User talk:NKohli (WMF)
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Last minute call for jurors at the Wiki Science Competition
Hi, I don't if you crossed some the messages I left on wikipedia, wikidata commons and wikiveristy about this event.
I am checking with Ivo Kruusamägi from Wikimedia Estonia the composition of the final jury. We did our best to keep it balanced by continent, gender, field etc but in the end it is still a little bit eurocentric. I mean, it is good they are not all from Estonia and Italy, but of course it could have been better. Finding 15 names (and other one for more national juries) to help was not easy... I did gather some "maybes" from China and India in private that might be used next time, including people in national juries that we can promote but so far I could only reduce the gender unbalance.
I hope that the results will promote science around the globe in any case. As a last appropriate effort now that more urgent issues have been addressed and we are finalizing the main organization, I am looking all the profiles of active wikimedians from or related to Africa, South American Oceania or Asia with a possible public name and surname (jurors should be transparent) and a scientific or technological education or position. Like yours.
Would you be interested in joining us to be a juror in the second-level jury? I am sure that next time we will find new additional contacts and I will find your name not at the last minute. Of course, if we can finally get two or three new names, we can promote one of them to the final jury too.
Even you don't have time, could you help us also in promoting the event amongst people you know or mailing lists or groups you have joined? This will be also useful to promote more national juries next time.
I found your WMF username, I don't have to check if you have another SUL. I am not following the relationship with WMF, I am devoting my time to set up the juries and promotes the event amongst wikimedian. If there is any shortcircuit at the communication level, my apologies!
In any case thank you in advance.--Alexmar983 (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Alexmar983:. I'd be thrilled to be on the jury if there's no restrictions about WMF employees being on the panel. I can't think of many names outside of the Foundation to nominate for the jury. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
- I tell Ivo for the final arrangement. In the meantime I check if you hve and create a wikidata item. Do you have another non-WMF account?--Alexmar983 (talk) 02:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, my non-WMF account is NiharikaKohli. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Ops I made a mistake in the small time I had to find people I only check names and towns. But d:Q42134287 is not you, you don't have a publication record. We agreed to enlarge the juries to people without publication records that have wikimedia expertise in any case, but I can't put a wikidata link to your profile. We have to add SUL link to the profile. I have to figure this out.--Alexmar983 (talk) 03:52, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
- In the end we had enough Indians, so I looked for more jurors from other countries. Thank you in any case. In two years when they will make an Indian competition (probably) I'll inform you again.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:36, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Copypatrol is down
Hi Niharika. Copypatrol has been down for about two hours; "Slim application error". Any help would be appredciated. Thanks, Ninja Diannaa (talk) 15:24, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Bot has stopped
The copypatrol page has no new listings for more than eight hours. I suspect the bot is down. Could you take a look please when you get a chance? Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 23:30, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
- It doesn't seem down anymore, is it? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 15:14, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
- It
iswas working again. I don't know if it re-started on its own or if someone fixed it. But now it appears to have stopped again, as there's been no new reports for 4.5 hours. I have also alerted User:ערן at en.wiki. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 13:28, 29 December 2017 (UTC)- Seems to me that the last record is from ~25 minutes ago. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 13:55, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
- Reports have resumed posting at the normal rate as of 17:26. I will continue to monitor. Ninja Diannaa (talk) 18:49, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
- I still have a bad feeling that something is wrong. There's been no new reports for five hours, and there's normally three to five every hour. Diannaa (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
- I think you're right. No new records since a long while. This is troubling. I've created a ticket to look at this (phab:T183913). Hopefully we'll find a fix for it quickly enough. Thanks for reporting. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 12:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- Hi again. The bot seems to have stopped again. There's been no new reports for twelve hours. Any assistance you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 13:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: I'm looking into this. I'm not sure what's wrong but I think Eran's bot might have stopped working. There was a maintenance reboot for Labs tools yesterday. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: This is a bigger problem that what happened in previous cases. I have filed a ticket here: task T185163 and am awaiting Eran's response on it. He's the author of Eranbot (which is used by CopyPatrol to get records) and he's the only one familiar with how that bot actually works. I'll keep you updated on the progress. Thanks for alerting me. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 03:20, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 07:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
- Hi again. The bot seems to have stopped again. There's been no new reports for twelve hours. Any assistance you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 13:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
- I think you're right. No new records since a long while. This is troubling. I've created a ticket to look at this (phab:T183913). Hopefully we'll find a fix for it quickly enough. Thanks for reporting. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 12:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- I still have a bad feeling that something is wrong. There's been no new reports for five hours, and there's normally three to five every hour. Diannaa (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
- Reports have resumed posting at the normal rate as of 17:26. I will continue to monitor. Ninja Diannaa (talk) 18:49, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
- Seems to me that the last record is from ~25 minutes ago. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 13:55, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
- It
Community Tech bot for Vietnamese Wikipedia
Hi NKohli, I was lead to your talk page via the guide at en:User:Community Tech bot. If this wrong place to ask request, please forgive me :-)
. Could you please support a database report as Wikipedia:Database reports for Vietnamese Wikipedia (I mean only the list of pages you supporting as listed at en:User:Community Tech bot. This tool will help us very much in community advocate and more. Thank you in advanced! --minhhuy (talk) 08:08, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
- Hello! This is the right place for your request. I can definitely set up the database reports for Vietnamese wikipedia. Note that not all of the reports there would work out of the box on Vietnamese, for example PRODed articles one. Rest of them should work but I'll have to look at the code to verify. The bot will need operating permissions on the wiki. Also, you need to tell me a few things-
- What's the master page going to be titled? Like on English it is "Wikipedia:Database reports".
- What are the respective titles for each of the reports going to be? (So I can put the reports on that page under the master page)
- Translations for the report descriptions
- I'll let you know if I think of anything else. Thanks! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you very much, about the preparation for bot tasks, I will explain here:
- vi:Wikipedia:Báo cáo cơ sở dữ liệu (as for Wikipedia:Database reports) is the master page.
- We gonna have 4 reports for now (temporary), those are:
- Thank you very much, about the preparation for bot tasks, I will explain here:
Vietnamese page | English title alternative | Translation of elements |
---|---|---|
vi:Wikipedia:Báo cáo cơ sở dữ liệu/Bài viết theo kích cỡ | Articles by size | * For description:Các bài viết theo tổng kích cỡ, chủ yếu trong không gian tên chính.
Namespace = Không gian tên Article = Bài viết Taille = Độ dài |
vi:Wikipedia:Báo cáo cơ sở dữ liệu/Bài viết được sửa nhiều lần nhất trong tháng vừa qua | Most edited articles last month | * For description:Các bài viết theo số lần sửa đổi trong 30 ngày vừa qua, giới hạn trong 25 bài được sửa nhiều nhất.
Title = Tên bài Revisions = Số phiên bản |
vi:Wikipedia:Báo cáo cơ sở dữ liệu/Thành viên tích cực có lịch sử đóng góp lâu đời nhất (per 50-earliest created, not 200 as English Wikipedia as the situation of Vietnamese Wikipedia) | Active editors with the longest-established accounts | * For description:50 tài khoản người dùng được mở sớm nhất tích cực sửa đổi trong 30 ngày vừa qua.
