Benutzer Diskussion:Verena Lindner (WMDE)
Willkommen[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Hallo Verena.
Herzlichen Willkommen in der Wikipedia. Ich wünsche Dir viel Freude bei Deiner neuen Arbeit und dass Du nicht nicht zu schnell von den WikipedianerInnen hier unterkriegen lässt!
Liebe Grüße, --Holder (Diskussion) 17:58, 15. Sep. 2015 (CEST)
- Hallo Holder, vielen Dank für das Willkommen! Ich bin gespannt und freue mich auf die Begegnungen zur WikiCon.--Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 18:11, 15. Sep. 2015 (CEST)
- Hallo Verena, schön, dass wir uns jetzt auch mal persönlich getroffen haben, wenn auch nur kurz. LG, --Holder (Diskussion) 09:55, 21. Sep. 2015 (CEST)
- Hallo Holder, fand ich auch. Und bestimmt bis bald mal. Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 13:47, 22. Sep. 2015 (CEST)
- Hallo Verena, schön, dass wir uns jetzt auch mal persönlich getroffen haben, wenn auch nur kurz. LG, --Holder (Diskussion) 09:55, 21. Sep. 2015 (CEST)
Betr. neu angemeldete Wikipedia-Accounts[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Von Julian vermittelt, geht die Frage nun auch an Dich:
Hallo Verena, hinsichtlich meines WikiCon-Vorhabens Wege zur Neuautoren-Gewinnung am Freitagabend bin ich angeregt worden, doch einmal im Wikimedia-DACH nachzufragen, wie es gegenwärtig um Anmeldungen und Aktivitäten von Neuen steht. Habt Ihr dazu neuere Zahlen? Freundlich grüßend -- Barnos (Post) 17:23, 31. Aug. 2016 (CEST)
- Hallo Barnos, prima, dass du fragst. Ich helfe dir gerne weiter, müsste allerdings wissen, welche Zahlen du genau benötigst. Im Übrigen bin ich auch sehr gespannt auf den Vortrag. Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 17:44, 31. Aug. 2016 (CEST)
- Vielleicht kannst Du mir vergleichbare Zahlen zu den österreichischen 142 benennen, vielleicht sogar ein wenig einordnen und deuten? Schön jedenfalls, wenn Du dabei sein kannst am Freitagabend in Kornwestheim, Verena! -- Barnos (Post) 18:00, 31. Aug. 2016 (CEST)
- Hallo Barnos, am Freitag bin ich dann auf jeden Fall dabei. Ich melde mich noch bei dir zur Beantwortung deiner Frage. Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 17:33, 1. Sep. 2016 (CEST)
- Vielleicht kannst Du mir vergleichbare Zahlen zu den österreichischen 142 benennen, vielleicht sogar ein wenig einordnen und deuten? Schön jedenfalls, wenn Du dabei sein kannst am Freitagabend in Kornwestheim, Verena! -- Barnos (Post) 18:00, 31. Aug. 2016 (CEST)
Die WikiEulenAcademy gratuliert zur SupportEule 2016[Quelltext bearbeiten]
den Mitarbeitern des Team Community
die Auszeichnung

SupportEule 2016
als Anerkennung für
herausragende Arbeit
im Dienste der Verbesserung
unserer Enzyklopädie.
gez. WikiEulenAcademy 09/2016
Liebe Verena,
nach der Eule für euer Büro in Berlin freuen wir uns sehr, dir auch noch eine Eule für deinen virtuellen Schreibtisch überreichen zu dürfen. Sehr herzlich gratulieren wir dir und auch deinen Kollegen des Teams Community zum Gewinn der SupportEule. Wir möchten uns sehr herzlich bei dir und bei deinen Kollegen für eure Arbeit rund um den Support der Wikipedianer bedanken.
Liebe Grüße deine
--WikiEulenAcademy 19:44, 24. Sep. 2016 (CEST)
Liebe Verena,
wir freuen wir uns sehr, dir wie versprochen ein Eulenbabel für deine Babelleiste zu überreichen.
Viele Grüße deine --WikiEulenAcademy 09:26, 1. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
![]() |
Diese Benutzerin ist Trägerin der WikiEule 2016.
|
- Hallo WikiEulenAcademy, vielen Dank dafür und vielen Dank nochmal für die Verleihung!Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 12:48, 4. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
Einladung: Workshop Autor(inn)en-Gewinnung am 25. Oktober in Bremen[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Workshop „Autor(inn)en-Gewinnung“ am Dienstag, den 25. Oktober 2016,
im Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen
– Besserwisser(innen) dringend gesucht! Bremer Wikipedia-Community sucht neue Autorinnen und Autoren –

Wie vielfach angeregt, möchten die Wikipedia-Community der Freien Hansestadt Bremen und die Aktiven des WikiProjekts Bremen einen regionalen Akzent zum Thema „Autor(inn)en-Gewinnung“ setzen: Wir laden alle Interessierten aus Bremen und „Umzu“ zu einem Workshop ein und wollen einen Abend lang gemeinsam überlegen, diskutieren und beratschlagen, welche Wege zur Gewinnung von neuen Autorinnen und Autoren wir in Bremen und Bremerhaven und der Region gehen könn(t)en.
