User talk:MZMcBride/Bugs

Brainstorming

• Might be nice to be able to tag bugs or categorize them in some other way by wiki family (wikisource, wikipedia, etc.) or by specific database (enwiki, zhwiki, etc.) in order to see trends and get better statistics. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MZMcBride (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts with ~~~~!

"Bugs bugs bugs"

Is "Bugs bugs bugs" supposed to be sung to the tune of the chorus of Boys (Summertime Love)? Anyway, I think that developers will always tend to prioritize their own "Low" and "Lowest" priority pet projects above those projects requested by the public, and in most cases there will be so many developer pet projects that the devs will never get around to doing those the community asks for. Management could intervene, but usually that will just be to get management's pet projects implemented (often with disastrous consequences). The solution? More community members should become volunteer devs. Volunteers have the most freedom to pursue those low-priority bugs.

How do we get community members to become devs? Probably by making it easy and obvious how to get started. Is there anything more we can do besides steer them in the direction of the "how to become a MediaWiki hacker" page and point them in the direction of the annoying little bugs? Maybe let them pick a bug and then have a mentor assigned who is familiar with that area of the codebase (or vice versa, let them pick a mentor who will assign them a bug). Or maybe the mentor isn't necessary; have there been any problems, that we know of, with novice devs trying to fix a bug and not being able to get any help? (If we don't know, that could be a sign that there was such a problem but nobody noticed.) Leucosticte (talk) 17:36, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

There's now a "developers" link in the footer of every Wikimedia wiki. That's a start. If you have other ideas for getting people involved, there are many people who would be interested. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 11:47, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you think it would be better if it said "development" or "development opportunities"? "Developers", to me, has the connotation of "Developers only" rather that "Becoming a developer". I agree, it is a good start. Maybe also add something to w:Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia. Leucosticte (talk) 12:22, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Dunno. Facebook and Twitter both use "Developers" in the footer. Wordnik uses "Dev". I'm sure you can find other examples. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but (to ask a halfway-rhetorical question, since you might not know) how much success does Facebook have in attracting developers, that isn't due to the more organic nature of the system, in which anyone can deploy new software of his own invention and have its use spread virally via the operating system that Facebook provides, without needing to obtain approval from a central authority that would be unlikely to grant such approval? Given all the variables at hand, including but not limited to what people are used to seeing at other sites, what do you think is the best option? ("Dunno" is a valid answer; I just wanted to encourage consideration of my own thoughts in hopes it might lead to something other than that, but if that's what it comes down to or ends with, so be it.) Leucosticte (talk) 07:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Low priority bugs

Maybe the best bugs we could suggest for new volunteer developers would be the "Low" and "Lowest" priority ones, since those are the most fun, and might keep them more engaged. What do you think? Of course, Annoying large bugs already does lead them in the direction of User:MZMcBride/Bugs. Leucosticte (talk) 01:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

New developers need easy bugs, not necessarily low priority bugs. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)