Wikimedia Product/Wikidata support

Overview

Over the past few years the Wikidata feature has had the excellent funding support of the WMF FDC grant program. In that time Wikidata and the team supporting the project has grown and have become more integrated into WMF supported projects. The FDC, WMDE engineering, WMF Product and Community teams have met to explore a way forward for Wikidata funding as a core project and free up the FDC to focus on grants that are in their remit. An agreement was reached with the WMF to provide additional funding support.

The Problem Wikidata is Trying to Solve

Structured data is at the heart of the next-generation user experiences for all Wikimedia projects and products. The team is focused on closing Wikidata’s identified key gaps:

• APIs and storage: Current & future applications will require robust querying and write access, secondary storage systems
• Curation: The project’s success depends on the community’s ability to manage growth
• Data Partnerships: The open data community is waiting for us to talk to them in earnest

Current Management of Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland currently manages the team working on Wikidata and has proven its ability to manage complex engineering and community work. Decentralization increases our collective capacity and ability to innovate faster and more sustainable. Alignment and shared understanding between WMF & WMDE Engineering and Product teams about roadmaps and technical challenges is ongoing.

Previous Funding of Wikidata 2015-2016

FDC funding of Wikidata went through the FDC grants process. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016_round1/Wikimedia_Deutschland_e.V./Proposal_form

• Requested: EUR 1,500,000 (restricted funding for software development)
• Approved: EUR 1,200,000

Concerns with current funding model:

• WMF leadership transitions have led to confusion and delay in expanding funding for Wikidata
• WMDE has received funding on schedule per FDC but no additional funding received by WMDE
• Technical assessment and implications potentially challenging
• Current larger grant of FDC and concerns raised by committee that funding for a core specific Wikimedia project was not in their remit

Funding Model for 2016-2017

Move FDC funding of Wikidata to a pilot contract with WMF Product.

Potential Improvements:

• Structured timeline for project with a 3 year business case, funding commitment is annually based.
• Consistent and practical international management, legal and fiscal controls.
• Alignment with annual and long term strategic goals for the WMF.

Potential Concerns:

• Less direct community influence over funding to Wikidata (FDC won't decide grant $ directly), However FDC and community will review through WMF Annual Plan

WMDE Wikidata efforts the WMF support will not fund:

• Additional Software Development teams at WMDE such as Community Wishlist, MediaWiki Development. We continue to collaborate but funding for that work comes from other sources
• FOSS events, coaching and mentoring programs, non-direct Wikidata programs

Checkpoints for WMF funding:

• WMDE would follow WMF annual planning which uses the FDC process for community review
• Funding is strictly to the Wikidata project
• Wikidata team resides in the respective chapter and reports to WMDE software development team
• Bi-weekly team meetings between WMF/WMDE PM and Engineers
• Bi-weekly meeting between WMF/WMDE VP of Product and Head of Engineering
• Monthly checkins and reports to provide metrics progress to overall organization
• Weekly status and monthly metrics posted on WMF Product page.
• Metrics would be the agreed upon set between WMF/WMDE teams respective of FDC global metrics expectations and displayed on a dashboard
• Quarterly goals posted on MediaWiki Engineering Goals page and follow WMF guidelines
• 9-12 month roadmap of goals posted for dependency planning and community awareness
• Quarterly goal reviews would follow WMF process and be posted on meta each quarter
• Participation in Product planning discussions and events
• 6 and 12 month product report to community in FDC format for consistency and clarity

Roadmap for 2016-2017

Q1: Jan - Mar and Q2: Apr - Jun (Funded through current FDC Grant)

• Begin Wikimedia Commons build out
• Article Placeholder Work
• Extend and implement data partnership process with Community
• Automated list generation
• Unit Conversion & New Data types
• UI Improvements

Q3: Jul - Sept and Q4: Oct - Dec (Funded through proposed WMF contract)

• (continued) Wikimedia Commons build out
• (continued) Extend and implement data partnership process with Community
• (continued) Automated list generation
• (possible: additional funding) Curation tools
• (possible: additional funding) Wikidata for Wiktionary
• (possible: additional funding) APIs, Database and storage improvements