Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortcut
[edit]

According to the thread just above, the new algorithm based links task will be available and disabled on English Wikipedia in one week. (The current task is template based).

The default rate limit for links added in this way is 25 per editor per day, and three per article per day.

Should we enable this feature? Should we modify the defaults?

Any editor feel free to refactor this, add subheadings / RFC tags if you feel it necessary. I'm just tryna start a conversation to check in on consensus. Folly Mox (talk) 17:57, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, @Folly Mox for starting this discussion and @Sdkb for making sure we opened up this discussion to a wider audience!
I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that we have the backend prepared to release the Suggested Links newcomer task.  You will now see two "Add links between articles" tasks in Special:EditGrowthConfig. The one with the 🤖 robot icon is the new "Suggested links" task. However, the task has a "Disabled in site configuration" notice next to the task. This is the first time we are releasing this task in this manner (making the task available but not enabling the feature ourselves).  We ran into some unexpected technical complexities with this approach (T308144#9811861). I think we have two options for how to proceed:
  1. The Growth team can enable the task at any time on the server side. Just let me know if you think consensus is reached and we are happy to enable the task.  (We can also disable the task if requested).
  2. Or, we can wait until the new version of Community Configuration is released (likely by July 2024), and at that point we can ensure the configuration form is working as intended so any English Wikipedia admin can enable or disable the task.
Sorry for the additional complexity, this release is coming at an odd time as the Growth team is also working to finish up the new CommunityConfiguration Extension. KStoller-WMF (talk) 17:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay! The new Community Configuration extension is released, and the "Add a link (Structured task)" is now set up so that any English Wikipedia admin can enable it here: Special:CommunityConfiguration/GrowthSuggestedEdits. In other words, the Growth team released the task as "turned off" T370802, and editors will NOT have access to the task until an English Wikipedia admin enables the task.
As @Folly Mox suggests, defaults can also be adjusted. For example, setting the "The maximum number of "Add a link" suggested tasks a newcomer can complete daily" to a lower number might be appreciated by patrollers. Or increasing the "Minimum required link score" should improve the quality of suggestions, but will decrease the number of tasks available.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I could write a Signpost article to share more details so there is more awareness about the task before it's enabled? Or are there any remaining questions I can help answer? KStoller-WMF (talk) 23:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we need more input or want to adjust some defaults before an admin decides about flipping the switch is it time for those RfC tags @Folly Mox? Perfect4th (talk) 04:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notified: WP:VPR. Sdkb talk 21:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In general, this looks like a useful feature. The setting is, I believe, the number of link suggestions per article and the number of articles per day. In my experience, more links per article, and fewer articles per day works better: 9×4 seems just fine. What I don't like about the feature is that it does not seem to be learning anything from our feedback. If you tell it not to wikilink month names, it will still wikilink month names. If, say, "Italy, Germany, Poland, and Greece" is somewhere in the text, it will offer to wikilink Poland, but not the other three; manual link addition is not possible in this mode. Can WMF work on these and other issues, or is this their final product - that I don't know. Ponor (talk) 02:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the thread just above, Trizek describes the "25" value as the number of edits each newcomer can make daily. The parameter at de:Spezial:EditGrowthConfig certainly google translates to "maximum number of link suggestions to display for each suggested task".
As to linking month names, country names, etc., I brought this up last year at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features/Archive 7 § Usefulness of "Add links" task? A few threads later, Trizek confirmed we aren't using any sort of rejection links lists.
Anyway there doesn't seem to be much engagement with this topic, so for the purpose of establishing consensus, I'll say Sure, let's turn it on and give it a go. It seems like it should be easy enough to turn it back off if the newcomer links become too high maintenance. Folly Mox (talk) 18:46, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I think they misunderstood the setting, they're allowing 25 tasks, 3 links each: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:EditGrowthConfig?uselang=en Ponor (talk) 13:12, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The task is not enabled at de.wp. :)
These numbers (25 tasks, 3 links per task) are the default settings we suggest. Most big wikis kept them, except Russian (5 tasks, 3 links per task). Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also not opposed to enabling, presumably it will have a tracking tag or consistent edit summary? fr.wiki stats show decent takeup, although as on en.wiki that page does not have ways to see individual examples. CMD (talk) 02:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good question, @Chipmunkdavis. Yes, these edits are all tagged. Here's an example edit summary and associated tags:
(Link suggestions feature: 2 links added.) (Tags: Visual edit, Newcomer task, Suggested: add links)
You can view example edits on French Wikipedia via this filtered Recent Changes view.
Special:NewcomerTasksInfo will show you task availability, if you want to review metrics on task click through rates, completion, and revert rates, we have a Growth KPIs dashboard here. KStoller-WMF (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm speaking from a good deal of ignorance about how this will work, but as an old-hand editor, I do think particular aspects should be monitored, such as reverts to these link edits and how much this will pile up in editors' watchlists (i.e., I have no idea as to how much of these are going to pop up in my watchlist to have to review), and such. I like the idea of experimenting with this, but I also hope this will not be so hardened that we can't possibly ever decide to stop it. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 20:44, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@StefenTower, we are here to answer your questions. :)
It is possible to monitor the reverted links, using Recent Changes or Watchlist, as both links addition and reverts are tagged. See for French Wikipedia, where I filtered all Add a link edits, with reverted edits highlighted in red. As I post this message, I see 2 reverted edits for 500 links addition. It looks like what I observe on average, at any major Wikipedia. Would it be the same at English Wikipedia? Honestly, I don't know.
