Personal Information

Name: Sarima Chiorlu
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Github: Richiio
Email: chiorlusarima@gmail.com
LinkedIn: Sarima Chiorlu | LinkedIn
Resume: Sarima.Resume
Typical Working Hours: 6 pm to 2 am (UTC+1)

Professional Information

I was introduced to open source a few years ago and was eager to contribute to projects. However, these projects were so large, with over a thousand commits, that I found it difficult to get started. Asking around, I was introduced to programs like Outreachy and GSOC, where I was able to get started with open-source through Ersilia. My later contributions to open-source and coffee chats made it possible to meet people that I might not have been able to meet, and I was opportune to secure an intern role at a start-up, thanks to a referral from a connection I made through open-source. While working at this start-up as a software engineer, I was required to write technical documentation. This project got me really interested in technical writing, both as a way to give back and for self-development. This led me to freelance for organizations such as Airbyte, Educational, Agile, etc. Currently, I volunteer as the technical writing team lead at Nithub, where I am responsible for handling all written documentation and ensuring that new contributors adhere to the style and format specified. I manage a team of 4 technical writers, providing guidance and support. My responsibilities include assigning tasks and setting goals while maintaining documentation standards and style guidelines for the team to follow. I ensure the accuracy, clarity, and completeness of all articles. I applied to Wikipedia via GSOD because I am interested in working on larger documentation and improving it and I am committed to giving it my best shot. Some of my work associated with Nithub can be found here: https://nithub.unilag.edu.ng/category/blog/.

Some links to some of my articles
https://www.educative.io/answers/how-to-install-Jenkins-CI-on-windows [How to install Jenkins CI on Windows (educative.io) ]
Databricks vs Snowflake: A Comparative Analysis | Airbyte
https://www.educative.io/answers/how-to-remove-a-key-from-a-dictionary-in-Julia [How to remove a key from a dictionary in Julia (educative.io) ]]
[[ https://www.agilitest.com/blog/how-to-test-a-tcp-ip-port-connection [How To Test A TCP/IP Port Connection? | Agilitest blog ]

Synopsis

Prior to creating this proposal, I spoke to past users of MediaWiki and Metawiki. One of the users I spoke to was a past Outreachy contributor to Wikipedia, and she had the following to say concerning the documentation:

“New users are not as familiar with the Wikitext as I was initially. There wasn’t enough documentation to help me out when I got started, with some not being elaborate enough to guide me through. I had to schedule a meeting with a community maintainer who works directly on what I was working on. I had problems with navigation and at first glance through the documentation, it looked jam-packed. It was difficult to locate pages from the home page but I appreciated the inclusion of links in pages as it made it easier to find and discover materials that help me understand a given concept. During my time at Wikipedia, I can say that I loved the way they promoted open education, making it easier for newcomers to open source to contribute. ”

On the part about the documentation, she mentioned that some pages weren’t really helpful. My role would then involve looking through the documentation to ensure pages like that are reduced to the barest minimum.

I have identified the challenge where having two sets of documentation makes it difficult for newcomers to contribute and get started, hence the need for this project. To address this challenge, I aim to transfer all pages on Metawiki to Mediawiki. I envision that a successful outcome would be when there is no need for Metawiki and closing it down can be considered. To begin, I will review the content on both pages to understand the concept. Any information on Metawiki that is not present in Mediawiki will be reviewed and added to Mediawiki if it's helpful for users to understand the feature on the page. Next, I will go through all the pages that need to be transferred to MediaWiki. These pages will be rewritten and added to MediaWiki, removing any duplication. Once the transfer is complete, I will work with a community member who has a close relationship with the project to simplify the already-written content, making it highly beginner-friendly. I will collect feedback and test it with both a community member and a non-wiki user. The last step will be organizing the information structure to promote usability and discoverability. For instance, to address the issue of new users having difficulties installing Wikimedia on their Windows local machine, I will include Help pages that provide guides to common error messages encountered during installation. I will link them to the installation page. When reorganizing, all sections of the documentation with similar issues would be solved in a similar manner. By undertaking these steps, I hope to provide a more accessible and user-friendly documentation process for newcomers to contribute and get started on Wikipedia.

Project Statement

Project title: Consolidate MediaWiki Help Documentation
Link to project: Season of Docs/2024/Proposal - MediaWiki

About the project
MediaWiki.org serves as the primary documentation wiki for MediaWiki. However, remnants of MediaWiki documentation still exist on Meta-Wiki, leading to duplication and difficulty in accessing information. This project aims to consolidate and organize this documentation to improve user experience and enhance efficiency.

