Designed and implemented a self-service information architecture for the Metrics Platform docs, including cross-team templates, modular reference docs integrated with the user interface, and API docs.[1][2]
Completed this year's project for Google Season of Docs–migrating MediaWiki help docs–including reaching the milestone of organizing remaining Wikimedia-specific help content on Meta, providing regular feedback and support, managing reports and payment processing, and publishing a final case study and admin guide.[3][4][5]
Completed the JSDoc migration project, including resolving the two remaining extensions and sending project announcements.[6]
Continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation team, including supporting team members to advance critical projects, planning essential workstreams, and reporting on team work.[7]
Continued support for the Developer Portal, JSDoc WMF theme, and the API Portal.
Held 1 appointment of documentation office hours within WMF.
July - September 2024
Made significant improvements to the Metrics Platform docs, enabling a product team to get started without support from Data Products for the first time[8][9]
Continued to support this year's Google Season of Docs project, including providing feedback, regular check-ins, and managing reports and payment processing. This quarter, the technical writer reached the milestone of moving all remaining MediaWiki documentation pages on Meta-Wiki to mediawiki.org[10][11]
Continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation team, including supporting team members to advance critical projects, planning essential workstreams, and reporting on team work in Asana and on wiki
Continued support for the Developer Portal, JSDoc WMF theme, and the API Portal
Held 2 appointments of documentation office hours within WMF
April - June 2024
Created a documentation site for AQS 2.0 in collaboration with KBach[12][13]
Completed usability improvements to the JSDoc WMF theme, releasing versions 1.0.0 and 1.1.0[14][15]
Completed the initial scope of clean-up work to improve the JSDoc documentation for MediaWiki core[16]
Successfully applied to Google Season of Docs as one of 11 accepted organizations out of 30+ applicants, hired a technical writer, and kicked off the project[17]
Participated in the Wikimedia hackathon in Tallinn
Continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation team, including supporting team members to advance critical projects, planning essential workstreams, and reporting on team work in Asana and on wiki
Held 3 appointments of documentation office hours within WMF
January - March 2024
Managed the completion of the migration of MediaWiki core to JSDoc, including auditing the docs for information parity, consistency, and usability, identifying follow-up work, designing a new homepage, and submitting 28 patches[18][19][20]
Identified improvements to information design and navigation in the JSDoc WMF theme, and managed their implementation, code review, and release, including submitting 27 patches, sharing project updates, and collecting community feedback[21][22][23]
Migrated the EventLogging extension to JSDoc to support Data Products[24][25]
Re-launched Wikimedia's participation in Google Season of Docs for the first time since 2020[26]
Presented an introduction to technical writing at the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon to 93 participants[27]
Continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation team, including supporting team members to advance critical projects, planning essential workstreams, and reporting on team work in Asana and on wiki[28]
Hosted 6 sessions of documentation office hours within WMF, and changed the process to an appointment-based system to accommodate more schedules
October - December 2023
Created, tested, and socialized a local development quickstart guide for MediaWiki, including support for multiple operating systems, to reduce complexity for new contributors by providing an alternative to using Docker-based environments[29]
Took on leadership of the JSDoc migration project, deciding on a path forward and facilitating significant progress towards improving the usability of the WMF theme and migrating MediaWiki core in just two months[30][31]
Continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation Technical Documentation team, including supporting team members to advance critical projects and reporting on team work through hypothesis WE3.2.4, contributions to WE3.1.1, and an essential workstream
Supported the Developer Experience group by contributing to planning the first group offsite and providing content and feedback for the developer satisfaction survey
Continued to support documentation efforts for the AQS 2.0 project
Hosted 5 sessions of documentation office hours within WMF, averaging 1 person per session
July - September 2023
Started a project to update project pages on medawiki.org, including completing a content audit, project plan, and several page updates.[32]
Created an initial set of team practices, processes, values, and documentation for the Wikimedia Foundation Tech Docs team.[33]
Acted as the team lead for the Tech Docs team, representing the team to Wikimedia Foundation leadership and providing project management support for team projects.
