TLDR: want to introduce the idea of surfacing simple english version of wikipedia in a more prominent way to test if this appeals to our readers.  no timeline, no action items, just an intro to the concept and a request for feedback/suggestions.

As a refresher/summary, as part of the reading team's strategic process, we identified 4 reading strategies that we are exploring and want to test hypothesis that will help us determine which strategies are more impactful. 

I am reviewing our strategy tests (i.e. tests that can help us determine if a particular strategy is one we should focus on) and came across some notes I made with Abbey (copied) around the potential strategy "Guided Educational Experiences" that I wanted to surface and run by you. This potential strategy is one where the reading team focuses on enhancing learning (comprehension and/or retention) of content.  Ideas in this theme include identifying prerequisite articles, a suggested order to reading articles (curricula), simple or practical versions of articles, quizzes or even games. To be clear, this is a potential strategy that we are evaluating along with others, as described here.  I also want to acknowledge that there have likely been other experiments in this area--if you have specific examples you would like to share, please do so.  The test proposed below came about from one such awareness.

The test:
One idea for this strategy was "simplified versions of articles"--versions of articles for readers who were unfamiliar with the topic or lacked a basic educational foundation.  That wikipedia articles are sometimes to advanced is not a novel observation, but it's a tough nut to crack.  

We had originally framed the test as "will editors want to create simplified versions of articles" and we planned on asking them.  However the work that James Helman is doing with editors translating medical documents into more practical guides in Swahili [link?] seems to show there is interest here.  However, we felt that SimpleEnglish was, in itself, a remarkable test of what is being proposed, even though its focus is on simple wording rather than concept simplicity. The most often-cited problem (anecdote) with SimpleEnglish is that very few readers can find it.  This makes sense: someone confused by sophisticated vocabulary or looking for a summary of an article is not likely to check the language list to see if a simple version of the article sits there.

This is not part of our proposed Q3 plans or even our Q4 plans, but I would like to hear feedback and ideas around how we could effectively integrate it into our plans.  One idea would be to implement it on one of the apps, first, since we can move things around there without disturbing as many people.  We are open to suggestions.

Best,

J