User:Pavithraes/Sandbox/MediaWiki documentation improvements project guidelines

Overview
We're working on improving the MediaWiki Action API documentation pages, 20 pages at a time. This guide is to help new contributors get started.

This project is promoted as an Outreachy project: 232816

Basics

 * Set up Git on your computer and create a Github account (if you don’t already have one).
 * Set up a MediaWiki account (if you don’t already have one).
 * Go though the project description and the MediaWiki Action API.

Select an API page
The Phabricator task description would contain a list of Action API pages (microtasks) that you could work on. It would typically be in a table format with the columns as 'API Page', 'Work in progress' and 'Done'. From the list, choose an Action API page that you would like to work on and add your name in the 'Work in progress' column.

To do so:
 * Make sure to log in to Phabricator (if not already).
 * Subscribe to the task.
 * Click on the 'Edit task' option and add your name.

The Subscribe and Edit task options are be available on the right-side on desktop view and in the hamburger menu on the top-right on mobile/tablet view.

See Phabricator/Help for more information using Phabricator.

Create a sandbox page
Avoid making changes to the API pages directly. Instead, create a page in your Sandbox by replacing username with your MediaWiki username and pagename with the name of the page you want to create in the URL:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:username/Sandbox/pagename

Fill template content
The MediaWiki Action API template is used to maintain consistency among the pages and to provide useful links to users. Fill your Sandbox page with the content from this template.

To do so:
 * Go to: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Documentation_template
 * Click on Edit/Edit source in the top bar.
 * Copy the content of the source.
 * Paste the copied contents in your Sandbox page.

We encourage you to stick to the template. If you feel the need to add/remove any section from the template or make any other changes, make sure to discuss it with your mentors first.

Examples
For your reference, go through a couple recent API pages that we modified using the new template: API:Geosearch, API:Parsing_wikitext.

Contribute sample code
Contribute sample codes for the API page (that you selected) to this repository: https://github.com/wikimedia/MediaWiki-Action-API-Code-Samples.

Finally

 * When you are done, reach out to your mentors (@jeropbrenda) on Zulip to get feedback on your contributions.
 * Try to incorporate the feedback recieved.
 * Once you get the final green signal, coordinate with your mentors in getting your changes integrated with the actual page on MediaWiki.org.
 * Lastly, add your name next to the project in the “Done” column in the Phabricator task description.

MediaWiki pages

 * MediaWiki pages have a table of contents for easy navigation within the page.
 * The 'Overview' section provides an abstract of what the page is about and the 'See also' section contains some useful links.
 * The 'Seach MediaWiki' bar on the top-right can be used to seacrh for wiki pages.

Using Zulip

 * The Outreachy-19 discussion take place on: https://wikimedia.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/outreachy19.
 * Learn about Zulip streams and topics: https://zulipchat.com/help/about-streams-and-topics
 * Zulip also allows you to format messages: https://zulipchat.com/help/format-your-message-using-markdown

Help

 * Zulip
 * IRC
 * Mailing list
 * Discourse

API pages

 * API:Main page
 * API:FAQ
 * API:tutorial

MediaWiki pages

 * Main page
 * FAQ
 * New developerss
 * New technical writers

General

 * https://guides.github.com/