Document ALL the modules! (Community Wishlist/W277)

Description

Most modules have very little or even zero documentation, despite being heavily used. This is really bad! On Wikimedia, as with anywhere else, large amounts of undocumented, production-critical code is terrifying!

Some examples of the most heavily used modules:

On English Wikipedia:
- the module wikipedia:Module:Message box implements wikipedia:Template:Ambox, wikipedia:Template:Tmbox, and so forth, which in turn implement all the maintenance templates, which in turn implement pretty much every boxed message there is to see on Wikipedia – "multiple issues" warnings, backlog notices, you name it.
- the module wikipedia:Module:Citation/CS1 implements pretty much all the citation templates, which in turn are used by the vast majority of all articles on Wikipedia.
On English Wikisource, the module wikisource:Module:Monthly Challenge listing implements the Monthly Challenge, which is the way that Wikisource gamifies the proofreading process. However, there is no documentation at all.

There are three major hiccups when it comes to documenting modules. First, usually a module is used in one or more wrapper templates or metatemplates. The templates are then documented rather extensively, but the modules are relatively forgotten. Secondly, the TemplateData extension allows you to document templates, but not modules. Thirdly, MediaWiki modules have to be written in Lua, and very very few people can read or write code in Lua fluently (and I am not one of them). Lua is a pretty rare programming language, as compared to more popular ones like Python or JavaScript.

A feature that would allow users to document all the modules – plus a Wikimedia-wide push to actually write all the documentation pages – would be extremely helpful.

Assigned focus area

Unassigned

Type of wish

Feature request