Username = Tên người dùng Date created = Ngày mở tài khoản Approx. edit count = Số sửa đổi xấp xỉ |
vi:Wikipedia:Báo cáo cơ sở dữ liệu/Số trang theo không gian tên | Page count by namespace | * For description:Số trang theo từng không gian tên.
Namespace ID = ID không gian tên Namespace = Không gian tên Total pages = Tổng số trang Pages with redirects = Trang đổi hướng Pages without redirects = Trang không đổi hướng For the name of each namespaces, I think it already on the Vietnamese database? |
- About the bot permission, Vietnamese Wikipedia don't have a standard bot policy, and because the Community Tech bot will run frequency only for these database reports, it unnecessary for a bot flag. But in the case you still need a flag, you could ask request at vi:Wikipedia:Robot/Yêu cầu cấp quyền (the page is actually low-traffic since our bureaucrat only 2 people, all busy
:^)
)
- About the bot permission, Vietnamese Wikipedia don't have a standard bot policy, and because the Community Tech bot will run frequency only for these database reports, it unnecessary for a bot flag. But in the case you still need a flag, you could ask request at vi:Wikipedia:Robot/Yêu cầu cấp quyền (the page is actually low-traffic since our bureaucrat only 2 people, all busy
- If you need anything more please let me know. Thank you very much again! --minhhuy (talk) 04:47, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for all the information! I will work on this soon. :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
- Hello minhhuy, I've made the community tech bot to add the database report on the pages you've mentioned. The reports on these pages will be updated on a weekly basis. Let us know if you have any questions! Also, in this process, I made the bot to create this page by mistake and I don't have the rights to request its deletion. It would be great if you could help delete it. Thanks! SSethi (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for all the information! I will work on this soon. :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
The bot has stopped
Hello Niharika. The CopyPatrol bot appears to have stopped; there's been no new reports for about four hours, and the iThenticate links are failing to load. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 18:48, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know, Diannaa. I'm looking into it. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
- It seems like iThenticate is experiencing some issues. We should just wait for it to recover. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
user:virajmishra
Hello niharika ji mai shahdol madhya pradesh se hu mera khata global lock hai kya karu mai ab to mera khata global unlock ho. 2405:204:E709:BEDE:1F1A:913E:CAD5:2C9C 16:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
5 remarks
Hello,
I have 5 remarks:
- I thank you very much. With Phabricator, I have seen that you have done a lot of work as a consequence of my wish . This is great.
- Thanks for writing up that wish! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
- In Phab:T60485, some logs are still under discussion. Do you know when they will be discussed?
- You can comment on the ticket if there are log types you think should be thank-able but aren't currently. At the moment, the process is that we consult the Anti-Harassment and/or the Support & Safety teams on what should and should not be thankable. If there's a log type you want us to make thank-able, please comment on the ticket and we can discuss. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
- In Phab:T60485, I have read all the details, but I do not understand the hesitations about the block + gblblock logs. What do you think about my remarks in Talk:Community Tech/Thanks notification for log entries#Why exclude the Block log?
- I believe the reason we did not include block log entries as thankable was that they can encourage negative behavior and potentially lead to trolling. I read your remarks in the thread you link to. Would you like to state your case in the ticket again so other people who have expressed concerns about this can reply and we can have a discussion about it there? Thank you. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
- In Phab:T60485, where is the log associated to the edit of a topic summary of a structured discussion? In this example I have noticed that I was unable to thank for this action.
- Currently only resolving and unresolving a Structured Discussion topic is possible. I'd be happy to look into thanking for edits to topic summary. It's on my to-do list. I'll get back to you on this. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
- In Phab:T60485, I have seen the log type "close" for "flow-close-topic & flow-restore-topic" and the log type "lock" for "Structured discussions topic resolve/unresolve log". I have looked at Phab:T191482 and at this example in the public logs. I see the 'thank link' in this example, but I think that the community does not know about this possibility. Nobody has planified to add this 'thank link' in the corresponding topic's history? Moreover, the line "22:39, 4 April 2018..." can be found in the example in the public logs, but I have not found the exact corresponding log. For instance, I have not found this line in the threaded discussion log. It seems that the menu "All the public logs" does not really show all the public logs?
- The log you are looking at is the threaded discussion log which is different from Structured Discussions (flow) logs. Threaded discussion refers to LiquidThreads which are no longer in use. It seems like there is no dedicated log stream for structured discussion logs and hence is only appears in "All public logs" only. You are right that the thank link only appears in the logs and not in the history because we did not want to flood the history pages with thank links and we felt that having the link in the logs would suffice for the purpose of this wish. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Regards --NicoScribe (talk) 17:10, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for reaching out NicoScribe. I was on vacation for a couple of weeks. I'll get back to you with a reply soon. :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- @NicoScribe: I replied inline. Sorry about the delay on this. Have a nice day! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you very much. No problem for the delay.
- I have transferred my remarks about the thanks into Phab:T60485 and Phab:T191482. But I have little experience in Phabricator: I hope that I have made no mistake. For instance: I have mentioned a comment from MGChecker, so I suppose that MGChecker will receive a notification?
- The fact that the menu "All the public logs" shows all the actions but does not list all the public logs is another problem. Is it a known problem? Is there a Phabricator task about it? --NicoScribe (talk) 09:07, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
- You have done it correctly. MGChecker will receive a notification, yes. For your question about "All public logs" not really showing all logs - I don't know why it's the case. I looked for tickets and found task T157218 but that doesn't seem to address the fact that structured discussion logs don't show up in all logs even though they are public. I think it has something to do with how structured discussions works. I'll ask my colleagues about it and file a ticket if there isn't one. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
- @NicoScribe: I replied inline. Sorry about the delay on this. Have a nice day! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
CopyPatrol: 502 Bad Gateway
Hi NKohli. I'm getting a 502 bad gateway error when I try to open https://tools.wmflabs.org/copypatrol/en. This has been going on for around two hours. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! Diannaa (talk) 20:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Diannaa:. I am able to access CopyPatrol fine. I am getting some error reports about CopyPatrol going down every now and then for a few minutes. The most likely cause is that ToolForge is doing some reboots on the backend which will last another few hours. Sorry about the inconvenience caused. Thanks for letting me know. I'm keeping an eye on it. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- I have been able to access the page again as of about half an hour ago, but it has yet to post any new reports since 2018-06-06 18:18. I had an old version saved in an open tab so was able to clear some old reports in the meantime. Earwig's tool was down for a while too earlier today. Diannaa (talk) 20:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
- My suspicion is that it was down due to the ToolForge reboots as well. I see new reports coming in now on CopyPatrol. We might have missed some due to the issues though, unfortunately. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry but that's incorrect. There's been no new reports since 2018-06-06 18:18 (6 hours ago). Diannaa (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I'm sorry. You are absolutely right. There aren't new records in the interface. The good news is that I do see new records in the database but they are not showing up for some reason. I am investigating this. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Hi again, Diannaa. The problem has now been fixed but I was wrong about the records being saved in the database. New records are now being generated. Sorry for the inconvenience. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you! Diannaa (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry but that's incorrect. There's been no new reports since 2018-06-06 18:18 (6 hours ago). Diannaa (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- My suspicion is that it was down due to the ToolForge reboots as well. I see new reports coming in now on CopyPatrol. We might have missed some due to the issues though, unfortunately. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
- I have been able to access the page again as of about half an hour ago, but it has yet to post any new reports since 2018-06-06 18:18. I had an old version saved in an open tab so was able to clear some old reports in the meantime. Earwig's tool was down for a while too earlier today. Diannaa (talk) 20:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Timeless Newsletter • Issue 1
Welcome to the first issue of the Timeless newsletter! This issue is being sent or forwarded to everyone who has at some point expressed an interest in the project, give or take, as well as a couple of other potentially relevant pages, so if you would like to continue (or start) receiving this newsletter directly, please sign up for further updates on the meta page.
