Talk:Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage

Please read over the project page, and comment here with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?

Main page thoughts

This looks like a very promising concept to me. I use my watchlist as my Wikipedia "homepage" but I would love if I could have something better, the second or third version of this, one day. I would suggest the mainpage is not a great place - we know many readers visit the mainpage directly and so changing that when they become an editor does not seem helpful. However, perhaps, a banner could be placed on the main directing them to this page - which I think makes most sense as a Special page. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Barkeep49. The potential for this homepage idea to develop into something useful for experienced editors is something that also occurred to us. What are the sorts of things that you would want on a homepage geared toward experienced editors?

And yes, you are touching on an important point -- once we have a homepage up, how will we drive newcomers toward it? A banner on Main Page is on our list, along with: a link in the help panel, links from engagement emails, a bot posting a message on the user's talk page, and a link or redirect from when a user confirms their email address. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Just to underline what I was trying to say, the main driving point here was I think this shouldn't go on the Main Page - but do think this is worthwhile.

In terms of how it could be used by the experienced editor, it would be nice to see a way for Projects to be able to push content onto it to further that kind of work, a way for discussions to be highlighted, tie-ins to noticeboard/templates that require high skill levels based on the interests/permissions of the particular editor, while still having things like source this uncited fact, copy edit this article, or whatever it maybe that would work for newcomers. Barkeep49 ([./https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Barkeep49&action=edit&redlink=1 talk]) 00:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the Main Page isn't a good place to add editor-specific information, if only because at some point you're going to have to allow the editor to see what was removed or pushed down, and it's not exactly obvious how to decide that, or to explain what has been done, or why. John Broughton (talk) 01:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Barkeep49 and @John Broughton. Yes, we agree that changing Main Page would be a larger conversation and a more difficult challenge to tackle. Right now, we're gravitating toward the idea of "Add it as an additional tab on the User page". And we would redirect newcomers there when they click on their own username (the homepage would prompt users to go to their User page and create it.) What do you think of this tactic?

@Barkeep49 -- thanks for the thoughts on what an experienced editor would want to see in some kind of homepage. It sounds like the theme of what you're saying is that it's sort of like an expanded watchlist. You want to see in one place all the things that need your attention, whether they are edits to articles you're watching, tasks needing doing from a WikiProject you care about, or changes to important discussions. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I definitely think an additional tab is good. Your flow could be fine - would be curious what would happen in testing.

As to the homepage for the experienced editor, I don't know that describing it as an expanded watchlist is quite right. A good homepage, for me, would have some combination of the familiar - here are the things I like to do all grouped together so I can get to them easily - but also a sense of discovery of something that might interest me and I hadn't even known it was there. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:36, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Barkeep49 -- I think that's a good way to put it. Some of the familiar and some of the new. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

"Engagement" page

I think the title "Homepage" is problematical. An editor's "home" page is that editor's user page, which he/she can customize.

Something like "Engagement" or "Involvement" or "Editing" would be much better, I think.

One thing that wasn't clear from the project page is whether an editor can modify this page. I'd suggest that modifications be limited to actions that are pre-specified - delete, highlight, remove highlighting, move up or down in a list, or whatever. (One good option would be "Move to user page".)

Other notes:

• SuggestBot, on the English Wikipedia, if it's still around, is an interesting model.
• I'd vote for this as a tab for newcomers that is optional for experienced editors (and can be removed as a tab by going into Preferences)
• You absolutely want to post something on the User Talk page that this page has been created for the newcomer, as well as providing a link in a welcoming email.
• Designing this for experienced editors is scope creep, but a panel showing the "impact" of one's editing is great for any level of editor. Panels that could be added to the page, later, for experienced editors, might include things like information from projects that the editor has joined, edit counts (history summary), and tracking of modules completed within an editing self-study program.

John Broughton (talk) 01:40, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

@John Broughton -- I agree that we should probably think harder about the name. I didn't realize that people might think of their User page as a "homepage" -- I've always just thought of it as my "User" or "profile" page. One interesting thing to consider is that whatever name we land on will need to be translated into many languages (starting with Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese), and so it will probably be most important to convey to translators the concept that we're trying to cover with the name of the page. I think that concept is, "This is a place to get started each time you open up Wikipedia to edit." I wonder if a straightforward name that would translate well would be something like, "Your work". We can ask our contacts in those communities what phrase they recommend.

Yes, we're definitely keeping our eye on SuggestBot -- the creator, @MWang (WMF), is actually one of our team members! What do you like (or dislike) about that model?

I think it's a good idea to make that homepage (for lack of a better term at the moment) optional for experienced editors, but defaulted to "off". That's what we did for the help panel, and it's allowed experienced editors to try it out, so they know what newcomers are seeing.

We are definitely starting to think about how we will notify newcomers that the homepage exists, and a welcome message on User Talk and a welcoming email are both good ways. Other ways we can think of include CentralNotice banners, links in the help panel, a link on Main Page, and a redirect when someone confirms their email address. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

"My work"

I think this title, mentioned earlier, has a lot of promise. I'm going to keep suggesting that you think of the page as consisting of "panels", some of them editable by the user, some of them not.

So, for example, there might be a "To do" panel (editable), a "Suggestions" panel (not editable, but where the user can click to copy/post an item to another panel", an "Articles I want to edit" panel (editable), and "Articles I want to create" panel (ditto), an edit summary panel, a projects membership panel, and so on. And editable panels that have lists might allow the user to easily drag an item to another position in the list. John Broughton (talk) 00:54, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@John Broughton -- I think it's a good idea to eventually combine editable panels with non-editable ones. We're using the word "module" instead of "panel", but I think it's the same idea. Something I learned recently is that the word "personalized" refers to parts of software that the system makes specific to the user, whereas "customized" refers to parts of the software that the user makes specific to themselves. So I think you're saying that a good "homepage" would consist of both modules that the system personalizes and modules that the user customizes. We're going to be working on the system-provided kind first -- those are much easier for us to build -- but I think a natural place for this project to go would be to work on the user-customized kind. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:40, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Interesting distinction between "customized" and "personalized"; in any case, yes, you've got it exactly right what I'm suggesting. John Broughton (talk) 22:56, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Userpage as Homepage

[A tangent from the other topic, "Engagement" page, which I don't want to distract from...] [Preface: I love some of the ideas in the Newcomer homepage project. These are supplementary thoughts.]

Someone asked me recently:

> Whilst I was just a volunteer, what could Wikimedia (movement/foundation) have done better to make me feel I could grow?

I replied: "In a word, userpages.

The way that some editors use their userpages is fascinating. They use them:

• to track their to-do lists,
• to store notes and wikitext/snippets/citations they're using a lot (for easy copy&pasting),
• to list their accomplishments and accolades,
• to organize (and share) their bookmarks,
• to disclose their COIs,
• to write short autobiographies,
• to list their passions or affiliations (often in the form of those small 'userboxes'),
• to write essays and rambles,
• and more.

My Enwiki userpage has always been the first destination of the day for most of my volunteer activities - it loads faster than the watchlist, it contains my links to watchlists on other projects, and it contains my most frequently used bookmarks/snippets. I typically leave it open in a tab whilst I do anything else on the sites.

• I've only had a few designs myself. For a long time it looked like this: c.2007 version or like this c.2013 version
• but I have an (outdated) bookmark folder with a few dozen interesting variants, e.g.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dekimasu
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidcannon
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ElAmericano
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Graham87
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anna_Frodesiak
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Binksternet
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:John_Reid
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Neutrality
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philcha
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RichardF
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:A_bit_iffy

I've long-thought that there are some good ideas that could be extracted from the previous WMF research into userpages, to help both simplify & power-up the default experience (which is fairly-to-extremely complicated for non-technical people - and the English help docs (stuck circa 2007) are frankly terrifying).

I.e. The previous research included ideas such as automated boxes of statistics about the editor - I think many existing users would really love this. If we could provide that kind of thing but in the form of normal wiki Templates that would fit into the classic freeform pages (thus making most existing users happy), then we could potentially also offer an easy "create your own userpage from these few predefined skeletons" wizard system, which editors could then use normal page-editing to re-arrange and personalize, and thus make everyone happy. [!!]

Here are the 2 old WMF research projects (which never made it past the mockup or notes stage)

• In 2011, there was
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GlobalProfile/design
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GlobalProfile/Affiliation_scratchpad
• In 2013, there was
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Structured_profiles

TL;DR: We should help newcomers to use their actual userpages in ways that work for them (diverse ways for diverse people). Not a one-size-fits-all-solution (I think the GlobalProfile mockup idea was inherently flawed by its standardization approach), but give them help in finding the possibilities.

Because: Having a good userpage - especially one that is actively used, and can become their first browser destination for daily editing - can give editors a sense of personal connection to the sites, and also provide a space for an individualized (and sometimes 'humanized') element that can help people to relate to each other. –Quiddity (talk) 00:24, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The User pages look like GEOCITIES on a bad day :-) They are multipurpose - Who, What, achievements, likes, and the categories don't actually lead to any community interaction. I think boardgamegeek does this best, especially as some of the achievements are assigned externally.

I am having similar thoughts though about the home and main page, except that I think the Main page should be personalised for non anonymous new editors as a reward.; anonymous editors should see a a registered editor only block and a warning that anonymous is not as safe as registered :-)

Non-active editors need prods to return, visibility of a cohort, main projects , and their mentor contact .The emphasis should be things that build a healthy community - giving and receiving thanks, taking part in topics that are marked for archive that have not been marked as conflict by more than one person etc

The focus on Number of edits is unhealthy, and is gamed by BOTs. and older editors who do the 20 % of typing that generate 80 % od edits

We also owe a duty to editor to show much time they have spent on wiki this week - burn out is very bad/unsafe for wikipedians as others don't know it has occured as they just don't login. I have no doubt that others behaviour contributes to mental health, because some editors just see others as NPCs :-(

VISIBIILITY - Have a personalised main page for non anonymous editors to reward editors.

