Wikimedia Hackathon 2024/New Engagement Experiments

Participants may wish to consider working on ideas that can form the basis of an experimental feature/project tested as part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Planning initiatives for FY2024–25.

New Engagement Experiments work proposed in the WMF Annual Plan

In the upcoming Annual Plan for FY2024-25, the Product & Technology Department has an project area (PES1.3) to increase the number of products or features built and tested that can lead to increased engagement with Wikipedia (people coming more often to the project, spending more time on the project learning, more interaction with different content, more readers trying to edit, more donations, etc).

The aim is test smaller ideas and interactive experiences that can have potential to help Wikipedia grow as a knowledge destination.

Hackathon projects as an incubator for experiment ideas next year

We think there is potential for Hackathon projects to form the basis for ideas that we take forward and test as an experimental feature in the WMF Product & Technology department's annual plan work in this space. If you are yet to decide on a project, consider the following ideas in this area below as your Hackathon project, or add your own which fits into the "new engagement experiment" goal.

New Engagement Experiments Project ideas

• Criteria:
  • Related to an experience consuming/learning on, or contributing to Wikipedia
  • Possible to build out and test in a ~3 month timeframe with real audience in some limited way on the Web or as part of an Android/iOS App.
• Example ideas
  • Wikipedia-themed games - a game that can form part of a daily routine for people to visit that helps them learn on Wikipedia.
  • "Wiki AI Professor" - an onwiki AI summary/tutor to help people explore and learn more about Wikipedia content
  • Wikipedia account avatars or badges
  • Visualisations or visual timelines of articles - can alternative, more visual presentation of articles attract more engagement with Wikipedia content?
  • Making diffs more shareable, engaging, and convenient - the associated Phabricator task phab:T302352 has more details
  • Richer history/rabbit-hole for readers to revisit - the associated Phabricator task phab:T305756 has more details
  • Features to deepen reader curation and interaction with Wikipedia content:
    • Enable readers to share snippets of articles and quotes
    • Enable people to listen to articles
    • Enable people to compile, remix and share Wikipedia content more easily.

Interested in contributing to a "New Engagement Experiments" idea?

Please create a new task in Phabricator with the Wikimedia-Hackathon-2024 and New-Engagement-Experiments project tags. Check out the Phabricator Help page if you have any issues.

Some of the Foundation staff attending will also be available answer questions and collaborate on projects!