much for sending the list of twelve partner associations at https://wikiedu.org/partnerships/ I am copying the list here because I have more questions: American Anthropological Association American Chemical Society American Society of Plant Biologists American Sociological Association American Studies Association Association for Psychological Science Association for Women in Mathematics Linguistic Society of America Louisiana State University, Communication across the Curriculum Midwest Political Science Association National Communication Association National Women’s Studies Association Society for Marine Mammalogy I'd like to recommend brainstorming what a list of, say 50 such associations would look like if you picked them specifically to balance them against e.g. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2015/09/figure-1-wikipe… Since I am certain you will see the merit of such work, I want to take this time to say a few words about economics. In particular, with reference to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2018-April/006256.html and https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-May/090241.html These are very serious questions impacting the lives, livelihoods, and years of productive life of billions upon billions of people, and will probably remain as weighty for years. In the mean time, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate my recommendation to establish an essay contest for students on topics such as economics, or any of Wikipedia's under-represented sciences or humanities. The last time we discussed this question I did not understand the reasons that you suggested such an essay contest would be inappropriate. Has your view evolved? Best regards, Jim On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 3:57 PM, LiAnna Davis <lianna(a)wikiedu.org> wrote: > Answers inline! > > On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 12:15 PM, Juliana Bastos Marques < > domusaurea(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I’d like to add another question. As you and others may know, I work in a >> particularly quarrelsome Wikipedia (PT), where there are lots of reversions >> of edits from newbies, even when they display knowledge of WP rules. What >> was the reception of the Fellows’ work among the community of editors? >> >> There were some minor disagreements with other English Wikipedia editors, > but conversations were ultimately productive. We did have one article > nominated for deletion, but the Fellow was able to successfully argue for > it to not be deleted. > > > >> Em 22 de mai de 2018, à(s) 16:02, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> >> escreveu: >> >> > Would you please describe how you choose the subject matter of >> > articles and expertise for inviting Fellows? >> > > Fellows chose their own articles to improve based on their interests and > expertise. We selected the associations to participate in the pilot based > on our relationships with them; we're expanding future Fellows cohorts to > other subject areas. > > >> > It's not clear whether the Fellows were paid or otherwise compensated; >> > were they? >> > > There's a reference to this in the "Recruiting Wikipedia Fellows" section > (I know there's a lot in here, so I'm not surprised if you missed it!): "We > encouraged partners to consider offering Fellows honoraria, travel > scholarships to their conference, or conference fee waivers. Partners were > amenable to the idea but most said they needed more time to be able to > offer it. We hope this might be able to be built into future Fellows > cohorts." > >> "In the past four years, the Wiki Education Foundation (Wiki >> > Education) has signed formal partnership agreements with academic >> > associations to improve Wikipedia in their topic area." -- how many? >> > Is the list public? >> > > We've signed agreements with 12 academic associations; they're listed on > our website: https://wikiedu.org/partnerships/ > > >> > When you select such subjects and topics, do you consider the number >> > of pageviews? Do you use existing WP:BACKLOG category membership? >> > Both? >> > > We encouraged Fellows to choose articles that would receive large page > views or were core articles in their field -- subjects that they would be > able to improve but a student studying that topic would struggle to > effectively improve. Beyond that, we left the selection up to the Fellows. > > >> > Do you consider the harm inaccuracy or bias can do to society by >> > infesting Wikipedia when selecting the subject and topics? >> > > We teach all our program participants about the importance of NPOV and > stress how writing for Wikipedia needs to be fact-based, encyclopedic > content, not persuasive, analytical content. > _______________________________________________ > Education mailing list > Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education

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Wikimedia is hiring a Senior Design Researcher
by Jonathan Morgan 21 May '18

