Hi all,
I would like to introduce to the Wikimedia community WikiToLearn, a FOSS project of which I am a participant and which is lately getting a lot of contributions and momentum.
It is a KDE project sponsored (among the others) by Wikimedia Italy and recently joined by institutions such as HEP Software Foundation (CERN, Fermilab, Princeton...) or Universities such as University of Pisa and Milano- Bicocca. These institutions are already populating the website with content.
We aim to provide a platform where learners and teachers can complete, refine and re-assemble lecture notes in order to create free, collaborative and accessible textbooks, tailored precisely to their needs.
Although the project is quite young (only a few months old), it is already growing in allure at an unexpected rate. Thanks to this we are now counting on nearly 40 developers, and growing (including content developers).
We are different from Wikipedia and other WMF projects in several ways, and in a sense, complementary. Our focus is on creating complete textbooks (and not encyclopedic articles), drawing from a professor’s or a student’s own notes, either existing or that have to be written down.
We also have a strong focus on offline use: all the content of WikiToLearn should be easily printable by any student for offline use and serious studying.
Besides a good team for content development, we can count on a small but motivated team of developers, and we would like to improve communication with upstream (a.k.a. you ;-) ), because we found ourselves developing a few features which could probably be made available to the general public, with some generalization and polishing. ;-)
Is this a right place to start such a discussion?
We would like to help as much as we can, but we might need some mentoring in how to best approach MediaWiki development, as many of us are relatively new to OSS/Web development.
Bye, -Riccardo
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 8:22 AM, Riccardo Iaconelli riccardo@kde.org wrote:
We aim to provide a platform where learners and teachers can complete, refine and re-assemble lecture notes in order to create free, collaborative and accessible textbooks, tailored precisely to their needs.
[...]
We are different from Wikipedia and other WMF projects in several ways, and in a sense, complementary. Our focus is on creating complete textbooks (and not encyclopedic articles), drawing from a professor’s or a student’s own notes, either existing or that have to be written down.
How does it compare to Wikibooks? From the description it sounds very similar. Or Wikiversity?
Besides a good team for content development, we can count on a small but motivated team of developers, and we would like to improve communication with upstream (a.k.a. you ;-) ), because we found ourselves developing a few features which could probably be made available to the general public, with some generalization and polishing. ;-)
Is this a right place to start such a discussion?
Great! For general communication, this mailing list is probably as good a place as any.
We would like to help as much as we can, but we might need some mentoring in how to best approach MediaWiki development, as many of us are relatively new to OSS/Web development.
Have you seen https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developer_hub yet?
Other advice I can give you is that getting something into MediaWiki core itself can be daunting, but don't be too afraid to propose a patch adding it if it really belongs there (even if "it" is just the hook that you need or a new accessor on some existing class). It can be difficult to find the right person to review the code and standards can be high, and sometimes it'll turn out that the thing should be done in a completely different way than you originally thought, but you're likely to wind up with a better result than if you hack things up in an extension.
On Friday, November 27, 2015 09:07:39 AM Brad Jorsch wrote:
How does it compare to Wikibooks? From the description it sounds very similar. Or Wikiversity?
Wikibooks is mostly for "generic" books, while we aim at content with a didactical value. For this reason we don't want the restrictions on software offer imposed by WMF, and we allow support for things like numbered equations, or the ability to create a more compelling UX through new skins. Target users are universities (students and professors) and research labs.
Wikiversity, on the other hand, has never managed to gain enough momentum within the academical communities. As Ricordisamoa wrote, it is now restarting, but it's after we gathered interested people and material, and we're currently way more active than the local Wikiversity group.
I believe we're doing a better job at performing a (IMHO FUNDAMENTAL) bonding with unis and research labs, mostly thanks to the fact that we come from there. AFAICT from a few private chats that is also OK with Wikimedia, since that is no longer their main focus (which is now WikiData and Wikipedia). All the efforts I have seen on this direction (e.g. WikiEdu and WikiMed) have concentrated on Wikipedia.
We also give a strong focus on offline usage of the content, from the layout of the pages to the content type. We were born to address a very specific and personal need, and we ensured to create the most easy and efficient platform for serious studying.
We would like to help as much as we can, but we might need some mentoring in how to best approach MediaWiki development, as many of us are relatively new to OSS/Web development.
Have you seen https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developer_hub yet?
Other advice I can give you is that getting something into MediaWiki core itself can be daunting, but don't be too afraid to propose a patch adding it if it really belongs there (even if "it" is just the hook that you need or a new accessor on some existing class). It can be difficult to find the right person to review the code and standards can be high, and sometimes it'll turn out that the thing should be done in a completely different way than you originally thought, but you're likely to wind up with a better result than if you hack things up in an extension.