Der Workshop findet am Dienstag, den 25. Oktober 2016, von 18:00–21:00 Uhr (optional bis 22:00 Uhr) in der Bremer Innenstadt im Haus der Wissenschaft statt – Details zum Programm siehe hier. Wegen der aus Platzgründen begrenzten Teilnehmerzahl bittet die Bremer Stammtisch-Crew freundlich um Anmeldung bis spätestens zum 20. Oktober 2016.
Für Pausengetränke und einen kleinen Imbiss ist gesorgt. Für die Teilnahme am Workshop entstehen den Teilnehmenden keine Kosten (Projektförderung durch WMDE ist bewilligt). Reisekosten können bei längerem Anfahrtsweg gemäß der Reisekostenordnung von Wikimedia Deutschland erstattet werden; die Kostenübernahme ist jeweils direkt und vorher bei WMDE zu beantragen.
Moin Verena,
Du engagierst Dich bei WMDE für das Thema "Neue Ehrenamtliche" und wirst auch auf der entspr. Portalseite mit als Ansprechpartnerin benannt – wir, die Aktiven der Bremer Community, denken daher, dass Dich der Workshop in Bremen am 25. Oktober interessieren wird: >> Du bist herzlich zur Teilnahme eingeladen!
Man sieht sich?! – Mit besten Grüßen von der gesamten Bremer Stammtisch-Crew, i. A. --Jocian 13:02, 10. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
- Hallo Jocian, vielen Dank für die Einladung, wir hatten das auch schon gesehen und darüber gesprochen. Von Seiten WMDE würde Eli Mandl gerne dabei sein. Ich versuche auch, es einzurichten.Verena Lindner (WMDE) (Diskussion) 17:11, 10. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
19.November 2016[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Hallo Verena,
vielleicht rollerst du mal den Gang runter zu Benutzer:John Weitzmann (WMDE). Der will an diesem Wochenende unser Kontor besichtigen für eine Veranstaltung am 19. November.
Der Raum ist fest für WMDE geblockt und wir hätten gern beide Veranstaltungen bei uns, aber das wird dann ganz eng. --Bahnmoeller (Diskussion) 22:38, 20. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
- Hallo Bahnmoeller, keine Sorge, das ist uns bewusst. Ich hatte gesehen, dass John eine Veranstaltung bei euch plant und daher noch nicht offiziell bei euch angefragt. Wenn sie wirklich in euren Räumen sein wird und sich die Mehrheit der Hilfeseiten-Edit-a-thon-Teilnehmer für Hamburg ausspricht, finden wir sicher einen zusätzlichen Tagungsort. Daran soll es nicht scheitern.Verena Lindner (WMDE) 17:45, 21. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
Moin[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Moin Verena, das war doch nicht im Geringsten böse gemeint oder abfällig oder Ähnliches. Tut mir leid, wenn das so ankam: ich möchte einfach nicht, dass Sie ungerechtfertigten Ärger bekommen mit der Community; die ist auch gelegentlich recht undurchdringlich und auch unberechenbar...;-) Beste Grüße, ein erholsames Wochenende und halten Sie die Ohren steif, --Felistoria (Diskussion) 18:51, 28. Okt. 2016 (CEST)
- Hallo Felistoria, ich weiß diesen Kommentar sehr zu schätzen, vielen Dank dafür :) --Verena Lindner (WMDE) 01:07, 1. Nov. 2016 (CET)
Deine mitten-in-der-Nach-abwürg-Aktionen finde ich recht befremdlich. Gruß --Itti 01:26, 1. Nov. 2016 (CET)
- Hallo Itti, das hat nichts mit Abwürgen zu tun. Da eineinhalb Tage kein weiterer Kommentar dazugekommen ist, ergibt es Sinn, die Diskussion auf die Diskussionsseite zu verschieben, wo sie eigentlich auch hingehört. An Stelle des langen Textes steht außerdem ein Hinweis, dass sich eine längere Diskussion zum Thema auf der Diskussionsseite findet. --Verena Lindner (WMDE) 12:17, 1. Nov. 2016 (CET)
- Das sehe ich anders, zumal ich es bereits schon einmal revertierte. Doch es passt irgendwie ins Bild. --Itti 12:34, 1. Nov. 2016 (CET)
Weihnachtsgrüsse[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Das Team Ideenförderung ist für mich das Wichtigste, was WMDE für uns Autoren und Fotografen leistet. Deshalb möchte ich allen Mitarbeitern für die Arbeit im vergangenen Jahr danken. Ich weiss, das ihr oft an eurer Leistungsgrenze arbeitet. Fühlt euch also ganz heftig geknuddelt aus dem fast wikipediafreien Norden. Gruss --Nightflyer (Diskussion) 23:34, 22. Dez. 2016 (CET)
- Vielen Dank! Hab schöne Feiertage und bis zum nächsten Jahr. --Verena Lindner (WMDE) 11:43, 23. Dez. 2016 (CET)
Babel m/w[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Hallo liebe Verena, habe auf Deiner Benutzer(in)seite die Babel-Bausteine aktualisiert, OK? Du kannst übrigens von „Benutzer:Verena...“ auf „Benutzerin:Verena...“ umstellen wenn Du in Spezial:Einstellungen die Form der Anrede „Die Benutzerin“ auswählst. Lieben Gruß, --.js (((☎))) 00:47, 10. Mär. 2017 (CET)
