Talk:Structured Discussions/Community engagement

Community participation in development

How do community developers get involved? Sj (talk) 19:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

In? So, do you mean "how do community developers contribute to Flow", "how to community developers contribute to the workflows module specifically", "how do community developers help with the API"...? There are a lot of components, some dev-facing and some not, so clarity would be welcome :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Okeyes (WMF): I didn't notice this reply :-) I meant all of the above. A thriving open source project might have visible ways to get involved with every part of the tool and toolchain, including obvious ways to test or contribute patches to both core and non-core libraries. A staff-only project is more likely to offer an SDK and help with creating modules or using / suggesting changes to the API. Either way, people interested in contributing to Flow are often going to look to the maintainers first to find out where their involvement is most wanted or needed. Sj (talk) 21:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Current participation

An easier question to answer: how are community developers currently involved in any part of Flow? Sj (talk) 21:25, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Ping User:Quiddity. Ironholds (talk) 21:45, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Sj, there's now a section at the bottom of Flow/Community engagement#Community participation in development, listing some of the recommended ways. Further suggestions welcome and appreciated. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Quiddity, that's a great start. Can you also summarize in that section how to get involved in Flow testing? Are there dedicated test-groups that run test sprints after each release? Sj (talk) 21:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Sj: IIUC, There are a number of automated tests that run after each code-update e.g., and then each feature and bugfix is tested manually by the developer and the product manager. However, there aren't really "releases" at all because WMF generally works on a continuous weekly update system. I'm not sure where the best explanation of that is (I'd incorrectly guessed at continuous integration and agile), so I'll ping user:S Page (WMF) (who added that section on this project's page) to provide better details. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity: However releases are handled, is there periodic testing by groups of dedicated testers? And if so, how can people who want to help test get involved? In a community such as ours, many are interested in testing, particularly if their test feedback is quickly acted upon. Test groups can help test & document whatever's new, before it is pushed out to an audience that isn't interested in or practiced at testing and reporting. Regards, Sj (talk) 16:51, 13 October 2014 (UTC)