14 DAY TRIAL // Wikimedia, the organization behind the very popular Wikipedia, has a rather tough task on its hands, it has to maintain one of the top ten websites on the planet with little funding and relying mostly on volunteers.
Making improvements for the site can be a tough job, which is why the group is asking for outside help. It's launching a coding challenge to tackle some of the aspects that need to improve about Wikipedia.
Wikimedia is asking for help in three areas, arguably, important ones. It wants a mobile photo uploader, it wants to make Wikipedia more real-time and wants a Slideshow feature for multimedia on the site.
Those all seem like big projects and ones that could have a significant effect on the site, but Wikimedia is only promising a free trip to one of its events next year to the winners.
Of course, contributing about Wikipedia has never been about monetary gain and the chance for any budding developer to have his or her code one one of the most visited sites on the world is a pretty big one.
"Our goal is simple. We want to find great coders who are also committed to the Wikimedia vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge," Wikimedia announced.
"We have selected coding challenges that we believe are exciting and achievable, and will be useful to Wikipedia users worldwide," it said.
"Grand prize winners for each challenge will receive an all-expenses paid trip to a Wikimedia event of their choice in 2012. Other winners will receive a certificate of coding excellence from the Wikimedia Foundation (a great addition to anyone's CV.)," it added.
The first challenge is pretty straight forward, Wikimedia wants a mobile app or web feature to enable users to quickly and easily upload photos and videos from their phones.
The second challenge is a bit more daunting, Wikimedia wants a way of letting the readers know just how alive Wikipedia is and how many edits and updates happen all the time.
Finally, Wikimedia wants a photo slideshow feature, built on HTML5, that would make it possible to display the many images hosted by the site in a beautiful way.