Contributors/Mobile Web Editing Research

Group:	Product & Technology
Start:	2025-05
Team members:	This project is handled by the Mobile Web Editing Working Group
Backlog:	#T399628

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Background

Why Mobile-First Focus Now?

What the research is telling us about online content contribution

Participation in online communities has increased since the pandemic. People are actively engaging in digital spaces that offer meaningful and rewarding connections.

Mobile-First World, Desktop-First Editing

Mobile is an urgent priority because most new internet users are coming online through mobile devices, and global trends show a steady shift away from desktop usage.

(Note: Dates formatted as MM/DD/YYYY)

In the Global Majority for instance, roughly 70% of people access the internet exclusively via mobile. Yet, despite mobile web driving a significant portion of Wikipedia’s readership, only about 12% of successful edits come from mobile users. Mobile web edits both on visual and source editors have very high reversion rates across all user groups. This trend highlights serious limitations in Wikimedia’s mobile infrastructure; barriers that effectively exclude large parts of the world from contributing.

At present, Wikipedia is not truly the encyclopedia that anyone can edit; it remains more accessible to those with the privilege of desktop access.

This project focuses on improving the mobile web editing experience on Wikipedia, with the goal of making mobile editing more accessible, successful, and sustainable for editors globally.

Our starting point for addressing the challenges to mobile web editing is through investigations into the problem space. This is captured by the WE1.1.6 Hypothesis of the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan 2025-2026:

If we investigate technical, social, and behavioural barriers and enablers to mobile web editing through user research and data analysis, we will generate at least 3 actionable insights that close key knowledge gaps and strengthen our ability to confidently prioritize product investments for the second half of FY25/26 and beyond.

This hypothesis is a result of the suggestion from the Product and Technology Advisory Council.

What does success look like?


#1	People can successfully contribute on mobile web without hitting technical barriers throughout the funnel	Increase in % of successfully saved edits made on mobile web Increase in % of constructive edits (non-reverted) on mobile web Enable non-editing content contributions by mobile editors, such as highlighting confusing sections or identifying unreferenced material
#2	Increase the number of retained editors who contribute primarily or exclusively on mobile devices
#3	Mitigate or reduce the burden on experienced editors and administrators as a result of the increase in new editors using mobile devices

Project Updates

April 2026 Update

Three Edit Check features have been tested and are now being rolled out more broadly, including on mobile web:

Paste Check detects when newer editors paste large amounts of text and asks them to confirm authorship to help prevent copyright violations.
1. The research results were positive, indicating an 18% decrease in the quantity of reverted edits for editors who saw this check, relative to the control group
Tone Check identifies potentially non-neutral language and prompts editors to revise it.
1. The research results were positive, indicating an improved rate of constructive edits (edits that were not reverted) by +6.2% relative to the control group, across the three wikis where it was measured (French, Japanese, and Portuguese).
2. Tone Check appears especially effective at increasing retention. People who encountered a Tone Check are +24% more likely to return again to make a constructive edit in their second week.
Reference Check encourages editors to add citations when contributing new content.
1. The research results were positive, indicating that it significantly increased the likelihood of references being included: from 30.7% to 68.2% on desktop (~2.2×), and from 2.8% to 48.9% on mobile web (~17.5×).

In addition to the deployment of new Edit Checks, the team introduced a new button to transition from Section-editing to Full-page editing in mobile web. The research results were generally positive, with logged-in users who click on the Edit Full Page Button being 55.6% more likely to complete their edit relative to the control group and logged out users being 3.5% more likely to publish a constructive section edit.

Mobile Web Editing Insights

We recently published part 1 of Insights on mobile web editing on Wikipedia in 2025 on the Diff blog. A summary of key findings follows:

Only 16% of clicks from registered desktop editors using wikitext produce nearly 60% of all visible edits on Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, the mobile web now accounts for the majority of Wikipedia readership but contributes only a small share of edits. This represents a significant untapped opportunity to convert readers into editors.

Data shows that the highest drop-off occurs among mobile web editors. Around 95% of IP mobile users who open the wikitext editor make no changes at all before leaving.

This pattern extends beyond IP editors: even registered mobile users frequently visit the editor without completing an edit.

Additionally, mobile web edits are more likely to be reverted than desktop edits. Even registered editors experience higher reversion rates when contributing on mobile.

In short, mobile is where the people are, but not where the majority of edits are made. The drop-off suggests there is strong potential to engage mobile editors that remains unrealized.

While these findings shed light on key differences in mobile web editing, the reasons for contributor drop-off are still being explored. The Working Group is concluding its research and had recommended next steps to help WMF teams better engage mobile audiences.

September 2025

Focused Research on Edit Abandonment: Selected “Abandons Edit” as the focal research topic for the rest of the quarter. Began deeper investigation into why mobile web users start—but do not complete—edits at much higher rates when compared to desktop.
Synthesis and Recommendations in Progress: Compiling insights across all workstreams into a final deliverable containing actionable recommendations for mobile web. These insights aim to inform future A/B tests, product experiments, and Q3/Q4 planning across the Contributor Product team.

