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
Hi all,
We are delighted to announce that our IEG renewal application for the Commons
app <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons>[1] has
been approved! Thank you so much to everyone who supported us – reading
all of the wonderful comments on our proposal has been extremely meaningful
and encouraging for us.
We have been hard at work getting version 2.6 of the app out; there was a
bit of a rocky start with the first few beta iterations, but we finally
have v2.6.5 in production. \o/
Several UI improvements have been made in the current version:
- New login screen
- New design for the list of nearby places that need pictures
- New navigation drawer design with username displayed
- The upload screen has been remodeled to include tooltips for title and
description fields, as well as an explicit copyright declaration and a link
to Commons policies
- Improved media details view with links to the selected license,
categories and image coordinates
Other improvements include:
- Category search - fixed major bugs, improved ordering and filter for
categories
- The "nearby places that need pictures" feature has improved GPS and
refresh handling
- Several privacy improvements - new privacy policy, switched to using
Wikimedia maps server instead of Mapbox, and removed event logging
- Reduced memory leaks and battery usage; fixed multiple other crashes and
bugs
- Various improvements to navigation flow and backstack
- Added option for users to send logs to developers (has to be manually
activated by user)
For more information on the new version, recent screenshots, and
upload/deletion statistics for 2017, please see this blog post
<https://cookiesandcodeblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/commons-app-update-vers…>[2].
Feedback, bug reports, and suggestions are always welcome on our GitHub page
<https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons>[3].
Cheers, and happy holidays. :)
Best regards,
Josephine (@misaochan)
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2]
https://cookiesandcodeblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/commons-app-update-vers…
[3] https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons
Hello,
Now, in the app store, version 5.7.3 of Wikipedia for iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/view
Software?id=324715238&mt=8
In addition to a lot of small bug fixes, this version includes a handful of
appearance improvements:
- New "Black" reading theme, perfect for saving power on OLED devices
- Appearance option to have info boxes open by default (thanks to
volunteer Aclaussen!)
- Hiding of the top navigation bar while reading, to make more
uncluttered reading space
You should also see faster article loading and less data use, thanks to
lazy loading of images and other page loading improvements. Now images are
only downloaded when about to be displayed (or saved). Extra big thanks to
the Readers Web and Android teams who pioneered this change for all our
users. With this release all the mobile Wikipedia experiences share this
great improvement [1].
Extra big thanks to contributors Aclaussen and Onlyrandomness for their
code patches. And our usual thanks to our testers and translators.
Happy holidays,
Josh Minor
PM, Wikipedia for iOS
[1] - For more on this, and the general efforts to consolidate efforts
across platforms check out this great blog post by Stephen
Niedzielski about the Wikimedia Page Library: https://blog.
wikimedia.org/2017/12/06/think-twice-code-once/
Hello all,
Just a quick note to let you know that as of now the trending edits public
end point is no longer available to clients.
On a personal note, I also concur that such a tool is an interesting source
of data that can be applied in various contexts and hope to see work picked
up in the future.
Cheers,
Marko Obrovac, PhD
Senior Services Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
On 12 December 2017 at 22:56, Melody Kramer <mkramer(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> It's an incredibly useful tool for people outside of our existing community
> — who use Wikipedia to determine what's resonating worldwide. I've tweeted
> about it several times and it always gets pickup from journalists:
>
> https://twitter.com/mkramer/status/940676642636206091
>
> Happy to put you in touch if you ever want to do user research interviews.
>
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 3:12 PM, Jon Robson <jdlrobson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > (Volunteer hat on)
> >
> > I'm a little sad we didn't find a place for this in the Wikipedia apps or
> > web products, but I plan to maintain a labs instance going forward:
> > https://wikipedia-trending.wmflabs.org/
> > And a web presentation with a push notification feature (which notified
> be
> > this morning of the death of Ed Lee
> > <https://trending.wmflabs.org/en.wikipedia/Ed%20Lee%20(politician)>):
> > https://trending.wmflabs.org/
> >
> > This is a little inferior to the production version as it is unable to
> use
> > production kafka and if it has any outages it will lose data.
> >
> > I'm hoping to get this onto IFTTT <https://ifttt.com/wikipedia> with
> help
> > from Stephen Laporte in my volunteer time, as I think this feature is a
> > pretty powerful one which has failed to find its use case in the wiki
> > world. As Kaldari points out it's incredibly good at detecting edit wars
> > and I personally have learned a lot about what our editors see as
> important
> > and notable in the world (our editors really seem to like wrestling). I
> > think there are ample and exciting things people could build on top of
> this
> > api.
> >
> > The gadget script is crude (as there is no way to install a service
> worker
> > via a user script) but will continue to work if you want to try it (but
> > Firefox only) - I just updated it to use the new endpoint.
> >
> > I will continue to explore trending's place in the Wikimedia universe :)
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2017 at 10:43 Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > > One interesting thing that I noticed about the trending edits API is
> that
> > > it was fairly useful in identifying articles that were under attack by
> > > vandals or experiencing an edit war. A lot of times a vandal will just
> > sit
> > > on an article and keep reverting back to the vandalized version until
> an
> > > admin shows up, which can sometimes take a while. If you tweak the
> > > parameters passed to the API, you can almost get it to show nothing but
> > > edit wars (high number of edits, low number of editors).
