User:Vlad John GCi2013

Learning the basics of the tech
In the past years, I had used Wikipedia as often as I used Facebook. I used it for homeworks or simply for finding something new. When I was first introduced to the Internet world, I always asked myself how can someone make a site with so many people browsing it? This year, I found the answer at the Google Code-In contest. As I was browsing for a task that suited me, I found a company called Wikimedia. At first, I didn't know what to think: What was a Wiki company doing in this project? After browsing the titles for quite some time, I found something that cought my eye. It was a task about editing the wiki ( see https://www.google-melange.com/gci/task/view/google/gci2013/5814952061304832). I was so happy that I had finally found a task that suited my tastes that I clicked "Claim Task" before reading what I had to do. As expected, I go the task. But when I read more about what I had to do...well, it is enough to say that I had no ideea how to start. So I clicked the link to the Wiki page I was supposed to edit. As I started working, I ecountered several problems that I will describe in a moment. But thanks to a very good mentor, Quim Gil, I succeded in completing it.

I always wanted to edit a Wiki page, but, at first I was afraid. What if I did something wrong? However, after posting some .txt file on the page of the task, I received a comment that told me that in the end I had to edit the page itself, so why not start it then? After reading it, I dove in the unknown teritory of editing. I started by looking in the history of the page to find the things I had to add. That took a while, but in a shorter time that I first thought was necessary, I learned how to find information in earlyer edits, how to edit the source code of the page and how to do minor edits on the headings and structure. But this was the easy part. I just had to copy some names and place them where their place was. However, when it came to reporting bugs, I was indeed lost. I knew from the task I had to use Bugzilla to report bugs and add comments, but I had not the foggiest how to do it. That is when I started doing what I had to do in the first place: ask questions. I realized that the whole point of this was to teach students how to do different things, and the most important thing when learning is to ask questions everywhere: on forums, consult the https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ (FAQ...I still have no idea how to edit Hyperlinks :)) ) or the manual:https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Contents, or simply search more for the answer. So I began by reading the full Bugzilla guide(https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla), but that did not really answer my questions. At least, not until I found the "How to report a bug" guide(https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug). This gave me some important informations, like what to look for and how should a report look. BUt I still had one problem: the guide said a thing and the mentor said something else. So I decided to ask once more on the page of the task. In no time, I received an answer and a model. Apparently, the guide was right about a part of the task, and the mentor was right about another part. So, by combining the answers found in this two sources, I managed to find the answer to my problem. So,once I knew what I was looking for and once I asked the right questions, I got the answers I needed. From there, it was not too hard to start adding and commenting bugs on Bugzilla. Next problem appeared when I had to add the bug reports on the wiki page...I thought I was done the moment I added the bugs on Bugzilla, but again my lack of attetion and knowledge got the best of me. So I told myself: If asking the right question gets me information that I need, why not ask again? After all I am here to learn. So I went back to the task page and put another 2 paragraphs of questions. Indeed, I received the answers that helped me learn something about editing the source of the page. So I dove in once again in the unknown and started the work. After a hard time finding the bug reports again, I was finally done and I completed the task. After finishing, I realised that a person can learn anything on his or her own, but learning is more effective, if a mentor or teacher helps you. Also, a teacher that just tells you what to read and does not explain is less helpful than a teacher that knows how and what to explain, when to do it and speaks to you in a nice way, and by that helping you, like Quim Gil helped me, with explanations and examples, in completing the task.

So, to summ up, if you ever want to learn something about Wikimedia and not only, the best way is to ask other people, be he or she a mentor like Quim Gil was for me, be it a complete stranger on a forum, like StackOverflow(http://stackoverflow.com/), which is an important place for coding and scripting help. Many people say that learning has no shortcuts, but, if questions are not shortcuts, then they sure are a real help in education. Why? Because with questions come informations and with informations comes knowledge.