Reverted edits are not the only point to consider. Let's imagine an article where three links were added, where one link is not okay. Some users will revert the full edit, or leave it like this. Being myself active at French Wikipedia as a volunteer, I use Diffedit to quickly fix these links.
Also, my watchlist is not really flooded by these links addition. I just checked my watchlist, and I only see three articles edited to add links over the last 500 edits at articles I monitor. ut again, I can't transpose it to English Wikipedia.
We're offering your community the chance to activate the functionality, literally: once you've decided to do so, an admin will be able to turn Add a link on. And the reverse is true: it will be possible to deactivate the feature in the same way. If the prefered option is a test, the Growth team will have to take care of setting it up.
Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 17:04, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Edit revert rate is something we monitor for all tasks, and in a previous A/B test, we found that the revert rate for newcomers who get Add a Link is 11% lower than the baseline.
Another option is that the daily task limit can be configured to be lower. The default is currently 25, which means any new account holder that has access to the task can complete up to 25 "add a link" tasks per day. Any English Wikipedia admin can update to a lower number via Special:EditGrowthConfig.
But also I just wanted to chime in and second what @Trizek (WMF) mentioned: English Wikipedia is welcome to enable the task and see how it goes. If the task is too disruptive to patrollers and experienced editors, it can be turned off. KStoller-WMF (talk) 17:20, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks both for your replies. I'm glad this can be adjusted if it gets out of hand. I don't think editors would want their watchlists filling up with a lot more to review. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SebastianHelm: I've just noticed that last November at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking § MOS:OVERLINK: Absolute or relative level? you asked me to ping you when there is anything new about algorithmic attempts to determine appropriate internal link density in articles. What's new is that the algorithmic links newcomer task is pretty much ready for activation at en.wp, and only a handful of people seem to care so far.
I have no idea if this is what you meant in your comment or whether you currently care about this, and rather unfortunately I couldn't think of any method of notifying you that wouldn't be considered canvassing, so I figured maximum transparency would be straight canvassing you to the discussion itself. Avoiding work, Folly Mox (talk) 12:44, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Enable the feature This sounds really wonderful and has been used on several other language editions of Wikipedia already. I am curious what percentage of linking will either get slightly modified to more specific targets, outright reverted versus "good links", i.e link is retained (particularly on articles where other edits continue). ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:37, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to see this happen. I was manually adding articles to the Category:Articles with too few wikilinks a while ago, and I found that most new editors did a good job, and few of them added more than a couple of links. (The instructions say to only add a small number, and most folks stick to that.) Sometimes I saw the same editors over and over, but mostly it was new folks each day. I remember seeing some impressively specific and precise links getting added, for articles on niche subjects that I'd never have expected us to have an article for.
    I'd also like to see this happen gradually. Maybe only a small percentage gets access for the first few weeks, and the number ramps up slowly from there? Or maybe the per-editor daily limit is reduced (3 links x 5 articles?), so that people can get feedback on their link choices before handling too many articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It is possible to have Add a link for a limited number of users. The Growth team can set it up. Regarding a per-editor limit, the community can set it up anytime in Special:CommunityConfiguration/GrowthSuggestedEdits.
    Speaking of community configuration, we will soon provide the possibility for your community to turn Add a link on. It should be made possible next week. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:40, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that limiting the number of users at the start would be valuable because it will change the mix of edits in the RecentChanges queue. The English Wikipedia is so big that we get about 50 new editors making their first edit each hour. If we suddenly have 10 extra edits adding links every hour, then patrollers/watchlist users will be surprised by a sudden shift in edit content. I think a gradual introduction will help community on the reviewing end (e.g., who may need time to have conversations about how most first edits are suboptimal, and adding a superfluous link is less destructive than most other mistakes that newbies make). I don't think it will make any direct difference to the individuals making these edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:08, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    True. Newcomer with no Suggested links shave other tasks to work on. If the community prefers to start with XX% of new accounts getting Add a link, we can implement it. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 17:24, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I have a technical question: at Special:CommunityConfiguration there is a list of section names to exclude from consideration for this task, including examples such as "References" and "See also". If we added "0" to this list, would the lead paragraph be excluded from analysis? (A separate question is whether this is a good idea: most articles seem to display the richest link density in the lead, but many very short articles have no subsections, so excluding section "0" [if even possible] would skip them entirely.) Folly Mox (talk) 11:13, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The lead paragraph is not excluded, for the reasons you give. The higher the density of links in an article, the lesser links are suggested.
    Should we explore an option to exclude the lead paragraph? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:21, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "Section 0" would be the entire lead section, rather than the just the first paragraph. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever above the first section header. I used the wrong term for section 0; this happen when you cover multiple wikis, languages and cultures! :D Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What number of users should be involved in the trial

