Wikimedia Technical Documentation Team

This page documents the work and processes of the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation Team (Tech Docs Team).

Mission
Empower people to use and contribute to Wikimedia technology by making technical documentation easy to find, use, create, and maintain.

"The document or site works when target users can find what they need, understand what they find, and act on it confidently."

- "Five Steps to Plain Language"

Open-source software is an essential part of the Wikimedia movement. It provides platforms for content, enables us to expand our reach, and encourages us to look at knowledge is new ways. Documentation is the method through which software can be shared and collaborated on. Our mission is to ensure that everyone who wants to use or contribute to Wikimedia software can easily find and use the information they need. This work builds on over 20 years of technical documentation by the Wikimedia technical community. It strives to make technical information more accessible, more inclusive, and more reliable so that open-source software can continue to empower the Wikimedia mission.

Contact us

 * Leave a comment on Talk:Documentation or Talk:Wikimedia Technical Documentation Team
 * Tag a Phabricator task with
 * Email us at techdocs@wikimedia.org

Drive documentation work with data
Documentation success is notoriously difficult to measure. However, in order to prioritize our work and create a shared understanding of documentation quality, we must establish metrics, based on quantitative and qualitative methods, for measuring documentation health and tracking improvements.

Documentation effectively meets users’ information needs
Better understanding the health of our technical documentation across technical areas enables us to identify where the need for improvement – and potential for impact – is greatest. Technical writers provide documentation strategy to support critical user journeys across products and projects. Our holistic view of Wikimedia technical content helps us create and structure content for multiple, overlapping audiences. As partners in development workflows, technical writers provide a crucial user-focused perspective, helping improve our technology so that it needs less documentation.

Build the culture of documentation
The Wikimedia technical ecosystem spans hundreds of services, extensions, libraries, and tools, created by both staff and volunteers. To effectively manage technical documentation at this scale, we must empower Wikimedians across the movement to create and manage docs. This requires community outreach, self-service tools, and processes that support (and require) documentation updates. We must also invest in automated tools, like CI-based documentation checks and content linters, to make it easier for everyone to participate in maintaining great docs.

Active projects
For more details, read our twice-monthly updates on, and visit our workboard on Phabricator.

Maintenance projects
We maintain the following projects that align with our team goals. Maintenance responsibilities include reviewing patch requests, fixing critical bugs, monitoring wiki pages, and monitoring Phabricator projects.

Wikimedia Developer Portal
The Developer Portal is a static website that helps people find Wikimedia technical documentation. For more information, see the project documentation.

Documentation resources on mediawiki.org
Documentation and its subpages provide resources to help you find technical documentation, improve your docs or your writing, and get involved in contributing to Wikimedia technical documentation efforts.

API Portal
(Beta) The API Portal is an experimental API documentation and OAuth credential management wiki, including a wiki instance at api.wikimedia.org, a skin, and an extension.

API spec reader
The API spec reader is a tool that renders OpenAPI specifications with a built-in sandbox. For more information, see the project documentation.

Past projects

 * Pywikibot workshop materials
 * Initial buildout of team practices