MediaWiki Usage Report for Wikimania 2015

See Phabricator:T100217 for further discussion.

Google Docs Version of the presentation can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MUDdnj9DEV7IKQbocG1samCxylDHpsISm1Uzf5x4WMc/edit

Working Outline

1. Introduction (What this is all about, who we are)
2. There are people using MediaWiki!
   1. Share statistics on MediaWiki and MediaWiki Extension downloads
   2. Show regional users if possible (with downloads!)
   3. Share download of Mediawiki
   4. Share extension downloads
      1. Git downoad logs
      2. Github download stats
      3. Extension distributor
   5. Show extensions in repo that are not on WMF-related projects
   6. Show extension authors (focus on extensions made outside of WMF)
   7. Why are they using it?
3. What can we do to encourage outside enterprises to contribute their work back to MW and the community?
   1. Invite them to join us!
   2. The community is a way to find support
   3. Be part of a larger community - your bug reports, patches, extensions, gadgets, skins, etc can help others.
   4. There’s gold in them thar hills! - the financial and perceptual benefits to contributing to open-source projects
   5. Provide a reusable open-source contribution policy for organizations to use internally to kickstart contributions
      1. Similar to the Open Access Policy Nemo suggested
4. What can we do to increase awareness and support of third party usage from the WMF?
   1. This is the "What's in it for the foundation/movement" aspect.
   2. We're leaving developers on the table!
   3. No one has stars on their belly
   4. if they don’t know about these events (like the hackathon) they can't help.
   5. Maybe they don’t feel welcome?
   6. Make events a safe space for non-wmf developers
   7. This helps in growing the ecosystem and the MW platform
   8. This makes non-wmf MW developer not feel like an afterthought
5. Stakeholder Achievements
   1. Create process for extension welcome service
      1. (ews, builds on aws brand -- we're taking it over!) (Markus)
   2. Wishlist: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group/Tasks/Feature_wishlist (Richard)
   3. Make Stakeholder page handsome and pretty - Chris K. (Markus send picture)
   4. Frequent, ongoing, highlighting of new, interesting, or recently updated extensions - Chris K.
   5. Understand Who are the MW users and what do they need? - Cindy
      1. Corral people to email cindy questions - Chris K.
   6. Related task:
      1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T954
   7. Opt-In-Registration (ask Tyler Romeo)
   8. Hit-Counter (Mark)
   9. Update Technical FAQ on MW.org (we might be able to work on this before Mexico - Chris K.) - also bawolff and Markus
   10. Participate in events around third-party mediawiki usage
       1. Developer's Summit in January
       2. SMWCon Spring
       3. (Wikimedia Conference)
       4. Hackathon in May
       5. NASA Thing in June
6. Future Plans
   1. Improve documentation about installing and managing MW installations
   2. Host events around third-party mediawiki usage
   3. Build things (code and patches) that assist third-party use
      1. Improve extension management
      2. Improve extension documentation (such as on mediawiki.org)
      3. search customizations (ask Chris about showing Categories on search results)
      4. Improving crawl rules
         1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T10473
      5. Limiting access to reading a wiki
   4. Start extension mentoring

Resources to leverage in presentation

• Mentions of concerns, focus, and work around MediaWiki in WMF 'State of the Wikimedia Foundation" report.
  • https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation

• Metrics culled from Extension Distributor
  • https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P661

• MediaWiki stats from wmf labs
  • http://wikistats.wmflabs.org

• Stats from WikiApiary
  • https://wikiapiary.com/wiki/Statistics

• MediaWiki Download statistics for May 18th to July 15th 2015. T104010

Meeting on 2015-05-24

mglaser-- welcome!