21 May '18

Hi everyone, There's a new full-time Senior-level research position available at WMF that you should know about. Details below and here. <https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1158794?gh_src=66fd12661> Please forward this on to relevant contacts and channels! I am able to answer some questions about this position—but for best results, please direct your questions to Margeigh Novotny, Director of Product Design Strategy <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors#Product_Design_S…> . Thanks, Jonathan Senior Design Researcher at Wikimedia Foundation (View all jobs) <https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia?t=66fd12661> San Francisco, CA or Remote *Location: *San Francisco, CA or Remote *Duration: *Permanent *Hours: *Full time *Summary* The Wikimedia Foundation’s Product Design Strategy Group is seeking a senior design researcher to whose primary focus will be to work with the Anti-Harassment Tools (AHT) Team to support the development of tools <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative#Anti-Harassment…> and policies <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative#Policy_Growth_&…> aimed at reducing online harassment and other disruptive behavior on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. Formed in 2017, the AHT team’s mission is to address a wide range of behavior: from content vandalism, stalking, name-calling, trolling, doxxing, and discrimination, to anything that targets individuals for unfair and harmful attention. As the world’s largest encyclopedia, and a cornerstone of the open content movement, Wikimedia seeks to build and model an online community that aligns with its mission of inclusion and diversity. The team is building tools that will: help detect harassment and stalking; make it easier for people to report harassment; help wiki administrators to evaluate reports; and block unwanted harassers from our projects. Working closely with product managers, developers, community advocates and many passionate volunteers, the Sr. Researcher will design qualitative and quantitative research that results in actionable insights that can drive the development of these new tools. Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects are complex places, both socially and technically — this position requires enthusiasm for learning about new communities, processes, and cultural norms. The WMF Product Design Strategy Group provides strategic research and experimentation to help inform and inspire future product and platform decisions. *Responsibilities:* - Design, drive and support qualitative and quantitative research agenda to better understand the needs of Wikipedia contributors who have experienced or witnessed harassment, and administrators who are working to protect the editing community - Perform analysis of complex, dynamic online communities to identify opportunities and problematic areas of existing tools and workflows - Help design a set of interdependent software features, in collaboration with the editors who will use those features - Consult and collaborate with other researchers to ensure quality and usability of output *Requirements: * - Expertise in multiple qualitative research methodologies, e.g. surveys, textual analysis, and ethnographic interviewing and observation, including qualitative analysis methods. - A strong sense of mission and energy for this initiative - Experience with quantitative research methodologies, e.g. statistical analysis, data visualization, data manipulation - Outstanding written and verbal communication skills - Aptitude for defining and measuring project success - Strong time-management skills - Self sufficiency and ability to resolve what blocks your work within a cross-functional team environment - Comfortable working on short deadlines and the ability to pivot quickly - Experience leading research projects from start to finish (solo and in collaboration with others) - Collaborative nature (willingness to make collaboration across time zones via remote functionality work, as well as in person collaboration) - Academic training in Behavioral or Social Sciences (e.g. sociology, social psychology, anthropology), Information Science, or Human-Computer Interaction background - 5+ years of professional experience in a research role - Masters Degree or PhD in a related field - Experience working collaboratively with design teams to translate insights into actionable recommendations *Pluses: * - A nuanced understanding of group dynamics and online cultural practices - Experience working in interdisciplinary teams with data scientists and designers - A history of social activism, volunteering, and/or open source contribution - Experience contributing to Wikimedia projects - A strong portfolio of public presentations of research work (e.g. conference presentations, white papers, peer-reviewed manuscripts) * The Wikimedia Foundation is... * ...the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge, free of interference. We host the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that relies on donations. We receive financial support from millions of individuals around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. *The Wikimedia Foundation is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply* *Benefits & Perks ** - Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!) - The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, baby sitting, continuing education and much more - The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary - Flexible and generous time off - vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 19 paid holidays - including the last week of the year. - Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room. - For those emergency moments - long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program - Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses - Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available - Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax - Great colleagues - diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people -- Jonathan T. Morgan Senior Design Researcher Wikimedia Foundation User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>

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Wiki Dialogue Systems
by Adam Sobieski 21 May '18

