User:Zexi.gong721/Bi Weekly Report 1

From mediawiki.org

Introduction

Hello, readers! I'm Zexi Gong, a computer science master's student at Northeastern University in San Francisco. I am thrilled to share my journey as a student developer for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2023. My project involves working on Wikidocumentaries to import images from the web to Structured Data on Commons. In this blog post, I will be sharing my experiences during the community bonding period and the initial coding phase.


Community Bonding Period

After being selected for GSoC 2023, I had my first official online meeting with my mentors, Susanna Ånäs and Tuukka Hastrup. During this meeting, we discussed the project details, established a plan for the upcoming weeks, decided on communication channels, and agreed to have weekly meetings. Since I had already familiarized myself with the codebase during the application period, I was able to hit the ground running.


Coding Period 1

My first task was to complete the microtask I had been working on during the application phase, which involved applying an image viewer to the article view. While the task itself wasn't too challenging, we encountered some issues with the action API. Thankfully, we reached out to other individuals who had experience working with the action API and received the necessary guidance. Once I finished the microtask, I delved into the main project.


The project consists of three primary parts: authentication, image upload, and adding structured data on Commons. Our initial approach involves creating a minimal viable product (MVP) to ensure we understand the overall process before adding more features and enhancing user-friendliness. As of now, I have successfully completed the first part, authentication. During this phase, I encountered several hurdles and sought solutions through online documentation and reaching out to others in the community. This experience has been incredibly valuable and has allowed me to expand my knowledge significantly.


Looking ahead

The next significant milestone in my project is implementing the image upload functionality. While I have already begun exploring and researching the best approaches for this task, we have encountered some permission-related challenges along the way. The documentation we initially referred to appears to be outdated, which necessitated seeking assistance from other members within the organization. Fortunately, the response we received was invaluable and provided us with new insights and solutions. With this new knowledge in hand, I am excited to dive deeper into the image upload phase during the upcoming coding period.