Extension:GrowthExperiments

**MediaWiki extensions manual**
GrowthExperiments; Release status: stable
Implementation	Special page
Description	Contains experiments done by the Growth team
Author(s)	Stephane Bisson, Sergio Gimeno, Kosta Harlan, Roan Kattouw, Mew Ophaswongse, Gergő Tisza, Martin Urbanec
Compatibility policy	Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backward compatible.
PHP	7.2+
Database changes	Yes
Virtual domain	virtual-growthexperiments
	Tables growthexperiments_link_recommendations; ; growthexperiments_link_submissions; ; growthexperiments_mentee_data; ; growthexperiments_mentor_mentee; ; growthexperiments_user_impact;
	Parameters $wgGENewcomerTasksRemoteArticleOrigin; $wgWelcomeSurveyExperimentalGroups; $wgGEUserImpactMaxThanks; $wgGEStructuredMentorList; $wgGEMediaInfoRepos; $wgGERestbaseUrl; $wgGEHomepageSuggestedEditsEnabled; $wgGEApiQueryGrowthTasksLookaheadSize; $wgGEMentorDashboardEnabledModules; $wgGEReviseToneSuggestedEditEnabled; $wgGENewcomerTasksTaskTypeHandlers; $wgGELevelingUpKeepGoingNotificationSendAfterSeconds; $wgGEHelpPanelNewAccountEnableWithHomepage; $wgGECampaigns; $wgGEMentorshipNewAccountEnablePercentage; $wgGENewcomerTasksRemoteApiUrl; $wgGEPersonalizedPraiseBackendEnabled; $wgGENewcomerTasksSectionImageRecommendationsEnabled; $wgGEDeveloperSetup; $wgGEReviseToneServiceUrl; $wgGELinkRecommendationServiceWikiIdMasquerade; $wgGEImageRecommendationServiceWikiIdMasquerade; $wgGEPersonalizedPraiseNotificationsEnabled; $wgGEUserImpactMaxEdits; $wgGEMentorshipCleanupEnabled; $wgGEImageRecommendationServiceAccessToken; $wgGELevelingUpManagerInvitationThresholds; $wgGELevelingUpNotificationsTrackingEnabled; $wgGEReviseToneRecommendationProvider; $wgGELinkRecommendationsFrontendEnabled; $wgWelcomeSurveyReminderExpiry; $wgGENewcomerTasksImageRecommendationsEnabled; $wgGEImageRecommendationServiceUseTitles; $wgGEImageRecommendationServiceUrl; $wgGEUserImpactMaximumProcessTimeSeconds; $wgGECommunityUpdatesEnabled; $wgGECampaignTopics; $wgGEImageRecommendationServiceHttpProxy; $wgGELinkRecommendationsRefreshByIteratingThroughAllTitles; $wgGEReviseToneExcludedTemplates; $wgGEReviseToneOverrideSearchTerm; $wgGEHelpPanelSearchForeignAPI; $wgGEReviseToneParagraphScoreThreshold; $wgGELinkRecommendationsUseEventGate; $wgGEReviseToneExcludedCategories; $wgGELinkRecommendationServiceUrl; $wgGEUserImpactMaxArticlesToProcessForPageviews; $wgWelcomeSurveyEnabled; $wgGEHelpPanelSuggestedEditsPreferredEditor; $wgGEImageRecommendationApiHandler; $wgGELinkRecommendationServiceTimeout; $wgGERefreshUserImpactDataMaintenanceScriptEnabled; $wgGEMentorshipReassignMenteesBatchSize; $wgGELinkRecommendationMinimumTasksPerTopic; $wgGETopicsMatchModeEnabled; $wgWelcomeSurveyAllowFreetextResponses; $wgGELevelingUpGetStartedNotificationSendAfterSeconds; $wgWelcomeSurveyPrivacyStatementUrl; $wgGEHomepageDefaultVariant; $wgGEPersonalizedPraiseMaxReverts; $wgGEHelpPanelNewAccountEnablePercentage; $wgGELinkRecommendationServiceAccessToken; $wgGEHomepageSuggestedEditsEnableTopics; $wgGENewcomerTasksLinkRecommendationsEnabled; $wgGELevelingUpManagerTaskTypeCountThresholdMultiple;
	Tags help panel question, help module question, mentorship module question, newcomer task
	Added rights setmentor; managementors; enrollasmentor;
	Hooks used APIGetAllowedParams; AuthChangeFormFields; AuthPreserveQueryParams; BeforeCreateEchoEvent; BeforePageDisplay; BlockIpComplete; CentralAuthPostLoginRedirect; ChangeTagsListActive; ChangesListSpecialPageStructuredFilters; CirrusSearchAddQueryFeatures; CirrusSearchScoreBuilder; CommunityConfigurationProvider_initList; CommunityConfigurationSchemaBeforeEditor; ConfirmEmailComplete; ContributeCards; CreateAccountShouldShowUsernamePolicyPopover; FormatAutocomments; GetPreferences; ListDefinedTags; LoadExtensionSchemaUpdates; LocalUserCreated; ManualLogEntryBeforePublish; MediaWikiServices; MessageCacheFetchOverrides; ParserFirstCallInit; PostLoginRedirect; RecentChange_save; RenameUserComplete; ResourceLoaderExcludeUserOptions; ResourceLoaderGetConfigVars; ResourceLoaderRegisterModules; SidebarBeforeOutput; SiteNoticeAfter; SkinAddFooterLinks; SkinMinervaOptionsInit; SkinTemplateNavigation::Universal; SpecialContributionsBeforeMainOutput; SpecialCreateAccountBenefits; SpecialPageBeforeExecute; SpecialPage_initList; UserGetDefaultOptions; UserGetRights; VisualEditorApiVisualEditorEditPostSave; VisualEditorApiVisualEditorEditPreSave; WikimediaEventsShouldSchemaEditAttemptStepOversample;
Licence	GNU General Public License 3.0 or later
Download	Download extension ; Git [?]: Browse repository (GitHub); Gerrit code review; Git commit log; Download source tarball;
	Translate the GrowthExperiments extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Vagrant role	growthexperiments
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

