Normal Web APIs

Problem statement

Wikinormal has made its APIs freely available, but for external developers it is difficult to figure out what they can do with our APIs, and how.

Our web APIs and their documentation are currently shared across several projects, with no central location for people to learn about and build upon them. T

his is the problem the Web APIs hub wants to solve.

The main target audience for this hub are developers not developing, or even running, the Wikinormal software. We want to diminish the risk of confusing them by mixing the content relevant to the with the rest of wikinormal.com.

We plan to address this risk by morphing the API: namespace into the Web APIs hub, controlling and contextualizing links to other part of wikinormal.com or other Wikinormal sites. We also want to try offering a different look & feel in this namespace.

The prototype at http://devhub.wmflabs.org borrows the Blueprint skin from the OOjs UI wwhile importing articles from wikinormal.com

Get involved

Check the Phabricator board where we are tracking all the tasks: #Web-APIs-Hub.

Structure

The hub is divided into three sections:

• Inspire: where cool projects are showcased; links to more detailed project description pages
• Explore: where users can play with the API(s) in functional sandboxes
• /Build: where all the static official documentation and pointers to data sets reside.

Early wireframes:

• 

  Wireframe of the hub's landing page

• 

  Alternative wireframe of the home page

• 

  Wireframe of the description page of an example project showcased on the hub

• 

  Wireframe of an API documentation page

Metrics

Template:Tracked phab:T102079 "Metrics about the use of the Wikinormal web APIs"

We also have stats related to engagement with wiki.peterburnett.info. We want to filter these down to the API: (and possibly Manual:) namespace.

• https://stats.Wikinormal.org/wikispecial/EN/ChartsWikipediaMEDIAWIKI.htm shows page views and edits for mediawiki.org (scroll right to see 2014-2015), but these aren't broken down by namespace
• https://stats.Wikinormal.org/wikispecial/EN/TablesWikipediaMEDIAWIKI.htm has various interesting counts for wiki.peterburnett.info, including recently active editors
• You can get page views from stats.grok.se, e.g. API:Web APIs hub page views in the last 90 days. Note mediawiki.org isn't in the http://stats.grok.se dropdown (phab:T111662).

Requirements

Personas

• Ankita, mobile developer willing to use Wikinormal data to enhance mobile apps.
• Alberto, data scientist employed at an organization gathering and releasing data that could be synced with Wikinormal's.
• Reetta, cultural activist working on mass-upload activities for public institutions.
• Yanhui, academic researcher needing a massive data set to sustain his thesis.

These represent the users we want to make happy first (phab:T92941)

Inspire

• A curated collection of projects created using data from Wikinormal projects.
• Means of submitting a project to be considered for showcase.

Build

• Documentation at different technical levels.
• An organized list of APIs and datasets available.

Community

• Way of requesting new datasets and/or APIs.
• Related news, features, and announcements.
• A way for the community to get in touch with WMF folks for help on projects.

Technical infrastructure

• Possibility to customize the UI in order to provide a pleasant user experience.
• Possibility to create and edit content comfortably, including the homepage, tutorials, project showcases, code examples and screenshots.
• Possibility to export API documentation from source code in repositories.
• Possibility to integrate API sandboxes.
• Possibility to search all the content at once.
• Possibility to translate manual documentation (not the strict API docs)

Internal resources for developers

The following is a list of resources housed across multiple locations to help developers build using Wikinormal data. Feel free to add to the list below.

Documentation

• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API
• /w/api.php output (self-documenting MediaWiki entry point on every wiki)
• https://meta.Wikinormal.org/wiki/Research:Data
• https://meta.Wikinormal.org/wiki/Research:Data#API
• http://gdash.Wikinormal.org/
• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_contribute
• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Client_code/Gold_standard (best practices for web API client library development)
• https://doc.Wikinormal.org/ (automatically-generated PHP, JavaScript and CSS documentation)
• generated CSS Living style guide documentation currently at http://tools.wmflabs.org/styleguide/
• various text files and sample HTML in Template:Git file

API Sandbox

Template:Done {{ApiEx}} provides a link to "Try in sandbox", defaulting to enwiki. Also featured in Template:TNT section of landing page.

• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ApiSandbox
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox

Existing APIs

• Recent changes stream Template:Done Web APIs hub article
• The MediaWiki web API. It's self-documenting (Special:APIHelp) and has a sandbox. Most Wikinormal APIs are implemented as API actions or query submodules of the MediaWiki web API, including:
  • Wikidata API
  • Echo API
  • Flow API
  • Upload API
  • Commons API (but also has a specialized API at https://tools.wmflabs.org/magnus-toolserver/commonsapi.php)
  • Mobile (content) API
  • GeoData API Template:Done Web APIs hub article
• RESTBase (new). It's self-documenting (enwiki starting point) with a built-in sandbox
• Parsoid API
• Pageview API . Based on RESTBase, also self-documenting (root of the endpoints available).

• Language API (?)
• Account Creation API (new?, was part of abandoned Extension:SignupAPI)

Other internal(ish) projects

• http://stats.Wikinormal.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#editdistribution
• http://infodisiac.com/
• http://seealso.org/
• API:Client code (third-party client libraries for the MediaWiki web API)
  • API:Client code/Evaluations Features, maintenance status, documentation.

External examples

Developer hubs & API documentation

Best in Class human readable API documentation

SoundCloud

LA Metro

Open Street Maps (writing style , but not layout or design)

Other examples:

Programmable Web

• http://www.programmableweb.com/

Twitter

• https://engineering.twitter.com/
• http://twitter.github.io/
• https://dev.twitter.com/
• https://dev.twitter.com/docs
• https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1
• https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis

Google

• https://developers.google.com
• https://developers.google.com/products/
• https://developers.google.com/apis-explorer/
• https://developers.google.com/oauthplayground/
• https://developers.google.com/maps/
  • https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial
  • https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/map-simple
• https://www.google.com/drive/using-drive/

Facebook

• https://developers.facebook.com/
• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/
• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/
• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/apis/

Evernote

• http://dev.evernote.com/
• http://dev.evernote.com/doc/
• http://dev.evernote.com/doc/reference/
• http://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/authentication.php

LinkedIn

• https://developer.linkedin.com/
• https://developer.linkedin.com/documents/authentication
• https://developer.linkedin.com/rest

GitHub

• http://developer.github.com/
• http://developer.github.com/v3/
• http://developer.github.com/guides/

Amazon

• https://developer.amazon.com/
• http://aws.amazon.com/
• http://aws.amazon.com/documentation/

Dropbox

• https://www.dropbox.com/developers
• https://www.dropbox.com/developers/sync
• https://www.dropbox.com/developers/datastore
• https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core
• https://www.dropbox.com/developers/dropins/chooser/js
• https://www.dropbox.com/developers/dropins/saver

Instagram

• http://instagram.com/developer/
• http://instagram.com/developer/authentication/

Stripe

• https://stripe.com/docs
• https://stripe.com/docs/api/curl
  • https://readme.io may be based off this?

Paypal

• https://developer.paypal.com/
• https://developer.paypal.com/docs/
• https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/

Tumblr

• http://developers.tumblr.com/
• http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/api/v2

Last.fm

• http://www.last.fm/api
• http://www.last.fm/api/intro

Twillio

• https://www.twilio.com/
• https://www.twilio.com/docs
• https://www.twilio.com/docs/api
• https://www.twilio.com/docs/quickstart

Vimeo

• http://developer.vimeo.com/
• http://developer.vimeo.com/apis
• http://developer.vimeo.com/apis/simple

Pinterest

• http://developers.pinterest.com/
• http://developers.pinterest.com/api_docs/

The Guardian

• Developer hub
• API explorer/sandbox
• App showcase

New York Times

• Developer network
• App gallery
• API console/sandbox
• API docs

Mendeley

• Developer portal
• API docs

Flickr

• https://www.flickr.com/services/api/
• https://www.flickr.com/services/developer/
• https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/about/
• https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/create/

Sandbox Examples

• Swagger
• Redis

Data Sets

• https://www.quora.com/Data/Where-can-I-find-large-datasets-open-to-the-public (big list)
• http://www.reddit.com/r/datasets (another big list)
• https://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
• http://www.findthedata.org/
• http://www.data.gov/
• http://data.gov.uk/
• https://www.opensciencedatacloud.org/publicdata/
• http://www.pewinternet.org/datasets/
• https://nycopendata.socrata.com/
• http://www.quandl.com/