Ein Bannerentwurf[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Hallo Verena, da es zu einem abschließenden Austausch in Leipzig nicht mehr gekommen ist, Du aber meine Präsentation in Teilen mitverfolgt hattest, die auch Deinen Zuständigkeitsbereich wesentlich einschließt, gebe ich Dir nun den Link aufs Ganze. Der Abspann ganz unten zielt auf ein künftiges Banner, wie wir es bei der Neuautorenwerbung aus meiner Sicht gut gebrauchen könnten. Mit besten Grüßen und Wünschen -- Barnos (Post) 11:35, 14. Sep. 2017 (CEST)
Neues Jahr, neue Herausforderungen[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Liebe Verena. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zu deiner neuen Aufgabe bei WMDE. Auf eine weiterhin gute Zusammenarbeit. Viele Grüße, --Holder (Diskussion) 17:30, 1. Mär. 2018 (CET)
- Hallo Holder, hab vielen Dank und auf bald! --Verena Lindner (WMDE) 16:36, 5. Mär. 2018 (CET)
Growth Newsletter #20[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twentieth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.
Suggested edits[Quelltext bearbeiten]
As of February, 300,000 suggested edits have been completed since the feature was first deployed in December 2019.
Add a link is the team's first structured task, deployed in May 2021. It has improved outcomes for newcomers. The team is now working on a second iteration based on community feedback and data analysis. Improvements will include: improved algorithmic suggestions, guardrails to prevent too many similar links to be added, and clearer encouragement for users to continue making edits. After adding these improvements, we will deploy this task to more Wikipedias.
Add an image is the second structured task built by our team. It was deployed in November 2021 to four pilot Wikipedias. This is a more challenging task for newcomers. However, it adds more value to articles (so far, over 1,000 images have been added). We are currently learning from communities and from the data on what is working well and what needs improvements. The project page contains links to interactive prototypes. We are very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea as we build and test the early versions. We will soon deploy this task to more Wikipedias as a test.
"Add a link" and "Add an image" now both have a limitation on how many of these tasks newcomers can do per day. It is meant to discourage careless newcomers from making too many problematic edits.
Positive reinforcement[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Over the last two years, the Growth team has focused on building suggested edits: easy tasks for newcomers to start with. We have learned with this experience that these tasks help many newcomers to make their first edits. Now, the team is starting a new project : "positive reinforcement". Its goal is to make newcomers proud of their editing and to make them want to come back for more of them. With the positive reinforcement project, we are considering three kinds of features:
- Impact stats: give newcomers the ability to see how many people read the articles they edit.
- Leveling up: encourage newcomers to progress from easier tasks to harder tasks.
- Personalized praise: encourage mentors and other editors to "thank" and award newcomers for good work.
This project is just beginning, and we hope for community thoughts on the direction. We know that things can wrong if we offer the wrong incentives to newcomers, so we want to be careful. Please visit the talk page to help guide the project!
News for mentors[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- The mentor dashboard is available at all wikis. It helps mentors see who their mentees are and keep track of their activity. It is automatically activated where a list of mentors has been created. If you need assistance to create a list of mentors, please contact us.
- The mentor dashboard has a new module: settings. It is now possible for mentors to define their status (active or away). They can specify the volume of questions they want to receive, and they can claim mentees in an easier way. It is also possible for mentors to quit, which will automatically reassign their mentees to other mentors.
- We are working on an ability for a mentee to opt-out (and back in) to having a mentor.
- Previously, in the table that displays mentees activity, the filters displayed all mentees, even the ones with zero edits or lots of edits. We have changed this so that only mentees with between 1 and 500 edits are visible by default. Mentors can change this value in their filters.
- We are currently working on a special page for mentors to sign-up.
Some wikis have created userboxes that mentors can display on the user pages. If your wiki has one, please link it to Wikidata!
