MediaWiki/Homepage improvements 2018

This page is about potential improvements to the mediawiki.org front page as per October 01, 2018. It is both about content and presentation changes. No intention of a complete redesign, but improvements to allow audiences to better find the relevant information that they are likely looking for. We might not be able to make everything perfect but we can certainly try to make it better.

Please discuss and provide input on the discussion page, based on the time line below. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Scope

 * Content on the mediawiki.org front page itself.
 * Out of scope: Discussing whether mediawiki.org is a place purely for MediaWiki core and extensions and skins versus also a place for "other Wikimedia software". Feel free to start a separate thread or initiative about that.
 * Out of scope: Discussing the site-wide side bar content on mediawiki.org. Feel free to start a separate thread or initiative about that later.

Current problems

 * Duplication of content
 * Example: Three links to download MediaWiki (if you include side bar content), "Current version" duplicates what's already listed under "News".
 * Unclear link targets; links spread over a good number of navigation areas
 * Names of links should be more goal oriented when possible: Why should I click "Contribute"? Why should I "Use our APIs?"
 * Example: "support desk" under "Welcome to MediaWiki.org" vs "Help and support" under "Welcome to MediaWiki.org" vs "Get more help" under "Using MediaWiki". Does that imply that I will find a manual (read)? Or a place for questions and answers (ask)?
 * "Developing & Extending": Extending is currently listed in a more development oriented box, but I might want to "extend" my installation as a sysadmin?
 * Missing or hard-to-find content for some audiences
 * Example: "Translate content" (for translators) is only somewhere down in the side bar
 * Example: Where do testers go? To Selenium probably nowadays?
 * Example: Manual:FAQ is only linked from the side bar; Manual:Errors and symptoms is not linked at all so people repeat common questions on the Support Desk. Pages are not among the top 100 page views. Currently there is some fragmentation of answers and knowledge, and hence likely lost energy.
 * Example: As a sysadmin, will MediaWiki solve my problem? I'm supposed to read "Manual:What is MediaWiki?" hidden behind "About MediaWiki" but there is also a link "What is a wiki" to enwp under "Using MediaWiki". I still won't know its features (probably https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Principles comes closest as high-level overview, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:MediaWiki_feature_list exists and is long and partially outdated). Manual:Deciding whether to use a wiki as your website type might be worth to link? Professional development and consulting might be worth to link?
 * Also define who is not a main audience of this site (Tool developers? Researchers?) and redirect to more appropriate resources. The scope between "MediaWiki core and extensions" vs "other Wikimedia software" is already blurry as some other Wikimedia software projects also have pages on mediawiki.org, the front page should focus on MediaWiki and its extensions and skins mostly.
 * Content for same audience spread in different places
 * Example: The "News" box recently only listed new MW releases, only relevant for administrators. (That might change if News was updated by more parties (who to feel co-responsible?) to also include for example conferences/events (SMWCon, Hackathons, etc?) or if the section also linked to Tech/News)
 * Irrelevant content.
 * Example: How many people care about the exact numbers and release dates of the latest MediaWiki tarball versions on the front page, and what does it mean that my version is not listed here? If people want to download MediaWiki they should go to the Download page. If administrators think for some reason they should upgrade MediaWiki they should go to Manual:Upgrading. I doubt anyone informs themselves about a need for an upgrade of their installation by visiting the front page and then manually comparing with their version.
 * Example: "For general questions about MediaWiki see the communication page": How that page help me exactly if some venues are already recommended on this very page?
 * Misleading content.
 * Example: "Add features with third-party extensions" - The listed extensions are not all "third-party".
 * Page does not tell you that there is also a community that in theory anyone can join, and not only software project(s).
 * Visually looks a bit more dated than needed. (This is highly subjective though and I might be proven wrong.)

Audiences
Define the main target audiences. Provide paths for audiences based on which actions they intend to perform / which goals they have in mind. Must cover both new people that have not been exposed to MediaWiki/Wikimedia before, and current users.

Time frame: Oct 01 – Oct 22 (✅)

Announcements:
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Current_issues : https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Ulqmczfellxvgrul
 * https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l : https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-September/090886.html
 * https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l : https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2018-September/047631.html
 * Is there another important place that I have forgotten?

Regarding prior research, is high-level (audiences of mediawiki.org can be found "Build", "Use" and to some extent "Distribute"); meta:Research:Growth and diversity of Technology team audiences/Report is only per software project; semantic-mediawiki.org offers "General | Users | Administrators | Developers".

Proposal for main audiences to target:


 * General (high-level info, across actions/audiences, mostly to inform potential new adopters/contributors)
 * Edit and use (users/editors of MediaWiki and extensions)
 * Administrate (potential and existing maintainers of a MediaWiki installation)
 * Develop (potential and existing volunteers and professionals who code)
 * More (Translators, Tech Ambassadors, Documentation writers, Testers, Researchers, etc)

Must cover both new people that have not been exposed to MediaWiki/Wikimedia before, and current users.

Results
Feedback showed general agreement on the major audiences (though with different opinions how to name the audiences). Hence the audiences are described by summarizing their actions, instead of trying to find names for audiences. It was also pointed out that other audiences should be pointed to better suited locations.


 * Edit and use MediaWiki (Users)
 * Set up and run MediaWiki (Administrators)
 * Develop and work on code (Developers)
 * (People visiting mediawiki.org for the first time)
 * Contribute and join our community (covering further audiences, such as Translators, Tech Ambassadors, Documentation writers, Testers, Researchers, etc)

Content
Define content (information, links) to present to each audience defined in the previous step, based on most common actions each audience performs. (Start with existing content/links; remove any duplication; carefully add additional useful items and rephrase when needed. Link to main {user|developer|admin} manual for each audience, etc.)

Time frame: Dec 11 – Jan 01, 2019

Decide which recommended links should be exposed on the frontpage and which links should instead be on pages linked from the frontpage. (For example, covering the developer audience per programming language). These linked pages might also require some cleanup. In general, mediawiki.org offers lots of pages whose content partially overlaps.

While data on the most popular pages on mediawiki.org is available, it does not offer yearly data, counts separately when a page was accessed via a "Special:MyLanguage" URL, and does not allow summarizing all translated versions of a specific page. Cleaned data could potentially be used to identify both popular pages that should be on the frontpage and pages which are less popular but are considered important or helpful and hence should receive more exposure.

Make clear that MediaWiki.(org) is both software and a vibrant community.

Proposal for content per actions/audiences: TBD

Announcements:
 * TBD

Results
TBD

Layout
Define presentation and layout of information per audience defined in previous step. (In general: Avoid bigger changes; any potential changes must be accessible and work on smaller screens. Header: High-level explanation what MediaWiki is and offers, for people who have not been exposed to MediaWiki before; Limited number of links to more specific information; One Download/Get link; Plus it's a community? Areas with most relevant information, by audiences/actions? Translation box at bottom? This phase likely has the biggest danger of bikeshedding.)

Time frame: Jan 08 – Jan 29, 2019

Announcements:
 * TBD

Results
TBD

Implementation
Technically implement the content defined in the previous step. (Current page uses templates which use templates which are only used on this very page (example) - there might be technical reasons for such complexity that the author does not understand. TODO: Find someone who can explain the Templates on the current frontpage and why they are considered useful in case they are not used on any other page?)

Time frame: After Jan 29, 2019

Announcements:
 * TBD

Results
TBD

Previous attempts

 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki/Homepage_redesign
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/MediaWiki.org_Main_Page_tweaks