http://devhub.wmflabs.org is a prototype of the "Data and developer hub", a
portal and set of articles and links whose goal is to encourage third-party
developers to use Wikimedia data and APIs. Check it out, your feedback is
welcome! You can comment on the talk page of the project page
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/dev.wikimedia.org , or file Phabricator
tickets in the project
dev.wikimedia.org [1].
Since December 2013 Moiz Syed and others discussed creating "a thing" to
expose our APIs and data to developers. When S Page moved to WMF tech
writer, he wrote some articles for this on
mediawiki.org and with Quim Gil
developed a landing page from the wireframe designs [2].
The prototype is using the Blueprint skin and running on a labs instance,
but the articles are all regular wiki pages on
mediawiki.org that we
regularly import to
http://devhub.wmflabs.org
Thanks to everyone who participated in the gestation of this idea!
-- S Page and Quim Gil
== FAQ ==
Q: How can I feature my awesome API or data set?
A: Create a task in the #dev.wikimedia.org and #documentation projects [3]
with "Article" in the title. You can draft an article yourself, following
the guidelines [4].
Q: Yet another site? Arghh!
A: Agreed, T101441 "Integrate new Developer hub with mediawiki.org" [5].
It's a separate site for now in order to present a different appearance.
Q: But why a different appearance? Why a separate skin?
Our competition for developer mindshare is sites like
https://developers.google.com/ . We believe looking like a 2000s wiki page
is a *deterrent* to using Wikimedia APIs and data. We hope that many
third-party developers join our communities and eventually contribute to
MediaWiki, but "How to contribute to MediaWiki" [6] is not the focus,
providing free open knowledge is.
Q: Why the Blueprint skin?
A: The Design team (now Reading Design) developed it for the OOUI Living
Style Guide [7] and it has some nice features: a fixed header, and a
sidebar that gets out of the way and combines page navigation and the TOC
of the current page.
Q: So why not use the Blueprint skin on mediawiki.org?
A: Agreed, T93613 "Deploy Blueprint on
mediawiki.org as optional and
experimental skin" is a blocker for T101441. We appreciate help with it and
its blockers.
Q: I hate the appearance.
A: That's not a question :) You can forget the prototype exists and view
the same content at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Data_and_developer_hub
Q: What is "dev.wikimedia.org"?
A:
http://dev.wikimedia.org will be the well-known shortcut to the landing
page. And
dev.wikimedia.org is the project name for this "Data and
developer hub".
Q: I thought
dev.wikimedia.org was going to integrate source
documentation/replace
doc.wikimedia.org/enumerate all Wikimedia software
projects/cure cancer, what happened?
A: One step at a time. For now, its goal is, to repeat, "to encourage
third-party developers to use Wikimedia data and APIs".
Q: Why are the pages in the API: namespace?
A: That's temporary, they will probably end up in a dev: namespace on
mediawiki.org that uses the Blueprint skin by default (T369).
Q: Where are the talk pages?
A: It's a bug that the sidebar doesn't have a "Discussion" link
(T103785).
The talk pages on the prototype all redirect to the talk pages for the
original pages on
mediawiki.org, and Flow is enabled on them.
[1]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?projects=dev.wikim…
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Dev.wikimedia.org#Structure
[3]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?projects=dev.wikim…
[4]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/dev.wikimedia.org/Contributing
[5]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T93613 and its blockers
[6]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_contribute (a fine general entry
point)
[7]
http://livingstyleguide.wmflabs.org/
--
=S Page WMF Tech writer