CentralNotice/Request/WMF Language Onboarding and Development Experiment

WMF Language Onboarding and Development Experiment

SSethi (WMF) (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log), primary contact (Requested at 02:37, 11 July 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Central Notice Settings

What is the campaign duration?

29th August 2025 → 12th September 2025

Which projects will you be targeting?

Wikipedia

What languages will you be targeting?

Multiple Languages (TBD)

Do you wish to show banners to Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both? Do you want to target users with a specific number of edits or average monthly?

Both Logged In and Anonymous users. Users from small wikis with 20-25 active editors and 1-2 admins.

What countries will your campaign target?

Multiple Countries (TBD)

Banner/Campaign Diet:

To be determined by Central Notice admin

What is the purpose of the campaign? How will you measure the success of the campaign?

Description - Hi! As part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual plan for next year, several teams are involved in an experiment to test an intervention (WE 2.1.1) aimed at engaging native speakers from small wikis in improving vital content on their wikis. This experiment is connected to the Language Onboarding and Development initiative and aligns with the vital knowledge objective in the annual plan. See T391045.

As part of the experiment, we would like to invite native speakers of small wikis through a CentralNotice banner to contribute to SuggestedEdits and other Growth features. This is inspired by the Yoruba community’s Recruit Readers as Writers experiment. The goal is to assess whether this approach attracts new native speakers and whether they use these editing tools to improve vital content. Regarding the CentralNotice banner: we would like to launch multiple variations of the same banner on 5 to 10 small wikis with 20–25 active editors and 1–2 admins. We also want to launch the banner on a high-traffic Wikipedia in the regions where the small wikis are accessed. We are still working on the list of wikis and hope to have it ready soon.

This experiment aims to target both registered and non-registered users. We plan to use Event Registration feature (available via Extension:CampaignEvents) as a landing page for the call to action in the Central Notice banner for ~5 wikis and Newcomer homepage for remaining ~5 wikis. In this first stage, we want to test whether the banner helps attract new contributors from big wikis to small wikis, whether new users interact with the banner, and compare the results of the two call-to-action approaches. If the experiment proves successful, we plan to test additional features, such as Content Translation, in upcoming quarters.

Metrics - Through this approach, we aim to test whether it attracts new native speakers and whether they use the editing tools to improve vital content. Some of the metrics we will be considering include: number of accounts created, edits made, number of contributors using Growth features, number of interactions with the banner, editors retained X days later, etc.

What banner(s) will you use? What will be your landing page?

Banners - Some examples of the banner we are considering can be found in this public document. Please note that designs are not final and are for reference only.

As the project coordinator and WMF staff member, I have requested access to CentralNotice admin rights from Trust and Safety (T&S) so I can deploy and remove the banner myself.

Landing Page -

Link to the Newcomer Homepage on the ~5 selected wikis: https://tbd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Homepage
Link to the Event Registration page on ~5 remaining wikis: https://tbd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event:Tbd

Is this project grant funded? Please provide a link

Type of grant -

Link to grant -

Discussion

Thanks for submitting the CentralNotice request! Quoting from my statement in phab:T398646#11011265: Event Registration is always fine. I can live with comparing it to Special:Homepage for registered users. I don't think using Special.Hompage as a "landing page" for unregistered users (who are then redirected to Special:UserLogin) is a good idea -> no explanation why ther'e suddenly asked to log in given they've been able to read (and edit?) without an account until they clicked on the banner + they need to figure out themselves to use the "join wikipedia" button to create an account if they don't have one. --Johannnes89 (talk) 22:17, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Johannnes89Thanks for your comment! Based on your suggestions, if we go with the following two scenarios and test each on around four wikis, would that be okay?

Scenario A: Call to Action – Event Registration

All users are shown an event registration page that provides information on how to create an account, log in, and edit using the newcomer tool.

