NavWiki/Development Lab

NavWiki Development Lab

"An old gas station that is now used as a plant greenhouse"

See for non-NavWiki resources

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Production flow and viewer flow

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Here is a reminder regarding the prioritization of the videos and the viewers' planned progression through those videos.

 
Flow of scenes and prioritization for production
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These scripts are going into production during the next several weeks, but you can continue to comment on them if you would like. Comments can be helpful even after the videos are produced, both so that I can consider revising these scripts and so that I can consider the feedback when developing future videos.

The scripts which are linked below are at draft version 1, and their development is paused. I am not asking anyone to review them this time, but please feel free to make comments if you would like.

The following scripts will have ideas from them incorporated into other scripts, instead of being produced as separate videos.

You can comment directly in the Google docs, or on the project talk page.

Resources that were a part of the previous project which was called LearnWiki.

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Non-script information

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Draft scripts

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Near term plans and work in progress

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Newsletter 3

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  • Publish newsletter 3

Other

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  • Update the talk page with User:Sonia's Inputbox
  • Consider moving the introductory information from Additional Materials and/or the overview page to its own module
  • Publish the first two videos
  • Announce the first two videos in Newsletter 4

Medium term plans

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Welcome templates for possible walkthroughs in video format

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These links will work locally on ENWP. From other wikis, the links will need the :en: prefix.

    The basics of Wikicode
    How to develop an article
    How to create an article
    Help pages
    What Wikipedia is not

Some common sense Do's and Don'ts:

    Do assume good faith
    Do be civil
    Do keep cool!
    Do maintain a neutral point of view
    Don't spam
    Don't infringe copyright
    Don't edit where you have a conflict of interest
    Don't vandalize
    Don't get blocked

If you need further help, you can:

    Ask a question

or even:

    Ask an experienced editor to "adopt" you
Alternatively, leave me a message at my talk page or type {{helpme}} here on your talk page, and someone will try to help.

There are many ways you can contribute to Wikipedia. Here are a few ideas:

    Fight vandalism
    Be a WikiFairy or a WikiGnome
    Help contribute to articles
    Perform maintenance tasks
    Become a member of a project that interests you
    Help design new templates

Tutorials to check for ideas

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Long term plans

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  • Adaptations for other languages, probably starting with Spanish, making adjustments for other wikis' policies and workflows if needed.
  • More videos for ENWP and possibly other language editions of Wikipedia
  • Videos for Commons
  • Research non-WMF funding options
  • More coordination with the WMF Growth Team

Acknowledgements

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  • WMF Rapid grants program
  • Copyediting of script first draft by Jeroen N
  • Questions and comments from the following people:
  • On wiki: Bri, Guy Macon, Barkeep49, Nosebagbear, Nick Moyes
  • In mailing list discussion. (Names omitted here out of concern for privacy.)
  • In the public Google doc. (Names omitted here out of concern for privacy.)
  • People who provided questions and comments regarding the predecessor project.
  • WMF trademarks review by Chuck Rosloff

When creating newsletters

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  • The newsletter starts with a level 2 heading. Inside, use level 3 headings.
  • If requesting feedback then include a finish date for the feedback, and indicate whether the date is preferred or is a firm deadline.
  • Wrap the newsletter with a closing div tag.
  • If posting to a site other than Meta, remember to use cross-wiki links
  • Do small scale tests, starting with my sandboxes and user pages on Meta and ENWP.

To do

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Next newsletter

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In the next Tutorials newsletter:

  • include information regarding the catalog, translations of subtitles, next steps, etc. Preferably translate the newsletter into Spanish and include information regarding the Spanish videos.
  • Ask MMiller (WMF) if he would like me to include anything, keeping in mind that the Growth team has a separate newsletter.

