User talk:Stussll
Welcome[edit]
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Bay Area WikiSalon invitation![edit]
![A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Panel_fields_questions_on_Journalism_and_Wikipedia_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Panel_fields_questions_on_Journalism_and_Wikipedia_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.
We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months focus is images!
We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).
- For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, May 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Ben Creasy, Nikikana, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
UPDATE! Bay Area WikiSalon moved to June 6![edit]
![A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Panel_fields_questions_on_Journalism_and_Wikipedia_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Panel_fields_questions_on_Journalism_and_Wikipedia_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Our apologies, but we are rescheduling to Wednesday, June 6 at 6:00 p.m. due to a WMF host scheduling conflict.
- For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Niki, Ben, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:38, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Testing Stussll (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
REMINDER: Bay Area WikiSalon is Wednesday, June 6[edit]
![Wikimedia community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/90px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
![Leila (WMF) shares](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_14.jpg/170px-Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_14.jpg)
When: Wednesday, June 6 at 6:00 p.m.
- For details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Niki, Lodewijk, Ben, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Ways to improve Frank Howarth (woodworker)[edit]
Hi, I'm Domdeparis. Stussll, thanks for creating Frank Howarth (woodworker)!
I've just tagged the page, using our page curation tools, as having some issues to fix. we need more than just a few sources to videos. this needs in-depth coverage to show he meets the criteria of WP:CREATIVE
The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, you can leave a comment on my talk page. Or, for more editing help, talk to the volunteers at the Teahouse.
Dom from Paris (talk) 13:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Dhxh Stussll (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Bay Area WikiSalon invitation for July 25![edit]
![Wikimedia Community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/60px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
![A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Panel_at_Wikipedia_15_-_2.jpg/220px-Panel_at_Wikipedia_15_-_2.jpg)
Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at the Bay Area WikiSalon series to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.
We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Kid/family friendly. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months focus is reliable sources!
We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).
- For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, July 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
Nomination of Topo Designs for deletion[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5f/Ambox_warning_orange.svg/48px-Ambox_warning_orange.svg.png)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Topo Designs is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Topo Designs until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:58, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Bay Area WikiSalon invitation for September 26![edit]
![Wikimedia Community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/60px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
![WikiSalon attendees](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_4.jpg/300px-Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_4.jpg)
Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at the Bay Area WikiSalon series to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.
We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Kid/family friendly. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months' focus is Did you know ... ?
We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).
- Details and RSVP here (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
Last call for RSVPs for Wednesday evening[edit]
![Wikimedia Community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/60px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
![WikiSalon attendees](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_4.jpg/300px-Bay_Area_WikiSalon_Oct_2016_-_4.jpg)
Hey, folks. Reminder: Wednesday evening at 6 is the Bay Area WikiSalon series.
- Details and RSVP here (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)
See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
RE: Flower Boy[edit]
Thank you, I tend to summarise critic reviews on most album articles. And thanks for the heads up on Sheck Wes Ninjinian (talk) 22:45, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Growth team updates #3[edit]
Welcome to the third newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Two Growth team projects to be deployed in next two weeks
We will be deploying the "Understanding first day" and "Personalized first day" projects on Czech and Korean Wikipedias in the coming weeks. See the new project pages below for full details on the projects, and our project updates page for their progress.
- Understanding first day: learn about the actions new editors take right after creating their accounts. We will be careful with user privacy, and we hope to share initial results in December.
- Personalized first day: learn about new editors' objectives by adding some optional questions to the new editor’s registration process, and personalizing their onboarding. We hope to share initial results in December.
Third Growth team project begins
- Focus on help desk: direct newcomers to the local help desks where they can ask questions to help them make their first edits. We hope to have an initial experiment running in December.
Best practices for helping newcomers
We are going to direct newcomers to help desks. But what's the best way to reply to a newcomer there? We have gathered some best practices for successful interactions, based on community experiences and some external documentation. The page has also been reviewed by some experienced community members who suggested some changes. That page is now open for translations. Comments and suggestions are still welcome!
We are still looking for volunteers
Do you want to participate to our experiments? We are looking for new communities to work with us (especially a new mid-size wiki), and people to become ambassadors to help us to communicate with the different communities. Discover how you can involve yourself or your community.
Also, please share this update with your community and interested people!
Learn more about us
You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project page for detailed updates on the projects we'll work on.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 13:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Growth team updates #4[edit]
Welcome to the fourth newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
We need your feedback!
We have two requests for community members:
- Now that data is coming in for the welcome survey, we are planning how to use that data to personalize the newcomer's first day. See our current thoughts here, and join the conversation here.
- Try out the help panel's interactive prototype, and read about how we're planning to roll it out, and post any thoughts or reactions here.
Two Growth team projects have been deployed (detailed updates here)
- Personalized first day (welcome survey) was deployed on November 20 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias.
- The survey is now being shown to half of new users (A/B test). Responses are being recorded in the database. We'll report on initial results during December.
- We are planning to test a second version of the survey, called "Variation C", which we think will maximize the number of users who complete the survey and stay on the wiki.
- The original objective of this project was to give newcomers the materials they need to achieve their goals, and so now we are currently planning how we will use the information collected in the welcome survey to personalize the newcomer's experience. We hope community members will read our current thinking and join the conversation here. Some of the plans we are considering include:
- Making it easy for newcomers to see editing activity around the topic areas in which they indicated that they're interested.
- Connecting interested newcomers to experienced editors.
- Surfacing the help content most relevant to the reason for which the newcomers created their accounts.
- Understanding first day (EditorJourney) was deployed on November 15 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias. It has been done after a longer security review and final testing than expected. Data is now being recorded for all new users on those wikis, and we've been auditing the data and preparing to make initial reports during December. Stay tuned for the next newsletter!
Help panel is under construction
- Focus on help desk (help panel) is planned to be deployed during the week of January 7 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias.
- This interactive prototype is the best way to see the design and wording in the feature.
- We ran live user tests on the prototype, with results posted here.
- In addition to giving the ability to ask a question, the help panel will also contain a set of links to existing help content. Our ambassadors on Czech and Korean Wikipedias are determining the right initial set of most helpful links in this task.
- We encourage community members to try out the prototype and read about the rules for who will get the feature, and add any thoughts to this discussion.
We are still looking for volunteers
Do you want to participate to our experiments? We are looking for new communities to work with us (especially a new mid-size wiki), and people to become ambassadors to help us to communicate with the different communities. Discover how you can involve yourself or your community.
Also, please share this update with your community and interested people!
Learn more about us
You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project updates page for detailed updates on the projects we work on.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 09:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
You are cordially invited to Stanford University to celebrate Wikipedia's birthday[edit]
![Wikimedia Community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/60px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
- I am delighted to invite you to the 2019 Wikipedia Day party at Stanford, which will be held on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at 5:00-8:30pm.
- There will be pizza, cake, and refreshments; both newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome! We will have a beginner track with tutorials, and an advanced track with presentations, lightning talks, and tips and tricks. Admission is free, and you do NOT have to be a Stanford University student to attend.
See you soon! All the best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c)
Growth team updates #5[edit]
Welcome to the fifth newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
New projects for discussion[edit]
We began the "Personalized first day" project with the welcome survey so that we could gather information about what newcomers are trying to accomplish. The next step is to use that information to create experiences that help the newcomers accomplish their goal – actually personalizing their first day. We asked for community thoughts in the previous newsletter, and after discussing with community members and amongst our team, we are now planning two projects as next steps: "engagement emails" and "newcomer homepage".