Scenario B: Call to Action – Newcomer Homepage

When registered users click on a call to action, they are shown the newcomer homepage or a message prompting them to enable it in their user preferences. Non-registered users are directed to create an account. SSethi (WMF) (talk) 17:50, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Johannnes89 @derhexer @Ciell: Also, I wanted to add to the message above, as per the experiment plan, we would like to launch the banner on August 15th and approach the selected wikis in the first two weeks to obtain their approval. It would be super helpful to get your go-ahead, but only if you think the proposed workflows make sense. Thank you! SSethi (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not so happy that non-registered users would be forwarded to a registration page without any explanation why that has happened and why we want them to register. — I assume that this scenario could still generate more registrations than the other one, but it wouldn't prove whether it's a useful way of guiding users through our platform. Nevertheless, an A/B test sounds better than just having scenario B. What do other CN admins think? Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 09:58, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree I'm fine with an A/B test. And as @Ciell pointed out in phab:T398646#11016034 some banners explicitly say "sign-up" or "create your account" so those logged-out users would of course expect to see the registration page. Johannnes89 (talk) 13:53, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Johannnes89 and @DerHexer for your comments! The concerns you’ve shared around the lack of context for non-logged-in users make sense. I discussed with the team, and our understanding is that there isn’t much evidence supporting the effectiveness of the landing pages, so this A/B test can help us gather that. Hope this makes sense and that we can proceed, if the A/B test looks good to you all. SSethi (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, go ahead. If possible, share your insights here as well. :) Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 17:46, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Linking CN banners for future reference per phab:T391045:

Johannnes89 (talk) 08:06, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first banner links to Meta:Babel. —DerHexer (Talk) 22:51, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The links above are no longer valid. We are updating banner and campaign links in this Phabricator ticket: T391045#11071277. See updated links below:

1. CTA: Create Account

1.1. Spanish → Asturian

1.2. Asturian wiki

1.3. English → Luxembourgish

1.4. Luxembourgish wiki

1.5. English → Zulu

1.6. Zulu wiki

2. CTA: Newcomer Homepage

2.1. Spanish → Asturian

2.2. Asturian wiki

2.3. English → Luxembourgish

2.4. Luxembourgish wiki

2.5. English → Zulu

2.6. Zulu wiki

3. CTA: Event Registration

Coming soon

SSethi (WMF) (talk) 06:37, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Johannnes89 @DerHexer Is there any other approval pending from CN admins, or anything else that we are missing in the process before enabling the banners scheduled for the August 29th launch? SSethi (WMF) (talk) 06:40, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SSethi (WMF) feel free to enable the campaigns. Although I don't really understand the 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6. banners – without some javascript limiting those banners to fairly new users, most of the banner impressions will likely affect experienced users on that project who a) don't need the newcomer homepage and b) can't even access the link, because it's disabled per default for all users who registered before Special:Homepage got introduced as a default feature for newbies.

I realise now that this is also an issue for all the other banners with CTA newcomer homepage: If I'm not mistaken (@Martin Urbanec (WMF) probably knows more) the homepage is only enabled on the wiki where a user initially registered. I recently saw a newcomer who registered at English Wikipedia and could access their enwiki homepage, but not their German Wikipedia homepage which showed "To enable the newcomer homepage, visit your "Newcomer editor features" settings in Preferences". I expect the same thing to happen with most people clicking on the 2.1/2.3./2.5 banners if those users registered on English Wikipedia (which is usually what people do if "their" Wikipedia language version is quite small). As far as I know the global preference for enabling the newcomer homepage across all Wikipedia language versions is not activated per default. Johannnes89 (talk) 07:03, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! I think that is one of the challenges we haven’t been able to solve at this point. Users who registered before Special:Homepage was introduced will see a message to enable the feature in their preferences. SSethi (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I fear many users will just lose interest if they don't see the homepage immediately – and if they do click on the preference link in order to see what's happening, they have to manually navigate to the homepage afterwards which might lead to even more users dropping of.

Would be nice if newbies got the homepage enabled per default across all wikis instead of just the one project they choose to register at, that would have solved some of you challenges. But it's obviously too late now to ask the Growth team to fix this.

I therefore expect those banners to perform worse than the other ones (in terms of successful call to actions) but perhaps I'm too pessimistic. Anyway feel free to enable your campaigns whenever you're ready. Johannnes89 (talk) 21:41, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the banners should be bilingual, and include a message in the relevant language. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! The banner displayed on smaller wikis will be translated. SSethi (WMF) (talk) 06:38, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to banners "on a high-traffic Wikipedia in the regions where the small wikis are accessed". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:06, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That’s not useful, because there’s no way of knowing if Wikipedia users with English as their chosen language in user preferences know the local language just because their geolocation matches a certain country. Johannnes89 (talk) 09:41, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I suggested they be bilingual, not simply written in the second language. Not only would that attract the attention of speakers of that language, but more importantly it would be a courtesy to them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:21, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh I thought of translatable banners, but you are asking for banners showing the same text in English + target language (which has the disadvantage of displaying a lot of text…) Johannnes89 (talk) 16:46, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]