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
Crossposting!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lani Goto <lgoto(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 10:19 AM
Subject: CREDIT showcase, Wednesday, 3-May-2017
To: wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi!
I'd like to welcome you to join us at the CREDIT showcase next week,
Wednesday, 3-May-2017 at 1800 UTC / 1100 Pacific Time. We'd like to see
your demos, whether they're rough works in progress or polished production
material, or even just a telling of something you've been studying
recently. For more information on the upcoming event, as well as recordings
of previous events, please visit the following page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/CREDIT_showcase
And if you'd like to share the news about the upcoming CREDIT showcase,
here's some suggested verbiage. Thanks!
*Hi <FNAME>*
*I hope all is well with you! I wanted to let you know about CREDIT, a
monthly demo series that we’re running to showcase open source tech
projects from Wikimedia’s Community, Reading, Editing, Discovery,
Infrastructure and Technology teams. *
*CREDIT is open to the public, and we welcome questions and discussion. The
next CREDIT will be held on May 3rd at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 18:00 UTC. *
*There’s more info on MediaWiki
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/CREDIT_showcase>, and on Etherpad
<https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CREDIT>, which is where we take notes and
ask questions. You can also ask questions on IRC in the Freenode chatroom
#wikimedia-office (web-based access here
<https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23wikimedia-office>). Links to
video will become available at these locations shortly before the event.*
*Please feel free to pass this information along to any interested folks.
Our projects tend to focus on areas that might be of interest to folks
working across the open source tech community: language detection,
numerical sort, large data visualizations, maps, and all sorts of other
things.*
*If you have any questions, please let me know! Thanks, and I hope to see
you at CREDIT.*
*YOURNAME*
--
Lani Goto
Project Assistant, Engineering Admin
--
Lani Goto
Project Assistant, Engineering Admin
I should add to the list of new features:
- We're now continuing our rollout of editing Wikidata descriptions by
expanding the languages for which descriptions can be added/edited. For
more details, please see the announcement
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/04#Wikidat…>
on Wikidata.
Cheers!
On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 4:48 PM, Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> We're pleased to bring you an updated version of the Wikipedia Android
> app, available now on the Google Play Store! [1]. Here are the highlights
> from this update (or browse the complete change history
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/APAW/history/master/;beta/2.5.1…>
> ):
>
> - Numerous improvements to the UI for managing your reading lists.
> - Individual reading list articles can now be toggled on/offline.
> - Improved caching of images for offline availability.
> - Random feed card now pulls a random article from the user's reading
> lists when offline.
> - Many other bug fixes and design updates.
>
> Many thanks to our volunteers who contributed patches to this release,
> including Amir Aharoni (IRC: aharoni, Wikipedia User:Amire80), Codrut Grosu
> (Github: superCodrut, Twitter: @GrosuCodrut), and Dinu Kumarasiri (IRC:
> sandaru, Github: sandarumk).
>
> If you'd like to help improve the app yourself, take a look at our getting
> started
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/App_hacking>
> guide. We're looking forward to your contributions!
>
>
> [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 / Product Owner (Android)
> Wikimedia Foundation
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>
>
--
Dmitry Brant
Senior Software Engineer / Product Owner (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Luca Toscano <ltoscano(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 11:30 AM
Subject: [Analytics] Ongoing Network maintenance will affect all analytics
websites
To: A mailing list for the Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who has an
interest in Wikipedia and analytics. <analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Tracking task: T148506
Should last approximately 10/15 mins from now and it will affect all the
Analytics websites (Yarn, Hue, Pivot, etc..).
Please reach out to me (elukey) on IRC if you have further questions.
Luca
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
Analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
Hello!
We're pleased to bring you an updated version of the Wikipedia Android app,
available now on the Google Play Store! [1]. Here are the highlights from
this update (or browse the complete change history
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/APAW/history/master/;beta/2.5.1…>
):
- Numerous improvements to the UI for managing your reading lists.
- Individual reading list articles can now be toggled on/offline.
- Improved caching of images for offline availability.
- Random feed card now pulls a random article from the user's reading lists
when offline.
- Many other bug fixes and design updates.
Many thanks to our volunteers who contributed patches to this release,
including Amir Aharoni (IRC: aharoni, Wikipedia User:Amire80), Codrut Grosu
(Github: superCodrut, Twitter: @GrosuCodrut), and Dinu Kumarasiri (IRC:
sandaru, Github: sandarumk).
If you'd like to help improve the app yourself, take a look at our getting
started
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Android/App_hacking>
guide. We're looking forward to your contributions!
[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 / Product Owner (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
Forwarding to mobile-l for those not on mediawiki-l with an interest in
this problem space.
-Adam
Forwarded conversation
Subject: [MediaWiki-l] Where are the Web fonts loaded?
