Growth/FAQ

Welcome to the Growth team Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). We hope you will find the information you need. However, if it is not the case, let us know.

''Note for translators: this page is updated regularly, which may impact your work. We are doing our best to avoid these disturbances.''

Which features are you working on?

 * Newcomer homepage: a new special page, the best place for a newcomer to get started. It includes:
 * Newcomer tasks: a feed of task suggestions that help newcomers learn to edit. Newcomers have been making productive edits through this feed! Know more about this tool.
 * Mentorship module [optional]: each newcomers has a direct link to an experienced user. This way, they can ask questions about editing Wikipedia, less the need to find where to ask for assistance.
 * Impact module: the user sees how many pages views articles they edit received.
 * Help panel: a platform to provide resources to newcomers while they are editing. If they choose one of the suggested tasks on the newcomer homepage, they are guided step-by-step on the process of editing.
 * Welcome Survey: communities can know why newcomers create an account on Wikipedia.

You can have a look at our features summary to know more about it.

Are Growth features effective?
The Growth team found evidence of the effectiveness of these new features. In short; Growth feature "newcomer tasks" leads to increases in:


 * the probability that newcomers make their first article edit (+11.6%)
 * the probability that they are retained as editors
 * the number of edits they make during their first couple of weeks on the wiki (+22%)

We also find that the quality of their edits is comparable to that of a control group. Based on this, we believe that all Wikipedias should consider deploying Growth features.

The interface is partially translated. How can I change this?
Translations are listed at translatewiki.net. This wiki requires needs a different account that the one you use at Wikipedia.

It takes up to one week to see new translations being deployed.

Special pages names require a special process. For,  ,     and  , please contact us directly with the translations.

Can I test the features?
On wikis where the Growth features are available, and also on test.wikipedia.org, go to your user preferences on one of these wikis and then:

Don't forget to enable both preferences options.
 * enable the Help panel in the  tab.
 * enable the Newcomer homepage in the ' tab. Enabling the Newcomer homepage gives you access to Newcomer tasks'''.

How can new accounts get the features?
On wikis where the Growth features have been deployed, and where an A/B test is active, 80% of new accounts will get the features automatically; the remaining 20% will be part of a control group. This control group exists so that the Growth team can compare both experiences.

On wikis where the Growth features have been deployed, and where no A/B test is active, 100% of new account get the features.

How can existing accounts get the features?
On wikis where the Growth features have been deployed, anyone can find the features in their Preferences.

I host a workshop. How can I control if my students get the features when they create an account?
It is possible to have a link parameter to control access to the features:


 * will force Growth features at account creation
 * will force the default experiment at account creation

Of course, this parameter should have a very limited use. It would impact the data collected by Growth team around account creation and the usage of the features. Please let us know if you plan to use these parameters.

Homepage
The following items are only valid for the wikis where the Growth features have been deployed.

How to access the homepage?
If you recently created your account on Wikipedia, the homepage is accessible by clicking on your username, the link located at the top right of any page.

If you already have an account on Wikipedia, you need to enable the homepage in your preferences. When done, the homepage is accessible by clicking on your username, or on your talk page link. There, you will find a new tab that goes to your homepage. You also have an option in your preferences to go directly to your homepage when you click on your username.

My email is requested, or my email is displayed at the top of the Homepage. Why?
We assume that most people know how to use an email. As a consequence, we encourage users to add their email so that they can get notifications, like when they are mentioned by other users on wiki.

The email address won't be visible by other users. Communication with other users all happen on the wiki.

How topics and tasks are suggested?
We suggest articles that are a combination of both the selected topics and the tasks you'd like to work on.

If you only select task types, you get all articles that have the template corresponding to the task type. For instance, if you select no topic and "Copyedit" as a task, you will have up to 200 articles about copyediting, about any topic.

If you select "Europe" as a topic and "Copyedit" as a task, you will have up to 200 articles about Europe that have a template about copyediting.

If you add "Expand article" to the previous selection, you have articles that are about Europe, and either about copyediting and expanding.

If you add "Asia" to the previous selection, you will have article either about Europe or Asia, and either about copyediting and expanding.

I don't have any task for a given combination. Is it normal?
Some topics don't have a lot of articles. As a consequence, they have less articles being tagged with maintenance templates, leading to a limited choice.

How to provide more tasks for newcomers?
Newcomers are invited to work on 5 maintenance tasks, ranked by level of difficulty: Tasks are listed based on maintenance templates. To increase the number of tasks being available, you can:


 * Add other templates that match the definition of the task to  on your wiki
 * Add maintenance templates to more articles on your wiki.

Sometimes, easy tasks are not available because experienced editors work on them. We advise experienced users to work on more difficult tasks instead, to let newcomers having a chance to make their first edits.

