Google Code-in/2016

Google Code-in 2016 is over. 424 Wikimedia tasks (100 of them "get onto IRC" tasks) were successfully completed thanks to 192 students and 46 mentors. Thanks everybody!

Google Code-in is a contest to introduce pre-university students (ages 13-17) to the many kinds of contributions that make free and open source software (FOSS) development possible. Students must complete tasks, one at a time. It is sponsored and run by Google. The Wikimedia Foundation has participated since 2013.

The Google Code-in 2016 contest runs from November 28, 2016 to January 16, 2017 (see the full timeline).

Google Code-in 2014 Grand Prize winners
Weekly summary of tasks.

Instructions for GCI students

edit

Only after November 27th, when the Google Code-In contest opens for entries by student participants, come back to this wiki page to follow the instructions below. The instructions are common to all Wikimedia GCI tasks.

Register for the contest

edit

Register on the Google Code-in site, and get a general overview of the contest provided by Google.

edit
  • If you choose to work on a coding-related task, follow all the steps indicated in our “How to become a MediaWiki hacker” tutorial to setup the development environment, download our code from Git, and start submitting patches in Gerrit. Some helpful tips for the contest which are missing in the tutorial:
    • We recommend MediaWiki-Vagrant, for setting up the development environment for MediaWiki - a virtual machine that has the basic wiki software and various common extensions preconfigured.
    • Only if you have problems with Gerrit, providing your work in the corresponding task in Wikimedia Phabricator is an acceptable workaround.
    • Test your patches before submitting them for review in Gerrit! If you have submitted them without testing, clearly say so in an additional comment in Gerrit.
  • If you choose to work on any other task other than coding such as documentation, outreach, research, design, support, read our “How to Contribute” tutorial.

Ask for feedback, questions, and support

edit
  • To communicate directly with your mentor, connect to the IRC channel they are frequently available at. See the list of mentors below. Your mentor will not always be around or awake - please just ask as other people might also be able to help.
  • If you have a specific question about a task, comment in the related Phabricator task. "What do I have to do to work on this?" is not a good question to start with. The more specific your questions are, the more likely somebody can answer them quickly. If you have no idea at all how to start working on a task - please consider finding an easier one first.
  • For general questions, refer to IRC channels, mailing lists, wiki discussion pages, or Gerrit discussion pages (if you have a problem with Gerrit).
  • Learn more at Communication.

Some general recommendations for communicating

edit
  • Before reaching out to the members of the community with questions, do some basic research yourself first on the task and on the related issues you are facing: Look at the code, try to understand what it is supposed to do, and try to find the probable place(s) where you need to make changes in order to fix the bug.
    • Bug reports (also called "tasks") in Phabricator) have a "Tags" section in the upper right corner. There you can see the project that the problem is located in. This provides you a hint about the Git repository that the code is located in, and about the development team which you could contact if you want to discuss it in a "broader" way, as comments in bug reports should only refer to the specific problem described in the report. (Only if you work on the Kiwix project: Kiwix does not use Phabricator but instead uses Sourceforge).
  • Identifying yourself as a GCI student in our communication channels might help you get faster help from other members of our community.
  • Be patient when seeking input and comments. If you do not get an immediate response on an IRC channel, please ask on the phabricator task or wiki page related to the problem.
  • Avoid private emails or support requests in our social media channels.

List of Wikimedia mentors

edit

Please be patient when seeking actions from mentors. Mentors are humans who eventually leave their computers to sleep, work, study. They might be in different timezones than you. It can take your mentor(s) up to 36 hours to review the work that you have submitted. You should be patient and should not ask for a review of your work after only a few hours of waiting. Google Code-In is about the quality of your contributions and learning how FOSS development works, not about the number of tasks that you have completed.

