Submissions/Ask the Developers

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no.

655

Title of the submission: Ask the Developers

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation): Panel

Author of the submission: Siebrand Mazeland

E-mail address: smazeland AT wikimedia DOT org
Username: Siebrand

Country of origin: The Netherlands

Affiliation: Wikimedia Foundation, translatewiki.net

Personal homepage or blog: mw:User:Siebrand, translatewiki:User:Siebrand

Abstract

This session provides a forum for the community to ask questions to developers, make suggestions, and discuss long standing issues. The hackings days allow developers to meet and work together, but they lack an opportunity to exchange information with the community. This session is supposed to provide this opportunity.

At past Wikimanias and other events, Wikipedians would try to find a developer in some break between sessions, to ask some question that had been on their mind for a while. But that only works if there is time, and people actually know who to ask, and when. Having a session for this purpose in the program will hopefully help to make it easier for people to ask their question, and to get an answer from the person who knows most about the issue. Also, having a scheduled session for this allows questions and answers to be documented, so more people can benefit.

This session will hopefully help to elevate the perceived lack of communication between developers and the community, and ease the frustration caused by long standing requests not being implemented. Shedding some light on the development priorities and operational difficulties should provide people with a better understanding of what developers and system administrators are doing, and why.

The topic of the panel is very broad - basically, it can cover anything that someone might want to ask the developers or system administrators. It may be anticipated that the following topics may come up:

Visual editor
Product roadmap
Future of media support / GLAM
Code review workflow
Community request workflow
Many more possible subjects...

This forum mainly aims to create mutual understanding between users and developers by explanations and discussion, so that they can optimize their future on-line collaborations.

Track: Technology and Infrastructure

Length of presentation/talk: 45 Minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

Slides or further information (optional): Not applicable.

Special request as to time of presentations: None.

Interested attendees

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Dmitri Lytov (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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