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Welcome to the twentieth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.
As of February, 300,000 suggested edits have been completed since the feature was first deployed in December 2019.
Add a link is the team's first structured task, deployed in May 2021. It has improved outcomes for newcomers. The team is now working on a second iteration based on community feedback and data analysis. Improvements will include: improved algorithmic suggestions, guardrails to prevent too many similar links to be added, and clearer encouragement for users to continue making edits. After adding these improvements, we will deploy this task to more Wikipedias.
Add an image is the second structured task built by our team. It was deployed in November 2021 to four pilot Wikipedias. This is a more challenging task for newcomers. However, it adds more value to articles (so far, over 1,000 images have been added). We are currently learning from communities and from the data on what is working well and what needs improvements. The project page contains links to interactive prototypes. We are very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea as we build and test the early versions. We will soon deploy this task to more Wikipedias as a test.
"Add a link" and "Add an image" now both have a limitation on how many of these tasks newcomers can do per day. It is meant to discourage careless newcomers from making too many problematic edits.
Over the last two years, the Growth team has focused on building suggested edits: easy tasks for newcomers to start with. We have learned with this experience that these tasks help many newcomers to make their first edits. Now, the team is starting a new project : " positive reinforcement". Its goal is to make newcomers proud of their editing and to make them want to come back for more of them. With the positive reinforcement project, we are considering three kinds of features:
This project is just beginning, and we hope for community thoughts on the direction. We know that things can wrong if we offer the wrong incentives to newcomers, so we want to be careful. Please visit the talk page to help guide the project!
Some wikis have created userboxes that mentors can display on the user pages. If your wiki has one, please link it to Wikidata!
Previously, at most Wikipedias, only 80% of newcomers were getting the Growth features. This was done for experimentation, to have a control group. We have changed this setting. Now 100% of new accounts at all Wikipedias get the Growth features ( except a few, kept as test wikis). We invite communities to update their onboarding documentation and tutorials. Please include the Growth features in it. To help you, we have created an help page that can be translated and adapted to your wiki.
Do you have questions about the Growth features? This translatable FAQ contains answers to the most common questions about the Growth team work. We regularly update it.
Interface translations are important for newcomers. Please help for your language, by translating or copyediting interface translations for the Growth features.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.
The article has been assessed as C-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. This is a great rating for a new article, and places it among the top 20% of accepted submissions — kudos to you! You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.
If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider
.Thanks again, and happy editing!
Kerry ( talk) 08:28, 1 April 2022 (UTC)Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.
If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider
.Thanks again, and happy editing!
Kerry ( talk) 08:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)Hello Kerry Raymond,
At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.
Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.
In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently 808 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 857 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.
This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}}
on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself
here.
Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Read this in another language • Subscription list for the multilingual newsletter • Local subscription list
The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enabling the New Topic Tool by default. You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
The Editing team plans to change the appearance of talk pages. These are separate from the changes made by the mw:Desktop improvements project and will appear in both Vector 2010 and Vector 2022. The goal is to add some information and make discussions look visibly different from encyclopedia articles. You can see some ideas at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project#Prototype Ready for Feedback.
23:14, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi, in March 2018 you reviewed an article I put together called Radio Galaxy Zoo. Perhaps I shouldn't ask you, but please would you mind looking at the draft that is linked to and see if you think it is good enough to publish? It has nothing to do with Australia unfortunately. Its been in draft for 16 days and has improved a lot but I think is now ready to get the nod. If you don't have time, then no worries :) Its a big article that will get a lot bigger... /info/en/?search=Draft:Diorama_Arts_Cooperative Richard Nowell ( talk) 07:00, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
Richard Nowell ( talk) 11:09, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
Hello Kerry Raymond,
At the time of the last newsletter (No.27, May 2022), the backlog was approaching 16,000, having shot up rapidly from 6,000 over the prior two months. The attention the newsletter brought to the backlog sparked a flurry of activity. There was new discussion on process improvements, efforts to invite new editors to participate in NPP increased and more editors requested the NPP user right so they could help, and most importantly, the number of reviews picked up and the backlog decreased, dipping below 14,000 [a] at the end of May.
