Google Code-in has been announced:
http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2013
This is about 13-17 year old students performing tasks that can be isolated and a skilled contributor would complete in a couple of hours. The tasks mjust have a mentor and can be related to code, documentation, outreach, QA or UX. Participants get one point for each task completed and they can complete as many as they can between 18 November and 6 January.
Wikimedia can apply thanks to our participation on GSoC 2013. The deadline is 28 October. Only 10 organizations will be accepted.
I think we should apply. Main reasons:
* The definition of a Code-in task fits very well with our ideal definition of an annoying little bug: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Annoying_little_bugs
* The typical Code-in participant needs what most potential new contributor also need from us: an insightful landing page, straight connections to first tasks and friendly community support.
* Just like GSoC / OPW, it is a good chance for non-primetime projects to raise their hands, get some help and hopefully some new contributors.
* Good exercise for first-time mentors, practicing for more co plex internship projects.
* Good exercise for any open source project, meaning just any MediaWiki / Wikimedia tech project.
But of course this will only work if many projects want to step in with a task and a mentor for it. So what do you think?