**Description will be finalized by Mon, Jan 15! - currently still wip**
**Participants**, please read/think about/research these, ahead of time:
* Session description:
** Discuss how to grow the MediaWiki community through:
*** Better processes and project management practices, integrating all developers and allowing them to work more efficiently
*** Building partnerships with other Open Source communities on shared interests (e.g. translation, audio, video)
*** Reducing technical debt
* Session Goals:
** Prioritized list of recommendations for action items, overview on main challenges, risks, chances in the 3 focus areas
** Plan for follow-ups
*** People who are interested to work on specific recommendations in the 3 focus areas sign up during the session
* Pre-event questions for discussion (below)
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* Related position statements:
** https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/devsummit/index.php/Session:3
* Related background reading:
** Core problems & challenges, barriers for newcomers (and experienced devs); ideas for improvement:
*** Outcome of 2 sessions in 2017: T160710, T171900 - Mediawiki and (new) developers: How to become BFFs part I and II
** Strategy and infrastructure for community maintained scripts and gadgets in the Wikimedia projects:
*** See especially task T171577 (vision for community maintained scripts and gadgets) and tasks linked there
*** Task T121470 (global repository for templates, lua models, gadgets)
** Outreach/Mentoring: Examples for current/former attempts to grow the Mediawiki Technical Community:
*** Lessons learned from [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2017/Lessons_Learned | GSOC - 2017 ]], [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_programs/Lessons_learned| Lessons learned from GSOC, FOSS outreach program for women ]] etc. (2013)
*** Blog post on [[ https://blog.wikimedia.de/2017/02/28/ladies-that-foss-welcoming-35-women-coders-into-the-foss-movement-and-that-was-just-the-beginning/ | Ladies that FOSS in 2016 ]] - an approach to increase gender diversity in tech
*** [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Africa_Wikimedia_Developers_Project | Africa Wikimedia Developers Project ]]- project to start a technical community in Africa
*** About newcomer support at Hackathons: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Newcomer_support_at_hackathons, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Newcomer_support_at_hackathons/Mentor_guide
*** General lessons learned from the last Hackathon - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2017/Lessons_Learned
** Entry points and knowledge transfer beyond real life events or specific programs (open discussions, examples):
*** New system to retain knowledge/Q&A platform? - T155678 (discussion on //Discourse// - prototype can be tested now)
*** https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker (probably the most recommended entry guide for newcomers)
*** https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Advice_IRC_Meeting (relatively new initiative, weekly support meeting)
** How others do it:
*** Mozilla's guide for newcomers - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Introduction
**Topic Leaders** (@Bmueller, @Mattflaschen-WMF), 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.
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Post-event Summary:
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Action items:
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