Outreachy/Round 18/Ideas for projects

Ideas we showcased for the Outreachy Round 18 are below. We accepted proposals for all 4 projects.

Documentation improvements to the ~20 top 70 most viewed MediaWiki Action API pages on-wiki

The MediaWiki action API is a web service that allows access to some wiki-features like authentication, page operations, and search. It can provide meta information about the wiki and the logged-in user. Several Wikimedia projects make use of this API. As of now, there are ~128 pages on the Action API on MediaWiki.org. Our team did a little research on the state of the docs and documented a few problems and recommendations for the next steps. One of the issues we decided to address was inconsistency. For example, some pages had the automated API docs embedded; some didn’t, some pages had code samples, some didn’t, etc. As a first step, we designed a documentation template and used it to re-write top 20 viewed pages of the API. But, we realized we could not improve 128 pages all by ourselves, and opened it to new contributors for help. Our Outreachy intern User:Martyav put in a lot of good work in the project in Round 17 and improved the next ~20 pages and brought this project in good shape! The goal of this project in Round 18 would be to improve documentation of ~20 top 70 most viewed MediaWiki Action API pages on-wiki using the documentation template. If there is more time, then the next part of the project could be developing one or two demo apps around the use of Action APIs.

Skills required Basic python programming, editing wiki pages, familiarity with collaboration tools (e.g., Phabricator and Github), etc.

More details https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215682

Mentors Srishti Sethi, Sarah Rodlund

Add leaderboard based on user's edits using Commons Android app

The Wikimedia Commons Android app allows users to upload pictures from their Android phone or tablet to Wikimedia Commons. Commons is not only the image repository for Wikipedia but an independent project that seeks to document the world with photos, videos, and recordings. The project is about adding a leaderboard based on user's edits using Commons. The feature will include only edits made with the mobile app, and users who have shown interest in this activity.

Github Link: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/2074

Skills required Android SDK, Android UI design, Understanding of RxJava, Basic knowledge of Wikimedia APIs

More details https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T217439

Mentors Vivek Maskara, Ujjwal Agrawal

Improve Programs & Events Dashboard for use in the #1lib1ref campaign

Programs & Events Dashboard is a Ruby on Rails and React web application for organizing and tracking the impact of Wikimedia editing and outreach projects, such as edit-a-thons and Wikipedia Education Program courses. Some organizers of the #1lib1ref campaign would be interested in using the Dashboard, but it isn't well suited to the kinds of things that campaign needs to keep track of. Fix this!

Skills required Ruby on Rails and React

More details https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T217272

Mentors Sage Ross

Better understand impact of content translation tools

The Content Translation tool has supported the creation of over 400,000 articles across a large variety of Wikipedia language projects. We have very little understanding, however, of what parts of the tool work well and what happens to the articles after they have been created. For instance, what types of article sections are translated as-is? what sections are changed substantially? do translated articles see subsequent editing and linking to other articles in the project?

This project will seek to answer some of these questions through mixed-methods research: both quantitative analyses (e.g., edit counts, topics that are more frequently translated, etc.) and qualitative analyses (e.g., content analysis of translated pages and subsequent edits, talk pages, etc.).

Skills required None required, but experience with Python and Jupyter Notebooks will help with the coding aspects. Prior experience with quantitative analysis (basic knowledge of statistics) and qualitative analysis will be helpful as well.

More details https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T217699

Mentors Isaac Johnson