------------------------
From: Emmanuel Engelhart <kelson(a)kiwix.org>
Date: Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 1:56 AM
To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <
mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi
A few Wikipedias - like the Wikipedia in Farsi - (should) have support
for Web fonts. This is done to insure that the display of the article is
done correctly. Unfortunately I have difficulties to find them, where
are they defined/loaded?
Kind regards
Emmanuel
--
Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
* Web: http://www.kiwix.org
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
* more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication
_______________________________________________
MediaWiki-l mailing list
To unsubscribe, go to:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
----------
From: Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il>
Date: Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 2:21 AM
To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <
mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
They can be enabled by clicking the gear icon near the Languages list, then
clicking "Fonts", and checking "Download fonts when needed".
This was on by default for some time in 2013, but it turned out to cause
severe performance problems and was made opt-in.
By 2017 the issues are quite different given the technology landscape:
modern operating systems supports fonts better, and some of the webfonts
specifications in web standards changed as well. The whole feature should
be redone, although unfortunately this is not currently on the top of the
Language team's priority list.
That said, I'm ALWAYS willing to hear about _problems_ in different
languages. AFAIK, the issue with Persian is that the text is usually
readable, but not as elegant as it should be, although I'm very interested
in hearing more details. For some other languages, especially of South and
South East Asia, fonts are not installed in operating systems at all, so
they are completely unreadable, although this is getting better in the
latest versions of desktop Linux, Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
----------
From: Emmanuel Engelhart <kelson(a)kiwix.org>
Date: Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 8:56 AM
To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <
mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi Amir
On 19.04.2017 09:21, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> They can be enabled by clicking the gear icon near the Languages list,
then
> clicking "Fonts", and checking "Download fonts when needed".
Thank you, I found it... I read in the past about that option but was
not able to find it on my screen... I was searching in the usuable user
preferences where - to my taste - this option should be proposed.
> This was on by default for some time in 2013, but it turned out to cause
> severe performance problems and was made opt-in.
>
> By 2017 the issues are quite different given the technology landscape:
> modern operating systems supports fonts better, and some of the webfonts
> specifications in web standards changed as well. The whole feature should
> be redone, although unfortunately this is not currently on the top of the
> Language team's priority list.
>
> That said, I'm ALWAYS willing to hear about _problems_ in different
> languages. AFAIK, the issue with Persian is that the text is usually
> readable, but not as elegant as it should be, although I'm very interested
> in hearing more details. For some other languages, especially of South and
> South East Asia, fonts are not installed in operating systems at all, so
> they are completely unreadable, although this is getting better in the
> latest versions of desktop Linux, Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS.
I'm interested by that feature in an offline context. Many users have
been complaining for a longer time because of problems with the display
of Wikipedia content in certain languages (I guess the similar one like
with online Wikipedia).
As we were not able to create ZIM files with a correct management of the
js/css (offline mockup of the resources loader), my answer was always
the same: we need first to mockup offline the behaviour of the resource
loader to be able then to load web fonts correctly.
We are now so far: we pretty much load the correct js/css resources...
So I had a look to that problem again - more accurately. I have
discovered that in fact our scrapper does not load any web fonts... and
here I'm.
I don't think we will have big performance issues as everything is
anyway offline (please correct me if my guess is wrong), but I need
somehow to tell our scrapper (so the Wikipedia API) to deal with web
fonts... how should I do that?
Regards
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe, go to:
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The WMF Android team is pleased to announce a new Wikipedia Android
app beta release, v2.5.194-beta-2017-04-19!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia.beta
This revision contains the following new functionality and fixes:
- Substantial improvements to the reading lists UI
- Multiple reading list articles can now be selected at once
- Individual reading list articles can now be toggled on/offline.
- Images are now cached for offline availability
- Random feed card now pulls a random article from the user's reading lists when
offline
- Many other bug fixes and UI updates
For a complete list of changes, see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/APAW/history/master/;beta/2.5.1….
Many thanks to our volunteers who contributed patches to this release,
including Amir Aharoni (IRC: aharoni, Wikipedia User:Amire80), Codrut
Grosu (Github: superCodrut, Twitter: @GrosuCodrut), and Dinu
Kumarasiri (IRC: sandaru, Github: sandarumk).
You too can help make it better! Read our getting started guide.[1] We
look forward to your contributions!
-The WMF Android team
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Wikipedia_Android_app_ha…
Hi all,
apologies if this has already been discussed extensively. The app used to
feature the geographical coordinates of articles, in the same way was the
standard wiki pages do.
However, it seems that this is no longer the case. In my view, that's a
shame, as it makes it harder to go from the article into a maps app.
In particular, it would be good if the app enabled the launch of 'geo'
intents (from geotagged articles), that can be picked up by other apps, see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T136579.
(Similarly, it would also be nice if the app could receive geo intents, an
display nearby articles.)
What do others think?
All the best wishes,
Bjoern