ViSIBILITY - CURRENT MAIN PAGE

- Far more than 5 to 7 items on the pages, so most of the main page is just skimmed as there is too much information.

- The left pane takes up a huge amount of real estate. is used by the minority, and should be move to an info tab

- A single featured article is ok, but you have to page for the featured picture,

- News is OK, but there should only be one item showing.

- The sister projects etc are irrelevant, and should be collapsed or just a feature project with a few lines.

-  The Adverts for projects shouldn't list the articles that work has to be done on (scary) It should give what people enjoy about

VISIBILITY - PROPOSED - The top right , have a welcome with Number of edits,  Which of your edits has the most views, number of edits, thanks given, received, tasks closed that did not involve conflict , number of hours editing this week - changing colour to help mental health, blah blah and mentor contact if gets too high

Similar for the thanks received by your cohort , Your mentors name, Achievements of your projects today The featured picture next to your name. I think the resistance to having an avatar is generational

NUDGES are Personalisation,  pride in a community, community spirit, support, incentives for good behaviour

Overall, Wikipedia is unwelcoming in part because experienced editors assume that the heroic days are over as we have all the pages we need. They see no need for new admins, or changes in policies, or in systems, or for new editors The decision by consensus often ends up being rule by the loudest or by experienced editors

But the Experienced editors are wrong.

fI you add up unanswered talk, maintenance tags, article tags, dead projects, lack of references, categories, and article quality then we probably have 30 years to go. Wakelamp (talk) 08:42, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

An important thing missing is a custom to-do list

One of the most important things that has been missing in mediawiki since its inception is a way to organize one's work and decide what to tackle on next. It may be a good idea to draw inspiration from similar systems such as wikihow's task list, Extension:CollaborationKit and wikia's public dev:special:community as well as its private admin-only Special:GoToInterwiki/wikia:c:Help:admin_Dashboard .

The latter in particular is a pretty good model to follow as it basically serves as a tool to help users familiarize themselves with wiki tools, and it also helps guide the administrators to make a wiki successful (in wikia's terms). Although some of the tasks therein apply only to admins, others are helpful to just about any contributor. In a perfect world, both a private and a public dashboard would be available as that creates a sense of collaboration.

Currently wiki users must use awful hacks such as creating lists of pages in the user namespace, risking vandalism, reverts, and people belittling their tasks. The creative process is certainly most effective when it is made in private without any interference.

Also this feature is basically the request in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T91655. 197.235.52.125 (talk) 08:27, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for these tips on other efforts to check out. We've been looking at a set of platforms in our "comparative review". That work is here, and we're going to be summarizing it on that task this week. We had looked at Wikia, but not at wikiHow -- that's a great idea. I just went through the site and gained a lot of perspective. When you talk about wikiHow's task list, are you referring to this page?

I also think it's a good point that a good profile/homepage situation can help create a sense of collaboration. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

When you talk about wikiHow's task list, are you referring to this page?

Yes, exactly.

As far as the task list is concerned, there is certainly a lot of value in automatically generated ones, but a good system would offer the ability to create a custom list (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T48103) by simply adding pages.

I also think it's a good point that a good profile/homepage situation can help create a sense of collaboration.

Yes, wikis lack a sense of collaboration because of that. I mean if one wants to even to contribute to something simple like meta:List_of_articles_every_Wikipedia_should_have, they'd need to discover that page somehow, create their own list, and track their progress manually. It is hard to tell if even a big wiki like english wikipedia contains most of these topics in a good readable state.

In pure terms, good wiki growth will be linked to page completion, which could be estimated by determining if articles have:

• References (for fact based wikis)
• An internal link
• A category
• Illustrative image (optionally)
• More than XXX words

A good dashboard would contain such a measure instead of simply listing pages one has edited. Of course it may or may not be currently feasible. 197.235.61.79 (talk) 09:19, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

What do you think of the article rating system (Stub, Start, C-class, etc.) as a way to approximate page completion? One of our planned components of the newcomer homepage is a task recommendation system, and one way to recommend tasks is to surface articles that are classified as stubs and could use improvements. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Article rating systems are good for established wikis only for articles with quality higher than stub because the way they classify stubs is incredibly inconsistent. The article La_Loma_Bridge is certainly small, but is not really that much of a stub. My guess is that editors are quick to add a stub template to an article, but they aren't as diligent at removing them, english wikipedia alone has 2 million stubs. Also, the wikis that would most benefit from growth are those that are too small and unlikely to have an established system. Automation might be the only feasible alternative in those cases.

To sum up, the article rating system alone is insufficient to offer good recommendations. It needs two extra variables, impact (e.g. page views, important topics) and / or personal interest (topics / categories). The fastest way to seed the recommendation list is to simply ask the user what areas interest them, or alternatively offer recommendations using those top level topics, e.g. science, social , geography, history, etc. Another interesting area is hot spots ( topics or areas) where most contributors are currently working on, this is a tactic often used in forums to draw responses to new posts.

Personally, I think that wikimedia doesn't benefit from readers as much as it could. For instance, one easy way to create task lists is to surface red links to readers and ask them if the specific title deserve a topic of its own, and that could generate a good task of "popular" red links. It could even be enriched or filtered by wikidata linked interwikis. Another way would be to ask readers to correlate article quality, e.g. evaluate whether these stubs are really stubs, and eliminate these from certain task lists.

A good system will be a balance of the above, surfacing topics interesting to the user that may have high impact. 197.235.61.79 (talk) 08:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Glossary needs to be translated

Could you move the section above the not-for-translation template, and if you don’t mind, I’d put a translation request elsewhere. I started translating Growth Newsletter (ja not the priority language), and wish to have a handy glossary. A good way to involve more hands I guess. Omotecho (talk) 05:24, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello Omotecho

First, thank you for the translation work you do!

We've discussed a bit about your request, and we agree: it would help more people to be involved.

We think that the best move would be to create a new page (like Growth/Glossary) where we would gather every terms we define for all Growth projects. However, we are all really super busy now. So if you want to create that page, it would help everyone. If you don't have time, it is okay as well: I'll create it, but later.

Thank you again! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 17:21, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you indeed to take up the topic, and yes, will start on /Draft and ping you for confirmation as I finish, before moving to final namespace of its official name. Cheers, Omotecho (talk) 04:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Started a page under (link corrected) Draft/Growth/Glossary/en with “under construction” template. On Talk:Draft/Growth/Glossary/en, suggested list if glossaries as potential thesauri. Those are intended for translators, not for the Newcomers, that means, selection of terms/expressions requires tuning up to serve their interest/level of comprehension.

• May we make “word of the day” field on the landing page for Newcomers, as a way to give very basic of Wikipedia culture in the form of terms/ideas ?
• rather a joke, though, will there be any sample polite answers/declining tips, not glossary in pure sense. A boss or a longterm wikipedian or a nosy person like me is too fast to jump on newbies, trying to pull newcomers to “correct ways of doing so-and-so”; what is part of our culture is new to newcomers who might expect SNS climate or journal/web publishing culture.
• It is not widely known (not among “learners” either) that a message that you need to enjoy slow starting is another way to relax the mood as well as keep the cool, instead of sitting with your ipad in hand writing/erasing, and end up henpecked by not replying, leading a judgement as being a rude behavior. (Happened to me, and it still does after 3,000+ edits, a heavy cultural feature in my native tongue.) Omotecho (talk) 10:44, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for starting that page.

I was wondering: are you aware of Help:Glossaries? You will find interesting things about how to create a glossary page.

Glossaries are for translators, or for people that want to understand a concept. They are not primary designed for newcomers, but they could be for them.

• That word of the day idea is a good idea. I've documented it as a possible improvement of the Homepage. But it shouldn't be on the glossary itself to avoid confusion.
• Concerning politeness and how to work with newcomers, we already have an help page.
• I'm not sure to understand your last point. It is about experienced users' behavior? People who don't reply to newcomers, or reply badly? Can you elaborate?

Thank you!

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:40, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Great idea we put "term of the day" part out of Glossary,

>It is not widely known (not among “learners” either) that a message that you need to enjoy slow starting is another way to relax the mood as well as keep the cool, instead of sitting with your ipad in hand writing/erasing, and end up henpecked by not replying, leading a judgement as being a rude behavior. (Happened to me, and it still does after 3,000+ edits, a heavy cultural feature in my native tongue.)

Your input made me think deeper, and here it goes. It had never been an issue for me on SNS spaces at all if "no-action" or I will not reply the experienced users sooner enough. I was not aware the experienced users get irritated if I don't reply them sooner. I thought I was leaving bad impression as I did not work on the issue they need me to fix: I did not know how to fix, so thought no way to reply. For my personal courtesy standard, I felt very bad about me not able to reply, and worse when I was attacked for not replying.

Question is: a new comer receives a message from experienced user which is based on "advanced" knowledge of Wikipedia, still unknown to the recipient. I am not sure what research/survey will support the following, though. How can we make messages from experienced uses to newcomers much easier to understand? Experts can offer support/tips which involves asking question. Maybe for a newcomer, receiving inquiry from "those who have been here" is not quite what they are used to or ready for, or expecting at very early stage of commitment I guess.

• How about asking experienced ones to add a Help/FAQ page link in their message? I expect those links better explain which concerns/advice the experienced holds. That way, both parties will have better understanding of what is the consensus on issues, against any rule of experience or veteran's instinct.
• Newcomers are earmarked with a template on their user pages (or wherever experienced users will communicate with the newcomers), experienced users will fill in the format/choose options and make their inquiries or advice more digestive/comprehensive to new comers.

Encouragement. Other means to fill the gap between those writing advice and those newcomers as recipient? Will encouragement be helpful to keep newcomers coming back? (if they register their e-mail and choose to receive notices.) Experienced can reverse the newcomer's nervous feeling (they are nagged at or being a target of criticism), by pushing a button/tab, telling they are appreciated as a eager learner.

