Grants:IEG/WikiTrack

This project is funded by an Individual Engagement Grant

status: selected

project:

WikiTrack

project contact:

hpnadig@gmail.com

participants:

grantees: Hari Prasad Nadig

summary:

WikiTrack is a self-funded open source project that I initiated. The project is to extend it beyond the basic features it now offers.

engagement target:

Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource

strategic priority:

Increasing Participation

total amount requested:

2500 USD

2014 round 1

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

From a contributor's (or editor's) perspective, tracking changes on Wikipedia on the go (on mobile and tablet) is tricky as of now and it can get quite time consuming if it needs quality time in front of a computer. The idea is to provide the capability of tracking any favourite Wikimedia project on mobile/tablet so that contributors can track their watchlist, articles, discussion pages and Special pages on the go. This could increase editors' engagement with the projects they're contributing on.

What is your solution?

WikiTrack in its initial version had been released last year for Wikipedia of few Indian languages, namely Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Sanskrit for Android. The initial version allows the users to just track the Recent Changes, the diff between changes, their Watchlist and any user's contributions. Each of these have seen thousands of downloads (As of the day of drafting this: WikiTrack Tamil^[1] - 16611 Downloads, WikiTrack Malayalam^[2] - 7476 Downloads, WikiTrack Kannada^[3] - 14051 Downloads on Google's Play Store) with thousands of active users tracking their favorite Wikimedia project using this application.

There is also an iOS version we have been presently testing that provides the same functionality for all the projects with a select drop down to select the project. The idea with this funding is to extend these and consolidate them to cover all languages on Wikipedia and addition of WikiSource, Wiktionary as options to select with few more useful additions like tracking Special pages and improving the way the Diff is displayed on Mobile.

Project goals

Consolidate WikiTrack for all languages on Android into a single app.
Add tracking for Wiktionary, WikiSource.
Extend tracking to track Special Pages and Improve rendering and user experience of Diffs.
Complete the iOS solution with further additions to equal the features offered by the app on Android.

The larger vision

I always felt that there's more to tracking edits and their quality on Wikipedia. For one, we could zero-in on better contributors by tracking their contributions, the contribution patterns and generating analytics from it rather than going by just the edit counts. Mobile can be a potential platform to garner this better.

Engagement of editors through mobile notifications, constant engagement of editors; ability to track their engagement and quality of contributions are some of the things I look forward to working on in the future. It has the potential to impact engagement of editors in a large way and tracking could help identify better contributors that in turn could be very useful for many constructive work. Of course, this could take much larger shape and can have larger impact with community feedback and any valuable feedback I can get from the mobile team.

Project plan

Scope

The scope of the project shall be limited in this phase of development to add the features mentioned, consolidating the apps and making them available in good quality for the community to use it. The project's code shall be released under GPL compatible license so that the scope of the project can be extended beyond this development phase.

Activities

We shall be optimizing the existing code, improving it to add features mentioned. Our time shall be spent in programming, reviewing the existing code, improving UI and planning to incorporate new features.

Budget

Total amount requested

USD 2500

Budget breakdown

Project Management: 750 USD Programming Contractors: 1000 USD Design Contractor: 500 USD Incidental Expenses related to the project: 250 USD

Intended impact

Target audience

The project can potentially reach out to all or most part of editors/contributors on Wikimedia projects.

Community engagement

We intend to do alpha and beta releases and plan to invite volunteers to test the apps and provide feedback. Feedback, Community Input and Participation is very important for this project very specifically.

Fit with strategy

Increasing Editor engagement with the projects is the short term goal and during long term, the application can be extended to analyze the edits, quantify them and track the projects in many different ways.

Sustainability

The project shall be released in GPL compatible license and development shall be continued as a FOSS project for feature additions and improvements.

Measures of success

At least 10,000 downloads and Editor engagement measured by appropriate Analytics (as preferred or feasible).

Participant(s)

I am a programmer. I have contributed to free and open source software movement in India for more than a decade. I was one of the founding members of Wikimedia India Chapter. I have been contributing to Wikimedia projects and have been significant part of the movement for close to a decade with contributions on various projects and in various roles including but not limited to outreach. More than anything else, I love Wikimedia projects and want to do something good for these as much as I can. :-)

Discussion

Community Notification

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Community member: add your name and rationale here.

I have used the Android version of this app, and considering that a vast number of Wikipedians use iOS, feel this would be a great opportunity for this app to develop. HPN's statement that the code would be released further makes this a great cause worth supporting. ----Rsrikanth05 (talk) 19:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I have used the Android app too and found it promising. It'll be a useful addition to wiki-related tools. -- Sundar (talk) 06:04, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I have not used the version of the app, but I find the proposal has merit, is useful and is worth supporting. Prashanthns (talk) 05:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
The project is tackling an interesting problem & has parallels to Replay Edits, which I worked on. Hope it gets funded. --Jeph paul (talk) 14:20, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

References

[1] ttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.saaranga.wikitracktamil

[2] ttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.saaranga.wikitrackmalayalam

[3] ttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.saaranga.wikikannada

[1]

[2]

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