21 May '18

INTRODUCTION Some technical topics are broached toward the crowdsourcing of dialogue system content and behavior. COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING The content and behavior of a dialogue system can be represented in a number of ways. Firstly, the content and behavior of a dialogue system can be represented in programming language source code files. Collaborative authoring, in this case, is a matter of integrated development environments and source code repositories, version control systems. Secondly, some or all of the content and behavior of a dialogue system can be separated from the source code files as data stored in some data format or in a database. Collaborative authoring, in this case, could require custom software tools. Thirdly, a number of services, cognitive services, can encapsulate the content and behavior of a dialogue system. Collaborative authoring, in this case, could require utilization of such services or related user interfaces. Fourthly, the content and behavior of a dialogue system can be represented as a set of interrelated, URL-addressable, editable pages. Servers can provide content for a number of different content types, for example hypertext for content authors and other formats for dialogue system user agents. Server-side scripting can be utilized to generate pages and generated pages can contain client-side scripting. Fifthly, the content and behavior of a dialogue system can be represented as a set of interrelated, URL-addressable, editable diagrams. Sixthly, the content and behavior of a dialogue system can be represented in transcript form. Transcript-based user interfaces may resemble instant messaging applications, scrollable sequences of speech bubbles, with speech bubbles coming from the left and right sides, such that users can edit the content in dialogue systems’ speech bubbles. Users could opt to view more than plain text in speech bubbles. There could also be vertical, colored bands in one or both margins, visually indicating discourse behaviors, moves, objectives or plans which span one or multiple utterances. COLLABORATIVE DEBUGGING Debugging dialogue systems is an important topic. Debugging scenarios include switching from interactions with dialogue systems to authoring processes such that dialogue context data is preserved. NATURAL LANGUAGE GENERATION AND UNDERSTANDING Natural language generation can produce editable structured documents from the data stored in databases and knowledgebases. Generated content can contain, beyond natural language, data and program logic to facilitate the processing of constrained or unconstrained edits. Edits to generated content can result in changes to stored data. COMPUTER-AIDED WRITING Computer-aided writing can convenience content authors and assure quality. Software can, generally speaking, provide users with information, warnings and errors with regard to tentative edits. Software can support users including with regard to their spelling, grammar, word selection, readability, text coherence and cohesion. Software can measure the neutral point of view of natural language. Software can also process tentative edits with regard to their logical consistency with respect to data stored in databases and knowledgebases. WIKI DIALOGUE SYSTEMS Exploration into the collaborative authoring and debugging of dialogue systems could result in new wiki technologies. Wiki dialogue systems could resemble spoken language dialogue systems with transcript-based user interfaces, users able to easily switch between dialogue-based interactions and the editing of dialogue system content and behavior. Best regards, Adam Sobieski http://www.phoster.com/contents/

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16 May '18

Hi all, We used the revision history metadata from the official wmf dumps site in a forthcoming paper on coeditor network structure (linked below). We're publishing our code and (hopefully) the derived networks on the UMich DeepBlue archival server. I can find information on the copyright/terms-of-use for text and image data, but nothing explicit about the metadata. Anyone know if that exists? Thanks! E.L. Platt & D.M. Romero. "Network Structure, Efficiency, and Performance in WikiProjects." ICWSM 2018. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03763 -- Edward L. Platt PhD Candidate, University of Michigan School of Information he/him | https://elplatt.com | @elplatt | @elplatt@social.coop Tips for stopping email overload: https://hbr.org/2012/02/stop-email-overload-1

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Digital Infrastructure Research RFP
by Leila Zia 09 May '18

