Wikimedia Apps/Team/Android/AppEditorTasks

What is this project?
The Android team are working on a feature that will suggest small contributions that editors can make via their mobile devices.

For the first release (likely to be the end of March 2019), we will allow users who have previously made 5+ good (i.e., not reverted) Wikidata description edits through the app access to a feature that suggests articles that are missing Wikidata descriptions in their language, and allow them to add these missing descriptions. For users who have made 50+ good edits, we will suggest Wikidata descriptions that they can translate from one language into another. Future phases will enable other types of contributions, for example adding/translating image captions on Commons for users with 50+ good edits in the app.

What's the rationale for doing this?
Our readers mainly read the wikis on mobile phones; our editing tools are focused on desktop and keyboards. This will be a problem for us: Wikipedia became a big thing because everyone who read it could add information. If this is not true in the future, we’ll have a harder time getting new editors. The developers are working on a number of different solutions, including, of course, trying to make the kind of typical content creation that we’ve always done easier on mobile. However, we’re also looking into whether there are specific tasks that could be specifically well suited for mobile users.

With this feature, we want to:


 * Extend usage of existing micro-contribution tool. The (Wikidata) title description editing feature on Android has proven successful in encouraging micro-contributions.
 * Extend app knowledge of multilingual users.
 * Increase Android app editor retention. Based on previous launch of editing Wikidata descriptions, and through previous community consultations, it is our hypothesis that providing more micro-contributions to the Android app will lead to an increase in in-app editor activity and retention.

Won't this lead to spam or vandalism?
Based on metrics from the release of Wikidata description editing in 2017–2018, we don't think so. There are several safeguards in place to prevent spam and vandalism:
 * Users must be logged in through the app (no IP editing is allowed through the feature)
 * Users must previously have made 5+ good Wikidata description edits through the app to be shown the feature at all, and 50+ good edits to be given access to translate descriptions through the feature
 * Access to the feature will be revoked if the user's description edits get reverted

Where can I see designs, and the progress of the work?
Everything is linked from this Phab epic: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T205125

Can you give me a timeline?
Here's what we're targeting:

30 March 2019 - Phase 1 released. This includes the ability to add and translate Wikidata descriptions

28 June 2019 - Phase 2 released. This includes the ability to add and translate captions on Commons images

FY 2019/20 - Explore extensions to the feature, such as suggesting low-ORES scored articles to review and edit.