User:Sandaru/Project Eclipse: Wikidata Outreach Project

Project Eclipse

 * Public URL:
 * Wiki page : Project proposal
 * Google Doc :Project proposal


 * Bugzilla report: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61991
 * Announcement: wikitech-l mailing list announcementwikitech-l mailing list..

Name and contact information

 * Name : Dinu Kumarasiri :
 * Email : sandarumk@gmail.com :
 * IRC or IM networks/handle(s) : sandaru :
 * Location : Colombo, Sri lanka :
 * Typical working hours : whenever I can :

Synopsis
The main idea of this project is to make people more aware of Wikidata and increase the number of contributors. This can be done using an social media campaign. But when the new comers join we should have a proper set of documentation with guided tours ( using guided tours extension is discussed in the project chat of wikidata already). Project Eclipse will give priority to developing a set of getting started guides and completing existing documentation in a structured way. After the documentation is ready at a certain state we can start our social media campaign to spread the word about Wikidata. More details on the way how this project will be done can be found in Project proposal
 * Possible mentors : Lydia Pintscher :

Participation
I hope to carry out this project from two main perspectives ; Improving documentation and Social Media Campaign. For the documentation I hope to have a structured getting started guides with step by step instructions on contributing the society. As discussed in the project chat the guided tour extension can be used in this purpose. But I think having a set of fully structured and complete documentation would be an extra help for the new comers.

Social media campaign should be consistent. I hope to regularly spend two to three hours to deal with Facebook page, Google plus page and Twitter. As I am an online person I will be able to handle any queries coming from new comers to those pages very quickly and help them start contributing directing to our mailing list and getting started pages. I'll try to always be live on IRC so I can have my questions about wikidata answered and more importantly I can help new comers by directing them in to right direction if they ask questions in IRC.

For the last two enhancements of my project I need to have a thorough discussion with the community. I hope to do this via project chat and mailing lists so I can get ideas from the community and implement the two systems. More importantly I would be willing to contribute to Wikidata or Wikimedia foundation in future and continue these projects which need continuous contributions or any other projects which I could help.

About you

 * Education completed or in progress:
 * I am an third year undergraduate studying Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa.


 * How did you hear about this program?
 * I heard about this program in the last year from OpenMRS wiki as they participated in the previous round in this program. From there on I was waiting until the next round starts. The most important thing I see about this program is that this is not only for coders. This helps other people who has even no background in coding to show a way of contributing to open source community.


 * Will you have any other time commitments, such as school work, another job, planned vacation, etc., during the duration of the program?
 * In the duration of the program I have no any other time commitments than academic work. So I have enough time to be active in social media, mailing lists and IRC most of the time when I am not having lectures.


 * We advise all candidates eligible to Google Summer of Code and FOSS Outreach Program for Women to apply for both programs. Are you planning to apply to both programs and, if so, with what organization(s)?
 * Although I am eligible for Google Summer of Code I found this project in OPW more interesting than any other projects in GSoC and OPW.


 * What does making this project happen mean to you?
 * As it is introduced I also think WikiData is the game changer of Wikipedia. As a student and as a curious youth Wikipedia has helped me with countless times giving answers to my various questions about everything without disappointing me. Every time I want to know something I Google it and Voila! the Wikipedia article will always be at the top giving you what you need. I think it is a great thing that German Chapter of Wikimedia initiated this project. In my words "Wikidata is really a cool idea". I haven't been heard about wikidata before and only come to know the existence of it when I found it as an OPW project. Wikidata should be also as popular as Wikipedia. But currently it isn't and I'm here to make it happen :).;

Past experience

 * I have contributed to Wikimedia foundation on MediaWiki, Wikitech and Wikidata. Links To my contribution profiles is given below

Wikidata Contributor profile: : Sandaru

I have done contributions to wikidata by editing pages fixing links and improving items. Specially I have done translations to my native language Sinhala in large number of items.

Mediawiki Contributor profile: : Sandaru

I have done some minor edits to some of the pages in MediaWiki like Wikimedia Labs page apart from my project proposal to wikidata outreach

Wikitech Contributor profile: : Sandaru

Here I have done some editing in the pages improving the existing documentation.

Meta-Wiki Contributor profile: : Sandaru

I still haven’t got any chance to contribute any other FOSS projects than Wikimedia. But I am willing to contribute not only from the documentation aspect, but from the coding aspect too in the future.

As a user I have been a fan of FOSS projects from a long time. Among the various software products I regularly use FOSS products have made it to the top. I use Eclipse for my software development. It is the best IDE I came across. I have tried some other options as Netbeans and IntelliJ IDEA. But Eclipse has the best functionalities along with the user friendliness. I use Notepad ++ as my default text editor and OpenOffice as my default word processor. I get used to OpenOffice because it’s very simple, specially the functionality of tuning a document a pdf from one click has always bee the plus point for me. I use VLC as my default video player in my computer as well as my mobile. The support for file types VLC provides is really good. My motto regarding the software is “Why buy when you have better for free”. This is what I believe as a user of FOSS products.

My project for Wikimedia is “Wikidata Outreach”. It is to spread awareness to people all around the world about Wikidata. This is an outreach campaign. I have done an outreach campaign on small scale in social media for a society in the department I’m currently studying in. This is the Facebook page of that project: [Computer Science and Engineering Society] There are many lessons I learned from there. One of the important lesson is social media is the best way for an outreach campaign in today’s context. Another most important thing I learned there is that you should do frequent updates with photos and videos to keep your fan base interested and to get more people interested on your project. I think these will help me with this Wikidata outreach project.
 * Please describe any relevant projects that you have worked on previously and what knowledge you gained from working on them (include links):


 * What project(s) are you interested in (these can be in the same or different organizations) other than this?

I am also interested in "Welcoming new Contributors to Wikimedia Labs and Tool Labs project" in Wikimedia.
 * Project application page : Welcome to Labs
 * Detailed project proposal : Welcome to Labs-Project proposal



Any other info
Detailed project proposal : Project Proposal : Project Eclipse

Report on research done on similar social media campaign : Report on research about social media campaigns of similar projects (Microtask 1)