Talk:Google Summer of Code/2017

Currently, the advanced search of MediaWiki does not provide our sort articles or pages according to the date. What I want to propose, is to add another parameter to search for the articles, dates. This may include the date it was created, the date it was last edited and the dates when the protection on the page was changed.

Why do I think it is useful? I have been editing Wikimedia projects for two and half years, and often I want to search articles per the dates, and I think this would help other editors as well.

Real life example

1. I was searching for news about 'Chelsea FC from 2012' on Wikinews. Instead of looking for all of the search results, it would be easier to look for those articles which were created and/or protected in 2012 (plus or minus three days). This feature could be useful there.

1. I was looking for photos of 'March for life' for the rally that took place this year. Adding a check to search for images from January 1, 2017 would show me the images which I wish to search for, by looking for images that were taken at January 1, 2017.

1. I was looking for software related stub articles on Wikipedia which were not edited for more than six months so that it can be improved. (If it were to be recently edited, it can only that somebody is working on the article)

Thoughts?

Both this and the Outreachy page result in poorly looking Facebooks shares. and are generally less then useful as a first point of contact for someone interested in participating. A more landing-page-y intro section would be nice.

"Email this user" is one of the amazing features which requires development. It helps in the communication, but currently, it doesn't support Wiki Markup or styling, which makes certain things difficult. (Personally, I do not like the plain text without any formatting.) There should be HTML support for the mails, I think.

Why is it required? There are three ways to communicate with other editors: talk page, IRC, and email. For some reasons, talk page is not always used. And thus, we rely on emails and IRC. There are some drawbacks of IRC, like what if the other editor is not available on IRC and thus, we need emails. But without the pin of formatting, we are not utilising 100% of the option, and without an option to hyperlink, things become difficult and the mail becomes inelegant.

Thoughts on this idea?

I thought of a little suggestion that wanted to make for GSoC 2017. It could probably help Wikidata. Could I make it here or is there a better place for it ?