Acted as an advisor for 4 projects within the Tech Docs team.
Provided documentation support for the AQS 2.0 project and the MediaWiki frontend stable interface policy.
Hosted 6 sessions of documentation office hours within WMF, averaging 1 person per session.
April - June 2023
Established the Technical Documentation Team as part of the reorganization of the Product and Technology departments[34], and participated in the annual planning process
Created documentation strategy and API docs for AQS 2.0 services[35][36] and RESTBase deprecation[37]
Implemented structural changes in the API Portal to support multiple APIs[38]
Created documentation and tools to support API documentation[39]
Researched documentation types and templates, and published a decision record template[40]
Hosted 6 sessions of documentation office hours within WMF, averaging 1 person per session
January - March 2023
Published new API Portal information architecture to Phabricator, and advocated for its adoption[41]
Administered the API Portal, including adding an API, responding to feedback, reviewing 5 patches, and submitting 2 patches.
Started adding API docs guidance to the Documentation pages on mediawiki.org[42]
Supported the Developer Portal, including reviewing patches, submitting patches, and setting up pageview statistics
Published v2 of the development policy governance proposal and requested feedback from stakeholders[44]
Hosted 7 sessions of documentation office hours within WMF, averaging 1 person per session
Prototyped a training and set of tools for writing for multilingual communication, and started sharing for feedback[45]
October - December 2022
Designed a new information architecture for the API Portal, aligned with the overall strategy for the API Platform, and started prototyping.
Created a proposal for governing development policies, and shared it with 12 stakeholders.
Designed and implemented a new information architecture for the Architecture Repository.[46]
Provided editing support for system architecture documents.
Helped facilitate a "documentathon" with WMF Data Engineering, Analytics, and Research.
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging one person per session.
July - September 2022
Completed initial research into writing for multilingual communication, including case studies, tool evaluation, and recommendations for user tests.[47]
Researched, implemented, and documented an API documentation toolchain for AQS 2.0[48]
Onboarded a new API Platform product manager and designed a new information architecture for the API Portal
Provided editing support for system architecture artifacts[49]
Worked with the Architecture Team to plan a refresh of the Architecture Repository[50]
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging two people per session
April - June 2022
Launched the Developer Portal two weeks ahead of deadline with 100% translation in three languages other than English[51]
Created 39 patches for the Developer Portal, adding 5,820 lines and removing 3,547 lines[52]
Conducted 5 user tests and assisted with note-taking on 4 other user tests using a diverse pool of participants in partnership with Design Research[54]
Published first version of documentation patterns and toolkit based on review process used during the KR1 project[55][56]
Attending the (virtual) Write the Docs conference[57]
Participated in the CommTech and Wikimedia hackathons
Conducted two interviews to support hiring a new tech writer, and assisted with onboarding
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging two people per session
January - March 2022
Created and merged 16 patches for the Dev Portal, adding 861 lines and removing 930 lines, including content, structure, design, macros, and templates[58]
Reviewed 16 patches, mostly for the Dev Portal[59]
Graded 9 candidate writing samples to support hiring two tech writing positions
Implemented a lightweight work tracking process for the Architecture Team[60]
Continued to support the API Portal and API Platform team
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging two people per session
October - December 2021
Iterated on Developer Portal design and content strategy, evolving the project from v1 to v4
Facilitated an evaluation and consensus-based decision making process to select the tech stack for the Developer Portal[62] and get a demo up on Toolforge[63]
Operationalized the key docs review process, completing three key doc updates and leading the team to complete 100% of their target
Onboarded new tech writer to make valuable contributions to KR1 The Docs project in three weeks
Created content for two MVP versions of the API catalog, including drafting documentation for the Backstage API catalog[64][65][66]
Contributed to architecture domain modeling and executive overview presentation
Acted as grant advisor for Project Pralekhan
Completed my targeted 10 hours of professional development time
Produced a proposal for a centralized tech docs team at WMF
Edited docs and marketing content for Wikimedia Enterprise launch
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging two people per session
July - September 2021
Created an information architecture and initial design for the Developer Portal, taking the project from v0 to v1
Developed a set of user personas[67] and a live, Vue-based prototype[68] to enable user testing for the Developer Portal
Created a standardization process for key docs linked to from the Developer Portal[69][70]
Redefined the scope of the API Portal and facilitated knowledge sharing to spin up the new API Platform team
Helped build the practice of user-centered writing and user testing in the Architecture team
Attended virtual Wikimania and API Specifications conferences
Participated in the hiring panel for a technical writer position at WMF
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging three people per session
Facilitated the creation of the knowledge store data model, a key component of the target architecture[72][73][74]
Made usability improvements to the Architecture Repository[75][76]
Continued support for the API Portal, including content updates, user support, product management support, bug reporting, and onboarding a new docs contributor[77][78]
Effectively socialized my API docs proposal and was successful in getting that work scheduled for next quarter
Helped write a documentation-related org-level KR for documentation for next quarter and started project management support for it[79]
Held twice-monthly documentation office hours within WMF, averaging 1 person per session
Participated in a complete hiring process, from drafting interview questions to onboarding
Experimented with VuePress and automated testing for documentation[80][81][82]
Kicked off a project to complete the AQS 2.0 user docs, including writing a project plan, creating a tracking spreadsheet, and syncing with the development team
Released a new version of the JSDoc theme and applied it to the MediaWiki core docs, including the theme improvements completed during CodeJam and release instructions
Project management for the JSDoc migration: updating the project plan, opening tasks, and resolving tasks
Updated the local development quickstart guide with feedback from the talk page, removed the experimental banner, and incorporated the page into the MediaWiki development setup landing page
Requested feedback from stakeholders (via Phabricator, email, and on wiki) on the updated proposal for managing development policies
Collaborated with Device Analytics developers on a strategy for generating and deploying API docs. Merged make docs command into the codebase. Reached consensus on an approach for deploying API specs[169]
Created and shared prototypes for writing for multilingual communication[170]
Started a content map for the API Portal and prototypes of an API page and an API design doc template.
Reached consensus with the AQS 2.0 team to formally adopt the API docs tooling we've been evaluating. Opened a patch to resolve issues with the Unique Devices API docs.[172]
Reviewed and merged PR to the Dev Portal draft site
Created a mural for the Dev Portal mkdocs stack explaining how it work and showing a few options for navigation and design https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lkldIfg=/
Attended API strategy meeting to kickoff product management handover of the API Portal
A volunteer made a minor-but-still-awesome edit to the API Portal :happy-tears:
Reviewed change to maturity model page on mediawiki.org and made a small continuity update
Reviewed doc planning wishlist with Wikimedia Dev Advocacy
Set up review of API Platform announcements with new management
Patch author scheduled 649942 for deployment, yay! Noting for future reference: this was three weeks from nudge to response, which seems pretty fair.
Following the deployment of T272665, completed final tests and resolved T268257, signifying the true completion of the API Portal MVP! And the end of the project management work.
Opened 661167 to resolve config change requested in T270178. Researched process for getting beta config changes deployed. Turns out that even beta-only config changes should follow the deploy process so there are no undeployed commits waiting for the next person
Worked on API Portal blog post and public announcements
Worked on architecture repository planning and modeling
Brainstormed outline for Phoenix demo
Worked on homepage content for API Portal
Tracked deployment schedule for API Portal bug fixes as part of the latest MediaWiki version
Opened 661146 to resolve issue with API Portal extension version
Synced with Eng Mgmt about the future of the API Portal
Discovered that the API Gateway doesn’t support Api-User-Agent headers as required by the User Agent policy, opened T268791, and removed them from the API Portal reference docs examples
Finished API reference docs for Core endpoint in the API Portal
Updated the JavaScript examples in the API Portal reference to be more concise
Google Season of Docs mentorship support and docs review
Figured out that I can easily add supplemental text to form inputs on the Create Client form, but not easily add tooltips. I’m guessing this is because tooltips carry a style as a result of their implementation as part of the client details view.
