Task recommendations for Wikipedia Editors

This document describes ways we can automatically suggest tasks to Wikipedia editors.

The problem
Currently, only 15-16% of newly-registered users who make an edit to Wikipedia content go on to reach active editor status in their first 24 hours. This conversion rate is quite low, especially considering that users have already made it past the difficult task of completing their first edit.

We think that a large part of this is because:
 * 1) There is no clear path forward for the user after their first edit, even if they complete onboarding. If they are successful, they have to seek out additional tasks on their own.
 * 2) Users are not provided much positive reinforcement for their first edits.

In accordance with our 2014-15 goals, we want to increase the activation rate of new editors on Wikipedia.

Proposed solution
We think that active recommendations that are personalized to the user's topical interests will dramatically increase engagement among new editors. Additionally, personalized recommendations may be a tool for continuing engagement.

There are basically no active task recommendations made to new editors on Wikipedia. The most helpful form of recommendations comes from more passive or opt-in methods, such as Community Portals, categories, and maintenance templates embedded in articles. Only one (SuggestBot) is really personalized to the user.

Hypotheses and research questions
Our full research documentation can be viewed at Research:Task recommendations.

User experience
We will start by providing task suggestions to the user immediately during their first edit session. We plan to do this via two methods: a post-edit recommendation in a modal, and via a flyout similar to MediaWiki's web notifications.

Later, if these suggestions prove to improve editor engagement and productivity, we will expand to include email/web notifications, and potentially a full landing page. Recommendations will first be targeted at first-time editors, but eventually may be delivered to anonymous editors and more experienced registered editors.

Post-edit recommendation
The first form of recommendation we will expand on the confirmation message delivered after each edit. On articles, users will see the users will receive the usual style of message, e.g. “Your edit was saved.” In addition, one relevant recommendation will be given. This recommendation is based on the current page just edited, and presents one recommendation for every saved edit.



The elements included are:


 * The edit saved confirmation
 * CTA title of “Edit a similar article”
 * Lead image, or image placeholder (as seen above)
 * Recommended page title
 * Human-readable timestamp of the last edit

Implementation
For the purposes of testing, we will serve recommendations by extending the GettingStarted extension's    API to support a  task type. Selecting this task type will allow you to return n pages related to a given source page, using CirrusSearch. For now, the API derives its recommendations via the page last edited via the user. (In the future, we may expand recommendations to be based on a user's entire edit history.)

The API filters pages that are not content pages (i.e. namespace zero only), and prevents you from recommending sensitive pages in Wikipedia's Category:Living people to users who are not autoconfirmed. It also requires you to set an excluded page, to avoid recommending the page the user is currently on.