Events/FOSDEM/2013 - Lightning - Qgil


 * This proposal has been accepted.--Qgil (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Story
How to hack on Wikipedia

10 proposals to get you started in the MediaWiki community

You use Wikipedia. Maybe you donate to Wikipedia. Maybe you even edit Wikipedia. Or any other Wikimedia project: Commons, Wiktionary, Wikiversity... Since you are in FOSDEM chances are that you know what is MediaWiki. Maybe you are using it in some website or intranet. Maybe you even are a MediaWiki admin. Or maybe you even installed it once...

Anyway, we just came here to say that being a Wikipedia reader AND a FOSDEM attendee you simply qualify as technical contributors to one of the most amazing collaborative projects happening now. Annoyed by some detail? Suffering some bug? Missing some feature? Having a cool idea? Wondering what comes next? Here you have the top 10 activities that you can start right here right now:

(The list will go through 10 examples of tasks for developers, testers, designers, sysadmins, doc writers, and even product and marketing people! A page in mediawiki.org will list these tasks and point to the right places to get you started).

Now you saw the dark side. You smelled the red pill. No matter what you do (or don't do), reading Wikipedia will never be the same.

Slides
This is a draft. The number of slides and their sorting hasn't been decided yet.

Each slide has a section. The title of the section defines the slide, not the text inside the slide.


 * Notes about each slide are added in italic just like this.

We hope to use the MediaWiki presentation template ready for these slides.

How to hack on Wikipedia
How to hack on Wikipedia

10 proposals to get you started in the MediaWiki community

Wikipedia and Wikimedia

 * ''Explain that when we say "Wikipedia" we actually mean Wikimedia x languages.
 * Total number of Wikimedia wikis: Special:SiteMatrix

Wikimedia and MediaWiki

 * Explain that all those wikis are "Powered by MediaWiki.
 * mediawiki.org

MediaWiki projects: the big picture

 * ''A diagram showing MediaWiki Core, extensions used by Wikimedia, other extensions by 3rd parties, toolserver/labs, mobile, offline (anything else?).
 * Also the functions? Development, Design, Languages, Sysadmin, QA.

Edit Wikipedia! (with Visual Editor)

 * Visual Editor is a top priority. Enable it, test it, feel the pain, help fixing the problems.

Mirror Wikipedia offline - Kiwix

 * Fork Wikipedia entirely, run it locally, customize whatever you want.

Use Wikipedia data in your apps

 * Use the API to use / remix Wikipedia data, or to reinvent the Wikipedia UX with your app.

Fork & patch Wikipedia Mobile

 * Improve the Wikimedia mobile apps, port them to other platfforms, create your own.

Fix / translate Wikipedia UI strings

 * Improve the UI strings you see (or miss) in your preferred language.

Write & share gadgets enhancing the Wikipedia experience

 * Know Javascript? Just write a gadget to enhance your Wikipedia experience without touching the actual MediaWiki code. Share with your friends.

Solve a small design challenge

 * We have many Micro Design Improvements waiting for design input and work.

Inject your sysadmin skills to Wikipedia

 * Trying to find a first good task - see related email thread.

Improve a MediaWiki extension

 * Missing certain functionality in Wikipedia? Probably depends on an extension.
 * ''PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS.
 * Check Special:Version to know about the extensions available in your MediaWiki of choice.
 * Check Bugzilla to make sure the bug or enhancement request dosn't exist, or its status.
 * How to become a MediaWiki hacker/Extension Writing Tutorial

Improve MediaWiki Core

 * If you are considering this, you probably know what to do. :)
 * Bugzilla is your friend.
 * Probably good to provide some data from Community metrics.