Mobile-l July 2016

mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org

24 participants
18 discussions

[Apps] Stripping content inside brackets from the first sentence of articles
by Dan Garry 07 Oct '19

07 Oct '19

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

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Results from similar articles A/B test
by Dmitry Brant 04 May '17

04 May '17

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

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Getting link to a contact form to work using mobile view
by Karsten Hoffmeyer 01 Aug '16

01 Aug '16

Heiya, on the talk page of the ContactPage extension [0] it was reported [1] that adding a link to the contact page in the footer section of the skin [2] does not work when using the MobileFrontend extension [3], i.e. the mobile view. I just shows up for the regular desktop view. It was suggested that we should try asking for help on this mailing list. Since I am not a programmer ... Help will be appreciated and the solution will be added to the documentation page of the ContactPage extension as soon as it is known. Cheers Karsten [0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ContactPage [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:T8js2zyu3jt1rr7m [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ContactPage#Further_customization [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend

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[Apps] Wikipedia for iOS 5.0.5 released to App Store
by Joshua Minor 29 Jul '16

29 Jul '16

Hello mobile wikimedians, Big day for Wikipedia apps. First, big congrats to the Android team on today's awesome update! On iOS, after a long beta testing period[1], focusing on improving performance and reducing crashes and instability, we've released the 5.0.5 version of Wikipedia to the App Store. We expect users will see: - less hangs or failures to load on the Explore feed - full AuthManager support and stable account log in and creation - use less device resources, espeically when backgrounded and in our backups - most importantly, less crashes!! We also fixed over a two dozen other bugs and usability issues, large and small. Thanks to our volunteers (particularly thanks to huayu0723, bart-kneepkens and gregggreg2 for their code contributions, and josve05a for his invaluable help with OTRS and testing). I also want to thank our beta testers, who put in extra effort on this version to help us find and diagnose stability issues. Thanks, Josh [1] - You can read about the changes we made and the reason behind the long beta in previous announce post here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2016-June/010254.html

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Fwd: [Analytics] [Pageview API] Data Retention Question
by Adam Baso 29 Jul '16

29 Jul '16

Cross posting. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: *Dan Andreescu* <dandreescu(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Friday, July 29, 2016 Subject: [Analytics] [Pageview API] Data Retention Question To: Analytics List <analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dear Pageview API consumers, We would like to plan storage capacity for our pageview API cluster. Right now, with a reliable RAID setup, we can keep *18 months* of data. If you'd like to query further back than that, you can download dump files (which we'll make easier to use with python utilities). What do you think? Will you need more than 18 months of data? If so, we need to add more nodes when we get to that point, and that costs money, so we want to check if there is a real need for it. Another option is to start degrading the resolution for older data (only keep weekly or monthly for data older than 1 year for example). If you need more than 18 months, we'd love to hear your use case and something in the form of: need daily resolution for 1 year need weekly resolution for 2 years need monthly resolution for 3 years Thank you! Dan

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[Apps] New Android production release
by Dmitry Brant 28 Jul '16

28 Jul '16

Hi everyone, We're excited to bring you an updated version of the Wikipedia Android app <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia&hl=en>, rolling out now to the Google Play store! [1] In this update, we're introducing the Explore feed: a new way to discover Wikipedia content! We've redesigned the home screen of the app, which now shows a feed of featured content from Wikipedia, as well as personalized reading suggestions based on your reading history in the app[2]. See Wikipedia articles about current events, today's trending articles, today's featured article and featured picture from Commons, and more. Please see today's blog post <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/07/28/wikipedia-android-redesign/> for more information. Want to help make the app even better? Read our getting-started guide <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Wikipedia_Android_app_ha…>, and start contributing! [1] For devices without Google Play services, you may download <https://releases.wikimedia.org/mobile/android/wikipedia/stable/wikipedia-2.…> the app directly. [2] Note: your reading history is only stored locally on your device. Cheers, -- Dmitry Brant Senior Software Engineer / Product Owner (Android) Wikimedia Foundation https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering

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[Apps] Android Wikipedia beta app release (2.3.148-beta-2016-07-18)
by Stephen Niedzielski 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

Introducing the Explore Feed: a new way to discover Wikipedia content! We've redesigned the home screen of the app, which now shows a feed of featured content from Wikipedia, as well as personalized reading suggestions based on your reading history in the app[0]. See Wikipedia articles about current events, today's trending articles, today's featured article and featured picture from Commons, and more[1]. Scroll down in the feed to see featured content from previous days. Since this is a significant departure from the previous experience in the app, we especially welcome the feedback of our Beta users. Let us know if you see any issues or bugs, or if you have any suggestions for making it even better. This version includes a volunteer contribution from repeat contributor Amir Aharoni[2]. Good work! You too can help make it better! Read our getting started guide[3]. We can't wait for your contributions! -The WMF Android team [0] Note: your reading history is only stored locally on your device. [1] "In the news" and "Today's featured article" are currently limited to English Wikipedia only. [2] Wikipedia User:Amire80, IRC and Twitter: aharoni [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Wikipedia_Android_app_ha…

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[KIWIX] for iOS 1.6 released
by Emmanuel Engelhart 24 Jul '16

24 Jul '16

Hi Last week we have released the version 1.6! Here the new fixes and features: * NEW: Table of content * NEW: Recent searches * NEW: New (fulltext) search ranking system * NEW: Enhanced layout javascript on iPhone * NEW: Use SafariViewController to handle external links * NEW: Access ZIM storage server using HTTPS * NEW: Enhanced Search UI on iPad and iPhone 6/6s Plus (landscape) * NEW: Clear search history in settings * FIXED: Downloading / paused book no longer got purged when they are removed from online library * FIXED: Removed code that mistakenly indicates app use Wallet * FIXED: Open main page when first book finish downloaded * FIXED: Performance problem in book scan and search * FIXED: App Launch speed * FIXED: iPad recent search divider not drawn correctly when rotating from portrait to landscape Stay tuned, 1.7 is already in the pipe :) Regards Emmanuel -- Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more * Web: http://www.kiwix.org * Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline * more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication

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"An app that tells you what’s outside your plane window"
by Pine W 21 Jul '16

21 Jul '16

A flight travel app that uses information from Wikipedia: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-21/app-tells-you-what-s-outside-your-pla… Pine

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FW: [Wikitech-l] Gerrit downtime this Monday!
by Florian Schmidt 21 Jul '16

21 Jul '16

Fyi :) -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Wikitech-l [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Chad Horohoe Gesendet: Donnerstag, 21. Juli 2016 17:08 An: Development and Operations engineers (WMF only) <engineering(a)lists.wikimedia.org>; wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: [Wikitech-l] Gerrit downtime this Monday! Hi, So the time is upon us to finally upgrade Gerrit. I thank everyone in advance for all of your patience and good work testing things out for us. The plan is outlined in detail on Phabricator[0], but I'll give everyone the short version here. The downtime will be on Monday, July 25th from 01:00 to 04:00 UTC; that's Sunday night for those of us who are US-based. This time was picked based because it's one of our lowest traffic times on Gerrit. There's never a *good* time to bring it down, it's always being used, but this looks like it'll impact the fewest number of users. I do not anticipate the process actually taking the full 3 hours, but I'm giving us a lot of extra time just in case. Jaime will be on hand to assist with a final DB snapshot of the old version and possible rollback, and Daniel Z. is going to assist me with the puppet work. Most of this is already prepared so the amount of "change" to do the swap has been kept to a minimum. Gerrit is a critical service to all developers, so the plan includes a generous provision to roll back if things are not operating properly--I'd rather us be on the old version that works on a Monday morning than be stuck broken going into the work week. I'll be sure to send a last minute reminder Sunday night prior to taking services offline. Thanks again! -Chad [0] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T70271#2482308 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Mobile-l July 2016