I talked to Shivansh in IRC earlier today.
On 02/13/2012 07:38 PM, Shivansh Srivastava wrote:
I understand there are 16 weeks in which I would have to complete my project(s). So, kindly also inform me what would happen if the time taken by me exceeds & extends after the summer? Would I be allowed to complete the remaining projects afterwards?
As I mentioned in IRC, you should write proposals that you can complete by August 20th, presuming that you start coding on May 21st. Where did you get the 16 week figure? Are you counting the April 23rd-May 21st "community bonding period"? You could start coding during that time if you're ready, but most people have other things they need to do during that time, like design work, learning coding standards, learning to use the source control system and code review system, and so on.
The timeline:
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2012
As I had mentioned in IRC, if you set goals for your proposal and then you don't finish them by August 20th, you may fail GSoC, which would mean that you wouldn't get the second half of the payment. Of course you could continue working on any suggestions or features that you want -- I'm not sure where you got the idea that you would not be allowed to. Anyone can try to work on a suggested improvement to MediaWiki at any time, with or without Google Summer of Code. And even if you don't get accepted into GSoC, you can contribute whatever you want and work to improve MediaWiki.
Also, it would be great if there are any more ideas that can be included here to improve User Interactivity.
The reason I suggested that you talk to Brandon is that he is the senior designer at the Wikimedia Foundation. Here are some of his projects: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Jorm Look at them and think about whether they would affect any of your designs or suggestions.