- Engagement emails: this project was first discussed positively by community members here back in September 2018, and the team how has bandwidth to pursue it. The idea is that newcomers who leave the wiki don't get encouraged to return to the wiki and edit. We can engage them through emails that send them the specific information they need to be successful – such as contact from a mentor, the impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
- Newcomer homepage: we developed the idea for this project after analyzing the data from the welcome survey and EditorJourney datasets. We saw that many newcomers seem to be looking for a place to get started – a place that collects their past work, options for future work, and ways to learn more. We can build this place, and it can connect to the engagement emails. The content of both could be guided by what newcomers say they need during their welcome survey, and contain things like contact from a mentor, impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
Initial reports on newcomer activity[edit]
We have published initial reports on each of the team's first two projects. These reports give the basic numbers from each project, and there are many more questions we will continue to answer in future reports. We're excited about these initial findings. They have already helped us define and design parts of our future projects.
- Welcome survey: the initial report on welcome survey responses is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Most users respond to the survey, giving it high response rates of 67% and 62% in Czech and Korean Wikipedias, respectively.
- The survey does not cause newcomers to be less likely to edit.
- The most common reason for creating an account in Korean Wikipedia is to read articles—not for editing—with 29% of Korean users giving that responses.
- Large numbers of respondents said they are interested in being contacted to get help with editing: 36% in Czech and 53% in Korean.
- Understanding first day: the initial report on what newcomers do on their first day is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Large numbers of users view help or policy pages on their first day: 42% in Czech and 28% in Korean.
- Large numbers of users view their own User or User Talk page on their first day: 34% in Czech and 39% in Korean.
- A majority of new users open an editor on their first day – but about a quarter of them do not go on to save an edit during that time.
Help panel deployment[edit]
The help panel was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on January 10. Over the past four weeks:
- About 400 newcomers in each wiki have seen the help panel button.
- About 20% of them open up the help panel.
- About 50% of those who open it up click on one of the links.
- About 5% of Czech users ask questions, and about 1% of Korean users ask questions.
We think that the 20% open rate and 50% click rate are strong numbers, showing that a lot of people are looking for help, and many want to help themselves by looking at help pages. The somewhat lower numbers of asking questions (especially in Korean Wikipedia) has caused us to consider new features to allow people to help themselves. We're going to be adding a search bar to the help panel next, which will allow users to type a search that only looks for pages in the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
How to create a good feedback page?[edit]
What is the way to built a good help page? What blocks you when writing an help page? Your replies will help to create better help contents to newcomers, that would be used on Help panel.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 14:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Growth team updates #6[edit]
Welcome to the sixth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Plans for the next three months[edit]
The Growth team has been working on features to increase new editor retention for the last seven months. We have made a lot of progress and learned a lot, and we've just finished planning for our next three months. During the next three months, we're going to focus on iterations of the help panel and the newcomer homepage. We have decided not to start the engagement emails project, because we think that we will be able to do better work by improving the projects we have already started. Specifically, these are our team goals:
- Deploy and iterate on newcomer homepage
- Continued iteration on help panel
- Make the help panel available to more wikis
- Add a fourth Wikipedia to our set of target wikis
- Publish in-depth quantitative reporting on the data from this year
- Assemble a report on what our team has learned so far about newcomers
Newcomer homepage[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Homepage_mockup_2019-03-14.png/220px-Homepage_mockup_2019-03-14.png)
We have recently decided on the specifications for an initial version that we can deploy and iterate on:
- Shown in the User space
- Desktop only (mobile comes next)
- Four modules
- Help module: help links and ability to ask help desk questions
- Mentorship module: all newcomers assigned a mentor to whom they can ask questions
- Impact module: shows the number of pageviews for pages the newcomer edited
- Account completion module: gives some very simple recommendations of how to get started (add an email, start your user page)
- Layout not yet personalized for each user
We're currently running live user tests on this configuration. Future work will include adapting the homepage for mobile, working on a task recommendation module, and considering how to encourage newcomers to visit their homepage.
Help panel[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Help_panel_viwiki_2019-03-14.png/220px-Help_panel_viwiki_2019-03-14.png)
During the last month, the help panel was deployed on Vietnamese Wikipedia, adding it to Czech and Korean Wikipedias.As of 2019-03-14:
- 2,425 newcomers have seen the help panel
- 422 of them have opened it
- 175 have clicked links
- 27 have run searches
- 40 have asked questions
We have been analyzing the data around usage, and we'll be publishing numbers in the coming weeks. At a high level, we see at least some users are being helped by the panel, with many clicking on links, running searches, and asking questions. We do not yet see any problems that have arisen from the help panel. Therefore, we think that the help panel is generally a positive feature – though data is still coming that will allow us to see its numerical impact. If other wikis are interested in using the help panel, please contact us on our team's talk page, in the language of your choice.
Over the past month, we have iterated on the help panel to take into account the usage patterns we are seeing. You can see in the accompanying image how the help panel currently looks.
- We added a search capability, in which users can search the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
- The help panel was previously available whenever a newcomer was in "edit" mode. We are now also showing the help panel when a newcomer is in "read" mode on a page in the Help, Wikipedia, or User namespaces.
We want to see whether users find the "search" useful. If so, we may spend time on improving search results. We're also looking forward to learning whether exposing the help panel in "read" mode in more namespaces will increase usage.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
A test topic[edit]
Testing is on my mind Stussll (talk) 21:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Hello Stussll (talk) 07:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
Jdndb[edit]
Nenene Stussll (talk) 21:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Another test[edit]
Testing some more Stussll (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Your editing efforts[edit]
I have noticed that you appear to be adding a lot of Wikilinks to articles. Please read about the problems that can be caused by WP:OVERLINKING. You may also want to read the broader perspective in the rest of the article MOS:LINK.
You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference. The refToolbar method is very useful, because it uses a simple form to cue an editor to include the most important parameters (for example, author, date, publisher), while it takes care of the formatting details automatically. For websites, books, and academic journals, many fields can be filled in automatically, and only need to reviewed for accuracy and completeness. You can skip the later section in the tutorial, on manually building references, until/unless you need to "look under the covers" to make custom modifications.
I would also like to point out a technique used in Wikipedia to show the specific page numbers in footnoted references, without triggering an absurdly large number of nearly-identical full citations. The abbreviated format is described at Template:Refpage, which was designed specifically to handle this problem. This and other useful techniques for efficiently formatting references are explained at Help:Referencing for beginners#Same reference used more than once.
It takes a while to become fluent in Wikipedia editing. Your efforts are appreciated, and I hope you can contribute effectively to this project. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:10, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
- Reify-tech, this feedback is specific and actionable – thank you for the thought and time you put into making it so. ^ _ ^
- There were a few threads mentioned...
- Linking/overlinking
- WP:Overlinking's guidance is great. I found it particularly helpful how the high level guidance was articulated, "A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from."
- Reference + Template:Refpage
Template:Rp
this is the first I'm seeing this template which makes seeing it used in a context I'm familiar with all the more helpful.
- Meta
- How/where did you discover that I'd been adding a lot links to articles? I ask this as a relatively novice editor, curious about the workflows someone with your experience level has developed...
- Linking/overlinking
- - Stussll (talk) 01:11, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
- I'm glad you took these suggestions in the helpful spirit they were intended. You seem to be eager to learn the various Wikipedia formatting techniques (which is commendable), but then you also need to be wary of overusing them. When you first learn how to use a hammer, everything might look like a nail (Law of the instrument), but you soon discover the damage you can do with a new powerful tool. The WP:MOS is the main guide for use of the powerful Wikipedia formatting tools. Keep in mind that the overarching goals of Wikipedia writing are clarity and readability, and many of the guidelines were decided with that in mind.
- Wikipedia follows the recommendations of MOS:LQ. The Wikipedia Manual of Style may differ from what you have been taught in school, or are used to doing. The Wikipedia policy on "logical quotations" has been thoroughly discussed by editors, and the MOS presents the consensus that they have reached. Note that the English language Wikipedia is an international collaboration, and does not automatically follow American (or British or Canadian or Australian or South Asian, etc.) style conventions. If you encounter an unfamiliar style, please check the MOS before making wholesale changes.
