Onboarding new Wikipedians/Account creation pathways

We want to see where users are coming from into the 'Create account' form.

returnto information
MediaWiki creates the Create account and Log in links at the top right of the page and these include a  query string parameter so the user can return from whence they arrived after login or account creation. Some other MediaWiki-generated links have this information, for example links in some forms that say _login required_; also user-created links may have this parameter, though most leave it out.

When someone successfully creates an account we log this returnto parameter.

So this is one flow into creating an account.

We've added an alternative way to track creating an account, by including a specific  parameter in the link.

omitted returnto
Most links that people add in wiki text to create an account or login do not include this returnto parameter, meaning that after account creation the user doesn't get a "Return to what I was doing".

We should create a createacct-link template to
 * keep track of all these places linking to create account
 * makes it easy to provide a returnto to bring people back to where they were
 * makes it easy to provide a campaign parameter
 * consistently use the term "create an account" instead of signup/register/register an account.

top returnto
As of 2013-06-18, here are the top event_returnTos in the last 5 days (since we enabled extension Campaigns using a revised schema), out of 19,000 accounts created on enwiki.

+---+---+ +---+---+ ...
 * event_returnTo                   | COUNT( *) |
 * NULL                             |      3424 |
 * Main Page                        |      2827 |
 * Special:Search                   |       700 |
 * Wikipedia:Username policy        |       373 |
 * Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard     |       121 |
 * Wiki                             |       103 |
 * Wikipedia:Starting an article    |        81 |
 * Wikipedia:Articles for creation  |        78 |
 * Special:UserLogin                |        73 |
 * Help:Logging in                  |        68 |
 * Wikipedia                        |        62 |
 * Wikipedia:Why create an account? |        51 |
 * Facebook                         |        45 |
 * Portal:Contents                  |        43 |
 * Wikipedia:Article wizard         |        38 |
 * Special:Book                     |        35 |
 * Wikipedia:Request an account     |        33 |
 * YouTube                          |        33 |
 * Wikipedia:Contact us             |        31 |
 * Wikipedia:About                  |        30 |
 * Wikipedia:Protection policy      |        29 |
 * Wikipedia:Your first article     |        29 |
 * Gmail                            |        28 |
 * Yahoo!                           |        26 |
 * Yahoo! Mail                      |        24 |
 * Wikipedia:Tutorial (Registration) |       23 |
 * Main_Page                        |        23 |
 * Twitter                          |        21 |
 * Google Talk                      |        19 |
 * Wikipedia:Sandbox                |        18 |
 * Justin Bieber                    |        17 |
 * Wikipedia:Introduction           |        16 |
 * Instagram                        |        15 |
 * Talk:Main Page                   |        14 |
 * Father's Day                     |        14 |
 * Wikipedia:Community portal       |        14 |
 * RocketMail                       |        14 |
 * Yeezus                           |        13 |
 * Hotmail                          |        13 |
 * Portal:Current events            |        12 |
 * Blog                             |        12 |
 * Special:Preferences              |        12 |
 * Account                          |        12 |
 * Encyclopedia                     |        12 |
 * Email                            |        11 |
 * Login                            |        11 |
 * Skype                            |        11 |
 * Help:Contents                    |        10 |

Comments

 * Wikipedia:Username policy is probably people in the middle of creating an account
 * Special:Uploads [sic], not a real page?
 * Special:UserLogin : probably Part the [Join] CTA and part top right link
 * Help:Logging in : Has a "To create an account..." link

Presumably all the people stumbling from the Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Google Talk, Hotmail, Rocketmail, Skype, and Twitter pages to Create account are thinking that the encyclopedia article about the service is the means to *JOIN* the service. Sigh... and these are just the people who actually got all the way through and created a Wikipedia account. No wonder they don't edit!

returnto mobile links
FWIW here are the mobile links:

+-+---+ +-+---+ ...
 * event_returnTo                                 | COUNT( *) |
 * Main Page                                      |       182 |
 * NULL                                           |       138 |
 * Special:Uploads                                |       131 |
 * Special:Watchlist                              |        57 |
 * Special:Search                                 |        50 |
 * Special:MobileOptions                          |        31 |
 * Special:MobileMenu                             |        24 |
 * Special:UserLogin                              |        18 |
 * Special:Nearby                                 |         4 |

Interface messages that link to create account

 * w:MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning : This tries to preserve returnto address but BUG it uses Special:Createaccount and the redirect loses the parameter. We plan to add campaign to this

Pages and templates that link to create account
We will add ?campaign to some of these, see Village Pump (proposals) "Let's figure out a little bit more about how new editors are signing up"
 * w:Help:Logging in
 * spage fixed this one using w:Template:Querylink, now says "To create an account, click the _Create account_ link at the top right of the page."


 * w:Wikipedia:About
 * Has a _Creating an account_ link spage fixed this using w:Template:Querylink to go direct to type=signup


 * w:WP:Why create an account?
 * Has a blue box that links to _Create an account now_ and always a second _secure server_ link, plus lower down a repeated _Creating an account_ link.  All of these should have a returnto parameter because the rest of the page talks about creating a user page.

Perhaps the "subpage" Special:UserLogin/signup is better than appending : less query string might mean better caching. Something for a createacct-link template.

Existing templates related to Create account

 * w:Template:Createaccount : is barely used with a load of text
 * w:Template:Creation : has a bad link in "You will need to first register an account,"
 * w:Template:Register : etc.
 * w:Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee/Welcome_templates : many of these templates have links inviting the user to create an account
 * "register an account" : search for this in templates, help, etc.