HNordeen (WMF)
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – First quarter of 2024
editHello, and welcome to the app’s first newsletter in 2024!
It has been a long year; we published four editions of our newsletter, which you can go through all of them. In this edition, we will cover our work for the last quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024!
Android
edit- Edit Patrol (also known as Patroller tasks on Android) has been released to Beta testers with rollback rights on Test Wiki and Indonesian Wikipedia. We had a productive meeting with Indonesian users to introduce and discuss the new patrolling tasks feature on the Android app, as we provided a detailed presentation on the feature, and collected valuable feedback from the Indonesian community to enhance the user experience.
For those interested, a meeting recording is available.
We conducted outreach to Spanish, and French Wikipedia communities during February 2024. - We hosted two synchronous community consultations & recorded a third where we shared the Edit Patrol suggested edit workflow, and showed designs for Saved messages and templates:
- Places feature is back to the Wikipedia Android app!
Places is a feature that allows you to discover articles by location.
The iOS app was able to maintain the feature via use of Apple Maps, but it was necessary for Android audiences that we continue using an open source map.
iOS
edit- Suggested Edits on iOS prototype is in the experimental build. Instructions to test the feature can be found on this FAQ page.
Alt text is text associated with an image that serves the same purpose and conveys the same essential information as the image.
The app's product manager presented our team's work and prototype (iOS suggested edits) to the GLAM conference audience. All details can be found in the presentation's deck. - It is now possible to donate using Apple Pay directly from the app.
- IOS Native Editor Improvement Development is out!
You will be able to edit, find and replace, and insert links and images directly from Commons without any performance issues!
Additionally, it is now possible to edit a full article page and a talk page.
In the current quarter, we aim to engage with editors from LATAM, Spanish-speaking regions, North America, and the Caribbean to test Suggested edits and the new native editor features.
Community meetings
edit- We participated in the GLAM conference in November 2023. All the details are mentioned in the iOS section of this edition from the newsletter.
- On December 1st of 2023, The Wikipedia Android team met with Indonesian users to introduce and discuss the new patrolling tasks feature on the Android app. The team provided a detailed presentation on the feature and collected valuable feedback. A meeting recording is available.
- We joined the Wiki Editoras Lx editathon on December 16th to gather feedback about an alt-text Suggested Edit task on iOS.
Attendees were generally positive about the prospect of the feature. Experienced editors thought it could be a good task for on-boarding new editors, but also a more casual way of contributing for new editors.
And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
Sandbox
edit| Users who don't have an account | Users who have an account | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| IP users [1] | Temporary users[2] | Permanent users[3] | |
| Subscribe to topics on a Talk Page and receive notifications | 
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[4]
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| Reading lists: Allow saving articles to lists and for offline |
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| Reading lists: Allow syncing across devices |
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| Suggested edits: display to accounts with over 50 Edits |
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| Allow modifying user name in App |
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| Allow user page and user talk page in App |
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Sandbox HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Second quarter of 2024
edit
Hello, and welcome to the app's second newsletter in 2024!
In this edition, we will review our achievements and progress from the first half of 2024!
- Android
- Edit Patrol is now available on production for all Wikis!
- Donation through G-Pay is now available within the app.
- iOS
- "Add an image" suggested edit is available for all Wikis! It is available to all users with more than 50 edits.
- We now support full-page editing on Talk pages.
And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Third quarter of 2024
editHello, and welcome to the app's third newsletter of 2024! In this edition, we will highlight the accomplishments and progress made during July, August, and September 2024!
iOS Updates
Over 20,000 images have been added via the "Add an Image" feature across both iOS and Android! (T372954), good opportunity to try it yourself ;) This tool allows users to enhance Wikipedia articles by adding relevant images. It’s a great way to contribute and improve the visual experience for readers.
The iOS team kicked off the Alt Text experiment to improve image descriptions for accessibility. This feature helps ensure that visually impaired users can better understand the content of images through descriptive text.
The iOS App has been transitioning from a primarily reader-focused app, to an app that fully supports both reading and editing. After adding a number of editing features, the navigation system of the app needs to grow and change to support them and future additions. Improving our navigation will allow for more app users to discover editing features, and allow experienced users quicker access to their most-used tools. This refresh incorporates findings from usability testing with multiple variants of the App's navigation. The team is currently planning phased rollouts over the coming year to improve user experience. (Phase 1: T373714)
Android Updates
Improvements were made to the Places feature in response to user feedback, including larger cluster icons and a Wikipedia logo for articles without images (T371067, T370094). Also, the team is exploring designs to allow users to explore articles from multiple language wikis simultaneously and will adjust the zoom logic to show nearby locations upon launch (T352757, T368792).
- WikiTrivia Game
The team prepared for the WikiTrivia Game during a hackathon, selecting a data source and creating initial designs (T371508, T371510).
Work began on adding Recommended Content to search, iterating on design concepts and testing performance (T371613).
The team is now engaging with several wikis to implement Machine-Assisted Article Descriptions based on prior experimental results.
- Sharing reading lists
Android users can now share reading lists with others, expanding community collaboration (T370703).
And some performance enhancements: Revision tags for app edits were successfully implemented (T366731, T366732).
The app now supports URL sharing on Pixel devices, thanks to volunteer developer contributions (T370020).
Stay tuned for future updates as we continue to enhance your Wikipedia experience! And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
--17:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Fourth quarter of 2024
editHello, and welcome to the app's final newsletter of 2024! In this edition, we’ll highlight the key updates and progress made during October and November 2024!
iOS Updates
Personalized Wikipedia Year in Review
In November, we released the first iteration of the Personalized Wikipedia Year in Review to users in Italy and Mexico, covering Italian, Spanish, and English Wikipedia! This experimental feature offers personalized insights based on reading, editing, and donation history for iOS app users for 2024. If this initial version is successful, we hope to improve upon it and make it available to everyone within the iOS app in January 2025. For more information on how your data is used and how to access your Year in Review, please visit the project page, or watch a short video demonstration of the feature.
The alternative text experiment concluded on November 4, and we are currently analyzing the results. The edits are being reviewed by accessibility experts and moderators active on the iOS app for additional feedback.
Preliminary results show that prompting users on an image they’ve just added leads to higher completion rates (18%) compared to unrelated images (6%). The overall revert rate for alt text edits was 3.4%, lower than the app’s average revert rate of 8.1%. We’ll decide next steps for this feature after completing the analysis.
We completed the first phase of our Navigation refresh, and released a new profile menu into the production version of the app. Our work was coordinated in this Epic: T373714
Android Updates
Private Donor Recognition Experiment
We launched an experiment in France and the Netherlands, exploring the impact of private donor recognition on current and prospective donors. Users who donated through the app will see an active badge on the contributions page, while those who haven’t donated will see a prompt to do so. The experiment will run for 20 days, after which we will evaluate the results. This work was coordinated under Epic: T376303.
The team began work on the "Rabbit Holes" experiment to increase retention among new readers. The experiment is designed to help users more easily discover and connect with content they are interested in. It is being coordinated under Epic: T378612.
The Recommended Content in Search experiment showed promising results. Personalized recommendations led to higher retention (86.5%) compared to non-personalized recommendations (64.9%), with positive feedback from users.
We added a launcher shortcut for quicker access to the "Places" feature in the app. (T375367)
Looking Ahead
As we close out 2024, we’re excited about all the progress made and the work ahead in 2025. Keep an eye out for more updates and improvements we hope will enhance your Wikipedia experience!
Thank you for being part of this journey, and don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter for the latest updates!