Growth/Communities/Get the Growth experiments on your wiki

Getting the features
You wish to have the features deployed on your wiki?

Please:


 * 1) check the conditions
 * 2) contact us to inform the Growth team
 * 3) fill a Phabricator task.

[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?projects=Growth-team&parent=228980&subscribers=Trizek-WMF+MMiller_WMF&description={{urlencode:

First
[ ] Get an agreement from the community to deploy these features [ ] subscribe to our newsletter, to know what would be the next steps.
 * List people we can contact for the next steps:

Translations
[ ] **[|Translate the interface]** (on translatewiki.net, needs a specific account) [ ] Translate the documentation [ ] [on help desk/Help panel] (resource for newcomers) [ ] [] and subpages (resource for mentors and newcomers) [ ] [to work with newcomers on help desks] (resource for mentors) [ ] [to introduce yourself as a mentor] (resource for mentors) [ ] Translate aliases: [ ] Special:Homepage [ ] Special:WelcomeSurvey [ ] Special:Impact [ ] Special:ClaimMentee

== Help panel
 * Help desk: [|Q11059110], [|Q5621643] or [|Q16503]
 * Archiving system: (describe how it works: Structured Discussions, archived once a month, archived after 30 days of inactivity, manually archived...)
 * Help pages (you can provide either a Wikidata link or a link to your wiki):
 * Manual of style: [|Q4994848]
 * Help:Editing: [|Q151637]
 * Inserting images using the visual editor: [|Q27919584]
 * Inserting references using the visual editor: [|Q24238629]
 * Article Wizard: [|Q10968373]
 * Search on namespace: 4 "Wikipedia" and 12 "Help" (default)
 * Read more : [|Q914807]

== Homepage [ ] The signature list has been formatted [|like it should be].
 * Tutorial: [|Q3945] (or [|Q915263])
 * Signature list: [|Q14339834]

== Suggested edits Suggested edits are based on these 5 task-types. At the moment, they can't be substituted. Please check maintenance template and links: For templates only, you can suggest more templates that match the task description.
 * Task | Difficulty level | Maintenance templates | Learn more
 * Copyedit article| Easy | [|Q6292692] | [|Q10953805]
 * Add Links | Easy |[|Q13107723] (or [|Q5849007])| [|Q27919580] (or [|Q75275496])
 * Update article | Medium | [|Q5617874] | [|Q4664141]
 * Add References | Medium |[|Q5962027] (or [|Q6192879]) |[|Q79951] (or [|Q642335])
 * Expand article | Hard |[|Q5529697] (or [|Q5623589]) | [|Q10973854] (or [|Q4663261])

Extra links:
 * How to create a page: [|Q4966605] (or [|Q10968373])
 * How to insert images: [|Q27919584] (or [|Q4618557])

Anything else?
Do you have any particular information or configuration that we should be aware of (like you have a special in-person mentoring program, or your wiki uses FlaggedRevisions...): }} ]

The deployment of the Growth team features will happen soon on your wiki? Or your wiki agreed on getting the tools?

Here are some resources to help you with this deployment.

You can ask for help on the talk page.

You can also try the tools.

Translations
The interface needs to be translated, or the translations have to be checked. We also provide some useful information both for mentors and newcomers, and these pages have to be translated as well. This guidance page can help you understanding this translation work.

Mandatory translations


 * Translate the interface (done on translatewiki.net, which needs a specific account)
 * Translate these aliases for the interface:
 * "Special:WelcomeSurvey"
 * "Special:Homepage"
 * "Special:Impact"
 * "Special:ClaimMentee"
 * Growth/Focus on help desk/Help panel (standard help link to use the Help panel)
 * Growth/Communities/How to interact with newcomers (standard help link for mentors)
 * Help:Growth/Tools and subpages (help pages for mentors and newcomers)

Other translations


 * Translate the documentation
 * Growth/Personalized first day (optional)
 * Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage (optional)
 * Growth/Understanding first day (optional)
 * Growth/Focus on help desk (optional)

Help panel
The help panel is displayed on articles, user pages and help pages. It allows users to ask questions to the help desk while they are editing, or get some advice when they make some suggested edits. → Know more about the Help panel. 

Namespaces
The help panel is deployed on namespaces 0 "Main", 2 "User" and 4 "Help". Namespaces other than 0 "Main" can be changed by locally editing the page  after the deployment on your wiki.

