Add leaderboard based on user's edits using Commons Android app

Project Repository: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons

GSoC Idea Link: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T244197

Relevant Skills:

✓ Github Workflow and Git Version Control

✓ Linux and CLI

✓ Android SDK

✓ Android UI design

✓ Understanding of RxJava, Dagger2, Androidx

✓ Retrofit and OkHttp

✓ Unit testing for Android

✓ Familiarity with Kotlin

✓ Familiarity with Python

✓ Understanding of REST APIs with Python

✓ Basic knowledge of Wikimedia APIs

Profile Information:

Name: Madhur Gupta

University: Chitkara University, Punjab, India

IRC nickname on Freenode: madhurgupta10

Web Profile/Linkedin: madhur-gupta-in

Github Link: madhurgupta10

Other Communication Method: Google Hangouts, Zulip, Gitter, Slack

Location (country or state) during GSoC: Punjab, India (UTC +5:30)

Typical working hours (include your timezone) during GSoC: Between 5 pm to 2 am UTC +5:30

Possible Mentor(s)

Mentor: @Nicolas_Raoul (Nicolas Raoul)

Mentor: @maskaravivek (Vivek Maskara)

Synopsis

The Wikimedia Commons Android app allows users to upload pictures from their Android phone/tablet to Wikimedia Commons. Commons is not only the image repository for Wikipedia but an independent project that seeks to document the world with photos, videos, and recordings.

Github link: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/2074

Commons Android App Repo (for UI): https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/

Commons Misc Repo(for APIs): https://github.com/commons-app/commonsmisc

The project is about adding a leaderboard based on user's edits using Commons. The feature will include only edits made with the mobile app, and users who have shown interest in this activity.

About Me

I am a Final Year Computer Science Engineering Undergraduate student at Chitkara University, Punjab, India.

My expected graduation date is mid of August (based on last year's stats) but due to ongoing situation with COVID-19 it is expected to be delayed till mid of September.

I am Not Joining any Company for a full time or part-time job after my graduation. My current ongoing Internship at Sigfox Paris, France will be completed by mid of may after that I will come back to India. There will not be any examination or course work for my final semester after my internship.

I love Android Development and I have been doing it for the past three years. I am also a strong supporter of open source and I love contributing to it. I have contributed to the Commons Android app since March 2018.

In my first year of college, I was awarded the APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE Award from the President of India for my innovation.

I have participated in many Hackathons and won prizes in various National and International Hackathons, few of them are:-

• Topcoder TCO19 India Regionals Finalist.
• First Prize in Smart India Hackathon 2019- World’s largest hackathon with over 40,000 participants.
• Third Prize in Topcoder/IBM Call for Code Global Hackathon
• First Prize in Microsoft MS Hacks 2.0
• First Prize in MMU Hackathon
• First Prize in SAP Cloud Hackathon

And many others…

I was also the recipient of Udacity and Google India’s Challenge Scholarship and Facebook’s PyTorch Scholarship.

Past Experience

I have completed my Software Development Engineering Internship at a Bangalore based Startup - Get My Parking where I worked on Backend Systems (Django/SQL) and Android App (Bluetooth Low Energy).

Currently, I am working as a Software Engineering Intern at a French Company - Sigfox Paris, France. This internship is three months long and it will be completed before GSoC. I am currently working on Cloud and Backend Systems.

I have also completed Udacity’s Android Developer Nanodegree Program for which I received a Graduation Scholarship. I also completed the Python Foundation Nanodegree and Data Structures Nanodegree.

I also worked as Udacity’s Mentor and Code Reviewer where I helped students with their doubts and guided them to follow best practices and also provided them personalized feedback on their projects.

I have developed many android apps and published some to Google Play Store.

• Popular Movies App - This app is similar to IMDB App, it helps you discover popular and top-rated movies.
• Baking App - With this app, you can learn about various baking recipes and can follow step by step guide to make them.
• WalaAlarm - This app is an alarm clock with a twist which works with Walabot, where a user can set a goal for each morning like doing 10 PushUps, or Leave the Room, or Meditate to stop the alarm.
• Weather App - This app helps you see the weather forecast of your favorite cities.
  
  And many more…

Apart from developing apps, I have experience in Backend and Frontend Development, etc. You may explore my Github and Linkedin for all my projects. Most of them were built in hackathons.

I have also conducted various workshops/seminars with Cisco and Topcoder for many students of the college. I worked as a Student Ambassador for both of these companies.

Other Skills - Developing Websites (Frontend and Backend) using HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python and NodeJs, Databases (SQL and NoSQL), Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant Skills, Arduino and Raspberry Pi, Blockchain and DApps, Docker, etc.

Participation

Project

• What is the current state of the App/Project?
  
  People around the world use the Commons app to upload images of various things. Currently, the only way to encourage people to contribute more is Achievements. There is no way to compete with one another.

