[Wikimedia-l] Project Grants program will fund 20 community-led projects

Hi folks, In the latest round of Project Grants, the committee has recommended 20 projects for a total of approximately $678,666 USD in funding. We received 42 proposals for review, the largest round of proposals we’ve received in a single round. Please join me in congratulating the applicants! I’d also like to express my thanks to all applicants this round for their hard work and engagement with their proposals, and to the Project Grants Committee for their careful diligence in reviewing and providing crucial feedback during this round. Without further ado, here’s what we’re funding:[1] ==Software: five projects funded==* Commons Android app v3: This third version of the Commons mobile uploader app aims to increase app stability, improve a recommendations feature for nearby places, maintain a limited connectivity mode, and provide better outreach to underrepresented communities. [2] * Scribe: Scribe is an editing tool to support underserved Wikipedia editors, helping them to plan the structure of their new articles and to find references in their language.[3] * Culture Gap Monthly Monitoring: The Wikipedia Cultural Diversity Observatory (WCDO) proposes a set of solutions to regularly assist communities and individual editors to increase the cultural diversity in their language editions’ content.[4]. * GlobalFactSyncRE: GlobalFactSyncRE will extract all infobox facts and their references to produce a tool for Wikipedia editors that detects and displays differences across infobox facts in an intelligent way to help sync infoboxes between languages and/or Wikidata. The extracted references will also be used to enhance Wikidata.[5] * Wikidata & ETL: This project aims at improving management and increasing automation of processes loading data into Wikidata, and proposes a tool as a platform for creation of repeatable processes for bulk loading data into Wikidata and other Wikibase instances from various data sources.[6] ==Online organizing: four projects funded==* Wiki Loves Monuments international team/2019 coordination: The international coordination team for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) [7] proposes to strengthen the foundation for healthy and sustainable WLM competitions across the world. In this grant, the team will focus considerable effort on increasing the sustainability of these events by addressing known issues around developing best practices, resourcing local teams to run successful events, and adapting to mobile engagement.[8] * CEE Spring 2019: This annual international article writing contest generates content from every country and region in Central and Eastern Europe on 30+ Wikipedias. CEE Spring’s remarkable community spirit plays a central role in fostering a thriving, collaborative volunteer base in the region. The grant will continue incentivizing content creation focused on similar themes from last year, including closing the gender gap, and expanding minority language Wikipedias, and showcasing the cultural heritage of Central and Eastern Europe. [9] * WM HU/Editor retention program: This grant will fund the editor retention program in the Hungarian Wikipedia. The project helps the Hungarian Wikipedia community in decreasing the negative experiences and strengthening the positive experiences of the contributors; improving the community atmosphere and strengthening the community cohesion, the Wikipedia identity, the sense of mission and pride in Wikipedia.[10] * VisibleWikiWomen2019: Whose Knowledge?, in partnership with Wikimedians and women’s and feminist organizations around the world, is organizing a campaign to add more diverse and quality images of women to Commons and Wikipedia throughout March 2019 to celebrate International Women’s Month. This year, the organization plans to take what they have learned from 2018 #VisibleWikiWomen and grow the campaign, creating more materials and connections that will be useful for this year’s campaign and many more years to come.[11] ==Offline outreach: ten projects funded==* Smithsonian Wikimedian-in-Residence for Gender Representation: This project will establish a Wikimedian-in-Residence for the Smithsonian Women's History Initiative, and increase the representation of women on Wikimedia projects, and seek ongoing support for a permanent Wikimedian-in-Residence at the institution.[12] * Action Plan for Wikipedia + Libraries Training in Mexico: OCLC will investigate the viability of and approach to a Wikipedia+Libraries training program for library staff in Mexico, to leverage the libraries in support of the Wikimedia Foundation’s New Readers initiative. This project will identify a Mexico-based organization that would lead the training, develop an advisory group, and produce an action plan for how to design and deliver the training.[13] * Offline Wikipedia in Senegal Schools: The problem this project plans to address is the absence of an easy, rapid and reliable way to access the treasure-trove of information contained in Wikipedia. The Offline Wikipedia in Senegal Schools project is a Train the Trainers project: trainers will attend a seminar teaching them about offline Wikipedia the Kiwix program. They will then go out to remote schools in and in turn run a seminar presenting Kiwix to the teachers. This seminar will be part of the certification process.