Matt R wrote:
--- Tim Starling wrote:
>Unfortunately it seems most programmers on
Wikipedia would rather think
>of excuses, complain about the lack of
progress
and file bug reports.
There's an unfortunate tendency on Wikipedia to
suppose that if you identify
a
problem that you can fix, then you have an
obligation to fix it. Even if you
have the capability, there is no moral imperative
for volunteers to do anything
at all on Wikipedia, and documenting a problem is
already a positive
contribution, albeit a comparatively minor one.
Of
course, to grumble or whine
about a problem that you've identified is
churlish, as you have no right to
expect that others fix things on your behalf.
But to get to the point: I'm very grateful to the
developers. I would quite
like to hack on Mediawiki myself some day, but
right now I prefer to spend my
time contributing to the content of articles --
this is not an *excuse*; this
is a choice, and I (only mildly!) resent any such
implication.
I'm sorry if I caused offence, I just wanted to
impress on everyone that
Wikipedia has barely any developers. If you're ever
wondering why some
feature hasn't been written yet, it's because
there's been no-one around
to write it. Most of the active developers seem to
be more interested
writing features for a general audience than for
Wikimedia projects.
There's more editors on the Old English Wikipedia
than there are
developers overall. Maybe Matt doesn't want to help,
and that's fine. I
get the feeling Gerrit doesn't either. But is there
anyone? Every second
Wikipedian seems to know a programming language. We
just need, say, two
or three developers willing to put in a few hours
per week.
-- Tim Starling
I currently have some time on my hands and I'd love to
be able to learn how to contribute. What do you need
exactly, only people who know PHP?
I little about PHP but I would be willing to learn
from scratch :). Hopefully there are other people who
want to learn, we can form a little group and go
though a few tutorials. This way people who know PHP
could help multiple people at once learn saving time.
How long would you guess it take before a person would
learn enough PHP to be useful on MediaWiki?
ShaunMacPherson
______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now!