Sponsorship/funding needed for SMW tutorial video

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Yaron Koren

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Jan 7, 2009, 4:23:53 PM1/7/09
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Hi everyone,

It's come up repeatedly from talking to people, and from my own experience, that one of the biggest weaknesses of the Semantic MediaWiki system, if not the biggest at the moment, is the lack of a good document to explain things to beginning users. This is not a knock on the documentation on semantic-mediawiki.org and elsewhere, which is all very helpful; but there's no substitute for a linear narrative that explains every detail and how it fits into the bigger picture. Specifically, I think the most needed documentation would be an online tutorial video that explains Semantic MediaWiki and some of its extensions. I propose to create such a video. Because of the very large amount of information involved, the plan is to actually divide it into ten parts, each of which could be viewed on its own. You can see my proposed outline for this video here:


Given the size of the project, I don't think I can do it without funding. If you, your company or your organization could benefit from the existence of such a video - whether it's to learn more about the system yourself, to help educate your employees or wiki co-editors, to make potential clients more comfortable and knowledgeable about it, or just because you believe in the SMW project and want it to grow - please consider funding the project. I'm not asking for money yet; I just want to get a sense for whether funding of this video is possible.

Sponsoring this project could also allow you to have more input on the actual contents of the video before it gets completed, and also to have your organization's name listed as an official sponsor. If you're interested in sponsoring or otherwise funding this project, please let me know how much financial support you would be willing to provide.

And of course, donations for my other work on SMW extensions are always welcome; if you want to send funding simply as a way to sponsor the work I've done so far, that would be very much appreciated too.

Thanks,
Yaron

Javester

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Jan 9, 2009, 10:15:52 AM1/9/09
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Hi Yaron,
I'll try to round up some interest at my company to see if we can give
back.

But personally, I would like to chip in... perhaps, there's a paypal
fund jar ala Mediawiki Fund Drive (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/
Donate/Now/en)?

Best,
Joel

Javester

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Jan 9, 2009, 10:19:37 AM1/9/09
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Yaron,
I'll see if I can round up some interest at my company to give back...

But personally, I'd like to contribute to the effort. Is there
something like a Fund Jar ala MediaWiki Fund Drive (http://
wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Now/en) where we can make
contributions?

Best,
Joel

On Jan 7, 4:23 pm, Yaron Koren <yaro...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yaron Koren

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Jan 9, 2009, 10:45:35 AM1/9/09
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Well, there's no donation spot for the video yet, but you can always use the Semantic Forms donation page:


You might be able to add a note to the donation specifying what it's for (I forget now), but if a donation comes any time in the near future, I'll assume it's for the video. :)

-Yaron

robertuva

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Jan 14, 2009, 10:14:54 AM1/14/09
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Yaron - just wondering, but is there a reason why this would need to
be done professionally? I would think you could get most of the
benefit by creating a demo using something like:

Adobe Captivate
Camtasia
Autodemo (uses an agency actually..not software, but I believe
cheaper)

Of course that does mean more work on the creators end rather than
getting a studio to handle. Just throwing it out there.

Bobby

Yaron Koren

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Jan 14, 2009, 10:34:09 AM1/14/09
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Hi,

Okay, I guess I wasn't that clear: I am planning to do this by myself, and not by hiring others, if I do it at all. (I was planning to use Camtasia, for what it's worth.) The funding I want is just compensation for the amount of time I expect it to take - the finished product could be an hour or more worth of video, after all.

-Yaron

robertuva

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Jan 14, 2009, 11:16:57 AM1/14/09
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Yaron - understood. That makes sense. Making video is definitely a
long, drawn out process - scripting, setup, editing, etc.
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