[edit]

Okay, we seem in agreement that we should give this a try, with some trepidation about how it might cause significant, unforeseen issues. Limiting the number of users who have access to this feature looks to me like a good idea. So, what number of users should we be limiting this to? And how long a trial do we think is good to have before we increase that limit? My inclination would be to start very, very small, but soon after that ramp up to a larger number that is still a small proportion of the overall number of new users. Thoughts? -- asilvering (talk) 18:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the first mentorship run was 2% of new accounts. I'd be fine with that (or really any number that gets this going). Maybe a two-week period and then check in? 2% for two weeks, and if everything goes okay go to 5% or something? We could notify the CVU talk/Village Pump/somewhere with recent changes patrollers that the trial is beginning if anyone feels that would help. Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It always helps, because if you will let me indulge in cynicism for a moment, a very typical Wikipedian response to change is to complain that "there's no consensus", and that often begins with claiming "nobody knew about it". I have actually seen this claimed for decisions that were made in CENT-listed RFCs, for things that I personally announced on over 100 pages, in addition to announcements made by others, and even by editors who participated in the discussions that they are now alleging never happened. Some of this is simple forgetfulness (so much happens that we can't remember it all) or because someone really did get missed (we once ran site banners for two solid weeks about something, and the banners happened to coincide perfectly with one editor's two-week summer holiday), but some editors can be convinced by the diffs, so it's well to have them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to start very small, consider a very small percentage of users for the first week/fortnight, and double regularly. you don't want to get stuck limiting it to a tiny percentage for months/years. If there are structural problems (e.g., it selects articles that have a lot of links, but it doesn't notice the links because they're inside templates or tables), then we should discover those problems within the first several thousand edits.
The trickier bit is giving the reviewers time to adjust mentally. The unavoidable fact is that new editors make mistakes. They might make fewer mistakes in this system, but fewer is not none. It's not even almost none. Increasing the number of new editors may ensure Wikipedia's survival in the long term, but right now, new editors == more well-intended but imperfect edits.
If you do RecentChanges patrol a lot, then you develop a feel for what's "normal", and you notice deviations from what you expect. Like: So many people editing about India today. Weird that I've seen this same website several times today – a spam campaign, or just a coincidence? Ugh, I can't wait until that election's over, so this political stuff will let up. If it looks like everyone is "suddenly" adding "a lot of" links, then you'll notice the deviation from normal, and that will subconsciously make you think that there is something suspicious or abnormal about adding links. If we flipped this on for 100%, we could predict now that several patrollers would complain that "too many" newbies are adding "too many" links in "too many" articles. This wouldn't be proof that there are violations of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking (the typical FA has hundreds of links in it), but it would be evidence that the patrollers had noticed a shift in the editing patterns.
A fact that you might want to store in your back pocket, for responding to those inevitable complaints, is that if you divide Wikipedia's non-list articles into "shorter" and "longer" halves, the shorter articles (=stubs and near-stubs) average about two links per sentence, and the longer articles average somewhere around two links per three sentences.
Also, some editors prefer very sparse links in articles, and from their POV, moving from their preferred state towards a purely average level of linking makes the articles worse. We should not be surprised by complaints about this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abolish "Newcomer tasks"

[edit]

As far as I can tell, this "Newcomer tasks" bullshit exists only to facilitate disruptive edits.

Here is a list of every "Newcomer task" edit I have stumbled upon, in the order I found them:

You will notice that the "copyeditor" in those last two edits is unable to spell the word "grammar". It is not a typo as it happened twice.