First thing that comes to mind: we introduced a <dmath> tag (short for displaystyle math) that allows centered, complex and numbered equations.
I have seen that a similar patch has been explicitly rejected by the Wikipedia community. How do you suggest we proceed?
Bye, -Riccardo
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 5:40 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli riccardo@kde.org wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 09:07:39 AM Brad Jorsch wrote:
How does it compare to Wikibooks? From the description it sounds very similar. Or Wikiversity?
Wikibooks is mostly for "generic" books,
That's not what https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks#What_is_Wikibooks says:
"Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. [...] As a general rule only instructional books are suitable for inclusion. Most types of books, both fiction and non-fiction, are not allowed on Wikibooks, unless they are instructional."
If I can trust Google Translate, it.wikibooks.org's equivalent pages say roughly the same thing.
On Friday, November 27, 2015 08:32:50 PM Brad Jorsch wrote:
If I can trust Google Translate, it.wikibooks.org's equivalent pages say roughly the same thing.
Hi Brad,
what I meant is that we create various forms of text, and most content might not be directly unitary textbooks, but simply start as several collections student notes or lecture notes. There is also no "book" with a clear structure, index, beginning and end, but there will be several sharing the same content. The site is structured around many "liquid" chapters which can later be re-assembled at the user's will, at compile time. The whole site is built around the idea of these light chapters, which can be scattered everywhere and which might even live in a User's namespace, because one of the main focuses we have is offline usage and personalization.
I agree that sometimes the lines can be more blurred, but I hope I was clear enough in why I think the two projects have different scopes. :)
Bye, -Riccardo
What a better proof that itwikiversity has failed. But it is getting restarted https://it.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversit%C3%A0:Riorganizzazione_2015 recently.
Il 27/11/2015 14:22, Riccardo Iaconelli ha scritto:
Hi all,
I would like to introduce to the Wikimedia community WikiToLearn, a FOSS project of which I am a participant and which is lately getting a lot of contributions and momentum.
It is a KDE project sponsored (among the others) by Wikimedia Italy and recently joined by institutions such as HEP Software Foundation (CERN, Fermilab, Princeton...) or Universities such as University of Pisa and Milano- Bicocca. These institutions are already populating the website with content.
We aim to provide a platform where learners and teachers can complete, refine and re-assemble lecture notes in order to create free, collaborative and accessible textbooks, tailored precisely to their needs.
Although the project is quite young (only a few months old), it is already growing in allure at an unexpected rate. Thanks to this we are now counting on nearly 40 developers, and growing (including content developers).
We are different from Wikipedia and other WMF projects in several ways, and in a sense, complementary. Our focus is on creating complete textbooks (and not encyclopedic articles), drawing from a professor’s or a student’s own notes, either existing or that have to be written down.
We also have a strong focus on offline use: all the content of WikiToLearn should be easily printable by any student for offline use and serious studying.
Besides a good team for content development, we can count on a small but motivated team of developers, and we would like to improve communication with upstream (a.k.a. you ;-) ), because we found ourselves developing a few features which could probably be made available to the general public, with some generalization and polishing. ;-)
Is this a right place to start such a discussion?
We would like to help as much as we can, but we might need some mentoring in how to best approach MediaWiki development, as many of us are relatively new to OSS/Web development.
Bye, -Riccardo
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Friday, November 27, 2015 04:05:25 PM Ricordisamoa wrote:
What a better proof that itwikiversity has failed. But it is getting restarted https://it.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversit%C3%A0:Riorganizzazione_2015 recently.
We should definitely get in touch and join forces :-)
-Riccardo
To clarify, Wikimedia Italia doesn't financially sponsor this site nor contribute content to it. AFAIK our volunteers provided some MediaWiki training to the site's users. Wikimedia Italia is always happy when MediaWiki usage spreads, but recommends Wikibooks and Wikiversity as primary platforms for OER activities.
As for your question, there are a couple useful things you can do: 1) write a document where you explain what makes your platform more suitable for your activities and what features Wikibooks/Wikiversity lack in your opinion; 2) publish your code in Gerrit: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git/New_repositories/Requests (you made a Docker extensiona and the skin, right? http://it.wikitolearn.org/Speciale:Versione); 3) report bugs and feature requests http://phabricator.wikimedia.org/ ; 4) (as you use Debian) take ownership of the Debian package, which is currently abandoned: https://wiki.debian.org/MediaWiki ; https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=728347 .