Where questions are posted ("help desk")
The Help panel help newcomers to post questions to the local help desk. The Help desk will post these messages:


 * 1) first on Newcomers friendly place listed on Q11059110
 * 2) if there is no newcomer friendly place, on an Ask a question place listed on Q5621643
 * 3) if there is no such place on the Village pump listed on Q16503

This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

The page where questions are posted can be locally changed by editing the page

Archiving the help desk

 * Is your help desk a traditional page or a Flow page?
 * How is your help desk archived? By bot? Manually? Weekly? Yearly? Does it has a special configuration, like subpages  or a template like  ?

Pages listed in the help panel
5 most important help pages newcomers should have access to when editing are listed in the help panel.

By default, these pages are:


 * Manual of style, taken from Q4994848
 * Help:Editing, taken from Q151637
 * Insert images using the visual editor, taken from Q27919584
 * Insert a citation using the visual editor, taken from Q24238629
 * Article Wizard, taken from Q10968373

If a page is not listed for your language on Wikidata, you can:


 * before the deployment, list it on the matching Wikidata item before the deployment (you may have to create it first),
 * after the deployment, no link will not be displayed.

Choosing different pages

These pages can be changed by locally editing the page  after the deployment on your wiki.

Here is some advice about help pages:


 * If you wish to change a page, we advise you to review the new page and enrich it first. For instance, check if the page is well illustrated, if it presents the different steps needed to achieve something
 * We recommend using the visual editor.
 * We recommend to prefer step-by-step tutorials.
 * We recommend to keep a link about how to add images to articles. It is a popular request.

Search function
The Help panel has a search function. By default, it will search on namespace 4 "Wikipedia" and 12 "Help". You can add more namespaces by locally editing the page.

If people need more information, they have access to the main page of the help namespace. The page is listed on Q914807. This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

Homepage
 The Homepage gathers useful informations for newcomers. There, they will find suggested edits (see next section), a link to a tutorial to learn more about your wiki and their mentor. → Know more about the Homepage.

Tutorial
The page displays a tutorial for first steps based on the link found on Q3945 or Q915263. This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

How this works?
Mentors are important: they help newcomers to make safe first steps on the wiki.

Each newcomer has a random mentor assigned to them automatically. There is no obligation for the newcomer to contact their mentor.

We recommend having one mentor for every 500 new accounts per month, i.e. if your wiki has 5,000 new accounts per month, you should have 10 mentors signed up in order to handle the volume of incoming questions. We advise to have a minimum of 3 mentors. Have more mentors than needed will decrease the effort.

Configuration
The Homepage will pick names on the link found on Q14339834. This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

How to format this page is a critical point! Please follow these indications:


 * The format of the page is a list of mentors, using a special format:  (add no links nor wikitext in it)
 * Protect that page, so that only experienced users can sign-up

Suggested edits
Suggested Edits (Newcomers tasks) are located on the Homepage. Newcomers are invited to work on 5 maintenance tasks, rank by level of difficulty: Update article, Add references, Add links, Expand article, Copyedit article → Know more about Newcomers tasks. 

Maintenance templates
Each task is identified on a maintenance templates: This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata as far as it matches the task description.

Some templates have redirects. They can be added by locally editing the page  after the deployment on your wiki.

At the moment, we can't add other tasks the ones listed in the table above.

Learn more
Each task has "learn more" link: This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

You can change each link by locally editing the page  after the deployment on your wiki.

Additional links
Suggested Edits needs two more links to work. "Create an article" is not a task. There is a placeholder for this task, but the button is grey, inactive. Create an article is a very complicated task. It is actually the sum of all other maintenance tasks suggested. So encourage people to work on other tasks, before trying to create an article. However, we don't want to block newcomers from creating an article. This is why we provide a link to an help page to create a new article.

This is our default configuration. You can also provide a link that is not listed on Wikidata.

You can change each link by locally editing the page  after the deployment on your wiki.

Conditions to get the features
Any wiki can request to have these features, with the following conditions.

As detailed on our focus, we will work with the following wikis by order of priority:


 * 1) Wikipedias we in the set of our "target" wikis (Czech, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic) – we address all the feedback they give us.
 * 2) Mid-sized Wikipedias – they get the features as they are, but we may consider suggestions of improvements from those wikis.
 * 3) All other Wikimedia projects – they get the features as they are, and the team will not have time to prioritize improvements specific to those wikis.

Bug reports will be prioritized by the Growth team.

Features will all be deployed (no substitutions, except if incompatible with an existing process), as "experiments". Experiments means that a portion of newcomers will receive the features (the treatment group), and a portion will not (the control group). By comparing these two groups, we will be able to measure the impact of the feature on newcomer retention. Some wikis may not have these groups, at the Growth team discretion.

The prerequisites to get the experiments are listed above.

Other MediaWiki wikis, not hosted by Wikimedia, can check on Extension:GrowthExperiments to get the features.