I then looked at the history of the last article, which has for some reason had a number of "Newcomer task" edits over the past few years. I looked at this string of eight edits, which had a few good changes, a few neutral rewordings, and a number of bad changes. I decided I can't be bothered to go through them one by one and fix what's wrong and instead came here to complain.

Who thought it would be a good idea to invite new editors, who are not fully familiar with wikitext, have zero knowledge of the Manual of Style and policies such as on copyright, and in many cases are not native English speakers and do not have a good command of English, to perform copyediting?

I propose that the "Newcomer tasks" feature be discontinued. Un assiolo (talk) 17:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This edit at the last article changed British spellings to American and was subsequently reverted. A later edit changed some of them again and has not yet been reverted. I haven't even gone through every "Newcomer task" edit on this article, and this is just one article! --Un assiolo (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Un assiolo, newcomers are sent to this page because of the advert maintenance tag. I've simply removed the tag; newcomer module-attracted attention should cease. I'm not sure what task you envision for new editors, since we discourage them from starting new articles and you wish to dissuade them from making minor changes as well. -- asilvering (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To the extent Un assiolo is making a broader complaint and just using that article as an example, removing the advert tag on just that article does nothing to address the systemic issue.
I agree, though, that we need to invite newcomers to contribute somewhere, and smaller edits will be better for that than article creation. Ideally, if the advert tag is attracting editors doing the copy editing task, those editors should be given specific guidance that the likely problems in the article have to do with promotionalism, and that the fixes should be things like neutral language, not ENGVAR changes. Sdkb talk 19:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that removing the advert tag does nothing to address the systemic issue, but I don't agree that new editors making "bad" edits is a systemic issue, so I had nothing to say in that regard. -- asilvering (talk) 20:27, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As Sdkb said, this isn't about any particular article; these edits are problematic across the board. I've been looking at recent changes tagged as "Newcomer task", and perhaps a third of them need to be reverted, and another third are not revert-worthy but not very useful, either. Only a third are unequivocally good, and the bad ones create a lot of work for other editors, if they get spotted at all. I can post a detailed breakdown if you want.
As for what newbies should do, I don't think we should be directing them to do anything specific. They should just make changes when they see an article that needs to be changed. Is that not realistic? --Un assiolo (talk) 21:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Growth Team features#Background and results has some data you might be interested in. Newcomers using these features are (or were, in 2021 when these were tested) reverted less often than normal newcomer edits - they're just easier for other editors to find, so we end up in a selection bias trap since the ones we notice are the bad ones. The specific maintenance tags that are suggested for these features is handled by each wiki, so we can turn on ones we want to send more attention to, and turn off ones that are causing too much trouble. I don't know if we have any means of tracking which might be causing more trouble than others. -- asilvering (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issues with WP:ENGVAR have been raised for a couple of years, the feature creation team was not initially aware that there were multiple English varieties. It was proposed a note on engvar would be added to MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-main-rules1, but that seems not to have progressed further. CMD (talk) 13:36, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the feature creation team was not initially aware that there were multiple English varieties – I... what? Really? That's concerning. – Joe (talk) 13:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I brought up some proposed improvements awhile back at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 7 § Let's configure: Suggested Edits, which never went anywhere.
I don't believe the issue lies with the feature itself, but rather largely with extremely limited guidance, the fact that it remains mostly in vanilla default despite years to configure to serve our particular project better, and some of the presentation. For example, the Suggested Edits overlay will highlight the "edit lead section" icon, inviting the editor to click there, rather than highlighting "learn more" on the maintenance template adding the article to the task pool.
Low key difficult to believe ENGVAR still isn't in any of the messages for the copyedit task, despite having no opposition against including it in each discussion it's been brought up. Then again, despite the impact of this feature, community engagement with improving its outcomes has been very low in the experienced editor base. Maybe what we really need is some cowpoke admin to start making improvements without a generated consensus. Folly Mox (talk) 14:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You've found your cowpoke! But seriously, since the default texts were generated off-project, I see no need for a prior consensus to improve them. If you have suggestions and nobody objections to them, let's do it. – Joe (talk) 14:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
bless you, seriously. -- asilvering (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps adding "Spelling words in a different variety of English is not considered an error, and such words should be left as originally written."? CMD (talk) 02:55, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In case anyone was interested: a previous discussion suggesting some templates to remove from the copyedit task configuration, another later discussion that suggested template changes to the copyedit task, the engvar discussion, and a discussion on mediawiki where Growth Team WMF members were explaining copyedit. Some actions seem to have been taken on those first two discussions, but not all of the suggestions were implemented. Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 15:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Restored subheading

[edit]

Sometime last week I had written up a full proposal for implementing improvements in the Help Panel links and SuggestedEdit tips, but had the temerity and poor judgement to tab into a separate app to answer a time sensitive text, so my browser unloaded the editor and discarded all my work. I hate this new phone.

