Feedback edit

Also posted in Google Melange

Hello Elena,

Thank you for choosing and working on this task! This is a good start. I'm glad you learned new things.

After reading your essay, I find myself a bit hungry for more, though. I think it would be valuable for you to dig a bit deeper and expand your essay.

For example, you wrote that translation was something you were interested in, but you encountered an issue when the interface said: "Translations to this language in this group have been disabled. Reason: English is the source language".

To avoid this issue, you need to change the target language for translation. On the page where you see that error message, you can select the translation language using the "Translate to" menu on the right side of your screen. Where it says "Translate to English", click on "English" and you'll be able to select another language in which to provide translations. You could then expand your essay by telling us how that went.

You could also dig into the book creation feature that you discovered. That feature is also available on Wikipedia, and you can create custom books yourself. You could look into w:Help:Books and try to create a book based on your personal interests. You could then expand your essay to tell your story, and explain what worked, what didn't, what confused you, etc.

I hope these suggestions will help you improve your essay. Let me know if you have questions or comments :) Also, I'm happy to extend the deadline if you need more time; just let me know. guillom 13:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Second round of feedback edit

Also posted in Google Melange.

Elena,

I have indicated above a few possible things that you could do to improve your essay. Basically, your essay tends to stay on the surface of things, which means that it has limited value.

For example, I suggested that you might want to dig into the Book creation feature. You tried it out, and you only added two sentences to your essay to say that it worked well. While that's great to hear, it doesn't provide us with actionable information.

I also suggested that you might want to explore the Translation feature, andit seems like you got stuck, but you didn't attempt to get unstuck, or reach for help to get unstuck.

In a nutshell, I would encourage you to show more initiative and be bold in diving into areas of MediaWiki's and Wikimedia's technical world that you feel uncomfortable about. It's only there that you'll really be able to face issues, overcome them (possibly with help from other members of our community, for example through IRC chat), learn from them and share what you've learned. guillom 14:21, 5 December 2013 (UTC)Reply