Project Proposal: Openverse Datasets

documentation/projects/proposals/publish_dataset/20230706-project_proposal_openverse_dataset.md

@@ -0,0 +1,232 @@
+# 2023-07-06 Project Proposal: Providing and maintaining an Openverse image dataset
+
+```{attention}
+The Openverse maintainer team has decided to pause this project for the time
+being. [See our public update on it here](https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/2545#issuecomment-1682627814).
+This proposal may be picked back up when the discussion reopens in the future.
+```
+
+**Author**: @zackkrida
+
+## Reviewers
+
+<!-- Choose two people at your discretion who make sense to review this based on their existing expertise. Check in to make sure folks aren't currently reviewing more than one other proposal or RFC. -->
+
+- [x] @AetherUnbound
+- [x] @sarayourfriend
+
+## Project summary
+
+This project aims to publish and regularly update a dataset or _datasets_ of
+Openverse's media metadata. This project will provide access to the data
+currently served by our API, but which is difficult to access in full and
+requires significant time, money, and compute resources to maintain.
+
+## Motivation
+
+For this project, understanding "why?" we would do this is of paramount
+importance. There are several key philosophical and technical advantages to
+sharing this dataset with the public.
+
+### Open Access + Scraping Prevention
+
+Openverse is and always has been, since its days as
+["CC Search"](https://creativecommons.org/2021/12/13/dear-users-of-cc-search-welcome-to-openverse/),
+informed by principles of the open access movement. Openverse strives to remove
+all all financial, technical, and legal barriers to accessing the works of the
+global commons.
+
+Due to technical and logistical limitations, we have previously been unable to
+accessibly provide access to the full Openverse dataset. Today, users need to
+invest significant time and money into scraping the Openverse API in order to
+access this data. These financial and technical barriers to our users are deeply
+inequitable. Additionally, this scraping disrupts Openverse access and stability
+for all users. It also requires significant maintainer effort to identify,
+mitigate, and block scraping traffic.
+
+By sharing this data as a full dataset on
+[HuggingFace](https://huggingface.co/datasets), we can remove these barriers and
+allow folks to access the data provided by Openverse.org and the Openverse API
+without restriction.
+
+### Contributions Back to Openverse
+
+Easily accessed Openverse datasets will facilitate easier generation of machine
+labels, translations, and other supplemental data which can be used to improve
+the experience of Openverse.org and the API. This data is typically generated as
+part of the
+[data preprocessing](https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/preprocessing)
+stage of model training.
+
+Presence on HuggingFace in particular will enable community members to analyze
+the dataset and create supplemental datasets; to train models with the dataset;
+and to use the dataset with all of HuggingFace's tooling: the
+[Datasets](https://github.com/huggingface/datasets) library in particular.
+
+It is worth noting that this year we identified many projects to work on which
+rely on bulk analysis of Openverse's data. These projects could be replaced by,
+or made easier by the publication of the datasets. This could work in a few
+ways. A community member, training a model using the Openverse dataset,
+generates metadata that we want and planned to generate ourselves. Then, the
+HuggingFace platform presents an alternative to other SaaS (software as a
+service) products we intended to use to generate machine labels, detect
+sensitive content, and so on. Instead of those offerings we use models hosted on
+the HuggingFace hub. The
+[Datasets library](https://huggingface.co/docs/datasets/index) allows for easy
+loading of the Openverse dataset in any data pipelines we write. HuggingFace
+also offers the ability to deploy production-ready API endpoints for
+transformation models hosted on their hub. This feature is called
+[Inference Endpoints](https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-endpoints/index).
+
+#### Potentially-related projects
+
+- [External API for sensitive content detection #422](https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/422) -
+  Instead of Rekognition or Google Vision, we may want to use a community model
+  on HuggingFace.
+- [Machine Image Labeling pipeline #426](https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/426)
+  Either a community member may create an up to date set of machine-generated
+  labels we could use, or we could again create an Inference Endpoint with an
+  existing model, for example
+  [Vision Transformer](https://huggingface.co/google/vit-base-patch16-224)
+- [Duplicate image detection #427](https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/427) -
+  Deduplication is an extremely common and important preprocessing step. It will
+  surely be implemented by community contributors and can be reapplied to
+  Openverse itself. It's possible we'll want a different deduplication strategy
+  that considers provenance and ownership (i.e, did the original author upload
+  or someone else), but at a minimum, we should be able to use community
+  solutions to _identify_ duplicates.
+
+### Resiliency
+
+The metadata for openly-licensed media, used by Openverse to power the API and
+frontend, is a community utility and should be available to all users,
+_distinctly_ from Openverse itself. By publishing this dataset, we ensure access
+to this data is fast, accessible, and resilient. With published datasets, this
+access remains even if Openverse is inaccessible, under attack, or experiencing
+any other unforeseen disruptions.
+
+## Goals
+
+<!-- Which yearly goal does this project advance? -->
+
+This project encompasses all of our 2023 "lighthouse goals", but "Community
+Development" is perhaps the broadest and most relevant. Others touched on here,
+or impacted through potential downstream changes, are "Result Relevancy",
+"Quantifying our Work", "Search Experience", "Content Safety", and "Data