Can we suggest a new task type, or assign a different difficulty level to an existing task?
It is not possible at the moment. Please let us know about your potential project.

How to monitor which topics or which tasks need more articles?
Please use.

Can I monitor which articles have been edited as Suggested edits?
Articles edited as Suggested Edits are tagged as such in Recent Changes and Watchlist.

What is the accuracy of Add a link predictions?
The following item is only valid for the wikis where Structured tasks - Add a link has been deployed.

The predictions are, on average, accurate at 70%.

Some people asked us if it would be possible to have a better prediction. It would be, but it would diminish the interest of the task. We encourage newcomers to understand why a suggested link would be (or wouldn't be) interesting for readers, and to decide weather they should include it. Higher prediction rate would remove any interest for the task, since including links would be the default answer.

A user uses the tools in an nonconstructive way. What can I do?
Overall, users make more constructive edits using the Growth features. However, you can see a given user who doesn't follow the guidance, and uses the tools in an inappropriate manner.

The most appropriate way to handle these situation is to apply the usual process for nonconstructive behavior:


 * 1) try to understand what the use tries to do,
 * 2) contact this user, explain the situation and guide them to a different path if it exists,
 * 3) if the nonconstructive behavior persists, then block the user.

If repetitive and similar nonconstructive edits are made at your wiki, please let us know. Add to your message some diffs as examples of nonconstructive edits so that the Growth team can analyse the situation and think about a solution.

I'm testing the features. I enabled the Homepage in my user preferences. Wen I select an article to improve on the Homepage, I don't see any guidance on the article.
Have you turned the Help panel on in your preferences? If yes, please let us know about this issue.

How is mentoring working with the Growth features?
Each new account receives a mentor randomly taken from a list of volunteers.

Have you considered to only assign a mentor to people who first make some edits?
We don't know what each individual user needs. Some new users may need a confirmation of their right to edit before making their first edit, or with would like to have more information about editing. As a consequence, we provide a mentor to each new account. It is then up to the newcomer to contact their mentor.

How many mentors does a wiki need?
Based on our observation, we advise to have one mentor for each group of 500 new users your wiki gets per month. For instance, if your wiki has 2,500 new accounts per month, your wiki should have at least 5 mentors.

We recommend to have at least 3 mentors.

How many messages does a mentor receive per week?
It is difficult to know. It depends on how motivated newcomers are, and on the number of mentors for the wiki.

On average, we observe between 0 to 6 messages per week, with important fluctuations between weeks.

How can I display the mentor of a given user? / How to add the mentor name to our welcome message?
Type the magic word in a wikitext page, and preview. "Foo" has to be replaced by the username you target. This will display the name of Foo's mentor.

This magic word can be used in a template: welcome message, user talk page messages, userbox, etc.

If the mentor changes, then the magic word picks the new mentor's name.

You can subst: this message if needed:. Foo's mentor will then be saved as wikitext.

Our wiki already has a mentoring project. Is the Growth mentoring system replacing it?
We assume that your mentoring system is a list of experienced users who are available for motivated new users, who have specific questions about specific topics. Most are listed on Wikidata.

It is up to your community to find the right way to integrate the Growth mentoring feature. Some options include:

Replace your mentoring system with the new one

If your mentoring system hasn't much success, it could be replaced by the Growth team features.

Have both systems working in parallel

You can imagine to have two roles:


 * Growth mentoring takes care of the newcomers basic questions,
 * The existing mentoring can take care of newcomers who are more involved.

In this case, you might have to locally translate the interface for Growth features using your own terms.

Can we reassign a newcomer to a different mentor?
Yes, it is possible using.

A mentor just quit. Can we reassign all their newcomer to different mentors?
You can use  to reassign  but if you want to reassign all newcomers, please contact us directly.

We are currently working on a Mentor dashboard that will allow mentors to reassign all newcomers at one if needed.

What kinds of questions do newcomers ask?
From the observations we have made, questions are mostly about basic editing.

Some questions are social interactions ("hello"), coming from users who try the tools to check if someone would respond. We encourage you to respond to these greetings, since they can be the beginning of some interactions.

Newcomers haven't replied to my messages. Why?
Two possible cases there:


 * Have you mentioned the user when responding? Newcomers don't know how to use the watchlist or other tools to monitor changes. The Homepage shows a way to come back to the mentor's talk page but mentioning them is most sucessful. A ping will action a notification, which is the most successful way to let newcomers know that they have an reply to their messages.
 * Newcomers don't come daily on the wikis. Some of them will respond after a few days, some others after a few weeks. Mentors, please consider this when you archive your user talk page.

Who can I ask if my mentor is not responding to me?
If your mentor is not available you can ask your question to the local help desk, or to any other experienced user.

As a mentor, how can I monitor the newcomers assigned to me?
We are currently working on a Mentor dashboard. This dashboard will soon be available for mentors.