MediaWiki’s Google Summer of Code students have been busy! We’re more than halfway through the summer, so here’s what they’re up to:
- Akshay Agarwal’s “Account Creation, Login Screens and AJAX-ification of everything” (mentor: Brandon Harris). Code, project status.
The last task I accomplished: “Added source tracking functionality in the account creation API that I am building.”
Something I’ve learned: “True learning can happen only in an open environment & with a highly supportive community.” - Kevin Brown’s “Working Archival for Web References/Citations,” “to facilitate the archival of external links used as references in the English Wikipedia” (mentor: Neil Kandalgaonkar). Code, project notes.
The last task I accomplished: “Adding support for wget local archival, currently working on feed for external archival services.”
Something I’ve learned: “Where do I start? A lot. I think the biggest thing is probably managing a large project and time management, which I still have a lot to learn on.” - Devayon Das’s “Improving Semantic Search/Semantic Query usability issues in SMW” (mentor: Markus Krötzsch). Code, project notes.
The last task I accomplished: “Added RSS links to the results generated by the Query Creator interface I’m building.”
Something I’ve learned: “A 30 second chat with a community member can save you 30 minutes of scratching your head in frustration.” - Ankit Garg’s “Semantic Schemas extension” (mentor: Yaron Koren). Code.
The last task I accomplished: “I finished adding the inheritance support to the PageSchema XML structure.”
Something I’ve learned: “I have a learned a great deal of PHP; also how to manage a huge project.” -
"A 30 second chat with a community member can save you 30 minutes of scratching your head in frustration."
Salvatore Ingala’s “AMICUS: Awesome Monolithic Infrastructure for Customization of User Scripts” (mentors: Max Semenik and Brion Vibber). Code, project notes.
The last task I accomplished: “I made a prototypal user interface for editing preferences of an existing gadget, HotCat.”
Something I’ve learned: “Unit testing is boooooring, but ends up saving you a lot of time!” - Yuvi Panda’s “Making Offline Wikipedia Article Selection Easier with Mediawiki Extensions” (mentor: Arthur Richards). Code, project.
The last task I accomplished: “Filter articles based on name, quality and importance.”
Something I’ve learned: “That spending time talking to everyone involved in the process from start to finish (devs, community maintainers, etc.) saves a truckload of time later on.” - Zhenya Vlasyenko’s “MediaWiki Extension: SocialProfile – UserStatus feature” (mentor: Jack Phoenix). Code.
The last task I accomplished: “Internalization of the UserStatus feature with the help of the MakeGlobalVariablesScript hook.”
Something I’ve learned: “I’ve found out for myself a new ways of data interaction between PHP and Javascript… Convinced that knowing some tricks and hooks can greatly save time.”
Aigerim Karabekova, who was working on extension release management, ran into several delays (including medical issues) and the project has been dropped. We’re glad she made the attempt and wish her the best.
Continued best wishes to Zhenya, Yuvi, Salvatore, Ankit, Devayon, Kevin, and Akshay as they work to make MediaWiki, and the Wikimedia experience, better. We’re glad to be helping young developers learn how to contribute to our community.
Sumana Harihareswara
Wikimedia Foundation, Volunteer Development Coordinator
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