Wikimedia Engineering/2014-15 Goals/Q1
Wikimedia Engineering Top Priorities, FY2014-15, Q1 | Q2 |
Top departmental priorities for Q1 (July - September 2014)
editTop 5 user-impacting priorities
editObjective | Impact | Dependencies | ETA | Status (end of quarter) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1) Migrate to HHVM as execution environment for PHP code |
Performance for editors. Expected to halve median backend response time for uncached requests, including preview and save operations, increasing user engagement and productivity. |
Dept-internal
|
End of Q1 |
Mostly completed. Production rollout delayed by 4-6 weeks (proceeding in stages in October-November) |
2) Launch new native apps for Android and iOS. Iterate on contributory features, including new mobile-only features on mobile web |
Expected to build a stable cohort of mobile app focused contributors, but exact impact unknown - will establish baseline for app contributions/reach vs view. |
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
Launch beginning of Q1, then iterating on functionality through Q1 |
Fully completed. Native apps launched, first WikiGrok experiments in testing. |
3) Deploy Flow to significant Wikipedia use case (in consideration: Teahouse or similar workflow) |
Expected to validate Flow as an effective discussion system (compare basic participation metrics before/after; UX testing); we can begin establishing a activity/retention baseline to improve from. |
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
End of Q1 |
Partially completed. Flow used (as advertised experimental alternative) for French Wikipedia new user help forum. First usage metrics reported in quarterly review. |
4) Continue improving VisualEditor (citations, performance, visual parameter-editing, IE support); begin re-engaging with English Wikipedia community |
|
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
End of Q1 |
Partially completed + work on unscheduled functionality. IE11 support released; client-side compression released; Citoid puppetized and in Labs; work has begun on reviewing unanticipated downstream contribution of a table editor. |
5) Consolidate remaining detached user accounts into Single User Login system ("SUL finalization") |
Enables cross-wiki functionality to be built without exception handling. Significant immediate impact on power users whose accounts are affected, needs to be carefully managed. Complete all technical work to zero-account conflict and a plan for roll-out. |
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
End of Q1 |
Mostly completed (some last technical work outstanding, see SUL finalization; expected to be completed at a lower priority in October). |
Top 5 platform/process improvement priorities
editObjective | Impact | Dependencies | ETA | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1) Migrate to HHVM as execution environment for PHP code |
See above |
See above |
See above |
See above |
2) Conduct pre-launch pilots with Phabricator and launch "day 1" installation including Bugzilla import |
Increase developer efficiency and mitigate silo effects by reducing tooling fragmentation (code review, bug tracking, project management) |
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
End of Q1 |
Mostly completed, preparing for Bugzilla migration in October. |
3) Improve MediaWiki Core’s front-end libraries |
Reduce wheel reinvention and other silo effects across teams; begin shift towards multi-device development; build proper UX standardization development pipeline |
Dept-internal
|
Ongoing, but first deliverables to be scoped out for Q1 |
Q2 work fully completed, ongoing. |
4) Standardize baseline metrics & dashboards |
Enable more consistent measurement of user-impacting changes for Editors, Readers and Content. [1] |
Dept-internal
Dept-external
|
End of Q1 for Editors; TBA for Readers, Content |
Fully completed, see quarterly review. |
5) Launch the new Content API, prepare for use by Mobile in Q2 |
Medium term: Bring logged-in user pageview performance on par with logged-out user performance. Long term: Significantly improve load/save performance in VisualEditor by minimizing round-trips. |
Dept-internal
|
Launch in Q1, Mobile use in Q2 |
Partially completed, running in Labs. |