User:ABaso (WMF)/Allan J Onboarding

''' Welcome, Allan, and thank you for joining us as a part of the Abstract Wikipedia / Wikifunctions initiatives in Wikimedia Foundation's Product Engineering unit! We're glad you're here. '''

If you are stuck at any point, you can try the following for various questions.


 * Ask your onboarding buddy, Geno.
 * Ask in the Abstract Wikipedia Channel, #aw-team.
 * For some things you may need help from IT Services ("ITS"). Ask Cai B in that case.

How to use this document

 * First, read this document once top to bottom. Then return to this bullet point and start.
 * When something is finished, paste in  via the wikitext editor, or use   if using the VisualEditor WYSIWYG editor. This will render as ✅ when saved. Need help with wikitext? Check out: w:Help:Cheatsheet

Primer
Welcome aboard! This is a complex initiative and it helps to have some background.

Start here
The Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation ultimately provided approval to go forward with the Abstract Wikipedia initiative, which meant introduction of the first new top level project into the Wikimedia universe (that is, like Wikipedia, or Wikimedia Commons, or Wikidata) in 8-10 years depending on how one frames the start of a project.

Start by reading Architecture for a Mutilingual Wikipedia written by Denny Vrandečić, formerly at Google, original founder of Wikidata, now Head of Special Projects at the Wikimedia Foundation, working as the project lead for Abstract Wikipedia / Wikifunctions.

Although, as you might expect, some of the details of the conceptual system architecture and concrete expression of the ideas has changed and will continue to change over time, it's still tremendously useful to take in this context. Most people say they need to read the paper a couple times to really begin to grasp fully what it means.

You can watch the NSF video from 2021 and read the article from Slate from 2021. They sum up the general thinking and also cover some of the interesting and hard challenges ahead.

Next, read the following:

''You'll notice a number of links on these pages with what's called a "navbox" (short for "navigation box") on the right side of the page (if you're viewing in a classic desktop presentation mode), which point to these three pages and others. Over time you'll want to read many of those pages in the navbox, but for now reading (and possibly re-reading, as it took most of us several times to understand fully) those three pages in particular will be most helpful for understanding some of the fundamentals of Wikifunctions modeling.''
 * Generic function model
 * Pre-generic function model
 * Reserved ZIDs

Finally, read this blog post by our former Senior UX Designer, explaining some of the design decisions and process in developing Wikifunctions.

There's further coverage about Abstract Wikipedia (the Wikimedia top level project name, which was voted on by volunteers, is Wikifunctions) here: Papers, press, and videos

Abstract Wikipedia

 * Abstract Wikipedia Developer Cheatsheet
 * Wikifunctions development environment setup guide

Meetings

 * We typically record meetings if team members are absent.
 * Ask your buddy for a copy of the team norms.

Special access

 * Members of the team should generally be in the abstract-wikipedia group in gerrit, which gives you merge access to a number of repositories owned by the team. Work with your buddy / tech lead to ensure this access..

Mailing lists

 * There is the public mailing list for Abstract Wikipedia, which you will find interesting. Please join.
 * There is also the Wikidata mailing list and you should subscribe.
 * As this list is quite active, you probably want to set a GMail filter as follows in order to keep mailing list traffic manageable:
 * Matches: to:(wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org) -{"weekly summary"}
 * Do this: Skip Inbox