Anyway, here's what we have now for Help Panel links (editable at the bottom of Special:EditGrowthConfig):

  1. Wikipedia:Writing better articles, linked as How to write a good article
  2. Help:Introduction to editing with VisualEditor/1, linked as How to edit a page
  3. Help:Introduction to images with VisualEditor/1, linked as How to add an image
  4. Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/1, linked as How to edit a citation
  5. Wikipedia:Article wizard, linked as How to create a new article
  6. Help:Contents, linked as View more help articles (linktext appears hardcoded in this case)

I'd propose the following set as a replacement:

  1. Help:Introduction/All, linktext Introduction and tutorials. This page is the parent of all three tutorials linked in the vanilla setup.
  2. Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style, linktext Simplified Manual of Style.
  3. I don't remember what I suggested here last time, but I wasn't sold on it and considered a lot of different options, including WP:TEA, WP:42, WP:ACM, and WP:REFB. Anybody else have any better ideas?
  4. Wikipedia:Writing better articles, linktext How to write a good article (i.e. move existing link 1 to position 4)
  5. Help:Your first article, linktext How to create a new article (i.e. change target only). Wikipedia:Article wizard is not appropriate for new accounts. I'd prefer if User:Houseblaster/YFA draft had been moved out of userspace last year, since I think the streamlined approach is superior to the existing help page, but that never got consensus.
  6. Help:Contents (no change)

MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-main-rules1 currently outputs You can fix spelling and grammar errors. This might include sentences that are too long, repeated words, or incorrect punctuation. We should append to this: English Wikipedia uses [[MOS:ENGVAR|different varieties of English]] (color / colour, traveled / travelled). Variant spellings are not errors.

This is something of a compromise between CMD's suggestion upthread and Trizek's suggestion in Archive 5 (linked above), with added examples for clarity. With the understanding that including an outlink in the tip has the potential to break workflow, this is a page we want new editors to read. If there's a tradeoff, like a subset of newcomers who click through to MOS:ENGVAR from the tips decide not to make an edit after all, I think we can live with that.

MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-example-rules2 currently outputs Jupiter is the largest, and most interesting, planet in the Solar System. (containing <mark>...</mark> tags that refuse to embed inside {{xt}}.) This should be changed to a more realistic example, like Her immense talent marked her as a rising star in the industry. Open to better suggestions, but this is the kind of thing we actually have to deal with, as everyone here is obviously aware, not which planets are better, and might be the kind of problem that caused someone to add the maintenance template including the article in the copyedit task pool.

MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-main-step1 currently outputs Once you see a correction you want to make, click "$1" to get started. Then go ahead and fix issues by deleting and typing as needed. This is where we should highlight the fact that the article an edit is being suggested at has a known issue. Something like The orange banner at the top of the page indicates the kind of corrections this article needs. Click "learn more" in the banner for more information. Then, once you see a correction you want to make, click "$1" to get started. Go ahead and fix issues by deleting and typing as needed. (Incidentally, on my device, "$1" outputs "the edit pencil on that section", and "click" displays as "tap".)

