Submissions/Ask the Developers

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2015.

Submission no.
3023
Title of the submission
Ask the Developers
Type of submission
Discussion/hot seat
Author of the submission
Siebrand Mazeland and other present engineers for software used by Wikimedia.
E-mail address
siebrand@kitano.nl
Username
siebrand
Country of origin
The Netherlands
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Wikimedia Foundation, translatewiki.net.
Personal homepage or blog
mw:User:Siebrand, translatewiki:User:Siebrand
Abstract

This session provides a forum for the community to have an in person dialogue with engineers, make suggestions, and discuss long standing issues. The hackathon allows developers to meet and work together, but they lack an opportunity to exchange information with the community at Wikimania. This session is supposed to provide this opportunity.

At past Wikimanias and other events, Wikipedians will try to find a developer in some break between sessions, to ask some question that has been on their mind for a while. But that only works if there is time, and people actually know who to ask, and when. Having a session for this purpose in the program will help to make it easier for people to ask their question, and to get an answer from the person who knows most about the issue. Also, having a scheduled session for this allows questions and answers to be documented, so more people can benefit.

This session will help to further increase the communication between engineers and those that use the features they design and develop. Shedding some light on the development priorities and operational difficulties should provide people with a better understanding of what developers and system administrators are doing, and why.

The topic of the panel is very broad - basically, it can cover anything that someone might want to ask the developers or system administrators.

  • Visual design and user workflows
  • Visual editor
  • Product roadmap
  • Future of media support
  • Software used for development
  • Community request workflow
  • Many more possible subjects...

This forum mainly aims to create further mutual understanding and clarity between users and engineers by explanation and discussion, so that they can optimize their future on-line collaborations.

Track
  • WikiCulture & Community
  • Technology, Interface & Infrastructure
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes (more time preferred if possible)
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Yes
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests
If possible, have a room where everyone is equal, and not an auditorium setup. Fish bowl would be ideal.


Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).

  1. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. CT Cooper · talk 17:27, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:38, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. --Ilya (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]