Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features

Newcomer tasks

How are the articles for newcomer tasks selected? Does the new user pick the article, or is there a list that selects which ones they go to? Because if its the latter, this seems like a really bad article to be sending newcomer tasks to. Hog Farm _Talk 01:59, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

It uses templates to identify tasks. You can see which templates it uses at Special:NewcomerTasksInfo. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense. I remember being pointed to an obscure video game when I first started editing. Still a bit unfortunate to be sending new users into that minefield to start out with, but the selection process does make sense. Hog Farm _Talk 02:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

If your talk page is protected, set yourself as away

People who watch this page may be interested in this talk page thread [1]. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Mentees Reassigned

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T323031

A former mentor, Celestina007, hasn't edited since May of this year yet they are still receiving questions from mentees. Is there a way for their mentees to be reassigned? I've watchlsted their talk page and will try to keep up with questions there if nothing else can be done. --ARoseWolf 15:20, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello @ARoseWolf -- An admin can go to Special:ManageMentors and remove Celestina007 from the list. Their mentees will be reassigned to other mentors. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Trizek (WMF), thank you for responding. They are not on that list any more, having been removed do to inactivity, however, it clearly states if you are removed as a mentor or remove yourself you will no longer get new mentees but the ones you have will remain. I know because I took a break from the mentorship program for a couple of months and I kept whatever mentees I had at the time but were not assigned new mentees. I was just wondering if there was a way to reassign the current mentees Celestina had? --ARoseWolf 18:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@ARoseWolf, in this case, we will take care of the reassignment. Can I consider this discussion as an official request to reassign Celestina's mentors? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 12:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Trizek (WMF), I would officially request it, yes, on the grounds that Celestina hasn't edited Wikipedia since May, during which time they were removed from being a mentor due to inactivity, yet they have had mentees asking questions between then and now. --ARoseWolf 12:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

We will soon conduct a global reassignment of ex-mentors. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:45, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Make new users more aware of english variations

I think new users should be made more aware of the different varieties of English. Just now, I encountered a new user changing British English to American English in an obviously British related article meaning they most likely didn't even know that British English existed. And I know for sure this isn't just some one-off thing as I've seen this multiple times and I'm sure other editors have as well. This kind of stuff is considered disruptive and new users should not have to be warned for doing this in the first place. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 22:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

A possibility is to change the links displayed in the Help Panel, to highlight the recommendation page regarding languages. But let's not forget that Growth features can't cover all cases; human-to-human messages and explanations are very often the most efficient way. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 12:49, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes I agree, however new users should be more aware of smaller things such as differences in English variations. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 12:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF), I think it would be very helpful to add one more panel to the quick start tips for "copy edit" that mentions this issue. That's not going to be obnoxious or overwhelming for new users. It won't stop this from happening entirely, but it might help, and it's a much kinder experience for a newbie than being templated over it. -- asilvering (talk) 16:18, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

It is possible to edit the step-by-step messages locally.

Step 2 says "To make a difference, you only need to make one or two small corrections. You do not need to work on the entire article. You also don't need to have any special knowledge about the topic.". We can add a paragraph that would say "English Wikipedia uses different varieties of English. Please use the same variant as in the article." Of course, any suggestion is welcomed, as fat at it remains short and easy to understand. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I like that, and maybe possibly a link to the guideline for different English Varieties, since users might not understand what it means by different varieties of English. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:02, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

In theory it could be possible to add a link. However, it might break the workflow, as newcomers would stop editing to check on this link; no idea of how the step-by-step would behave, I'll test it at testwiki tomorrow.

Another possibility would be to add an example ("color" vs "colour"). Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The only issue I can see with an example would be users assuming that's the only time English varieties would apply. (yes I know this is assuming new editors are stupid and don't have common sense, but sometimes this seems to be true, so you never know) ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:34, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that we have extremely limited real estate in the help panel to communicate tons of essential concepts as a launch ramp for newcomers (things like "please use references"), I think it would be a mistake to devote space to something as comparatively trivial as MOS:ENGVAR. Style issues can always be easily cleaned up by others, and have minimal impact on readers; content issues are both more impactful and harder to fix.

Ideally, this is another instance where phab T265163 will eventually allow us to highlight misspellings (like the red underline in Word/Google Docs) when someone uses "colour" in an article tagged with {{use American English}} and explain ENGVAR to them before they'd even publish a bad conversion. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Is the "help panel" the same thing as "quick start tips"? Or is that something else? -- asilvering (talk) 22:03, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Quick start tips are part of the help panel, in the context of a suggested edit. They are only visible if the user starts a suggested edit at their homepage. Otherwise, the user sees generic help. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Help desk § Mentorship question

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Help desk § Mentorship question. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Newcomer experience + new article creation

Hello @Kudpung, @Novem Linguae, @MB, @BusterD, @Sage (Wiki Ed), and anyone else interested in joining this discussion.  Thank you for spending the time to offer your perspective on newcomer onboarding! My name is Kirsten Stoller, and I’m the Growth team’s Product Manager.  @MMiller (WMF) asked that I follow up from the discussion related to the 2022 WMF letter regarding New pages patrol.