Scope:
Compare Meta-Wiki pages with MediaWiki.org equivalents and update missing information.
Create MediaWiki.org pages for Meta-Wiki content without equivalents.
Review WMF-specific pages on Meta-Wiki for usability and implement an organization to enhance discoverability and maintenance.
Organizing the help pages on Meta with Wikimedia-specific content to make them easier to use and maintain.

Proposed Solution
Scope 1: Compare Meta-Wiki pages with Mediawiki.org equivalents and update missing information
The end goal is to:

Identify Meta-Wiki pages with MediaWiki.org equivalents.
Conduct a thorough comparison to determine the missing information.
Update MediaWiki.org pages with relevant content from Meta-Wiki, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Scope 2: Create MediaWiki.org pages for Meta-Wiki content without equivalents.
Pages on meta-wiki with missing equivalents on MediaWiki would be added to MediaWiki. To ensure I do not experience difficulties getting started. I proceeded with learning how to create pages on MediaWiki. I created an account and created some example pages on my local version of MediaWiki. Hence, pages listed here not on Mediawiki would successfully be added to Mediawiki. The end goal for this is to:

Identify Meta-Wiki pages without MediaWiki.org equivalents.
Develop new MediaWiki.org pages covering the content from Meta-Wiki, adhering to licensing restrictions and standards.
Ensure thorough documentation to address user needs effectively.

Scope 3: Review WMF-specific pages on Meta-Wiki for usability and implement an organization to enhance discoverability and maintenance.
To handle this, I would:

Read through each page listed under "Project: MediaWiki_documentation_on_Meta-Wiki/List#Actually_WMF-specific" to understand its content, relevance, and usability.
Identify any outdated information, redundancies, or gaps in the content and rectify them
Group the pages based on their primary audience and topic, creating clear categories or sections for each user type
Design a user-friendly navigation system so users can easily find relevant information, providing clear labels and descriptions for each section 
Include relevant keywords, tags, and metadata in the pages to improve searchability.
Collect feedback from mentors while also implementing a feedback mechanism to gather users' input and suggestions.

Scope 4: Organizing pages on Mediawiki to improve discoverability
In response to user feedback regarding a jampacked interface and cases like Umang's where he encountered issues accessing a specific feature and had to request assistance from a team member, there is a need for the whole document to be reorganized. This is quite ambitious of me and might not be achievable within the GSOD period, but I am committed to continuing with this even after GSOD and also providing a template and guide for future contributors willing to continue from where I stop.

Success Metrics

For this whole project, the success metrics have been set at:

reduction of Meta-Wiki pages needing consolidation to MediaWiki.org from 82 to 0.

• Increase the percentage of relevant content linked from Meta: Help from 8% to 100%, indicating improved organization and usability.

But I have included the following:

Improving discoverability on Wikimedia documentation
Simplifying the documentation process
- A 70% decrease in issues raised on the Mediawiki user's community.
- Organizing pages on MediaWiki to enhance discoverability.
- A minimum of 80% impact on improving the usability and accessibility of MediaWiki documentation for users and contributors.

Proposed timeline

Project kickoff and onboarding (May 20 - June 1)
Set up accounts, and get familiar with the tools (This has been done already)
Review the project plan, set up dates where we meet, and decide on the communication channel and frequency establishing a connection with the mentors and understanding the project more with deliverables.

Phase 1: De-duplication (20 pages) (June 2 - June 29)
Audit each Meta page, and identify:

• its MediaWiki.org equivalent
• any information that needs to be added to the MediaWiki.org page
• any information that is specific to Wikimedia and needs to stay on Meta

Write the content needed for MediaWiki.org, and get feedback
Implement the feedback gotten after the first iteration

Phase 2: New content (June 30 - August 31)

• Review pages and group into subject areas
• Audit pages in each subject area, and identify:
• any information that needs to be added to MediaWiki.org
• where the information should be added in the context of the related MediaWiki.org documentation
• any information that is specific to Wikimedia and needs to stay on Meta
• Write the content, and get feedback

Phase 3: Organize (September 1 - October 5)

• Review Wikimedia-specific content on Meta, including content in this category identified during phases 1 and 2
• Design an information architecture for this content
• Get feedback
• Implement changes to meta: Help

Project wrap-up (October 6 - October 26)

• Identify and complete cleanup tasks
• Identify follow-up work
• Write a project report describing outcomes, learnings, best practices, and recommendations for future projects

Post-Project

• Start work on making pages on Mediawiki easier to discover
• Create templates for future contributors to enable future contributors finish on the restructuring pending if I am unable to finish before the end of the year.

Mentors

• Onifade Onyinyechi (@Maryann-Onyinye)
• Alex Paskulin (@apaskulin)

Proposed budget
$10,000