The news:
The Timeless grant has been selected for funding, and the project is now underway!
While I've had a somewhat slow start working on the project for health reasons, I'm pleased to announce that everything described in the proposal is now either happening, or on its way to happening.
Current progress:
- The project now has a hub on Meta to serve as a directory for the various related pages, workboards, and local discussions and help pages. It's probably incomplete, especially with regards to specific language projects that might have local pages for Timeless, so if you know of others, please add them!
- Outreach: I've been talking to various people and groups directly about skinning, desktop/mobile interfaces, project management, specific component support, and other things, and have begun to compile a very shoddy list of skinning problems and random issues on mw.org based on this. Some of this may inform the direction of this project, or possibly this project will result in building a more proper list that can then be used for other things. We shall see.
- Some development - task triage, code review, bug fixing, and various rabbit holes involving ...overflows.
General plan for the future:
- Triage the rest of the workboard.
- Catch up with all the talkpages and other bug reports that have been left various other places that are not the project workboard
- Do all the bug fixes/features/other things!
- Some proposals aimed at Commons and Wikisource in particular (maybe, we'll see)
Essentially, the grant as written shall be carried out. This was the plan, and remains the plan. Timelines remain fuzzy, but while there have been some initial delays, I don't particularly expect the timeline for project as a whole to change a whole lot.
Also, for anyone at Wikimania right now: I am also at Wikimania. Come talk to me in person!
Thank you all for your interest and support thus far!
-— Isarra ༆ 12:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
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Latest message for Collaboration team newsletter; Growth team's newsletter invite
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On behalf of the Growth team, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:29, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Growth team updates #1
Welcome to the first newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth Team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects. We will be starting with Wikipedias, but we hope these changes will benefit every community.
8 ideas we consider: tell us what you think about them!
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Problems with Copypatrol
Hi Niharika. I am experiencing issues with CopyPatrol. I can't get the iThenticate reports to load. Also, there was a large gap with no new reports generated from 02:01 to 07:33, which was in the evening in North America when there is typically a lot of editing happening. Sometimes the report loads, but extremely slowly. I can't tell if the problem is at their end or or at our end. Diannaa (talk) 11:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Adding: We've had no new reports added for 4.5 hours, so the bot appears to have stopped. Diannaa (talk) 13:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: Thanks for alerting me. It seems like the bot is working now. I am able to see the ithenticate reports. Does the issue still persist for you? From your description, it seems like the issue was on iThenticate's end. The don't seem to have a way for us to know when their service is down (they used to have something) so it's hard to know for sure. Do let me know if this happens again. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
- Normal activity appears to have resumed. Reports are being posted at CopyPatrol, and iThenticate report are loading, perhaps a little slower than normal. I agree it was probably an issue on their end this time. Thanks for having a look. Diannaa (talk) 18:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
- The bot appears to have stopped again. No new reports for three hours. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 03:05, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
- Eran re-started the bot at around 03:16, 29 August 2018 and there's been only one new report since then. I was wondering if you should contact iThenticate and see if there's an issue at their end? Or is the problem at our end? Any assistance would be appreciated. Thank you! Diannaa (talk) 12:34, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
- I checked in on the tool and it seems like ToolForge (the platform on which CopyPatrol runs) was down for maintenance for a few hours. I see new reports coming in now so hopefully the problem is now fixed. Sorry about the inconvenience. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
CopyPatrol should not be indexed
Hi Niharika. I was surprised to find the CopyPatrol pages are not NOINDEXed. Google searching usernames such as "Natstaropoli" and "RMGroup17" revealed this fact. I would appreciate it if this page did not appear in Google search results, as it could become a target for vandalism. Any assistance you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
- Hi Diannaa. Sorry for the late reply. I'll look into this request. Thanks for reaching out. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: the awesome MusikAnimal went ahead and did this super fast. I hope the problem is fixed/will be fixed pretty soon once the config is picked up by the crawler(s). -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
- It seems to be working. Thank you, and thanks to MusikAnimal as well. Diannaa (talk) 17:40, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Note
CopyPatrol has stopped
Hi Niharika. The CopyPatrol bot is not filing new reports (there's been no new reports filed since 02:28 UTC October 1), and the iThenticate reports are failing to load. I wonder if the iThenticate website is down, or if there's something happening at our end that we can fix. Thanks for any assistance you can offer. Diannaa (talk) 13:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm looking into it. Thanks for reporting. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- Eran reports that there's something wrong with our iThenticate account and we need to get it re-enabled. Diannaa (talk) 19:23, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- I realised. I hope we can get it back up soon. I'll keep an eye on updates. Thanks again. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- Eran has now re-started the bot and normal activity has resumed at CopyPatrol. Thank you, Diannaa (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- I realised. I hope we can get it back up soon. I'll keep an eye on updates. Thanks again. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
- Eran reports that there's something wrong with our iThenticate account and we need to get it re-enabled. Diannaa (talk) 19:23, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi Niharika. The bot appears to have stopped again. There's been no new reports for nearly 7 hours. Thanks for any assistance. Diannaa (talk) 03:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
- Hmm, I see no recent requests have been made to Turnitin. Eran do you have any idea about this? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
- I think it run the bot without timeout flag earlier this week. I restarted it, should be working now. eranroz (talk) 06:44, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Growth team updates #2
Welcome to the second newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth Team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Our plan for the next quarter is ready
After consulting with many communities on the best ways to increase retention, we will focus during the next 3 months on these projects:
- Understanding first day: to see what new editors do right after creating their accounts. We will be careful with user privacy, and we hope to share initial results in December.
- Personalized first day: this idea will also help us learn a lot about new editors by adding some optional questions to the new editor’s registration process. We hope to share initial results in December.
- Focus on help desk: we plan to invite or redirect people to the local help desks where they can ask questions to help them make their first edits. We hope to have an initial experiment running in December.
You can read about the details of this plan on our team page.
How did we get to this plan?
We have set up our plan based on the 8 ideas we were considering. You can read about our analysis in our team updates, and detailed discussion on each idea.
We are looking for volunteers
Do you want to participate to our experiments? We are looking for new communities to work with us (especially a new mid-size wiki), and people to become ambassadors to help us to communicate with the different communities. Discover how you can involve yourself or your community.
