Wikimedia Mobile engineering/Brainstorm

This page is intended to be a whiteboard for requests, feature ideas, and thoughts that eventually may become product requirements.

New feature ideas can fall into several categories, which are loosely defined as:


 * Peripheral community building, or the first step toward converting readers into something more closely identified as members of the Wikipedia or Wikimedia community


 * New editor conversion, or the pathways, techniques and tools that convert readers or peripheral community members into editors


 * Active editing, or the myriad ways in which experienced editors develop articles, curate content, create or modify templates and projects, and define categories and policies

In terms of mobile use, there is a definite skew toward the first two categories above, with great potential for specialized tools to support the third category. The current development activities in the Foundation are very much focused on the second and third categories, and most likely mobile development will follow the initiatives in those areas. For example, certain ways of curating new pages or content could be extremely handy on mobile devices, but those techniques would follow from the development in those areas pertaining to the main site.

However, when it comes to the first category, there have only been exploratory motions on the main site in order to understand the dynamics of the readership audience and what forms of engagement could make sense. Mobile use is particularly suitable for this category, as there are significant mobile behaviors which can be leveraged to create a so-called funnel of readers becoming members, some of whom eventually become editors.

The suggestions below fall mostly into this first category, while there is extensive work being done in the second and third categories that can be found elsewhere in the Wikimedia universe. For example, an excellent analysis of the activities involved in active editing can be found here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raindrift/Workflows

Casual Communication - the widest mouth of the funnel

Recent experience with WikiLove has shown that simplifying communication can be desirable to readers. This could be achieved with a discussion forum or commenting support outside of the "normal" wiki Discussion page context. Wikimedia blogs currently allow threaded commenting and LiquidThreads has been deployed in limited fashion in some wiki areas.

The current structure for user-to-user communication makes use of User Talk pages, which are the Discussion pages associated with users' description pages. One use of WikiLove involved users commenting easily on user Talk pages. However, the Talk mechanism is incomplete for back-and-forth communication, simply because there is no notification for replies (the user who owns the User Talk page will be notified when additions are made, but not anyone else).

There are two suggestions here:

1) Add notification of other participants on a User Talk page - this would require some form of opt-in and account creation/login

2) Use mobile devices to perform and track casual conversations, in the style of SMS, and perhaps using SMS

Both 1) and 2) could be combined. So for example, additions to a User Talk page could generate SMS or email notifications, and users could reply directly using SMS or email.

Annotation - adding notes to specific parts of articles, possibly part of "new editor conversion"

This concept leverages the nature of the reading experience on mobile while creating an entry point into the main editing processes.

The idea goes something like this:


 * Mobile reading can dramatically expand breadth of readership in terms of both numbers of readers and numbers of articles - however, such reading will tend to be situational and less in-depth


 * Mobile readers may encounter proofreading errors, factual errors, or incomplete information that they wish to make note of, either to perform some minimal editing on the spot, or to remind themselves of edits to make later


 * This would require readers logging in so as to enable private use of annotation - otherwise, the annotation would have to be public, and possibly the reader can be given a choice of public or private after he/she logs in


 * This could be developed as part of article Discussion, with the notable caveat that mobile writing and annotation in general tends to be abbreviated and imperfect

Social Features - specific ways to help readers or members to become editors

(not just mobile, but maybe easier to get started on mobile)

Here is actual user commentary culled by Sue Gardner in her blog. http://suegardner.org/2011/02/19/nine-reasons-why-women-dont-edit-wikipedia-in-their-own-words/

Both quotes are from Metafilter:

Not everyone feels self-doubting, though: ”It’s not that it intimidates me. It’s more that, well, if I spend three hours carefully composing a concise article on something, complete with blasted citations and attention to formatting consistency, the chances of it being poof!gone the next day are still high, and on top of all my work I don’t get anything back apart from the ineffable sensation of contributing to humanity’s knowledge base. I want friends who will excitedly inform me how pleased they were by my penultimate paragraph, dammit. I want a way to team up with someone who knows the markup and can help iron out problems before stuff gets published. I want a social backbone to keep me contributing and caring, one that doesn’t depend on the frequency of my contributions. Contests for “best article about birds in November”. Basically, give me a LJ-flavored wikipedia editors fan community.” [6]

[6] Source: From a discussion at Metafilter titled Wikipedia, Snips & Snails, Sugar & Spice?

The few times I’ve touched wikipedia, I’ve been struck by how isolating it can feel. It’s a very fend for yourself kind of place for me. Anywhere else online, my first impulse is to put out feelers. I make friends, ask for links to FAQs and guides, and inevitably someone takes me under their wing and shows me the ropes of whatever niche culture I’m obsessed with that month. It’s very collaborative, and prioritizes friendships and enjoyment of pre-existing work over results. Wikipedia isn’t like that, as far as I’ve experienced. There’s no reciprocal culture; to just plunge oneself into the thick of things and start adding information can be highly intimidating, and there’s no structure set up to find like-minded people to assist one’s first attempts. Instead I just find lots and lots of links to lots of information-dense pages.” [27]

[27] Source: From a discussion at Metafilter titled Wikipedia, Snips & Snails, Sugar & Spice?

Please consider these general comments that could just as easily apply to anyone new to editing Wikipedia, as to women in particular.

While these are general issues, some aspects could be addressed in a natural way with mobile functionality.

For example, could there be a way to browse a discussion forum on mobile and start chatting with participants who may be in particular discussions?


 * This is desperately needed on the web interface already, and isn't really mobile-specific. But... a good mobile interface for chat, discussion, review, and notifications could make it a lot easier for people to be active participants at more times. Like the 4-Square checkers-inners, some folks end up fielding a lot of requests just for fun. :) --brion 20:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Could we surface users who are online and near the inquiring user, or users who have edited topics related to a search?


 * Location has serious privacy issues, but being able to opt in to 'local community' stuff could be helpful at times; could also be a way to encourage local meetups and connect traveling 'medians with their local brethren... --brion 20:50, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Another idea:


 * Use profiles on LinkedIn to determine relevancy and expertise for editing (obviously not mobile-specific)

Citation Entry Ideas - a specific example of how mobile can participate in editing workflows

A spontaneous brainstorm resulted in some excellent ideas around making the entry of citations and references more easy. Some of these ideas tie into mobile usage and the general concept of taking small steps toward editing, which can draw people into the larger editing process.

First, the general idea was to make it much easier to enter citations and references, within the context of overall usability improvements in editing. Some of these ideas may make it to the light of day in the context of the new editing UI.

Here is a sample use case/workflow that illustrates how mobile can interact with the main site:


 * User takes a photo of a book he/she is citing or referencing.
 * User uploads the photo within an editing interaction, as a citation or reference source.
 * The photo is analyzed (possibly using Goggles or a similar third party process).
 * Possible book titles and info are shown; user selects the correct one or enters the ISBN number.
 * All relevant data of the book pre-fills the citation template; page number field is highlighted for user input.
 * User enters page number and other custom info.
 * Henceforth the book remains in the user's library to be added easily to other articles.

An alternate entry point into this use case is to enter the book's ISBN number.


 * Being able to slurp an ISBN lookup out of a picture of a barcode would be excellent -- this is something that could help on laptops as well, which frequently have webcams built-in. Most current browsers don't offer direct webcam access yet (you're usually limited to using Flash) but some newer browsers are starting to include the newer HTML5-related APIs for camera access. --brion 20:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)