[QA] Documentation for onboarding QA volunteers

[Rachel Thomas]

Hi Quim,

Sorry for the late reply to your question, but here are my thoughts on the
documentation for onboarding QA volunteers.

Generally speaking, I think a lot of the Mediawiki QA documentation is
helpful to new contributors getting on board.  I found it particularly
helpful in understanding the various technologies involved in doing browser
automation at WMF,  and how they all fit together. For example, this page
provides solid technical info on how to run tests: http://www.mediawiki
.org/wiki/QA/Browser_testing/Running_tests.  I do think it could use a few
more examples of cucumber feature files and their corresponding Ruby test
steps, aside from the Search feature mentioned.

There were some gaps in the documentation.  One big gap I found at the
beginning of my volunteering here was that I could not figure out how to
get started in volunteering for QA, when I initially read the docs and was
interested in contributing.  For example, this page:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance/Browser_testing/How_to_contribute
gives info about ways to contribute, but doesn't really mention a set
process for a new user to follow to get on board with the QA group or how
to let them know you are interested.  This page,  http://www.mediawiki
.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/Browser_testing,  talks about joining the
browser testing group, but doesn't really tell you how to do so. I know
that after I made contact with Chris, he told me to edit the page under
members and put my name there.  Otherwise, I would not have known to add
myself  to that section.  I'm wondering if we are still intending to use
this Browser Testing MediaWiki Group, as not all the new volunteers are
mentioned in here?

One other thing I would like to see in the QA docs is some links to
presentations on test automation done by Chris or Zeljko , such as this
one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UPDzPBf4t8, which I personally found
very helpful in understanding the whole picture.  There should also be
obvious link to the youtube recordings from the  training automation
sessions we are having, so new contributors could learn from those training
sessions as well.  We should also have a link to the QA mailing list, so
potential contributors could sign up for that at first, if they had some
interest.

That my .02.  I am interested to hear what other people think.

--Rachel

*Gnome FOSS Outreach Program for Women Intern
Browser Test Automation, Wikimedia Foundation*


On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 6:02 PM, Quim Gil <qgil at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> There must be about a dozen people in this list (at least) trying to get
> started contributing to Wikimedia in browser test automation and other QA
> tasks.
>
> Your experiences these days at mediawiki.org are very valuable! Please
> send us feedback before you forget:
>
> * Was it easy to find the information you were looking for?
>
> * Once you found it, were the docs good enough to get you started?
>
> * If you got stuck, did you know where to ask?
>
> * If you asked, did you get useful answers?
>
> * If you are still stuck, where is the broken pipe we should fix?
>
> * And by the way, is this whole wiki way of working clear?
>
> You don't need to answer those questions exactly. What matters is what has
> been your experience so far trying to become a Wikimedia QA contributor,
> what should we promote and what should we fix or improve.
>
> We will use your feedback to pave better roads for you and the new
> volunteers to come!
>
> Whether you reply with a sentence or an essay, we will read it and
> respond. This is a top priority for us. Thank you very much.
>
> --
> Quim Gil
> Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/**User:Qgil<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> QA mailing list
> QA at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/qa<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/qa>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/qa/attachments/20130711/91d8a0f0/attachment.html>