I spoke to some Taiwanese students learning English (with help from a
translator) about Wikipedia, Wikimedia and mobile. Age range was 17-35
so quite a mix. I was hoping I'd find some developers in the room but
sadly no so I focused the talk around using the mobile site.
Interestingly everyone here used Wikipedia, but when I asked them if
they used the mobile site of Wikipedia they all said no. When I probed
more I discovered "Google" was where they got their information. I
managed to confirm that they were going to Wikipedia but most of them
didn't realise.
Some things I notice:
* They actually were disappointed they couldn't upload images anymore.
Most wanted to edit but didn't know how. Post wikigrok it would be
interesting to see if we can use the saving mechanism there to queue
up uploads to the site.
* When I showed them Listen To Wikipedia they got really excited and
registered straight away just to see their name. Interesting tactic we
might want to explore for signups :)
* They struggled with the captcha when registering (surprise
surprise). It's English words not Chinese words. I notice everyone has
WiFi passwords here that are numbers. It would be interesting to
explore captchas that involve numbers if that is at all possible.
* In the language overlay in 3 out of 3 cases where people have used
it they all seemed to scroll down, no one realises they can search for
the language at the top. That's a UX problem I guess we need to fix.
* When they have flicked from Chinese to English Wikipedia and then
use the search bar at the top of the page to search for information
they type in chinese and expect search terms to show up there.
* They didn't seem to recognise the hamburger as a menu icon
* They asked to edit and surprise surprise I saw lots of templates in
every example I tried. The keys to the templates are English e.g. in
infoboxes. I think this makes a strong argument for being able to edit
infoboxes from wikidata (I've got an example below).
Today is my last day working remotely from China but I'm happy on my
travels to do anymore Chinese research if you find this interesting
and want to know more about potential Wikipedians here :)
Example infobox:
{{Taxobox
| color = pink
| name = 斑尾鹃鸠
| status = LC
| status_system = iucn3.1
| image = MacropygiaUnchall.jpg
| regnum = [[动物界]] Animalia
| phylum = [[脊索动物门]] Chordata
| classis = [[鸟纲]] Aves
| ordo = [[鸽形目]] Columbiformes
| familia = [[鸠鸽科]] Columbidae
| genus = [[鹃鸠属]] ''Macropygia''
| species = '''斑尾鹃鸠 ''M. unchall'''''
| binomial = ''Macropygia unchall''
| binomial_authority = (Wagler)<ref name='id2051'>{{cite web | url =
http://www.bioinfo.cn/db05/BjdwSpecies.php?action=view&id=2051 | title
= 斑尾鹃鸠 | work = 《中国动物物种编目数据库》 | publisher = 中国科学院微生物研究所 | author =
中国科学院动物研究所 | accessdate = 2009-04-04 }}</ref>
}}