• Needs a measure to bypass that "shame feelings" (as exposed in kowp newcomer homepage deployment). As much as experienced users input on a newcomers page, the newcomer gains positive encouragement; like BurnStar system.
• How about similar system like those BurnStars. As much as experienced users input on a newcomers page, the newcomer gains positive encouragement;
  • We have "thank you" feature on your Wikipedia user page with heart-mark tab (User Preference needs to be set). You push the heart tab visiting other users and thank people with flowers/teas/chocolate/BurnStar.
  • It feels better to log in and find a nice sticker on your user page than read through a message that you don't understand what they are trying to teach you when you are still very "blank" and the advice does not sound comprehensive.

Omotecho (talk) 16:40, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanations.

Growth can support technical changes, such as creating the Homepage. But some other elements are a community duties, like:

• creating a clear and useful welcome template,
• creating places where newcomers feel welcomed,
• improving FAQs/Help pages
• show gratitude (through messages, thanks or Barnstars).
• etc.

Some wikis have been working on this. An NGO, CivilServant, is conducting several studies on those areas in collaboration with several Wikipedias, to see if the initiatives taken have been successful in order to retain newcomers or have them feeling better integrated.

The urgency to reply is something complicated to work on. What is urgent? Provide source to a new article is urgent, but a suggestion to add an image is not. This should be reflected on the messages left to newcomers that are under community's responsibility.

We also hope to see more people following better practices on how to work with newcomers, we already have an help page. Have you considered to share it with Japanese community? It is a good way to have newcomers feeling ashamed because they don't reply on time, or because they feel dumb asking questions.

The homepage gives encouragements: if you add your email, you get a green badge. We are thinking about having more achievements, since getting achievements done are a motivator to get more involved. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 10:50, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Newcomer homepage on ukwiki

Hi @MMiller (WMF), @Trizek (WMF), it was nice to meet you at Wikimania! I posted on Village pump in Ukrainian Wikipedia about possible enabling of the Newcomer homepage and people immediately started voting for it (even though I asked only for comments first). It is only two days into the process, so while the discussion goes on, I will finish translating the documentation etc.

Does homepage goes in package with other/all Growth experiments? (I should probably create Phab task then, as instructed on that page). Can we have it as A/B? (This may butter up the users who may not feel enthusiastic).

Thanks ) Ата ^(talk) 20:09, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Ата -- thank you for talking at Wikimania, and for quickly starting a community discussion. I'm glad to hear that so many of your community members are interested. When we begin to work with your wiki, we will start with the older Growth features (EditorJourney, Welcome Survey, Help Panel), and then move on to Newcomer Homepage, which is our newest feature. It will be deployed as an A/B test, so we will be able to see whether it has impact. When @Trizek (WMF) returns to work next week, he can continue the conversation. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Ата! It was good to see you again during Wikimania. :)

Since your community is okay to use the prototypes (yay!), you should indeed create the Phabricator task. That way, we can keep an eye on the advancement of your work concerning translations and all, and I can help you over the entire process.

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:54, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

(@Trizek (WMF), What is the best place to ask questions I get from my community? Doing it here for now.)

Are mentors notified when they get a newcomer assigned to them? Ата ^(talk) 09:29, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

(You can go to Talk:Growth for general questions, but specific questions are welcomed on the page they depend of.)

They aren't. We expect newcomers to contact them if they need. However, we are considering to provide ways for mentors to monitor their mentees' activity. But it is just under consideration, and we need to find ways to avoid issues like harassement. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 10:18, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ата -- I'm sorry for my delayed response, and thank you for your work getting your wiki ready for these features. Our team is deploying the first version of newcomer tasks this week, so we haven't had a chance to work on deploying to Ukrainian Wikipedia yet, but we will move to that in the coming weeks.

What do you think would work well for notifying mentors when they get a newcomer assigned to them? An Echo notification? A talk page message? Or a Special page listing their mentees? Something else? MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@MMiller (WMF), I'm not sure we need any kind of notification. It's more important for a mentor to notice a newcomer's edits than the moment of a newcomer getting assigned to them, isn't it? Thus, a Special page listing mentees sounds more useful.

What about marking mentee's actions on general action pages (like watchlist and/or recent changes page)? something like N, m, b abbreviations we have for new pages, minor and bot edits. @Piramidion also suggested that there might be a pop-up reminder of sort that a mentor will see when going to their mentee's talk page (e.g. "You are a mentor of this user"). Ата ^(talk) 10:51, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

A filter in RecentChanges or Watchlist, to highlight mentees edits would also be a possibility.

However, I don't know how feasible it would be to create any of these special features. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I've created several tickets about monitoring mentees' activities. Feel free to comment them! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

chat functionality to get real-time support

In order to help newcomers as best as possible, I suggest that the "ask for help" button should open a chat window and connect the newcomer to an experienced user who provides help in real time and on the spot. This is not meant as an introduction of chat for all users, but only as a tool for which experienced users who want to help could sign up for. I believe that is is often difficult for newbies to write down what their problem or question actually entails and even more difficult to understand the answers written down by wikipedians. Real-time chat would help to come to the point since both participants could ask further questions to identify the specific problem the newcomer is facing. Ideally, this would be combined with a kind of back-end view, showing the experienced user the page which the newcomer is looking at (similar to a remote support functionality, but read-only).--~ Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 17:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

This is the best statement of the problem that I have seen!

often difficult for newbies to write down what their problem or question actually entails and even more difficult to understand the answers written down by wikipedians

As someone who very occasionally visits en-wp Teahouse and Helpdesk, and was recently looking at VE-feedback, I’ll say it’s quite common to see a post that make me go “huh? what?”. Another big issue is not knowing whether the newbie has come back and read the responses, as they rarely post an acknowledgement. It can be discouraging writing answers that will just get archived after a few days. Perhaps live help could be (sometimes) rewarding for the helper as well as the helpee? Pelagic (talk) 19:13, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Pelagic -- thanks for checking out these materials. I agree that newcomers have trouble formulating strong questions. This is definitely something we've struggled with in the help panel project. We've tried a couple ways to frame the prompt to ask questions, but we continue to get plenty of newcomers whose question is simply something like, "Hello" (which, I suspect, is because they expect someone to chat them back a "hello" right away).

And it is definitely also a problem that newcomers frequently don't see the responses. Our data from the help panel makes us think it is less than half of users who return to view the responses they get to their questions. To address this, we've encouraged newcomers to add email addresses to their accounts (via the newcomer homepage) and told them to expect a notification on wiki (via the help panel). We haven't yet revisited whether we increased how many newcomers read responses.

I agree that live chat help could be rewarding for the helper, and this has been an ongoing topic of conversation on our team: how to make the helping of newcomers feel rewarding and productive. One idea we have is the mentor dashboard, which would allow mentors to monitor how their mentees are doing, and to track the kind of impact they may have had through helping those newcomers succeed. Please feel free to add any of your ideas to that talk page!

But overall, the team has not yet prioritized to digging in how we could make live chat work -- we have been prioritizing the "newcomer tasks" features that you commented on separately. I do hope we can return to this idea. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Poupou l'quourouce -- thanks for reading about our team's work and proposing this idea. The idea of "chat" has come up a lot in our team's work, especially around the help panel feature. Newcomers frequently expect the help panel to have live chat, and experienced community members have expressed interest in supporting it. And at Wikimedia Hackathon 2019, we actually built a small prototype. But there are a couple of really big challenges around it that have kept us from working on it too much, and I'm wondering whether you have ideas around these:

• Resourcing: how could we make sure that enough experienced editors are available at all times to respond to chats?
• Patrolling: live chat could potentially be a vector for abuse, and we would want to make sure that it is a safe place for all users.

I'm CCing @Trizek (WMF) so he can follow along. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Resources and potential abuse are indeed relevant issues. I do not think that there will be enough editors available at all times for live-support. But in that situation there could just be a note saying "sorry, no live chat available at the moment, please try again later or leave your questions at XYZ, where they will be answered within the next days".

For abuse reasons there should be an easy way for the newcomer to end the conversation any time. And, possibly more important, the tool should (from a back-edn perspective) not be available to anyone, but only to experiecned users that have been approved by others, for example users who have mentor status (in de Wikipedia they are elected similar to admins, I do not know about other versions). Those users who engange would need to have some sturdy attitude, so they do not bother too much, in case they receive abuse messages from fake newcomers. Regards,--~ Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 09:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Poupou l'quourouce. These sound lke sensible ideas. We'll keep them in mind if/when we decide to work on live chat for the help panel. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi folks, on top of Poupou's idea I would like to suggest: Do add a) some function for appointments / individual "office hours" and b) videochat. Since 2020/21 produced an enormous leap towards videocalls e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e: Some newcomers would greatly appreciate an instant or appointed face-to-face-talk. I would prefer some function as in moodle: one click opens a zoom-session. Sven Volkens (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sven!

To be honest, the Wikimedia Foundation will probably never built a video conferencing software. :)

Have you considered to have office hours announced on wiki (could be on the Homepage we provide), and use Jitsi or another FLOSS software? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 18:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Mobile view

Wonderful to see mobile access as a priority and being tested. This is something that is currently lacking in many of English Wikipedias new editor landing pages. Has the project also been thinking about blind readers with screen readers. My disability prevents me from using a mouse effectively often...thus I use voice navigation software or if not able to use (as a result of complicated coding) the tab button is used. My only recommendation is information all on one page as clicking link after link is very difficult for many of our disabled readers.... who could easily become editors if over navigation obstacles are removed --Moxy (talk) 23:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Moxy

Great recommendation! Just to double-check, are you referring to having to expand each section one by one? If so, a couple things come to mind...

On wider screen (tablet) devices the mobile interface loads with all sections expanded. Separately, but related, when screen readers (or tab navigation) are used with the desktop interface, I see a "Jump to navigation" link appears, but seems hidden otherwise.

I was wondering if perhaps a similar (normally hidden yet focusable) "Expand all sections" link for the non-wide-screen mobile interface would be a useful approach?

Any thoughts?