- Although the guidelines in MOS:SERIAL are complex and subtle, I recommend using the serial comma whenever it improves clarity, which is most of the time. There are a few odd cases where omitting a serial comma actually improves clarity; these are an "exception that proves the rule".
- Another stylistic trend in Wikipedia is to reduce excessive use of periods, when they do not contribute to clarity. Examples include Ph.D./PhD, M.I.T./MIT, U.S./US, D.C./DC, p.m./pm, Jr./Jr, and Dr./Dr – this is an area where the often conservative British are actually ahead of the American writers. Excessive periods are still retained in verbatim quotations, such as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", but they are retained for the same nostalgic reasons as a sign that says "Ye Olde Grogge Shoppe".
- Every edit to Wikipedia is recorded and publicly viewable, whether anonymous or under an identified username. The easiest way to look at other edits made by a user who has made a recent edit to an article in your WP:WATCHLIST, is to click on "contribs" in parentheses after the username. This is a way to follow the activities of a vandal, a misguided novice, or an editor whose work you want to follow and learn from. Wikipedia policy strives for openness and transparency, except when privacy or other concerns may overrule this.
- When you first encounter a deliberate vandal or a badly misguided novice, you may not know what to do. There are powerful tools for undoing bad edits, but they must be tempered by good judgement and WP:DONTBITE. There are some nice tools to add polite but firm and clear warning messages on the Talkpages of wayward editors, but it takes a while to learn when to use them, and when and how to report a runaway editor who is doing major damage. In the meantime, it is best to just revert bad edits, and to always give an WP:EDITSUMMARY to explain what you're trying to do.
- You will come up to speed more quickly than you might think, and soon will find yourself able to help out other novice editors. On the other hand, you will never know everything there is to learn in Wikipedia, but you should take this as an inspiration and not a restriction. We all have a lot to learn about Wikipedia and the wider universe of knowledge. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
Lil Nas X[edit]
Hello Stussll, I am sorry but your edit here got caught up due to my revert of quite a bit of vandalism. I saw your talk page message on Talk: Lil Nas X, and the sentence you were referring to was indeed a part of this recent string of vandalism. Sadly I could not manually undo the edits, because a portion of your edits were fixing the vandalism. I restored the page back to how it was before the vandalism, so feel free to edit it however you want from. Again sorry I had to revert your work, it was just the much easier way to get back to the page pre-Vandalism. StaticVapor message me! 07:34, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
StaticVapor, the action you took makes sense - I appreciate your edits! And by the way, you stopping by to let me know what happened is quite considerate - thank you ^ _ ^ Stussll (talk) 04:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
- Same to you, thank for your edits. Yeah no problem, I didn't want you to think a random editor reverted your good edits for no reason lol. StaticVapor message me! 16:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #7[edit]
Welcome to the seventh newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Newcomer homepage release this week[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_feature_in_Mediawiki.png/220px-Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_feature_in_Mediawiki.png)
Like the other Growth team features, this will be deployed in a controlled experiment, in which half of newcomers will have access to their homepage and half will not. Users with the feature will be able to access it by clicking their username at the top of their browser, and it will only be available on desktop -- not mobile. Experienced users who want to see their homepage will be able to turn it on in their preferences.
Wikis receiving the newcomer homepage can expect these things:
- Additional questions will come to the help desk from the "help module" on the homepage.
- Mentors who have signed up for the "mentorship module" will start to receive questions on their user talk pages.
- More users may create and edit user pages through the "start module".
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Newcomer_homepage_mobile_mockup_2019-04-15.png/220px-Newcomer_homepage_mobile_mockup_2019-04-15.png)
Recent and future homepage development[edit]
The most important piece developed for the homepage over the last month is the "start module", which gives newcomers clear actions to take when they are new: add/confirm their email, go through a tutorial, start their user page. We learned about the need for this module from user tests last month. The next priorities for the newcomer homepage are:
- Mobile design: to work well in mobile browsers, the homepage needs a separate design and engineering. See the accompanying mockups for potential mobile designs.
- Features for discovery: only about 15% - 30% of newcomers will discover their homepage by clicking their username at the top of their browser. We are going to be designing additional ways for newcomers to find out about it.
- Additional modules: the initial version contains some of the simpler modules. Potential upcoming modules include task recommendations and a feed of activity on the wiki.
Test Stussll (talk) 19:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Test Stussll (talk) 19:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Other updates[edit]
- Help panel leading indicators: our team published data on the help panel's initial performance. The evaluation exposes some areas for improvement, but we think the help panel's behavior so far is healthy and that it is not having a negative impact on the wikis. We will be publishing additional data, making plans, and asking for community thoughts around the future of the help panel over the course of the next two weeks. If you are interested in trying out the help panel on your wiki, please let us know on our team's talk page.
- Long term plans: the team had a week of planning meetings, in which we talked about some longer-term ideas for Growth work. Some of the top ideas are: to extend the newcomer homepage to help user's build their identity through a user profile, and to revisit the "engagement emails" project that the team put on hold. Over the next month, we will be asking for community conversation around how the team can spend our time in the next fiscal year, that starts in July.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019[edit]
Welcome to a special newsletter from the Growth team! This special newsletter is not about Wikimedia Foundation Growth team projects. Instead, it is a call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019. We think that many people who receive this newsletter may have something valuable to contribute to this space at Wikimania. We haven't translated the newsletter, because Wikimania's language is English.
Please see below for the message from the organizers of the Community Growth space at Wikimania.
---
Wikimania 2019 is organized into 19 “spaces”, which are all accepting proposals for sessions. This message comes from the team organizing the Community Growth space.
Since you are interested b Growth team projects, and potentially involved in welcoming newcomers initiatives on your wiki, we would like to invite you to submit a proposal to the Community Growth space because of the actions you’ve done around newcomers on wikis. The deadline for submission is June 1. See below for Community Growth submission topics and session formats. Topics and sessions have to be in English.
In the Community Growth space, we will come together for discussions, presentations, and workshops that address these questions:
- What is and is not working around attracting and retaining newcomers?
- How should Wikimedia activities evolve to help communities grow and flourish?
- How should our technology and culture evolve to help new populations to come online, participate and become community members?
Recommended topics: please see this link for the list for the list of recommended topics. If you do not plan to submit a proposal, you can also suggest additional topics here. If your topic does not fit into our space, remember that there are 18 other spaces that could welcome you sharing your knowledge and perspective.
Types of session. We prefer sessions that are participatory, interactive, promote conversations, and give a voice to parts of our movement that are heard less often. Please see this link for the list of recommended session formats.
Poster submissions. Posters are also a good way to introduce a topic, or show some results of an action. Please consider submitting one!
More information about the Community Growth space, topics, and submission formats is available on the proposal page.
Please submit your proposal. The reviews will happen at the beginning of June.
If you have questions about Wikimania in general, please ask them on the Wikimania wiki.
On behalf of the Community Growth leadership team, Trizek (WMF), 11:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
June 2019[edit]
Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. This is just a note to let you know that I've moved the draft that you were working on to Draft:Apartamento, from its old location at User:Stussll/sandbox. This has been done because the Draft namespace is the preferred location for Articles for Creation submissions. Please feel free to continue to work on it there. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to ask me on my talk page. Thank you. Jupitus Smart 15:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #8[edit]
Welcome to the eighth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
May was a busy month, and we apologize for a slightly late newsletter.
General news[edit]
- The Growth team will begin to work with the Arabic Wikipedia community as a new target wiki. This is in addition to Korean, Czech, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
- Several members of the Growth team attended Wikimedia Hackathon. To see what we worked on and learned, read this update (in English).
- Wikimania 2019 is coming up in August. The conference will include a "Community Growth" space, for sessions about how our communities expand through software and programs.
Hello Stussll (talk) 01:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Early results from newcomer homepage release[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Newcomer_homepage_screenshot_2019-06-03.png/220px-Newcomer_homepage_screenshot_2019-06-03.png)
- The newcomer homepage was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on May 6 for desktop users. It is deployed in an A/B test, so that half of newcomers have access to the homepage and half do not. They access it by clicking on their username in their personal tools along the top of the window.