Reviewed 645062
Conducted API Portal user tests and an evaluation for compatibility with RTL languages
Did a live demo of the API Portal at the All Staff meeting
Participated in architecture modeling
Opened 645537 for improvements to API key management interface in the API Portal
Co-hosted a meetup of Wikimedia Friends of the Docs
Responded to feedback on updates to API Portal create API key flow
Got back to zero unread messages in my email inbox :)
Decided that without a “depicts” feature for searching Commons, searching for images of a particular subject via the API isn’t helpful as an example use case.
Soft-launched the API Portal so that it is publicly visible prior to official launch next month
Drafted docs for conditional requests to the MediaWiki REST API. Requested review through mediawiki.org.
Reviewed Core Platform team OKRs
Attended remote presentation from Stack Overflow. Interesting to learn that they encourage volunteer-built bots but they discourage those bots making edits; they want edits to come from a person.
The movement strategy team handles translation by doing paid translations that are checked by volunteers.
The (former) community engagement team is a great resource for docs support.
The research team has regular contact with people who are using our content on their platforms, so they’re familiar with their use cases and experiences.
Joined hiring working group. Met with Corey to discuss next steps for evaluating and improving the onboarding process. Drafted a summary of the state of onboarding docs.
"Robillard and DeLine interviewed and surveyed developers about learning obstacles, recommending that common obstacles could be avoided if the intent of an API is documented, code examples cover non-trivial use cases and best practices, and documentation helps developers find API elements for their tasks, understand relevant parts of APIs’ internal behavior, and avoids fragmentation"
Researchers grouped developers questions into: "how to do something, what code does, why it is behaving the way it is, finding where something is, who did something, and when they did it"
"Recent research has proposed tools for automatically improving documentation. Such tools synthesize code examples [6, 21], generate method [19, 35] and parameter descriptions [36], mine API usage patterns (e.g., [20, 40]), collect insightful sentences describing APIs [37], and identify improvable documentation [39, 41]."
"Distrust of documentation could lead to unnecessary searches: S6 visited the implementation to check for unexpected behavior when “it was actually documented properly, but I didn’t believe it.”
Last week, I added a link to the API integration test docs from the mediawiki.org developer hub. The corrected syntax for a translated link with a description is:
{{ll|MediaWiki_API_Integration_Tests|<translate>API integration tests</translate>}} – <translate> learn to write API integration tests for MediaWiki using Mocha.</translate>
In writing the above, I learned that translate tags are difficult to document because they're always picked up by MediaWiki, even within codeblocks. To bypass this, use a pre or a code tag and substitute the first angle bracket for
<
The syntaxhighlight tag renders the text as-is without converting the character.
Joined CPT subteam standups
Note taking for TechCom
Experimented with the NotebookViewer extension in my wikifarm. I tried to create a Notebook:Test page with some example content, but I got a fatal error when trying to preview or save the page.
NotebookViewer update: Cindy helped me troubleshoot the extension. She installed the dependencies and upgraded MediaWiki to 1.33 to support the getText() function in the core TextContent class. This gave us a parser error coming from the extension instead of a fatal error. I tried a few approaches to troubleshoot the parser error.
Hypothesis: The sample text is invalid.
I tried several different sample texts with no success.
Minifying the json didn’t work
Hypothesis: nbconvert is being used incorrectly
In this tutorial, they use nbformat to parse the notebook before loading it into nbconvert, which NotebookViewer isn't doing.
Hypothesis: The text format being pulled out of MediaWiki isn’t correct.