Talk:NEH Reference materials grant application/Statement of significance and impact

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Got home from work at 11:30 pm because I had to finish a grant proposal there. It is a good start, but is this the way we want to use the money. We should say something about servers and expanding the community. Danny 04:58, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I knew there was stuff I was missing, besides, it's nowhere near long enough yet. NEH want's a full page, not a paragraph. I plan on working some more on it tonight. Gentgeen 05:49, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Great, I'll help out over the weekend. Danny 10:47, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just some comments.

I think we do not have to use the term "WikiReader."

It would be better to specify the target audience, perhaps. Whose needs are we going to satisfy? Related to that, I wonder if anybody has a good idea regarding the choice of the topics. What do we want to write/publish about?

Also important is the question is it all right to do something that benefit non-americans? Or NEH wants primary beneficiaries of this grant to be Americans?

Regarding the choice of topic, copyright and copyleft (legal, historical, in practice, biographies, etc.) came to my mind since we are better qualified on this topic than other applicants. This is also a topic where we can make use of our global (or multinational, if global is an exaggeration) composition.

But others may have better idea on the choice of topics.

Tomos 17:47, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Here are standing issues as I conceive:

  • Organization - I created three sections based on what grant explanation asked us to do. I think this is the basic, orthodox approach to write a good, clear grant application. So I behaved boldly. But any alternative ideas?
  • Activity section - I think we can shorten the WikiReader explanation, especially its origin. It would be better to write the whole thing for those who do not regularly use the Internet, have no idea what wiki is, let alone wikipedia. I think it would also be better to explain the process of making WikiReader a bit more.
  • Importance section - There was no content for this section. So I made the argument that our project educates the general public, and it is very cost effective. It is a way to contribute to the Humanity for sure, but is it appealing to the NEH people? Again, it seems securer for me to specify some areas that we can bring pieces of information from many parts of the world and create something others cannot. Something that has to do with comparative studies, cultural diversity, etc.
  • Result section - It would be better where we would sell/ distribute the WikiReader, perhaps.
  • Topic selection - I think application becomes stronger if we do specify the topic. But this is of course a thorny issue, so I did not do anything.
  • Language - I think it would make our application stand out if we can say that our WikiReader is going to be available at least in 4 different languages, possibly several more. This adds to the argument that our project is very cost effective. But at the same time, there is always the danger of making promises. Since we are all volunteers, we are not obligated to make translations. Wikimedia Foundation cannot promise that this will happen..

Tomos 06:04, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)


After reading the project examples here, I now wonder maybe we can think about spending some money for content acquisition/ digitization? (Although it is hard to propose what to acquire without specifying the topic of the WikiReader.)

Spending most of our money for servers may not please NEH people, I am afraid, if our goal is to publish WikiReaders. But we would not pay volunteer contributors. And NEH people do not want to fund publishing part. Promotion, distribution, etc. may be another way to spend money. Tomos 20:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is "As the content is impossible for casual visitors to the website to edit, many of the problems associated with Wikipedia, specifically recent vandalism of a content page, are eliminated." a necessary sentence? Sounds like an admission of guilt, IMO. I also agree that we need to drastically broaden the scope of what we want to spend the money on. - Alterego

Wow.. Just started reading stuff for the grant.. would be really, really cool if wikimedia could get it..

But what about the Expected Results section.. I don't know of any long-term goals of wikimedia, other than adding more articles, more users, and more server hardware.. some help here, please? Schmiddy 06:59, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A few thoughts, hope they're useful.

I think Wikipedia has major advantages over other encylopedias they'd consider. The structure of Wikipedia is already a proven success. Wikipedia is already bringing a massive amount of information to the entire world. Wikipedia is brought up regularly by Google searches. Humanities information added to Wikipedia would be readily available to hundreds of millions of people. I would note how popular Wikipedia already is and how it continues to grow rapidly. This is a government agency--they'd love the fact that all this knowledge would be at the fingertips of the taxpayers.

The main problem is that when they use the word "encyclopedia," I don't think they have a general-purpose encyclopedia for laymen, like the Encyclopedia Brittanica, in mind. Rather, I think they are describing something that would be useful for scholars. Wikipedia doesn't have great depth. For instance, the writeup of Mozart's last symphony has only 5 sentences. Mozart's 21st piano concerto has no article at all.

The difficulty with Wikipedia is that depth requires expertise--Ph.D.'s, years of research--that I don't think is too common on the site right now. Maybe there's some way that $500,000 could help that. I'd focus on how $500,000 would help Wikipedia add a large amount of scholarly depth in Humanities-related subject. They won't know what servers are, and they won't be interested in paying for servers. I'd act as if you already have the infrastructure in place. Prima facially you do, and that's a strength so don't let them doubt it.

Keep stressing your strengths--they're huge. Steer clear of reminding them that anybody can write anything. That's only seen as an strength by computer geeks. Hope you get the grant because I've always admired the site.

Rmalloy 01:18, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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