- After about a month of usage, we see a few interesting trends. We think that the usage is going well so far, as we continue to work on the feature
- About half of users who visit the homepage click on a link or button.
- About half of users visit the homepage more than once, with about a fifth of users visiting on multiple days.
- Users are interacting with all the different modules on the page -- there is no clear favorite.
- Users have been asking questions to their mentors -- but not on the help desk.
Next steps for homepage[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Mockup_of_mobile_newcomer_homepage_for_Mediawiki_software_2019-06-04.png/220px-Mockup_of_mobile_newcomer_homepage_for_Mediawiki_software_2019-06-04.png)
- Because we are seeing good reactions to the homepage from the first users, we are prioritizing work that helps more users find their homepage:
- Mobile homepage: the team is currently building the mobile version of the homepage. We tested this design with five users, giving us confidence that the design is strong.
- Features to aid discovery: only a minority of newcomers who have a homepage will find their homepage on their own. The team is designing features that help newcomers learn where to find their homepage. The most important feature will point to the homepage link using a GuidedTour.
- User tests showed that the most important thing to add to the homepage are clear task recommendations to help newcomers get started with editing right away. This is the module that we will be working on next.
Future of team in the next year[edit]
- The Growth team has been working since September 2018, and we're now planning for the work we'll be doing for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.
- Though we have not yet developed a feature that clearly increases growth in our target wikis, we believe that the features we have been developing have high potential to increase growth if we continue to work on them.
- Therefore, the team will continue to work on the features we have started, and we will develop related features that improve the overall newcomer experience. These features may include:
- Improvements to how newcomers can build their user pages and develop their on-wiki identity. See initial notes here.
- Improvements to how newcomers receive notifications on-wiki and through email, so that they quickly find out if other users are contacting them.
- Processes that help newcomers get awards or recognition for good work.
- Ways for newcomers to see the activity on the wiki and find others who share their interests.
- We will start discussions with communities to help us define these ideas before we work on them.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
09:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Test Stussll (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Growth team updates #9[edit]
Welcome to the ninth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Opening Growth features to more wikis[edit]
The Growth team has existed for about one year. During that time, we have developed several features that we think can help increase retention. Though we are still gathering data to detect scientifically whether the features increase retention, we think that some of the features are ready to be deployed on more wikis that want to experiment with them. If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together if your wiki is eligible.
Then, go through the checklist to start the process of getting these features:
- Help panel: allow newcomers to find help and ask questions while they edit.
- Welcome survey: learn what topics and types of edits newcomers are interested in.
- EditorJourney: learn what workflows newcomers go through on their first day.
General news[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Screenshot_of_feature_to_show_users_where_to_find_help_desk_responses_2019-07-17.png/220px-Screenshot_of_feature_to_show_users_where_to_find_help_desk_responses_2019-07-17.png)
- A new quarter of the year has started, and the team has set our goals for the next three months. The most important goals are:
- Newcomer homepage: increase activity through a task recommendations module. Now that we have seen several weeks of positive activity on the newcomer homepage, we think that the most important thing to add is a way for newcomers to find tasks to work on. The challenge will be recommending the right kind of tasks at the right point of their journey.
- Newcomer homepage: increase feature discovery rate by 100%. Right now, only 20% - 30% of newcomers ever visit their homepage. We want to double that number by making sure all newcomers know how to find it.
- Help panel: increase usefulness through improvements to affordance, search, and UX flow. We have looked closely at data and anecdotes from the usage of the help panel, and we plan to pursue specific improvements to increase its effectiveness (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers find responses to their questions).
- Wikimania is coming up next month, which includes a "Community Growth" space. We hope to see people from all communities there to talk about how to bring newcomers into our movement.
- We have started to deploy features to our team's fourth target wiki: Arabic Wikipedia. That wiki is the biggest one we target, it has a high percentage of mobile users, and also is our first right-to-left language. This will help us make sure that our features are valuable for as many types of users as possible.
Mobile homepage and early analysis[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Screenshot_of_feature_to_increase_discovery_of_newcomer_homepage_2019-07-17.png/220px-Screenshot_of_feature_to_increase_discovery_of_newcomer_homepage_2019-07-17.png)
- The mobile version of the newcomer homepage was deployed to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. Now, newcomers can access their homepage from both desktop and mobile devices.
- We have published our first set of data about the performance of the newcomer homepage. In summary, we are happy with the homepage's performance so far. We see about half of visitors clicking on something, and the majority of them returning to the homepage multiple times.
- Because we see positive usage of the homepage, we will deploy several small features in the next two weeks that help more newcomers discover their homepage (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers discover their homepage from their empty Contributions page).
- As listed in our goals above, we'll be starting to focus on adding task recommendations to the newcomer homepage. We'll be publishing early thoughts on this feature so that community members can give their thoughts and advice.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:26, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Editing News #1—July 2019[edit]
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/VisualEditor-logo.svg/200px-VisualEditor-logo.svg.png)
Did you know?
Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?
Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.
Edit Cards
![Toolbar with menu opened](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/EditCards-v.20.png/250px-EditCards-v.20.png)
This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.
Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.
Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.
Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:
Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?
If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.
Follow these instructions and share your experience:
Recent releases[edit]
The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:
- Section editing
- The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
- The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
- Loading overlay
- The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.
Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.
New and active projects[edit]
This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.
- Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now. Go here to see how: 📲 Try Edit Cards.
- Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
- Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
- Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use. The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.
Looking ahead[edit]
- Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to the team about how editing can be improved.
- Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.
Learning more[edit]
The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.
18:33, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1d/Information_icon4.svg/48px-Information_icon4.svg.png)
Hello, Stussll. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, Draft:Stusslltest.
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
- @JJMC89: Got it – thank you for the heads up! I have no intention to continue working on it Stussll (talk) 20:53, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #10[edit]
Welcome to the tenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
General news[edit]
- Growth team features are now fully deployed in Arabic Wikipedia and Basque Wikipedia (along with Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias). If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together if your wiki is eligible. Then, go through the checklist to start the process of configuring the features.
- We have deployed features that help newcomers find their newcomer homepage. These features were successful, and more than doubled the number of newcomers who find their homepage. In Czech Wikipedia, 72% of newcomers visit their homepage and in Korean Wikipedia, 49% of newcomers visit their homepage.
- You can now join the Growth discussion space on the Wikimedia Space. This space has been created during Wikimania, to coordinate initiatives around welcoming newcomers. Please come and say hello!
Growth at Wikimania[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/%EC%BB%A4%EB%AE%A4%EB%8B%88%ED%8B%B0_%EC%84%B1%EC%9E%A5_%EC%8B%9C%EC%9E%91_%ED%8C%A8%EB%84%90_001.jpeg/220px-%EC%BB%A4%EB%AE%A4%EB%8B%88%ED%8B%B0_%EC%84%B1%EC%9E%A5_%EC%8B%9C%EC%9E%91_%ED%8C%A8%EB%84%90_001.jpeg)
- Several members of the Growth team attended Wikimania in Stockholm. We helped organize a conference track around Community Growth, presented about our team's work, and had many conversations with community members from around the world.
- Here are the most important links:
- These are some of our topline notes:
- Alignment on newcomer retention: It seems like Wikimania attendees generally believe that newcomer retention is an important problem.
- Connecting offline to online: Enthusiasm for ideas that connect our features better to offline events, such as making homepage mentors correspond to offline mentors.
- Mentor dashboard: Experienced users requested a dashboard with which they could monitor newcomers who may need help.
Newcomer tasks -- feedback needed![edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Mockup_of_suggested_edits_module_for_Mediawiki.png/220px-Mockup_of_suggested_edits_module_for_Mediawiki.png)
- The Growth team's main project right now is newcomer tasks, which will suggest easy edits for newcomers. It will be built as a new module for the newcomer homepage.
