MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group/TechConf Input

The Platform Evolution Program team is gathering input from a variety of groups with an interest in MediaWiki. This input will be provided to the Program Committee for the Wikimedia Technical Conference to assist them in designing the program for the conference. The MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group is helping the Platform Evolution Program team by coordinating responses from people and organizations who are using MediaWiki for non-Wikimedia projects.

If you use or maintain a wiki powered by MediaWiki - a personal wiki, a wiki or wiki farm for an organization or company, a wiki for a community group, a wiki hosting service - that is not part of a Wikimedia project, please provide input below. It's OK if you also participate in Wikimedia projects, but please restrict your answers below to non-Wikimedia projects.

Your feedback will help and frame the Platform Evolution discussions, seeking to answer open questions, explore governance models, and identify key MediaWiki features for future development. The output from the Wikimedia Technical Conference will form the basis of the Platform Evolution Program which will directly drive the future development of MediaWiki.

Thank you!

Please answer the questions below. You may provide multiple answers to each question. For each question, use the input box to create a new section, outlining your response:


 * In the input box put a short headline for your response. Pressing the button will then take you to a form to enter your full response.
 * Try to keep your response general, rather than focusing on one specific implementation, where possible.
 * If there are any relevant wiki pages, Phabricator tickets, mailing list discussions, etc., please link them as well.

In addition to answering the questions, please endorse responses entered by others. This will help us prioritize the responses.
 * Underneath each response will be a section for endorsements (and any brief comments) and another for longer comments.
 * To endorse a response, please click the [edit source] beside the Endorsements header under the response you wish to endorse. Then, add a new line containing:
 * To comment on a response, please click the [edit source] beside the Comments header under the response on which you wish to comment. Then, add a comment.
 * Please check back often so you can endorse any new responses that are relevant to you.
 * Please check back often so you can endorse any new responses that are relevant to you.

Deadline: Please respond below no later than August 19, 2018.

= Conference topics =
 * What are the most important topics that should be discussed at the Wikimedia Technical Conference?

= Open questions =
 * What open questions would you like to be resolved during the Wikimedia Technical Conference?

= Challenges =
 * What tasks are currently difficult for you to perform? What features are difficult to implement? What is missing or insufficient that makes it difficult: software, documentation, integration, support, something else?

Comments

 * Upgrading Scribunto on a shared host. Extensions that are needed to easily copy and paste existing templates should be considered critical extensions. Zzmonty (talk) 16:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Better importing. For example, I need to import a txt file. Each article within the text file has a way to determine the start and end of the article.  The title of the article is all in caps, and the end of the article is a bunch of .  A way to specify rules to indicate article breaks in the txt file for import.


 * An easier way to figure out which components of which parts of the user interface can be edited in the mediawiki namespace would be nice. I have at times dug to find things I needed to change (e.g. errors given for a private wiki so that errors still make sense for a not-logged-in visitor), and finding where I can change things is painful. Maybe there is a good external map I just have not found, but it would be nice if this was a bit more intuitive, eg as a special page. Tenbergen (talk) 16:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you know about "uselang=qqx"? Yaron Koren (talk) 16:29, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Specifically, see docs at qqx trick. :) –Quiddity (talk) 04:40, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

= Future =
 * What features, capabilities, or use cases do you need to support in your wikis in the future that are currently missing? Try to focus on use cases rather than any specific implementation when possible. How soon do you need each and how critical is it to you?

= Use =
 * Bonus question: what do you use your wiki(s) for?