Growth/Personalized first day/Structured tasks/Add an image

This page describes work on an "add an image" structured task, which is a type of structured task that the Growth team will offer through the newcomer homepage. The Android team is also thinking about a similar task for the Wikipedia Android app using the same underlying components. Discussion and updates on this page is relevant to the work of both teams. This page contains major assets, designs, open questions, and decisions. Most incremental updates on progress will be posted on the general 1>Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Growth team updates|Growth team updates page, with some large or detailed updates posted here.

Current status

 * 2020-06-22: initial thinking about ideas to create a simple algorithm to recommend images.
 * 2020-09-08: evaluated a first attempt at a matching algorithm in English, French, Arabic, Korean, Czech, Vietnamese.
 * 2020-09-30: evaluated a second attempt at a matching algorithm in English, French, Arabic, Korean, Czech, Vietnamese.
 * 2020-10-26: internal engineering discussion of possible feasibility for image recommendation service.

Summary
Structured tasks are meant to break down editing tasks into step-by-step workflows that make sense for newcomers and make sense on mobile devices. The Growth team believes that introducing these new kinds of editing workflows will allow more new people to begin participating on Wikipedia, some of whom will learn to do more substantial edits and get involved with their communities. After discussing the idea of structured tasks with communities, we decided to build the first structured task: "add a link".

Even as we build that first task, we have been thinking about what a next structured task could be, and we think that adding images could be a good fit for newcomers. The idea is that a simple algorithm would recommend images from Commons to be placed on articles that have no images. To start with, it would use only existing connections that can be found in Wikidata, and newcomers would use their judgment to place the image on the article or not.

We know that there are many open questions around how this would work, many potential reasons that it might not go right. That's why we are hoping to hear from lots of community members and have an ongoing discussion as we decide how to proceed.

Why images?
Looking for substantial contributions

When we first discussed structured tasks with community members, many pointed out that adding wikilinks is not a particularly high-value type of edit. Community members brought up ideas for how newcomers could make more substantial contributions. One idea is images. Wikimedia Commons contains 65 million images, but in many Wikipedias, over 50% of articles have no images. We believe that many images from Commons can make Wikipedia substantially more illustrated.

Interest from newcomers

We know that many newcomers are interested in adding images to Wikipedia. "To add an image" is a common response newcomers give on the welcome survey for why they are creating their account. We also see that one of the most frequent help panel questions is about how to add images, true across all the wikis we work with. Though most of these newcomers are probably bringing their own image that they want to add, this hints at how images can be engaging and exciting. That makes sense, given the image-heavy elements of the other platforms that newcomers participate in -- things like Instagram and Facebook.

Difficulty of working with images The many help panel questions about images reflects that the process to add them to articles is too difficult. Newcomers have to understand the difference between Wikipedia and Commons, rules around copyright, and the technical parts of inserting and captioning the image in the right place. Finding an image in Commons for an unillustrated article requires even more skills, such as knowledge of Wikidata and categories.

Success of "Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos" campaign

The Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos campaign (WPWP) was a surprising success: 600 users added images to 85,000 pages. They did this with the assistance of a couple of community tools that identified pages that have no images, and which suggest possible images through Wikidata. This gives us confidence that users can be enthusiastic about adding images and that they can be assisted by tools.

Taking this all together

Thinking about all this information together, we think that it could be possible to build an "add an image" structured task that is both fun for newcomers and productive for Wikipedias.