Anonymous editor acquisition/Signup invites

This document describes proposed workflows for inviting anonymous editors to sign up for an account.

Current user experience
Currently, there are very few explicit invitations made to anonymous editors to sign up for an account. Not including help page documentation and other content that a reader would need to actively seek out, we know of only a few widespread calls to sign up for an account on Wikipedia:


 * 1) On every page view, links to "create account" or "log in" are present. These are persistent and highly visible, but do not make it clear why a user would want an account.
 * 2) On the login page, there is a call to register if you do not already have an account. This makes up a surprisingly large chunk of registrations on some wikis.
 * 3) On many Wikipedias, there is a notice delivered on the edit mode (in VisualEditor and wikitext editor) which directs you to log in or sign up for an account. It also typically informs the user about exposing their IP as an anonymous editor, and in English it links to a page documenting the benefits of signing up. This on notice makes up a significant number of registrations on the largest Wikipedias (between 9-15%).

Proposed user experience
These two options will be tested against a control.

Option 1: Pre-edit CTA

 * Context: One option for how to invite more anonymous editors to register would be to provide a call-to-action pre-edit. We believe that this may increase registrations of productive new editors and cause less annoyance to users, because it does not require the user to load the edit page and then abandon their edit if they do not wish to edit anonymously and have their IP exposed on save. The disadvantage is that it puts a small additional barrier between the anonymous user and reaching the edit screen. We should also consider whether this could replace MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning, thus reducing clutter on the edit screen.


 * Specification: When an user that is not logged in clicks "Edit" or "Edit source", they would be presented with a guider that provides them two options: a primary button to go to account creation, and a secondary button to continue to the appropriate edit mode as an anonymous user. This would work the same for section editing, and regardless of how the wiki editing interfaces are configured, e.g. regardless of whether VisualEditor is enabled for anonymous editors or not. Explanatory text should be provided that warns the user that they will have their IP address saved in a page's revision history.



Option 2: Post-edit CTA

 * Context: We believe that this interface change would increase the number of anonymous editors who register, because it targets users who successfully saved an edit anonymously and thus are potentially more high-value acquisitions. This workflow is also an addition to the current user experience, rather than a replacement, and is potentially less of an interruption or barrier to editing anonymously. The disadvantage of this workflow is that it could potentially confuse anonymous editors to see multiple calls to register, as well as confusion over why they would be asked to register after editing rather than before.


 * Specification: in this workflow, the user would be given a call-to-action only after saving an edit anonymously. This guider would point directly to the "create account" link on the site. It provides explanation as to why we encourage prolific or repeat editors to sign up, giving the user a reason for registering and context. If they dismiss the CTA and continue to edit anonymously, the user should not be presented with the CTA multiple times.