Translate this page

The GrowthExperiments extension provides newcomer features, such as a homepage with suggested tasks and finding mentors. It is developed by the Growth team for use on Wikimedia Foundation sites. The extension includes:

a survey during registration
some improvements to registration confirmation emails
a homepage for inexperienced users with various helpful features, which also serves as an entry point for most other functionality
showing a custom signup page to users who arrive through an outreach campaign
suggesting easy tasks with guidance to new users , including some structured editing experiences based on suggested links and suggested images
a help panel for suggested tasks and for generic editing, providing information and allowing communication with an assigned mentor
features for mentors to better support newcomers
showing information to new users about the impact they are making on the wiki

Integrations

GrowthExperiments integrates with the following extensions:

Hard dependencies

These dependencies are required to install GrowthExperiments.


Extension	Description
CommunityConfiguration	to allow administrators to customise the extension based on their needs
VisualEditor	for a better editing experience when doing suggested tasks

Soft dependencies

These extensions are optional, but the behaviour of GrowthExperiments without those extensions present is not heavily tested.


Extension	Description
CentralAuth	to exclude locked users from the Mentor dashboard
CirrusSearch	for various search features used during suggested tasks
ConfirmEdit	TBD
Echo	for informing new users and mentors about various opportunities
EventBus	to inform Add Image infrastructure about user decisions about recommendations
EventLogging	to log user interaction for analysis purposes
Flow	for messaging features ("ask help" dialog on the homepage and in the help panel) when the target page is a Flow page
GuidedTour	to guide new users through the interface
MobileFrontend	for showing a mobile-optimized version of various features
PageImages	for getting the thumbnails showing in the "Surfacing structured tasks"-experiment
PageViewInfo	for various interface elements trying to explain the user's current or potential impact, most notably the "impact" module on Special:Homepage
Thanks	to compute the number of Thanks received in User impact data
TextExtracts	for getting an extract from an article when the descriptions from Wikibase (see above) or Wikibase itself are not available. Also for use in the "Surfacing structured tasks"-experiment
UniversalLanguageSelector	for language selection in the post-registration survey
Wikibase	for getting the descriptions showing in the "Surfacing structured tasks"-experiment
WikimediaMessages	to populate the list of topics in Suggested edits

Web APIs

The extension also uses some web APIs which are probably unavailable for non-Wikimedia wikis:

Page Content Service for displaying task card information such as a description and an image
Analytics Query Service for interface elements related to impact (this is abstracted away via the PageViewInfo extension on the server-side, but for client-side features that's not always possible)
Add Link for link recommendation tasks
Add Image for image recommendation tasks

Installation

To download GrowthExperiments:

git clone "https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments" extensions/GrowthExperiments

Read the developer setup documentation for further configuration required.

Development

Extension:GrowthExperiments/developer setup
Extension:GrowthExperiments/Technical documentation
Quickstart with MediaWiki Docker: see MediaWiki-Docker/Extension/GrowthExperiments .

This extension is being used on one or more Wikimedia projects. This probably means that the extension is stable and works well enough to be used by such high-traffic websites. Look for this extension's name in Wikimedia's CommonSettings.php and InitialiseSettings.php configuration files to see where it's installed. A full list of the extensions installed on a particular wiki can be seen on the wiki's Special:Version page.