August 2025

Wikimania 2025: An interactive roundtable was held to explore the challenges and opportunities of mobile editing, examining usability barriers, technical limitations, and the unique advantages of mobile contributions. Participants engaged in a collaborative discussion to share experiences, identify key pain points, and brainstorm solutions to make Wikipedia a truly mobile-friendly and accessible platform for all. Read more .
Wishlist Insights Synthesized: Findings from community Wishlist proposals highlighted several mobile-specific feature requests: adding a minor edit checkbox for source editors, making typo fixes easier, showcasing talk page issues more visibly, and expanding AI-based task suggestions for both new and experienced editors.

July 2025

Mobile Web Editing Working Group (MWEWG): Established as part of the FY25/26 Annual Plan Objective - Contributor Experiences | Key result - WE1.1: Increase the rate at which editors with ≤100 cumulative edits publish constructive edits on mobile web | Hypothesis WE 1.6 - Generating insights into mobile web to close key product knowledge gaps.
Synthesis of past mobile web research: To inform potential research topics, the group conducted a review and synthesis of past mobile web editing research and insights. This synthesis allowed the working group to focus on high priority mobile web knowledge gaps.
User journey UI review completed, mapping workflows from account creation to edit submission. This foundational step uncovered usability friction points, especially for mobile IP users and junior contributors.
Quantitative user journey analysis completed to explore where mobile web contributors disproportionately drop off, comparing surface types (mobile vs desktop), editor interface and registration status (IP vs registered). The findings of this work will be shared in the next few weeks.
Wishlist Review: Launched an internal review of community Wishlist proposals relevant to mobile editing, to better understand recurring pain points and contributor needs.
IP Blocks & Mobile Editing: Analysis revealed that the pilot deployment of Temporary Accounts led to a significant drop in IP-based blocks across wikis, suggesting that admins are now blocking individual temporary accounts rather than entire IP ranges. This shift marks a meaningful reduction in collateral damage from traditional IP blocks and supports more targeted moderation of bad actors. The shift toward Temporary Accounts is especially promising for mobile editing, where users often face IP blocks due to shared or rotating IPs from cellular networks.

Mobile Web Editing: Opportunities for Improvement

Through our quantitative research, UI reviews, user journey mapping, analysis of successful newcomer behaviors, review of the Community Wishlist and mobile Phabricator reports, and discussions with Wikimania attendees, we identified several key areas for improvement. We welcome your feedback on the ongoing and planned work below.

Improvement	Changes	Currently Prioritised (Since November 2025)	Status	Team
Welcome survey interruption	New users can now finish their first edit before being prompted with the Welcome Survey, improving their initial experience.	Prioritised: T397193	Completed	Growth
Help panel UX	Fixed regressions that broke the Help Panel on mobile; it now functions correctly again.	Prioritised: T399864	Completed	Growth
Exit the Editor	Investigate why newcomers abandon the editing process before making changes.	Prioritised: T403990	In progress	Movement Insights
Deepening Reader Engagement (Reading Lists )	Create clear incentives for Readers to engage and create accounts.	Prioritised: T397532	In progress	Reader Experience
IP Blocks (Temp Accounts )	Introducing temporary accounts to reduce accidental IP blocks for mobile users on shared networks.	Prioritised: temporary_accounts/	Completed; gradual rollout	Product Safety and Integrity
IP Blocks (communication)	Mobile editors under overlapping blocks, common when they're using iCloud Private Relay or similar, are now told why they're blocked and how to address it.	T357118	Completed (There are new suggestions for follow up UI changes)	Editing
Structured Tasks (Revise Tone )	Helping newcomers get started through guided tasks & edit suggestions.	Prioritised: T396162	In progress; A/B testing	Growth
Edit Checks	A set of improvements for the visual editor to help new volunteers understand and follow policies and guidelines.	Prioritised: T265163	In progress; gradual rollout	Editing
Improve Logged-out Edit UX	Making the “edit while logged out” warning message less harsh and more encouraging of account creation.	Prioritised: T408484 T407497	In progress: A/B testing on pilot wikis	Growth
Section Editing Dead-end	Allowing users to easily continue editing beyond the lead section to prevent frustration.	Prioritized: T409112	Completed	Editing
Account Creation Improvements	Simplifying the account signup process to make it shorter, clearer, and more welcoming.	Prioritized: T409236 Contributors/Account Creation Experiments	In progress	Growth
More mobile editing tools in VE	Expanding access to more editing tools (e.g., infoboxes) for mobile users.	Prioritized: T385851	In progress	Editing
Work not yet prioritised (You can give feedback on these opportunities) [edit]
VE default on Mobile (enwiki)	English Wikipedia still defaults to Wikitext for temp accounts and new accounts; switching to VE could significantly improve newcomer success.	Needs community agreement		Editing
Edit Call-To-Action	Making the edit button clearer and more discoverable on mobile. Related: Community_Wishlist/W496	Not prioritised		Editing
Improve Icon Clarity	Improving the visual clarity of icons in Visual Editor and Wikitext to reduce confusion.	Not prioritised		Editing