Wikimedia Discovery/Team/Onboarding

Team page: Search and Discovery

Note that if you are seeing this in a page who's URL ends in /YourName then you should feel free to strike through the steps are you finish them. If you find an error in the instructions then go fix them on the template.

= Things to do on your own =

First day

 * IRC
 * Get an IRC client. I like Quassel. weechat and irssi are good if you like text interfaces.
 * Connect to Freenode and register your user name.
 * Join #wikimedia-search.
 * I (Nik aka manybubbles) will be in there and we'll use this room to keep up with you.
 * Skim the "People to meet/First day" section below and keep some of the irc names in mind. Chat with them when we get bored of the tasks below and need a break.
 * If you get stuck on anything just shout in #wikimedia-search.
 * NOTE: Some of these tasks can be found by reading the new hire information but I'm making an effort to grab the important bits.
 * Read the Systems Guide for New Hires.
 * Google Mail/Calendar
 * Follow the systems guide above to get access to gmail and your calendar.
 * (Optional) In Gmail, enable Settings -> Labs -> Undo Send and press Save Changes. Go back to settings and change the timeout to 30 seconds.
 * Add these calendars to your calendar calendars: "WMF Staff Calendar", "WMF Sick/Vacation Tracking Calendar", and "WMF Fun & Learning".
 * The WMF Fun & Learning calendar isn't super useful for remote employees.
 * In Calendar go to Settings and tick "Speedy Meetings" and set work hours.
 * IRC (part two!)
 * Join #wikimedia-search, #wikimedia, #mediawiki, #wikimedia-operations, #wikimedia-office, #wikimedia-dev.
 * Learn about cloaks and request one.
 * It can take a few days for the cloak stuff to be resolved.
 * Verify WMF access to Wikitech (LDAP), Office (SUL), Wikipedia (SUL), and Wikimedia Foundation (SUL)
 * The instructions for these are in the systems guide above.
 * Schedule staff photo (just list you name here)
 * Or you can list yourself as not wanting to have your photo up by adding your name under the cloak of invisibility list.
 * Add yourself to the team page
 * Subscribe to some mailing lists
 * The public search list
 * The private search list
 * Wikitech-l the Paper of record for changes to MediaWiki.
 * Introduce yourself on wikimedia-search.

First few days

 * git
 * Read the tutorial on our git/gerrit workflow.
 * Install git.
 * Install git-review.
 * Add yourself to some Gerrit review group(s).
 * Skip down to the section on MediaWiki-Vagrant and start on that. When you run  for the first time it'll take a long, long while. So come pack and continue from here while you wait for that.
 * Read How to become a MediaWiki hacker.
 * Install MediaWiki-Vagrant
 * After you verify that you can create pages and such add the  role, run   and try searching
 * Work on something small!
 * You can ask anyone for an issue to work on but officially your point of contact for this is manybubbles.
 * Just submit the patch using  and add manybubbles as a reviewer.
 * IRC
 * Once you have a cloak you can join/get invited to #wikimedia-staff and #mediawiki_security <--- note the underscore. It has a history.

= People to meet and things to do with them = You'll want to meet these people soon, some on the first day! You should probably introduce yourself over IRC and ask to schedule a Google hangout with them.

First day

 * Tomasz aka tomasz, own manager. He is also on US West Coast time.
 * Tell him everything is going great and that the instructions are easy to follow but you are still overwhelmed by the reading you have to do.
 * Tell him that you found some errors in the instruction and fixed the template.
 * I'm just kidding.
 * Ask him to give you an overview of how the foundation is organized, teams and such.
 * Also ask about how the SaD team is organized internally.
 * He'll want to talk to you one on one a few times in the first week.
 * Introduce yourself to Kevin aka meeple27, our team practices coach. He is on US West Coast time.
 * Ask him to add you to the appropriate meetings.
 * Ask him to explain how we communicate and track our work.
 * Ask him how he fits in with the rest of the team.

First few days

 * Dan aka Deskana, our lead product owner. He is on US West Coast time.
 * Ask him about how product works at the Foundation and with in the SaD team.
 * Testing overview - in house and Specialists Guild
 * Wikimedia project overview - what are our projects and who uses them
 * Moiz aka moizesyed, our lead designer. He is also on US West Coast time.
 * Ask about how UX/Design works with the rest of the SaD team.
 * Nik aka manybubbles, the guy writing this document. He is on US *East* Coast time and you've likely been chatting on irc for a while.
 * Ask him for an issue to work on
 * Erik aka ebernhardson, our vagrant expert. He is on US West Coast time.
 * Ask him about vagrant ask him to show you how to run the browser tests. He does it in a different way than manybubbles and we're not sure which is the one true way.