Thanks! MHurd (WMF) (talk) 03:22, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

i.e Help:Introduction VS Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia. Accessibility for all should be an end goal for any page especially help pages. Module tutorials like Help:Introduction requires someone to click 60 times to find servicible info - let alone discouraging having to review so many pages. Also format should work with screen readers (need alt text) and work in mobile view and TV boxs. A table of contents is also very important to help with navigation when no mouse is used and is why collapsed items should be omitted.--Moxy (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Moxy -- thank you for looking at the Growth team features and bringing up accessibility. In general, we try to make sure that our features are accessible by using visual components that are built for accessibility. That said, there are still some parts that we may have missed. After your comment, we ran some tests that brought up two issues that we want to work on: this one and this one. Beyond those, would you be interested and willing to help us test out the features for accessibility? We can set you up with the features in Test Wikipedia. Let me know!

@MMiller (WMF) We now have some horrible stats...as seen here the vast majority of potential editors dont go beyond the first page of the tutorial and that page has zero serviceable information. We need a page the is navigable with a TOC and works with screen readers.--Moxy (talk) 11:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, @Moxy, for posting those stats about the Help:Introduction page. That's actually something built and maintained by volunteers, and I recently saw a conversation in which it would be given more prominence on English Wikipedia. @Sdkb -- these thoughts on the accessibility of the Help:Introduction page might be interesting to you, as you continue to talk about whether to send more newcomers toward it. If there are ways that WMF staff could help with the accessibility of the page, let's keep talking! MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, @MMiller (WMF)! We introduced a single-page version of the Help:Introduction series a month ago; it is linked from the main menu page for anyone who prefers it for accessibility or other reasons. I also brought the series to WikiProject Accessibility a little while back to have the folks there vet it. With that said, if the WMF has folks who specialize in accessibility and want to take a look, I'd be very happy to hear any suggestions they have. Sdkb ^talk 23:49, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Homepage on Test Wiki

I stumbled onto a Growth newsletter at somebody’s talk page; it was great to browse some recent back issues and see how you are progressing!

I remember thinking “it would be nice to play with this, but Vietnamese, Korean, etc. are beyond me”. I only discovered by accident that I could enable the Homepage on testwiki.

Could you add something to this page in the timeline under Current status, please? It might also be nice to mention in future newsletters. Pelagic (talk) 18:46, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Interesting! It took some finding, but here's the link to test.wikipedia and the 'preferences' page to activate the Homepage: https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences Nick Moyes (talk) 19:32, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

@Pelagic -- thanks for getting in touch and checking things out! Yes, it is possible to use the features on Test Wikipedia if you enable the preferences, but the experience has not been ideal because the suggested edit queue only has a few articles in it. @Trizek (WMF) is actually in the process of setting it up for wider consumption via this Phabricator task, in which we'll populate more articles in the suggested edit queue. We will let you both know when that's done. Good idea to publicize that fact in future newsletters and on the project pages. We'll do it. @Pelagic, please feel free to join the conversation about "structured tasks" if you get a chance! MMiller (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

How links are added to the 'Get helps with editing' block?

Cant find a way :) Iniquity (talk) 16:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Iniquity -- I'm sorry for the delay in responding. The links that go in that module are given to us by the wiki community. You indicate them in the Phabricator task you created under the "Help panel" header. The Phabricator template came with pre-filled options from Wikidata, which is what is in there now (shown in the screenshot). If those are the right pages on your wiki, then you can leave them alone. Or you could replace those QIDs with better QIDs or with links to pages on your wiki. The idea is to choose the best help pages on your wiki for the subjects listed. Does this make sense?

MMiller (WMF) (talk) 03:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@MMiller (WMF), Hi :) Thanks for the answer. I understand you, I'll start to figure it out :) Iniquity (talk) 08:49, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Meaning of phrases on the homepage

@Trizek (WMF): Hi, can you tell me more about some of the phrases that you meant for more clear translation:

1. 'Continue to start with small suggested edits.' - [1].

2. 'Help add to the world's knowledge with some easy fixes on Wikipedia articles.' - [2]. Iniquity (talk) 21:19, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

And I need to convert $1 from [3] in accusative case, how can I do it? :) Iniquity (talk) 21:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, sure!

The grammar for these sentences in a bit tricky. This is the kind of detail I usually spot, but I miss these.

'Continue to start with small suggested edits.' is to be understood as "if you want to continue the mission of sharing free knowledge, you can start with small suggested edits". Or " To continue [sharing free knowledge], start with small suggested edits.'

Same for the next one: 'Help add to the world's knowledge with some easy fixes on Wikipedia articles.' -> "Do some easy fixes on Wikipedia articles to help add [more information] to the world's knowledge."

Concerning the last one, can you provide me the ideal sentence you want to make, and why the variable $1 blocks you?

Thanks! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 10:38, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for the explanation! :)

> Concerning the last one, can you provide me the ideal sentence you want to make, and why the variable $1 blocks you?

$1 contains 11 лет и 51 неделЯ, but we need 11 лет и 51 неделЮ. Iniquity (talk) 13:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Iniquity: Are other cases of the following message "Ваша учётная запись существует уже $1" correctly displayed? The examples would be - "Ваша учётная запись существует уже 3 неделИ" or "1 год" vs "3 года". Etonkovidova (WMF) 18:57, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Etonkovidova Yes, we need to put each part of the message in the accusative case :) https://prnt.sc/u96jt3. If this is impossible, then we will think about how to reformulate. But I would not like it. Iniquity (talk) 19:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

There's a slightly similar problem with this message in Hebrew, too, and probably in other languages.

I took a quick look at the code. The time string is generated with the separate function getRelativeTime(), which in turn calls the core formatDuration() from the Language class, and inserts it into the message.

Using a standard core function is nice, but evidently it doesn't exactly provide the necessary functionality. Perhaps it could show a simpler time stamp, to just one precision: days or weeks or months or years, but not years and months?

@Iniquity, is there a Phab report about this particular "неделИ" issue? Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 20:01, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Amire80: Just created phab:T261690 :) but as far as I understand it is somehow connected with phab:T257500. Iniquity (talk) 20:28, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I put our specialists on your case. :) Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 18:09, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much :) Can you look at our task, too? phab:T257490#6420277. Iniquity (talk) 18:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I've filed a new task for the "top posting on help desk" issue: T261714 Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Roan, I missed this one. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 10:11, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF) hello, again :) What does this mean: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-tour-response-tip-text/en? Does this mean a notification from a standard ping of the user, or some kind of internal notification? Iniquity (talk) 18:25, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@Iniquity - yes, it's a standard notification when a user is mentioned (as in a standard ping). Etonkovidova (WMF) 18:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! :) I think we need to write about this somewhere, the mentors (me included) are confused. Iniquity (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Bugged navbar in italian

@MMiller (WMF) @Trizek (WMF) Hi, there's something wrong with the navbar template: all the italian translations that contains it, got bugged. Can you fix it? Thanak you Valcio (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi ValeJappo, and thank you for this report.

I briefly had a look at the template, the translations and pages where this template is implemented. Apparently, not translating the last line's title breaks the template. Before - after. I let you review my "translations". :D

The last edits for this template have been made there by Shirayuki. @Shirayuki, can you have a look so that this bug would not happen anymore? Thanks. :) Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:24, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Done Special:Diff/4232658 Shirayuki (talk) 22:35, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-homepage-suggestededits-footer-suffix

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In Bengali, if number passes 100 000, instead of saying 100 thousand (or 100K) we say 1 lakh (it feels weird to say e.g. 300 thousand). The doc of this message says, to disable number formatting using suffixes for 100, 1,000,000, etc, disable this message (translate it to '-').

My question is what will happen if we disable it? Will "300K visits (past 60 days)" become "3 00 000 visits (past 60 days)"? আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello @আফতাবুজ্জামান! Thank you for getting in touch about this. Your question is something that @ANKAN has been working on. He may be able to answer. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not ANKAN, but I'll answer regardless. It will look like https://ctrlv.link/1ezW. You can try the features out at https://bn.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org if you wish (the messsage is set to - there already). Martin Urbanec (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 18:23, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Homepage for mentors

Not only beginners want to see the process of their work. I think it will be useful for mentors as well. I propose for mentors to replace the "ask the mentor" module, the "mentor monitor" module, where they will be able to see the following:

1. Number and list of newcomers under mentor's supervision
2. Number of questions asked to the mentor
3. Number of newcomers continuing to work after their question has been answered
4. Button "claim a mentee"

I think this will motivate the mentors :) Iniquity (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

In general, here I thought that the home page should be customizable not only for beginners. Experienced editors love graphics and interactivity too. Iniquity (talk) 15:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Проект:Помощь_начинающим/FAQ and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth/Communities/How_to_interact_with_newcomers/ru . Please add these links. I supplement the request above for " mentor monitor".

Many people forget that: you need to notify the student, say hello. Флаттершай (talk) 16:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

1. A form for answering questions posted on mentor discussion pages - as a mirror mechanism to the "ask a question" form available to the newcomer.

+ A recommender system that would offer 2 to 3 choices of blanks to answer. Which would be based on keyword searches in the question . Using a common table "key" (or RegExp) - "answer blanks" would be convenient, especially with access to updates and additions by mentors and other experienced participants.

+ Perhaps in the light of this hide (!) these questions from the mentor discussion page, because (A) there have already been complaints about cluttering the page (B) this will now be possible by using mirror question-answer forms.

2. More time-related statistics.

3. Ranking between mentors on performance. Ailbeve (talk) 17:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF), hi :) Have we any phab task about this feature? Iniquity (talk) 14:52, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

This one maybe? https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T239234

It is a parent task for several sub-tasks, these sub-tasks describe the different possible modules that would be activated on the mentor's homepage.

Can you detail the reason why all the (nice) ideas you have would address mentors' needs or issues ? Some context would help to define better tools. As a comparison, if you ask for a dog, I could give you a dog. But if your need is to plant flowers seeds, maybe you don't really need a dog but a shovel. :) Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:04, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

> This one maybe? https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T239234

Yes, thanks! :)

> Can you detail the reason why all the (nice) ideas you have would address mentors' needs or issues? Some context would help to define better tools. As a comparison, if you ask for a dog, I could give you a dog. But if your need is to plant flowers seeds, maybe you don't really need a dog but a shovel.:)

1. Number and list of newcomers under mentor's supervision

We have a forced mentoring mechanic in our project. And I think that it would be useful for such mentors to be able to monitor who they have as charges. It also helps mentors in this list - Growth/Communities/How_to_introduce_yourself_as_a_mentor#A_separate_list_for_workshops_hosts.