+inertia".
+
+## Requirements
+
+<!-- Detailed descriptions of the features required for the project. Include user stories if you feel they'd be helpful, but focus on describing a specification for how the feature would work with an eye towards edge cases. -->
+
+This project requires coordination with HuggingFace to release the dataset on
+their platform, bypassing their typical restrictions for Dataset size.
+
+We will also need to figure out the technical requirements for producing the raw
+dataset, which will be done in this project's implementation plan. Additionally
+in that plan we will:
+
+- Determine if we host a single dataset for all media types, or separate
+  datasets for different media types.
+- Develop a plan for updating the datasets regularly
+- Refine how we will provide access to our initial, raw dataset for upload to
+  HuggingFace. This refers to the initial, raw dump from Openverse, not the
+  actual dataset which will be provided to users. These details are somewhat
+  trivial as the data can be parsed and transformed prior to distribution.
+  - Delivery mechanism, likely a requester pays S3 bucket
+  - File format, likely parquet files
+
+We will also need to coordinate the launch of these efforts and associated
+outreach. See more about that in the [marketing section](#marketing).
+
+## Success
+
+<!-- How do we measure the success of the project? How do we know our ideas worked? -->
+
+This project can be considered a success when the dataset is published. Ideally,
+we will also observe meaningful usage of the dataset. Some ways we might measure
+this include:
+
+- Metrics built into HuggingFace
+  - Models trained with the Dataset are listed
+  - Downloads last month
+  - Likes
+- Our dataset trending on HuggingFace
+- Additionally, we may also see increased interest in our repositories
+- Any positive engagement with our marketing efforts for the project
+
+## Participants and stakeholders
+
+<!-- Who is working on the project and who are the external stakeholders, if any? Consider the lead, implementers, designers, and other stakeholders who have a say in how the project goes. -->
+
+- Openverse maintainers - Responsible for creating the initial raw data dump,
+  maintaining the Openverse account and Dataset on HuggingFace. We also need to
+  make sure maintainers are protected from liability related the dataset, for
+  example: from distributing PDM works, works acquired by institutions without
+  consent or input from their cultures of origin, or copyrighted works
+  incorrectly marked as CC licensed.
+- CC Licensors with works in Openverse - It is critical that we respect their
+  intentions and properly communicate the usage conditions for different license
+  attributes (NC, ND, SA, and so on) in our Dataset documentation. We also need
+  to spread awareness of the opt-in/out mechanism
+  [Spawning AI](https://spawning.ai/) which is integrated with HuggingFace.
+- HuggingFace - A key partner responsible for the initial dataset upload,
+  providing advice, and potential marketing collaboration
+- Creative Commons - Stewards of the Commons and CC Licenses, advisors, and
+  another partner in marketing promotion
+- Aaron Gokaslan & MosaicML - A researcher working on supplementary datasets and
+  providing technical advice
+
+## Infrastructure
+
+<!-- What infrastructural considerations need to be made for this project? If there are none, say so explicitly rather than deleting the section. -->
+
+This project will likely require provisioning some new resources in AWS:
+
+- A dedicated bucket, perhaps a "Requester pays" bucket, for storing the backups
+- New scripts to generate backup artifacts
+
+## Accessibility
+
+<!-- Are there specific accessibility concerns relevant to this project? Do you expect new UI elements that would need particular care to ensure they're implemented in an accessible way? Consider also low-spec device and slow internet accessibility, if relevant. -->
+
+This project doesn't directly raise any accessibility concerns. However, we
+should be mindful of any changes we would like to make on Openverse.org relating
+to copy edits about this initiative.
+
+We should also be mindful of any accessibility issues with HuggingFace's user
+interface, which we could share with them in an advisory capacity.
+
+## Marketing
+
+<!-- Are there potential marketing opportunities that we'd need to coordinate with the community to accomplish? If there are none, say so explicitly rather than deleting the section. -->
+
+This release will be a big achievement and we should do quite a bit to promote
+it:
+
+- Reach out to past requesters of the dataset and share the HuggingFace link
+- Social channel cross-promotion between the WordPress Marketing team,
+  HuggingFace, and/or Creative Commons
+- Post to more tech-minded communities like HackerNews, certain Reddit
+  communities, etc.
+
+Additionally, our documentation will need to be updated extensively to inform
+users about the Dataset. The API docs, our developer handbook, our docs site,
+and potentially Openverse.org should all be update to reflect these changes.
+
+## Required implementation plans
+
+<!-- What are the required implementation plans? Consider if they should be split per level of the stack or per feature. -->
+
+- Initial Data Dump Creation - A plan describing how to produce and provide
+  access to the raw data dumps which will be used to create the Dataset(s).
+  Additionally, this plan should address the marketing and documentation of the
+  initial data dump. Essentially, all facets of the project relating to the
+  initial release.
+  - This is the first, largest, and most important plan.
+- Dataset Maintenance - A plan describing how we will regularly release updates
+  to the Dataset(s).
+
+We will also want a plan for how we intend to _use_ the HuggingFace platform to
+complete our other projects for the year, but that might fall outside the scope
+of this project.

documentation/projects/proposals/publish_dataset/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# Providing and maintaining an Openverse image dataset
+
+```{toctree}
+:titlesonly:
+:glob:
+
+*
+```