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

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Info

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.lih@gmail.com, robert.fernandez@wikimediadc.org, tnegrin@wikimedia.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?
Info

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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  1. Ragesoss (talk) 00:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  2. WereSpielChequers (talk) 22:27, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Edwardx (talk) 13:30, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Amir É. Aharoni (talk) 06:23, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Jamie Tubers (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  6. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  8. GastelEtzwane (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]