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 mobile Wikimedians,
The Wikipedia iOS app team is excited to announce the initial beta of our
next major version (5.8.0) has been released to TestFlight.
This update adds Reading Lists that let you organize and sync saved
articles across the Wikipedia apps[1].
Reading Lists allow you to organize your articles into folders, as well as
search and sort all your saved articles, even offline. For users who log
in, and opt into syncing, your Reading Lists will also sync across your
mobile devices, including to your Android devices with the most recent
Wikipedia Beta app installed (and logged in).
Please note that we will make every effort to preserve Reading Lists
created during this beta when we release the final version. However it is a
beta, please keep in ming there is some risk of data loss.
If you are not a beta tester, but want to be, please sign up here to be
included in our next update:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfW7zFnUDYABvHLWlFclZ7OJEK82WjVIjs…
Thanks,
Josh Minor
PM, Wikipedia for iOS
[1] - More background here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Synced_Reading_Lists
Hi mobile-l and wikitech-ambassadors friends!
Rita shared with colleagues a cool diagram of the Wikipedia for Android app
flows, and we thought you may be interested to see it as well. Here you go:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Android_app_workflow_-_Fe…
-Adam
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rita Ho <rho(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 9:05 AM
Subject: Friday freebie - updated Android app diagram
Hi folks,
I recently updated the diagram of the Android app, which gives an overview
of all the major flows in the app (including somewhat 'hidden' editing and
article interaction features).
Thought I'd share with the wider team as it enables a quick glance of the
current state of the app for those who don't have it readily available on a
device.