Scaling[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Previously, at most Wikipedias, only 80% of newcomers were getting the Growth features. This was done for experimentation, to have a control group. We have changed this setting. Now 100% of new accounts at all Wikipedias get the Growth features (except a few, kept as test wikis). We invite communities to update their onboarding documentation and tutorials. Please include the Growth features in it. To help you, we have created an help page that can be translated and adapted to your wiki.
How to help[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Do you have questions about the Growth features? This translatable FAQ contains answers to the most common questions about the Growth team work. We regularly update it.
Interface translations are important for newcomers. Please help for your language, by translating or copyediting interface translations for the Growth features.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:12, 16. Mär. 2022 (CET)
neue Bestätigung am 26.5.2022[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Hallo! Du hast gestern eine neue Bestätigung von Lutheraner bei Persönliche Bekanntschaften erhalten. Hier kannst du selber bestätigen. Du bekommst diese Nachricht, weil du in dieser Liste stehst. Gruß --SpBot 05:50, 27. Mai 2022 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #21[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-first newsletter from the Growth team!
New project: Positive reinforcement[Quelltext bearbeiten]

- The Growth team started a new project: Positive reinforcement. We want newcomers to understand there is an interest in regularly editing Wikipedia, and we want to improve new editor retention.
- We asked users from Arabic, Bangla, Czech and French Wikipedia about their feedback. Some people participated at mediawiki.org as well.
- We summarized the initial feedback gathered from these community discussions, along with how we plan to iterate based on that feedback.
- The first Positive Reinforcement idea is a redesign of the impact module: incorporating stats, graphs, and other contribution information. This idea received the widest support, and we plan to start our work based on the design illustrated on the side.
- Please let us know what you think of this project, in any language.
For mentors[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We have worked on two new features, to inform them about the mentorship:
Scaling[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- "Add a link" available at more wikis ― Add a link feature has been deployed to more wikis: Catalan Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Abkhazian Wikipedia, Achinese Wikipedia, Adyghe Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia, Akan Wikipedia, Alemannisch Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Aragonese Wikipedia, Old English Wikipedia, Syriac Wikipedia, Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, Asturian Wikipedia, Atikamekw Wikipedia, Avaric Wikipedia, Aymara Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, South Azerbaijani Wikipedia. This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure locally how this feature works.
- "Add an image" available at more wikis ― Add an image feature will be deployed to more wikis: Greek Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Polish Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia. These communities will be able to configure locally how this feature works. [1]
Suggested edits[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Selecting topics ― We have created an "AND" filter to the list of topics at Special:Homepage. This way, newcomers can decide to select very specific topics ("Transportation" AND "Asia") or to have a broader selection ("Transportation" OR "Asia"). At the moment this feature is tested at pilot wikis.
- Changes for Add a link ― We have built several improvements that came from community discussion and from data analysis. They will be available soon at the wikis.
- Algorithm improvements ― The algorithm now avoids recommending links in sections that usually don't have links and for first names. Also, it now limits each article to only having three link suggestions by default (limited to the highest accuracy suggestions of all the available ones in the article).
- User experience improvements ― We added a confirmation dialog when a user exits out of suggestion mode prior to making changes. We also improved post-edit dialog experience and allow newcomers to browse through task suggestions from the post-edit dialog.
- Community configuration ― We allow communities to set a maximum number of links per article via Special:EditGrowthConfig.
- Future change for Add a link feature ― We will suggest underlinked articles in priority. [2]
- Patrolling suggested edits ― Some users at Arabic Wikipedia, Spanish Wikipedia, and Russian Wikipedia told us that "Add a link" and "Add an image" edits can be challenging to patrol. We are now brainstorming improvements to help address this challenge. We have already some ideas and we started some work to address this challenge. If you have any thoughts to add about the challenges of reviewing these tasks or how we should improve these tasks further, please let us know, in any language.
Community configuration[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Communities can configure how the features work, using Special:EditGrowthConfig.
- Communities can set the maximum number of "add an image" suggested tasks a newcomer can complete daily. [3]
- Future change: allow communities to customize the "add a link" quality gate threshold easily, using Special:EditGrowthConfig. [4]
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:03, 5. Jul. 2022 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #22[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-second newsletter from the Growth team!
Newcomers tasks reach the 500,000 edits milestone — more data publicly available[Quelltext bearbeiten]
As of the last week of June 2022, the newcomers of the world have completed over 500,000 newcomer tasks. In other words, newcomers have made over half a million Wikipedia edits via Growth’s “Suggested Edits” module.
- About 30% of those edits were completed on mobile devices.
- Usage continues to increase; in June 2022 almost 50,000 newcomer tasks were completed.
We have added some new data to Grafana. You can now check the number of edits and reverts by task types, or the number of questions asked to mentors. You can filter the data by wiki.
If you have any questions, or there is more data you want access to, please let us know.
