Beta Features/Release Plan

Here is the 2013 release plan for the Beta Features project.

Announcement
Here is the announcement which we invite you to adapt when introducing Beta Features to your community.

We would like to let you know about Beta Features, a new program from the Wikimedia Foundation that lets you try out new features before they are released widely.
 * Introducing Beta Features

Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming software and give feedback to help improve them. This special preference page lets designers and engineers experiment with new features on a broad scale, but in a way that's not disruptive.

Beta Features is now ready for testing by logged-in users on our site. After you log in, a small 'Beta' link will appear next to your 'Preferences'. Click on it to see features you can test, check the ones you want, then click 'Save'. Learn more on the Beta Features page.

Here are the first features you can test starting this week: (Note that Visual Editor is only featured on sites where it is already available, but not enabled by default.)
 * Media Viewer — view images in large size or full screen
 * Typography Refresh — make text more readable (new feature)
 * Near this page — see what other pages are nearby (new feature)
 * VisualEditor — edit pages without having to learn wiki code
 * VisualEditor Formulæ — edit algebra or equations on your pages

Would you like to try out BetaFeatures now? After you've tested Beta Features, please let the developers know what you think on this discussion page -- or on each feature's discussion page (see above links). If you find a technical bug, please report it here on Bugzilla. You're also welcome to join this IRC office hours chat on Friday, 22 November at 18:00 UTC.

Beta Features was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Design, Multimedia and VisualEditor teams. Along with other developers, they will be adding new features to this experimental program every few weeks. They are very grateful to all the community members who helped create this project — and look forward to many more productive collaborations in the future. :)

Enjoy, and don't forget to let developers know what you think!

Schedule
Here is the current schedule for upcoming releases of Beta Features in November 2013.

The goal is to release a first barebones version of Beta Features in late November, with a couple features to start with.

Here are our target dates for the first release:
 * 21 Nov - Release to all Wikis (via platform train - should be done by 24:00 UTC?)
 * 21 Nov - Post anouncements, socialize on-wiki and via email, IRC
 * 22 Nov - IRC office hours chat at 18:00 UTC
 * 22 Nov - Participate in on-wiki discussions for each of the Beta Features (see below)

We may adjust this schedule as needed, based on our progress with deliverables, and subject to team and community review.

To learn more about Beta Features, please visit this main project hub -- and leave a note on its discussion page with any questions.

Sites
We are working with community champions and team members to announce the features and start discussions on these sites in November:


 * First pilot sites:
 * Mediawiki.org
 * Beta Features Discussion
 * Media Viewer Discussion
 * Wikimedia Commons
 * Meta.Wikimedia.org


 * Large sites
 * English Wikipedia
 * French Wikipedia
 * German Wikipedia
 * Italian Wikipedia
 * Polish Wikipedia
 * Portuguese Wikipedia
 * Spanish Wikipedia
 * Swedish Wikipedia
 * Indic Wikipedias


 * Medium sites:
 * Arabic Wikipedia
 * Catalan Wikipedia
 * Chinese Wikipedia
 * Czech Wikipedia
 * Danish Wikipedia
 * Dutch Wikipedia
 * English Wikivoyage
 * Finnish Wikipedia
 * Greek Wikipedia
 * Hebrew Wikipedia
 * Hungarian Wikipedia
 * Japanese Wikipedia
 * Korean Wikipedia
 * Persian Wikipedia
 * Russian Wikipedia
 * Serbian Wikipedia
 * Turkish Wiipedia
 * Ukrainian Wikipedia

We posted announcements on these 600+ sites via EdwardsBot in early November.
 * Smaller sites: