[Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

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Yuvi Panda

11 Nov 2013 11 Nov '13

8:28 a.m.

Hello! Me and May have been experimenting with different ways of finding articles related to the one the user is currently reading. This is a feature we are considering for the mobile app - to make it simple to keep going through to related articles after reading the current one. Mediawiki doesn't offer any such functionality, so we've to 'cheat'. I have written a quick userscript to test out the different methods of finding 'related' articles. You can enable this on your logged in desktop english wikipedia account by: 1. Going to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/common.js 2. Add this line to it: importScript("User:Yuvipanda/lost.js"); 3. Save the page! Now, you can go to any wikipedia article and three buttons should show up under the title. If they don't, do a hard refresh (cmd + shift + r in OS X), and they then should. The first button does a category based related/random article, the second one a link based, and a third one (when it appears) a slightly more involved link based related/random article one. We're doing this to iterate quickly (the current stuff took me less than an hour to build) on the various ways to determine which related article to show. Do take a look, click around a little and get lost, and tell us which method you prefer! Thanks :) -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog

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Yuvi Panda

11 Nov 11 Nov

8:34 a.m.

P.S. The code is terrible. Please don't flame me for it. -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog

Vibha Bamba

9:04 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

newbie q - Where exactly do I add the code? On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:34 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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P.S. The code is terrible. Please don't flame me for it. -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

May Tee-Galloway

9:13 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

Go to the talk page and insert: importScript("User:Yuvipanda/lost.js"); then save! On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:04 AM, Vibha Bamba <vbamba(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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newbie q - Where exactly do I add the code? On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:34 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

_______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

Yuvi Panda

9:16 a.m.

Insert by: 1. Click on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/common.js 2. Click 'Create' to create the page 3. Paste the following text into it: importScript("User:Yuvipanda/lost.js"); 4. Click save! Our userscript enabling 'UI' is terrible and hacked up. Something that we could perhaps fix some day... (No talk pages involved :D) -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog

May Tee-Galloway

9:19 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

-buries face- On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:16 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Jared Zimmerman

10:09 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

What does Meow, Linky, Closer mean? *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 10:19 AM, May Tee-Galloway <mgalloway(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

-buries face- On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:16 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

_______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

Yuvi Panda

10:19 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Jared Zimmerman < jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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What does Meow, Linky, Closer mean?

'Meow' is Category based - it picks an article with the following process: 1. Pick a non-hidden category of the current page at random 2. Pick an article in that category at random 3. Go to that picked article 'Linky' is simpler: 1. Pick a random outgoing wikilink of the current page 2. Go to that picked wikilink 'Closer' is slighlty more complex, and works only when you have used 'Linky' at least once: 1. Make an intersection of all links that were present both in *this* article and the previous article 2. Pick a link out of the intersection at random 3. Go to that link. Which one do you think gives you the best 'related to the current article, but slightly random' results? -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog

Jared Zimmerman

10:26 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

I thought Closer meant random+Geonearby I'd recommend this isn't a button but a list— Related: Item Title Item Title Item Title Nearby: Item Title Item Title Item Title For related we use the Meow method, then switch to the Linky Method when the data exists. but always remove any pages that the user has seen this session (is that even possible?) We should also make sure the same items aren't appearing in both lists *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Jared Zimmerman < jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

What does Meow, Linky, Closer mean?

Yuvi Panda

10:34 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Jared Zimmerman < jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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I thought Closer meant random+Geonearby

Heh, I was just randomly making names up. Was not initially planning on pushing this out wider than just May, but figured it'd be a good idea.

...

I'd recommend this isn't a button but a list—

In the app, these won't be buttons, but 'pull up' actions - bullet point #2 of https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_App_Design#Page_1_:_Feed_me_more_k… be exact. For related we use the Meow method, then switch to the Linky Method when

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the data exists. but always remove any pages that the user has seen this session (is that even possible?)

Makes sense. And yes, possible in the app. Thoughts on the 'closer' method? It does tend to 'wander' less, but has an annoying tendency to keep going back to the ISBN article. Perhaps start with 'closer', but switch to linky when a duplicate is detected? -- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog

Jared Zimmerman

10:41 a.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

That makes sense, as long as we don't keep suggesting the same articles I think its fine. *Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:56 PM, Jared Zimmerman < jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

I thought Closer meant random+Geonearby

Heh, I was just randomly making names up. Was not initially planning on pushing this out wider than just May, but figured it'd be a good idea.

I'd recommend this isn't a button but a list—

the data exists. but always remove any pages that the user has seen this session (is that even possible?)

Quim Gil

6:28 p.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

Very interesting exercise! This is one of those mobile-initiated features that desktop users would welcome as well. Just curious: have you considered to use data from Special:WhatLinksHere? Incoming links are less evident than outgoing links. They might help users discovering pages with less obvious connections, yet still interesting. -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

May Tee-Galloway

7:44 p.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

In the future we want to see how we can improve relatedness by learning what the most used article linkpath patterns are. For example, If we know that "feline dwarfism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_cat>" link is being clicked most frequently from Grumpy Cat article, we'd want to learn that pattern and use it for other users when they want to learn more about Grumpy Cat. I'm trying really hard not to use the word tracking here. It doesn't have to associate a user to any clicks. Just like how page views does not associate any users to a view. Example: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:WP_App.pdf (Page 7) On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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Pau Giner

7:56 p.m.

New subject: [Design] [Apps] Experimenting with different ways of finding 'related' articles

I think that navigating related content is a key part of the Wikipedia experience [1][2] and surfacing related articles is really great. I'll check this to see how each method works on different articles. I was also thinking a bit about how we could present this to users, and there may be options where we can use more than one criteria and make articles more prominent. Just an idea to add to the exploration: We can show three article "cards" to the user after reaching the end of the article (as if they were thrown randomly). The cards include article title, image, and the criteria (e.g., nearby). Depending on the article different criteria can be used (e.g., depending on whether the linked articles are stubs, the distance of the nearby articles...). Optionally, cards can be discarded for new random cards to appear (maybe keeping the criteria for the next card). Pau [1] http://xkcd.com/214/ [2] http://www.ted.com/talks/rives_reinventing_the_encyclopedia_game.html On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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-- Pau Giner Interaction Designer Wikimedia Foundation

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participants (6)

Jared Zimmerman
May Tee-Galloway
Pau Giner
Quim Gil
Vibha Bamba
Yuvi Panda