GSoC 2023: Make upload more reliable

[nicolas-raoul]

Students interested in GSoC 2023, welcome!

Please read the instructions to apply.
Our GSoC 2023 task is to fix the 3 upload-related bugs below:

#5196 Picture location is sometimes lost despite being present in EXIF.
#5128 Upload often fails or gets stuck, especially when uploading 5 or more pictures over a slow Internet connection.
#5136 (if time allows) Retried uploads stuck in queued state

[nicolas-raoul]

@Diptadip Most of our discussions actually happen here on GitHub :-)

• If it is about a particular GitHub issue, please comment on the issue page itself.
• If it is about the Commons Android app's GSoC 2023 in general (unrelated to a particular GitHub issue), then post here.

Thank you for your interest!

[nicolas-raoul]

@itsarraj @risavjhagithubrit Thank you for your interest! Please follow https://github.com/commons-app/commons-app-documentation/blob/master/android/Students.md

Note to anyone interested: Please do not feel obligated to comment here. Just following https://github.com/commons-app/commons-app-documentation/blob/master/android/Students.md is enough, you will hear from us whenever you send a pull request (and when you review a pull request and post your proposal). Thanks all!

[Nandini99-git]

Hey @nicolas-raoul ,
I am nandini and I want to contribute in this project for GSOC 2023.
I am beginner to app development but I am fast learner, and if any new technology will be requied I will learn during contribution.

[Keerthivardhan1]

Hey @Nandini99-git thanks for your interest.
I would suggest you to explore the project , mainly GSOC issue and as you said you a beginner .try to understand the code not all at once but required part that you are dealing with. (Required part according to issues)
And anyone interested are always welcome to contribute to this project.
Goo through this #5129 (comment)
Good luck.

[nicolas-raoul]

Hi all,
I took the liberty to make the first issue a bit more general, since the particular case I had specified got solved today. So the issue is a bit different, but I believe the difficulty level is unchanged.
If you agree, please modify your proposals to replace the issue number.
Sorry for the last-minute change, and thank you for your understanding!

[ArmanNavodia]

@nicolas-raoul Could you please share the project's size?
As it is necessary while submitting proposal on the GSoC website.
Thank you

[nicolas-raoul]

@ArmanNavodia Is the "Project size" recommendation written at https://github.com/commons-app/commons-app-documentation/blob/master/android/Students.md not usable somehow? Thanks!

[nicolas-raoul]

We had a question about community bonding, below is my answer. You do not need to write about it in your proposals (in other words, no need to modify and re-upload anything based on this information).

During community bonding, the participants typically announce their project on the Commons wiki's village pump, communicate with users to better understand the issues, and often do some preliminary research.

For this GSoC, an additional task during community bonding would probably be to upload a few hundred pictures under various network conditions (I can provide the pictures and their caption/depictions/categories). Doing that will make the participant a full part of the community, understanding the upload unreliability issues that users sometimes encounter.

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Hello everyone!

I am Ritika Pahwa, a third-year undergraduate from India, and I have been accepted as a Google Summer of Code(GSoC) contributor at Wikimedia Foundation for this year. I'll be focusing on the upload reliability of the Commons app for the next few months and working on these three issues. I would like to share my first blog on Medium, where I have described the first two weeks of the community bonding period. Please feel free to share your valuable suggestions, especially regarding these three issues. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Hope you enjoy reading it! :)

[mnalis]

Are we using standard coding period (i.e. results on 5 Sep 2023), or extended coding period (i.e. 13 Nov 2023) ?
(ref. timeline: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline)

[sivaraam]

The coding period (at least right now) is the standard one @mnalis

[nicolas-raoul]

The Phabricator page has the detailed schedule:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332126

[nicolas-raoul]

Thanks a lot Ritika for all of your hard work!

[mnalis]

So, if all GSoC 2023 changes are in, hopefully new release is just around the corner, right? 😍

[nicolas-raoul]

@mnalis Yes pending implementation of issue #5279 🙂

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Sharing the link to my blog series for anyone who might be interested in understanding these issues and their fixes in depth: https://medium.com/@RitikaPahwa4444/list/gsoc23-with-wikimedia-foundation-f4023ae44ee2

Here's the final report: https://medium.com/@RitikaPahwa4444/commons-android-app-make-upload-more-reliable-cb99ac2893ff

Please feel free to share your feedback and suggestions. Thank you, @nicolas-raoul and @sivaraam, for your constant support and guidance throughout this GSoC and @kartikaykaushik14 for reviewing my pull requests and sharing your insights :)

Looking forward to the release! 😃