Project timeline

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  • Publish grant request
  • Request community feedback regarding grant request
  • Discussion of WMF regarding grant request
  • Grant agreement with WMF completed
  • Public communication regarding project moving forward, including inviting newsletter subscriptions
  • Respond to early questions and comments
  • Surprise development: catalog of existing tutorials
  • Publish draft script
  • Publish newsletter announcing the availability of the draft script, and request reviews
  • Respond to feedback regarding draft script
  • Create draft 2 of script
  • New section: how to edit an existing citation. This a response to feedback.
  • Try to differentiate spoken narration from text on the slides. This is a response to feedback.
  • Surprise development: the automatic citation tool can search for strings
  • Rewrite the explanations of sources, references, and citations. This a response to feedback.
  • Divide the script into multiple segments, ideally with a maximum length of 5 minutes each.
  • Opening and closing titles for each segment, including licensing information and attribution for all images and blocks of text if not provided on individual slides
  • Complete 3rd revision of the 2 scripts selected for production. Remaining scripts on hold pending review of community reception of the 2 completed videos and associated resources.
  • Ask User:Nick Moyes to review the new explanation of the differences between references, citations, and sources.
  • Ask User:Kudpung to review all scripts
  • Create final script, including acknowledgements section. See above.
  • Produce video
  • Upload video privately, in smaller dimensions to save time in rendering and uploading, for Chuck Rosloff to review for trademark compliance
  • Publish video to Commons
  • Publish a newsletter Announcing availability of video on Commons.
  • See "Next newsletter" section on this page
  • See "When creating newsletters" section on this page
  • Add English language subtitles on Commons
  • March 31: need permission from WMF if continuing work beyond this date
  • April 30: Complete the grant final report and submit it to WMF
  • Lower priority:
  • If no one else adds the Basque language videos to the video catalog then request again that someone do this
  • I requested that someone from WMIL add their planned WDQS instructional products to the catalog. If no one else adds this information then do it myself.

Information for final report

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Project goals and measures of success

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Primary objectives and measures of their success
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Primary objectives
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  • Test... the process for creating a complete module, providing information about time and budget required, and the effectiveness of the module development process including communications with English Wikipedians.
Measures of success
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The goals for this specific module are to achieve the following within 30 days of publication of the video to English Wikipedia:

  • 200 views (in the longer term the video will likely get thousands of views if people find it to be helpful);
  • Generally positive feedback to be left on relevant talk pages regarding the usefulness of the video for content contributors, and generally more positive feedback than negative feedback;
  • Feedback from helpers, including patrollers, AfC reviewers, #wikipedia-en-help helpers, and Teahouse hosts
  • Feedback from helpees, for example, helpees in #wikipedia-en-help, in the Teahouse, and on talk pages in the AfC project
  • Translation of the video subtitles into at least two additional languages, possibly by volunteers. Pine would consider this to be a significant sign that contributors in non-English languages feel that the videos are valuable. Pine may have enough skill with Spanish to do a Spanish translation, and if there is unused funding in the $2000 grant then Pine may consult with WMF regarding using that funding a the Spanish translation;
  • "Organic" sharing of the video, beyond the sharing that Pine does.
Secondary objectives, also known as stretch goals, and measures of their success
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  • Accessibility

This was not specified as a goal in the original design of the grant, but I had it in mind when writing the script and creating the video.

  • Measure of success for accessibility: comments from users who use screen readers
  • Translatability

This relates to the measure of success regarding community use of the video. If volunteer translators find that the subtitles are difficult to translate then that would impact this goal negatively, and would probably reduce the likelihood that volunteer translators would translate the subtitles

  • Measures of success for accessibility:
  • Number of translations of subtitles
  • Comments from translators
Unanticipated benefit: catalog of existing Wikimedia instructional videos
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See NavWiki/External Resources. The creation of a catalog of instructional videos was not anticipated when I planned this grant, but the usefulness of having this catalog became apparent when, during early public communications regarding this pilot video, contributors began to share instructional videos in languages such as German, Spanish, Macedonian, Serbian, Hebrew, and Arabic. This helps to reduce duplication of effort and to share good ideas. Videos are not necessarily easy to find on Commons, and the quality of those videos and the currency of their information is not necessarily easy to determine simply by searching the Commons category tree and by searching Commons file names.

The Spanish language video regarding creating references with VisualEditor has substantial overlap with the video that I created in this project. so I removed creating a Spanish translation of this video as an objective. Also, I got valuable ideas from watching that Spanish language video. This may be useful to multiple Wikimedians in the future.

Lessons learned

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  • Sending announcements in phases, instead of all at once, allowed for minor adjustments of later announcements to account for feedback received in response to earlier announcements.
  • Having a few days between the announcements and the start of script writing was good for having discussions that could influence the content of the script.
  • People seemed to have a good understanding of the option of subscribing to a newsletter if they would like to opt in to future communications regarding the project.
  • One person suggested that the instructions on the newsletter subscription page should be more detailed. I followed the suggestion.
  • The information that I received in response to my early announcements, which informed me of existing instructional videos that I did not realize existed, was very useful. I started the instructional video catalog page to track these videos. See below. In particular, the Spanish video regarding creating references with VisualEditor was very well aligned with my plans for the video that I will produce in this project, and I got some good ideas from watching the Spanish language video.

