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Archive 1

Order

The current order is:

  • Navigation
  • Policy
  • Editing
  • References
  • Images
  • Table
  • Talk

There may be a better order to introduce people to things. Perhaps placing navigation later? Maybe guidelines and policies needs a less dry title?

Perhaps ending with pages on:

Proposal to overhaul WP:I and WP:T

I've put up a proposal at the Village Pump to replace the old WP:I and WP:T with the superior Help:Intro. Any opinions welcomed there. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 02:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 June 2018

Can you please merge this article into Wikipedia:Introduction? It seems both articles give a brief introduction to newcomers. 2601:183:101:58D0:E8B2:80EC:4AE1:19AF (talk) 17:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Two things. One, that would be quite an undertaking and would probably need some sort of consensus (or more input than just an edit request). Second, edit requests are supposed to be specific. Without something specific (eg, change x to y), a request like this is unlikely to be handled. (see also). -- The Voidwalker Whispers 18:44, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

How can i create my link?
how can i write about myself in the wikipedia about my story my life my struggles ?
How can i display about my work and all?
Suffan (talk) 08:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@Suffan: Although you cannot write your own autobiography as a Wikipedia page (Wikipedia:Autobiography), you can add some information to your userpage as you edit other articles (Wikipedia:User_pages). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal_to_streamline_the_welcome_template. Sdkb (talk) 23:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

To-do items for this tutorial

I just looked over this tutorial, and made about 50 edits, most of a gnomish or update nature. There are all some larger tasks I didn't get to, though, which I'll list here:

  • Navigation While there are buttons to move forward through the tutorial, it'd be nice to have a "previous" button for when I want to go back, and it'd definitely be nice to have a button to return to the main tutorial page without needing to go to the last page of each tutorial.
  • Mobile friendliness There's some discussion at the pump about how to make this page more mobile-friendly.
  • Too much detail on tables The tutorials here, especially for markup, seem to go into way too much detail on all the minutia of how to create and edit tables. This isn't necessary for new users to know, and I'd like to see some of it removed, keeping only the basics. Sdkb (talk) 09:53, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
The navigational ability of the modules is lacking leaving readers stuck going back and forth....should add something like {{Introduction/navigation}} to the bottom of the pages so readers can navigate to items easily...sucks if you start the VE portion only to realizes you use WikiText...very hard to navigate to what you want ..click ..click ...click.--Moxy 🍁 15:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Moxy, I like the idea of having a navbox at the bottom, which is what it looks like you're approximating. We could even add the individual module pages to it. For buttons higher up, I tried adding a gray "Back to tutorials menu" button at the bottom of the left sidebar, and it's showing up at Template:Intro to, but not on any of the actual tutorial pages. Evolution and evolvability, any idea why that's happening?
By the way, I've also had added a back button for navigating between pages in a module.
Once implementing the gray "back to tutorial menu" button is done, I think the main remaining task will be switching the blue "back to the tutorial menu" button so that it instead always brings the editor directly to the next module, as it does at Help:Introduction to Wikipedia. Sdkb (talk) 22:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Aha, the gray "back to tutorial menu" problem I can explain. The page you added it to (Template:Intro_to/tabs) is merely the example tabs for the {{Intro_to}} template. So the button actually needs to be included in the template itself. I've edited it into the sandbox version of that template and added a request for an admin to update the main template. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 09:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, got it; thanks! I'm going through to introduce parameters for the new blue button now; those should show up as soon as the edit request at Template:Intro to is handled. Sdkb (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
yup need that back button as temps dont work in mobile view.--Moxy 🍁 21:24, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Following up about the excessive detail for tables, I think that the code to make sortable tables doesn't need to be a whole page; that can just be a line in the editing tables page. And pretty much everything on the advanced formatting page can go, with the exception of hidden comments (which aren't table-related, and thus should probably go elsewhere). Do you all agree? If so, I'll go ahead and implement. Sdkb (talk) 23:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Seeing no opposition, I'll go ahead and implement on this. Sdkb (talk) 19:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Done. I couldn't find a better place to discuss hidden comments, so I decided they're something new editors don't really need to know; they'll figure them out soon enough through experience. The old pages can now be found at Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/Old sorting page and Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/Old advanced formatting page. The back button at the Wiki Markup summary page briefly goes to one of the pages while we wait for a technical move to be implemented; after that, all should be good. Sdkb (talk) 21:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

OK is someone actually testing what all the new button look like? Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/5 why is there a duplication of buttons. Think to much to fast is happening. Stability is a point that needs to happen.--Moxy 🍁 00:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy: I agree with the use of a navbox. I've added one to the base of the template for now (though of course it doesn't display on mobiles). I agree that it starts to get pretty cluttered with 4 buttons at the base of the final tab of a series, since currently there is:
I'll have a go as coding that this weekend in Template:Intro to/sandbox. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy: I'm testing every change in the sandbox before I request it, so I'm pretty sure I'm not messing anything up. Regarding the duplication, that's happening because this change hasn't been implemented yet. Once it is, the blue button will be used for progressing to the next tutorial in the list, rather than going back to the main menu. (If you want to verify how it'll show up, replace {{Intro to}} with {{Intro to/sandbox}} in the edit window and then preview the page.) This will hopefully help a lot with reducing the drop-off rate, since it'll make it a lot more frictionless to go from one tutorial to the next. Regarding the sandbox button, that's something as I note below that we may want to remove as part of the {{Intro to}} framework, since now that we have actual navigation there, the sandbox link just adds clutter; it'd be better integrated above. But overall, yes, things are under control — apologies if all the template edit requests are seeming a bit overwhelming (I'll go request template editing credentials so I can make changes myself at some point, just haven't gotten around to it yet). Sdkb (talk) 04:40, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy and Evolution and evolvability: Re sandbox link, I played around a bit, and here's what I came up with for code to move the sandbox link more into the body. How does that look? Sdkb (talk) 09:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Hearing no objections, I just requested implementation of the sandbox link improvement. Sdkb (talk) 00:39, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding a "congrats, you're done" page at the end?

