Growth/Personalized first day/Structured tasks/Add a link/Iteration 2/pl
The Growth team released the first version of Add a Link in May 2021, and gathered community thoughts and data in the following months. We then used those learnings to make improvements to the feature so that newcomers would have a better experience and experienced editors would see higher quality edits. We have completed the improvements, and communities are now using "iteration 2". With these improvements, the Growth team feels confident about rolling out “add a link” to most Wikipedias. Below are the improvements we made. Going forward, we will continue to learn from communities, from data, and make more improvements!
| Obserwacja | Ulepszenie | Phabricator Task |
|---|---|---|
| Links were sometimes suggested in article sections where there shouldn't be links. | The “add a link” algorithm now avoids recommending links in sections that usually don't have internal links (like in the “References” section of an article). | T279519 |
| Common first names were sometimes suggested links, and the suggestions were often incorrect. | The “add a link” algorithm now avoids suggesting first names. We remove all links to articles whose wikidata-item is an "instance_of" a given-name, double name, unisex given name, male given name, or female given name. | T287034 |
| On mobile it was easy to accidentally navigate away before completing a task. | A confirmation dialog has been added when exiting out of suggestion mode prior to making changes. | T300582 |
| Our data analysis indicated that after adding links, newcomers wanted to view the article they edited, so they could see their changes. But when they viewed the article, it would take them out of the “add a link” workflow. | We improved the post-edit dialog so that newcomers can view the article they edited without totally exiting the newcomer task flow. | T301603 |
| Previously after completing an edit, newcomers were only given one choice for their next article to edit, with limited ability to change that choice. | Newcomers can now browse through task suggestions from the post-edit dialog. This gives the newcomers the same amount of flexibility they're familiar with from the suggested edits module. | T302335 |
| Some communities were concerned about over-linking articles. Patrollers found it difficult to review add-a-link edits in which many of the changes were correct, but some needed to be reverted. | Communities can now set a maximum number of links newcomers can complete per article via Special:EditGrowthConfig. Privileged users can customize this Growth feature to best meet the needs of their community. | T303259 |
| Communities explained that some newcomers were doing too many “add a link” edits too quickly, sometimes without being careful. | We now allow communities to set a daily maximum number of “add a link” and “add an image” edits in Special:EditGrowthConfig. The default number is 25, and administrators can adjust that for their own communities. | T308543 |
| Coming soon: | ||
| Communities want articles that are underlinked to be prioritized. | Prioritize suggestions of underlinked articles. In other words, we will direct newcomers' energies toward those articles that need links the most, based on the ratio of links in the article to what would be expected. | T301096 |
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Confirmation message presented when newcomers attempt to navigate away before publishing an edit -
Post-edit dialog allows newcomers to browse through suggested edits -
Communities can configure many different aspects of the "add a link" newcomer task
The Growth team completed the most requested improvements for “add a link” based on initial community feedback, and therefore we consider “iteration 2” complete. However, we are currently engaged with community members on several of our pilot wikis about how we can further improve “add a link” and other structured tasks. Based on these discussions we will continue to iterate and improve Growth features to best meet the needs of both newcomers and the community as a whole.