Learn more about us
You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project page for detailed updates on the projects we'll work on.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 13:31, 4 October 2018 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.Grant Metrics tool
Hi Niharika, I am writing this message to know about Grant Metrics tool. I would like to know whether the tool has been fully developed, its readiness for usage and whether it has been officially launched for use. Thanks, KCVelaga (talk) 09:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
- @KCVelaga: Hello! Grant Metrics tool is under active development at the moment. We are going to be adding more features to the tool over the next couple months. You should be able to use the tool in its current state though. It has the ability to generate some standard statistics for a given set of participants on a given wiki during a given time period. We recently added ability to filter the edits by category too. The tool has been officially given the go ahead for being used by the communities. We have several Wikimedia chapters and event organizers using the tool currently.
- The tool is on track to being renamed to Event Metrics in the near term. We'll be including some ways to download detailed reports about the edits that took place during the event. We will also be adding some more metrics in future. I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions or run into problems with the tool. Thanks. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): Thanks for quick and detailed response. I've got a chance to use and test the tool yesterday. It looks quite good. But I would like to know more about the difference between the existing "Programs and Events Dashboard" and this tool. They almost generate the same metrics. If you're planning to add more features to it (especially which the community wants), it'll be even more awesome. I suggest doing a survey with the WMF grantees and check what they're in need of. If you've done this already, that is great. Thanks, KCVelaga (talk) 15:26, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- @KCVelaga: Grant Metrics is meant to be simpler to use with a focus on events that community organizers run. The Dashboard has a bigger focus on classroom workflows whereas Grant Metrics is built with the sole purpose of getting metrics which event organizers are interested in. It's also officially supported by Wikimedia Foundation while the Dashboard is supported by WikiEd Foundation. This project is now being run by JMatazzoni (WMF) actually. He's already done a fair bit of consultation with the community on this page. Your thoughts on what metrics would be useful for events you organize (or other use cases) would be very welcome on that page. Thank you! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 04:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): Thanks for clarifying, and directing me to the link. It is quite helpful to understand more about this tool. KCVelaga (talk) 15:36, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- @KCVelaga: Grant Metrics is meant to be simpler to use with a focus on events that community organizers run. The Dashboard has a bigger focus on classroom workflows whereas Grant Metrics is built with the sole purpose of getting metrics which event organizers are interested in. It's also officially supported by Wikimedia Foundation while the Dashboard is supported by WikiEd Foundation. This project is now being run by JMatazzoni (WMF) actually. He's already done a fair bit of consultation with the community on this page. Your thoughts on what metrics would be useful for events you organize (or other use cases) would be very welcome on that page. Thank you! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 04:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): Thanks for quick and detailed response. I've got a chance to use and test the tool yesterday. It looks quite good. But I would like to know more about the difference between the existing "Programs and Events Dashboard" and this tool. They almost generate the same metrics. If you're planning to add more features to it (especially which the community wants), it'll be even more awesome. I suggest doing a survey with the WMF grantees and check what they're in need of. If you've done this already, that is great. Thanks, KCVelaga (talk) 15:26, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
The Community Wishlist Survey
Hi,
You get this message because you’ve previously participated in the Community Wishlist Survey. I just wanted to let you know that this year’s survey is now open for proposals. You can suggest technical changes until 11 November: Community Wishlist Survey 2019.
You can vote from November 16 to November 30. To keep the number of messages at a reasonable level, I won’t send out a separate reminder to you about that. /Johan (WMF) 11:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Problem with CopyPatrol
Hi Niharika. I am having a problem with CopyPatrol: I am getting an error message when I scroll down to the bottom of the page and try to load additional items. The message reads "An unknown error occurred when loading results. Please try again." Diannaa (talk) 22:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: Thanks for flagging this. We made some fixes to the tool which caused this. We will fix this as soon as possible. I will keep you informed. Thanks for letting me know. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks! Diannaa (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
- This has been fixed since. Let me know if it happens again. Thank you! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks! Diannaa (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Growth team updates #3
Welcome to the third newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Two Growth team projects to be deployed in next two weeks
We will be deploying the "Understanding first day" and "Personalized first day" projects on Czech and Korean Wikipedias in the coming weeks. See the new project pages below for full details on the projects, and our project updates page for their progress.
- Understanding first day: learn about the actions new editors take right after creating their accounts. We will be careful with user privacy, and we hope to share initial results in December.
- Personalized first day: learn about new editors' objectives by adding some optional questions to the new editor’s registration process, and personalizing their onboarding. We hope to share initial results in December.
Third Growth team project begins
- Focus on help desk: direct newcomers to the local help desks where they can ask questions to help them make their first edits. We hope to have an initial experiment running in December.
Best practices for helping newcomers
We are going to direct newcomers to help desks. But what's the best way to reply to a newcomer there? We have gathered some best practices for successful interactions, based on community experiences and some external documentation. The page has also been reviewed by some experienced community members who suggested some changes. That page is now open for translations. Comments and suggestions are still welcome!
We are still looking for volunteers
Do you want to participate to our experiments? We are looking for new communities to work with us (especially a new mid-size wiki), and people to become ambassadors to help us to communicate with the different communities. Discover how you can involve yourself or your community.
Also, please share this update with your community and interested people!
Learn more about us
You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project page for detailed updates on the projects we'll work on.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 13:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
wishlist
sorry, I missed the deadline of the discussion phase of the wishlist survey to change the name of the stereoskopie proposal. Can I still change the name? (and how? just do a move of the proposal page, or is there more to think of?) --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 05:13, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
- @°: That's okay. We can still rename it. I can rename it on your behalf. Do you know what you will rename it to? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- How about "Present 3D content in a stereoscopic view"? --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 20:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Done! Thanks. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- I only now noticed that the 360degree proposal has been entered again in this year. I had hoped to merge my propoal with the 360-proposal last year, but got no reply from the proposer. This year this proposal comes with a 3D/360 example picture (that seems new to me). Now it does make even less sense not to merge the proposals. As I am sceptic, that contacting the proposer by me will have any more effect than last year, is there anything you can still do about it? It would be bad, if the proposals cancel each other out in the voting, as the problems and solutions are very similar. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 18:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- @°: I agree it makes sense to merge the proposals. Would you rather merge your proposal into 360 photo viewing one or the other way around? I can talk to them and help merge it. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- I tried to conntact the other proposer in the past, maybe you have more luck. As the voting will start soon, I think it best to merge it to "present 3D and panoramic content in adequate ways like viewing in stereoscopic view". I trust you to make the needed changes to the text, you know I am not after a specific implementation, but a good solution for displaying 3D, 180degree, 360degree media. I drafted my proposal in autumn 2016, by now the MW software has been devoloped in various ways, so it is up to the wishlist team to adapt both proposals to the state of the software. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 10:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- ° I think calling it present 3D and panoramic content in adequate ways like viewing in stereoscopic view is a mouthful. People are less likely to understand and click on it. Support 360 photo viewing is shorter and more easily understood. @Ahm masum, TheDJ, and MichaelSchoenitzer: - what do you think about merging 360 photo viewing and Present 3D content in a stereoscopic view proposals? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): ; I think "Suppot 3D & 360° photo viewing" would be appropriate .In this way these proposals CAN'T cancel each other in the voting phase. but the "Proposed solution" section must have to contain the both "solution's" .