Communications

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Notes regarding where early notifications were placed regarding this project

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Individual users
  • ENWP
  • Meta
Project pages
  • ENWP
  • Commons
  • Meta
Mailing lists
  • Wikimedia-l
  • Education
  • GLAM

Newsletters

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Interactions with WMF

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  • The initial approval for this grant project took months longer than anticipated. However, once approval was granted, WMF staff were quick to respond to my communications, which I greatly appreciated.
  • I found it a bit confusing to have a somewhat carefully defined project concept and a somewhat demanding set of off-wiki instructions from WMF regarding the grant, and then after the signing of the grant agreement be given significant discretion by WMF regarding how to design and to execute the project including making modifications as I think best. I would prefer that the styles of management be more consistent from the beginning to the end of the grants process, or that this shift in management style be planned and communicated earlier. The management style can be very flexible, very firm, or something in between, and I can adapt to any of the above, but I would find consistency to be beneficial so that I know how to plan and what WMF wants from me, including what communications WMF wants from me.

Financial information

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  • Max budget:
  • Total actually spent:

Breakdown of expenses

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Possible future activities

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  • Upload the videos to Youtube
  • Sourcing for English Wikipedia BLP articles
  • Sourcing for English Wikipedia MEDRS articles
  • 3 videos regarding the Wikipedia Library: 1. What is the Wikipedia Library?, 2. How do I get permission to use a resource from the Wikipedia Library?, and 3. How do I use a resource from the Wikipedia Library?
  • Additional linkages in graph: scenes 6A and 6M to 7, 3 to BLP scene, 3 to MEDRS scene, 6A and 6M to TWL scenes, TWL scene 1 to TWL scene 2, TWL scene 2 to TWL scene 3
  • Translate the subtitles of one or more videos ("horizontal step")
  • Investigate the use of alternative technologies for animations and/or to increase the speed of video recordings. Examples include macros for creating animations, HTML 5 animation, jQuery animation
  • Fully adapt one or more videos for an additional language, including changing the visuals, taking into account any variations in policies and workflows, and changing the spoken narration. ("horizontal step")
  • Develop one or more of the scripts that was originally planned for LearnWiki into a finished video ("vertical step"). Some of these can be produced with little modification, while others may need significant additional work.
  • Develop one or more additional modules for LearnWiki which have not already had a script written. See meta:Grants:IEG/Motivational and educational video to introduce Wikimedia/Scripts
  • Revise existing video based on feedback, changes to interfaces, or changes to policies ("depth step")
  • Develop a video for use with the in context help that is being developed by the WMF Growth team
  • Develop a portal on the Outreach wiki for additional materials
  • Develop opening titles that can be used for all videos in the series, including an audio cue
  • Collaborate with the WMF Growth Team to develop and integrate videos with in-context help
  • Develop a welcome video that will display when a user first creates an account
  • Interactive tutorials, possibly with tools such as Google Classroom
  • Quizzes and certifications which cover material that were explained in videos and/or interactive tutorials
  • Research. Is a user who plays a video more likely to have greater persistence, be more productive, remain active longer, add and remove more characters, add and edit more references, use more templates, exceed 100 edits and 2 months of tenure, etc?
  • Possible measures of success to include for future activites: accessibility, translatability, feedback from helpers, feedback from helpees, feedback from "organic" new users who independently register online, playback statistics, reuse statistics (that is, playbacks by the same user)
  • A term that I intended to use in this grant was "stretch goal". Use this term in future grant proposals.

For a module regarding reliable sources

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Fix the typo, then include this in the script regarding conflicting sources and information. Include the image credit and copyright info.

Introduction to editing Wikipedia

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  • IRC quote

<mynameisnotdave> Wikipedia is like 'find a car, you don't need a license, and try driving without crashing. And oh, here's a highway code that you can try to read while driving'

"Which brings me back to psychological preparedness. I was not accustomed to being the new member of an established group and the slow kid at the back of the class at the same time. Relying on the charity of others to metaphorically tie my shoelaces. It grated. This was entirely my own, fairly reasonable (I think), issue. Nor was I prepared for the casual offhandedness which is fairly common. Recently I suffered a mass revert with the edit summary "Learn some intellectual property law". This bluntness rankled. It was my issue rather than the reverting editor's, but that didn't help reduce the rankle. Since discovering MilHist I have stumbled around in this small corner of Wikipedia, occasionally bumping into helpful tools which I endeavour to clutch close.

"The near complete lack of usable guides – IMO – to the basics is heavily compensated by the, usually, enormous willingness of complete strangers to spend time and effort correcting my idiocies, reducing my ignorance and remembering that they too were newbies once. Members of the Military History Project have collegially made the project a comfortable place to work in such a natural, even graceful, way that what they have achieved seems normal."