Entries in Life

Last night, I signed up for a three month contract with the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), set to begin in January. I'll be working offsite with Tim Starling as my mentor.

My primary duties will be to “Support MediaWiki Code Review and Release Management process”, something I feel especially well suited for. The WMF has been working to formalize the process (see, for example Special:Code/MediaWiki) and I'll be helping with take it further. I have plenty of ideas, but my first task will be integrating myself into the environment.

I'm pretty excited to have a full-time position on such a high profile piece of Free Software. Last night, I started reading “Shop Class as Soulcraft” and, while my work is not anywhere as tactile as the work Matthew Crawford talks about in his book, I've found that working on Open Source software provides me with a similar sense of accomplishment. It gives me something I can point to and say “I did that” or “I fixed that”. And, with MediaWiki, the thing I can point to becomes something that much more recognisable to others. “You know Wikipedia?” I'll ask, “That's what I work on.”

(Oh, and if you want, you can throw a few in the pot to help pay the rent for the WMF.)