Wikimedia Engineering/Report/2012/December/summary/es


 * This content is prepared for inclusion in the December 2012 Wikimedia Foundation report. It is a shorter and simpler version of the full Wikimedia engineering report for December 2012 that does not assume specialized technical knowledge.

Major news in December include:
 * The launch of an alpha, opt-in version of the VisualEditor to the English Wikipedia, a project more complex than it appears;
 * A research study on the use of the Article Feedback feature;
 * New metrics for the MediaWiki community;
 * The start of the Outreach Program for Women;
 * Continued work to improve the workflow and interface for translators.

Editor visual
In December, the VisualEditor team enabled on the English Wikipedia an alpha version of the VisualEditor, the upcoming rich-text interface which will make it easier to edit wiki pages. Experienced editors can now test it and provide feedback on issues and priorities. The team's work focused on ensuring that it worked properly, on providing a dedicated tool to report problems with editing, and on addressing the reports and ideas from editors after deployment.

This successful release was also a major milestone for Parsoid (the parsing program that translates plain wikitext into HTML annotated for easy editing, and vice-versa). Parsoid needs to handle the full range of arbitrary and complex existing wiki content, including templates, tables and extensions; it did so very well, as witnessed by the lack of mistakes introduced by Parsoid in the wikitext. This was in large part due to the team's efforts on automated conversion testing and the completion of a strategy to only convert the parts of the page what were edited ("selective serialization").

Compromiso de editor
Este mes, el equipo de compromiso de editor (E2, por sus siglas en inglés) continuó desarrollando nuevas funcionalidades del proyecto Notificaciones (llamado "Echo"), y ha permitido una primera versión experimental en mediawiki.org. Trabajaron en los requisitos de funcionalidades, la experiencia de usuario y desarrollaron componentes de interfaz y detrás de las escenas. Más funciones se desarrollarán en enero que se planearon para ser habilitadas en la Wikipedia en inglés a principios de 2013. La ayuda es bienvenida para probar estas características, proporcionar comentarios y encontrar errores.

A research study on the use of the Article Feedback tool on the English Wikipedia confirmed that many readers use this quality assessment feature, and a sizable number of them go on to register and become editors. Based on that research and other suggestions, new features were started to reduce the editor workload through better filters and simpler moderation tools. The activation of Article Feedback on all articles of the English Wikipedia is planned for March 2013. Some wikis like the German Wikipedia have started to evaluate this tool as well, while others like the French Wikipedia are discussing it.

No significant development activity happened on Page Curation (an interface for experienced contributors to review and improve newly created pages) following its release on the English Wikipedia, but its localization and adaptation for possible use on other wikis and in other languages is currently under consideration.

En diciembre, el equipo de experimentos de compromiso de editor (E3, por sus siglas en inglés) puso en marcha una nueva prueba dirigida a embarcar a nuevos wikipedistas; ofrece una lista de tareas optimizada inmediatamente después de registrarse, invitando a aquellos que no tienen una idea de cómo empezar a elegir un artículo y probar suerte en la edición. El desarrollo continuó en la experiencia de creación de nuevas cuentas y una funcionalidad de Visitas guiadas que se pondrá en marcha en enero de 2013.

To support these and future experiments, the EventLogging tool underwent heavy development, including the launch of a dedicated space on meta-wiki for defining the data collected in a public, collaborative manner. Development of a user metrics interface for programs also begun in order to standardize user metrics, and provide infrastructure and access to them.

Por último, el equipo E3 colaboró con el equipo de recaudación de fondos para llegar a los donantes y a los lectores como parte de la campaña anual de recaudación de fondos, vía email y un cartel de "Gracias" que se desarrolló a finales de año.

Mobile
The Mobile development and design team worked on finalizing contributory and other experimental editor-focused features on the Beta site (uploads, editing, and watchlist functionality) in order to clear the way for mobile uploads by March 2013. They also worked to improve the reader and potential editor experience by introducing features geared toward educating and engaging users, such as a human-readable last-modified indicator for articles and watchlists, and thumbnail images to illustrate the watchlist view. Because of the huge interest generated in the Beta testing site, an Alpha site was created to house very early work on contributory features without disrupting the reading experience of the 100,000+ Beta users.

Work continued on GeoData, a tool to store and retrieve GPS coordinates in Wikimedia databases, and it was deployed to all Wikipedia and Wikivoyage sites; it is expected to become officially operational shortly. This tool is a cornerstone of the discovery feature for the mobile site, allowing users to read about places around them.

Orange Congo joined the list of mobile carriers who enable free mobile access to Wikipedia via the Wikipedia Zero program. The Wikipedia Zero team resolved operational issues and continued to work on more partnerships. Two other initiatives to bring Wikipedia to mobile devices, the Wikipedia S40 J2ME app and the USSD service, are now ready to launch pending contractual negotiations with carriers.

Last, the Mobile quality assurance team started to work on an upcoming community testing event for Mobile features, and support for the MobileFrontend extension in the Beta cluster testing environment.

Otras noticias

 * Community metrics are now generated every month to provide insights into the activity and health of the MediaWiki contributor community.


 * Six interns joined the technical community as part of the Outreach Program for Women. They will work full-time between January and March 2013 on projects ranging from coding to documentation to bug triage.


 * The Language engineering team continued to improve the workflow and interface for translators; this is done as part of an initiative to improve the user experience of the Translate extension, a tool used to translate software as well as content of wiki pages.