User:Sandaru/Welcome to labs

Welcome to Labs : Welcoming new contributors to Wikimedia Labs and Wikimedia Tool Labs

 * Public URL:
 * Wiki page : Project Poposal
 * Google Doc :Project proposal


 * Announcement: announcement of the proposal at the wikitech-l mailing list.

Name and contact information

 * Name : Dinu Kumarasiri :
 * Email : sandarumk@gmail.com :
 * IRC or IM networks/handle(s) : sandaru :
 * Location : Colombo, Sri lanka :
 * Typical working hours : whenever I can :

Synopsis
The purpose of this project is to improve all the documentation including getting started guides and project documentation in Wikimedia labs. When a volunteer comes to Wikimedia Labs main page he/she should be able to find a way to contribute by joining a project. When a particular contributor comes to Wikimedia Labs with a project idea in mind he/she should be able to find whether there are any similar projects on the same context before starting that project. In order to fulfill those requirements Wikimedia Labs should have a complete set of Getting Started guides and complete project documentation.

I hope to have a separate link to getting started guides from home page where any one can find a way to contribute to Wikimedia Labs. this will contain a proper guidance on how to select a project or how to create a project with a complete FAQ page for quick reference

For project documentation I hope to have a template which will suit for every project hosted in Wikimedia Labs. Then communicate with the project members from each and every project and complete their documentation.

More details on how this project will be done, can be found in Project Proposal


 * Possible mentors: Andrew Bogott

Participation
This project needs to have a constant discussion and close relationship with the community. For example to create the template first I hope to talk with the mentor and create a draft template. Then using the mailing list I hope to discuss with other members and revise it to have a better outcome.

About you

 * Education completed or in progress:
 * I am an third year undergraduate studying Computer Science and Engineering, University o Moratuwa.


 * How did you hear about this program?
 * I hear about this program in the last year from OpenMRS wiki as they participated in the previous year in this program. From there on I was waiting until the next round starts.For this round I heard it from a friend who is doing GSoC that round 8 is open for applicants.

In the duration o the program I have no any other time commitments than academic work. So I have enough time to be active in social media, mailing lists and IRC most of the time when I am not having lectures.
 * Will you have any other time commitments, such as school work, another job, planned vacation, etc., during the duration of the program?

I am not applying for a coding project and I am not planning to apply for GSoC
 * We advise all candidates eligible to Google Summer of Code and FOSS Outreach Program for Women to apply for both programs. Are you planning to apply to both programs and, if so, with what organization(s)?

The most important thing I see about this program is that this is not only for coders. This helps other people who has even no background in coding to show a way of contributing to open source community.

Past experience
I have contributed to Wikimedia foundation on MediaWiki, Wikitech and Wikidata. Links To my contribution profiles is given below

Wikitech Contributor profile: : Sandaru

Here I have done some editing in the pages improving the existing documentation.

Wikidata Contributor profile: : Sandaru

I have done contributions to wikidata by editing pages fixing links and improving items. Specially I have done translations to my native language Sinhala in large number of items.

Mediawiki Contributor profile: : Sandaru

I have done some minor edits to some of the pages in MediaWiki like Wikimedia Labs page apart from my project proposal to wikidata outreach

Wikitech Contributor profile: : Sandaru

Here I have done some editing in the pages improving the existing documentation.

I still haven’t got any chance to contribute any other FOSS projects than Wikimedia. But I am willing to contribute not only from the documentation aspect, but from the coding aspect too in the future.

As a user I have been a fan of FOSS projects from a long time. Among the various software products I regularly use FOSS products have made it to the top. I use Eclipse for my software development. It is the best IDE I came across. I have tried some other options as Netbeans and IntelliJ IDEA. But Eclipse has the best functionalities along with the user friendliness. I use Notepad ++ as my default text editor and OpenOffice as my default word processor. I get used to OpenOffice because it’s very simple, specially the functionality of tuning a document a pdf from one click has always bee the plus point for me. I use VLC as my default video player in my computer as well as my mobile. The support for file types VLC provides is really good. My motto regarding the software is “Why buy when you have better for free”. This is what I believe as a user of FOSS products.

When we take the “Welcoming new contributors to Wikimedia Labs and Wikimedia Tool Labs” The project needs organization and improvement of current documents with Getting started documents. As I am undergraduate student in Computer Science field I have the technical background it needs for these documentation. I have done many documentation work in my projects in the university, therefore I think I have the right experience and skill set for this project.
 * Please describe any relevant projects that you have worked on previously and what knowledge you gained from working on them :


 * What project(s) are you interested in (these can be in the same or different organizations) other than this?

I am also interested in "Wikidata Outreach" in Wikimedia.
 * Project application page : Project Eclipse
 * Detailed project proposal : Project Eclipse-Project proposal

Any other info
As an initial contribution asked by the mentor I have made a list of my thoughts about current Wikimedia labs main page and getting started page. Google Doc :Reviewing Main Page and Getting Started Page