Submissions/Way Past Due: Envisioning a New User Experience for Wikipedia

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Submission no. 3033 Subject - T1

Title of the submission: Way Past Due: Envisioning a New User Experience for Wikipedia

Type of submission (lecture, panel, tutorial/workshop, roundtable discussion, lightning talk, poster, birds of a feather discussion): panel

Author of the submission: Andrew Lih, Robert Fernandez, Toby Negrin

Language of presentation: English

E-mail address: andrew.lihgmail.com, robert.fernandezwikimediadc.org, tnegrinwikimedia.org

Username: Fuzheado, Gamaliel, TNegrin (WMF)

Country of origin: United States of America

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Wikimedia District of Columbia, Wikimedia Foundation

Personal homepage or blog: Wikimedia District of Columbia, Wikimedia Foundation

Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)

This session is designed to discuss how we might change the default user experience for visitors to Wikipedia, Commons and other popular projects, rather than having things hidden deep in the bowels of account preferences/gadgets.

Should we expose assessment ratings or other interesting metrics by default?
For en.wp, should we enable Hotcat by default for faster editing of categories?
Could we make working with times/timezones easier for users?
Should mobile editing offer more editing options like access to talk pages, edit histories, and more prominent warning templates?

The basic user experience for readers of Wikipedia is quite conservative. Other than templated features within articles and the valuable addition of Visual Editor to improve article editing, the other aspects of Wikipedia reading and browsing are relatively unchanged over the last decade. However, experience shows that there are valuable features and options in the preferences, gadgets and beta features that go unnoticed by the vast majority of users.

We will explore the barriers to changing approaches, including the historic tension between needing to encourage the recruitment of new editors by being open about the fact that the encyclopedia is work in progress and the desire to justify the use and existence of Wikipedia by demonstrating it to be a high quality, complete, and accurate resource. We will discuss ways that Wikipedia can be used to recruit more editors and to promote information literacy by being more transparent about how it works and providing a more effective and transparent editing experience for new users.

What will attendees take away from this session?

Theme of presentation: Technology, Interface & Infrastructure

For workshops and discussions, what level is the intended audience?: Intermediate

Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes.

Slides or further information (optional): There will be slides.

Special requests

Is this Submission a Draft or Final?

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Interested attendees

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