Help:Growth/Tools/Newcomer Tasks

Newcomer tasks are small and actionable edits that are suggested to newcomers. These tasks improve new editor participation and retention (add a link experiment).

Newcomers tasks are suggested at the Newcomers' Homepage. This Homepage is automatically available for all new accounts created on Wikipedia. For other accounts, check how to enable the Homepage. At the Newcomers' Homepage, newcomers are offered a set of articles they can work on. They can select which of the Newcomers tasks types they want to work on. They can also customize the articles suggested by selecting topics that interest them. For each task, onboarding instructions provide guidance and teach some of the basics needed for a new editor to be successful.

This page lists all existing newcomers tasks. Some of these tasks may not be available at your wiki. Check the Deployment table to know which tasks are available where. Newcomer tasks are configurable by communities by visiting  locally.

'' Several sentences on this page are translations of the interface displayed to newcomers. If you see part of the text in English, you can help with translations. Translate Growth experiments on Translatewiki.net (it requires a different account than your Wikimedia one). Translations take up to one week to be applied. Translate''

Copyedit
 — Difficulty level:  

Purpose
The purpose of this task is to demonstrate to newcomers that it is possible to edit the wiki.

This task is based on maintenance template. You can find which maintenance templates are used for your wiki, by visiting locally.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

 Step 5: 

 Step 6: 

Add links
 — Difficulty level:  

Purpose
The purpose of this task is to demonstrate to newcomers that it is possible to edit the wiki.

This task is based on maintenance template. You can find which maintenance templates are used for your wiki, by visiting locally.

At some wikis, this task is replaced by Suggested: add links.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

 Step 5: 

 Step 6: 

Purpose
  uses books, websites, and news sources to validate that Wikipedia is accurate, and add those to articles so that readers can feel confident that what they're reading is true.

This task is based on maintenance template. You can find which maintenance templates are used for your wiki, by visiting locally.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

 Step 5: 

 Step 6: 

 Step 7: 

Update
 — Difficulty level:  

Purpose
Updating articles is needed because articles get out of date as time goes on and new events occur. Find and add the correct information so that Wikipedia always contains the current truth.

This task is based on maintenance template. You can find which maintenance templates are used for your wiki, by visiting locally.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

 Step 5: 

 Step 6: 

Expand
 — Difficulty level:  

Purpose
Expanding articles is needed because many Wikipedia articles are only a sentence or two long. Find more information and add it to make the article more complete.

This task is based on maintenance template. You can find which maintenance templates are used for your wiki, by visiting locally.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

 Step 5: 

 Step 6: 

Create
 — Difficulty level:  

Purpose
Creating a new article is one of the most difficult things to do in Wikipedia. We don't recommend that newcomers try this as their first edit.

This task is currently unavailable: people have to make other suggested edits to know how to create an article.

Instructions
No instructions as the task is currently not available.

Suggested: add links
 — — Difficulty level:   

At some wikis, this task is replaced by Help:Growth/Tools/Newcomer Tasks.

Purpose
Adding links is the easiest way to edit. Links help readers move between articles to learn more quickly.

The purpose of this task is to demonstrate to newcomers that it is possible to edit the wiki.

This task is based on machine suggestions. Suggested links have to be checked by the user, who decides if they are relevant or not.

Communities can configure how many Add links tasks a user can do each day and how many links are suggested for each article by visiting locally.

Know more about this feature.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

Suggested: add images
 — — Difficulty level:   

Purpose
Add an image suggests an image from other wikis that match the article topic. Newcomers have to check if the image is accurate, and write a caption.

The purpose of this task is to demonstrate to newcomers that it is possible to edit the wiki.

All suggested images are hosted on Wikimedia Commons. They are suggested because they are already used at other wikis where an article about the same topic exists. Only articles with no images are suggested.

Communities can configure how many Add images tasks a user can do each day by visiting locally.

Know more about this feature.

Instructions
 Step 1: 

 Step 2: 

 Step 3: 

 Step 4: 

Frequently Asked Questions
''' I'm an experienced user. Can I test these features? '''

Of course! If you have no access to locally, please follow the instructions on how to turn it on.

''' A newcomer is not following the instructions given. What can we do? '''

Newcomers are encouraged to follow the instructions given to make better edits and improve the quality of the wiki. However, instructions are not always understood or followed. We advise experienced community members to contact newcomers whose edits can be improved to help them fixing them, and improve their edits. In rare cases, users aren't here to improve the wiki; they should be treated as your wiki does for these case of users.

If instructions are not well followed on a regular basis, let us know. Please provide examples where the task instructions were not followed by several users.

''' Can we change the configuration of the task by ourselves? '''

Communities can change how the Growth features work by editing.

We advise all communities to make configuration changes after a community discussion. Please inform us of your discussions when they happen, because we can help you on the issue you found, or assist you with the configuration. It is also very useful for us to know that you have that discussion, so that we can improve the features.

Further readings

 * Growth main project page
 * Suggested Edits tools
 * Keep yourself updated about improvements