Ongoing projects and explorations[Quelltext bearbeiten]

We are continuing our work on our new project, Positive Reinforcement. User testing of initial Positive Reinforcement designs was just completed. Interviews were conducted in Arabic, English, and Spanish. The outcome has been published on the Positive Reinforcement page. We are now utilizing user testing feedback along with prior community feedback to iterate and improve designs.
We are exploring the idea of a Copy Edit structured task. We have tested copy edits in Wikipedia articles for arwiki, bnwiki, cswiki, eswiki (Growth pilot-wikis) and enwiki with two different methods: LanguageTool and Hunspell. We will share more details here and on the associated Copy Edit page once the evaluation is complete.
Add an image was utilized at GLAM events in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. For an overview of what was learned from these events, read: #1Pic1Article I: how Latin American heritage experts added images to Wikipedia (in English).
Experiments analysis[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Add a Link Experiment Analysis has been published. The most important points are:
- Newcomers who get the Add a Link structured task are more likely to be activated (i.e. make a constructive first article edit).
- They are also more likely to be retained (i.e. come back and make another constructive article edit on a different day).
- The feature also increases edit volume (i.e. the number of constructive edits made across the first couple weeks), while at the same time improving edit quality (i.e. the likelihood that the newcomer's edits aren't reverted).
Newcomer task edit type analysis has been published.
- Communities had expressed concern that newcomers whose initial edits were structured tasks wouldn’t go on to learn how to complete more difficult tasks. The Growth team data scientist conducted a Newcomer task edit type analysis to see if this was indeed the case.
- Results from analysis indicate that this likely isn’t a significant concern. More than 70% of users who start with the easy task "Add a link" also make another task type. Read the full analysis and methodology here.
News for mentors[Quelltext bearbeiten]
A new system for the mentors list
The configuration of the mentors list will change over the next weeks. In the future, mentors will sign up, edit their mentor description and quit using Special:MentorDashboard. This new system will make the development of new features for mentors much easier.
At the moment, the mentor list is a simple page anyone can edit, unless it’s protected. With the new page, mentors will be able to edit only their own description, while administrators will be able to edit the entire mentors' list if needed.
The deployment will happen first at the pilot wikis, then at all wikis. Existing lists of mentors will be automatically converted, no action will be needed from the mentors. [5][6]
Mentors will be informed about the next steps soon, by a message posted on the talk page of existing Mentor lists.
Learn more about this new structured page on mediawiki.org.
A tip for mentors
Did you know that mentors can filter their mentees' changes at Special:MentorDashboard (and star the ones that require attention)? This feature helps to keep an eye on newcomers' edits, helping mentors to fix minor details, and encourage them if necessary.
And did you know that mentors have special filters to highlight their mentees' edits at Special:RecentChanges? Look for the following filters in RecentChanges: Deine Sternchen-Mentees, Deine Neulinge ohne Sternchen.
Other improvements
Some improvements will be made to the mentor dashboard in the coming weeks:
- While we now offer some options for mentors to take a break, the option to quit mentoring was not easy to find. This will be improved. [7]
- Mentors at wikis using FlaggedRevisions will have a way to discover their mentees' pending edits. [8]
- Dashboard discovery for new mentors will be improved. [9]
Recent changes and fixed bugs[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We moved to a new Image Suggestions API. This new API will allow us to deploy Add an Image to more wikis. [10]
- Starting September 19, a few more wikis now offer Add an image to newcomers. These wikis are Griechischsprachige Wikipedia, Polnischsprachige Wikipedia, Chinesischsprachige Wikipedia, Indonesische Wikipedia, Rumänischsprachige Wikipedia. [11]
- Add an image has been disabled for a few days due to technical issue. "Add an image" added a blank line instead of an image. This has been fixed. [12]
- In order to know if Special:EditGrowthConfig is used by communities, we now instrument page loads and saves of configuration. [13]
Have a question? A suggestion?[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Please let us know! You can also read our FAQ page.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:19, 21. Sep. 2022 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #23[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-third newsletter from the Growth team!
Highlights[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Mentorship: We released the new structured mentor list to all wikis. This change makes mentorship easier to setup, manage and use.
- Positive reinforcement: An improved impact module is available for testing.

Positive reinforcement: an improved impact module to test[Quelltext bearbeiten]
The goal of the Growth team is to encourage newcomers to try editing for the first time, and encourage them to keep editing. We want to increase newcomers' motivation by showing them how impactful their edits are.
Newcomers have access to an impact module; you can find yours at Special:Impact. The revised impact module provides new editors with more context about their impact. It will display the number of edits, the number of thanks received, the last time they edited, the number of consecutive days they edited, and the number of views for the articles they edited.
This module will soon be available at our pilot wikis starting December 1. You can already test this new module at Beta Wikipedia. For safety reasons, do not use your regular account and password at Beta wiki. Create a new, specific account for this wiki, with a different password.