Well, I have to go to work. Pinging Joe Roe. Folly Mox (talk) 11:09, 16 July 2024 (UTC) edited 09:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I think that a better value for "Destination page for learning more about adding references" under the reference task at Special:EditGrowthConfig would be Wikipedia:Citing sources, replacing Wikipedia:Verifiability. Folly Mox (talk) 14:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Done that, which seems uncontroversial. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:44, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse all of the changes you've written in paragraphs here. For the Help Panel links, my experience as a mentor suggests to me that we really do need obvious direct links like items 1-4 in the current help panel, though I do really appreciate the link to the simplified MOS. Your change to #4, though, I agree with completely. -- asilvering (talk) 22:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to remember a discussion somewhere that indicated that the help panel links to "add an image" and "edit a citation" were the result of some research, and I'm a little bit ho-hum about changing those in particular. Special:EditGrowthConfig recommends in its boilerplate a link to the MOS in position #1, and I think we're doing newcomers a bit of a disservice making them hunt for it: as it stands, they're likely to encounter the term "MOS" for the first time when one of their edits is reverted or when someone drops a welcome-warning template on their talk page letting them know they've violated some rule they've never heard of.
Can you elucidate a little bit about how your experience as a mentor indicates direct links to certain technical tutorials in the help panel? Are you pointing people to them regularly? Folly Mox (talk) 00:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For something like ENGVAR, I think alerting editors who try to change things in-editor through edit check would be a better approach than trying to educate them off the bat. ENGVAR is important for established editors to know, but for newcomers trying to absorb an overwhelming number of rules, educating about it is lower on my priority list than educating about the basics of encyclopedic tone, etc (an article that temporarily has its ENGVAR changed is not particularly damaged). Granted, it may be a bit before we have edit check available for stuff like this. Sdkb talk 22:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree that placing an ENGVAR callout in a SuggestedEdit tip overlay isn't the ideal place to give new editors a heads up about it, but given how frequently "You can correct spelling and grammar errors" is interpreted as "alter correct spelling to one I'm more familiar with", how much it seems to bother established editors, and the negative experience of having a very early edit reverted — I think mentioning it up front is better than waiting till it's transgressed: better experience for newcomers and for watchlisters, and a timesave for those of us who take it upon ourselves to engage with the newcomers rather than straight reverting with a terse "MOS:ENGVAR".
I'd be fine with leaving out the link and retaining the examples of variant spellings. Folly Mox (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done that without the link. I see this as more of a subtle nudge than another entry in an overwhelming ruleset to follow. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've done two of the easier changes (link to WP:Citing sources and using a better advert text example). Note that the editing UI for this recently changed, we now have Special:CommunityConfiguration instead of Special:EditGrowthConfig.
Re the change to MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-main-step1, there could be more than one orange banner, and some of them could be for non-newcomer task things. Or the banner could be yellow instead of orange ({{copyedit}} is by default). * Pppery * it has begun... 17:44, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also the banners might not be at the top, or might not exist at all. {{copy edit section}} and inline templates line {{Verify spelling}} also populate the task. I think this point is morphing into something that needs to be a new Phabricator task rather than something we can community configure. And Folly Mox is actually seeing the unrelated message MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-minerva-visualeditor-copyedit-main-step1, which would also need to be overriden.
Fine with the help panel change - I'll do that in a few days unless an objection is raised.
And I agree with Folly Mox on the ENGVAR issue - until edit check is set up and working then it's better to mention it than not. I'm also fine with it without the link. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:35, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The maintenance template may also be nested inside {{Multiple issues}}, which has a circled exclamation point rather than "Learn more", at least in Minerva, at least if I remember correctly. Clearly the banner situation is a lot more complicated than the single case hastily typed out just before leaving for work earlier this week. Withdrew the suggestion for the wording change there. Folly Mox (talk) 09:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have made some changes to the help panel per the discussion here (I kept the individual introduction/tutorials links, added the simplified manual of style, and changed the page for your first article). Anything else will have to be done by someone else, as I'm planning on resigning adminship soon but did not want to leave this completely hanging. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and if we do the one-tutorial link we should use Help:Introduction/Visual editor instead of Help:Introduction/All which uses the wikitext editor. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:56, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And it turns out the Community Configuration software was broken resulting in me accidentally blanking the entire help panel (User talk:Pppery#Please redo your changes to the help-links). Sigh. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:14, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about this! The CommunityConfiguration extension was just released to all wikis last week, so we are still working out some quirks and making improvements. We've been testing the new extension on beta wikis and on test wiki, and then on pilot wikis before this release to English Wikipedia... but inevitably we didn't catch all possible edge cases and bugs.
The Growth team will keep working to make Community Configuration more stable and further improve error checking. And in the meantime, thanks to everyone in this thread for thinking through which help docs are most meaningful to new editors. - KStoller-WMF (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mentor status

[edit]

I want to thank the WMF for instituting a Growth Team and actively working toward productive editor retention. It is truly a worthy cause. I wish you nothing but success in the future. However, I am removing myself as a mentor. I don't feel I can give it the proper attention moving forward and there are situations that have arisen which challenge my views of ENWP. I do hope some of these things will change as old view points die out. I realize WP is slow to change and so I am hopeful. However, I do not feel I can actively promote and support editing on the encyclopedia as it currently stands. As such I do not think it proper to continue as a mentor of others in a program designed toward editor retention so long as I hold to that position. It has been an honor to be a mentor and also a Teahouse hostess during this time. I have learned so much from all the wonderful people that take this task seriously. I want you to know that I do too. So much so that I am willing to give it up when I don't think I can continue rather than hold on to it. I want nothing but the best outcomes for the mentorship program. --ARoseWolf 16:23, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the time you spent helping newcomers, @ARoseWolf. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Growth News, July 2024

[edit]

Community Configuration

[edit]

The Growth team released Community Configuration at all Wikipedias. You can access it at Special:CommunityConfiguration.