- ° I think calling it present 3D and panoramic content in adequate ways like viewing in stereoscopic view is a mouthful. People are less likely to understand and click on it. Support 360 photo viewing is shorter and more easily understood. @Ahm masum, TheDJ, and MichaelSchoenitzer: - what do you think about merging 360 photo viewing and Present 3D content in a stereoscopic view proposals? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- I tried to conntact the other proposer in the past, maybe you have more luck. As the voting will start soon, I think it best to merge it to "present 3D and panoramic content in adequate ways like viewing in stereoscopic view". I trust you to make the needed changes to the text, you know I am not after a specific implementation, but a good solution for displaying 3D, 180degree, 360degree media. I drafted my proposal in autumn 2016, by now the MW software has been devoloped in various ways, so it is up to the wishlist team to adapt both proposals to the state of the software. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 10:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
- @°: I agree it makes sense to merge the proposals. Would you rather merge your proposal into 360 photo viewing one or the other way around? I can talk to them and help merge it. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- I only now noticed that the 360degree proposal has been entered again in this year. I had hoped to merge my propoal with the 360-proposal last year, but got no reply from the proposer. This year this proposal comes with a 3D/360 example picture (that seems new to me). Now it does make even less sense not to merge the proposals. As I am sceptic, that contacting the proposer by me will have any more effect than last year, is there anything you can still do about it? It would be bad, if the proposals cancel each other out in the voting, as the problems and solutions are very similar. --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 18:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
- Done! Thanks. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- How about "Present 3D content in a stereoscopic view"? --𝔊 (Gradzeichen Diſk✉Talk) 20:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- from my perspective @Gradzeichen's "Proposed solution" will be too much for wiki tech team to Fully Implement.
- the work for 360° is already 50% done , but the support for 3D/VR content didn't even start yet.
- @Gradzeichen's want jps , sbs and ttb file format support . even though i also want these badly ; but please face the reality.we won't see this kind of implementation until 2020-2021....
what do you say @TheDJ: , @AKlapper (WMF):......TRHANKS EVERYONE --- Ahm masum (talk) 19:48, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Development of Blame Tool
is complete? Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 07:13, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
- @Winged Blades of Godric: My apologies. That's incorrect. We're yet to begin work on that project. Thanks for pointing it out! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Growth team updates #4
Welcome to the fourth newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
We need your feedback!
We have two requests for community members:
- Now that data is coming in for the welcome survey, we are planning how to use that data to personalize the newcomer's first day. See our current thoughts here, and join the conversation here.
- Try out the help panel's interactive prototype, and read about how we're planning to roll it out, and post any thoughts or reactions here.
Two Growth team projects have been deployed (detailed updates here)
- Personalized first day (welcome survey) was deployed on November 20 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias.
- The survey is now being shown to half of new users (A/B test). Responses are being recorded in the database. We'll report on initial results during December.
- We are planning to test a second version of the survey, called "Variation C", which we think will maximize the number of users who complete the survey and stay on the wiki.
- The original objective of this project was to give newcomers the materials they need to achieve their goals, and so now we are currently planning how we will use the information collected in the welcome survey to personalize the newcomer's experience. We hope community members will read our current thinking and join the conversation here. Some of the plans we are considering include:
- Making it easy for newcomers to see editing activity around the topic areas in which they indicated that they're interested.
- Connecting interested newcomers to experienced editors.
- Surfacing the help content most relevant to the reason for which the newcomers created their accounts.
- Understanding first day (EditorJourney) was deployed on November 15 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias. It has been done after a longer security review and final testing than expected. Data is now being recorded for all new users on those wikis, and we've been auditing the data and preparing to make initial reports during December. Stay tuned for the next newsletter!
Help panel is under construction
- Focus on help desk (help panel) is planned to be deployed during the week of January 7 on both Czech and Korean Wikipedias.
- This interactive prototype is the best way to see the design and wording in the feature.
- We ran live user tests on the prototype, with results posted here.
- In addition to giving the ability to ask a question, the help panel will also contain a set of links to existing help content. Our ambassadors on Czech and Korean Wikipedias are determining the right initial set of most helpful links in this task.
- We encourage community members to try out the prototype and read about the rules for who will get the feature, and add any thoughts to this discussion.
We are still looking for volunteers
Do you want to participate to our experiments? We are looking for new communities to work with us (especially a new mid-size wiki), and people to become ambassadors to help us to communicate with the different communities. Discover how you can involve yourself or your community.
Also, please share this update with your community and interested people!
Learn more about us
You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project updates page for detailed updates on the projects we work on.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 09:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Copypatrol bot has stopped
Hi Niharika. The CopyPatrol bot is not filing new reports (there's been no new reports filed since 2019-01-05 15:47), and the iThenticate reports are failing to load. The iThenticate website was down for maintenance for a while, but it's back up now. Perhaps there's something happening at our end that we can fix? Thanks for any assistance you can offer. I have also posted at Eran's talk page. Diannaa (talk) 21:07, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Normal activity has resumed. Thank you :) Diannaa (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #5
Welcome to the fifth newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
New projects for discussion
We began the "Personalized first day" project with the welcome survey so that we could gather information about what newcomers are trying to accomplish. The next step is to use that information to create experiences that help the newcomers accomplish their goal – actually personalizing their first day. We asked for community thoughts in the previous newsletter, and after discussing with community members and amongst our team, we are now planning two projects as next steps: "engagement emails" and "newcomer homepage".
- Engagement emails: this project was first discussed positively by community members here back in September 2018, and the team how has bandwidth to pursue it. The idea is that newcomers who leave the wiki don't get encouraged to return to the wiki and edit. We can engage them through emails that send them the specific information they need to be successful – such as contact from a mentor, the impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
- Newcomer homepage: we developed the idea for this project after analyzing the data from the welcome survey and EditorJourney datasets. We saw that many newcomers seem to be looking for a place to get started – a place that collects their past work, options for future work, and ways to learn more. We can build this place, and it can connect to the engagement emails. The content of both could be guided by what newcomers say they need during their welcome survey, and contain things like contact from a mentor, impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
Initial reports on newcomer activity
We have published initial reports on each of the team's first two projects. These reports give the basic numbers from each project, and there are many more questions we will continue to answer in future reports. We're excited about these initial findings. They have already helped us define and design parts of our future projects.
- Welcome survey: the initial report on welcome survey responses is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Most users respond to the survey, giving it high response rates of 67% and 62% in Czech and Korean Wikipedias, respectively.
- The survey does not cause newcomers to be less likely to edit.
- The most common reason for creating an account in Korean Wikipedia is to read articles—not for editing—with 29% of Korean users giving that responses.
- Large numbers of respondents said they are interested in being contacted to get help with editing: 36% in Czech and 53% in Korean.
- Understanding first day: the initial report on what newcomers do on their first day is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Large numbers of users view help or policy pages on their first day: 42% in Czech and 28% in Korean.
- Large numbers of users view their own User or User Talk page on their first day: 34% in Czech and 39% in Korean.
- A majority of new users open an editor on their first day – but about a quarter of them do not go on to save an edit during that time.
Help panel deployment
The help panel was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on January 10. Over the past four weeks:
- About 400 newcomers in each wiki have seen the help panel button.
- About 20% of them open up the help panel.