• Let's do stuff!
• Shift in WMs to shift towards measurable output
• We now have http://mwstake.org for published information
• Map the extensions out there needing to be shared (or even moved to gerrit?)
  • ACTION: Add all those you know to https://www.openhub.net/p/mediawiki-extensions-other/enlistments (e.g. https://github.com/search?l=&p=5&q=wgExtensionCredits+-user%3Awikimedia+extension%3Aphp&ref=advsearch&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93 )

Ckoerner -- talks over his points in the below agenda

Discussion of extension mentors

• Make clear the benefit of publishing an extension in MW environment
  • Translation
  • Visibility
  • Corporate social responsibility
• Need to encourage people to help extension devs
• Need documentation *and* people
• MW community is hidden inside larger corporations
• There is a lack of visibility of MW users even within the foundation
• Extension mentoring: Cindy, Markus, Mark, Bawolff, Legoktm
  • Publish about this, and have for example an "Extension of the month"

Statistics - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T100221

• • We could become a rallying point for communication between 3rd parties and foundation
  • stats for ED!
• Track regional users (with downloads!)
• RFC Opt-in for registration informaiton
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Opt-in_site_registration_during_installation
• Is it realistic to getting d/l data?
  • Ask analytics or research team of WMF to get data?
  • We need to organize whining
• Lego published extension download statistics on phabricator "Extension Distributor statistics": https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P661 (part of task https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T27844 )
• ACTION: Mark will ask
  • Can we get any stats on extensions from git? github, gerrit, etc.? the above is only from ExtensionDistributor

Who are the MW users and what do they need?

• Collect Testimonials https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_testimonials
• like: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki which already has hundreds of MediaWiki wikis, also sorted by language. Probably very ill maintained and incomplete.
• Write blog posts, wiki of the month
  • http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Wiki_of_the_Month
• Richard: Short reader about what people need
  • http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group/Tasks/Feature_wishlist
• GCI 2015: Students skimmed mailing lists for needs
• Manuel: Use phabricater project to endorse
  • this really needs to prioritize the features features are known
• Markus: Look at technical wishlist in German Wikipedia as a role model and look for low hanging fruit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Umfragen/Technische_W%C3%BCnsche/Top_20
  • Beware, someone™ also created https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech_project_ideas
• Richard: Need to know, what people need not only wrt technology
• ACTION: Richard lead a discussion about non technical demands right after this session

FAQ

• Page on mwstake wiki
• Technical FAQ started on mw.o
• ACTION bawolff, markus: update FAQ

Next meeting

• Google Hangout, June 5th -- ask hexmode on G+ if you want to be notified on G+
• Real life: 2015-07-18 14:00 Mexico City https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Meetup#Interested_attendees

-- Meeting ends at 16:53pm

• SMWCon in Barcelona 28-30 October (before Halloween)

Agenda from Phabricator

What can we do to increase awareness and support of third party usage from the WMF? This is the "What's in it for the foundation/movement" aspect. We're leaving developers on the table! No one has stars on their belly if they don’t know about these events (like the hackathon) they can't help. Maybe they don’t feel welcome? Make events a safe space for non-wmf developers This helps in growing the ecosystem and the MW platform This makes non-wmf MW developer note feel like an afterthought What can we do to encourage outside enterprises to contribute their work back to MW and the community? Invite them to join us! The community is a way to find support Be part of a larger community - your bug reports, patches, extensions, gadgets, skins, etc can help others. There’s gold in them thar hills! - the financial and perceptual benefits to contributing to open-source projects Things we could tactically build (more ideas welcome) Improve documentation about installing and managing MW installations Host events around third-party mediawiki usage Build things (code and patches) that assist third-party use Improve extension management Improve extension documentation (such as on mediawiki.org) Hitcounter extension for 1.25 search customizations (ask Chris about showing Categories on search results) Improving crawl rules https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T10473 Limiting access to reading a wiki Learn more at the following links: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group http://mwstake.org

Mark's Notes from the after-session discussion (on the lawn in Lyon)

Report to who? Find allies Wmf and why is this important to them Companies need to know we are here

Punt authors info to mwstake People in g plus group get mwstake accounts

Smwcon could be turned into mwstake con

MW stake is an org

roadmap is to become a thematic org Will take 2 years

Account can be had by meeting some criteria

Screencast for idea of wiki

Mwstake will remain closed sister wiki can be more open

Deadlines Download stats by tomorrow Wikimania Google hang out

Cataloging members Need to incorporate

We need roadmap and stated

Action questionnaire Names of members Numbers download Table of contents Wikimania agenda Start of Report by end of June