- We hope that this project will help newcomers build their skills before attempting more difficult edits, such as creating new articles or adding images.
- These are the three main challenges we've been working on:
- Where to find the tasks? After considering many different sources for tasks, we've decided to start by using maintenance templates, which are applied by editors on most wikis, and including tasks like copy editing, adding links, and adding references.
- How to match to interests? Research shows that users are more likely to work on articles that are related to their interests. We are currently prototyping methods to ask newcomers their interests and then find articles that match.
- How to guide the newcomer? Once a newcomer has selected a recommended article, they will need guidance on how to complete the edit. We have decided to use the help panel to provide that guidance while the newcomer edits.
- We are currently engineering on this feature, and we recently published notes from user tests that give mostly positive feedback.
- You can explore the design for newcomer tasks in these interactive mockups. We hope to hear from you about your thoughts on the project talk page. Do you think this could be helpful for newcomers? What are we missing?
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:49, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
Hu Stussll (talk) 23:55, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages[edit]
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Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.
Help[edit]
What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!
Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team wants your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.
Talk pages project[edit]
The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.
The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.
Mobile visual editor[edit]
The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.
Edit Cards[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Edit_Cards-before-v3-comparison.png/486px-Edit_Cards-before-v3-comparison.png)
- On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
- There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and target.
- Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.
Toolbar[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Toolbar-comparison-v1.png/486px-Toolbar-comparison-v1.png)
- In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
- One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
- New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
- Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
- Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.
Wikimania[edit]
The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.
Looking ahead[edit]
- Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
- Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
- Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The Editing team hopes to share results in November. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.
– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)
11:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Testing[edit]
just testing @PPelberg (talk) 05:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Another test Stussll (talk) 17:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Growth team updates #11[edit]
Welcome to the eleventh newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
General news[edit]
- Expanding to more wikis: the team is preparing to deploy Growth features to Ukrainian and Hungarian Wikipedias. Wikis that already have the features are Czech, Korean, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Basque Wikipedias. If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together if your wiki is eligible. Then you can go through the checklist to start the process of configuring the features.
- Mentor training: we tried out our first training for mentors with the Czech community, so that experienced users can build skills that help them retain newcomers.
- The guide for mentors has been updated. Translations are welcomed!
Help panel results[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Mockup_of_guidance_element_for_newcomer_tasks_2019-08-30.png/220px-Mockup_of_guidance_element_for_newcomer_tasks_2019-08-30.png)
The help panel was first deployed to newcomers in January 2019, and we have now finished analyzing data to determine its impact. A brief summary is below, and more in-depth information can be found here (in English).
- In summary, although we have seen a good amount of usage of the help panel, the help panel has not shown an increase in activation (whether a user makes their first edit) or retention (whether a user returns to edit again).
- This is a disappointing result, and our team has discussed potential reasons for the result and ideas for the future. Although we have many ideas for how to improve the help panel, we have decided to keep our attention on the newcomer homepage and newcomer tasks projects for the coming months.
- We'll be using the help panel as part of the newcomer tasks project: using it to guide newcomers while they complete suggested edits.
- We welcome questions and thoughts about this on the project's talk page.
Newcomer tasks deployment[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Mockup_of_topic_selection_in_newcomer_tasks_workflow_of_Mediawiki.png/220px-Mockup_of_topic_selection_in_newcomer_tasks_workflow_of_Mediawiki.png)
- The first version of the newcomer tasks workflow (V1.0) will be deployed in the next weeks on our 4 priority wikis. This version will suggest articles to edit based on maintenance templates. In this first version, we expect many newcomers to initiate the workflow, but not many to select articles to edit or complete edits. We expect future versions of the feature to increase those behaviors.
- We're excited about this project because the majority of newcomers visit their newcomer homepage, and this will be the first element of the homepage that clearly asks the newcomer to start editing.
- These are the next two versions of the feature, which are already being planned:
- V1.1 (topic matching): will allow newcomers to choose topics of interest (such as Art, Music, Sports, or Technology) to personalize their suggestions. After evaluating several approaches, we have decided to use a new ORES model built by the WMF Scoring team. The model will automatically identify the topic area of each article. We expect this to increase how often newcomers select articles to edit.
- V1.2 (guidance): once newcomers arrive on an article to edit, we will use the help panel to provide guidance about how to complete the editing task. We expect this to increase how many newcomers actually complete productive edits.
- The project page includes links to the designs of the workflow, and we welcome questions and thoughts on the talk page.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:02, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
ArbCom 2019 election voter message[edit]
You are cordially invited to the SPIE Photonics West edit-a-thon on 02.02.2020[edit]
![Wikimedia Community logo](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg/60px-Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg.png)
- I am delighted to invite you to the SPIE Photonics West 2020 edit-a-thon, at Park Central Hotel (Franciscan I, 3rd Level / 50 Third Street / San Francisco, California), on Sunday, February 2, 2020, at 5:00-7:00pm.
- Newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome to participate alongside SPIE conference attendees. Admission is free. Training will be provided.
- Details and sign-in here
See you soon! All the best, --Rosiestep (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Growth team updates #12[edit]
Welcome to the twelfth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
General news[edit]
- A training for mentors has been published. The training was first tried with the Czech community, and went well.
- Growth team features have been deployed to Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Armenian Wikipedias. If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together whether your wiki is eligible. Then you can go through the checklist to start the process of configuring the features.
Productive edits from newcomer tasks[edit]
We deployed the basic workflow for newcomer tasks to our target wikis on November 20, and the early results are exciting.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Graph_of_suggested_edits_in_Mediawiki_2020-01-03.png/220px-Graph_of_suggested_edits_in_Mediawiki_2020-01-03.png)
Graph captions (top to bottom):
■ Copyedits
■ Add links
■ Expand article
■ Add reference
■ Advanced edits
- About 1.5% of newcomers who visit their homepage complete the workflow and save a suggested edit. So far, this has amounted to over 450 edits, on all wikis, coming from both desktop and mobile users.
- When we look at the edits that newcomers make, we see that they are largely positive! We are pleased to see that this feature does not appear to encourage vandals.
- 75% of the edits are productive and unreverted.
- 95% of the edits appear to be in good faith.
- Most of the edits include copyedits and adding links, with some newcomers also adding content and references. Copyedits are suggested most strongly.
- Click here to learn more specifics about the results so far.
Topic matching deployed[edit]
The results from our user tests showed us that newcomers are likely to do more suggested edits if they can choose articles related to a topic that they're interested in, such as "science", "music", or "sports".
- On January 21, we deployed topic matching on our pilot wikis. Newcomers are now using it. We expect it to cause more newcomers to try suggested edits, and to keep making more of them.
- In the coming weeks, we will be making improvements to the accuracy of the algorithm used to topic matching, which is part of the ORES project.
Next steps for newcomer tasks[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Prototype_of_mobile_peek_guidance_for_suggested_edits_2020-01-17.png/220px-Prototype_of_mobile_peek_guidance_for_suggested_edits_2020-01-17.png)
Because we are seeing positive results from newcomer tasks, the Growth team plans to concentrate our efforts on improving the workflow and encouraging more newcomers to use it.
- Guidance: next, we will be using the help panel to provide guidance to newcomers as they do suggested edits, and to prompt them to do another edit after completing their first one. In user tests for this feature, demo videos were one of the favorite features, and we will think about how these might be added.
- Starting the workflow: only about 20% of newcomer who visit their homepage begin the newcomer tasks workflow. We are going to be trying out different layouts of the homepage to encourage more newcomers to try newcomer tasks.
- Additional task types: we are researching methods to recommend more specific tasks to newcomers, such as specific links to add, or images that could be added to articles from Commons.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:39, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Testing[edit]
Something Stussll (talk) 01:44, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- hello Stussll (talk) 01:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- hello this is peter testing 2601:646:400:4F10:70B9:1839:7049:4D32 (talk) 21:20, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools[edit]
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![Screenshot showing what the Reply tool looks like](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/TalkPages-Reply-v1.0.png/300px-TalkPages-Reply-v1.0.png)
The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.