- About 50% of those who open it up click on one of the links.
- About 5% of Czech users ask questions, and about 1% of Korean users ask questions.
We think that the 20% open rate and 50% click rate are strong numbers, showing that a lot of people are looking for help, and many want to help themselves by looking at help pages. The somewhat lower numbers of asking questions (especially in Korean Wikipedia) has caused us to consider new features to allow people to help themselves. We're going to be adding a search bar to the help panel next, which will allow users to type a search that only looks for pages in the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
How to create a good feedback page?
What is the way to built a good help page? What blocks you when writing an help page? Your replies will help to create better help contents to newcomers, that would be used on Help panel.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 14:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
CopyPatrol page will not load; Earwig's copyvio detector also will not load
Hi Niharika. Earwig's copyvio detector tool will not load, nor will Eran's CopyPatrol. Copypatrol stopped working at around 03:02 UTC. Earwig's tool was down for at least half an hour before that and possibly longer (I can't say for sure, because that's what time I started my editing session). Earwig's tool has been having issues on and off for a few days already. I've already posted at en:User talk:The Earwig and en:User talk:ערן. In fact while I was composing this message I discovered that Labs is down completely: 500 - Internal Server Error. If you could investigate that would be great. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 04:23, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: Toolforge, which hosts both of those tools, is experiencing severe problems. You can sead the announcement here. They expect it to last a few more hours at the very least. :( Sorry for the inconvenience. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks Niharika. CopyPatrol is currently working, so hopefully I will be able to stay caught up. Some cases can't be resolved without Earwig's tool but I will leave those aside for now. Diannaa (talk) 19:55, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- Hello again. Some parts of the Tools hosted at Labs are working again. I have contacted Eran to try re-starting the bot but I thought I should let you know as well in case you can get the CopyPatrol page working again (at least temporarily). Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
- It actually looks like Eran's bot is running, but the page where the results are reported (https://tools.wmflabs.org/copypatrol/en) is still producing a "500 - Internal Server Error". Diannaa (talk) 21:33, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Hi Niharika.CopyPatrol is working, at least intermittently, but the "Load More" button at the bottom of the page is not working. If this problem could be repaired that would be great. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 13:59, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Diannaa, I just caught up on my notifications. It seems like some of the backend issues with tools-database have been resolved. Per my testing it seems like the "Load More" button is functioning fine now. Do you still see the problem? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
- It started working properly shortly after I posted here. Somebody either saw my post or fixed it on their own as part of the clean-up. So everything is working well right now, and has been for a couple hours. Hopefully the worst is over! Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks
Thanks for the memory. I do not have much time, but maybe I will be interested in the matter. Greetings from Poland. MOs810 (talk) 08:20, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #6
Welcome to the sixth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Plans for the next three months
The Growth team has been working on features to increase new editor retention for the last seven months. We have made a lot of progress and learned a lot, and we've just finished planning for our next three months. During the next three months, we're going to focus on iterations of the help panel and the newcomer homepage. We have decided not to start the engagement emails project, because we think that we will be able to do better work by improving the projects we have already started. Specifically, these are our team goals:
- Deploy and iterate on newcomer homepage
- Continued iteration on help panel
- Make the help panel available to more wikis
- Add a fourth Wikipedia to our set of target wikis
- Publish in-depth quantitative reporting on the data from this year
- Assemble a report on what our team has learned so far about newcomers
Newcomer homepage
The newcomer homepage is our current major project. We hope that community members can read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. You can see in the accompanying mockup how we are thinking about the homepage.We have recently decided on the specifications for an initial version that we can deploy and iterate on:
- Shown in the User space
- Desktop only (mobile comes next)
- Four modules
- Help module: help links and ability to ask help desk questions
- Mentorship module: all newcomers assigned a mentor to whom they can ask questions
- Impact module: shows the number of pageviews for pages the newcomer edited
- Account completion module: gives some very simple recommendations of how to get started (add an email, start your user page)
- Layout not yet personalized for each user
We're currently running live user tests on this configuration. Future work will include adapting the homepage for mobile, working on a task recommendation module, and considering how to encourage newcomers to visit their homepage.
Help panel
During the last month, the help panel was deployed on Vietnamese Wikipedia, adding it to Czech and Korean Wikipedias.As of 2019-03-14:
- 2,425 newcomers have seen the help panel
- 422 of them have opened it
- 175 have clicked links
- 27 have run searches
- 40 have asked questions
We have been analyzing the data around usage, and we'll be publishing numbers in the coming weeks. At a high level, we see at least some users are being helped by the panel, with many clicking on links, running searches, and asking questions. We do not yet see any problems that have arisen from the help panel. Therefore, we think that the help panel is generally a positive feature – though data is still coming that will allow us to see its numerical impact. If other wikis are interested in using the help panel, please contact us on our team's talk page, in the language of your choice.
Over the past month, we have iterated on the help panel to take into account the usage patterns we are seeing. You can see in the accompanying image how the help panel currently looks.
- We added a search capability, in which users can search the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
- The help panel was previously available whenever a newcomer was in "edit" mode. We are now also showing the help panel when a newcomer is in "read" mode on a page in the Help, Wikipedia, or User namespaces.
We want to see whether users find the "search" useful. If so, we may spend time on improving search results. We're also looking forward to learning whether exposing the help panel in "read" mode in more namespaces will increase usage.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Bot stopped
Hi Niharika, just a note to let you know the copypatrol bot has stopped - there's been no new reports added since 01:02 (eleven hours ago). I have also posted at Eran's talk page. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Diannaa (talk) 12:11, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
- Just passing by. It looks there's a problem with Toolforge cron jobs. A report can be found at task T218649. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
- The bot has stopped again. No new reports since 13:17 on March 21 (8 hours ago). If you could find out what's happening that would be great. I will cross-post at Eran's talk page. Thank you, Diannaa (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
- I scanned the report, which is suggesting that the problem is fixed, maybe. It isn't.--Sphilbrick (talk) 12:46, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
- Is anyone working on this? An update would be appreciated. Diannaa (talk) 11:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
- T21869 seems to be resolved but problems are still occuring. Opening a ticket; which is the best way to elicit attention.Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
- @Diannaa:--I've opened task T219213. Regards, Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
- T21869 seems to be resolved but problems are still occuring. Opening a ticket; which is the best way to elicit attention.Winged Blades of Godric (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
- Is anyone working on this? An update would be appreciated. Diannaa (talk) 11:51, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
- Sorry, Diannaa, I was on vacation for a few days. I have pinged Eran and am following on the ticket. The problem lies with Eranbot and not CopyPatrol so there's not much I can do about fixing this myself. My apologies about the inconvenience. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #7
Welcome to the seventh newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Newcomer homepage release this week
The main feature that the team has been working on over the last month is the newcomer homepage. This feature gives newcomers a place on the wiki to get oriented, learn about editing, and see their impact (see the accompanying screenshot from Test Wikipedia). We intend to release this feature to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias on May 2nd.Like the other Growth team features, this will be deployed in a controlled experiment, in which half of newcomers will have access to their homepage and half will not. Users with the feature will be able to access it by clicking their username at the top of their browser, and it will only be available on desktop -- not mobile. Experienced users who want to see their homepage will be able to turn it on in their preferences.
