User:Inchikutty/OPW Round 7: Application

• Name: Anu G Enchackal
• E-mail address: inchikutty13@gmail.com
• IRC Nick: inchikutty
• Web Page / Blog / Microblog: http://inchikutty13.wordpress.com/
• Location: Kerala,India

Education completed or in progress (i.e., university, major/concentration, degree level, and graduation year):

I have completed B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2013,from College of engineering Chengannur which is affiliated to Cochin University of Science and Technology.

How did you hear about this program?

I read about the program from Facebook group of IEEE-Student Branch- College of Engineering Chengannur.A post on the program was made by one of the members of the group.

Please describe your experience with the organization's product as a user and as a contributor (include the information about the required contribution you made to the project you are interested in here):

I am a regular user/editor of Wikipedia.I am practically amazed at the quantity and quality of knowledge it provides to the world and the fact that collaborative effort of countless contributors make Wikipedia,the source of ultimate knowledge makes it more respectful. Whenever I need to learn something new ,whether its a word or even a new programming language,I search Wikipedia.I have contributed images using UploadWizard of wikimedia commons. In order to make me familiarize with the project (UploadWizard:OSM map embedding) I am interested in ,I was assigned a task by my Mentor.The task objective was to contribute code into the UploadWizard,so that the UploadWizard could show a link next to the coordinate input fields, which, when clicked, opens the given coordinates on OpenStreetMap in a new browser tab.The task was sufficient to familiarize with the existing code of UploadWizard. I was successful in completing the task and I have submitted the code for reviewing !

Please describe your experience with any other FOSS projects as a user and as a contributor:

Other than the Microtask, I never had any real time experience as a serious FOSS project contributor though I have used a lot of open source softwares.If accepted, this internship would be my chance to contribute something remarkable to a FOSS project.

Please describe any relevant projects that you have worked on previously and what knowledge you gained from working on them:

FOSS-OPW is my biggest challenge with the knowledge I have in programming.Apart from the academic programming projects during my college education ,an experience I consider valuable enough to mention on this application is my participation to Yahoo Open Hack India 2013. As a participant of the event ,I was introduced to github and various open source softwares. I, along with my teammates, was able to submit the hack and present it on the main stage.

What project(s) are you interested in (these can be in the same or different organizations)?

I have deep and profound interest in the MediaWiki project "UploadWizard:OSM map embedding".

Who is a possible mentor for the project you are most interested in? :

Gergő Tisza from MediaWiki.org

Please describe the details and the timeline of the work you plan to accomplish on the project you are most interested in (discuss these first with the mentor of the project):

UploadWizard:OSM map embedding project is about enhancing the image upload process for Wikimedia Commons. Commons is an image hosting site which is used by Wikipedia and a bunch of other sites, as a central location to store free images, which can be reused anywhere without needing to worry about copyright.Commons has millions of images and Wikipedia editors need to be able to find quickly the right ones for their articles, so it is important to store various metadata with the image which will help navigation - topic of the image, when it was made and so on. This metadata is usually stored in a complex template language that is specific to MediaWiki, and the sight of which usually makes people to flee in terror. Since we cannot expect image authors to learn to write something like that, Commons has a tool called UploadWizard which creates all the code for you, after you fill out a bunch of forms. The main goal of the OSM map embedding project would be to provide map interface & the integration with external databases to the UploadWizard.The secondary goal is to integrate with some databases of locations and use that in various ways. One way would be checking if there are locations with requested images nearby (that is, someone put out a note that Commons needs good images about a certain place and doesn't currently have any), and warn the uploader about them.
I have discussed about the project & timeline with my Mentor Tisza and this is the proposed time line.

• week 1: With the help of my mentor,i will navigate through the existing code and structure of UploadWizard, in order to understand the system in detail.
• week 2-6: These five weeks are purely for coding .The plan is to first develop a map widget for UploadWizard which can meet the project's intended main goal,and adding features,one by one to it .
• Choosing the map plugin,adding functions to it, integrating interfaces to handle the functioning of the widget , handlers to connect the widget to external resources are a few of the many important tasks during this period.
• Week 7: Test and Submit the code for reviewing.
• Week 8-10:Take up suggestions from Code reviewers and members of wikimedia community and "code" upon the suggestions,
• week 11-12: Making minor changes to the product for enhancing its appeal and providing "better finishing"!

Will you have any other time commitments, such as school work, another job, planned vacation, etc., between December 10, 2013 and March 10, 2014?

No. I don't have any commitments that would interfere with this internship .