User:Memeht/Improving the Wikimedia Performance Portal/Progress Reports

This page will house all Reports and links to blog posts, code samples created during the FOSS-OPW Internship.

Community Bonding Report
Unfortunately, since being selected as an FOSS-OPW Intern, I have not been in contact with my mentors as they have been in the middle of deploying high-impact Wikimedia features.
 * How was your landing and your first meeting(s) with your mentors?

Due to the relatively short timeframe of the Internship, I focused on on-boarding from my end. This included conducting further research on Wikimedia Operating and Performance Goals, Wikimedia network architecture, Best Practices for Performance Management metrics (from high volume organizations like Google and New Relic), and Dashboard Design Fundamentals.

I created a Functional Specification draft,identified improvements to the dashboards displayed on GDash and completed an Introductory Tutorial to Grafana.

As previously mentioned, I have not been in contact with my mentors so this process has yet to be finalized.
 * What is the way of working that you have agreed? (tools in use, communication channels, meetings…)

In my proposal, I noted my work/learning style, and I am sure that after meeting with my mentors, we will be able to develop a working process.


 * Lessons learned since you applied for this OPW round and since you were accepted.
 * Fundamental use-case of Dashboards: As a tool to communicate insights, not necessarily for in-depth, on-the-spot analysis.
 * Different logging mechanisms used in Wikimedia's Platform.
 * Gained a better context of the metrics being displayed on GDash.
 * Need to document data flows in order to provide context for data.
 * Understood how Phabricator works


 * See Project Phabricator Page

Week Two (Dec 16-22)
This week has been as research-heavy as the previous one. I have worked on retooling old models of Mediawiki's performance data and logging processes to help me better understand Visual Editor, and further explored GDash's setup.

Since performance data is in a time-series format, I have also been taking a look at some basic statistical techniques for normalizing such data and identifying/accounting for seasonality within data spread. Interesting stuff!

I have also been in touch with my new mentor and decided on a weekly meeting schedule that fits both our schedule, which should help in the coming weeks when I get a chance to play with data.

I also worked on setting up Linn but halfway through, it turned out that wasn't necessary but I got to learn more about Mediawiki's performance logging process so it was still beneficial.