Post-edit feedback

This feature is a test of whether giving post-edit feedback to Wikipedia editors enhances their experience, and which kind of feedback is best at motivating them to continue editing.

Current
Currently, one of two things happens when a user saves an edit:


 * 1) if the edit is successful, the page reloads in normal "read" mode
 * 2) the edit fails due to an error such as an edit conflict or loss of session data

There is no system feedback which explicitly confirms that the edit was successful and is immediately live, though if they are aware of it, editors may check the revision history.

Proposed
After an edit is saved successfully, a notification will appear on the page along with the read-mode of the page.

Confirmation and gratitude (test one)
In the first phase of this experiment, a sample of logged-in editors will receive a message every time they successfully save an edit. Depending on which experimental bucket they fall into, they will receive either a dry confirmation that their edit was saved, or a thank you message for making an edit. These notifications will disappear after five seconds and will be dismissable, with the intent that can editors simply scan the page after editing and use the presence of the notification as confirmation of their edit. Since this feature is only designed to support new editors unfamiliar with wiki editing, this confirmation message will only be delivered to editors who registered after the start of the experiment.


 * Confirmation message: "Your edit was saved."
 * Gratitude message: "Thank you for your edit!"

Results and future plans
The results from the test above showed that new Wikipedians find value in having a straightforward confirmation message after saving an edit; those who were told "your edit was saved" had a statistically significant increase in the volume of edits made, with no associated decrease in quality.

Based on this data, we're recommending that a confirmation message be incorporated into MediaWiki, both for the current wikitext editor and the upcoming VisualEditor.


 * Requirements

In addition to the feature requirements used for the test...
 * 1) The plain, direct confirmation message of "your edit was saved" is ideal.
 * 2) While we tested the message without a close function, relying solely on the fade out after a few seconds, a close button (e.g. an X) is necessary
 * 3) We may need a permanent opt-out via a preference. Ideally, we want to avoid adding to the checklist of preferences under the Editing tab, and instead use the preferences API.

To use the  system currently deployed on WMF wikis, there are some enhancements necessary. Requirements for incorporating a confirmation into VisualEditor may differ significantly, in order to fit with the current design of the editing and notifications toolbar used by the editor.


 * Ideas for alternate confirmation messages




 * Instead of delivering the confirmation after page reload, an idea to test is providing confirmation after successful submit, stalling the page reload function to let people decide to view or edit. (See mockup)

Historical feedback (test two)
In the second phase of this experiment, a sample of logged-in editors will receive a notification when they reach their first, tenth, 50th, and 100th edits. The purpose of this notification is to thank editors for reaching milestones in the contribution history, as an alternative to the current experience where they receive no information about how much work they have done without looking it up using a specialized tool. This notification will look quite different than the previous one delivered confirming every edit, with the intent that newly-registered editors will feel they have accomplished something significant on Wikipedia. Since this feature is only designed to support new editors unfamiliar with wiki editing, it will only appear to those with less than 100 edits before the start of the experiment.

All messages will utilize the same general design, but the message text and edit count numbers will be specific to the milestone:
 * First edit milestone: "Success! You made your first edit to Wikipedia."
 * Fifth edit milestone: "You've made five edits. Keep up the good work!"
 * 10th edit milestone: "That's your first 10 edits. Nice!"
 * 25th edit milestone: "25 edits! You're doing great. "
 * 50th edit milestone: "You’ve made 50 edits!"
 * 100th edit milestone: "Congratulations! You've completed 100 edits."

Feature requirements

 * Confirmation and gratitude (test one)
 * A message will be displayed to users in the test every time they successfully save an edit and the page is reloaded in read mode.
 * Users will either see the confirmation message or the gratitude message, never both.
 * The message will appear in a notification box that is overlaid on the page.
 * The message will fade away after three seconds.


 * The message will be visible even if the user is returned to a section via an anchor in the link.
 * The message will be delivered in all namespaces.
 * The message will only be delivered to users who registered after the start of the experiment.
 * The message will not appear after page creation.


 * Historical feedback (test two)
 * A message will be displayed to users in the test after they save their first, fifth, 10th, 50th, and 100th edits. (Including if an editing milestone is page creation.)
 * The message for each milestone will be unique.
 * The messages will appear in a notification box that is overlaid on the page.
 * The messages will fade away after no more than five seconds.
 * The messages will be dismissible by the user.
 * The messages will be visible even if the user is returned to a section via an anchor in the link.
 * The messages will be delivered in all namespaces.

Experiment methodology and analysis requirements
See Meta