Clearly better newcomer onboarding is tied to the NPP work: newcomers who create articles without understanding the complexity of Wikipedia or even the fundamental principles of Wikipedia end up making considerable work for patrollers. My understanding is that you have ideas regarding how we onboard users who are set on creating new articles.    

I always try to make product decisions backed by data, so I was curious to know more about how many new articles are created by new editors. Obviously that answer depends on how you define “new editor,” but here’s at least some initial data I looked at:

On English Wikipedia, over the previous three months (August 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022):

• 4,616 new articles were created by accounts that are less than 30 days old. 
• About 2.78% of articles created during that time frame were from accounts less than 30 days old.
• About 50 new articles are created each day from accounts that are less than 30 days old.

Are those numbers about what you expected?

Another interesting data point to consider, is that on English Wikipedia: about 25% of newcomers (who complete the welcome survey), say they created an account specifically to create a new Wikipedia article. In other words, about a quarter of newcomers are creating accounts with the immediate intention of creating an article.

As you likely already know, the Growth team has so far been focused on encouraging newcomers to try small edits rather than immediately create articles. All newcomers are encouraged to visit their homepage after creating an account. Currently, on the homepage, we try to funnel newcomers into learning some core skills about how the wikis work before they move on to larger tasks like article creation. In fact, we discourage newcomers from creating articles initially but also try to redirect them as needed if they are still focused on creating a new article. Part of the onboarding flow includes the following language:

To successfully create a new article, you'll need to use many of the skills you can learn through completing some easier tasks. To learn more about how to create a new article, click here.

From my perspective, I would like to see Growth team features continue to evolve and better meet users where they are.  So if a newcomer comes to Wikipedia determined to make an article, I think it would be ideal if we are providing them with the information and guidance they need, perhaps even provide a structured task for creating an article.

I’m excited to hear your input!  Keep in mind that the Growth team is in the middle of several projects that we need to wrap up before we consider starting a new project, so I can’t promise any immediate action on your ideas, but I can promise to listen and start to integrate these ideas into our long-term roadmap.

• What newcomer onboarding or newcomer tools would best serve new users who are looking to create a new article? How might the newcomer homepage better handle these users?
• What tools or processes would best serve new users who create a new article?
• Are there any “quick win” ideas that you think we should consider immediately?

Thank you in advance for any ideas or guidance you share! KStoller-WMF (talk) 18:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Kirsten. Thanks for giving this some thought. It looks as if we're basically on the same page. The statics you provided paint even a more sombre picture than we thought although our anecdotal experience came fairly close. I have been closely following the development of your home page feature and mentoring project for a long time already. I have doubts that it would have a positive impact on the work of NPP by improving the quality of new articles from completely new users and reducing the submissions by them of inappropriate ones. Another interesting data point to consider, is that on English Wikipedia: about 25% of newcomers (who complete the welcome survey), say they created an account specifically to create a new Wikipedia article. In other words, about a quarter of newcomers are creating accounts with the immediate intention of creating an article - this is precisely the problem and it's exacerbated by the fact that probably as much as 50% or more of new articles nowadays are submitted by non-native speakers - something that data mining won't reveal but which the reviewers who spend hours at the new pages feed are critically aware of.

We have already done some preparatory work on this in anticipation of the bugs and new features being addressed for PageTriage that are overdue by many years. We have a 'quick win' solution that absolutely does not need any special programming. It's mainly basic html. php. and .js . Once I have a consensus from the NPP coords on the UI, it could be inserted into the newcomer UX flow quite soon before the NPP backlog grows again. I will be trying to find some time over the weekend to put together what you want to know and how we can integrate your work in our plans. I'll get back to you on Monday. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:44, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, @Kudpung.

That's interesting regarding how many new articles on enwiki are submitted by non-native English speakers. It's good to have a variety of perspectives contributing to English Wikipedia, but I totally see how that creates additional work and complexity to review.