2. Number of questions asked to the mentor

Just a motivation system. How much a mentor is in demand.

3. Number of newcomers continuing to work after their question has been answered

Just a motivation system. This gives you confidence that your answers helped.

4. Button "claim a mentee"

It seems to me that this useful feature is hidden very far away. Iniquity (talk) 10:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply!

1. I'm not sure to understand what "forced mentoring mechanic" means there. Can you clarify please?
2. I understand the motivation need, but there is a drawback. Imagine two mentors, whose names are equally distributed to mentees. Mentees may not have the same motivation, and you can ha a mentor that will interact with 10% "their" mentees, while the other one will interact with 40% of them. Contacting the mentor is up to mentees, and getting no questions from mentees is discouraging mentors (I had this from a mentors from uk.wp). Don't you think such a feature would discourage some mentors, since they can't improve this figure?
3. No comments on this one.
4. I totally agree!

Also, our plans so far are the following: when a user ad their name to become a mentor, the system automatically adds modules or replaces modules on the existing homepage. In your opinion, should we enhance the existing homepage with tools for mentors, or create a separate one, dedicated to mentoring? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 16:39, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

> I'm not sure to understand what "forced mentoring mechanic" means there. Can you clarify please?

There are some very unconstructive, inexperienced users who make a positive contribution to Wikipedia, but do not know how to communicate well. They are assigned "forced mentoring" by our administrators. That is, all their edits are strictly moderated by mentors, or in general, are published only by mentors

> Don't you think such a feature would discourage some mentors, since they can't improve this figure?

Yes, that's a very good point. But I can't think of any other number that could be motivating. Anyway, not about motivation, we need some kind of open statistics, like Special:Stats.

> Also, our plans so far are the following: when a user ad their name to become a mentor, the system automatically adds modules or replaces modules on the existing homepage. In your opinion, should we enhance the existing homepage with tools for mentors, or create a separate one, dedicated to mentoring?

A very good question, I generally thought to propose an idea, to make a "Homepage" not only for beginners, but for all participants. For example, remove a block with a mentor from users who have more than 1000 edits. Or make it possible to programmatically switch from the beginner's home page to the experienced editor's home page.

As for mentors, it depends on the number of new functions, if there are a lot of them and they overlap the main editorial blocks, then yes, we need to create a new special page. Iniquity (talk) 19:25, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

There are some very unconstructive, inexperienced users who make a positive contribution to Wikipedia, but do not know how to communicate well. They are assigned "forced mentoring" by our administrators. That is, all their edits are strictly moderated by mentors, or in general, are published only by mentors

Thank you for explaining it. Definitely, our tools might help. If you deploy the homepage for everyone, anyone can claim a user and then monitor the edits they made. But it is also a way to harass people, by actively stalking their contributions. :( We need to find the right balance. I keep the process you use in mind for the time we will think about this feature.

About motivation, a possibility would be to sum the number of thanks received by a mentor from their mentees. But again, this depends on the number of mentees that interact with you.

and thank you for your feedback about homepages options! :) Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

> But it is also a way to harass people, by actively stalking their contributions.

The minimum they need is just a list of users. Without any monitoring for first mockup. Iniquity (talk) 19:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Pings

phab:T220753

What does "You'll receive a notification here on Wikipedia once there's a response." mean here?

Does the mentor have to ping the participant for this to happen? Iniquity (talk) 19:58, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@@Trizek (WMF), can you help me? :) Iniquity (talk) 17:19, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I have found phab:T220753 :) Iniquity (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, mentors have to ping newcomers. A newcomer returning back to their mentor's talk page is unlikely to happen, and, on a crowded page, their chances to find back the message they left is really rare. Pinging is a best practice we documented as a more successful way to have a real discussion between mentors and mentees. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I edited the section on the help page, can you check it plz :) Iniquity (talk) 12:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Checked! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

> For instance, on wikitext talk pages, mention the user when you reply.

I think here it is necessary to point out that this action is mandatory. Iniquity (talk) 12:59, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I thought so, then it should be explicitly indicated somewhere to the mentors (because I repeat this every week for someone), and this message should be rewritten. Since if the mentor did not ping newcomer, then it does not correspond to reality. I think we can also give a link to d:Q12377052. Iniquity (talk) 12:15, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Maybe this ping should be systematic when one replies to a newcomer? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I insist on this when communicating with other mentors, but sometimes it is not only mentors who answer newcomers. And some mentors may simply forget about pinging a user. Tired after work, for example. Iniquity (talk) 12:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Good points. Thank you for thinking about all this, it is really helpful.

I documented it roughly (I'm in a hurry now) on Phabricator, feel free to edit with more uses cases! https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T272146 :) Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 13:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! As always :) Iniquity (talk) 13:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

What happens to the newcomers queue after a mentor is removed from the list?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T272376

@Trizek (WMF), I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, so I'm asking here :)

The user was asked a question from the mentoring module, but she removed herself from the list a few weeks ago. Is it ok? Iniquity (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF), hello :) Can you help plz? Iniquity (talk) 20:01, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed your question. Thank you for the ping. :)

At the moment, mentors remain assigned to their mentees even if they quit. We have a task about improving this, feel free to comment there! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Mechanical headers on talk pages from newscomers

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T275622

I got the idea that the same type of mechanical headlines can negatively affect the mood of both mentors and newcomers.

Often times, mentor talk pages are composed of only such headings. People suggested to me that it seems that bots are writing to you (regardless of the content of the question). This can have a negative effect in the long term, since bots are less interested in responding than humans.

I think to ask a question about this topic to the Russian mentors, but I am writing here, as maybe someone will also be interested in this possible problem. Iniquity (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF), what do you think about it? :) Iniquity (talk) 21:20, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, by the way, this is why many mentors want to move questions to another page. Iniquity (talk) 12:30, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I can understand the effect on mentors, but I'm less sure about the effect on mentees. I won't say that mentees will notice a difference. They are only looking for an answer.

We tried to ask mentees to add a title, and it was not really a success: imagine a page with only headers all the same: "Question". :D

In you opinion, what would be the alternative? We can't pass on the username, since it is the only way to make a difference between two comments. Have something like "Question (26)" may be as boring as the current state.

Mentors want ot move questions to other pages? I don't remember you mentioning it - but I may be wrong! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 17:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

> I won't say that mentees will notice a difference. They are only looking for an answer.

It seems to me that mentees still look at the mentor's talk page, and such topics kill the appearance of live communication. 1. One gets the impression that this is how the topics should be named. 2. It seems that the mentor is only answering questions from newcomers. These are just my guesses.

> We tried to ask mentees to add a title, and it was not really a success: imagine a page with only headers all the same: "Question". :D

Oh, was there such an experiment? I didn't know about this, and thought to offer this idea in this capacity :) So let's forget about this idea :)

> In you opinion, what would be the alternative?

I thought about it, and could not come up with anything good. Maybe take time out of the header?

> Mentors want ot move questions to other pages? I don't remember you mentioning it - but I may be wrong!

Yes, I didn’t tell you about it because I don’t like this idea and I decided to deal with it later. I mentioned this to Olga in our interview.

In general, a month or two ago, one mentor left the project, because she really did not like that questions from newcomers cluttered the page. She asked if they could be moved to another place, I said not yet.

Two reasons why I don't like this idea:

1. Communicating on the talk pages, the mentees immediately gets used to our discussion system: that all questions should be on the talk page

2. It will be very difficult for other mentors to follow other people's pages if they are all in different places. Iniquity (talk) 18:50, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, some mentors are only replying to mentees, since most of their interactions with the reste of the community is done on community pages. I can understand the feeling you describe though.

Taking the timestamp out of the header would be a solution. I have to ask if it is possible, since we use this header to identify the comment as being unique and we use it to display the link to this comment on the mentee's Homepage (If I remember correctly). Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 18:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

> Taking the timestamp out of the header would be a solution. I have to ask if it is possible, since we use this header to identify the comment as being unique and we use it to display the link to this comment on the mentee's Homepage (If I remember correctly).

Yes, this can be a problem :( But we can use a Anchor template for this purpose: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шаблон:Якорь. Or simple tag with special ID. Iniquity (talk) 19:56, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Iniquity -- the reason we included the timestamp is because sometimes mentees ask multiple questions to their mentors, and we thought that mentors would want a way to distinguish between them from the table of contents. We thought timestamps would be most helpful, more than ID numbers. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @MMiller (WMF) :) Thanks for the explanation, timestamps most helpful, more than ID numbers, you are right. Iniquity (talk) 20:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

What would be the risk of someone removing these anchors by accident? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the risk is exactly the same as if someone wants to rename the topic :) Iniquity (talk) 15:51, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I asked other mentors, and they are not perceiving it as a problem.

Could you provide links to direct feedback from users, so that I can get the context? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 18:09, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

w:ru:Обсуждение проекта:Помощь начинающим/Наставники#Можно освободить СОУ?. Iniquity (talk) 21:08, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

It is a big page. :)

I created a task to track the issue. But as of now, this not something I have seen elsewhere. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank! This is not a priority, but let it be written somewhere :) Iniquity (talk) 14:51, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

"Your impact" module thoughts

Hi Growth Team! Having glanced at the impact module a bunch since activating the homepage, I just wanted to offer some thoughts on it.

First, if new editors feel at all similarly to how I do, this module definitely seems to be succeeding at the goal of helping editors feel satisfaction about their impact. The main way you normally find out that others have seen your edits is when they get reverted, and this is a lot more pleasant than that haha.

