Hello all. We are about to kick off the October 2011 Coding
Challenge, to which Erik alluded in his emails yesterday. I just
wanted to offer a brief word of thanks to all at Wikimedia who have
helped to put this together, and express my sense of what it is that
we're doing.
This is an experiment. It may be brilliant, or it may not be.
Offering a big prize for challenge winners may be a master stroke, or
it may be a terrible mistake. The contest may yield lots of smart
developers or lots of clueless noobs. There may be a torrent of new
voices overwhelming #mediawiki and wikitech-l, or there may be no one
at all. I have no idea what to expect, and I'm not about to pretend
otherwise. I will be fascinated to see how the next few weeks play
out.
One thing I am confident about: from everything I've observed about
the Wikimedia technical community so far, I'm not the least bit
worried about how noobs will be received. In some communities, this
would be a note begging everyone to please, *please* not be to mean to
the noobs -- but in this community, I only feel obliged to thank all
of you in advance for being helpful and patient, as I know you will
be.
If you have any questions or concerns about the contest, feel free to
raise them here on the list, or address them to me personally.
--g