Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer tasks/Guidance translation guide

There is a particular component of the newcomer tasks project that may be challenging or confusing to translate: guidance. Guidance contains the instructions newcomers receive as they are completing an editing task, and they contain many interconnected translatable messages. Therefore, we think that translators should translate these messages carefully so that the result makes sense to newcomers.

Guidance is inside the help panel

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While doing newcomer tasks, newcomers receive instruction through the help panel feature. The help panel is a window that opens up on Wikipedia articles. Though it was originally built to help newcomers in other ways, we are using it to also guide newcomers through doing editing tasks. The images here shows the help panel on desktop and mobile.

Multiple task types

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As of June 2020, there are five different types of editing tasks that newcomers can select: adding links, copyediting, adding references, updating articles, and expanding articles. Each of those has its own set of content in the help panel. Therefore, there are five sets of messages to translate.

Multiple tips

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For each task type, there are up to seven "tips" through which the newcomer can navigate. They explain how to do the edit, one step at a time. Each tip can have multiple components. The diagram below shows how components are arranged in the panel.

 

The table below explains each component, with a sample message for each.

Component What it is Sample sentence Sample message
Main body The main explanation for how to do this step. Copyediting is about making a small fix to the way an article is written, such as spelling, grammar, or the clarity of the text. Copyedits help articles to be more professional and trustworthy. MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-main-value
Example An example showing the sort of edit that needs to be made. These are present on some tips, but not all. They sometimes contain deliberate misspellings or grammatical errors that should be included in the translation. In the sample in this table, the word "Earthh" is misspelled. The translation should misspell the translated version of "Earth" in the local language. Reaching Mercury from Earthh poses significant technical challenges. MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-example-value
Caption Text that explains what the example is showing. Present on some tips, but not all. This sentence contains an opinion that should be removed. MediaWiki:Growthexperiments-help-panel-suggestededits-tips-vector-visualeditor-copyedit-text-rules2