Engineering Community Team/Meetings/2013-04-24

April 24, 2013

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GSoC/OPW

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looks good so far

Product development microtasks

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Guillaume reached out by e-mail last month to get people to add product tasks for projects listed at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Product_development#Active_tasks ; almost no response so far, and almost no microtasks added. Advice on how to follow up would be welcome. Current ideas include:

  • re-sending e-mails, offering to have a 1:1 session with the person to help them define tasks (e.g. on IRC)
    Pros: better chances of getting (good) microtasks. Cons: takes time
  • Cunningham's law: post information and if it's wrong it'll get corrected
    Pros: we have microtasks. Cons: guesswork isn't as good as input (and engagement) from the project experts. Also, for it to get corrected, people need to care. Also, it means volunteers may start doing unwanted things.
  • Other?

Quim suggests: bugzilla triage as a good intro task for everyone, focusing on enhancement requests. Rob agrees.

Guillaume to follow up on that

Score extension - example of something people have gotten excited about, there is probably a volunteer among the excited people who could do PM stuff Quim: what about adding the active tasks at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Product_development to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mentorship_programs/Possible_projects . Possible project has become a reference, the resource to look at for non-small project opportunities. We've built a lot of infrastructure and now it is time to concentrate more on the recruiting, opportunistic, people side Question: how to plan for opportunistic actions / how to schedule people? Quim & Sumana & Guillaume to continue talking about the recruiting side

Joint talk proposal for Wikimania Hongkong?

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  1. group ECT proposal, led by Sumana, including Quim, & Guillaume & Andre, in tech track
  2. a proposal by Andre, NOT for the tech track, on bug creation & the process
  3. possible Lua talk by RobLa (consult Robert Rohde, vvv)
  4. possible "wtf does this mean" talk by Sumana
  • https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions
  • Deadline: April 30th
  • Type of submission: "Presentation"?
  • Length: 25min (default)
  • Track: "Technology and Infrastructure"?
  • Talk Summary
    • "Wikimedia users & developers collaborating" -- Quim
    • "Improving MediaWiki quality: How everybody can help with testing and bugtriage" (or something like that? Might go broader, depending on who joins the talk) -- Andre
  • Detailed proposal (please add your parts):
    • Andre Klapper will present how Wikimedia's bug management works and how everybody can easily help bringing software bug reports in Wikimedia Bugzilla into good shape by joining the Bugsquad.

Wikimedia users & developers collaborating Not all Wikipedia readers are developers, but all developers are Wikipedia readers. Wikipedia has all the popularity yet their heavy users have no clue that they can contribute their technical skills. In the meantime mediawiki.org struggles to get the attention. It is the interest of all Wikimedia projects to help channeling their users to our technical efforts. Currently we are doing pretty bad, kind of stuck in an old editors vs developers paradigm where miscommunication and misunderstanding is almost expected. Free knowledge editors and free software contributors share the same DNA and there are plenty of activities where they can collaborate. Let's explore what we are doing so far and how can we improve. More: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project_talk:New_contributors#English_Wikipedia_first_26213

Misc

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Vacations, conferences, etc.

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  • Guillaume afk the afternoon of Friday, May 3rd
  • Andre: Public holidays in CZ on May Wed01, May Wed08
  • Andre might visit WMDE@Berlin on May 2/3.
  • Andre: Holidays (BE/NL) May Mon20-Thu23 -- any replacement available? Quim maybe? I'll be here--Quim
  • Sumana - a little vacation before & after Amsterdam
  • Quim vaguely thinking on some holidays in July. Specific dates coming soon.

Željko:

  • May 1, holiday in Croatia
  • May 15-17, DORS/CLUC 2013, Zagreb, Croatia (maybe, waiting for reply if my talk is accepted)
  • May 18-23, vacation, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • May 24-26, Wikimedia Hackathon, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • June 10-12, Selenium Conference, Boston, MA, USA
  • September 6-7, BalCCon, Novi Sad, Serbia (maybe, waiting for reply if my talk is accepted)