Nemo
On Friday, November 27, 2015 08:04:17 PM Federico Leva wrote:
To clarify, Wikimedia Italia doesn't financially sponsor this site nor contribute content to it. AFAIK our volunteers provided some MediaWiki training to the site's users. Wikimedia Italia is always happy when MediaWiki usage spreads, but recommends Wikibooks and Wikiversity as primary platforms for OER activities.
A few important Wikimedia Italia members have actually contributed much content to the site. I think that the relationship between KDE and WMI is mutually beneficial, as we bring in a lot more contributors to MediaWiki and similar technologies, and at the same time develop much free content.
Everybody wins. :-)
As for your question, there are a couple useful things you can do:
- write a document where you explain what makes your platform more
suitable for your activities and what features Wikibooks/Wikiversity lack in your opinion;
I briefly answered in my previous mail to a question similar to this. A strong presence within the academical world is also a non-techical, but key element. Two universities (Milano-Bicocca and Pisa) have already decided to join the activities with all of their professors and students. I expect several more to come (we have ongoing contacts), in the near future.
- publish your code in Gerrit:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git/New_repositories/Requests (you made a Docker extensiona and the skin, right?
We have a few modifications here and there, also on OCG and more standard extensions (like Math). We will do more. We're temporarly hosting our source code on github, while we're reworking with the sysadmins on the git.kde.org infrastructure, but as a KDE project we will have to move the official repos, per project policy.
Since git is decentralized, I hope we can still find great spaces for collaborating. ;-)
report bugs and feature requests http://phabricator.wikimedia.org/ ;
(as you use Debian) take ownership of the Debian package, which is
currently abandoned: https://wiki.debian.org/MediaWiki ; https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=728347 .
We're not using a Debian package, we're using our custom baked solution of variously integrated docker containers, which allows for an almost identical setup for development and production, with a pretty nice deployment procedure.
It seemed much easier than Vagrant for our usecases. All of our scripts are also open. This allows deployment on several Linux flavors.
Thank you very much for your reply and your support! :-)
Bye, -Riccardo
Your code modifications for http://wikitolearn.org/ are interesting. I'm pretty sure that KDE policies don't force you to fork MediaWiki extensions locally, so your patches are definitely welcome upstream.
I'm not sure what you mean with your point about <dmath> being rejected by the community; perhaps you refer to some performance decision made by WMF. If your modifications to Math are incompatible with some decision of the maintainers, you can ask a different repository on gerrit or another branch on the same repository, so that non-WMF users can use your code.
As for your comments on chapters and drafts, I don't see anything incompatible with how Wikibooks and Wikiversity work. If you have a solution for what we call "book management" i.e. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T17071 (worked on by Raylton and others with https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:GSoC_Mediawiki_Book_Experience ), that's especially interesting.
To reach the Wikibooks and Wikiversity community, the best way is to use a medium that can involve their active editors, such as their mailing lists (cc'ed here) or wikis.
Nemo
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 5:58 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli riccardo@kde.org wrote:
- publish your code in Gerrit:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git/New_repositories/Requests (you made a Docker extensiona and the skin, right?
We have a few modifications here and there, also on OCG and more standard extensions (like Math). We will do more. We're temporarly hosting our source code on github, while we're reworking with the sysadmins on the git.kde.org infrastructure, but as a KDE project we will have to move the official repos, per project policy.
Did you complete this move? Where did your git repositories end up? I'd love to look at your patches to OCG and see about upstreaming them. --scott
On 28 Apr 2016 18:10, "C. Scott Ananian" cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 5:58 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli riccardo@kde.org wrote:
- publish your code in Gerrit:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git/New_repositories/Requests (you
made a
Docker extensiona and the skin, right?
We have a few modifications here and there, also on OCG and more
standard
extensions (like Math). We will do more. We're temporarly hosting our source code on github, while we're reworking with the sysadmins on the git.kde.org infrastructure, but as a KDE project we will have to move the official repos, per project policy.
Did you complete this move? Where did your git repositories end up? I'd love to look at your patches to OCG and see about upstreaming them.
Idem. I'd like to see the modifications you did to the Math extension (together with the motivation for doing that) :-)
Cheers, Marko
--scott _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Ciao,
2015-11-27 20:04 GMT+01:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
To clarify, Wikimedia Italia doesn't financially sponsor this site nor contribute content to it. AFAIK our volunteers provided some MediaWiki training to the site's users. Wikimedia Italia is always happy when MediaWiki usage spreads, but recommends Wikibooks and Wikiversity as primary platforms for OER activities.
Wikimedia Italia is also happy if new open content is produced. So even if Wikimedia Italia has given only "moral" support up to now (see the fact that WM-IT logo appears in https://www.wikitolearn.org/)
To me WikiToLearn has two main advantages: 1. They have been able to develop new extensions for MediaWiki and use them in a project with ~20 active users/month (and growing). They also built their own infrastructure for development and testing (and this is the use for the machines in this project[1]). 1 (bis). They have been able to gather a community of new developers and introduce them to MediaWiki development (with a full testing/stating/production stack based on Docker containers).