The last module in the tutorial, the MoS, just kinda ends. I think it'd be nice if we added a page to say "congrats", show a nice graphic, tell them to go forth and WP:BEBOLD, describe next steps for getting deeper into WP, etc. Sdkb (talk) 19:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea, and it fits with the quite casual tone of the series. One thing to think about is that people may not read them in order (or be sent to just the MS one specifically) so wording it in a way that makes sense even if they've not red the whole set. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 22:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Sandbox tweak

I think we should have the "test what you've learned in the sandbox" link go to the user's personal sandbox, which will be less cluttered than the main one. It would also be great if the sandbox link opened in a new tab, so that users weren't navigated away from the main tutorial (one of many things we can do to try to make completing the full tutorial as frictionless as possible), but I'm not sure how to do that technically (this advice is all I could find, and it doesn't seem to work). Of course, we could also stop having the sandbox link embedded into the Intro to navigational structure, which is starting to feel a bit odd. Sdkb (talk) 21:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Never link to a personal sandbox in a tutorial as IP editors have no sandbox.--Moxy 🍁 00:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, got it. I don't know too much about communal sandboxes, other than that they seem to be cleaned pretty frequently. If we start running into issues where too many editors are coming to a sandbox for it to work well, I'm sure we could write some code that'd link to a personal sandbox if the clicker has an account and a communal sandbox otherwise. Sdkb (talk) 04:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about standardizing images modules

 You are invited to join the discussion at Help_talk:Introduction_to_images_with_VisualEditor/1#Differences_between_this_version_and_the_Wiki_Markup_version. Sdkb (talk) 14:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC) Sdkb (talk) 14:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Unusable on IOS phone

Is there a way to view this information about images in a normal format. My IOS phone makes the text goes off the screen with no options to move the page left and right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:560:4EF3:C921:9E5D:A48D:23E3 (talk) 00:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Would someone with an iOS device be able to check this out to see if it's a more widespread issue? (And ideally share screenshots) The display has been fine for me on a standard Android device. I also know Moxy is encountering an issue where the buttons display very small on mobile, which again I haven't been able to replicate. Sdkb (talk) 07:29, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Not that we will ever hear from the IP again....but at the bottom of every page you will see a link called "Desktop" this will change what you see and hopefully will be readable to you. Hopefully you have found a normal page to view in the meantime and did not just give up.....as I see no other edits.--Moxy 🍁 23:04, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this information available in a readable format. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:546:8BDA:30FC:BC77:3E97:C6AA (talk) 11:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you explain what issue you are having? Sdkb (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
WOW IP can back....very very rare....what your looking for is at Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia sorry this was not provided before...never seen an IP come back to talks like this before.--Moxy 🍁 17:13, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
It looks like the IP is a fellow Canadian, Moxy. My understanding from the pump was that we had addressed all the major issues with mobile, so if they're still showing up on iPhones, it'd help if someone could provide iPhone screenshots. Sdkb (talk) 17:56, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Yup a fellow Canadian from Quebec ....great to see a french-canadian interested here. As for IPHONE I dont have one so can't comment on what they are seeing....but Comparison of mobile operating systems mentions Safari has problems...perhaps download a version see if it's different.--Moxy 🍁 20:55, 25 March 2020 page is blank no writing or pictures
As nobody appears to have checked the issue the IP reported, I've just loaded the page on my tiny iPhone 5S running iOS 12.4.5 and this page, plus all the pages directly linked to from the buttons, all display perfectly correctly on my tiny screen. It's fine on an Android tablet, too (ver 5.0.2). Nick Moyes (talk) 08:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion and RfC

See Wikipedia_talk:Introduction#Proposal:_Redirect_this_page_and_WP:Tutorial_to_Help:Introduction for a relevant discussion. PamD 07:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

'Introduction' button is not obvious enough

The Introduction button beneath the Wikipedia globe looks more like a page title than a functional link. It has the same hierarchical size as all the less important links to aspects of source editor and visual editor. Yet, if that Introductory link gets missed, we've simply failed to get our message across, and users will be lost.

It needs to be bigger, bolder and clearer. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:18, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: Agreed. My suggestion would be to expand it so that it encompasses the globe above it. Getting an image inside a button is a technical challenge, though (one I've actually confronted before). I've asked at Template_talk:Clickable_button_2#Adding_images_inside_buttons?, but I think very few people watch that page. Where should I issue invites to get some attention on it? Sdkb (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: I'm glad you agree it needs improving, one way or another. All I could think was a post at WP:VPT, but then I found {{Branded Button}}:

Quick Introduction to Wikipedia or

Essential Introduction (1 minute read)

Because my eye was drawn every time to the fancy central graphic about WP:Source Editor and WP:Visual Editor, I missed the Introductory link completely each time I looked at the page. My feeling is that if a new editor misses that link, we've actually thrown them into the deep end too quickly. I prefer the 2nd design; I wonder what you think. Nick Moyes (talk) 19:33, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Okay, so I thought {{Branded button}} was going to be our savior, but looking into it, to get the image on top I had to stretch the template to its limit and this is all I ended up with lol. It'll at least give you an idea of what I'm going for, though. I can play around with the template itself later today perhaps and see if I can introduce an "above" parameter. Sdkb (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2020 (UTC)






