Wikimedia Deutschland/Documentation

Overview

Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) oversees several projects. You can find links to the technical documentation for each below. Our reference language is English.

We try to adhere to the Wikimedia documentation guidelines.

Wikibase

Wikibase documentation on MediaWiki.org

Wikidata

Wikidata's help portal

Where documentation lives

Generally, technical documentation for MediaWiki and all its extensions (including Wikibase) belongs on MediaWiki.org. In the special case of Wikidata, since it is its own MediaWiki instance, much of its documentation resides on Wikidata itself.

Project and process documentation, including how work gets done, belongs on Meta. That's where you are right now :)

How documents get created

Internal

The technical writing team at WMDE (part of the Community Communications team) works closely with the product and partnerships teams for Wikibase and Wikidata to discover and prioritize documentation needs.

WMDE employees can also make individual requests of the technical writing team via Asana. Common requests include checking or providing wording for English UI text.

• Technical Writing project on Asana

External

Members of the community and the public can use Phabricator to make requests, including requests for missing documentation around our products. (You'll need to log in with and/or create a MediaWiki account or Wikitech account.)

• Phabricator task

How documentation stays healthy

• Initially, the creator of a document places that document on their watch list, acting as its owner.
• If a document's owner needs to pass on ownership, they can find a willing contributor or consult the WMDE technical writing staff.
• Changes made by others should be reviewed by the owner.
• If the owner lacks the technical expertise to determine whether a given change is accurate, the owner should consult a subject matter expert (or the WMDE technical writing staff).
• Periodically the WMDE technical writing staff will review existing project documents and assess the need for updates.
• If document owners haven't updated their docs on their own, they'll be asked to update as needed.