Wikis receiving the newcomer homepage can expect these things:
- Additional questions will come to the help desk from the "help module" on the homepage.
- Mentors who have signed up for the "mentorship module" will start to receive questions on their user talk pages.
- More users may create and edit user pages through the "start module".
Recent and future homepage development
The most important piece developed for the homepage over the last month is the "start module", which gives newcomers clear actions to take when they are new: add/confirm their email, go through a tutorial, start their user page. We learned about the need for this module from user tests last month. The next priorities for the newcomer homepage are:
- Mobile design: to work well in mobile browsers, the homepage needs a separate design and engineering. See the accompanying mockups for potential mobile designs.
- Features for discovery: only about 15% - 30% of newcomers will discover their homepage by clicking their username at the top of their browser. We are going to be designing additional ways for newcomers to find out about it.
- Additional modules: the initial version contains some of the simpler modules. Potential upcoming modules include task recommendations and a feed of activity on the wiki.
Other updates
- Help panel leading indicators: our team published data on the help panel's initial performance. The evaluation exposes some areas for improvement, but we think the help panel's behavior so far is healthy and that it is not having a negative impact on the wikis. We will be publishing additional data, making plans, and asking for community thoughts around the future of the help panel over the course of the next two weeks. If you are interested in trying out the help panel on your wiki, please let us know on our team's talk page.
- Long term plans: the team had a week of planning meetings, in which we talked about some longer-term ideas for Growth work. Some of the top ideas are: to extend the newcomer homepage to help user's build their identity through a user profile, and to revisit the "engagement emails" project that the team put on hold. Over the next month, we will be asking for community conversation around how the team can spend our time in the next fiscal year, that starts in July.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019
Welcome to a special newsletter from the Growth team! This special newsletter is not about Wikimedia Foundation Growth team projects. Instead, it is a call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019. We think that many people who receive this newsletter may have something valuable to contribute to this space at Wikimania. We haven't translated the newsletter, because Wikimania's language is English.
Please see below for the message from the organizers of the Community Growth space at Wikimania.
---
Wikimania 2019 is organized into 19 “spaces”, which are all accepting proposals for sessions. This message comes from the team organizing the Community Growth space.
Since you are interested b Growth team projects, and potentially involved in welcoming newcomers initiatives on your wiki, we would like to invite you to submit a proposal to the Community Growth space because of the actions you’ve done around newcomers on wikis. The deadline for submission is June 1. See below for Community Growth submission topics and session formats. Topics and sessions have to be in English.
In the Community Growth space, we will come together for discussions, presentations, and workshops that address these questions:
- What is and is not working around attracting and retaining newcomers?
- How should Wikimedia activities evolve to help communities grow and flourish?
- How should our technology and culture evolve to help new populations to come online, participate and become community members?
Recommended topics: please see this link for the list for the list of recommended topics. If you do not plan to submit a proposal, you can also suggest additional topics here. If your topic does not fit into our space, remember that there are 18 other spaces that could welcome you sharing your knowledge and perspective.
Types of session. We prefer sessions that are participatory, interactive, promote conversations, and give a voice to parts of our movement that are heard less often. Please see this link for the list of recommended session formats.
Poster submissions. Posters are also a good way to introduce a topic, or show some results of an action. Please consider submitting one!
More information about the Community Growth space, topics, and submission formats is available on the proposal page.
Please submit your proposal. The reviews will happen at the beginning of June.
If you have questions about Wikimania in general, please ask them on the Wikimania wiki.
On behalf of the Community Growth leadership team, Trizek (WMF), 11:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Labs is down, or partially down
I am having issues accessing https://tools.wmflabs.org/copypatrol/en, getting an error "HTTP error 500" message. Some of the other pages on Labs are not working, for example these ones are not working:
- https://tools.wmflabs.org/admin/tools
- https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/rangecontribs/index.php?
- https://tools.wmflabs.org/rangecontrib/
- https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/autoblock/index.php
Any assistance in getting this fixed would be appreciated. Cross-posting here from en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Labs_is_down,_or_partially_down Thank you, --Diannaa (talk) 13:12, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Update: Some of the tools are working again, including CopyPatrol. I'll let you know if further problems arise. Diannaa (talk) 13:44, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Excuse me
Please, can you unblock my account on English Wikipedia? --Humanist920 (talk) 09:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
- Humanist920, NKohli (WMF) is not an administrator on the English Wikipedia. You should ideally appeal your block at English Wikipedia, not on Meta Wiki. — FR 09:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Event metrics : loading online event
Dear Niharika
I have created an event WLW Women in Sport in the Event metrics space for this online event that I want to launch on the 1st June Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Women in Sport. I am probably being a bit dense, but I cannot see how to compile the relevant categories across the various elements en.wp, fr.wp, wikidata, and commons. I am not sure how to capture entering a few categories will collect all of the changes done by participants and the name of those who have participated. Any ideas? Even just capturing some of the changes (say, WikiData or Commons) would be great ... All ideas are welcome!
If I have come to the wrong person, I apologise. Please head me in the correct direction! Thank you for your attention to this! Islahaddow (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Islahaddow: Hello! When you click into the event, you have the option of adding categories and relevant wikis for those categories. When you enter those and save, you can then generate the statistics. You can then download this data and open it in a spreadsheet to get all the data. Does this help? :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): - Sadly, no. I can see how to add the Wikis that are affected, which I have done. I am unsure what categories to add. So on the page I linked above, there is a Listeria bot created list pulling in information from WikiData, English Wikipedia and Commons. The participant is encouraged to add information to either of those options. What category do I use in order to keep all of the changes that are made across all of those projects recorded for this Women in Sport drive? I am hoping you have the answer, but I understand that it is not a usual request ...! Islahaddow (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Islahaddow: does this page answer your question? The categories have to exist on the wiki. They are not automatically created by the tool. The tool looks for pages in those categories to generate the statistics. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 06:07, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
- @NKohli (WMF): - Sadly, no. I can see how to add the Wikis that are affected, which I have done. I am unsure what categories to add. So on the page I linked above, there is a Listeria bot created list pulling in information from WikiData, English Wikipedia and Commons. The participant is encouraged to add information to either of those options. What category do I use in order to keep all of the changes that are made across all of those projects recorded for this Women in Sport drive? I am hoping you have the answer, but I understand that it is not a usual request ...! Islahaddow (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
Omg !!! You are working on svgTranslate !
Hello NKohli, I'am the French wikipedian, we took the taxi in Prague together. I just noticed you are revamping SVGtranslate ! Thanks you so much ! I've been involved with it back in 2008, pushing it everywhere. So nice to see it get some cares it deserves. Thank you ! Yug (talk) 23:00, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Yug! We have done a bunch of work on SVG Translate. The version is available to try here. If you get a chance to try it, I would be happy to hear your feedback. It has some bugs and is not perfect but it works much better than the previous tool. :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 05:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
- Great. Let me spread the word to the relevant portals (en:WP:Graphic Lab, fr:WP:Atelier graphique, etc.) ^^ Yug (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
- English, French, German, Spanish, Italian wikigraphists communities just got a Beta release notice. They are the main ones. As of now it seems enough.
