Hi Tony and all,

I would like to add information about another program which matches the Tony's description to a certain extent. It is Season of KDE by KDE [1]. Similar to GSoC and FOSS OPW they add a set of projects but very smaller in scope. The competition is held typically around December to February. If you successfully finish the project they give you a certificate and a T-shirt. After completing the project, the students can remain contributing and eventually end up in a GSoC.

Based on that and Tony's suggestion, when deciding the type of the challenge for Wikimedia, I think we have two options.

1. A GCI kind of a challenge where we add specific tasks and students can claim and do them repeatedly. 2. We add small projects and select a student who will do the project (like a mini GSoC).

I support Tony's idea because this gives students more time to fomarly interact with the community and according to my idea, the longer the student interacts with the community, higher the chance that, he/she is going to remain.

[1] https://dot.kde.org/2016/10/06/kde-student-programs-announces-season-kde-201...

Best regards, Dinu Kumarasiri

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 12:59 AM, Tony Thomas 01tonythomas@gmail.com wrote:

Hello all,

I hit across this idea in the recent GSoC Mentors summit, and in the discussion with Srishti and Sumit on the reducing usability and scope of GSoC/Outreachy projects[1] among the years.

*The problem* Students show up one or two weeks before GSoC or Outreachy, and propose a solution to existing ideas, and often end up completing it and leaving the project. Due to this, there is a decline in student-proposed ideas as well, given 1-2 weeks is not enough to understand Wikimedia from any direction.

*How to solve * Its tricky, and I came across this program codeheat[2] by FOSSASIA which is kind of like a Google Code In without any age limit. Its open for everyone (with majority being Univeristy students), and of course - if this runs before GSoC, these students who shine in this program gets an advantage while applying for GSoC. Like they would better know the community, and might be even able to propose a much-needed project.

The timing of the event is pretty important, like if we need students to stick to their project once they complete one among the outreach programs (GSoC/Outreachy), they need to be *engaged*. I think a pattern like this would help.

1. A Wikimedia specific code challenge running from say Jan 15 to Mar

1st with grand prize winners given goodies and maybe a conference ticket (if funds exists) 2. Student with Google Summer of Code/ Outreachy from Mar 20 - September 6th [3] and later mentoring. 3. Google Code In Mentors from mid November to January 30

The students can then be mentors for the rest of the programs, and thus feel warm with the community.

What can the* new event cost* While talking with FOSSASIA, it seems like they just have a registration app running at [2], and they assign issues via Github to applicants. Since we have phab, this might be even simple. Since its a challenge, it can get enough publicity, and specially in Universities which have future GSoC/Outreach students and mentors.

We might need someone happy enough to run the program too (

Do comment what you think about the idea of retaining GSoC students with such an event. Feedbacks and comments welcome.

[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:MaxSem/GSoC_analysis [2] http://codeheat.org/ [3] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline

Thanks, Tony Thomas https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:01tonythomas Home http://www.thomastony.me | Blog https://tttwrites.wordpress.com/ | ThinkFOSS http://www.thinkfoss.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l