Introduction
Regarding the name for it, there's definitely more than a little messiness in that Help:Introduction has said "Introduction to Wikipedia" at the top and then included a link titled "Introduction" that goes to Help:Introduction to Wikipedia. Whew. That said, "quick introduction" or "essential introduction" would not be my preference, since those imply that Help:Introduction to Wikipedia is in some form sufficient as a stand-alone intro, when it's just not; it's too short for that. The label I used in the navbox, where the aforementioned messiness is particularly acute, is "starting introduction", but I think for the menu page we're best off keeping it as just plain "introduction". Readers are less likely to care about the page names so long as the navigation is clear. Sdkb (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
While we're waiting, I made a few more tweaks to emphasize the intro button. Another issue I noticed that I think might help explain why you were drawn to the Markup/VisualEditor first: there's a gap in the line break between policies and those graphics that's not there between Talk Pages and Navigating. (lmk if you have trouble seeing it and I can try to explain better) Fixing that could help visually reinforce that the intro module/policies module are part of the group. Sdkb (talk) 20:27, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, there's certainly a problem with nomenclature and, of course, clear navigation is only ever of any use if one know precisely where one is starting from, where one is heading for and that one will be guided along the best pathway. As you say, what we've got right now is a page called Help:Introduction that is headed "Introduction to Wikipedia", which contains a button currently labelled 'Introduction' that links to second page called Help:Introduction to Wikipedia which is headed "Introduction to contributing to Wikipedia", but which (as brief as it is) serves as a better, broader and brighter introduction than the first page, which really only serves to focus on introducing the two editing tools. Maybe something somewhere here needs to be called "Quick start" and link to only the necessary content. I don't see that putting the big Wikipedia logo inside a button as I think you're trying to do is that important. If it's not easy to sort out, just make the 'Introduction' button more obvious and better named.
I realise you've been working really hard to try to simplify things recently - and that is much appreciated - but sadly I can't offer much time right now to assisting you. Nor, indeed, do I fully grasp which welcome templates currently offer newcomers which links to which pages, and which ones are most seen by newcomers. I can't remember if I ever said this somewhere (or whether it was just a passing thought in my head) but if I were trying to do what I see you valiantly trying to do, I would probably sit down and create a table listing each of the main help pages and welcome templates; I'd list the key elements of each page/template, identifying each one's strengths and weaknesses. I'd then cut out some pieces of card (with one key learning outcome or concept on each one) and another big piece of card for each main help page that new editors get linked to. Then I'd start playing around with those pieces of card to determine, on a big tabletop, what looked like the best navigational pathway new users need to take for the best learning outcomes. I'd probably take photos of each different arrangement and, having worked out the best logical flow, try to ensure the key help pages contain the right elements, and are labelled effectively. My problem is that I've just barged in briefly onto one page and made a simple suggestion, which hasn't taken into consideration the full flow of the new user experience. Personally, I think that, of the two pages under discussion, Help:Introduction to Wikipedia is better being seen first, not second, so should be followed by the tutorials on the Help:Introduction page (which is actually misnamed). I do care deeply about assisting new users, but I fear that right now I can't inject a lot of time to identifying how best to do that. So, please don't think I'm being critical, and I hope I've not upset the apple cart. TTFN Nick Moyes (talk) 22:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for all that advice! Thinking about it, I do think there are some circumstances where it'd be best to link straight to Help:Introduction to Wikipedia to get them right to the information. For others, though, I think it's helpful for them to see Help:Introduction first as a kind of title page, so they know which things they're about to learn and roughly how long it'll take. Regarding the ideal path for a new editor to take, I think fortunately the folks who designed the "intro to" system did a good job thinking about that question, and as a result the best path is just for them to go through the tutorial in order. However, after that, there's less of a roadmap, so your comment is prompting me to act on the idea I threw out above of creating a conclusion page. The elements I'll want to put there are a link to the Task Center, for getting involved; a link to the Teahouse, for questions; and some explanation of how to find further pages in the Help/WP space to go deeper, perhaps including one humorous page to show we have personality. I'm open to suggestions if there's a good essay reading list or accessible example of something humorous. Sdkb (talk) 07:06, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Pls make sure to use |alt= ..if your adding images to action buttons with no action or any button. "Missing or empty alt values create significant problems for screen reader users because functional images are essential to the functionality of the content. Screen readers will typically announce the image file name, the image URL, or the URL for the link destination, which is unlikely to help users understand the action that will be initiated by the image".--Moxy 🍁 11:44, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Moxy! Will do if we end up going with this. Sdkb (talk) 22:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Conclusion page

Separated out into a new section by Sdkb (talk)

I like your idea of considering how to 'round things off'. So, maybe you could consider end with something simple, like File:Great Feeling.ogv, or similar? Maybe even a non-wiki video like this one. The old addage about how to give a good lecture is to "tell the audience what you're about to tell them, then tell it to them, and then end the lecture by telling them what you've just told them" might have some merit here, too. I've been involved in helping to run a few editathons, and I always like to give participants something to take away with them. I'm not sure if you'll find any useable ideas at User:Nick Moyes/editathon/handout1 or at WP:EASYREF. But feel free to plunder. Of course, knowing who your audience is, is critical when trying to communicate with people. Defining them, and then determining which of the multitude of help pages is most applicable seems key, so I realise I kicked things off in this thread with a comment about the page in isolation, without any idea how much or little it is being linked, and where, to in all those many welcome templates we've got. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:23, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the links; I'll definitely take inspiration from the handout! For a video, the John Green one seems more targeted to readers than editors, so I added it to WP:About instead. I like the "I feel great" one. Sdkb (talk) 22:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: and it's here! Help:Introduction_to_Wikipedia_conclusion. Sdkb (talk) 09:59, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Well done - looks nice. I was worried about the 450px image being specified. But it works fine on my iPhone, though isn't there a better % size option that doesn't force a set size on people? I'd still like to see the 'Great Feelings' video under the cartoon caption, maybe with text like 'What people say about editing'. I think that would round it off perfectly. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: Thanks! I'm not sure about a percent option — it doesn't seem to be listed at Wikipedia:Extended image syntax — but if you find it, please include it! Regarding the video, I do really like that series of videos — there's one already at the Help:Introduction to Wikipedia page, and I just added another to Help:Introduction to editing with Wiki Markup/1 and the corresponding VE page. I have to say, though, that as I've thought about it I like the "great feelings" video the least of the set — it starts off well, but the comment the woman makes about finding lovers comes off really odd given WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE, and the comment the other woman makes about reading about this place called Wikipedia in the Guardian comes off as very dated, since everyone knows what Wikipedia is nowadays. I added the "Nice People" video to the page instead. Is that alright? I wasn't quite sure where to put it — does the positioning look good to you? Sdkb (talk) 21:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Yes, I think that's maybe an even better rounding off video. Hope you don't mind me moving it to the right - reason explained in edit summary. My concerns over the other video was the still frame shown in preview. Every time I saw it, it looked like it was going to be a lesson on how to give a great HJ. (And if you don't know I'm alluding to, I'm really not going to explain, sorry.) Nick Moyes (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: Lol! For future reference, you can change the preview with "|thumbtime=". Sdkb (talk) 21:29, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Oh, I didn't know that. Turns out I did know that, and have used it, but had completely forgotten! I did peer into the source code at Commons to see if I could change it there, but couldn't find anything preset that looked tweakable. I'd never encountered a 'TimedText' tab before either, which I gather is for adding subtitles at the right point. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: Great minds think alike — see here. Sdkb (talk) 21:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Potential further tweaks/improvements: Is it possible to get the "good luck and have fun" message centralized to the page, rather than bumped a bit to the left by the presence of the video at the right? Also, is there a better list of essays than the one at the raw directory (I just asked about that here)? Also, I had the thought to create a "I completed the tutorials" user box that we could gift to editors as a small token — do you think they'd appreciate that, or would it not make sense since they don't know about userbox culture? Sdkb (talk) 22:07, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing: the other Wikipedia video I found that I like is File:What's a Love Dart?.webm, but I don't know where we'd want to include that one. Sdkb (talk) 23:44, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Fixed pixel size

A quick fix for many viewers that sees this on small screens would be not to set pixel size as per WP:IMAGESIZE. Would help with overlaps and staggered text.--Moxy 🍁 00:21, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Canvassing worked

  • this is what we are sending our mobile readers to. - Moxy
    this is what we are sending our mobile readers to. - Moxy
  • Where we are sending our mobile readers to, as seen on Sdkb's phone.
    Where we are sending our mobile readers to, as seen on Sdkb's phone.

I see the RfC that was closed based on votes and not our goal of accessibility for all is implemented. Will try and work on this coding this week end. See if we can make it accessible for all. Screen readers having a big problem as does navigation for people with no mouses. Will try to help.--Moxy 🍁 14:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Step one... https://achecker.ca/checker/index.php

Perhaps make a slid for the blind .. people using screen readers and people who don't have a mouse Wikipedia:VideoWiki/Tutorial

@Moxy: I'm not sure on what basis you're making the accusation that there was canvassing — it was a VPP discussion that I shared in relevant forums using the {{Please see}} template. I know the result wasn't what you hoped — if you want an olive branch, I've indicated I'd be fine with changing the line below the first button from You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that covers the same topics. to Alternately, the Contributing to Wikipedia page and interactive Wikipedia Adventure tour cover the same topics. Regarding accessibility, that's under discussion here, so let's keep things centralized there. I did add a screenshot of what it looks like on mobile to me, though, and it would be helpful to know which version others are seeing. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:02, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

"Anyone can edit"

I think you need to change this tagline as it is DISHONEST. I have lost count of the number of times that I have tried to edit something only to be find that I am blocked before I have even done anything from my IP.

I have found myself blocked on various mobile networks, WiFi and cannot even use a VPN as it says it is a "co-locaion host". Even at the National Library of Scotland, an organisation which has sponsored Wikipedians and where people conduct serious research, I find many of their computers blocked.

All of this is because of what other people have done or because Wikipedia has decided to block the methods of internet access most people use.

This isn't acceptable. I tried a named account, and left it, because I found it to be time consuming. Now I find I can't edit anything.

So please, get rid of your stupid tagline... It hasn't been true for years. -2A00:23C8:7512:2001:3D0B:BB87:3B7D:35F0 (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly true that Wikipedia has enacted tighter controls on editing over the years (and I'm sorry you've had trouble accessing articles you want to edit), but the idea of "anyone can edit" is pretty firmly embedded in our culture, so I think you'd have difficulty overturning it. For this page, we say "almost every article" (italics added), so we're covered. But the "anyone can edit" line also appears e.g. on the Main Page. So you'd have to raise the issue somewhere more general, like the Village pump. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:24, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the removal of "anyone can edit" from this page and I'm somewhat sorry that you, IP, have had difficulty editing. Generally, most pages are open to editing by anyone so the statement remains true to a large extent. Despite your frustration with you editing experience, "anyone can edit" is a noble lie under-girding our marketing effort. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:37, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
It isn't a lie of any kind, noble, ignoble, or indifferent. Anyone can edit. That does not mean that anyone can edit from anywhere under any circumstances. Once I too found I couldn't edit because the network where I was trying to edit was blocked, but instead of whinging that it is not true that anyone can edit, I accepted that, although it was inconvenient for me, there was a good reason for the block, and I created an account. That was 14 years ago, and I have never again been prevented from editing by a block. Saying that using an account is "time consuming" is puzzling, as in my experience it takes only a few seconds to log into an account, but in any case "it takes a little time to use an account" is nowhere remotely near the same thing as "it is not true that anyone can edit". JBW (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Spike in pageviews

It looks like we got a big spike in pageviews starting about a week ago. Does anyone know where all the traffic is coming from? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd initially waited to respond in case it was just a brief spike, but ti's been continuous for 4 weeks now. Possibly some welcome template or other highly-viewed link has started directing here, but it's difficult to trace (there's no way to filter Special:WhatLinksHere by date). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:50, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
It's quite mysterious indeed. I thought we knew about the main kinds of places people might be getting linked to here from, but perhaps not. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding interactive components

At the Village Pump discussion about which intro page to add to the left sidebar, there is some sentiment that the Help:Introduction series could do a better job of offering interactive components like those at WP:Adventure. Evolution and evolvability, I know you've talk about adding quizzes before, so I think this might be the time for us to make that happen (and ideally quickly, so that the pump discussion can take our work into account). To start us off, here's an accounting of the interactive elements we have so far, and ones we might want to add.

What we have so far

What we could add

  • For NPOV, we could add a quiz with various statements, asking "is this NPOV or not?"
  • For Reliable sources, we could present various sources and ask "is this reliable or not?"
  • We could send editors to WikiLoop Battlefield at some point so they can revert some vandalism.
  • After teaching editors wikilinks, we could send them to a random page in Category:All articles with too few wikilinks, which has a huge backlog of 7000 pages. After the more advanced MOS page on linking, we could make the link to Tony1's excellent quiz more prominent.
  • For the MOS consistency page, we could have a "spot the error" quiz.

For theming, I think it'd be best to use Wikipedia itself, i.e. the sandboxes/quiz questions will for the most part feature facts about Wikipedia. The main area this gets tricky is when teaching sourcing; for that we could perhaps use Jimmy Wales.

Regarding other elements of interactivity, we offer a trophy userbox at the conclusion page, and it's had several dozen uses since I introduced it two months ago, so it seems to be popular.

How does all this sound? Are there any other interactive elements that we'd want to incorporate from TWA or elsewhere? Courtesy pinging Naypta and Wugapodes from the pump; I'd love to have your thoughts/you're welcome to help if you're interested. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion (and the one at the pump). I do appreciate all the thought that's gone into this. The linking tutorials and quizzes sound like something I think would be great for getting readers to make their first edit. It's incredibly simple to do, and also really helpful for the encyclopedia. In that same vein, giving readers an orphaned article and asking them to link other articles to it would be really useful and potential fun for them. Categorization is a little more advanced, but if we give them completely uncategorized pages just about any category they add will be helpful. Like I said at the pump, I think we want the design to get readers from first click to saved edit as quickly as possible. It should embolden them so that they (1) feel comfortable making minor edits in the future and (2) know where to go should they want to get more involved. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:55, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb and Wugapodes: I think you're right, and I like the well articulated out ideas.
  • For the purposes of the village pump discussion, it's probably best to have one page done well as an exemplar, then others can be populated. Maybe use one or two of Tony1's examples as a starting point? For NPOV, there are also some examples. Possibly short example exercises from the WP:Adventure could be incorporated (it's been a while since I checked it out).
  • I also love the idea of the specialised sandboxes - definitely more useful than the default blank/random-content draft:sandbox. Could maybe do something by using preloaded text (e.g. preload a page with deliberate errors to fix, or clear tasks in need of performing)? I've experimented with it a bit for templated biographies in template:preloaddraft.
  • Pointing people to logical next steps like citation hunt and wikiloop are defnintely a good idea, since newcomers can find working out where to start a bit overwhelming!
T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Thanks for the ping! I think all of the suggestions for adding content are good, but for the WikiLoop Battlefield one. I'm not sure sending new editors immediately into an environment where they're seeing and dealing with vandalism is a great idea - not just because of the potential for poor flagging and noise to be generated on Battlefield, but also because it immediately portrays a perhaps less-than-positive image of what the encyclopedia is. I think it'd probably be better to have a more phased easing in to that sort of thing, perhaps linking them through to the CVU.
I'm in favour of the points that Wugapodes makes, too; categorising and linking are two easy things to do that can encourage editors to be bold. Perhaps creating an interface akin to Commons' tag suggestion engine, but then redirecting users who select categories in it to the standard edit form so they understand how to use it, might be an idea. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:26, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
I've started a draft of a sandbox template at User:Sdkb/sandbox/testpage; feel free to edit it. The goal is to show a bunch of different formatting elements, but also to keep the page simple so that the elements can be easily identified in markup to someone who isn't used to reading it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:27, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
@Naypta, Wugapodes, and Evolution and evolvability: Okay, so following up on this, the sandboxes are all custom now. How do they look for you all? Lmk if you have any questions about the mechanics etc. of it.
For the linking quiz, that's at Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/linking quiz, but it's too long currently. We'll also need to add a parameter to Template:Intro to to get rid of the extraneous blue "Go back to the tutorials menu" button at the bottom.
For adding links to live pages, I just looked through the pages in Category:All articles with too few wikilinks, and most of the pages there don't actually need more links. I think it might be best to just wait until the Newcomer tasks feature is deployed and then integrate that.
For adding categories, I've added a button at Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/3.
NPOV/RS/MOS consistency quizzes are not ready yet, but I'll get to those next. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I've tried an example of what I was thinking on Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/linking quiz: 1-4 example questions present at the bottom of the page. It might be a bit too hidden currently being collapsed by default. Might actually work better just as always shown by the {{intro to}} template if there's anything in the |exercise= parameter. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 02:21, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Evolution and evolvability, yeah, I've noticed the |exercise= parameter before, and I think it has potential, but it seems way too hidden, both in positioning and in autocollapsing. It can also only fit extremely short exercises, which might be alright depending on how much we want to pare things down, but I'm not sure. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:34, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
The look good! I also didn't know about the newcomer tasks feature which I agree would probably be better for encouraging linking. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Quizzes

Okay, so I've identified three of them to create: NPOV, RS, and MOS consistency. Let's build them up at Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines/neutrality quiz, Help:Introduction to referencing/reliable sources quiz, and Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/Manual of Style quiz. Unlike the linking quiz, which is currently live to people going through the tutorial, these pages are isolated for now (I'll cross this out when they're implemented), so feel free to modify them as needed. For NPOV, I looked at the examples page, and with apologies to whoever created it, it's bad. So I think we're better off creating ours from scratch. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, this is unrelated, but a question has come up about whether it's okay to use Category:Example category for the sandboxes, since apparently it adds an item to Special:WantedCategories. Some additional voices might be helpful at Help talk:Introduction/main sandbox. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Update: I've completed the MOS quiz and added a link, so it's now live. How does it look? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Visual change

The positioning of the globe has long seemed odd to me. I played around in the sandbox and turned it into a background element, resulting in this: Help:Introduction/sandbox. How does it look? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and implement; if there are any issues lmk. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: I like it - definitely better than the previous implementation. And seems to display well on the devices I've now tested it on (android phone and few different desktop window widths). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I am also a fan. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:04, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:T" listed at Redirects for discussion

Information icon A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Wikipedia:T. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 10#Wikipedia:T until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Interstellarity (talk) 19:24, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:T" listed at Redirects for discussion

Information icon A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Wikipedia:T. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 14#Wikipedia:T until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Interstellarity (talk) 12:10, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Single-page versions of modules now available

In addition to Help:Introduction/All, which presents the entire series as one page, you can now view individual modules as single pages by clicking "view all as single page" at the bottom of the sidebar. For instance, at the Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup pages, you can click to go to Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/All. The exception is the Visual Editor-specific pages, which I didn't bother to create (although if someone else would like to do so, that would be lovely). All of them are transclusions (except for the tab names/see also links) following the model from Help:Referencing for beginners, so they will remain synced. Please let me know if you spot any issues! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:05, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

This is good ..just need to fix odd spacing so screen readers work.--Moxy 🍁 11:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Moxy, the double spacing causes screen reader issues? Could you start a new discussion on that below? If there's an alternative way to make the double breaks that'd work better, we should adopt it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:11, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Notability quiz now available

I created a short quiz on notability, borrowing the very well-done example from WP:SIRS. It's available from Help:Introduction to editing with Wiki Markup/5 and the corresponding VisualEditor page (and links back properly to each one). Let me know if you notice any issues!

The main quiz left to create now is the one on reliable sources, at Help:Introduction to referencing/reliable sources quiz. Anyone who would like to dig into that is very much welcome to. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Hurrah! I finally got around to finishing out the RS quiz, and just launched it live. Also, btw, we're seeing the expected bump from the new left sidebar link. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 10:05, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Giving more guidance on finding the right talk page

One thing I see a lot of at the Teahouse is people confused about how to draw attention to a talk page post they've made on an obscure page, generally not since there's any conflict but rather just since they're new and want a second opinion before acting too boldly. I think we might be able to do a bit better job helping out with that, so I threw together a draft for a page we might add to the talk page module. It's still in early form, but I'm curious to hear feedback on whether it'd be a useful addition. Here's the text:

Some talk pages are monitored very actively, whereas others are much quieter. If you post to a popular page such as Talk:Earth you are fairly likely to receive a response, whereas if you post to a talk page where the last discussion was years ago, it is unlikely anyone else will see your post.


If you would like to bring attention to a post on a more obscure page, you can post a notice about it at another talk page. This could be an associated project talk page (some of which are more active than others) or it could be the Teahouse. One way to do this is to paste {{subst:Please see|Talk:Example}} at the other page, replacing "example" with the name of the page with the discussion. Do not start the same discussion in multiple places.


Talk pages are used for many different types of discussions, including proposed mergers, splits, and moves (title changes). Some discussions are held at noticeboards, such as the village pumps or Articles for deletion (AfD).

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:34, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Great idea. Maybe we should be linking to this advice from the talk header. Zindor (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I think it's an interesting idea, but it would require careful 'Plain English' writing. I struggled a bit, myself, to understand the instructions (with so many links in it) that I worry the cure might be more complex than the original condition. That's not to say it's a bad idea, just that new and complex concepts need careful explanation for a new user. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Nick Moyes and Zindor, I put something up at Help:Introduction to talk pages/6? Does it look alright? Feel free to copy edit it. Nick, the pages are admin move-protected, so if we want to keep it we'll need help swapping the titles to get the numbering right (the summary page is currently at /5). It should probably also be semi-protected like the others. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:21, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Update: Pages have been protected and moved to the correct order. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:09, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Blank feedbacks

We've been getting a lot of blank feedback submissions at Help:Introduction/feedback, to the extent that the page could be semi'ed if that wouldn't defeat the entire purpose haha. I tried to make the process as, well, idiot-proof as possible, but that doesn't seem to help. Cleaning up the blank submissions is annoying, so if there's no solution, I guess I'll just unwatch the page and let anyone who wants to use it in the future clean out the clutter. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:14, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Question about the "Help:Introduction" series

I have a question/problem about the series “Help:Introduction to editing with Wiki Markup”. When a person gets to page /6 and clicks on “Test what you’ve learned”, they normally get directed to a sample page under their own username, where they can do test edits - basically a sandbox. But if the person is unregistered or not logged in, they get directed to “Creating Draft:Sample page/52419243”. Three times in January and February this year, that page was deleted per G2 “test page”. On February 4 someone (User:Alcremie) requested at RFPP that the page Draft:Sample page/52419243 be salted as “repeatedly recreated”, which I did. Now an IP comes to me asking why they can’t create their test page - because I salted it! Is the way it is supposed to work “somebody creates the page, uses it, and it then gets G2’ed, to be ready for the next person”? In other words, is this page intended to be created and deleted over and over again? If so, should I just unsalt it, with the comment that it should not be salted because it is intended to be used over and over? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Oops - meant to ping Alcremie. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:09, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
@Zindor, Nick Moyes, and Sdkb: Pinging some people who seem to be active at this page. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:10, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

This is a bigger problem than I thought. The IP who called this to my attention says the same thing happens at all the other tutorial pages. I'll copy here what they said:

Anyway there's also more links for all of the other tutorials see Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/5, Help:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/4, Help:Introduction to images with Wiki Markup/4, Help:Introduction_to_editing_with_VisualEditor/6, Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/6, Help:Introduction to images with VisualEditor/6, Help:Introduction to tables with VisualEditor/5, Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/6, Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/6. All of which have you create pages with equally random numbers. I can go ahead and make them if that will help to see if the numbers are the same for everyone. The other weird thing is that none of them have instructions on how to delete when you are done. I finally learned from the AFC help desk that your supposed to place {{db-g7}} on the page, which is really unintuitive, I mean it worked, see Draft:Referencing sandbox/22014662 and its easy once you know what to do, but good luck figuring that out without asking. So I think the pages you create for testing should explain how to delete once your done. Or perhaps there's a simpler way I'm missing?

I think their suggestion about telling people how to delete their page makes a lot of sense. I also think if the pages are intended to be created and deleted over and over again, they should be tagged somehow with "Do not salt". Thoughts? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:18, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Ack, the random sample page system has caused so much more trouble than I ever thought it would. See above for the impetus; it was only intended for IP users. It's supposed to use a random number, so IPs should almost never encounter a page that's been previously deleted, but that doesn't seem to be happening. A little while ago I changed H:ITW (which was the source of most of the IP sandboxes) to just force anyone who wants to use the custom sandbox to log in, and I may do the same with the other instances now. But no one should be salting the pages. Cleaning them up should be done by bot, not made the responsibility of IPs. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
How frequent are I.Ps using this? If there's little risk of edit conflicts then they could be directed to permanent sandboxes that get blanked periodically by a bot. I seem to recall there at least used to be a *bot that did this. Zindor (talk) 17:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
* currently Cyberbot I Zindor (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
What was wrong with the earlier route of simply directing IPs to Draft:Sandbox? Nick Moyes (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
I'll unsalt that page with a note explaining the situation. But the number does not appear to be random; it creates the same sample page over and over. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:22, 9 February 2021 (UTC) P.S. Actually I wonder if that is true, that the system is not assigning random numbers? I just took a look at the page the IP mentioned, Draft:Referencing sandbox/22014662, and it has not been created and deleted repeatedly - just the one time when my IP friend used it. Maybe the "same number over and over" thing is only happening with the Wiki Markup page? Is it the only one using "Draft:Sample page" instead of "Draft:Markup sandbox"? More research is needed. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:35, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
I've gone through and (rather tediously) fixed all the remaining sandboxes that send IPs to randomly numbered subpages, so that they now use a version of Help:Introduction/IP sandbox as well (view it logged out to see what IPs see). There should be no more IPs trying to create those pages.
The numbers were generated using {{Random number}}, but I'm guessing caching issues were occurring. There's further background context at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive328#"Draft:Sample page/(eight digit number)" again if anyone for some reason wants it (don't be fooled by the venue into thinking it's anything spicy; it's not).
The only remaining thing that needs to happen is for an admin to semi-protect the following new pages to bring them in line with the protection level of the rest of the tutorial series (they'll otherwise be guaranteed to accrue test edits):
Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:37, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I can do that, but first let me understand. It’s called IP sandbox. But if you are an IP and land on that page (I just logged out and tested it), it doesn't give you a sandbox. It tells you to either create an account or use the communal sandbox - is that correct? So if they create an account they get a personal sandbox that leads them through practicing, but if they stay an IP they are on their own to practice. Right? I'm not criticizing, just trying to understand how it works. And since they should not be doing any actual edits on that page, it needs semi-protection. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

MelanieN, yes, that's right. So to lay it all out: At the end of most modules in the tutorial, there's a "test this out in the sandbox" button, which is designed to send you to a sandbox page prefilled with content relevant to the tutorial, e.g. a sandbox with images for the image tutorial. For logged in users, this is created in their userspace. For logged out users, this was created in the draft space as one of the randomly numbered pages, but that was creating issues, so we retired it (first for H:ITW, and following your inquiry above for all the rest of the modules). Now, when an IP clicks the button, they're sent to an /IP sandbox subpage, which asks them to create an account. Once they do so, the return URL will bring them back to the same /IP sandbox page, where they'll now be able to proceed to create a sandbox in their userspace.
The system is more complicated on the back end than I'd like, and it doesn't function ideally (ideally, we'd want IPs to be able to create an individual, prefilled sandbox somewhere where they can test edits), but given how many other websites require registration nowadays, it doesn't seem like a hugely unreasonable hurdle. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:20, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Got it. Thanks for all your work. BTW should there be a "protected" icon on the page or not? I'm thinking not. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Since editors will only be spending a few seconds on the /IP sandbox page, it doesn't really matter. We might want to have it just for consistency with the other tutorial pages where we do display it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
OK, they are protected. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:53, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Div close tags

@Anomalocaris: Could you explain what's happening with this edit? If there's a div tag problem, it seems better to solve it within the transclusions than outside of them. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb: Thank you for asking. I was working on a project to remove lint errors from Wikipedia. I found Help:Introduction/All listed with Missing end tags for <div>. I edited it and used the lintHint tool described in WP:Linter, and starting from the bottom, I detected that the last </div> belonged inside the closing double curly braces of {{strip categories}}, where I placed it. There were 9 more missing end tags for <div>. Experimentally, I placed them at the bottom. LintHint accepted this, and the page preview looked OK, so I saved the edit. Looking back now, it would seem that since all of the <div> tags are opened inside {{strip categories}}, they should be closed inside it too. But lintHint accepted it, I guess because it processes {{strip categories}} (and other templates) out of existence before analyzing lint issues. So the first fix would probably be to move all of the closing </div> tags inside the closing double brace of {{strip categories}}. I was in a hurry and I didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the purpose of each <div> tag, and therefore its intended scope, so when I achieved a result that looked OK and didn't have lint errors, I stopped and published my changes. Please go ahead and improve on my work! —Anomalocaris (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Anomalocaris, I'm not really familiar enough with div tags to feel comfortable diving into this on my own. The main thing is just that Help:Introduction/All is supposed to be only a "container page", so to speak, so if lint errors are present there, they likely arose at a more core level (like the individual help pages or {{Intro to}}; trying to understand what you wrote about category stripping, it seems to have something to do with that?) and should probably be resolved at that level. They likely are also present on other similar container pages in the series (e.g. Help:Introduction to images with Wiki Markup/All). Thanks for whatever you've done/are doing to help; anything that resolves the errors without changing the normal display is certainly a plus. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:22, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Sdkb: I moved the closing </div> tags as I suggested. According to Outstanding linter errors on enwiki, there is only one (1) lint error in all of the Help namespace, a stripped </div> in Help:Wikitext, and this lint error is an artifact of some unusual markup to deal with the ideosyncracies of the <pre> tag, for which I didn't see an obvious workaround. So, at the moment, except possibly for Help:Wikitext, no further lint control work is required in the Help namespace. It may be possible to improve the placement of the closing </div> tags in Help:Introduction/All, but this would be for clarity and ease of further editing, not for fixing lint errors. —Anomalocaris (talk) 22:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks; sounds good! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:33, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Growth features for newcomers

Hello Introduction folks -- I'm Marshall Miller; I'm the product manager for the Wikimedia Foundation's Growth team, which works on features meant to increase the retention of new editors. The features give newcomers clear tasks to do to get started, and connect them with an experienced mentor to answer their questions.

Screenshot of suggested edits module in Czech Wikipedia

In the past year, we have found evidence that the Growth features have a positive impact on newcomer engagement, and this has led us to deploy the features to a total of 33 wikis, including some large ones like French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese Wikipedias. So far, so good! Because we've seen the features lead to good outcomes, we have started the conversation around what it would be like to try them on English Wikipedia.

I'm posting here because you all have thought a lot about the newcomer experience on English Wikipedia. I hope some of you can check out the project page and also the discussion where we are thinking about how to try these features on English Wikipedia. Please do chime in either here, or on that discussion page. If you want to try out the features, you can see these simple instructions for how to try them on Test Wikipedia. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello everyone -- I'm following up here to let everyone know that the Growth features are now available to test on English Wikipedia. They are not being assigned to any newcomers yet, but experienced users may turn them on in preferences to try them. We hope you try them out on desktop or mobile and leave any notes here (or on the project talk page). After a couple weeks, and after we iron out any issues, we plan to start giving the features to 2% of newcomers to get a sense of how they work on this wiki, and so that we can make plans for next steps.
If you are willing to sign up as a mentor for this first round, you can do that on this page.
To test the features, please go to your user preferences and then:
This will give you access to the homepage (Special:Homepage), and, from there, you will be able to:
  • contact your mentor
  • select your favorite topics and tasks to make some suggested edits
  • browse help pages
  • see your impact
You will also see the help panel being visible when editing, or when browsing help pages.
-- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Growth team feature test begins tomorrow (June 8)

Hello everyone -- in the past weeks, lots of English community members have tried out the features, and we've heard largely positive reactions and ideas. We also have 16 mentors signed up (we don't need more for this test, but we will need more in the future!) After discussing it with the most involved community members, we set a date to begin testing the features on this wiki. Our plan is to start giving the Growth features to 2% of newcomers starting tomorrow, June 8. This means that for all new accounts created starting tomorrow, 2% of them will have the Growth features and the rest will not. Because English Wikipedia gets about 130,000 new accounts per month, we expect this will amount to 2,600 newcomers having the features over the course of the month.

I don't think this deployment will affect the day-to-day for the Introduction, except that it will drive more newcomers to view the Introduction pages, which will be linked from the "newcomer homepage" part of the Growth features. Though with the 2% test, we only expect to see a small (if any) increase in traffic, traffic may increase more in the future as we expose the feature to more newcomers. Edits from newcomers with the Growth features will be visible in Recent Changes and watchlists with the tags #Newcomer task, #Mentorship module question, and #Mentorship panel question.

While the test is running, the Growth team will monitor newcomer activity to identify if anything negative is occurring (like an increase in vandalism) -- if something goes wrong, we'll be able to quickly make changes. At the end of about four weeks, we'll reflect on the data and ask mentors about their experiences to decide how to proceed, in terms of whether to increase the number of newcomers who receive the features.

I hope this sounds good to everyone here -- we think we've planned this carefully with community input, but I definitely want to hear if anyone has questions or concerns. I'll plan to post again tomorrow to confirm that the test has started. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Recent page moves/disruption

For anyone else noticing and wanting to comment on the page moves and consequent disruption in the past few hours, centralized discussion is at Help_talk:Referencing_for_beginners#Why_are_these_on_this_page. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:25, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

tutorial group move (with a rename): "...with Wiki Markup" > "...with source editor"

After updating quite a lot Help:Getting started and as I have pending improvements for Help:Introduction, I propose a group move of all the "with Wiki Markup" pages to "with source editor". After that move, I can proceed to check for "Wiki Markup" in the tutorial pages and "rebrand" to "source editor" or simply correct to "wiki markup" (see: wikt:wiki markup). All the pages, concerning: the wiki markup source editor on Help:Introduction are already referring to "Source editor" (with the logo on top left of each page). I think that using "source editor" is more appropriate for newbies (as Wikipedia user interface refers to: Visual editing and Source editing). Furthermore the evergoing competition of wikitext, wiki markup and wikicode is always confusing for newbies... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antoine Legrand (talk • contribs) 14:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sdkb, are we still waiting for feedback from other editors or can we go ahead? — Antoine Legrand (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
I'd prefer to get one or two more !votes, but we're not too far away. After that, it's just the logistical matter of performing the moves. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Double spacing

@Sdkb: Thanks for explaining regarding my edit you reverted. After I submitted, I noticed the rest of the Intro was double-spaced, then I saw Moxy's edits that already removed the double spaces then added them back, and I was confused.

Although, I didn't see the discussion you mentioned on this page from a quick look for keywords like "double/line/break" or "screen reader" as Moxy brought up under § Single-page versions of modules now available. Could you point it out?

Also, why is the Intro double-spaced in the first place? It feels weird having a departure from the normal style.
— W.andrea (talk) 01:51, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

@W.andrea, hmm, I can't find it either now; maybe I was imagining that there's been more substantial discussion than there actually has been. I believe the decision to double-space came about because Evolution and evolvability found some usability research indicating that having wide spacing is helpful; E&E, am I remembering that right? I think it looks nice in isolation but it is odd to have the departure from our normal style, and it creates complications, so I wouldn't have any objection to changing it. One possible option is to try to figure out if there's a way to set the line spacing in html, so that it's not in the wikitext and doesn't apply to transclusions. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:03, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb and W.andrea: I'd initially put in the double-spacing because of reported easier readability, and since the rest of the formatting is such a departure from mainspace anyway. However, you're right that it's difficult to maintain. I've implemented (diff) an easier-to-maintain solution via an extra instruction in Template:Intro to/styles.css (.introto__columns-right p {margin-bottom: 2.0em}). Feel free to revert those edits to the template style page if the consensus is to reduce inter-paragraph spacing back to the same as the encyclopedic text. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 06:59, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
Spacing 140%-180% for optimal readability and accessibility. Font size should be minimum of 16pt.Ashley Firth (26 November 2019). Practical Web Inclusion and Accessibility: A Comprehensive Guide to Access Needs. Apress. pp. 69–. ISBN 978-1-4842-5452-3. OCLC 1129174388....Moxy- 01:16, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
I've just noticed that the other benefit of controlling inter-paragraph spacing via Template:Intro to/styles.css is that the single page versions revert to standard mainspace formatting (example). So whether consensus leans towards mainspace-style or more expanded formatting, I reckon it's best to leave the markup as standard and control that formatting through the /styles.css page. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 05:02, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
Yep, I was hoping that would be the case; glad to see it is! (RIP to my watchlist tho...) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:02, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The buttons are broken!

FYI the buttons on these "Introduction" tutorials are broken, taking readers to pages such as Help:Introduction to editing with VisualEditor/ without the trailing "1". The error seems to be caused by today's edit to Module:Clickable button 2, so I've posted about this at Template talk:Clickable button 2. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:17, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Fixed already. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:What wikipedia is" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Wikipedia:What wikipedia is and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 4#Wikipedia:What wikipedia is until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 21:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC) omatic archive navigator}}

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