Hi Folks,
The Reading team's Q4 goals for 2015-16 are posted on Media Wiki:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2015-16_Q4_Goals#Readi….
We arrived at these goals by taking the results of the Q4 brainstorming
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Quarterly_planning/Q4> and matching
them against our strategy, speed and strengths.
Below is a summary of what we aim to do in the April-June Quarter with more
context than what you see on our goals page. You will notice a lot of
cross-platform migration. That is no accident: we learn faster by
launching on one platform and then migrating the idea to others. The goals
are broken out by team or strategic theme.
*Community Tech: Community Wishlist items*
Ship features and fixes related to three wishes in the Wishlist Survey top
10
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey#The_top_10_wishes>
*Infrastructure: two-factor authentication*The infrastructure team will
enable two-factor authentication
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_authentication> via AuthManager
on the Wikimedia cluster. The goal here is to add another layer of
security for accounts with important privileges.
*New Readers (was: "reach new users in the global south")*
*Web: decrease load time and cost for low-resource environments on mobile*This
will be accomplished through lazy loading
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_loading> of images, and cutting default
html size. This is in beta mobile channel by the end of this quarter and
we plan to measure results and roll out to all users over the course of Q4.
*Make a better encyclopedia experience*
*Web: hovercards*Specifically, enable hovercards
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards> as default for
logged-out desktop users on more than one wiki (this one is dependent on
community approval). Hovercards represent a faster way of browsing
Wikipedia that most readers prefer (as indicated by this survey
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards#Qualtrics_Survey_Results>).
It has been in beta for more than a year and the mobile version was
recently launched to all users on our Android app. This is not as simple
as turning on a switch, there are several improvements that will have to be
made. One reason we are launching this is to clean up our beta site before
picking up any new work. This is arguably "New Readers" as well, due to the
performance gains from loading fewer pages.
A community initiated proposal is being discussed to enable this on English
Wikipedia. Please chime in!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_…
*Android: launch the feed*This quarter, the iOS team launched a feed on the
app home screen and it looks great and early results suggest users are
responding well to it. The goal is to drive user retention by giving
readers a reason to open up Wikipedia even if they don't have a specific
query in mind. The Android team will also be implementing backend services
to support the feed across platforms.
*iOS: Universal links*"Universal Links" (aka deep links) provide convenient
re-entry to the app from links and OS search, but do not advertise or
promote the app. This is something that is already live on Android and
partially supported on iOS. It allows users who prefer the app to open it
from links or an OS query, since that is how most users get to Wikipedia.
*A Community of Readers (interactive Wikipedia)*
This is the third pillar that came out of our strategy process. No active
development work is planned here. Future direction for this part of our
strategy is currently being explored via a community consultation here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Interaction_Consultation
Your feedback or questions are welcome.
Thanks,
J