Structured tasks: improvements based on patroller feedback[Quelltext bearbeiten]
After the deployment of Structured tasks, we received feedback from various communities regarding how patrollers of recent changes were feeling overwhelmed by an increase in edits to check, and how some edits were poor quality or of poor relevance.
We made several improvements based on the feedback we received. Several points of improvement have already been addressed:
- Patroller fatigue:
- By default, newcomers can complete up to 25 "add a link" tasks and 25 "add an image" tasks per day. If patrollers are overburdened, each community can use Special:EditGrowthConfig to lower that limit.
- Quality of edits: what constitutes a "quality edit" is not a well defined concept. We initiated a discussion and summarized our findings. We also worked on the following improvements:
- Add a Link
- Underlinked articles are now prioritized, so it's less likely that newcomers are adding links to articles that are already have a lot of links.
- The confidence score was increased, so suggestions are more likely to be accurate.
- The default number of suggested links per article has been lowered to 3. This can be changed at Special:EditGrowthConfig. Communities can also exclude articles containing certain templates or categories from being suggested.
- Add an Image
- Lists will no longer receive "add an image" suggestions.
- Disambiguation pages will no longer receive "add an image" suggestions.
- We have many further improvements we plan to make to "add an image" in early 2023. [14]
- Add a Link
The Positive Reinforcement project will also address some of the concerns around encouraging newcomers to progress to higher value edits. The Growth team will soon work on strategies geared at "Leveling up" newcomers so they progress from easy to more difficult tasks.
Recent changes[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- All Wikipedias now have the same onboarding experience. Previously, at a few wikis, 20% of new accounts didn't get the Growth features when they created their account. These 20% of new accounts were used as a control group, in order to know if the Growth features were changing newcomers' behavior. Experiments have shown that Growth features improve activation and retention, and as we want to provide the same onboarding experience at all Wikipedias, we have decided to remove the control groups. We will utilize control groups when testing new features, and German Wikipedia keeps a control group at their request. [15]
- The quality score for "add a link" suggestions will change. We will suggest less links for each article, but they will be more accurate. We will first deploy it at our pilot wikis, and then to all other wikis where this feature is available. [16][17]
- Growth's features FAQ has been updated and expanded. This page centralizes all the information about Growth features. We invite you to read it, and, if you can, to translate it.
News for mentors[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- All Wikipedias can now setup and manage a mentorship program in an easier way.
- We changed the process to make it more reliable, easier to improve and easier to use.
- Wikipedias where mentorship hasn't been enabled yet can turn mentorship on following a new process. When done, mentors can sign-up by visiting
Special:MentorDashboard
. - Wikipedias where the list of mentors already existed have been converted to the new system.
- A new special page —
Special:ManageMentors
— now displays the list of mentors. This page can be transcluded on any other page. There are also new processes to signup as a mentor or to quit mentorship, and we improved community mentorship management.
- The Mentor dashboard's "Your mentees" module will have a new footer, called "Recent changes by your mentees". This footer will include a link to Recent changes, where mentors can see only edits made by their own mentees. [18]
Deployments[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Add a link has been deployed to a 5th round of wikis. [19]
Improving this newsletter[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We plan to have a more regular newsletter, every two months. We also want to know if the current format suits you! Let us know what you like, what you like less and your suggestions of improvements: leave us a comment, in your preferred language.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:58, 29. Nov. 2022 (CET)
Growth team newsletter #24[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-fourth newsletter from the Growth team!
Newcomer experience projects[Quelltext bearbeiten]
The Growth team partnered with other WMF teams to conduct several experiments around increasing account creation and new editor retention. Results from four of these experiments are now available:
- Thank you pages & banners - Encourage donors to create accounts through thank you pages and banners.
- Marketing experiment - Run ads on-wiki and off-wiki to see how this impacts account activation.
- "Add an image" GLAM events - Host GLAM events that focus on using the "Add an image" tool.
- Welcome emails - Experiment sending welcome emails to newly created accounts.
Newcomer tasks[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Several communities suggested improving "add a link", by suggesting underlinked articles first. We released this change to Growth pilot wikis. We will review the data and collect feedback before considering releasing it to more wikis. [20]
- The deployment of the "add a link" to all Wikipedias is still in progress. Suggested links use a prediction model, which has to be trained. The deployments will resume after we finish training all models. [21]
Mentorship[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- When someone wants to signup as a mentor, they are now informed if they don't meet the defined criteria. [22]
- Workshop hosts asked us to have workshop attendees assigned to them. They can soon use a custom URL parameter. This way, workshop hosts will continue mentoring the event's attendees after the workshop. It will be available in February. [23]
- Have you considered to help new editors on your wiki, by signing up to be a Mentor?
- Please visit Special:MentorDashboard to check on the conditions to be a mentor, and sign up.
