I note that there are discussions going on in the
Technology stream that
very definitely touch on this topic.
The first I noticed is a discussion on Wikitech-L entitled "Word
embeddings / vector search". The second one is a discussion point on this
week's Tech News: There is a recently formed team at the Wikimedia
Foundation which will be focusing on experimenting with new tools.
Currently they are building a prototype ChatGPT plugin that allows
information generated by ChatGPT to be properly attributed
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2023-2024/Draft/Future_Audiences#FA2.2_Conversational_AI>
to the Wikimedia projects.
These may be good starting points to discover what is already happening
within the technical space, and what the thinking is on the likelihood of
it filling the need of the proposed project. Regardless, since the project
being proposed will require a lot of technical/developer/engineer work, it
would be very useful to talk to the people who already have been working
and researching in this topic area to determine if the proposed project is
viable.
Risker/Anne
On Mon, 15 May 2023 at 20:41, Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski(a)hotmail.com>
wrote:
I would share that I don't fully understand
the current WMF procedure for
project proposals. I noticed an April 14 email in this mailing list about
forming a new taskforce on these topics (
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…).
So, when it comes to expectations for a project proposal, the current WMF
process, procedure, and related definitions of success for a proposal, I
have more questions than answers.
James, thank you. I see your points and, as envisioned, teambuilding for
the Wikianswers project would welcome participants from both within and
outside of the WMF movement. I anticipate a considerable excitement with
respect to combinations of AI and Wiki platforms, infrastructure, and
search. Hopefully the Wikianswers proposal indicates some of the
possibilities and opportunities in these regards to interested researchers
and developers (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikianswers).
Best regards,
Adam
P.S.: Thank you for the discussion thus far. I'm still considering the
epistemology of which AI-generated multimodal answers would be cacheable,
editable, and thus correctable by a community of editors.
------------------------------
*From:* James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com>
*Sent:* Monday, May 15, 2023 6:28 PM
*To:* Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
*Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikianswers Proposal
Setting up a project outside the WMF would be much easier to start with.
One can then trial the idea and if successful the movement may then be
willing to have the WMF take it on.
WikiVoyage started outside the WMF by a small group in Germany (after
they split from WikiTravel). They had an active community and simply
migrated to WMF servers.
Similarly we at Wiki Project Med have started NC Commons
https://nccommons.org/wiki/Main_Page Will the movement be interested in
this project at some point? I guess we will see.
James
On Tue, May 16, 2023 at 3:16 AM Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
My plate is full at the moment, and project creation is not a specific
interest of mine. I hope that Adam does not see things as demotivating;
creating a new project type *should* be a big challenge. I do think that
those standards need to be significantly revised. They were all written at
a time when the WMF had no problems at all just raising the target for
fundraising, and being successful with the new goal. This year we are
dealing with the reality that the fundraising pool is not unlimited. We
have been told flat out that there are significant limitations to the
available human resources required to create a new project. This isn't
2012 anymore, it's 11 years later, and the world in which the Wikimedia
community operates has changed significantly. We can't just be doing the
same things that we did back in the olden days. It would be setting
ourselves up - as a community and as a potential new project - for failure.
Risker/Anne
On Mon, 15 May 2023 at 13:53, Ilario valdelli <valdelli(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think that here the proposal is to have a new sister project (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_projects).
There is a long list:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects
The concept behind a new sister project is the capacity to build a
community and an enthusastic group of people.
The policy is here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_process
There is nothing about capacity and risk management.
I wanted to encourage Adam after some very demotivating comments and to
look to the positive aspects that, in my opinion, are present in this idea.
To start his project, he needs 10 interested participants / supporters.
Are you interested?
Kind regards
On 15/05/2023 19:16, Risker wrote:
So....how much does it cost to develop and run an entirely new and
different type of project? Who develops it? How much would the hosting
cost on an ongoing basis? Is this project more important and more needed
than an existing project type?
These aren't small questions; they are in fact the questions that need to
be asked every time we come up with an idea (no matter how great the idea)
for a new project type. Contrary to popular belief, there isn't an
unlimited budget, and there aren't unlimited staffing resources for these
things. Everything costs real money and the time of real people, and we as
a broad community need to be far more cognizant of the limitations of these
resources, and the likelihood that the financial situation is not going to
change significantly in the coming five years.
Personally, I think this is an idea with possibilities, but it is a very
expensive one because it will need an entirely different way of operating.
So...where would be cut costs to make this possible? Should we close some
little-used projects so they no longer draw on our limited pool of
resources? Should we cut back on volunteer/community safety and resources?
There are always trade-offs. In the WMF annual plan, they talk about
some of those trade-offs. This is another one. New, different projects
need to be able to justify their cost and existence. In fact, in the
not-too-distant future, I can foresee that some minimal-use projects may
also have to justify their existence. I am all in favour of being
visionary - but I'm also in favour of planting these visions in solid
ground.
Risker/Anne
On Mon, 15 May 2023 at 12:19, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I like the idea.
Sometimes people need a simple answer.
At the moment to receive an answer from Wikipedia for some articles
people need a Phd.
A solution like that can give a smart and quick and understable answer.
Kind regards
On Mon, 15 May 2023, 11:48 Adam Sobieski, <adamsobieski(a)hotmail.com>
wrote:
Wikimedia,
Per the recent interest in and discussions about artificial intelligence
in this mailing list, I am pleased to indicate the *Wikianswers* project
proposal. The proposal describes some approaches for integrating these
technologies (e.g., multimodal dialogue systems, chatbots, and
question-answering systems) with existing Wiki platforms.
"Wikianswers would be a large-scale, user-editable cache of multimodal
answers from artificial intelligence systems, e.g., one or more large
language models, which tightly integrates with Wikipedia, Wikidata, and
Commons."
This project proposal is described in more detail here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikianswers .
Thank you. Please feel free to review the project proposal and to comment
either here or there with any opinions, questions, feedback, or suggestions.
Best regards,
Adam Sobieski
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Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
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