Since then, the news has not been so good. The backlog is basically flat, hovering around 14,200. I wish I could report the number of reviews done and the number of new articles added to the queue. But the available statistics we have are woefully inadequate. The only real number we have is the net queue size. [b]
In the last 30 days, the top 100 reviewers have all made more than 16 patrols (up from 8 last month), and about 70 have averaged one review a day (up from 50 last month).
While there are more people doing more reviews, many of the ~730 with the NPP right are doing little. Most of the reviews are being done by the top 50 or 100 reviewers. They need your help. We appreciate every review done, but please aim to do one a day (on average, or 30 a month).
A backlog reduction drive, coordinated by
buidhe and
Zippybonzo, will be held from July 1 to July 31. Sign up
here.
Barnstars will be awarded.
Many new articles on schools are being created by new users in developing and/or non-English-speaking countries. The authors are probably not even aware of Wikipedia's projects and policy pages. WP:WPSCH/AG has some excellent advice and resources specifically written for these users. Reviewers could consider providing such first-time article creators with a link to it while also mentioning that not all schools pass the GNG and that elementary schools are almost certainly not notable.
There is a new template available, {{
NPP backlog}}
, to show the current backlog. You can place it on your user or talk page as a reminder:
Very high unreviewed pages backlog: 11782 articles, as of 22:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC), according to DatBot
There has been significant discussion at WP:VPP recently on NPP-related matters (Draftification, Deletion, Notability, Verifiability, Burden). Proposals that would somewhat ease the burden on NPP aren't gaining much traction, although there are suggestions that the role of NPP be fundamentally changed to focus only on major CSD-type issues.
{{subst:NPR invite}}on their talk page.
MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 10:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
New Page Patrol | July 2022 Backlog Drive | ![]() |
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( t · c) buidhe 20:25, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Welcome to the twenty-first newsletter from the Growth team!
Communities can configure how the features work, using Special:EditGrowthConfig.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
13:03, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
I've noticed that you seem to have a good regional knowledge, so I thought you might check the last line of the Governance section of the Gympie article which looks like vandalism to me. The name of the local member as of 2015 is not mentioned in the source, though several other names are. Not having any local knowledge, I would appreciate your input. Editrite! ( talk) 02:55, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
Hello Kerry Raymond,
After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators Buidhe and Zippybonzo, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to Dr vulpes who led with 880 points. See this page for further details.
Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.
{{subst:NPR invite}}on their talk page.
Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 21:24, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi Kerry Raymond,
For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 23:10, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
The new [subscribe] button notifies people when someone replies to their comments. It helps newcomers get answers to their questions. People reply sooner. You can read the report. The Editing team is turning this tool on for everyone. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences.
– Whatamidoing (WMF) ( talk) 00:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Welcome to the twenty-second newsletter from the Growth team!
As of the last week of June 2022, the newcomers of the world have completed over 500,000 newcomer tasks. In other words, newcomers have made over half a million Wikipedia edits via Growth’s “Suggested Edits” module.
We have added some new data to Grafana. You can now check the number of edits and reverts by task types, or the number of questions asked to mentors. You can filter the data by wiki.
If you have any questions, or there is more data you want access to, please let us know.
We are continuing our work on our new project, Positive Reinforcement. User testing of initial Positive Reinforcement designs was just completed. Interviews were conducted in Arabic, English, and Spanish. The outcome has been published on the Positive Reinforcement page. We are now utilizing user testing feedback along with prior community feedback to iterate and improve designs.
We are exploring the idea of a Copy Edit structured task. We have tested copy edits in Wikipedia articles for arwiki, bnwiki, cswiki, eswiki (Growth pilot-wikis) and enwiki with two different methods: LanguageTool and Hunspell. We will share more details here and on the associated Copy Edit page once the evaluation is complete.
Add an image was utilized at GLAM events in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. For an overview of what was learned from these events, read: #1Pic1Article I: how Latin American heritage experts added images to Wikipedia (in English).
Add a Link Experiment Analysis has been published. The most important points are:
Newcomer task edit type analysis has been published.
A new system for the mentors list
The configuration of the mentors list will change over the next weeks. In the future, mentors will sign up, edit their mentor description and quit using Special:MentorDashboard. This new system will make the development of new features for mentors much easier.
At the moment, the mentor list is a simple page anyone can edit, unless it’s protected. With the new page, mentors will be able to edit only their own description, while administrators will be able to edit the entire mentors' list if needed.
The deployment will happen first at the pilot wikis, then at all wikis. Existing lists of mentors will be automatically converted, no action will be needed from the mentors. [5] [6]
Mentors will be informed about the next steps soon, by a message posted on the talk page of existing Mentor lists.
Learn more about this new structured page on mediawiki.org.
A tip for mentors
Did you know that mentors can filter their mentees' changes at Special:MentorDashboard (and star the ones that require attention)? This feature helps to keep an eye on newcomers' edits, helping mentors to fix minor details, and encourage them if necessary.
And did you know that mentors have special filters to highlight their mentees' edits at Special:RecentChanges? Look for the following filters in RecentChanges: Your starred mentees, Your unstarred mentees.
Other improvements
Some improvements will be made to the mentor dashboard in the coming weeks:
Please let us know! You can also read our FAQ page.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:18, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
Hello @ Kerry Raymond, I have submitted an entry about the internationally active company called Merkur. I read in your profile that you are mainly interested in Queensland history, but still wanted to ask you if you could maybe take a look at my article I handed in? I put a lot of effort into creating it and I would be so grateful. Here you can come to the draft: Draft:Merkur Stahlwaren.
Thanks again and many greetings
Chris ChristianBarnes ( talk) 10:07, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
New Page Patrol | October 2022 backlog drive | ![]() |
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( t · c) buidhe 21:16, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Cribb Island, Queensland, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page The Telegraph.
( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 09:05, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
I didn't know Australian people spell English different. Sorry for those edits, mate. Ghost of Kiev ( talk) 14:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
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MediaWiki message delivery (
talk) 00:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Welcome to the twenty-third newsletter from the Growth team!
The goal of the Growth team is to encourage newcomers to try editing for the first time, and encourage them to keep editing. We want to increase newcomers' motivation by showing them how impactful their edits are.
Newcomers have access to an impact module; you can find yours at Special:Impact. The revised impact module provides new editors with more context about their impact. It will display the number of edits, the number of thanks received, the last time they edited, the number of consecutive days they edited, and the number of views for the articles they edited.
This module will soon be available at our pilot wikis starting December 1. You can already test this new module at Beta Wikipedia. For safety reasons, do not use your regular account and password at Beta wiki. Create a new, specific account for this wiki, with a different password.
After the deployment of Structured tasks, we received feedback from various communities regarding how patrollers of recent changes were feeling overwhelmed by an increase in edits to check, and how some edits were poor quality or of poor relevance.
We made several improvements based on the feedback we received. Several points of improvement have already been addressed:
The Positive Reinforcement project will also address some of the concerns around encouraging newcomers to progress to higher value edits. The Growth team will soon work on strategies geared at " Leveling up" newcomers so they progress from easy to more difficult tasks.
Special:MentorDashboard
.Special:ManageMentors
— now displays the list of mentors. This page can be transcluded on any other page. There are also new processes to
signup as a mentor or to
quit mentorship, and we improved
community mentorship management.
We plan to have a more regular newsletter, every two months. We also want to know if the current format suits you! Let us know what you like, what you like less and your suggestions of improvements: leave us a comment, in your preferred language.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:57, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
JarrahTree 02:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi! On the talk page Category talk:Towns in Queensland I’ve started a discussion about the seemingly relentless inclusion of geographical coordinates for places in the various articles about rural towns in Queensland. Could I ask you to have a look at it, please? Thank you! Boscaswell talk 22:34, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
Category:Q150 has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle ( talk) 08:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Kerry Raymond,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable
New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
—
Moops ⋠
T⋡ 20:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Send New Year cheer by adding {{ subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.
— Moops ⋠ T⋡ 20:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
A tag has been placed on Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Balranald Shire indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 01:20, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
Template:TroveRef has been
nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at
the entry on the Templates for discussion page. –
Jonesey95 (
talk) 17:14, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The Google street view is impressive — thanks. These are the pics from '08. I'm not sure about the bank, but it's a cute photo.
That was a great trip — daughter-in-law lent us her car with the instructions to get as many km on it as possible (something to do with salary sacrificing which this simple plodder never understood). We saw Paronella and Mackay and a whole lot else. Someone backed their towball into the vehicle while parked at an RSL. Left a distinct impression but DIL was distinctly unimpressed.::Cheers,
Doug butler (
talk) 07:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)