Hi folks,

I am happy to report that we deployed an updated version of Article feedback v5 on the German Wikipedia yesterday, at long last. :)

This new version includes these new features: • Better feedback filters • Simpler moderation tools for editors • Separate reader moderation tools • Discuss on talk page / contact post author

The release went well and the tools are now being tested by German community members. You can see these new features in action on this central feedback page for the German Wikipedia, where feedback from about 13,000 articles is being collected: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Artikelr%C3%BCckmeldungen_v5

If you would like to test the new features on the German Wikipedia, please restrict your posts and moderations to this minor test page: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spezial:Artikelr%C3%BCckmeldungen_...

If you prefer to test in English on our prototype site, visit this testing page on MediaWiki: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Testing

We've updated our help pages on MediaWiki to describe all the new features that are being deployed: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Help/Editors

Next, we are planning to deploy Article feedback to French Wikipedia next Tuesday, March 26 (starting with just a few articles, then going up to 42,000 articles a few weeks later). We will also be releasing this new tool on the English Wikipedia next Tuesday (that release is being delayed so we can complete the feedback data conversion -- as well as disable the 'feedback from watched pages' feature, which is causing database cache issues). Note that AFT will only be enabled on an opt-in basis on the English Wikipedia, as requested by the community in last month's RfC; but many editors have already started to re-enable AFT5 for articles they are watching, and we hope the tool will continue to help them and others improve Wikipedia based on reader feedback in coming months.

To track this multi-site release, visit this Etherpad page, which is being updated every day and includes a list of known issues: http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/AFT5-release

This will be our final release for AFT this fiscal year. Our current plan is to complete these three deployments, then monitor activity on the English, French and German Wikipedias in the next couple months and wait for their communities to vote on a wider release. If these pilots are successful, we will consider supporting a few more deployments this summer, for projects that have reached consensus for a wide release of the tool (so far, we've received a variety of requests from the Chinese, Hungarian, Kannada and other Wikipedias, as well as Commons). A more detailed roadmap for this product is outlined on this 2013 release plan: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5/Release_Plan_2013

I would like to take this opportunity to give a big round of applause to lead developer Matthias Mullie for this major milestone, as well as thank Benny, Kaldari, Luke, S Page, Aaron and Asher for carefully reviewing all his new code -- and Chris, Oliver and others for helping test it. Special thanks as well to our partners at the German Wikipedia: Denis Barthel, Sebastian Peisker and Raimond Spekking, who have worked beyond the call of duty to make this release possible -- as well as to Benoit Evellin, who is spearheading the French deployment. Last but not least, we are very grateful to all other colleagues who contributed to this final phase: Dario, Philippe, Roan, Howie, Terry and Erik, to name but a few. It's a true pleasure to be working with you all!

I will send another update after we deploy the new features on the French and English Wikipedias.

Onward!

Fabrice

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Fabrice Florin, Product Manager Wikimedia Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

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