Complete overview and reporting on my participation in the Round 14 of the Outreachy program. Technical and other personal learnings/internship experience journaled on
my Medium blog.
Objective: Allow Programs & Events Dashboard to make automatic edits on connected wikis
WikiEdDashboard is a Ruby on Rails/React.js based web app that supports the organization and management of assignments, courses and events for groups of Wikipedia users who are working to contribute on a common Wikipedia project. The dashboard code runs two main projects: the Wiki Education Foundation Dashboard(for programs focused on higher education in the US and Canada) and the Wikimedia Programs & Events Dashboard(for the global Wikimedia community).
While the Wiki Education Foundation Dashboard already supports open authentication based automatic edits to the English Wikipedia and mirrors the course progress/changes in the respective wiki pages, the aim of this project is to introduce and establish these wiki editing features in the Programs & Events Dashboard.
Week 1 Report (18th May, 2017): Community Bonding Period[edit]
I have begun the initial work on my bonding period objectives as mentioned in my Outreachy proposal. Here are a few things that I've made progress with:
Joined the project's Slack channel and Wikimedia's Zulip channel. Introduced myself on the WikimediaEd channel
Started hanging out on the Outreachy IRC channel, set up my MediaWiki user page
Updated local project setup
Interacted on project Slack channel to set up meeting timings with mentors and other interns
Picked an issue, which involves creating an auto-complete search component for Wikipedia articles. After some basic discussion with my project mentor regarding the same, I realised that even though the issue is unrelated to my problem statement, picking it was a good idea, as it helped me identify many learning areas:
Getting proficient working with React.js
Familiarising myself with the MediaWiki API
Getting comfortable with the project front-end best practices.
Started taking my knowledge of React and Redux to the next level, following a Udemy course and also began investigating the MediaWiki API
Will be taking my learning forward, and discussing project-relevant issues with my mentor and begin working on them.
Week 2 Report (25th May, 2017): Community Bonding Period[edit]
Continued on my learning about project practices.
Decided on weekly meeting timings and other collaboration details with project mentors.
Week 3 Report (1st June, 2017): Coding period begins[edit]
Attended welcome call with both mentors, and other interns working on the project.
Started related code investigation, and understanding the Editing flow.
