User:Jesse Groppi/GSOC 2010

Identity
Name: Jesse Groppi

Email: [mailto:jagroppi@gmail.com email]

Project title: Edit Forms

Contact/working info
Timezone: CST (GMT/UTC -6) prior to project, during project I could be in GMT/UTC

Typical working hours: Any

IRC or IM networks/handle(s): IRC: DuTempete; Skype: jesse.groppi; Google Wave: jagroppi AT googlewave DOT com; MSN: jagroppi AT gmail DOT com

Project summary
Wikimedia projects have been around for nearly ten years, now. There are millions of pages on thousands of subjects written in thousands of differing styles. This is an intimidating concept for editors and readers alike.

Over the years, editors and administrators have agreed upon certain styles for similar types of content to be written in. The method, however, has been imperfect. It is absolutely normal to find pages that don't fit their designated style, and most new editors begin editing without knowing there are guidelines at all.

My project is designed to benefit the content needing to be created and edited in a similar format many times over. In both the wikicode and WYSIWYG editors, templates will be used to produce sets of fields at the beginning, the end, or in lieu of the edit box entirely. Entire namespaces can be set to always display a certain template, and individual templates can be categorised in order to be made available via drop-down menus.

This extension (or core mod) would help ensure that format guidelines are followed by making it easier to do, as well as enabling new editors to be informed from the very beginning. Most importantly, this project would improve usability for both editors and readers.

About you
Hello! My name is Jesse, and I'm an adult student from Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Programming and web design have been hobbies of mine since I was, shall we say, much younger. I am mostly self taught, though I have taken a couple classes in order to meet the requirements of a teaching endorsement in computer education. I am, in fact, a student of education; my joint bachelor's degree in English and drama should be completed in 2012, but my ultimate goal is to receive my Post Graduate Certificate of Education, also from the University of the West of England, in 2013.

I have been working with the MediaWiki platform since 2007, when I began editing WoWWiki.com. I haven't made many contributions to WMF projects, but more recently I've become involved with WikiEducator.org, the founder of which is a member of the WMF Advisory Board, and I've contributed to several Wikia projects. More importantly, I've started my own MediaWiki site, from which I learned PHP and gained a familiarity with the internal code.

People often look at me incredulously when I say I'm a writer that is also interested in programming and mathematics. However, I find them to be rather similar to each other. All three require a strong grasp of logic, thinking creatively and outside the "box", and the ability to convey meaning to others. That said, I'll admit that programming scratches a mental itch that I can't satisfy elsewhere. I enjoy it immensely, and I get much gratification from working with the open source community.

Deliverables
It should be possible to break down your project into some bullet points describing particular features or milestones which can be reached individually. Consider that we may wish to roll out the system for testing when at an intermediate stage of completion, and that time estimates might vary, leaving you with more time than you expected or (more likely) a lot less -- some features can be pushed back if you end up short.

Project schedule
Try to break your deliverables into "milestone" points which can be reached in sequence. Block out your estimated schedule of when you'll reach each functional milestone. Don't forgot that real time may change -- leave enough wiggle room for your required features to be completed!

Any other info
If there's other relevant information -- UI mockups, references to related projects, a link to your proof of concept code, whatever. There are no specific requirements, but we love to see people who love what they're doing. Show us you're excited about this project and have an interest in the background and are considering how best to make your idea work.