![Reply tool improved with edit tool buttons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/TalkPages-Reply-v2.0.png/300px-TalkPages-Reply-v2.0.png)
The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.
- On 31 March 2020, the new reply tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias: Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian. If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
- The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page. The team will test features such as:
- an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
- a rich-text visual editing option, and
- other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.
To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved" section of the project page. You can also watch these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.
– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)
19:05, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Growth team newsletter #13[edit]
Welcome to the thirteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Join the conversation: structured tasks[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Structured_Tasks_2020-05-06_-_add_a_link_volume.png/394px-Structured_Tasks_2020-05-06_-_add_a_link_volume.png)
We are looking for community input on a new project to make it easy for newcomers to make real article edits.
In our previous newsletter, we talked about the productive edits coming from the newcomer tasks feature. Those good results have continued: about 900 newcomers made over 5,000 suggested edits so far. We've learned that newcomers are interested in receiving suggested edits.
Now, we are thinking about how to supply them a feed of easy edits that will help more of them be successful quickly. We have a new idea called "structured tasks". This would aim to break down edits into steps that are easy for newcomers and easy on mobile devices.
In the past, certain kinds of editing tasks have been structured. For instance, adding categories through HotCat. Now, we are thinking about how to structure the editing of articles. The goal is to allow newcomers can make large content additions, especially from their mobile devices.
Please visit the project page and respond to the discussion questions listed on the talk page. You are welcome to show this project to others in your community. You can help by translating the materials to your language so that more voices can join in. We will be having this conversation until June 18.
Expanding to more wikis[edit]
We have expanded to six new wikis, and are looking for more interested communities.
In the last two months, we deployed Growth features to six new wikis: Ukrainian, Serbian, Hungarian, Armenian, and Basque Wikipedias, and French Wiktionary. Newcomers from these wikis have already contributed over 600 edits through Growth features.
We want to expand to more wikis in the coming months, and we are looking for interested communities. French Wikipedia already agreed and will be the next one to join the experiment. We will contact several other wikis in the coming weeks to offer them to participate.
Do you think the Growth Team features would be a good addition to your wiki? Please see this translatable summary of Growth features. You can share with your communities and start a discussion. Then, please contact us to begin the process!
Other updates[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Screen_shot_of_ORES_topic_modeling_in_newcomer_tasks_2020-03-18.png/220px-Screen_shot_of_ORES_topic_modeling_in_newcomer_tasks_2020-03-18.png)
Work continues on improving newcomer tasks and the homepage.
- In March, we deployed an upgrade to the topic matching in newcomer tasks. The current version offers 39 different topics using new ORES models.
- In April, we completed an A/B test of two homepage configurations. We learned that more newcomers will attempt suggested edits if the module is made more prominent. We are implementing those learnings in our next test. See the full results here.
- We are currently working on guidance for newcomer tasks. It will use the help panel to guide newcomers through completing easy edits.
- Our next step is to create new configurations of the homepage. The goal is to encourage more newcomers to begin doing suggested edits.
As usual, we are still welcoming your feedback and questions about our features. Please contact us on the project talk page!
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #2[edit]
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![Mockup of the new reply feature, showing new editing tools](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/TalkPages-Reply-v2.0.png/400px-TalkPages-Reply-v2.0.png)
This issue of the Editing newsletter includes information the Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily.
- Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature is called "Discussion tools". The Beta Feature will get new features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing
@
. You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster now. Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months. - New requirements for user signatures: Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
- New discussion tool: The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions. You can see the initial design on the project page.
- Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles. We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.
20:29, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #3[edit]
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![A gold star with a blue ribbon, and the text 50m](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/50M%402x.png)
Seven years ago this month, the Editing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:
- More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
- More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
- The visual editor is increasingly popular. The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
- In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage has increased every year.
- Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
- On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor. 🚀 👩🚀
- Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.
12:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #4[edit]
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Reply tool[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Reply_Tool_weekly_edits-_March_-_June%2C_2020.png/247px-Reply_Tool_weekly_edits-_March_-_June%2C_2020.png)
The Reply tool has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.
- More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
- Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
- Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة. ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")[1]
The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).
The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.
New requirements for user signatures[edit]
- The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
- Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily. Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected. Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures. If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.
Next: New discussion tool[edit]
Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.
15:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Growth team newsletter 14[edit]
Welcome to the fourteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Success with guidance[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Newcomer_tasks_editors_before_and_after_guidance_2020-08-12.png/220px-Newcomer_tasks_editors_before_and_after_guidance_2020-08-12.png)
We deployed the "Guidance" feature on June 15.
This feature uses the help panel to explain what to do after selecting a suggested edit. For instance, if a newcomer selects a copyedit task, they are guided on what sorts of errors to look for. They can see examples of how to rewrite the text. You can try this feature on test.wikipedia.org. First enable the homepage and the help panel in your preferences there.
Since we launched "Guidance", the data we collected show good results (see image). Now, we see more users completing suggested edits than before Guidance was deployed.
Structured tasks[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Mockup_of_Concept_A_for_add_a_link_2020-08-25_4_of_8.png/220px-Mockup_of_Concept_A_for_add_a_link_2020-08-25_4_of_8.png)
Structured tasks is a project that aims to break down editing workflows into a series of steps. We hope newcomers can accomplish these tasks easily.
In the previous newsletter, we asked for feedback from community members on the idea. We had a good discussion in six languages with 35 community members (summary here). We have now posted new design mockups. We hope community members can check the mockups out and react to them (in any language). They are posted along with some of the main questions we are thinking about as we continue to refine our plans.
Other technical updates[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Mockup_of_Variant_D_%28desktop%29_of_newcomer_homepage_2020-04-09.png/220px-Mockup_of_Variant_D_%28desktop%29_of_newcomer_homepage_2020-04-09.png)
- We are currently working on Variants C and D (adjacent image) of the homepage. The goal is to increase the number of newcomers who start the newcomer tasks workflow. This is the team's main project at the moment.
- We've made it easier to hide the help panel when not needed. [2]
- The welcome survey has a new question for people who created their account: language skills. The goal is to find out how many newcomers know multiple languages, so that we can learn whether it is a good idea to integrate Content Translation as a newcomer task. To make room for this question, we removed one that is not being used. [3]
Community outreach[edit]
- We continue to engage with more communities. We recently deployed the Growth features to Persian, Hebrew, and Russian Wikipedias. Learn more about getting the features.
- If your community is having a remote event, and you are interested in hearing from the Growth team, please contact us! We have already participated to two community events online:
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
09:33, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Cheryl Harris[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cf/Copyright-problem.svg/48px-Copyright-problem.svg.png)
If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.
A tag has been placed on Cheryl Harris requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to be an unambiguous copyright infringement. This page appears to be a direct copy from https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/22/profile-cheryl-harris/. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images taken from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites or other printed material as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.
If the external website or image belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text or image — which means allowing other people to use it for any reason — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. The same holds if you are not the owner but have their permission. If you are not the owner and do not have permission, see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for how you may obtain it. You might want to look at Wikipedia's copyright policy for more details, or ask a question here.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Onel5969 TT me 11:14, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- hi Onel5969 – thank you for this note. Although, there seems to be a mistake.
This page appears to be a direct copy from https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/22/profile-cheryl-harris/
I'm confident the opposite of this is true. Meaning: rather than Cheryl Harris being a copy of the content included on https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/22/profile-cheryl-harris/, I think the content at the aforementioned URL is a direct copy of the content of Cheryl Harris. I think this for the following reasons:- Each day Black Art Story appears to publish a new set of profiles (e.g. https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/17/, https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/18/, https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/19/, https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/20/, https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/21/, https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/22/)
- The Black Art Story page you are suggesting the content of the Cheryl Harris page was copied from was published on 22-September-2020, as evidenced by her being included in the list on this page: https://blackartstory.org/2020/09/22/page/2/ (you'll need to click the "Read more" button at the bottom of the page to reveal Cheryl Harris.
