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Create on-wiki content based on Small Wiki Toolkits workshops conducted in 2022
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Description

Workshops: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_wiki_toolkits/Workshops

Goals

  • Make the information from the workshops available on wiki in an accessible, searchable, translatable form
  • Make it easier to organize such workshops in the future by ensuring the information can be reused as a teaching resource
  • Provide a blueprint for creating such content for workshops that we organize in the future

Requirements towards the content

  • It serves as a thorough explanation of the subject, the same way any other documentation would. It follows the rules and recommendations outlined in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation.
  • It integrates well with existing materials covering the same subject. It does NOT duplicate existing content. Rather, it improves the existing materials so that they can serve as an on-wiki equivalent of the workshops.
  • It can serve as an agenda or curriculum for similar workshops in the future. That is, the content should follow (and describe) a structure of a workshop, or contain additional material that describes such a structure to make it easier to use as resources for planning workshops.

In summary, this content should sufficiently explain the subjects covered in SWT workshops in a way that makes it suitable for self-study. It should also (implicitly or explicitly) clarify the structure of the workshop in a way that makes it a reliable resource for workshop organizers.

High-level plan

In Jan-Mar 2023, we are planning to create and review content for two workshops:

  • How to host a bot on Toolforge
  • How to run a basic script via Pywikibot (stretch)

These will serve as examples and templates for future iterations.

Related Objects

Event Timeline

KBach triaged this task as Medium priority.Jan 18 2023, 1:55 PM

This plan looks good! One suggestion for the second bullet point under goals - maybe make it more specific so it conveys that "the content developed will be used as a teaching resource for future workshops..."

First, I thought a bit about what changes we would make if we were to do these workshops again so each topic feels more connected to a previous or next workshop (as the content of tutorials might change accordingly):

No.Workshop topicProposed changes
1.Intro to Pywikibot framework and installationNo change
2.How to run a basic script via PywikibotNo change
3.How to write a basic script via PywikibotNo change
4.How to run a popular bot on your wikiKeep the focus on running a bot developed using Pywikibot. It could be a small bot from a previous tutorial, but the content can focus more on how to run it on a wiki.
5.How to host a bot on ToolforgeSame for this. Keep the focus on a bot developed using the Pywikibot. It could be a bot from a previous tutorial. And the focus stays on how to host it on Toolforge.
6.Best practices for maintaining bots and toolsIdeally, for this as well, we keep the focus on bots leveraging Pywikibot framework only.
7.Writing Wikidata queries using the WDQS toolWe can skip this as it feels not so relevant with other topics
8.How to interact with Wikidata via PywikibotNo change

So, with this in mind, I think it would make the most sense for all these tutorials (that are all related to Pywikibot) to exist as subpages of Manual:Pywikibot. Once we have all these materials ready, we can have a subpage of "Small wiki toolkits" (essentially a course agenda/curriculum guide) with links to all these newly developed resources. What say?

Sidenote: Based on our conversation, I've also updated the plan for 2023 for the small wiki toolkits project in the reflections doc and soon planning on moving the contents on-wiki. After our discussion, the plan looks more realistic (with the focus for this year purely on developing the tutorials). After we have these first two tutorials ready, we can decide if we want to promote some via Outreachy in the winter round or develop on our own cc @komla

Thanks @srishakatux, these are very good points. I think adding these resources as subpages of Manual:Pywikibot makes sense. I will work on them in my user space first though.

Also, I agree with the changes you propose. But I would also prefer to focus on them once we have initial versions of these workshops written on wiki. So at first, I will create on-wiki content based on the workshops as the are now. This will provide us with a starting point for improvements. Does this make sense?

After working on this for a while (T327283) I've come to the conclusion that this task has somewhat contradictory goals.

If we focus on self-study materials aimed at learners and try to minimize duplication of content, then we end up with materials that are not sufficient (in my opinion) for teachers or mentors. These materials would still require a lot of work to be able to prepare a workshop.

On the other hand, if we focus on materials aimed at mentors preparing to run a workshop and make them comprehensive and complete, they will likely be difficult to follow as self-study material for learners.

This might be unique to the specific workshop I've worked on so far, but I think a reasonable solution in this case is to prepare separate pages for both of these use cases. One will provide comprehensive instructions on preparing and running the workshop making it relatively easy to organize. The other will provide self-study materials for learners to follow.

It will be easiest to discuss this when we have first drafts of both written down. I will post in T327283 when they are ready for review.

KBach changed the task status from Open to In Progress.Feb 14 2023, 10:23 AM

Self-study guides and workshop organizer's handbooks for both of these workshops are now available for review on: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:KBach-WMF/Sandbox/SWT_Workshop_Materials

KBach added a subscriber: Xqt.

Since the plan is to focus all these workshop materials on Pywikibot, I agree with the idea to add them as subpages somewhere under Manual:Pywikibot on mediawiki.org, and perhaps link to them from the main page.

@Xqt does this sound OK to you? (for context, this is about workshop materials I currently have in my sandbox)

@Xqt does this sound OK to you? (for context, this is about workshop materials I currently have in my sandbox)

LGTM. Maybe we can make crosslinks from/to Pywikibot documentation on https://doc.wikimedia.org.
BTW Binaris added a cookbook to the manual. I think this also can be linked somewhere on the landing page (and vice versa).

P.S. Categories are missing

LGTM. Maybe we can make crosslinks from/to Pywikibot documentation on https://doc.wikimedia.org.
BTW Binaris added a cookbook to the manual. I think this also can be linked somewhere on the landing page (and vice versa).

P.S. Categories are missing

Thanks! Added these to T333540. I am already linking to doc.wikimedia.org/pywikibot from the new materials.

KBach lowered the priority of this task from Medium to Low.Apr 17 2023, 12:04 PM

Re-prioritizing for this quarter.

KBach changed the task status from In Progress to Stalled.Apr 17 2023, 12:45 PM
KBach changed the task status from Stalled to In Progress.Jun 28 2023, 10:14 AM
KBach changed the status of subtask T333540: Refine existing SWT workshop materials and plan the next steps from Stalled to In Progress.
KBach changed the status of subtask T330853: Style guides for self-study guide and workshop organizer's handbook from Stalled to In Progress.
KBach closed this task as Resolved.EditedJul 17 2023, 12:34 PM

This work will continue in separate tasks listed below. Each of these tasks is independent from others and contains instructions on how to approach moving the workshop to a wiki. Each task links to original workshop recordings and slides, introduction to technical writing, relevant documentation templates, and examples of materials created in T327283 and T327285. Closing this task as resolved.

Follow-up tasks:

  • T341982: Create on-wiki content for the "How to interact with Wikidata via Pywikibot" workshop
  • T341981: Create on-wiki content for the "Best practices for maintaining bots and tools" workshop
  • T341980: Create on-wiki content for the "How to write a basic script via Pywikibot" workshop
  • T341979: Create on-wiki content for the "Intro to Pywikibot framework and installation" workshop