• What is your goal for this GSoC Task and how will it benefit Wikimedia projects?
  
  The Goal of this GSoC Task is to build a Leaderboard where contributors can see the number of contributions they have made per week, per year and overall. This will encourage more and more people to contribute more media to the Wikimedia Commons.

• Have you discussed this GSoC Task with your mentors already?
  
  Yes, this idea is discussed with all the possible mentors and project members you may find the discussion on this link

• What does making this GSoC Task happen mean to you?
  
  Completing this project means a lot to me. I am a strong supporter of free and open-source work, by the completion of this GSoC Task more and more people will engage in contributing media to the Commons Android app.

Implementation

• What can be implemented?

A new section called Leaderboard next to Achievements can be created. This leaderboard will show User’s Avatar, Name, and Score. The score could reuse some numbers from achievements, but should only count edits done with the mobile app because otherwise, Vicuna/etc users will dominate the top of the leaderboard even if they don't use the mobile app.

Listing in the leaderboard only the users who have ever opened the achievements activity. We will keep track of that information server-side. So the leaderboard would only list app users who have an interest in this kind of game.

We can add auto-scroll to the user's current rank and highlight it so that users don't have to look at all results to see the rank, also a button can be added which will automatically jump to the user's rank on clicking.

Tapping the name of a user in the leaderboard should open the gallery of that user's pictures, probably as a browser URL for now. Knowing they are being watched by their peers will probably reduce the temptation to "cheat" (for instance by uploading 1000 pictures of the same spoon).

The user's name should be highlighted.

The length of the leaderboard could be dynamic, for instance, if I am 3rd it could be 10 people, but if I am 13rd it could be 20 people. Or just make more people appear when scrolling down.

There could be weekly (last 30 days) rankings, yearly (last 365 days) rankings, all-time rankings.

To make it more visually attractive. Users like to personalize their avatar, so we could also offer the option to select one of the user's uploads as an avatar picture, but that may lead to more selfies, so this option could be a privilege to unlock (only users who are above level 5 for instance).

• How can it be implemented?

The leaderboard lists should be calculated on the server where we currently perform achievement calculations, and cached (re-serve the same results if less old than 1 hour).

The user will probably upload a few more pictures in 5 minutes and come see the leaderboard again. So we could re-calculate only that user's new scores (and let the other people's scores stay the same until the next hour comes). In other words, only the users who keep looking at the leaderboard would have their score grow at smaller intervals than 1 hour. That 1-user-only re-calculation itself should be cached something like 1 minute because a picture can not be neatly uploaded in less time, and to avoid useless server load.
The avatar miniatures (generated by MediaWiki) should be cached by the app for like a month.

We can automatically add the user in the leaderboard, once he performs any of these actions:

• login
• or upload
• or nearby upload
  
  In our backend, we will have:

• A list of users(with option 1 or 2) for whom we need to calculate statistics
• Periodically fetch the statistics (every 1 or 4 hours). Update the statistics in our tools forge DB
• When the Commons app does an API call to get leaderboard info, serve the statistics using tools forge DB instead of calculating real-time.

Mockups

Design 1 - Original Discussion/Suggestion from GSoC Idea List

Design 2(A) - Ongoing Discussion/My Suggestion

Design 2(B) - With a Button to Jump to Your Rank directly, this will be only shown when the user starts scrolling

Involvement

• How are you involved with open-source?
  
  I am actively contributing to the Commons Android app project since March 2018, so far I have about 38 PR merged and also I have opened a lot of issues. I have also contributed to the other open-source organizations like Aossie, FossAsia, OpenMRS, Yogdaan, etc.

• Apart from coding do you have any other kind of involvement with the organization?
  
  Yes, apart from Coding I have also worked as a GCI-Mentor 2019 for Wikimedia Foundation.

Availability

• Eligible for Google Summer of Code and Outreachy?
  
  I am only Eligible for Google Summer of Code.

• Do you plan to submit any other proposal apart from this one?
  
  No, I am only submitting this proposal.

• Do you have any other plans this summer?
  
  No, I don’t have any other internship or plans for this summer. My current internship at Sigfox Paris will end by the first week of May and after that, I will return to India. I don’t have any holiday or vacation planned for this summer. I will also not have any coursework or examination during the GSoC period. I am not applying for any other program. Google Summer of Code is the topmost priority for me this summer.

• How many hours per week can you dedicate for this?
  
  I will dedicate a minimum of 40 hours each week for this project, I am willing to dedicate more if needed.

• Have you been accepted to GSoC before?
  
  No, I applied to this project under the Wikimedia Foundation last year but was not selected.

Timeline

Previous Contributions

So far I have made over 47 Pull Requests to the project out of which 38 are already merged and 2 are open. You can see all my Pull Requests here.

Issues

So far I have opened 56 issues out of which 43 are solved/closed and 13 are open: Click here to view all issues