This new special page replaces Special:EditGrowthConfig. For now, all Growth features can be configured using Community Configuration. Configuration for AutoModerator (T365046) and other features will be available in the future.

You can help with translations. The interface translation is done at Translatewiki.net. You can also help translate the documentation.

If you attend Wikimania 2024, please join us for the session about Community configuration's future!

Current work

[edit]

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We will add a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We have released a simple version available to beta wikis. We will conduct an A/B test at our pilot wikis using the new Metrics Platform. We still welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

Future work

[edit]

Increase constructive activation on mobile

As part of the Growth team 2024/2025 Annual Plan, the Growth team will explore various ways to increase the percentage of newcomers who successfully start editing.

Editing a Wikipedia page requires too much context and patience. It means many trial and error for newcomers to contribute, meaning a steeper learning curve and potential discouraging reverts. To support a new generation of volunteers, we will increase the number and availability of smaller, structured, and more task-specific editing workflows (E.g. Edit Check and Structured Tasks). The Growth team will primarily focus on Structured Tasks, while working closely with the Editing team to ensure our work integrates well with Edit Check.

Stay informed

[edit]

Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work. If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:08, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Refining copy-editing newcomer tasks

[edit]

I have been thinking off an on about how newcomer tasks can best set newbies up for success. A while ago I posted some thoughts at the MediaWiki discussion zone and they suggested talking here for enwiki consensus. So I'd like to pose two suggestions that I think are just a matter of how the tool is configured, to see what others think:

1. Should Template:Tone be removed from the copyediting task list? In my experience, something gets tagged with "tone" (instead of something more specific) when an experienced editor looks at a huge mess, says "yikes", and walks away. Even when the problem is a prose problem (as opposed to a more complex research problem), newbies are often still in the early stages of unlearning essaylike prose styles, and may find encyclopedic tone more challenging than the promised "copy-editing".

1A. I could be convinced that Template:Peacock and Template:Advert are also prone to flagging, 1, articles with research problems and, 2, articles with prose style problems that fall outside of simple copyediting or many newcomers' starting skills.

2. Can tasks be filtered so that newcomers are not shown articles tagged with Template:Notability? These articles also looked deeply flawed to an experienced editor but not in a way where they could fix it easily; they may offer a very poor model of what a wiki article 'should' look like; and they may lead to a dispiriting wasted effort on the newbies' part if the article is later deleted.

In both cases, I'm hoping to avoid sending newbies to complicated, messy articles and telling them they just need the quick "easy task" of copy editing. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:21, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, apparently I did raise some of this here in July (sorry for my patchy memory) but thanks to Pppery's intervention then, I am posing new suggestions this time! I'd love to hear folks' thoughts. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "copyediting tasks actually really difficult and dispiriting" problem has come up repeatedly over the past few years (here is me wondering who will bring it up in 2024 - guess that's you). We've had professional writers call them overwhelming. So I'm just... going to go ahead and use these fancy new tools I just got and remove "tone" and "advert". "Peacock" I suspect might be a bit more useful, so I hesitate over that one.
Filtering out articles tagged for notability sounds like a good idea. I have no idea how much this would reduce the pool of tasks - maybe not much? But it doesn't seem likely to me to be harmful. -- asilvering (talk) 00:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the argument that "peacock" works as a newbie copy-editing task, since it's more focused on sentence edits and the problem is explained more concretely. Thanks for removing tone and advert!! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:16, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Finally! Thanks, asilvering, for doing that! Would it perhaps be worth it to request a query of how many articles are both newcomer copyediting eligible and tagged for notability just to check? Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 03:07, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought we had already got rid of {{Tone}} last year, but I suppose my memory has failed me again. Thanks asilvering for taking care of that.
A naive and basic search for hastemplate:Notability and hastemplate:"Multiple issues" returns ~30k articles, down from ~58k for {{Notability}} alone, and of course not all {{Multiple issues}} will be in the subset that include an article in the copyedit task. It should be possible to compose a search for the exact quantity without querying the database, but I just woke up so won't attempt.
The root problem, as I continue to see it same as last year, is that the issues that established Wikipedia editors tend to tag with maintenance templates rather than simply solve on sight are typically not easy, and not a good introduction for low editcount junior contributors.
It doesn't particularly help that the minimalist instructions in the Suggested Edits flow still don't include guidance to click through the maintenance template to understand the problem tagged and what a solution might look like, so most people seem to tend towards doing mild copyediting of the lead paragraph, which ends up roughly evenly balanced between not a substantial improvement and a clear disimprovement, with some outliers (although I haven't RCPed for the Newcomer task: copyedit tag for many months now, so my impressions may be outdated like my body and car). Folly Mox (talk) 09:52, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that root problem you identify is why I have reasonably high hopes for the structured tasks. We can enable Find A Link now, we just haven't yet. I'll go give that discussion a kick. -- asilvering (talk) 18:20, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry if this is an aside, but how did this edit come through? There are not tags on the affected text, and I can't find copyedit-related tags elsewhere. CMD (talk) 14:12, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's the "needs citations for verification" one. I have no idea why it's tagged with "copy edit" though - should be "references" surely. Hopefully someone from WMF can clarify. -- asilvering (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Trizek (WMF), is there any chance you can explain this one? -- asilvering (talk) 20:37, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is one {{verify spelling}} in the "Current political issues" section. :) I almost missed it! Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I wonder what brought the editing so far from the tag. CMD (talk) 13:36, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Suggested Edits flow IIRC (maybe only if you click through the five help snippets) has an animated focus effect on the "edit lead" pencil. There's nothing in the included guidance that suggests editors find a specific maintenance tag (or indeed, click a maintenance tag), and initial article focus doesn't skip to any maintenance tag that may have included the article in the task pool. So almost all copyedit task edits tend to affect the lead, and many exclusively. Folly Mox (talk) 14:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We tag the edit according to the task type the user selected. But as these tasks open the full editor, the user can do what is asked and more. We expect use Edit check at some point to narrow down the focus of the task. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since it was so hard for us to find it, they probably had trouble finding it too, haha. -- asilvering (talk) 17:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! My mistake. -- asilvering (talk) 15:17, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No worries asilvering, it was a good challenge! :D Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 15:27, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

