http://devhub.wikimedia.org is a prototype of the "Data and developer hub", a portal and set of pages whose goal is to encourage third-party developers to use Wikimedia data and APIs. Your feedback is welcome, you can discuss in this mail thread, or [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?projects=dev.wikimedia.org | file Phabricator tickets in the project dev.wikimedia.org]].
Around the 2014 Zurich Hackathon, Moiz Syed, Juliusz Gonera, and others discussed setting up "a thing" to expose our APIs and data to developers. When S Page moved to WMF tech writer, he wrote some articles for this and with Quim Gil developed a landing page from the [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Dev.wikimedia.org#Structure | wireframes ]].
It's using the Blueprint skin and running on a labs instance, but the articles are all regular wiki pages on mediawiki.org.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the gestation of this idea.
S Page and Quim Gil
Q: How can I feature my own great work?
A: [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?projects=dev.wikimedia.org,documentation | Create a task in dev.wikimedia.org and documentation] with "Article" in the title. You can write an article yourself, see [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/dev.wikimedia.org/Contributing | dev.wikimedia.org/Contributing ]].
Q: Yet another site? Arghh!
A: Agreed, T101441 "Goal: Integrate new Developer hub with mediawiki.org". It's a separate site for now in order to present a different appearance.
Q: But why a different appearance? Why a separate skin?
Our competition for developer mindshare is https://developers.google.com/ and similar. We believe looking like a 2000s wiki page is a //deterrent// to using APIs and data. We hope that many third-party developers join our communities and eventually contribute to MediaWiki, but "How to contribute to MediaWiki" [1] is not the focus, providing free open knowledge is.
Q: Why Blueprint?
A: It was available. Prateek Saxena, Andrew Garrett, and May Galloway developed it for the OOUI Living Style Guide [2] and it has some nice features: a fixed header and a TOC that gets out of the way and combines page navigation and the TOC of the current page.
Q: So why not use that skin on mediawiki.org?
A: Agreed, T93613: Deploy Blueprint on mediawiki.org as optional and experimental skin is a blocker for T101441. Your assistance with it and its blockers is appreciated.
Q: I hate the appearance.
A: That's not a question :) That's alright, forget the prototype exists and view the same content on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Data_and_developer_hub
Q: Is this "dev.wikimedia.org"?
A: Sort of. http://dev.wikimedia.org will be the shortcut to the "hub" page. And dev.wikimedia.org is the project name for this "Data and developer hub"
Q: I thought dev.wikimedia.org was going to integrate generated documentation/replace doc.wikimedia.org/list all Wikimedia software projects/cure cancer, what happened?
A: One step at a time. For now, its goal is, to repeat, "to encourage third-party developers to use Wikimedia data and APIs".
Q: Why are the pages in the API: namespace?
A: That's temporary, they will be in a dev: namespace that uses the Blueprint skin by default (T369). +2
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_contribute (a fine general entry point)