- The Cheryl Harris article existed, in its current form, the form that is shown on Black Art Story, back in Jul. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cheryl_Harris&oldid=967595674
- Can you please direct me to the page where I can share this information and make the case for its inclusion? The URL linked above directs me back to the Cheryl Harris article. Thank you. Stussll (talk) 13:38, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Stussll, you're most likely correct. The tag has been removed, and the page marked as reviewed. Keep up the good work. Onel5969 TT me 13:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. Wonderful. Thank you, Onel5969. A resulting question: what would you have recommended I do had there not been clear evidence that this external site had copied content from Wikipedia rather than the opposite being true? IIRC, this is the first time I’m going through this process Stussll (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Stussll, well, the folks that do the heavy lifting on copyvios (I simply tag those which I feel are a good chance of copyvio), are very good at spotting "Mirrors", which is what this appears to be. However, if this somehow was still in contention, I'd simply re-write the article, using different verbiage. Onel5969 TT me 14:12, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
...very good at spotting "Mirrors", which is what this appears to be. However, if this somehow was still in contention, I'd simply re-write the article, using different verbiage.
this sounds like a great approach – thank you for all your help, Onel5969. See you around! Stussll (talk) 22:31, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Stussll, well, the folks that do the heavy lifting on copyvios (I simply tag those which I feel are a good chance of copyvio), are very good at spotting "Mirrors", which is what this appears to be. However, if this somehow was still in contention, I'd simply re-write the article, using different verbiage. Onel5969 TT me 14:12, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. Wonderful. Thank you, Onel5969. A resulting question: what would you have recommended I do had there not been clear evidence that this external site had copied content from Wikipedia rather than the opposite being true? IIRC, this is the first time I’m going through this process Stussll (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
- Stussll, you're most likely correct. The tag has been removed, and the page marked as reviewed. Keep up the good work. Onel5969 TT me 13:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Test[edit]
test comment PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
- Test 2 PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Message test[edit]
Message PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Growth team updates #15[edit]
Welcome to the fifteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Variants C and D deployed[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_variant_D_2020-10-23.png/220px-Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_variant_D_2020-10-23.png)
Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We hope they will increase the number of users using suggested edits. They both make suggested edits the clear place where newcomers should get started on the page. They have some differences in their workflows, because we want to test which design is better. We deployed these variants on October 19; half of newcomers get each variant. After about 5 weeks, we will analyze the data from the tests. The goal is to determine which variant is helping more newcomers to make more suggested edits. We will identify the better variant and then use it with all newcomers.
Structured tasks: add a link[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Mockup_of_Concept_A_for_add_a_link_2020-08-25_4_of_8.png/220px-Mockup_of_Concept_A_for_add_a_link_2020-08-25_4_of_8.png)
As we discussed in previous newsletters, the team is working on our first "structured task": the "add a link" task. After community discussion on design ideas, we ran user tests on the mobile designs. We decided on the design concept we want to use moving forward: Concept A. We're now engineering the backend for this feature. Next, we will be running user tests for desktop designs.
Learn more about the findings.
Community news[edit]
- We recently deployed the Growth features to Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish Wikipedias. 18 wikis now have Growth features. Learn more about getting the features.
- Have you recently checked if all interface messages are translated for your language?
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
10:09, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message[edit]
Growth team updates #16[edit]
Welcome to the sixteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Growth features show impact[edit]
Newcomer task experiments results
The team recently published our analysis of the impact of newcomer tasks. We are happy to announce that we found that the Growth features, and particularly newcomer tasks, lead to increased editing from newcomers.
In November 2019, the Growth team added the "newcomer tasks" feature to the newcomer homepage. After six months, we collected data from Arabic, Vietnamese, Czech, and Korean Wikipedias. We analyzed the overall impact of the Growth features, including newcomer tasks.
This analysis finds that the Growth features lead to increases in:
- the probability that newcomers make their first article edit (+11.6%)
- the probability that they are retained as editors
- the number of edits they make during their first couple of weeks on the wiki (+22%)
We also find that the quality of their edits, as measured by revert rate, is comparable to that of a control group.
- The number of suggested edits completed by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020, with a line for the total.
- The number of distinct users completing suggested edits by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020.
Because of these results, we think all Wikipedias should consider implementing these features. Learn more about how to get them.
You can find more details about this experiment on the report page. Please post any feedback or questions on the talk page
General metrics
As of November 2020, across all wikis where the features have been deployed:
- more than 5,000 newcomers have made more than 40,000 edits using Newcomer tasks.
- more than 14,000 questions have been sent to volunteer mentors by more than 11,000 users.
- more than 2,000 questions have been asked on help desks by more than 1,500 users.
Learn more about Growth results here, and please post any feedback or questions on the talk page.
Variants C and D[edit]
Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We deployed them in October. After six weeks of these variants being deployed, we can see that they have led to increased interactions with newcomer tasks. Next, we will determine which variant is best and use that for all newcomers.
News for mentors[edit]
A separate list for workshops hosts
During workshops organized by education programs through the communities, workshops hosts like to mentor people they train on wiki. Several wikis requested to have a way to claim their mentees without having other newcomers being randomly being assigned to them. To address this need, a separate list can be created on wiki, for mentors that wish to claim mentees, but prefer not to have random mentees being assigned to them. Learn more about this feature.
Claiming multiple mentees at once
Mentors can use Special:ClaimMentee to claim a newcomer as their mentee. The feature now allows mentors to claim multiple newcomers at once.
Community news[edit]
The help panel allows people to post a message to the local help desk while editing. Previously, the tool always posted messages to the bottom of help desks. Wikis are now able to configure it to display new messages at the top of the help desk page. T261714
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2021 #1[edit]
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Reply tool[edit]
![Graph of Reply tool and full-page wikitext edit completion rates](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Junior_Contributor_Reply_Tool_and_full_page_edit_completion_rate.png/300px-Junior_Contributor_Reply_Tool_and_full_page_edit_completion_rate.png)
The Reply tool is available at most Wikipedias.
- The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
- It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.
Research notes:
- As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
- We have preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[4]
- The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[5] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
A large A/B test will start soon.[6] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. You can still turn it on or off for your own account in Special:Preferences.
New discussion tool[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/New_Discussion_Tool_v1.0.png/380px-New_Discussion_Tool_v1.0.png)
The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[7] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.
Next: Notifications[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/White_square_with_question_mark.png/60px-White_square_with_question_mark.png)
During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at notifications-talk.
18:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words!![edit]
Hey Stussl, thanks for your post on my wall. I think I'm going to start working on a page for Mavi soon, and I can let you know once it's finished. :) WhatsImportantToMe (talk) 03:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Awesome and sounds great,@WhatsImportantToMe! Just drop me a message here when you have something ready for me to have a look. Stussll (talk) 04:17, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Growth team newsletter #17[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg/220px-Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg.png)
Welcome to the seventeenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Structured tasks[edit]
Add a link: the team is continuing to engineer on our first "structured task", which will break down the workflow of adding wikilinks to articles, and assist newcomers with an algorithm to identify words and phrases that could be made into links.
Add an image: even as we build our first structured task, we have been thinking about the next one. "Add an image" is a structured task in which newcomers would be recommended images from Wikimedia Commons to add to unillustrated articles. This is an ambitious idea with many details to consider. We have already learned a lot from community members, and we encourage everyone to look at the project page and join the discussion.
Moving forward: more wikis to get the features[edit]
Last November, our team published the analysis of the impact of newcomer tasks. We announced that we found that the Growth features, and particularly newcomer tasks, lead to increased editing from newcomers. Because of these results, we believe all Wikipedias should implement these features.
We have started to contact more wikis to deploy the features, including Wikipedias of all sizes. Bengali Wikipedia recently began using Growth features, and Danish, Thai, Indonesian, and Romanian Wikipedias will be coming soon. Please contact us if you have questions regarding deployment.
