--- Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Matt R wrote:
--- Tim Starling wrote:
Unfortunately it seems most programmers on
Wikipedia would rather think
of excuses, complain about the lack of progress
and file bug reports.
There's an unfortunate tendency on Wikipedia to
suppose that if you identify a
problem that you can fix, then you have an
obligation to fix it. Even if you
have the capability, there is no moral imperative
for volunteers to do anything
at all on Wikipedia, and documenting a problem is
already a positive
contribution, albeit a comparatively minor one. Of
course, to grumble or whine
about a problem that you've identified is
churlish, as you have no right to
expect that others fix things on your behalf.
But to get to the point: I'm very grateful to the
developers. I would quite
like to hack on Mediawiki myself some day, but
right now I prefer to spend my
time contributing to the content of articles --
this is not an *excuse*; this
is a choice, and I (only mildly!) resent any such
implication.
I'm sorry if I caused offence, I just wanted to impress on everyone that Wikipedia has barely any developers. If you're ever wondering why some feature hasn't been written yet, it's because there's been no-one around to write it. Most of the active developers seem to be more interested writing features for a general audience than for Wikimedia projects. There's more editors on the Old English Wikipedia than there are developers overall. Maybe Matt doesn't want to help, and that's fine. I get the feeling Gerrit doesn't either. But is there anyone? Every second Wikipedian seems to know a programming language. We just need, say, two or three developers willing to put in a few hours per week.
-- Tim Starling
I currently have some time on my hands and I'd love to be able to learn how to contribute. What do you need exactly, only people who know PHP?
I little about PHP but I would be willing to learn from scratch :). Hopefully there are other people who want to learn, we can form a little group and go though a few tutorials. This way people who know PHP could help multiple people at once learn saving time. How long would you guess it take before a person would learn enough PHP to be useful on MediaWiki?
ShaunMacPherson
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