Second, this is probably something that's a lot more acute for me as an experienced editor who edits tons of different pages than it would be for a newcomer who hasn't edited that many, but the selection of pages still seems off. It feels very heavily weighted toward pages I've edited recently (which have less views since I edited them by virtue of being recent), and sometimes pages I've only made quite small edits to show up. Adjusting the algorithm that picks which pages to show to favor ones where I've made large or many edits and place less weight on ones I've edited most recently might help.

Third, I think a likely impact of this module to consider is that it pushes editors toward editing more popular pages. When I see that 100 people have viewed my contributions to one page and 5000 people have viewed my edit contributions to another, that's a strong push toward editing the second page. If that's the case, the upside is that it'll allow their contributions to benefit more readers, and that it'll increase their odds of coming into contact with experienced editors who can help them if needed. However, the downside is that many more popular pages are already in much better shape, so they may have a harder time finding positive contributions to make, and the editors they encounter may be as likely to revert or bite them as to help them out. Sdkb ^talk 05:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I also had similar concerns about pushing new editors towards popular articles. The upside of that is that there would be more oversight of these new edits. If the algorithm were to be slewed so that it reflected the ‘’proportion’’ of the article that was altered, then a change to a stub article would look better than a similar edit to a large, popular one. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:25, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Sdkb and @Nick Moyes -- I'm sorry I missed this thread when you created it, but I'm glad you posted your thoughts. It's true that we the rules for displaying the articles in the impact module are geared toward brand-new users seeing the most impactful of their recent edits. We wanted them to have the moment of, "Wow, people are actually seeing what I've done!" If you're interested, you can see the actual rules it's using in the original task (which also contains a brainstorm of possible improvements).

"Among the set of 10 most recent pages that the user has edited, choose the 5 pages that have the most pageviews since the user first edited them (or in the last 60 days, if their first edit was more than 60 days ago -- because of constraints of the API). If a user has edited a page multiple times, their most recent edit of that page is what is counted for deciding whether it is part of the 10 most recent pages. For this sort, "null' sorts below 0 pageviews. If the user has edited fewer than 5 pages, show them all. Display those 5 pages in descending order of pageviews."

We have improvements planned for the module this year, and this is our nascent project page related to the work. I think an approach that would get at what you're saying is to add options and filters to the module, e.g. letting users select "most views" or "most recent" or "largest changes by bytes" or "exclude minor edits", and let those selections be sticky. What do you think of that idea? MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation of the algorithm! I think the thing that's making the selection feel off for more experienced users is the "set of 10 pages" part. I'm not sure how costly this would be in terms of API, but an improvement would be to look at the set of 50-100 most recent pages to which the user has made non-minor edits. Sdkb ^talk 22:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

More filtering options (for suggested edits)

Currently the filtering options only add new groups of articles, and don't find articles that meet certain criteria. It would be valuable to have the ability to filter to only Transportation articles in Asia for example. JackFromWisconsin (talk) 19:45, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @JackFromWisconsin -- thanks for bringing this up. We've heard from many newcomers that they would be interested in more specific topics (especially country-level, as opposed to continent-level). Your comment has spurred an internal conversation on the Growth team about how we might accomplish this idea. One interesting thing is that it's already possible to do this through Search. For instance, check out this link using topic keywords: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=articletopic%3Atransportation+articletopic%3Aasia&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1

By entering both topics, I get articles that have high scores for both transportation and Asia (Indian Railways, Toyota, etc.). We're thinking about whether it might be easiest to add a free-form search bar so people could use Boolean logic to make specific lists, or if there are user interface elements that could make this simple.

Is there a specific topic combination that you yourself would want to select? MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I did not know that was already available through search! A search bar could definitely be an easy way to implement this, but I think having a selector to change between adding the topics together, and only taking articles that are in both topics would be great. Asking a question such as "How would you like your articles selected?" "From any topics" or "Only in all topics". I'm not a UX designer so my wording choices suck, but this is asking between whether all topics, or just the intersection of topics.

Messing around with the topic search, it works exactly as I would want (by bringing up articles that are rated high in both categories). If I was interested in video games based on war, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=articletopic%3Avideo-games+articletopic%3Amilitary-and-warfare&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1 would be more useful to me. JackFromWisconsin (talk) 03:46, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'm glad to see that the underlying technology is already there. Thanks for your input, and we'll continue to consider when/how to make this improvement. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Homepage for WikiProjects

It would be amazing to bring the homepage over to WikiProject pages. Relatively few things would need to be changed, for example "your mentor" should be changed to "helpful editors", and have it be composed of knowledgeable editors in the WikiProject. Making it customizable would allow WikiProjects to provide specific links and advice for its volunteers. I'm imagining the Article Alert bot system gets replicated as a tile. The possibilities are endless JackFromWisconsin (talk) 19:52, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @JackFromWisconsin -- thank you for checking out the Growth projects! I agree that there is a lot of potential for the newcomer homepage when it comes to WikiProjects. The way we're thinking about the homepage is that each person has their own personal page, as opposed to it being like a common page that many people visit. It sounds like you're talking about an idea in which it would be possible for each WikiProject to set up a structured front page that shows the most important people and tasks in their project, sort of like how highly-developed projects like WikiProject Medicine have done with templates. Is that how you're thinking about it?

In terms of the homepage in the way we designed, there are several ideas we've had that relate to WikiProjects:

• The task list could allow users to select tasks that are under the auspices of certain WikiProjects, like "Medicine" tasks or "Women in Red" tasks.
• After users select topics of interest, it could recommend WikiProjects that they could watch or join.
• We could assign mentors to newcomers based on which WikiProjects the mentors are active in matching the interests of the newcomer.

What are your thoughts? Are there particular projects in which you're active? MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Public impact list?

I've been translating the Homepage feature on Translatewiki, and I noticed that there is an option for the user to view the impact module of another user. Does this mean that anyone can see another user's "impact article list", and is it possible already now or only in the future, and does the user have any control over who can see their list? And what's the thought process behind a public impact module? kyykaarme (talk) 18:19, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Kyykaarme -- thank you for working on translations for the Growth features! I know there's a lot of text in them (because there's a lot to teach newcomers), and so it's really helpful that you're spending time on it. Good question about the "Special:Impact" page. We originally created this page because it helped us QA and troubleshoot issues with the Impact module, by allowing us to validate that the module looked right for many different users. We've kept it on because it continue to be useful for troubleshooting, and it doesn't display any information that's not already public. Here's a Phab task where we considered turning it off, but ended up not doing so.

It sounds like you think users may not want other people to be able to see their module so that they and their work can remain more private. Is that right? What are your thoughts? MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:50, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

The Homepage contains information that surely is private (email address) and I wouldn't think that anyone should see what my topic interests or preferred difficulty levels are. It's then natural for me to think that everything on the page is visible only to me. If some parts of the page are not private, I would like to at least know about it. And I especially would think that if I were a new user.

I don't know what the effects of the impact module are on new editors, maybe they really like it, but I could see also some negative sides, such as seeing very low views for your articles or having had unpleasant editing experiences (getting reverted and/or admonished) and then seeing those articles every time you go to the Homepage. Maybe there could be an option to hide the list, so that one can look at it once in a while but not have it there at the top constantly.

I would actually like a Homepage where you can pick and choose the modules you want to see and remove/hide the ones you don't have use for. The suggested edits "carousel" is a cool tool, and I could see it used by experienced users as well (without the editing tips). It's a lot easier and more fun to click the carousel than to browse categories when you're trying to find interesting articles to edit. kyykaarme (talk) 18:21, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

What retains editors

We need new editors because there are huge backlogs in many areas. We also need them to focus sometimes on those edits we need fixed

I think users retention could be increased by Excitement ,Community, Available Support, Clear procedures, Safe Spaces, and Visibility of achievements . Wakelamp (talk) 01:09, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

I have split the areas into sections to avoid wall of text and to allow people to comment on eacg

• EXCITEMENT
• - When you do your first edit, you are greeted with a plain page asking you to choose between anonymous ( but not advising that being an Editor gives better anonymity) , or becoming an Editor. (Are there statistics on how many possible editors stop here??). Instead maybe - A featured picture associated with the project the article is in, And the mentor for that months reasons they like wikipedia - A welcome message advising that they will be asked to join New Users of November 2021 and asked to join a project community. B - Options to join an active groups that you share a trait or int with maybe are an ally women, trans, nationality, profession, same age group .
• Scary large Article and stubs (which i think default as hidden) also have an encouragement to become an editor . These are high friction because of size, colour, no mention of rewards, position, and imply self sacrifice and accepting a fault. Instead It would reduce friction, if non-readers could become an editor before hand. prompted by a single line hopefully occasionally humorous or appealing to diversity. Let the messages decided by different A/B messages, only appears for non-editors.
• These are all good nudges as they split friction, reduce friction, have a clear call to action, recognise, external group memberships, eye candy, clear focus, inspiration,and short term reward. A long term group intangible reward (A template saying they have x active more editors than the average or they have more happy editors etc, or least open talk issues ...) Wakelamp (talk) 03:28, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

COMMUNITY - I think the core to retention is community,

• Welcome

After a New Editor publishes their first edit, have a congratulations screen that gives them a choice of active communities to join based on their edit or via a wizard, and also automatically assign them to say "Novermber 2021" and ask them to post about their interests. A month should be small enough at 5 % active to make a community.

• November 2021

- Assign mentors, and automate a monthly group talk topic

- Criticism messages (Reverts and speedy deletions) are also sent to November 2021 (Have you any advice/support/help to fix for... ) with the critics name as a link, so peers can learn. and Mentors can say whether it is fair and discourage edit wars..

• Editing Topics

- Unpleasant interactions destroy communities. Most is unreported Experienced editors with high edits have support communities, so are forgiven because they are busy. We need junior editors as they mostly create content, while many experienced editors however use automated tools to fix minor issues Workaholics also reduce output because of hogging glory or resistance to change ; with wikipedia they can reduce active editors.

- I suggest that talk topics have option to escalate, or create an FAQ , or mark for archive and that the talk tab have a number of open tasks and change colour based on the number of editors escalating. Editors showing number of escalations caused and thanks world be cool as a rollover There also has to be a better way of getting hellp for people rather than tagging WP:NOTTHERAPY.