- If your wiki does not have Mentorship enabled, consider setting it up. The Growth team can provide advice and assist as needed. Please ping Trizek (WMF) for assistance.
Other news[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- In Special:SpecialPages, Growth experiments now have their own section. [24]
- This newsletter will have a new publication period, 6 times a year: January, March, May, July, September, November.
Translations[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Newsletter translation: We are looking for translators for this newsletter. If you are interested and have the needed English language proficiency to assist, then please add your name to this list. You will receive an invite on your talk page to translate the newsletter when it is ready.
- Interface translation: You can also help by translating the interface, or reviewing translations to make them more inclusive. Interface translations are hosted at translatewiki.net.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.• Help with translations
15:44, 31. Jan. 2023 (CET)
Growth team newsletter #25[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-fifth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations
Celebrations[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Leveling up release
- We released Leveling up features to our pilot wikis on March 22 for an initial A/B test.
- In this test, we use post-edit dialogs (pop-ups shown after publishing an edit) and notifications to encourage new editors to try new types of newcomer-friendly suggested edits.
- We are closely monitoring the short term impact of this feature as well as the longer term effect on newcomer productivity and retention. If the experiment shows positive results, we will release this feature to more wikis.
5,000+ images added via the newcomer task in February
- In February 2023, 5,035 images were added via the newcomer “add an image” feature (on all wikis where available); 155 were reverted.
- Since the feature “add an image” was launched: 36,803 images have been added; 2,957 images were reverted.
Recent changes[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Add a link
- Community Ambassadors completed an initial evaluation that confirmed that prioritizing underlinked articles resulted in better article suggestions. We then evaluated the change on Growth pilot wikis, and results suggest that more newcomers are successfully completing the task and experiencing fewer reverts. We have now deployed the new prioritization model to all wikis with "add a link" enabled. [25][26]
- We continue the deployment of "add a link" to more wikis. These changes are regularly announced in Tech News. To know if newcomers at your wiki have access to this feature, please visit your Homepage.
- The Impact module was deployed on our pilot wikis, where we conducted an A/B test. We published initial findings, and a data scientist is now completing experiment analysis. [27]
- Donor Thank you page experiment – Donors land on a “thank you” page after donation, and that landing page now includes a call to action to try editing: Example Thank you page in French. This promising feature is tested at several Wikipedias (French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia).
- Growth features are now the default experience on both test.wikipedia.org and test2.wikipedia.org. You can test our features there.
Upcoming work[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Add an image – We plan to offer section-level image suggestions as a structured task for newcomers.
- IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation – We will support this project for all Growth Team maintained products and extensions that may be affected by IP Masking. [31]
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:10, 1. Apr. 2023 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #26[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-sixth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations
One million Suggested Edits[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We passed the 1 million Suggested edits milestone in late April!
- The Suggested edits feature (AKA Newcomer tasks) increase newcomer activation by ~12%, which flows on through to increased retention. (source)
- Suggested edits increase the number of edits newcomers complete in their first two weeks and have a relatively low revert rate. (source)
- Suggested edits are available on all Wikipedia language editions.
- Newer Suggested edits, like Add a link and Add an image, aren’t yet deployed to all wikis, but these structured tasks further increase the probability that newcomers will make their first edit. (source)
Positive reinforcement[Quelltext bearbeiten]
Positive reinforcement aims to encourage newcomers who have visited our homepage and tried Growth features to keep editing.
- The new Impact module was released to Growth pilot wikis in December 2022, and we are now scaling the feature to another ten wikis. [32]
- The Leveling up features are deployed at our pilot wikis.
- The Personalized praise features were deployed at our pilot wikis on May 24. Mentors at pilot wikis will start to receive notifications weekly when they have “praise-worthy” mentees. Mentors can configure their notification preferences or disable these notifications.
Add an image[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We are creating a new section-level variation of the “add an image” task. We have tested the accuracy of suggestions, and the development of this new task is well-underway. [33]
Other updates[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We are progressively releasing Add a link to more wikis. [34]
- After adding Thanks to Recent Changes, Watchlist and Special:Contributions, we investigated Thanks usage on the wikis. There is no evidence that thanks increased after the feature was added on more pages.
- We helped with code review for the 2023 Community Wish to add Notifications for user page edits. [35]
- We have been attending several community events, that we documented in our Growth’s Community events report.
What's next for Growth?[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We shared an overview of Growth annual planning ideas, and have started community discussion about these potential projects. We would love to hear your feedback on these ideas!
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:14, 29. Mai 2023 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #27[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-seventh newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations
Annual plan for Growth[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We shared our annual plan, for the period July 2023 - June 2024.
Our first project of the year will be Community configuration 2.0, which helps editors with extended rights transparently and easily configure important on-wiki functionality.