2. They have been able to pique the interest of many professors in universities (mostly in Italy for the moment). In this respect I think that having a separate project helps, for example being able to import LaTeX files and having them converted is a great help.
If this is a path that can help to have more extensions and tools reach upstream I think it is great for everybody.
Cristian [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T115282?workflow=76375
This sounds like a wonderful project for the Wikimedia universe. It also aligns with the interests of the education interests of multiple US affiliates. Would you be able to set up a Hangout meeting with some of us (me and whoever else is interested) during the next few weeks? I wouls like to learn more about this project!
Pine On Nov 27, 2015 5:22 AM, "Riccardo Iaconelli" riccardo@kde.org wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to introduce to the Wikimedia community WikiToLearn, a FOSS project of which I am a participant and which is lately getting a lot of contributions and momentum.
It is a KDE project sponsored (among the others) by Wikimedia Italy and recently joined by institutions such as HEP Software Foundation (CERN, Fermilab, Princeton...) or Universities such as University of Pisa and Milano- Bicocca. These institutions are already populating the website with content.
We aim to provide a platform where learners and teachers can complete, refine and re-assemble lecture notes in order to create free, collaborative and accessible textbooks, tailored precisely to their needs.
Although the project is quite young (only a few months old), it is already growing in allure at an unexpected rate. Thanks to this we are now counting on nearly 40 developers, and growing (including content developers).
We are different from Wikipedia and other WMF projects in several ways, and in a sense, complementary. Our focus is on creating complete textbooks (and not encyclopedic articles), drawing from a professor’s or a student’s own notes, either existing or that have to be written down.
We also have a strong focus on offline use: all the content of WikiToLearn should be easily printable by any student for offline use and serious studying.
Besides a good team for content development, we can count on a small but motivated team of developers, and we would like to improve communication with upstream (a.k.a. you ;-) ), because we found ourselves developing a few features which could probably be made available to the general public, with some generalization and polishing. ;-)
Is this a right place to start such a discussion?
We would like to help as much as we can, but we might need some mentoring in how to best approach MediaWiki development, as many of us are relatively new to OSS/Web development.
Bye, -Riccardo
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Friday, November 27, 2015 04:15:09 PM Pine W wrote:
This sounds like a wonderful project for the Wikimedia universe. It also aligns with the interests of the education interests of multiple US affiliates. Would you be able to set up a Hangout meeting with some of us (me and whoever else is interested) during the next few weeks? I wouls like to learn more about this project!
Hi Pine,
of course, I'd be glad to! I live in the CEST timezone, and I am free most of next week. The first days are better though, since later on I will be commuting Milan-Geneva. Pick a day and we'll try to make it work. :-)
If next week is better, fine with me.
Bye, -Riccardo
Could we meet on Thursday, 3 December at 10 AM PST / 7PM CEST, or Monday, 7 December at 10 AM PST / 7PM CEST?
I'm fine with this being an open "office hour"-like environment where anyone can join the conversation on Hangouts. I'm wondering if staff from the Wiki Ed Foundation like LiAnna would be interested, and/or staff from WMF Education like Tighe or Anna.
Pine
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 10:59 PM, Riccardo Iaconelli riccardo@kde.org wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 04:15:09 PM Pine W wrote:
This sounds like a wonderful project for the Wikimedia universe. It also aligns with the interests of the education interests of multiple US affiliates. Would you be able to set up a Hangout meeting with some of us (me and whoever else is interested) during the next few weeks? I wouls
like
to learn more about this project!
Hi Pine,
of course, I'd be glad to! I live in the CEST timezone, and I am free most of next week. The first days are better though, since later on I will be commuting Milan-Geneva. Pick a day and we'll try to make it work. :-)
If next week is better, fine with me.
Bye, -Riccardo
On Sunday, November 29, 2015 11:37:40 AM Pine W wrote:
Could we meet on Thursday, 3 December at 10 AM PST / 7PM CEST, or Monday, 7 December at 10 AM PST / 7PM CEST?
I'm fine with this being an open "office hour"-like environment where anyone can join the conversation on Hangouts. I'm wondering if staff from the Wiki Ed Foundation like LiAnna would be interested, and/or staff from WMF Education like Tighe or Anna.
Hi!
Thursday, 3 December would be perfect with me. I will also forward the e-mail to our mailing list in case somebody else from WikiToLearn wants to join. :-)
See you all there!
Bye, -Riccardo
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org