09 May '18

Hi all, The Sloan and Ford Foundations have made a request for proposals with the goal of funding a set of research projects to further our understanding of economics, maintenance, and sustainability of digital infrastructures (especially as they rely heavily on volunteer resources). You can find more details about it at https://ford-foundation-6.forms.fm/digital-infrastructure-research-rfp. The RFP is pasted at the end of this email as well. Best, Leila Contact emailm.brennan(a)fordfoundation.org Deadline Jun 13 at 8:59pm In your local timezone (GMT -7) Questions due Jun 13 at 8:59pm In your local timezone (GMT -7) Timeline 6/13 - Concepts Notes Due 7/13 - Full Proposals Invited 9/4 - Final Proposals Due 10/1 - Final Decisions Background Everything in our modern society, from hospitals to banks to social media platforms, runs on software. Nearly all of this software is built on “digital infrastructure,” a foundation of free and public code that is designed to solve common challenges. The benefits of digital infrastructure are numerous: it can reduce the cost of setting up new businesses, support data-driven discovery across research disciplines, enable complex technologies such as smartphones to talk to each other, and allow everyone to have access to important innovations like encryption that would otherwise be too expensive. Sharing code to address common challenges is in principle cheaper, easier and more efficient. It should also be noted that our digital infrastructure is a distinct part of, and inextricably tied to, a larger ecosystem of open source software development. While the collective action problems that characterize infrastructure funding are well-explored, the economics of digital infrastructure are less well-understood. In 2016, the Ford Foundation funded a report by Nadia Eghbal titled “Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure” that described how the development and maintenance of digital infrastructure often falls to communities of volunteers who take it upon themselves to maintain this infrastructure in their own free time and for little or no money. Unsurprisingly, this leads to significant risks to the open internet and the ability to develop new, innovative research and businesses within it. The Sloan and Ford Foundations would like to fund a set of research projects to further study these dynamics, with an eye toward better understanding the economics, maintenance and sustainability of digital infrastructure. Among the questions that could be addressed by such research are: What makes an open source project “critical digital infrastructure”? How should we measure and prioritize support for digital infrastructure projects? How do organizations know what digital infrastructure they rely on and how do they assess the sustainability risks in these projects? What is the role that private companies should play in maintaining a stable ecosystem of open source technology? What are the tradeoffs involved between private sector, government, and/or volunteer maintenance of digital infrastructure? What parallels are there to the maintenance and support of other public goods, and what can we learn from those parallels? How could we better sustain the open source community? What is the relationship between money and sustainability for digital infrastructure projects? In which situations does money help or hurt? What defines a maintainer of a digital infrastructure project? What incentives do they have to maintain a project and how are more contributions incentivized? Are certain skills or expertise expertise missing or weak in the open source community, such as management experience, and how might they be strengthened? What are barriers to diversity and inclusion in the public interest infrastructure space? What are the barriers to entry to this community and how might we break them down? And how does open source software contribute to or counter efforts to build a more equitable society? What are the critical security weak points in our digital infrastructure? How do we mitigate those weak points? These questions are intended as prompts and ideas - concept notes do not need to answer these questions specifically and respondents are welcome to pose their own questions. We also open to broader interpretations of "digital infrastructure" and are happy to field questions about whether work is in scope prior to submitting a concept note. Scope We seek to support proposals addressing a range of issues and a range of different scopes. As part of your concept we will ask you to provide a rough sense of the size of your project according to three cost tiers. Please note that the cost tier does not indicate a length of time: proposals may cover any time range, regardless of cost. We expect most projects will fall into a 6 to 24 month time range, but this is not a hard requirement. Cost Tiers: Small: Under $50k Medium: $50k - $125k Large: over $125k Full Proposals & Decisions Concept notes will be accepted until 11:59pm on June 13th, though we encourage early submissions. A panel of advisors will review submissions and provide their input to Ford Foundation and Sloan Foundation. Full proposals will be invited by July 13th. Final determinations on proposal invitations will be made by Ford Foundation and Sloan Foundation. Final proposals will be due by September 14th and final funding decisions will be made by October 1st. Criteria Who is eligible? Individuals, Organizations (nonprofit and for-profit) and Academic Institutions are eligible. If accepted, when would my grant start? The grant start date would be sometime between October 1st and December 31st, 2018. If accepted, will my grant come from Sloan or Ford? It depends - it may come from either, or both. We will work with finalists to determine the best mechanism for each research grant. Are there restrictions on publication of research? We expect all output to be made available to the public under an acceptable creative commons license (or similar). If this presents any challenges, we can discuss details if your project is invited to submit a full proposal. When you say digital infrastructure, do you also mean [insert term here]? We encourage a broad definition of digital infrastructure and recognize that this work goes by many terms: open source, open standards, critical infrastructure, and so on.

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