[14] * Heritage GLAM: This project will focus on growing successful GLAM partnerships with government institutes, capacity building and documenting rare archives, books and artwork of historical and cultural importance to North India with no or little online presence via our project Wiki Loves Heritage. A part of the project will also be focused on integration of content with Wikisource and Wikipedia.[15] * Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO 2019-2020: Past engagement with UNESCO has demonstrated that working with Wikipedia to share knowledge allows UNESCO to reach a far wider public with detailed information that traditional report publication. The applicants have prepared a roadmap to mass adoption of open licensing and sharing of content on Wikimedia projects across the UN. By the end of this grant in early 2020, the project will result in policies, documentation and processes in place to share knowledge from across the UN on Wikimedia projects. [16] * Wiki Loves Africa 2019: Funding for this project will support prize distribution efforts associated with local contests supported by Wiki Loves Africa 2019, an annual public contest where people across Africa can contribute media (photographs, video and audio) about their environment to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.[17] * Wiki Kouman 2019 en Côte d'Ivoire (Local langua in Côte d'Ivoire): The aim of the WikiKouman project is to increase the visibility and content of Côte d'Ivoire’s local languages through the Wiktionary and other related projects. WikiKouman derives its etymology from Dioula, one of the local languages, in which "Kouman" means "to speak"[18] * History of Quebec and French-speaking North America: This Wikimedian-in-Residence project with the Fondation Lionel-Groulx (FLG) aims to build and support the community of individuals and organizations interested in developing and improving wikimedia contents pertaining to the history of Quebec and French-speaking North America.[19] * Wikipedia Women and Ancestral Knowledge from the Global South in the Colombian context: In collaboration with Centro de Internet y Sociedad Universidad (ISUR), this project is aimed at supporting indigenous communities in Colombia to participate on Wikipedia and enhance the participation of women through promotion of digital skills and article development on multiple Wikipedia projects to represent their knowledge.[20] * Editathons in Pistoia district: The project centers on an edit-a-thon series in the Pistoia district of Italy. This grant is a way to get a complete deep-level coverage and to develop a model for localized work for other regions in Italy.[21] ==Research: one project funded== * Machine Learning to Predict Wikimedia User Blocks: This project will involve investigating user misconduct on English Wikipedia using machine learning techniques to better understand and predict what circumstances lead to user blocks. [22] With thanks, Chris Schilling 1. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Browse_applications2. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Commons_app/Commons_Android_… 3. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Scribe:_Supporting_Under-res… 4. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WCDO/Culture_Gap_Monthly_Mon… 5. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/DBpedia/GlobalFactSyncRE6. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/MFFUK/Wikidata_%26_ETL7. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Wiki_Loves_Monuments_interna… 8. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments9. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Wikimedians_of_CEE/CEE_Sprin… 10. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/WM_HU/Editor_retention_progr… 11. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Whose_Knowledge/VisibleWikiW… 12. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Effie_Kapsalis/Smithsonian_W… 13. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/OCLC/Action_Plan_for_Wikiped… 14. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Offline_Wikipedia_in_Senegal… 15. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Wikilover90/Heritage_GLAM16. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/UNESCO/Wikimedian_in_Residen… 17. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Yorg/Wiki_Loves_Africa_201918. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Modjou/Wiki_Kouman_2019_en_C… 19. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/History_of_Quebec_and_French… 20. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/ISUR/Wikipedia_women_and_anc… 21. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Editathons_in_Pistoia_distri… 22. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/University_of_Virginia/Machi… Chris "Jethro" Schilling I JethroBT (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:I_JethroBT_(WMF)He/His/Their Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home