Thanks again for being willing to share your ideas! I look forward to hearing more about the newcomer flow you are envisioning. KStoller-WMF (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts from BusterD. Echoing Kudpung's hearty thanks. We are happy to have your attention, Kirsten. We don't plan on going away. We have reasons to expect a spending increase for the next budgetary year. We hope through discussion we can demonstrate to the community WMF has addressing the flagship's valid and ongoing concerns as a high priority. We're not merely about building tools here. We're about building the connection with the Foundation and staff which leads and compliments the ongoing relationships with each of the pedias and associated projects. Early successes for this team are important. I'm sure our friend Kudpung will bring some needed detail.

I've been playing a bit with the newcomer experience tools. I had an observation (in the weeds a bit, I'll concede): If I was to choose the "create new article" option, I would (as a new user) need to know how essential it is to begin with reliable sources. I shouldn't be able to "publish" unless 1) I've first previewed and 2) in re-reading provided two or more autofilled citations (possibly created from bare links). Known sources might be flagged directly by quality from WP:RSNP red, yellow, green (maybe black for blacklisted). It should be possible to create a new page from the newcomer interface, but doing so should require accomplishments and the interface should educate as it gently impedes. BusterD (talk) 19:24, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@BusterD - not in the weeds at all, thanks for bringing this up! This actually sounds very similar to something I've discussed with the Editing team recently. There has been a discussion about providing new editors with more "in the moment" direction, especially for core content guidelines like citing sources. I am definitely supportive of this line of thinking: ideally we are educating newcomers as they progress rather than retroactively reprimanding and reverting their edits (or deleting their articles) once they have made mistakes. Hopefully we can start to better meet newcomers where they are. There is a lot to do, but I see an approach like this being in the long term interest of onboarding newcomers while also hopefully lightening patroller burdens as well. Thanks for the feedback! KStoller-WMF (talk) 00:46, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Why I quit as a mentor

I've been a mentor from the very start of this feature and have decided to remove myself from the list even though I've long believed in the initiative and think onboarding new users is one of the things we as a community need to improve the most on.

The reason is a lot to do with personal circumstances (I'm more busy and less interested in Wikipedia than I used to) but also that it's incredibly rare to see any users that are both productive and want to stay. I know I've stopped some users from doing counter productive things (informing about COI policies or explaining why their edits get rejected leading them to stop) that would have been more annoying to deal with if they didn't stop saving both their and our time, but that really doesn't bring the same satisfaction as actually helping someone here for the right reasons. I doubt this really is a problem solvable with changes to the system and it may very well just be me that is unlucky (or incompetent), but I thought you guys may want my thoughts anyhow. Even though I can't say the mentor part looks like a great success from my perspective I'm very happy that the WMF is doing something about getting new editors and that the team has been actually listening to the community. --Trialpears (talk) 22:36, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Trialpears. I've had a mostly similar experience for the most part, with the one outlier being my conversations with Mariah Harned. I was the one who reached out to her first there though and maybe I was just really exceptionally lucky to get that kind of response.

I just wanted to let you know that maybe you'd find it more furfilling to participate in WP:AAU? It stands for Adopt-A-User. From what I can tell it hasn't really been truly active in like a decade, but I had a good experience with Nick Moyes there a few years ago. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Page process flow chart

• Hi Kirsten and @Trialpears, Clovermoss, BusterD, Blaze Wolf, Pppery, MB, and Novem Linguae: the editor who was probably mostly concerned with adopting users is Worm That Turned but who later shifted the focus of his work to address other Wikipedia issues. He has an exceptional skill in mentorships and conduct problems and there's probably a lot of tips he could offer based on his experience.

While I believe the Growth team's director(s) correctly identified the need for improved onboarding of new users and obtained significant funds for it, their strengths might not necessarily be in UX and the best GUI design for it and they didn't think at the time to tap in to the wealth of experience with new users by admins such as WTT (adoptions), and Nick Moyes at the Teahouse, and the veteran and/or prolific members of the NPP team like Onel5969, some of whom who, like myself, have been patrolling new pages since long before the special tools were created for it 11 years ago.

I'm a bit behind with my work at the moment because the weekend had to be dedicated to issues in RL, but I'll get back to you asap with our suggestions for a special landing page for those who are determined to submit an article as their first participation plus a truly inter-active Article Wizard that we're working on. These pages which are based on our solid anecdotal experience together with Growth's statistics, will complement the work of Growth's current project, enhance user retention in addition to onboarding, and address the concerns brought up by others here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:12, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Request a mentor to be marked as inactive

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T321509

I dunno where to ask this but could someone mark SkyWolf369 as away? They haven't edited in a month and have been receiving questions from newcomers that they have not been answering. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

•  Done @Blaze Wolf:, I've marked @SkyWolf369: as "away"; SkyWolf369 feel free to mark yourself un-away whenever you return. Eventually this sort of thing should be system managed, phab:T321509 has some notes on it. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)