Talk:Developer hub

Links for skins developers
i was noticed that there are two different links on this page that look like links about skin development: --Lig13 13:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * under "Extending MediaWiki" headline there is "Skins - Change the look and feel of MediaWiki."
 * but under "Help for extension writers" there is "Skins: Manual:Skinning" that is usefull one

Decision-making version of MediaWiki
Dear Sirs,

No doubt MediaWiki is superb platform for collaborative writing and editing. However I am trying to create “decision-making” MediaWiki website to collaborate in resolving social problems on all levels from global to local; a website resembling virtual brain and mind (www.netsmind.org). Doing this I’ve faced two problems: a) incorporation of formal decision-making model (algorithm) to guide collaborative decision-making process and b) set up an option for alternative decisions. (Keep in mind that collaborative decision-making process excludes voting by definition. Voting is an element of collective decision-making process, which is democracy. Opposed opinions are eliminated by voting in favour of majority. In collaborative decision-making process in case of opposed opinions should be elaborated two or three alternative feasible solutions, which will be verified in social practice. So there is no voting mechanism at all).

I’ve incorporated formal decision-making model as contents, instead of template, very unprofessional manor indeed. (I am Psychologist, not Developer or even Webmaster and can’t write templates). The second problem – option for alternative decisions is high above my limited knowledge in this field). Apparently, because of this reason I can’t promote my site.

I hope sooner or later collaborative decision-making platform will be created and could be of interest to your team to write such version of MediaWiki. Perhaps decision-making platform will be new generation of collaborative software, as making-decisions is more complex and complicate process compare with systemising information. I assume writing few specific templates could be the first step to create full such version.

Nevertheless my inquiry is could your team help me referring my case to Developer, who could be interested of creating of decision-making platform and create for me two or three such templates?

Thank you for your time and all you did to create such fantastic platform.

Regards

D. Tchurovsky tchurovsky@gmail.com

Feature?
Hello - I am finding it a bit difficult to find the correct place to drop a technical suggestion: the mediawiki software list the timestamp of any edit in the page history, right? Would it be possible to update the software so that in addition (or maybe as an alternative, selected in preferences), the time is given as "X hours, X minutes, X secondas ago"? Cheers and keep up the good work! Ingolfson 08:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Bugzilla page says: "All bugs in the MediaWiki software should be reported at bugzilla.wikimedia.org. This is also the place to request new features or enhancements to the software." (highlight mine). Good luck with your feature request. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 08:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Extension points
It says "There are 5 main extension points" but 6 are listed. I take it integration with S3 is the minor extension point? Perhaps we should say that. Tisane 06:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Extensions & Skins must be GPL?
Apparently Wordpress themes and plug-ins must be liscensed under GPL (see this).. is the same true for Mediawiki? --Frantik 20:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Its debatable - see the thread at wikitech-l/2010-July/048436.html . I'd lean towards they don't have to be gpl (based on that thread), but IANAL and don't understand the issues involved very well. Bawolff 17:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Possible?
If one person starts a wiki, can they transfer ownership to another person? --TripleU 06:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure. To fully transfer ownership, you'd need to transfer control of the domain and the hosting. —Emufarmers(T 19:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Links to consider when improving this page

 * Just a list of links I was keeping in my user discussion page for the day I (or someone else) start working on improving this page.--Qgil (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Glossary
 * Developers
 * http://workingwithmediawiki.com/
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git/New_repositories
 * https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/11/21/lead-development-process-product-adviser-manager/
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog
 * How to help with documentation.
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Features_engineering
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_developer_meetings
 * http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_Beta
 * Volunteer coordination and outreach/Training materials
 * Project:WikiProject_Bug_Squad
 * Project:Help
 * https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/
 * http://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/
 * Category:MediaWiki Introduction

Beyond MediaWiki Core and extensions
If we want to call this a Developer Hub we need to go beyond MediaWiki core and extensions. We could start fixing this integrating an adaptation of the text we had a How to contribute (now cut because that page was getting too long and cluttered):

The MediaWiki community is maintaining more than 5 million lines of code, and counting. Become a MediaWiki developer. Code contributions are welcome!
 * MediaWiki core and extensions. PHP knowledge required. Check How to become a MediaWiki hacker and the Developer hub.
 * Write enhancements in the form of small shareable user scripts and gadgets written in Javascript.
 * Coming soon: write templates and ParserFunctions with Lua scripting.
 * Multimedia developers are very welcome to Media Projects.
 * Mobile developers are welcome to Mobile Projects.

Developer Hub update
After polishing How to contribute, I want to start working on the update of this Developer Hub. Some key ideas:

And probably more, but getting these 3 pillars right the rest will be easy.--Qgil (talk) 18:44, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It needs to reflect all the software development activities and not only MediaWiki core & extensions. In fact there are many better entry points that should be promoted.
 * Gadgets (including userscripts), Mobile, Templates (focusing on the upcoming Lua-based), Bots, Skins, Extensions & Core.
 * It needs to offer language-centric pages to attract developers with certain skills to the right projects.
 * PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python, Perl, MySQL, Java... What else?
 * It needs to identify top projects welcoming developer contributions. Being a "top" project is not enough if you are not ready to handle new contributors and patches properly. The list might change based on the current situation and priorities.
 * The mobile apps seems to be good candidates with a good track of welcoming contributors. What else?

Recently a discussion started on wikitech-l about Developer Hub simplification, and it was decided to take it here. Following the main outline of the proposed ideas, we could have:

to send people to appropriate places. Less is more.
 * Developer Hub: a general overview with a very focused selection of links
 * /Get started (or similar name): intro for newcomers with relevant links.
 * /Reference (or similar name): what developers need on a regular basis.

Developer Hub and Get started should be more concise and visually pleasant, satisfying new developers. Reference is for usual suspects, so it could have more beef and links in order to have everything in one place.--Qgil (talk) 18:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Just adding that IMO reference docs should have more links not because they can afford to be less user-friendly, but precisely because they're supposed to be index-like material. E.g. Manual:Code. So detailed descriptions (I assume that's what you mean by "beef") don't fit here, as I see it; instead, that should be spread across the specific components linked to from the reference, which would only contain a brief description of each item.
 * Also, I reiterate the question I posed in the wikitech-l thread: how should Manual pages be reconciled with this approach? Currently most of them are pages about specific components (e.g. configuration variables or specific files or classes, such as Manual:LocalSettings.php), several are long, beefy descriptions of complex subsystems (e.g. Manual:Messages API, Manual:Skinning), and only a handful are reference-type indices (e.g. Manual:Code). Personally, I think the second type should be split into smaller pages (perhaps part of the "get started" group?), all interconnected, instead of attempting to describe the whole system. That's what hyperlinks are for :) --Waldir (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Ref more links in reference docs yes, this is what I meant (but you said better). I think we can plug Manual pages under Reference, or even make it the same thing (?). Here and now I want to focus on improving Developer hub page and putting together a decent /Get started page. I have no opinion about organizing Manual pages but it is better to keep both discussions separate. Most Manual pages won't be linked from these two pages anyway. If you want to work in that direction be my guest. :) --Qgil (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'm more interested in working in the Manual/reference documentation, so I won't pollute this thread with more about that (hopefully the wikitech-l discussion will continue, and in any case I added this as a topic for discussion in the Amsterdam Hackathon. That said, I will of course offer my thoughts and suggestions on the refactoring and "get started" work you or others might do, and help out in small ways if I can. --Waldir (talk) 17:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)