- Commons graphic lab, Turkey and others labs may need to be informed later on. Thanks again to your team, please bring our thanks up to the organizers and developers as well. <3 Yug (talk) 16:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
- @Yug: Thank you for spreading the word!! I will pass on your thanks to the team! :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
- When you officially release it and want more massive impact, wee need to add the link back to Commons {{Translation possible}}. See how this template was when SVGtranslate v1 was operating (+ a funny wiki-history gem XD).
- The template is protected so only admins can edit it (do you know one ?), yet we still can push for this template to be edited. Yug (talk) 06:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
- Great, thanks Yug! I don't know any admins personally but I am sure people will be willing to help out when the app is stable enough for that. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
- @Yug: Thank you for spreading the word!! I will pass on your thanks to the team! :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #8
Welcome to the eighth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
May was a busy month, and we apologize for a slightly late newsletter.
General news
- The Growth team will begin to work with the Arabic Wikipedia community as a new target wiki. This is in addition to Korean, Czech, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
- Several members of the Growth team attended Wikimedia Hackathon. To see what we worked on and learned, read this update (in English).
- Wikimania 2019 is coming up in August. The conference will include a "Community Growth" space, for sessions about how our communities expand through software and programs.
Early results from newcomer homepage release
- The newcomer homepage was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on May 6 for desktop users. It is deployed in an A/B test, so that half of newcomers have access to the homepage and half do not. They access it by clicking on their username in their personal tools along the top of the window.
- After about a month of usage, we see a few interesting trends. We think that the usage is going well so far, as we continue to work on the feature
- About half of users who visit the homepage click on a link or button.
- About half of users visit the homepage more than once, with about a fifth of users visiting on multiple days.
- Users are interacting with all the different modules on the page -- there is no clear favorite.
- Users have been asking questions to their mentors -- but not on the help desk.
Next steps for homepage
- Because we are seeing good reactions to the homepage from the first users, we are prioritizing work that helps more users find their homepage:
- Mobile homepage: the team is currently building the mobile version of the homepage. We tested this design with five users, giving us confidence that the design is strong.
- Features to aid discovery: only a minority of newcomers who have a homepage will find their homepage on their own. The team is designing features that help newcomers learn where to find their homepage. The most important feature will point to the homepage link using a GuidedTour.
- User tests showed that the most important thing to add to the homepage are clear task recommendations to help newcomers get started with editing right away. This is the module that we will be working on next.
Future of team in the next year
- The Growth team has been working since September 2018, and we're now planning for the work we'll be doing for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.
- Though we have not yet developed a feature that clearly increases growth in our target wikis, we believe that the features we have been developing have high potential to increase growth if we continue to work on them.
- Therefore, the team will continue to work on the features we have started, and we will develop related features that improve the overall newcomer experience. These features may include:
- Improvements to how newcomers can build their user pages and develop their on-wiki identity. See initial notes here.
- Improvements to how newcomers receive notifications on-wiki and through email, so that they quickly find out if other users are contacting them.
- Processes that help newcomers get awards or recognition for good work.
- Ways for newcomers to see the activity on the wiki and find others who share their interests.
- We will start discussions with communities to help us define these ideas before we work on them.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
09:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
CopyPatrol stopped
Hi Niharika. The CopyPatrol bot is not filing new reports (there's been no new reports filed since 14:37 UTC July 13), and the iThenticate reports are failing to load. I wonder if the iThenticate website is down, or if there's something happening at our end that we can fix. Thanks for any assistance you can offer. This is the same as the issue I reported in October 2018. I will also post on Eran's talk at en.wiki. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 17:08, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Update: Normal activity has resumed. I'll let you know if it doesn't last! Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 20:14, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Hi again Niharika. The bot has stopped again; no new reports since 13:25 on July 21 (8 hours ago). Cross posting to Eran's talk at en.wiki. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
The bot is still down. Is there anybody that can take a look? user:MusikAnimal sometimes helps. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 18:38, 22 July 2019 (UTC) user:MusikAnimal (WMF) Diannaa (talk) 19:26, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
- @Diannaa: Thanks for the ping. I'm alerting the team about it. We'll look into it asap. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you! Diannaa (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
Doc James, Eranroz It looks like we ran out of the quota again. Can someone please ping Turnitin to update the credits again? The tool won't function until that happens. :( -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 20:41, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
- User:Diannaa and User:NKohli (WMF) Okay thanks for the heads up. Will email them right now. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
- Normal activity has resumed. Thanks Dr H. Diannaa (talk) 18:28, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
- User:Diannaa and User:NKohli (WMF) Okay thanks for the heads up. Will email them right now. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #9
Welcome to the ninth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Opening Growth features to more wikis
The Growth team has existed for about one year. During that time, we have developed several features that we think can help increase retention. Though we are still gathering data to detect scientifically whether the features increase retention, we think that some of the features are ready to be deployed on more wikis that want to experiment with them. If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together if your wiki is eligible.
Then, go through the checklist to start the process of getting these features:
- Help panel: allow newcomers to find help and ask questions while they edit.
- Welcome survey: learn what topics and types of edits newcomers are interested in.
- EditorJourney: learn what workflows newcomers go through on their first day.
General news
- A new quarter of the year has started, and the team has set our goals for the next three months. The most important goals are:
- Newcomer homepage: increase activity through a task recommendations module. Now that we have seen several weeks of positive activity on the newcomer homepage, we think that the most important thing to add is a way for newcomers to find tasks to work on. The challenge will be recommending the right kind of tasks at the right point of their journey.
- Newcomer homepage: increase feature discovery rate by 100%. Right now, only 20% - 30% of newcomers ever visit their homepage. We want to double that number by making sure all newcomers know how to find it.
- Help panel: increase usefulness through improvements to affordance, search, and UX flow. We have looked closely at data and anecdotes from the usage of the help panel, and we plan to pursue specific improvements to increase its effectiveness (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers find responses to their questions).
- Wikimania is coming up next month, which includes a "Community Growth" space. We hope to see people from all communities there to talk about how to bring newcomers into our movement.
- We have started to deploy features to our team's fourth target wiki: Arabic Wikipedia. That wiki is the biggest one we target, it has a high percentage of mobile users, and also is our first right-to-left language. This will help us make sure that our features are valuable for as many types of users as possible.
Mobile homepage and early analysis
- The mobile version of the newcomer homepage was deployed to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. Now, newcomers can access their homepage from both desktop and mobile devices.
- We have published our first set of data about the performance of the newcomer homepage. In summary, we are happy with the homepage's performance so far. We see about half of visitors clicking on something, and the majority of them returning to the homepage multiple times.
- Because we see positive usage of the homepage, we will deploy several small features in the next two weeks that help more newcomers discover their homepage (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers discover their homepage from their empty Contributions page).
- As listed in our goals above, we'll be starting to focus on adding task recommendations to the newcomer homepage. We'll be publishing early thoughts on this feature so that community members can give their thoughts and advice.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:26, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Copypatrol stopped, again
Hello again. The bot seems to have stopped again, as there's been no new reports since 20:53, 2019-08-15 (over two hours ago). If you could have a look that would be great. I have cross-posted at Eran's talk page at en.wiki. Thanks, Diannaa (talk) 23:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)