Summer Coding 2010 step-by-step for students

1. Learn about the program.

   Review the Summer Coding 2010 pages, look at the Summer Coding 2010 student proposal application and make sure this program is right for you.

2. Find a project idea.

   You can propose your own idea starting 7 April, or look for inspiration among ideas posted by mentors on the Summer Coding 2010 ideas page.

   Note that on the schedule mentors have until 13 May to put ideas on the idea page. Check back for updates.

3. Start communicating.

   Begin communicating with the community. Other members of the community can help you refine your idea, and you may meet potential mentors. You should contact sub-projects within the community that can provide mentors for your project idea, and you should join the discussion group.

4. Set up an account.
   1. If you do not already have an account in the Fedora Account System, create one.
   2. On the project wiki https://fedoraproject.org/wiki, create a user page in the format of User:Yourusername. Do this by opening a new web browser tab and typing in the address User:Yourusername, replacing Yourusername with your actual username.
5. Create your single application page. The contents of this page are transcluded in to your proposal, which is a wiki tag to pull (include) the contents of one page in to another page.
   1. Right click on this page name and choose to open in a new tab: Summer Coding 2010 student application - Example Student.
   2. Open a new tab and type in the address Summer_Coding_2010_student_application_-_Your_Name. Replace Your_Name with your actual, real name, using an underscore '_' for the space. This is going to be your application page.
   3. Go to the first tab with the Example Student content and click on the edit link. When you have the page source, highlight and copy all of it.
   4. Go to the second tab with the Your Name title, and click the create tab on the top of the page. When you have the edit window open, paste in all of the content from the Example Student tab.
   5. Edit the content, using the included comments to guide you. Be sure to include the category tag at the bottom of the page:

      [[Category:Summer Coding 2010 student applications]]

   6. When saving the page check the Watch this page box, or click on the watch tab when the page is published.
6. Draft your proposal.
   1. Right click on this page name and choose to open in a new tab: Summer Coding 2010 student proposal application.
   2. Open a new tab and put in the address Summer_Coding_2010_proposal_-_Name_of_proposal. Replace Name_of_proposal with a proposal short name, using an underscore '_' for the space. Try for no more than seven words for the short name, if possible. This is going to be your proposal page.
   3. Go to the first tab with the proposal application and click on the edit link. When you have the page source, highlight and copy all of it.
   4. Go to the second tab with the Name_of_proposal title, and click the create tab on the top of the page. When you have the edit window open, paste in all of the content from the proposal application tab.
   5. In the source for the new wiki page, note the transclusion, which is a page name surrounded by curly braces:

      {{:Summer Coding 2010 student application - Example Student}}

   6. Replace the Example Student with Your Name from your application page name. Don't worry about the spaces, MediaWiki automatically includes the underscore when it makes the link.
   7. Fill out the rest of the proposal page content with information from your proposal.
   8. Be sure your page includes the category tag at the bottom of the page:

      [[Category:Summer Coding 2010 proposals]]

   9. When saving the page check the Watch this page box, or click on the watch tab when the page is published.
   10. Look at the saved page and make sure your application page information is transcluded properly. If you have any problems with making these pages work, use IRC to get help. Visit the page Communication for Summer Coding 2010 for more information.
7. Keep communicating.

   We cannot overstress the importance of communication. Keep talking, and listening, to the discussion group, to the sub-projects relevant to your proposal and to potential mentors. Be patient, as mentors and other contributors are often very busy people.