Name IRC nick IRC channel Timezone Areas of interest
Andre Klapper andre__ #wikimedia-dev connect UTC +1 User documentation, Phabricator
Florian FlorianSW #wikimedia-dev connect UTC+1 mediawiki/core, Special Pages, MobileFrontend
Mvolz Mvolz #wikimedia-services connect, #mediawiki-visualeditor connect UTC+1 citoid, VisualEditor, TemplateData
Alangi Derick xSavitar #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikidata connect GMT +01 Wikidata, Documentation, MobileFrontend, Wikibase, Echo
Mutante mutante #wikimedia-operations connect, #wikimedia-tech connect GMT -07 Puppet, Planet, Wikistats
Strainu Strainu #wikimedia-dev connect UTC+2 Gadgets, Templates, Pywikibot
Addshore Addshore #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikidata connect GMT / UTC MediaWiki, Wikidata, Wikibase, AddWiki, PHP, PHPCS
NKohli (WMF) (talk) Niharika #wikimedia-dev connect UTC +5:30 MediaWiki, PHP, JS
Legoktm legoktm #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikimedia-tech connect, etc. UTC -08 MediaWiki (core + extensions), Pywikibot
John Vandenberg jayvdb #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikimedia-tech connect, etc. UTC +07 Pywikibot
AbdealiJK AbdealiJK #wikimedia-dev connect, #pywikibot connect UTC +0530 Pywikibot
Samtar Myrcx #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikimedia-tech connect GMT / UTC PHP, JS, Mediawiki
Sage Ross ragesoss #wikimedia-ed connect UTC -08 Ruby, WikiEduDashboard
DrTrigon DrTrigon #wikimedia-dev connect, #pywikibot connect, etc. UTC +02 Pywikibot
Petrb petan #huggle connect, #wm-bot connect GMT + 1 Antivandalism stuff, API, C, C++, C#, PHP, Python, UNIX & Labs
Amir Sarabadani Amir1 #pywikibot connect, #wikidata connect, GMT +3 Wikidata (Wikibase), pywikibot, ORES
unicornisaurous unicornisaurous #wikimedia-dev connect UTC-5 MediaWiki, PHP, JS, API, and maintenance scripts
Evan McIntire mcintireevan #wikimedia-dev connect UTC-4 MediaWiki, JS, UI
This, that and the other tto #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikipedia-userscripts connect UTC+11 MediaWiki core; scripts and gadgets
Srishti Sethi srishakatux #wikimedia-dev connect UTC -8 User documentation, Phabricator
Tony Thomas tonythomas #wikimedia-devrel connect UTC+01:00 PHP, Newsletter extension
Sumit Asthana codezee #wikimedia-devrel connect UTC+05:30 PHP, JS, MobileFrontend, WikidataPageBanner
Benoît Evellin Trizek #wikimedia-collaboration connect UTC +1 Communities, user documentation
Pranav Kumar pranavk #wikimedia-dev connect UTC 5+ː30 MediaWiki, PHP, JS
Isaac Hutt mhutti1 #kiwix connect GMT Kiwix, Java, Android
Emmanuel Engelhart Kelson #kiwix connect GMT Kiwix, Java, Android
Dan Andreescu milimetric #wikimedia-analytics connect UTC -5 Dashboarding, Analytics APIs (JS, python, data)
Prateek Saxena prtksxna #wikimedia-multimedia connect UTC +5:30 Gallery, OOjs UI
Bryan Davis bd808 #wikimedia-dev connect, #wikimedia-tech connect, #wikimedia-labs connect, etc. UTC -07 MediaWiki-Vagrant, Documentation, Tool Labs
Gergő Tisza tgr #wikimedia-dev connect, #mediawiki-core connect UTC-8 MediaWiki, Vagrant, Documentation, MediaViewer
Baha bmansurov #wikimedia-mobile connect UTC-5 MobileFrontend
Jon Robson jdlrobson #wikimedia-mobile connect UTC-8 mobile
Yann Forget yannf #wikimedia-tech connect UTC +1 Communities, User Documentation, Phabricator, HTML, i18, Commons, Wikisource
Amir E. Aharoni aharoni #mediawiki-i18n connect UTC+2 Internationalization, translation, languages
Marko Obrovac mobrovac #wikimedia-services connect UTC+1 Services
Petr Pchelko Pchelolo #wikimedia-services connect UTC-7 Services
Tina Johnson tinaj1234 #wikimedia-devrel connect, tinajohnson.1234@gmail.com UTC+05:30 Newsletter extension, JS, UI
Abhinand N abhinand_ #wikimedia-devrel connect, #wikimedia-dev connect UTC+05:30 PHP, EditNotify extension
Haritha H haritha_ #wikimedia-dev connect UTC+05:30 PHP, JS, UI Standarization
Charlie Kritschmar Incabell #wikidata connect, #wikimedia-de-tech connect, #wikimedia-design connect UTC+1 Documentation, UX, Design, Wikidata
John Broughton UTC-8 UI, user instructional material, user documentation
Reedy Reedy #wikimedia-dev connect UTC MediaWiki
Husn Shujaat Husun #wikimedia-dev connect UTC +5 User documentation, Phabricator
Devi Krishnan devi__ #wikimedia-dev connect UTC +5:30 PHP, UI Standarization
Husn Shujaat Husun #wikimedia-dev connect UTC +5 User documentation, Phabricator
Léa Lacroix LeaAuregann_WMDE #wikidata connect, #wikimedia-de-tech connect UTC+1 Wikidata, community communication, documentation
Jan Dittrich Jand_WMDE #wikidata connect, #wikimedia-de-tech connect, #wikimedia-design connect UTC+1 Documentation, UX, Design, Wikidata
Mr. Stradivarius MrStradivarius #wikimedia-dev connect UTC+9 Lua, JavaScript gadgets
Niklas Laxström Nikerabbit #mediawiki-i18n connect UTC+2 Internationalization, translation, languages
Sam Wilson samwilson #wikimedia-commtech connect #wikisource connect UTC+8 PHP, MediaWiki extensions, Tool Labs, Wikisource
Volker E. Volker_E #wikimedia-design connect, #wikimedia-dev connect UTC-8 UI Standardization, OOjs UI, CSS, Accessibility
You? Add yourself above!

Wrap-up blog posts

edit

At the end of GCI 2016, many students summarized their experience with Wikimedia:

There are also posts by mentors: