User talk:MMiller (WMF)

Please do post on my talk page! I love learning from as many perspectives as I can.

New Page Patroller

Hi Marshall. I have temporarily accorded your Wikipedia community account the NPR user right. To find out why, please see the messages at User talk:Cloud atlas. Regards, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

AfC vs NPP

Hi Marshall. I think we all very much appreciate your engagement in the issues concerning the AfC project. Just out of curiosity however, I would be interested to know why, where NPP is the major concern and a core Wkipedia process, the WMF is prioritising AfC development while insisting that urgent improvements to the Page Curation/New Pages Feed tool they developed must wait for another year to be discussed even for priority. I ask this, because a major community discussion will soon start regarding combining the the AfC process into the NPP GUI - which many volunteers already agree might be a worthwhile solution. A community consensus will of course decide, but let's not forget that there are a potential 600 voters from the NPP process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:21, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kudpung. Thanks for the message. I don't want to cross any wires with respect to the conversation on The future of NPP and AfC talk page, so hopefully Danny's answers help. I can say that as we've been talking inside the Community Tech team about the potential AfC work, we're keeping in mind that it's possible the processes may be merged. Therefore, we will try not to build anything that would become obsolete or wasteful if that change comes to pass. I'll add some more updates to the talk page for that project in the coming days. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Marshall. We will be launching the RfC on your propsals within the next 24 hours. You will receive a notification. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my reply. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment ans suggestion which I have carried out, However, as the actual development is not concerned with the wording or structure of the RfC, I'll make a couple of observations and ask some questions here.

You've probably seen now how difficult it is to hold a structured discussion on anything at Wikipedia even when it is civil and people are generally commenting objectively. This is one of the reasons why there comes a point when a formal RfC has to be held. In spite of this one being presented and hoped for as straw poll, which I have diplomatically call a 'proof of concept', RfAs never turn out as such and there will be a lot of turning and weaving and asking of technical questions. As proposer, I will need to be able to answer them. One question which I anticipate is: Will AfC as we know it be deprecated? If not, and if you are going ahead with these improvements anyway, is my RfC at all necessary? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:57, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: we don't have any plans to deprecate AfC. Our only intention has been to help the existing AfC process in the ways that have been discussed. Any deprecation sounds like a topic for a separate, broader RfC.

Regarding the specific RfC at hand for AfC improvements, although we would have gone ahead with this improvement without an RfC because of the amount of discussion and consensus that had already taken place, you pointed out several reasons that an RfC would be valuable here. If the results from the RfC surprise us and we discover that a lot of the community is against these changes, then we'll have learned something important and adjust accordingly. One thing I do need to underscore, though, is that we won't have bandwidth to expand the scope of work based on the RfC.

During the RfC process, I'll be happy to help answer questions and clarify from the perspective of WMF where appropriate.

-- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, I see no need for me to go ahead with the RfC. The only reason for launching it was to reassure the AfC people that something was going to be done by the WMF that would enhance their productivity without forcing hem to use a new system. If your product is good, and complete, as promised, they will use it. Under these circumstances, running an RfC at this stage will only upset the appple cart because it would give them too much to worry about. What I am interested in is that these offerings will be in the New Pages Feed and will work on Drafts as well as the the other namespace pages that are lised in it and that there will be filters in the prefeences for reviewers to choose what they want to review. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:40, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: Okay. In that case, I think what I'll do is post the results of the AfC conversation to the main AfC talk page, and we'll start the process of doing the designing, planning, and prototyping (in concert with the community). Thank you for working on this. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No need to thank me Marshall - I've spent 100s of hours working on these very issues for many years. We are grateful to the WMF for making some steps to improve the system. It won't be enough of course, but it's a start. Not doing anything at all damages the Wikipedia's reputation for integrity - and the WMF should have a vested interest, but many employees don't realise this (speaking from experience from many real life discussions with them). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: I updated the project page to summarize the plan for AfC improvements as it now stands, and I also posted it on the AfC talk page. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to also post it for the NPP community, so that NPP reviewers aren't surprised when the New Pages Feed changes. Is that something you would like to do? I'm also happy to post if you prefer. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added my comments to your latest progress report. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New pages

Hi. Thanks for sorting out the issue with new pages and patrolling, from the thread I started at WP:VPT. Would have replied sooner, but I've been away for a few days. Thanks again! Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lugnuts: you're quite welcome. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and glad everything is back to being in order. And if you have any opinions or reactions to the project work that caused this bug, please chime in on the talk page! There will be changes to the New Pages Feed for NPP reviewers, with the addition of ORES scores and copyvio indication. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement

I'm sorry to diagree with you, but I am adamant that Community Wishlist is not the right place to bring up additional improvements to Page Curation and the New Pages Feed. The NPP process is probably the most important core function of Wikipedia. It's the only firewall to prevent unwanted new content and to encourage those users who want to submit serious artilces. It's not something to be voted for. For one thing, there are just not enough potential voters to get it passed on the wishlist. Among the 650 so called reviewers, only a tiny fraction of them have contributed significantly to reviewing new pages or shown any interest in its further development - they don't even follow these talks. What will happen, is that ultimately people will stop patrolling new pages completely if the system is not brought up to requirements. After all these years getting NPP to where is now, I have now already withdrawn my engagement for improvement; as a volunteer, there comes a time when one just gets fed up. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:23, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Test Wiki Autoconfirm

Hi,

As noted in the AfC project page comments, I was hoping you could tag me as auto-confirmed on the testsite

Nosebagbear (talk) 20:33, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear: thanks for getting in touch, and I'm glad you want to try things out. We just changed your status to confirmed. Let me know if it's not working, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of the changes. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Growth team updates #1

Welcome to the first newsletter for the new Growth team!

The Growth Team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects. We will be starting with Wikipedias, but we hope these changes will benefit every community.

8 ideas we consider: tell us what you think about them!

We are considering new features to build, that could retain new editors in mid-size Wikipedias. We will be testing new ideas in Czech and Korean Wikipedias, and then we'll talk to more communities (yours!) about adopting the ideas that work well.

We have posted the 8 ideas we are considering. We would really appreciate your thoughts and the thoughts from your community. Please share the ideas, and tell us what do you and your community think of those ideas before September 9.

Share your experiences with newcomers

We want to hear about what is working and what is not working for new contributors in your wiki. We also want to hear any reactions, questions, or opinions on our work. Please post on the team’s talk page, in any language!

Learn more about us

You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project page for detailed updates on the first project we'll work on.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

your recent edit

Hi. with special:diff/863734533, a few comments were accidentally removed. I think it was because of the wikitext editor, but I dont know. I restored your comment, and the lost ones. See you around —usernamekiran(talk) 18:00, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Usernamekiran: wow, that's so weird! Thank you for noticing and fixing that. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/EranBot 3

This has been actioned, please see closing note and advise. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:30, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Xaosflux. Please let me know when the bot has been added back to the copyvio group. We would like to make the SWAT at 11 AM PT tomorrow if possible. With respect to MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome, we can change that ourselves, unless you would prefer to do it. Let me know! -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It already has been, should be good to go. Go ahead and update or remove line in the message. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:35, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Community wish list

The poll has closed with a resounding success for the requirements of the New Page Rewiewers. I realise that the Curation video may be slightly out of date and while it's important, it will be of help to the AfC reviewers. It should naturally be updated, but this was also a WMF development There is a possibility the volunteer community could do it, buit only on a grant allocation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kudpung -- that's a good point about the curation video (I think you're talking about the one on this page). I agree that it should probably be updated. One thing that is hopefully helpful is that I added an update to this page about the new features that were added this year. Maybe after Community Tech works on the feed, it will be a good time to update the video, because I anticipate several more things will change in that process. Do you know whether new reviewers have found the video useful? -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NPP Improvements

Hey there. You mentioned in the phab ticket that the team is getting ready to start doing NPP soon. That's great. When we had been going through the wishlist process we were told that there might have to be further discussion with the NPP community around what all could be done. Do you or the team have a sense of what form that's going to take yet? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:00, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: good to hear from you. It's actually a different team than my own that will be working on the NPP wishlist item. It's the Community Tech team, and the product manager is NKohli_(WMF). I think that team has started to sift through the tasks in the wishlist item and ask clarifying questions in Phabricator, like on this task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T207485. Maybe NKohli_(WMF) can add some details about the process. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MMiller (WMF) thanks for the update. NKohli_(WMF) can you shed light on the process? Personally I don't find Phab the friendliest of systems and am hoping that I can be a part of the discussion process. I have watch-listed the community page on Meta as you suggested, but would (ideally) hope that this could be done here on -en at WT:NPP/R. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:25, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Barkeep49, I've found that by keeping an eye on Meta:Community_Tech/Page_Curation_and_New_Pages_Feed_improvements and subscribing to all the phab tasks listed there I've been able to get a reasonable idea on what they are working on.

NKohli_(WMF), my impression is that you guys are still in the planning phase for a lot of these tasks; is that correct? We would like for NPP to be involved in the planning of some of the tasks ideally (such as the messaging system tasks), so when you guys start work on the messaging system etc., I'd like it if you guys sent some messages to the NPR talk page, similar to how you contacted us for these other two tasks, just to keep everyone in the loop. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:51, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere: we are about to kick off working on some of the tasks for this project. Keeping an eye on meta:Community Tech/Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements is definitely the best way to keep an eye on updates. I have been asking clarifying questions on the talk page for tickets that require feedback. As we get into more complex tickets, I hope to get more community members involved in the brainstorming discussions on that page. Thanks for reaching out and thanks for the ping, MMiller (WMF). -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight

You might like to move your post from Talk:Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight#Submission to Community Growth space (talk page of an article) to User talk:Rosiestep. Johnuniq (talk) 01:22, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Johnuniq and Funcrunch. I should have noticed something didn't seem right when posting! I've moved the post to the user's talk page. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Query

Hi MMiller! We will likely soon be deciding which introduction page to include on the left sidebar, following up from this RfC. I was wondering if you might be able to find one statistic I am curious to know: what is the average time spent on page for visitors to WP:Contributing to Wikipedia? In other words, how many people who visit that page actually read it, versus get scared away by how long/dense it is? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sdkb -- thank you for getting in touch about this! It's great to see that you're working to give more newcomers access to editing tools. The statistic you're asking about is unfortunately not at anyone's fingertips. It is possible to generate it using the timestamps of when pages have been accessed, but we don't maintain an average dwell time number for all pages. I agree that it would be exactly the sort of number that could help you decide which page to surface, and if you are willing to wait some weeks for a WMF analyst to become available, it might be possible to find out (though I'm not sure there will be bandwidth). Setting that aside, I do have some thoughts from the Growth team's research and experience that could help:

We have seen in user tests with newcomers that they do indeed wander around the main page looking for a clear place to get started with editing. We believe they are looking for a button or link that explicitly says something like, "Start editing here" or "Get started editing here".
I saw that the RfC says that the new link will go under the existing "Help" link in the sidebar. Have you considered re-naming the "Help" link so that it has less ambiguity with this new link that you'll be adding? I know that Help:Contents covers more kinds of help than just editing help, which is why it would be valuable to keep around. Maybe something like "General help"?
We think that help pages are better when they have a fewer number of links and options -- too many can be overwhelming. In that vein, I think that WP:Contributing to Wikipedia would likely overwhelm, and Help:Introduction would be better.

-- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's very helpful! I'm not sure where the discussion will be at a few weeks from now, but I'd guess the stat will still be of some use then. The help link on the sidebar didn't receive any direct attention during the recent big sidebar discussion, so I doubt it'll be changed soon, but the tooltip ("guidance on how to use and edit Wikipedia") does give some clarification. And I very much agree about WP:Contributing being overwhelming; hopefully others will come to a similar view. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:15, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Helping Hand Barnstar

		The Helping Hand Barnstar
		Great work with trying to help and recruit new editors. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.Moxy- 04:15, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Growth Newsletter #18

Welcome to the eighteenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Structured tasks

"Add a link" is now being tested in production and is nearing release on our four pilot wikis (Arabic, Czech, Vietnamese, and Bengali Wikipedias). We'll be doing final tests this week and next week, and then plan to deploy to the four wikis either during May 24 week, or May 31 week. After two weeks, we will analyze the initial data to identify any problems or trends. We expect that this feature will engage new kinds of newcomers in easy and successful edits. If things are going well after four weeks, we'll progressively deploy it to the wikis with Growth features.

News for mentors

We are currently working on a Mentor dashboard. This special page aims to help mentors be more proactive and be more successful at their role. The first iteration will include a table that shows an overview of the mentors current mentees, a module with their own settings, and a module that will allow them to store their best replies to their mentees questions.
We've conducted our quarterly audit on Growth's four pilot wikis to see the activity of mentors. It appears that the vast majority of mentors are active.

Community configuration

We are working on project to allow communities to manage the configuration of the Growth features on their own. In the past, communities have needed to work directly with the Growth team to set up and alter the features. We plan to put this capability in the hands of administrators, through an easy-to-use form, so that the features can be easily tailored to fit the needs of each community. While we developed it initially for Growth features, we think this approach could have uses in other features as well. We'll be trying this on our pilot wikis in the coming weeks, and then we'll bring it to all Growth wikis soon after. We hope you check out the project page and add any of your thoughts to the talk page.

Scaling

Growth features are now available on 35 wikis. Here is the list of the most recent ones: Romanian Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Spanish Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Malay Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia.
A new group of Wikipedias has been defined for the deployment of Growth features. Please contact us if you have questions about the deployment process, or if your community likes to get the features in advance.
After discussion with the English Wikipedia community, the Growth features will be tested on a small percentage of new accounts. At the moment, registered users can test the features by turning them on in their preferences.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:23, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Mentors

Is the program still looking for mentors? I'm trying to find ways to help the encyclopedia and I would love to welcome and assist new members if that is still available. --ARose Wolf 17:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) The mentor program is currently in trial mode, so there are enough mentors, but once it fully launches, there will be a need for plenty more. For now, the Teahouse always needs more help, so you're welcome to sign up as a host there or just jump in to answering questions! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:04, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Sdkb. I appreciate the timely response. :) --ARose Wolf 18:15, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what to expect

I'm a brand new volunteer mentor and have received a question from a new editor. The only edit he has made is to ask me a question. There is nothing on either his User page or Talk page. I am not sure how to proceed. Please help as I thought this project added introductory info and links for the newcomers to use as a first action. --Oronsay (talk) 06:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Oronsay -- thank you for signing up to be a mentor! I see the question on your talk page, and it looks pretty typical. Most newcomers ask mentor questions from their newcomer homepage, which contains suggested tasks, help links, and their mentor (see image at the right). We think that different newcomers learn in different ways. Some like to read documentation, and others prefer to ask questions before they make any edits.

It looks like the newcomer who asked you a question wants to create a new article -- and may possibly have a conflict of interest around it. I recommend replying right there on your talk page to them, pinging their username so that they are more likely to see your response. You could thank them for getting started with Wikipedia, explain about how to get started making a new article, perhaps through Articles for Creation, and you could mention something about conflicts of interest and a link to that policy. I also think it's useful to recommend that they get started with some easy edits by using the feed on their homepage, instead of trying to plunge in with a new article. Here's a response from @Bilorv in a somewhat similar situation, which might be interesting as a reference.

Is this helpful context? Let me know if you have any other questions! MMiller (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your detailed reply, including the link to Bilorv's interaction. I will do as you suggest. And, yes, if I have more questions I will be back. --Oronsay (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Growth Newsletter #19

Welcome to the nineteenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.