• New Editors

New editors are supposed to be treated nicely, but finding out whether they are new is a multi-step process. A tag next to their name would nice.

• Create an Article

- You allowed to make your first page after a few weeks/edits. You will fail :-)

- There is a new page wizard , but it isn't major category specific (so precise notability criteria can't be checked or whether enough allowed sources are used. A classic example is IMDB is disallowed as a reference: IMDB important categories are maintained by the industry using IMDBPro, it is used on Box Office Mojo which is allowed, and it is used by reporters, Ideally there would be automation to check and give a percentage complete - but the automation is all on the NPR side.

• Monitoring new articles

- This is very low friction for tNPR, but as a genuine new editor it took me about 4ish hours to create my first article,

- NPR can mark an article for deletion and assign a big yellow tag of New Editor failure in 1 minute. If it goes to AfD it takes about 5 to 10 minutes of NPR editors discussion time to delete a page. | The AfD discussions are legalistic and cold and the New Genuine Editor often rage quits. AfD need to be like this because of scammers and notability issues, but some of the notability requirements are rusted. If enough people are searching for an article that fails our criteria we should consider changing.

Nudges are small community within large, available support, peer support, Mentor support, group learning,protections organisational renewal through strong peer links in Junior Editors, and clear procedures.. Wakelamp (talk) 05:24, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

HELP - They get peer support above, but also get told who there mentor(s) are with a template with a nice image and a summary of who their mentior from a template on the mentor page. As soon as they get autoconfirmed, they get a message from their mentor saying contact them to discuss if they are thinking about creating a new article. Wakelamp (talk) 05:26, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

PROCEDURES and TAGS - They are frankly overwhelming. On your first day you come across them in 3 ways.

PROCEDURE - ARTICLE - At the top of Article are on scary anonymous judgmental un-collapsed uninformative tags, maintenance tags are in the body, and stubs are at the bottom (although hidden for new I think) Mostly they should be on Talk rather than Articles (but people don't check Talk, and tools don’t update it.

·        Reader View- Complicated Tags with very old dates reduce trust, even if the issue is minor. The real estate also emphasises that editing is more important than content, criticism is more important than creation.

·        New Editor- First day and they are going to edit. They go to a page covered with tags. They are overwhelmed with the procedures, and they decide to do their first edit to fix the tag.

-         The New Editor reads they should try and get consensus, so they add a Talk topic. No one ever responds as no one is watching the articles (and they don't know the article is unwatched), and no one looks at the talk tab, The New Editor expect a quick response, and they stop when they don't get one. They decide to wait till they get a response.

-         The New Editor can’t find the issue, so they feel shame. The reason they can't find it is another Editor has fixed the issue, and not updated the tag or looked at Talk. They get worried about their ability. They quit.

-         Full of excitement they decide to edit and be brave. Their edit is re-verted. The Editor reverting does not know the person is a new editor, adds WP:Shortcodes, is unpleasant, leave a cryptic comment, or complain they should have looked at Talk or even Talk Archive. The New Editor rage quits.

PROCEDURE TALK

-         Template header is BIG, has many warnings relevant to the article, or experienced editors (be nice and don't bite newbies), but only one action. It's not clear what to do and the links to large, complex procedures. New Editor quits as there seems to be lots of rules.

-         \Project headers -are Freudian in their size, are Pseudo-Article categories or projects recruitment ads, are relevant only to projects, and not editors. Projects don't monitor open topics in their projects, and there is no indication you should ask them for help. Experienced editors ignore them, but it still increases friction as they have to page down.

-         The Sanctions tag is just scary, un-collapsed, not differentiated in colour or position, links to procedures that even more complex and scarier, appears as a Notice as well, and is mostly relevant to the Article. With all the warnings, Wikipedia just got scary. New Editor Quits

PROCEDURE - TALK POST

- a New Editor creates a topic, but it's as the bottom. They assume (often correctly) that no one will ever look at it. Even if an Article is highly viewed, about 20 % of topics never get checked and it is archived. When a New Editor as soon as 10 days , their topic is archived, but they think it has been deleted. Their first day as an editor was wasted. The New Editor quit.

- Someone does look at it. The replying editor does not know it is a New Editor,. The new-Editor receives a reply full of short codes WP:NPOV or WP:NOTTHERAPY . These procedures have a low readability .Tooltips showing the Nutshell might help. But Nutshell is a workaround on procedure readability, and the main procedures have lots of things that it is all about consensus. Unfortunately consensus can sometimes means that more experienced Editors can override the New Editor, based on precedents that are not recorded. The New Editor quit.

Suggested Changes

-         Normalisation of screens - Article Tab has only Article information, Task Tab only has task information, Page information has page.

-         Tags should be on talk, but as posts with the Editor who added them.

-         Tasks can be marked as important and Escalation needed/conflict. This should change the colour of the the topic heading if more than open person clicks it

-         The Talk tab should show the number of non-archived tasks, half of it should change colour for conflict and the other for importance

-         Make tags appear on Talk. They can still show as a single line of codes on Article, but controlled by Talk not editable.,

-         Change article publish to show as list of open tasks. Editors can select one or more tasks, and choose to update with their publishing comments or mark the topic for archive It would also stop New Editors from not knowing about tasks TA

-         We have a ranking system for pages already, so if we used that and maintained NPR/Twinkle created comments/tags on Talk it might work better.

-         There is no incentive to mark Talk Topics for archive. New Editors would find the process of using HTML at front and back confusing, The measure of success on Wiki is edits. Measures should be in place for editors on thanks given or received, RfD, Tasks taken part in an archived, Number of mentor posts. This should be an info tab that all editors can see

- Number of watchers should be visible to all non anonymous editors, The rationale was that vandals would attack unwatched screens. But they attack watched screens

Nudges

Nudges are lower friction, minimisation of keystrokes, clear instructions, remove focus from  # of edits as status, normalisation of screen purpose, warning colours, Visibility of open work, feedback loop on cohesive behaviour, Reduce perceived issues, Visibility of inexperience, Wakelamp (talk) 07:43, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

How does the mentor thing works?

So I frequently update my preferences and also browse around it to see any new changes/features on English Wikipedia, I happened to came upon this "Display Newcomer homepage" checkbox so being curious I ticked it, and going to my homepage (via the link displayed left of userpage), I noticed there is a mentor thing so I read around about it and it is designed obviously for newly registered user since it's called newcomer homepage and the mentor are assigned randomly ... but I'm certainly not a new user since joining 8+ years ago and has accumulated approx. 30,000+ edits so why do I even have mentor? Paper9oll 08:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

For practical reasons, we have assigned a mentor to everyone. We plan to work on a feature to opt-out mentoring. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Newcomer's feedback

@MMiller (WMF)@Quiddity@Trizek (WMF) As the new user reports [4], in MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-tour-welcome-description-d, he did not understand what phrase "see your impact" at the end was about when he saw the message in the interface. He asked to make this phrase more understandable for someone who sees it for the first time. Perhaps it is worth making the original en-text a little more descriptive, otherwise mentioning only the name of the module weakly represents its real function. Sunpriat 01:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, @Sunpriat for passing along this feedback! We are working on some improvements to the Impact Module soon, as part of the Positive Reinforcement project, so this is well-timed feedback.

Just so I'm clear: this feedback is about the "Your impact" language on the newcomer homepage, correct? Do you think it's definitely the English copy that makes this confusing, or is "impact" a term that doesn't have a great equivalent translation in Russian? Please let me know if you have a specific suggestion for improved language.

We just ran several user tests with newcomers that included the Impact Module, so I'll also follow up with our lead researcher to see if this also came up in user testing. Thanks again for the feedback! KStoller-WMF (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@KStoller-WMF As for the feedback, it refers to the text MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-tour-welcome-description-d in the pop-up message. When you open the home page for the first time, this pop-up message appears. When a participant (who does not know anything about the module yet and has not seen it) reads this message for the first time, he does not understand what is being said here. If you look at the home page, there is an explanation "Views since you edited" under the module header and this allows you to correctly understand the meaning of the word. But the message seems to cut off the phrase. For example, if it were written "and you can see your power", then the question arises what type of power it says here. The participant read this message as "your actions", probably as a shorter but beautiful representation of the "Special:Contributions" (there is even a link to it at the bottom of the module). It would be clearer if the phrase were continued and concretized. For example, "and see your impact on pageviews", "your impact on the popularity of articles", "your impact on the frequency of article reads".

----

As for your question about translation - yes, it's also not very good here. In translation, we have two variants [5] "wiktionary:влияние" and "wiktionary:воздействие". They are understandable in the context of a phrase or paragraph. But in a short phrase or seeing one word, the situation is such that this word is associated with a more common meaning - as if there is "influence", for example, "your influence in a group of people". (If you look at the translation in the opposite direction [6], then the main (first value) is also shown "influence". And auto-translators will translate it in the first place that way.) The module shows an improvement in metrics. This word does not represent the reference to metrics and pageviews improvements very well. I have no idea which module name would be better. (Maybe using the forward and then the reverse direction of translation in auto-translators will give you a fairly good idea of what meaning for words people understand first when they read some title.)

----

By the way, it would be useful to have a link to the help on the mediawiki page mw:Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage#Modules, which describes the functionality of all modules. Your understanding of the homepage when you read the descriptions on the help page (or forgot, but you can easily find this page again and read it again) and understand the purpose of the modules is quite different from the understanding of the participant who saw only the final interface without those descriptions. Sunpriat 05:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@Sunpriat thank you for the detailed explanation! Yes, I can see how a newcomer might be confused by that language. I'll chat with our designer to consider if alternate copy is needed.

Even if the English copy doesn't change, would it be possible to just add slightly more context to the translation? So rather than a direct translation of "see your impact", the translation could be for "see the impact of your edits" or something along those lines?

And I'll also chat with our team about your suggestion about linking to the help page from the homepage. I think ideally the homepage is clear enough that linked documentation isn't needed, but that's an interesting idea.