> > >
> > > This makes me think that this API is actually useful, it's just
> targeted
> > to
> > > the wrong use case. If we built something similar, but that just looked
> > for
> > > high numbers of revert/undos (rather than edits), and combined it with
> > > something like Jon Robson's trending edits user script (
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdlrobson/Gadget-trending-edits.js
> ),
> > we
> > > could create a really powerful tool for Wikipedia administrators to
> > > identify problems without having to wait for them to be reported at
> AN/I
> > or
> > > AIV.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 7:25 AM, Corey Floyd <cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Just a reminder that this is happening this Thursday. Please update
> any
> > > > tools you have before then. Thanks!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 3:30 PM Corey Floyd <cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi all,
> > > > >
> > > > > The experimental Trending Service[1] will be sunset on December
> 14th,
> > > > 2017.
> > > > >
> > > > > We initially deployed this service to evaluate some real time
> > features
> > > in
> > > > > the mobile apps centered on delivering more timely information to
> > > users.
> > > > > After some research [2], we found that it did not perform well with
> > > users
> > > > > in that use case.
> > > > >
> > > > > At this point there are no further plans to integrate the service
> > into
> > > > our
> > > > > products and so we are going to sunset the service to reduce the
> > > > > maintenance burden for some of our teams.
> > > > >
> > > > > We are going to do this more quickly than we would for a full
> stable
> > > > > production API as the usage of the end point is extremely low and
> > > mostly
> > > > > from our own internal projects. If you this adversely affects any
> of
> > > your
> > > > > work or you have any other concerns, please let the myself or the
> > > Reading
> > > > > Infrastructure team know.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks to all the teams involved with developing, deploying,
> > > researching
> > > > > and maintaining this service.
> > > > >
> > > > > P.S. This service was based off of prototypes Jon Robson had
> > developed
> > > > for
> > > > > detecting trending articles. He will be continuing his work in this
> > > > area. I
> > > > > encourage you to reach out to him if you were interested in this
> > > project.
> > > > >
> > > > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#!/Feed/trendingEdits
> > > > > [2]
> > > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Comparing_most_
> > > > read_and_trending_edits_for_Top_Articles_feature
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Corey Floyd
> > > > > Engineering Manager
> > > > > Readers
> > > > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > > cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org
> > > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Corey Floyd
> > > > Engineering Manager
> > > > Readers
> > > > Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Melody Kramer <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:MKramer_(WMF)>
> Senior Audience Development Manager
> Read a random featured article from Wikipedia!
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomInCategory/Featured_articles>
>
> mkramer(a)wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
Hi all,
The experimental Trending Service[1] will be sunset on December 14th, 2017.
We initially deployed this service to evaluate some real time features in
the mobile apps centered on delivering more timely information to users.
After some research [2], we found that it did not perform well with users
in that use case.
At this point there are no further plans to integrate the service into our
products and so we are going to sunset the service to reduce the
maintenance burden for some of our teams.
We are going to do this more quickly than we would for a full stable
production API as the usage of the end point is extremely low and mostly
from our own internal projects. If you this adversely affects any of your
work or you have any other concerns, please let the myself or the Reading
Infrastructure team know.
Thanks to all the teams involved with developing, deploying, researching
and maintaining this service.
P.S. This service was based off of prototypes Jon Robson had developed for
detecting trending articles. He will be continuing his work in this area. I
encourage you to reach out to him if you were interested in this project.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#!/Feed/trendingEdits
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Comparing_most_read_and_trending_e…
--
Corey Floyd
Engineering Manager
Readers
Wikimedia Foundation
cfloyd(a)wikimedia.org
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>, now
available on the Google Play store [1]! Here are the highlights from this
release (or browse the complete change history
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/APAW/history/master/;r/2.7.221-…>
):
- The Explore feed is now fully customizable! Access the customization
screen from the overflow menu in the feed or in each card, and make the
feed your own: enable or disable the types of cards you want to see, and
rearrange the order in which they are shown.
- New and improved Randomizer: tap the Randomizer card in the Explore feed,
and swipe through random article previews from Wikipedia, without
navigating to the full article right away. Try it out!
- On This Day: the Explore feed now contains cards with a selected
historical event that happened on the current day of the year. Tap the card
to see a full-screen view of all events from history that occurred on this
day.
- Black theme: we've heard your feedback, and added a black theme in
addition to the current light and dark themes. Perfect for AMOLED displays
and nighttime reading, this provides a fully black background throughout
most of the app.
- Plenty of minor enhancements and bug fixes.
[1] For devices without Google Play services, you may download
<https://releases.wikimedia.org/mobile/android/wikipedia/stable/wikipedia-2.…>
the app directly.
Cheers,
--
Dmitry Brant
Senior Software Engineer (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
Hello mobile Wikimedians,
The Wikipedia iOS team today released a minor update to the app store:
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=32471523…
This update is a minor bug fix which addresses issues with In the News
content (particularly for English), and also fixes some peek-and-pop
issues.
If you used iOS 9, this will be our last supported release, and we strongly
recommend you update to this version.
Thanks,
Josh Minor
Product Manager, iOS