articletopic and its intersection with Suggested Edits

[edit]

I've noticed just now that not all of the available articletopics listed at :mw:ORES/Articletopic § Taxonomy are available at Special:Homepage/suggested-edits. Specifically, the following articletopics are not presented as options:

  • internet-culture (~5k articles)
  • linguistics (~207k)
  • books (~64k)
  • radio (~32k)
  • software (~20k)
  • geographical (~302k)
  • libraries-and-information (~3k)
  • space (~41k)

(although these final two may be wrapped up by the label "General Science", which I assume maps to stem). The catchalls media and visual-arts also don't seem to be represented. My vdiff may contain inaccuracies.

What is the reasoning behind these unincluded topics? Folly Mox (talk) 10:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I quickly skimmed around, and found this: "The ORES model we use now offers 64 topics, and we chose to expose 39 of them to newcomers."
If I remember correctly the 2019 discussions around this, the goal was to provide a number of topics that would not be overwhelming. Also, we selected the (groups of) topics that returned the highest number of articles at most mid-sized Wikipedias. Variations regarding contents are important wiki to wiki; English Wikipedia is always the exception. :)
Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fascinating. I can see why we might want to avoid driving newcomers to "internet culture", but I'm not sure what could be wrong with "books" or "radio". -- asilvering (talk) 20:36, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We’ve been exploring ways to introduce more granular topic filtering in the future. For example, many newcomers prefer editing articles related to their home region, but we currently don’t offer the ability to filter suggestions by country. This is something we're actively researching: Research on Language-Agnostic Topic Classification by Country.
As we incorporate this level of granularity into the UI, we could also consider expanding filtering options for other topics, while ensuring the user experience remains simple and intuitive. KStoller-WMF (talk) 22:54, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I just wanted to clarify that it’s not that we are only exposed 39 of the 64 topics — it’s that we combined some of them so that it was a smaller number of topics for newcomers to review and select. 
If we eventually add in more topic granularity (like being able to filter by countries or smaller geographic regions) then we will also need to rethink the UX of the filtering to allow for that additional complexity, and at that point maybe we should consider breaking up some of these categories if it makes sense. KStoller-WMF (talk) 00:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, apologies for the inclarity in my OP: it's obvious that geographical subregions are bundled into macroregions, and I only realised after creating the list that space and libraries-and-information are likely subsumed under "General Science". books, radio and software could be made accessible to (albeit not individually selectable by) Newcomer Tasks if the parent category media were included. I think linguistics and geographical would be nice for people to see. Maybe some other topics could be bundled into their parent topics to create some space and prevent overwhelm? I do realise en.wp is an outlier, with better coverage than other wikis under consideration. Folly Mox (talk) 16:17, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Growth_Team_features&oldid=1246253581"