Thanks again for passing along info, and for being a great advocate for new editors! KStoller-WMF (talk) 23:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

There is an article w:Impact factor - this title (which already has translations into other languages) could be taken as a basis and called the metric "wiki impact factor". Sunpriat 12:52, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

999+ edits on Special:Homepage

Hi! The edit counter on the homepage is used also by some of the established editors (as it's easier to discover than the one in preferences). However, after a recent update of the homepage, the counter was capped at 999 edits, rendering it unusable for experienced editors.

Would it be possible to get the exact number back? Msz2001 (talk) 17:41, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, and thank you for sharing this idea with us! :)

We went with the idea of 999+ for two reasons:

• our primary audience are newcomers,
• we have database query issues to get all numbers.

We are currently wrapping up our work on the impact module, which means that we won't change many things on this new impact module any time soon. I documented your request, as it is something to consider; Impact module usage by established editors is not something that was part or our initial plan. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 18:07, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

old newcomer homepage!

I miss the old newcomer homepage! All i wanted on my newcomer homepage was my total edit count and that was there yesterday, but is gone today! please restore that. Iljhgtn (talk) 22:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@Iljhgtn Thanks for the feedback!

I'm glad to hear that you appreciated the previous homepage, but I'm sorry to hear that you found the recent change disruptive. My name is Kirsten, and I'm the Product Manager of the WMF Growth team (the team responsible for the newcomer homepage).

I assume this is about the update we made to the "Your impact" module on the homepage, correct? The image here shows an example of the previous design and the new design.

One downside of the new design is that the Total edits count is capped at 999+ for editors with over 999 edits. However, we plan to fix that, and we'll work on the improvement ASAP based on your feedback. Here's the task:T338174: The impact module should display the real numbers instead of capped numbers

Basically many of the metrics on the new Impact module (like the Thanks received count, Best streak, etc.) are being calculated for the new Impact module, and needed to have some sort of reasonable cap. But the "Total edit count" is a metric that we don't need to calculate, so we can start showing the true total rather than the capped metric.

Do you have any feedback about the other changes? Are any of those other metrics interesting or helpful? Are there other metrics or data visualizations that you wish were included? Thanks again for the feedback! KStoller-WMF (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

thanks. thats all that i was hoping for was not the capped 999. have a great night. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:59, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

just maybe put the true total at the top of the module too and not at the bottom. it helps to be able to see it really quickly at a glance. Iljhgtn (talk) 19:00, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the response!

Yes, the true total will display at the top of the module once we make the update. Actually it looks like that image I shared has a slightly older design, as we no longer show the total edit count at the bottom too.

A Growth team software engineer worked on the task today, and hopefully by next week you'll see the fix on your homepage. Thanks again for providing feedback, and for your patience as we make improvements.

And please feel free to let us know if you have any other feedback about the homepage. Thanks! KStoller-WMF (talk) 21:59, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

this is really responsive. i had no idea that the wmf was so responsive and helpful. i would love to make more suggestions at some point. where is the right place to do that? Iljhgtn (talk) 00:14, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

@Iljhgtn If you have suggestions about the Newcomer homepage, then this Talk page is the place to do it. :)

If it's about editor onboarding or features meant for newer editors, the Growth team would love the feedback! Talk:Growth is probably our most active talk page, but you can post a message on any of our team pages and we'll be sure to respond.

We can't always take immediate action on community feedback, especially if it's about a larger idea or feature that we aren't currently working on. But we love to receive suggestions and ideas from newer editors, and we'll always respond. If we can't prioritize the suggestion, we can always document the idea for future consideration.

If you have suggestions that don't relate to the Growth team, we can always direct you to the correct team, or you learn more about each WMF Product team here: Wikimedia Product (there are also Wikimedia Technology teams and many other departments within WMF: Wikimedia_Foundation_departments).

Thanks again for taking the time to send us feedback about the newcomer Homepage! We've been discussing ways to make the Homepage more useful as editors progress and get more familiar with the wikis. I hope that eventually the Homepage can be personalized and have tools for more advanced editors and patrollers. So definitely let me know if you have any feedback about what would have helped you out as you were getting started or what features you wish were introduced on the Homepage earlier (Wikipedia Library, Patrolling, WikiProjects, Edit-a-thons and Wiki events in your area, etc.). KStoller-WMF (talk) 19:42, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

i like the newcomer homepage overall, and plan to keep it forever if i am allowed to. it is very helpful as a launchpad to being productive on wikipedia in the morning. Iljhgtn (talk) 22:05, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

You will definitely be able to keep the newcomer homepage enabled indefinitely, and I'm so glad to hear that it's a good launchpad to being productive! KStoller-WMF (talk) 23:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

i have not seen the change go into effect yet. is that happening soon? Iljhgtn (talk) 12:03, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Iljhgtn Sorry for the delay, the Impact module change will be visible by the end of the day on Thursday.

It looks like the patch has now been merged, but you won't see an update yet because Mediawiki changes are released via a Deployment Train. That means that you can test changes on beta Wikipedia and test Wikipedia today (Example of the new impact module on beta Wikipedia). But the change won't be visible on English Wikipedia until Thursday. Sorry for the delay, but the deployment train schedule helps ensure we have time to test changes before they are released more widely. KStoller-WMF (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

thursday is great. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:11, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

i checked and it has not yet been updated. it is now friday where i live. Iljhgtn (talk) 01:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh no, sorry, I goofed. It looks like the code was merged after the release train cut-off last week, so it will be visible on English Wikipedia next Thursday (November 16th). For urgent fixes, there is another backport process we could have followed the get the change out sooner, but it takes more engineering time to schedule and attend the backport windows.

I still find the release train schedule confusing, sorry to mislead you! KStoller-WMF (talk) 01:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

thank you for updating me. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

so it should be today then correct? i still do not see it. i only see the "999+" still in my homepage in the top leftside uppermost box. Iljhgtn (talk) 13:23, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

It should become (and not be!) correct over the course of this day. And it did, around 7pm UTC; I now see my total count on enwiki (which is over 1,000). Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

this is it. good work whoever made this happen! Iljhgtn (talk) 00:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Hurrah! Sorry for providing a misleading timeline initially.

Thanks all goes to @Martin Urbanec (WMF). Thanks, Martin!

And thanks again, @Iljhgtn, for providing feedback! KStoller-WMF (talk) 20:24, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

glad it was done. it was still pretty fast. Iljhgtn (talk) 20:27, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks like someone moved my cheese again! Iljhgtn (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way that I could customize the newcomer homepage to not have the "suggested edits" window? I like the "impact" window a lot, but it is no longer near the top of the page and was moved down so now i need to scroll down the page. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not a significant problem, but it was another change that I did not ask for. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iljhgtn Sorry for yet another frustration! The Growth team hasn't changed anything that I'm aware of that would have caused this... I might be jumping to conclusions, but I'm wondering if the layout change relates to the "Accessibility for Reading (Vector 2022)" Beta feature that is being tested by another team currently. If you disable the beta feature (via Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures) is the layout back to what you expected? Or can you just hide that "Tools" side panel? If that doesn't help, can you provide a screenshot so I can help troubleshoot?

As for totally disabling the Suggested Edits module on the Homepage, that's not currently possible but that's something the Growth team has discussed before. Ideally eventually there are more modules on the Homepage and they can be customized and disabled/enabled based on personal preferences. I've just added a task to represent this work: T353301. I'm unsure when that work can be prioritized, but it is part of our long-term vision for the Homepage. Do you think this would be helpful? What other information or tools would you like to see on your Homepage?

In the meantime, @Trizek (WMF) might be able to suggest some CSS to hide that module. Or you could navigate to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Impact/ to see only your Impact module. KStoller-WMF (talk) 01:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

i like the setup, but i like being able to add or subtract modules/windows from the homepage. i like the impact part the most. that lets me know how i am helping build wikipedia and makes me feel good. :) Iljhgtn (talk) 01:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

should restrictions not to translate this page in FR still apply today ?

FR is not a priority for translate. still true ? -- Christian 🇫🇷 FR ⛹🏽 Paris 2024🗼 (talk) 16:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Nope. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 16:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

translations : banner to stop after paragraph Glossary

Hi all, there is a banner at the end of paragraph 3 telling that following text must not be translated. Nevertheless i see the translations continue concienciously almost till the end but not at all. Can someone answer on what we do ? :

1. remove the banner and translate to the end to get a page coherent

2. push the banner after last translate unit to synchronize both

3. other ...?

Thanks --Christian 🇫🇷 FR ⛹🏽 Paris 2024🗼 (talk) 15:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Wladek92 - Hmmm, I'm curious what you would think would be best. This is one of the Growth team project pages, meaning it was accurate and up-to-date when we completed the project, but some of the images and information are no longer accurate now that we have worked other projects.

We attempt to keep our Growth/Feature summary and help pages up-to-date, while the project page is a reflection of the end state of the project. Since some of the information on that page is outdated, do you think it's still worth translating? Personally I'm fine with removing the banner if you think that makes sense, but please keep in mind that it's no longer an accurate representation of what's available on the Newcomer homepage. Perhaps there is a different template or message we should be adding to these project pages to make that more clear? Let me know if you have any suggestions.  :)

Thanks for all of your feedback on Growth team documentation and projects! KStoller-WMF (talk) 22:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

We could ignore the translation restriction and replace the banner by something as follows to keep the warning.

or

Advantages :

- you know this page is no longer actual
- translate if you want to keep track of initial project
- follow the link if you want last informations

--Christian 🇫🇷 FR ⛹🏽 Paris 2024🗼 (talk) 17:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I've added that first template you suggested and removed the translation related banner. I'll discuss this change further with @Trizek (WMF), as Growth might want to consider a similar update to some of our other project pages. KStoller-WMF (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

thanks sounds good. Translations are going on with time. -- Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚲 Paris 2024🗼 (talk) 09:32, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Exist also the shorter form :

or request to send the obsolete page to Archive (..?) which preserves the translations and the contents at the moment the project has ended.

--Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚲 Paris 2024🗼 (talk) 08:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)