We are looking for translators who can help by translating the interface. Translating is done on Translatewiki.net (it requires a different account that your Wikimedia one). Communities that already have the Growth features being deployed are invited to check on the translations. Access translations here.
Variant testing[edit]
As mentioned in our previous newsletter, we ran a test of two variants of the newcomer homepage, meant to find a version that increases users completing suggested edits. We have completed the experiment, and learned that one of the variants leads to more edits on desktop while the other leads to more edits on mobile. Therefore, we will deploy the strongest variants for each platform to all newcomers.
News for mentors[edit]
Mentor dashboard: we have interviewed mentors from several communities as we plan a mentor dashboard feature, which would help mentors track the progress of their mentees. We encourage all mentors to share their thoughts on tools that would help them.
Magic word for mentors: it is now possible to use a magic word, {{#mentor}}
, to display the name of a given newcomer's mentor. This can be used on welcome messages, userboxes, etc.
Help panel questions going to mentors: in most wikis, newcomers using the help panel ask questions to the help desk. On Czech Wikipedia, we have experimented with sending these questions to mentors instead. This simplifies the newcomer experience, and only led to a increase in mentorship questions of about 30%. We tried this in Arabic, Bengali, French and Vietnamese Wikipedias, and we are making it the default experience.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:02, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Testing[edit]
hey @Stussll – I'm just testing something. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Growth Newsletter #18[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg/220px-Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg.png)
Welcome to the eighteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Structured tasks[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Screen_shot_of_%22add_a_link%22_in_beta_2021-05-02.png/220px-Screen_shot_of_%22add_a_link%22_in_beta_2021-05-02.png)
"Add a link" is now being tested in production and is nearing release on our four pilot wikis (Arabic, Czech, Vietnamese, and Bengali Wikipedias). We'll be doing final tests this week and next week, and then plan to deploy to the four wikis either during May 24 week, or May 31 week. After two weeks, we will analyze the initial data to identify any problems or trends. We expect that this feature will engage new kinds of newcomers in easy and successful edits. If things are going well after four weeks, we'll progressively deploy it to the wikis with Growth features.
News for mentors[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Mockup_of_Mentor_dashboard_-_desktop_-_Mentees_overview_module.png/220px-Mockup_of_Mentor_dashboard_-_desktop_-_Mentees_overview_module.png)
- We are currently working on a Mentor dashboard. This special page aims to help mentors be more proactive and be more successful at their role. The first iteration will include a table that shows an overview of the mentors current mentees, a module with their own settings, and a module that will allow them to store their best replies to their mentees questions.
- We've conducted our quarterly audit on Growth's four pilot wikis to see the activity of mentors. It appears that the vast majority of mentors are active.
Community configuration[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Community_configuration_on_English_Wikipedia_beta_%E2%80%93_2021-04-20.png/220px-Community_configuration_on_English_Wikipedia_beta_%E2%80%93_2021-04-20.png)
We are working on project to allow communities to manage the configuration of the Growth features on their own. In the past, communities have needed to work directly with the Growth team to set up and alter the features. We plan to put this capability in the hands of administrators, through an easy-to-use form, so that the features can be easily tailored to fit the needs of each community. While we developed it initially for Growth features, we think this approach could have uses in other features as well. We'll be trying this on our pilot wikis in the coming weeks, and then we'll bring it to all Growth wikis soon after. We hope you check out the project page and add any of your thoughts to the talk page.
Scaling[edit]
- Growth features are now available on 35 wikis. Here is the list of the most recent ones: Romanian Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Spanish Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Malay Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia.
- A new group of Wikipedias has been defined for the deployment of Growth features. Please contact us if you have questions about the deployment process, or if your community likes to get the features in advance.
- After discussion with the English Wikipedia community, the Growth features will be tested on a small percentage of new accounts. At the moment, registered users can test the features by turning them on in their preferences.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:23, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
Editing news 2021 #2[edit]
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
![Junior contributors comment completion rate across all participating Wikipedias](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Reply_Tool_A-B_test_comment_completion.png/296px-Reply_Tool_A-B_test_comment_completion.png)
Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.
The key results were:
- Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
- The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.
These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.
Looking ahead
The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.
You can turn on "Discussion tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
14:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
Reply-link officially superseded by DiscussionTools[edit]
Hi! Reply-link has officially been superseded by mw:DiscussionTools, which you can install using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. DiscussionTools, developed by the WMF's Editing Team, is faster and has more features than reply-link, and it wouldn't make sense for me to keep developing reply-link. I think the Editing Team is doing amazing work, and look forward to what they can do in the future. Thank you for using reply-link over the years! Enterprisey (talk!) 06:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Growth Newsletter #19[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg/220px-Growth_team_logo_-_Icon_only.svg.png)
Welcome to the nineteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.
Structured tasks[edit]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Add_an_image_Concept_B_prototype_2021-10-22.png/220px-Add_an_image_Concept_B_prototype_2021-10-22.png)
- "Add a link" is the team's first structured task. It uses machine-learning to suggest wikilinks as easy edits for newcomers. It was deployed in May 2021 on four Wikipedias and then in July on eight more Wikipedias after we evaluated the initial results. So far, we've seen a high level of engagement from newcomers. Communities that have the feature suggested valuable ideas for improvement. We'll work on improvements and then contact more communities to deploy it.
- "Add an image" is the team's second structured task, currently in development. It is an editing task that suggests Commons images for unillustrated Wikipedia articles. We have conducted many community discussions and tests. Then, we've decided to build a first prototype. We'll first deploy it only to our pilot Wikipedias, to learn whether newcomers can be successful with the task. The project page contains links to interactive prototypes. We are very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea as we build and test the early versions. These prototypes have already been tested by newcomers, in English and Spanish.
News for mentors[edit]
- The Mentor dashboard is available at our pilot wikis: Arabic, Czech, and Bengali Wikipedias. It will soon be available at a few more volunteering wikis, as a test. [8]
- At wikis where the mentor dashboard is deployed, a new filter is available for mentors. Mentors can monitor their mentees' activity in Watchlist and RecentChanges, so they can help support their mentees' work. For privacy reasons, this filter can't be accessed by someone else than the mentor itself. This filter only filters mentees assigned to the mentor. This filter is not visible for people who are not listed as mentors [9]
Community configuration[edit]
- Communities now have the ability to configure how Growth features behave on their own wikis. At Special:EditGrowthConfig, community members can add a list of volunteer mentors, alter the templates used for suggested edits, update help links, and more. This special page is editable by administrators and interface admins.
Scaling[edit]
- We are proud to announce that all Wikipedias now have the Growth features! Thank you to all the community members who helped the team build the features and bring them to their wikis. The only exception is Chinese Wikipedia (zh), for technical reasons. [10]
- The wikis that have Growth features deployed have been part of A/B testing since deployment, in which some newcomers did not receive the new features. Now, all of the newcomers on 280 of the smallest of those Wikipedias have the features. [11][12]
- A test is undergoing at English Wikipedia: 25% of newcomers receive the Growth features. The results from this test will be part of a discussion of how to proceed on that wiki.
- Now that Growth features are available at Wikipedia, the Growth team considers to extend them to other projects. Some Wikisource users have expressed some interest in getting Growth features. There is currently a discussion about implementing them on Wikisource.
News for communities[edit]
- Do you have questions about the Growth features? This translatable FAQ contains answers to the most common questions about the Growth team work.
- The Growth features were recently used in a test amongst Latin American donors to give donors the opportunity to learn to edit. You can see the results here.
- Interface translations are important for newcomers. Please help for your language, by translating or copyediting interface translations for the Growth features.
- Help:GettingStarted was a feature developed in 2013, which directed newcomers to articles that needed editing. We recently removed this feature from all wikis, because it has been replaced by the Growth features.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:36, 26 October 2021 (UTC)