**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
* Structure of the session (rough draft)
** Intro by topic leaders: Status quo (what are we already doing, main challenges, best practices ...), overview on main questions and focus areas for this session
** Focus areas (wrap up at the end of each area, and agree follow-ups before moving on)
*** Focus topic I: Making all developers (including third-party and volunteer) a key and efficient part of our software engineering
*** Focus topic II: Build up partnerships with other communities, other open source projects in areas that are important for us today and tomorrow
*** Focus topic III: Technical debt/fragility
** Future directions (mention other areas that were not part of session)
* Pre-event questions for discussion here on the task
** What would allow you to develop and plan your software more efficiently?
** What would make software development more fun for you?
** What other Open Source communities do we share interests with?
** How can we change our processes to take technical debt more seriously?
* Related position statements:
** https://wikifarm.wmflabs.org/devsummit/index.php/Session:3
* Expected reading
** Outcome of 2 sessions in 2017: T160710, T171900 - Mediawiki and (new) developers: How to become BFFs part I and II
** [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit/%2B2#Granting | Process for granting +2 ]] (we can consider other processes, or ways to advertise it better)
** Mozilla's guide for newcomers - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Introduction
** Apache overview (for both partnerships and forming projects that are not run by a single company) - https://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
** https://opensource.com/open-organization/17/9/building-external-alliances-2 (about software collaborations)
** Strategy and infrastructure for community maintained scripts and gadgets in the Wikimedia projects:
*** See especially task {T171577} and tasks linked there
** Avoiding Technical Debts: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Kinzler_(WMDE)/Avoiding_the_Tech_Debt_Trap
* Optional extra reading (if you have time)
** {T121470}
** 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
**** https://discourse-mediawiki.wmflabs.org/ (new [[ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discourse | pilot project ]])
*** https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker (probably the most recommended entry guide for newcomers) and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Developers (relatively new)
*** https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Advice_IRC_Meeting (relatively new initiative, weekly support meeting)
This is one of the 8 [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2018 |Wikimedia Developer Summit 2018]] topics.
Topic leaders: @Bmueller & @Mattflaschen-WMF.
**Session notes**:
* https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/devsummit18-growingmediawikitechnicalcommunity
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Post-event Summary:
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Action items:
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