Hi everyone,
*tl;dr: We'll be stripping all content contained inside brackets from the
first sentence of articles in the Wikipedia app.*
The Mobile Apps Team is focussed on making the app a beautiful and engaging
reader experience, and trying to support use cases like wanting to look
something up quickly to find what it is. Unfortunately, there are several
aspects of Wikipedia at present that are actively detrimental to that goal.
One example of this are the lead sentences.
As mentioned in the other thread on this matter
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2015-March/008715.html>,
lead sentences are poorly formatted and contain information that is
detrimental to quickly looking up a topic. The team did a quick audit
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheets/d/1BJ7uDgzO8IJT0M3UM2q…>
of
the information available inside brackets in the first sentences, and
typically it is pronunciation information which is probably better placed
in the infobox rather than breaking up the first sentence. The other
problem is that this information was typically inserted and previewed on a
platform where space is not at a premium, and that calculation is different
on mobile devices.
In order to better serve the quick lookup use case, the team has reached
the decision to strip anything inside brackets in the first sentence of
articles in the Wikipedia app.
Stripping content is not a decision to be made lightly. People took the
time to write it, and that should be respected. We realise this is
controversial. That said, it's the opinion of the team that the problem is
pretty clear: this content is not optimised for users quickly looking
things up on mobile devices at all, and will take a long time to solve
through alternative means. A quicker solution is required.
The screenshots below are mockups of the before and after of the change.
These are not final, I just put them together quickly to illustrate what
I'm talking about.
- Before: http://i.imgur.com/VwKerbv.jpg
- After: http://i.imgur.com/2A5PLmy.jpg
If you have any questions, let me know.
Thanks,
Dan
--
Dan Garry
Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello all,
As mentioned previously, the current version of the Android app contains an
A/B test where it presents "read more" suggestions to the user, based on
(a) the standard "morelike" query, or (b) the new "opening_text" query.
Here are the results from the last ~10 days of the test[0]:
- The clickthrough rate using the default morelike query is (and has been)
around 15%.
- With the new opening_text query, the clickthrough rate decreases to about
12%:
[image: Inline image 1]
Therefore, it seems that the new query has a nontrivial negative effect on
CTR :(
We'll plan on removing this test in the next release of the app, but we'll
be happy to plug in a different or updated query, if it will be of further
use to Discovery.
[0]
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheets/d/1BFsrAcPgexQyNVemmJ3…
(queries embedded as comments in the headers)
--
Dmitry Brant
Senior Software Engineer / Product Owner (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
Hello,
Version 5.3.3 of the Wikipedia app for iOS has been released to the app
store[1]. This minor update includes improvements to performance and
stability, particularly when loading many articles in quick succession and
refreshing the Explore feed.
Thanks,
Josh Minor
PM, Wikipedia for iOS
[1] - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wikipedia/id324715238?mt=8
Greetings,
The Android team has earlier started a consultation [0] several months ago
to collect input on the type of contributions that readers can carry out in
order to help editors and further engage them in our projects, while still
being helpful to our editors. The ideas that have had the most discussion
from that phase, have been further elaborated on with clear wireframes for
demonstration.
Please check the ideas here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions_via_Android>,
[1] and add your feedback to the page.
Kindly note that this is an experiment discussion and an attempt to
understand your needs and perspectives. None of these ideas is so far in
the planning or research phase. This is the first time the reading team is
discussing ideas at the earliest stage possible and we welcome your own,
very early ideas that are discussed as possibilities.
This awesome work has been made possible by Nirzar, Rita, Dmitry and Jon
Katz.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Moushira
[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Interaction_Consultation
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions_via_Androidhttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions_via_Android#Ad…
:
Hello mobile Wikimedians,
We've just released an update for Wikipedia for iOS to the App Store[1].
This version includes support for iOS's Dynamic Type setting, which allows
users to increase the size of text, not just in articles, but of buttons
and other UI elements. This is a major piece of the accessibility work we
kicked off in October[2], and allows users with poor vision to more easily
navigate and read Wikipedia.
This version also includes a major database upgrade, which should continue
to improve the speed and stability of the Explore feed, Saved pages and
user's local history.
Cheers,
Josh Minor
PM, Wikipedia for iOS
[1] - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wikipedia/id324715238?mt=8
[2] - Described on list here:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2016-October/010396.html
Hi all,
We're excited to announce that we've rolled out several updates and
bugfixes for the Commons Android app[1] over the past couple of months.
Some of the major ones include:
- Automatic addition of geocoding template if uploaded image is geotagged
- Category suggestions based on the title entered for the image
- New, more detailed tutorial to educate new contributors on what types of
images should or should not be uploaded (special thanks to Pine for sharing
his Commons educational script which was used as the basis for this)
- Check for whether or not the file already exists on Commons, to prevent
upload of duplicates
Additionally, the kind folks at translatewiki.net are helping us set up a
translation project for our app, so hopefully localization should improve
in the near future.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement thus far! Feedback, bug
reports, and suggestions are always welcome on our GitHub page[2]. :)
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2]: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/
--
Regards,
Josephine
Cross post. No CREDIT showcase January 2017.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adam Baso <abaso(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 11:06 AM
Subject: Cancellation of January 2017 CREDIT showcase
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi all - just a quick note we'll cancel the January 2017 CREDIT showcase
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/CREDIT_showcase> session. January is
practically speaking really hard for ensuring that it works for most
schedules.
Meanwhile, be on the lookout for a survey for reflection on 2016's CREDIT.
Thanks!
-Adam