**Participants**, please read/think about/research these, ahead of time:
**//Session description: //**
Increasing market penetration of MediaWiki will increase the number of MediaWiki users and developers. This in turn will increase the availability of the sum of all knowledge and improve the quality of the MediaWiki software for everybody. A rising tide lifts all boats. For any of this to happen, there needs to be better support for third party MediaWiki users and developers.
The structure of this session will be as follows:
* Opening remarks
* Short 3 hashtags "why am I here?" introductions by each participant
* Several rounds of active brainstorming to answer the following in turn:
** What are the important unanswered questions? What are the important strategic goals?
** What critical outcomes must be achieved to answer these questions/achieve these goals?
** Rank outcomes
** (break)
** For top 5 critical outcomes:
*** What work needs to be done?
*** Over what time horizon?
*** How does the work need to be staged?
*** What resources would be needed? What are the infrastructure requirements?
*** What teamwork and external partnerships would be necessary?
*** Are there any critical dependencies? Any risks?
** Summary and wrap-up
**//Session goals: //**
* Create a list of unanswered questions about third party MediaWiki users and developers
* Create a list of strategic goals in support of third party MediaWiki users and developers
* Create a list of near term objectives
**//Pre-event questions for discussion: //**
# What are the important unanswered questions with respect to third-party MediaWiki users and developers?
# What are the important strategic goals with respect to third-party MediaWiki users and developers?
**//Related position statements: //**
* https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/devsummit/index.php/Session:16
**//Related background reading: **//
* [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group | MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group]]
* [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2017/Third-party_wikis | EMWCon 2017 Discussion of Third-Party Wikis]]
* [[https://de.slideshare.net/HalloWelt/moving-out-of-home-mediawiki-governance-revisited | MediaWiki Governance Talk at Wikimania 2016]]
* [[https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/Final/Programs/Technology#Program_4:_Technical_community_building | Wikimedia Foundation Technical Community Building annual plan goals]]
* [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technology/Goals/2017-18_Q3#Program_4:_Technical_community_building | Wikimedia Foundation Technical Community Building quarterly goals]]
* Relevant Phabricator tasks:
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T184648 | Create and publish a multi-tiered support level system for MediaWiki extensions frequently used by third parties]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T184606 | Evaluate and set up a test instance of FOSS persistent chat software as a companion to Q&A system for communication with third-party developers]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T181377 | Set up test instances for popular Q&A software]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T156500 | Document extensions' MediaWiki version compatibility better]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T88596 | Improving extension management]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T118188 | Extension Store - Ideas and Requirements]]
** [[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T183106 | Document audiences and use cases for a Wikimedia Tools catalog]]
* [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M13lfsYS4LtsjMV_Npsb06GKLVQQ3hpgdpDtVyOYqWw/edit?ts=581acc4a#heading=h.ufpuy6jzf3cp | MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group proposed Memorandum of Understanding]]
**Session notes**:
* https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/devsummit18-thirdpartymediawiki
----
**Topic Leaders** (@CCicalese_WMF @Legoktm @MarkAHershberger @Mglaser), please
* Add more details to this task description,
* Coordinate any pre-event discussions (here, IRC, email, hangout, etc),
* Outline the plan for discussing this topic at the Developer Summit.
* Optionally, include what it will //not// try to solve.
* Update this task with summaries of any pre-event discussions.
* Include ways for people not attending to be involved in discussions before the summit and afterwards.
This is one of the 8 [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2018 |Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018]] topics.
----
Post-event Summary:
* ...
Action items:
* ...