After we finish work on Community configuration 2.0, we will hope to fit in one of the following projects:
- Article creation: This project aims to provide new editors with better guidance and guardrails in the article creation process, with the intention of lightening the load of new page reviewers.
- Non-editing participation: This project aims to create low-risk ways for readers to participate in Wikipedia with the intention of funneling more readers into contributing to the Wikimedia movement.
Please let us know what you think about these projects on the related talk page, or Growth's annual plan talk page.
Suggested edits[Quelltext bearbeiten]

We released a new Section-level “add an image” structured task to Growth pilot wikis (Arabic, Bengali, Czech, and Spanish). This task was part of the Structured Data Across Wikipedia project. We are monitoring the edits made, and we look for community feedback as well.
Suggested Edits are now receiving topic predictions via the new Language-Agnostic Topic Classification. This change affects non-English Wikipedia wikis. It will ensure newcomers receive a greater diversity of task recommendations. Before, as this feature was a test, English Wikipedia was used to select topics. The change is gradual as lists of topics are refreshed when they become empty. The Research team will evaluate the impact in a few months. [36]
Starting on August 1, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link": Georgian Wikipedia, Kara-Kalpak Wikipedia, Kabyle Wikipedia, Kabardian Wikipedia, Kabiyè Wikipedia, Kikuyu Wikipedia, Kazakh Wikipedia, Khmer Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia, Kashmiri Wikipedia, Colognian Wikipedia, Kurdish Wikipedia, Cornish Wikipedia, Cornish Wikipedia.
Mentorship[Quelltext bearbeiten]
The Growth team provides dedicated features to establish a mentorship program for newcomers. Every newcomer gets a volunteer mentor who provides encouragement and answers questions. Communities can set up or join this mentorship system by visiting Special:ManageMentors. This mentorship system is configurable by the community at Special:EditGrowthConfig.
More communities have implemented mentorship. A Wikimedia Foundation data scientist will be looking at the impact of Mentorship. We will look at the impact on Spanish and English Wikipedia. [37]
The Growth team will also host a Mentoring new editors on Wikipedia session at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. Workshop attendees will help brainstorm improvements to Growth’s mentorship features.
Positive reinforcement[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We will share more complete experiment analysis for all the three parts of the Positive reinforcement project soon. At the moment, the new Impact module, Leveling up, and Personalized praise are still being A/B tested on the Growth team's pilot wikis.
In the meantime, initial leading indicators for the Personalized praise project have been published. Although this is still a relatively small sample, results seem healthy. They show that Mentors are indeed receiving notifications and clicking through to view their praise-worthy mentees.
Growth contributes to IP Editing migration[Quelltext bearbeiten]
The Growth team is currently focusing on IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation. It is a project that touches many different Wikimedia Foundation teams. The Growth team will focus on temporary accounts through two main points:
- the user experience of a logged-out user, that switches to a temporary account,
- change Growth-owned extensions and features, so that they work as expected with temporary accounts. [38]
Community Configuration 2.0[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We are still in the early planning stage of the Community Configuration 2.0 project:
- We are gathering internal Wikimedia Foundation teams' needs, so as community feedback. [39]
- We have started to investigate design improvements. [40]
- We are also reviewing similar tools that are part of other products. [41]
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:42, 1. Aug. 2023 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #28[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-eighth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations


Community configuration 2.0[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Community Configuration 2.0 is a feature that will enable Wikimedia communities to easily customize and configure features to meet their unique needs. This approach provides non-technical moderators with more independence and control over enabling/disabling and customizing features for their communities.
- Technical approach and associated tasks are detailed in this Epic task on Phabricator.
- Initial designs are drafted for two different approaches (see images). We will soon demo interactive prototypes to interested admins, stewards, and experienced editors (T346109). Please let us know if you have feedback on the design approach, or want to participate in prototype testing.
IP Masking[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- The Growth team has been working on several updates to ensure Growth maintained features will be compatible with future IP Masking changes. This work has included code changes to: Recent Changes (T343322), Echo notifications (T333531), the Thanks extension (T345679) and Mentorship (T341390).
- Before December, the Growth team will initiate community discussions with the goal of migrating communities from Flow to DiscussionTools. This move aims to minimize the necessity for additional engineering work to make Flow compatible with IP Masking. (T346108)
Mentorship[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We assembled some resources for mentors at Mediawiki wiki. This resource page is translatable and will be linked from the mentor dashboard.
- We are working to resolve a bug related to mentors properly returning after being marked as "Away". (T347024)
- Half of newcomers at English Wikipedia get a mentor assigned to them. To ensure every newcomer receives mentorship, we need additional volunteer mentors at English Wikipedia to achieve a 100% coverage rate. We also encourage experienced users from other wikis to help newcomers at their own community.
Scaling Growth features[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We continue the deployment of the structured task "add a link" to all Wikipedias. We plan to scale the task to all Wikipedias that have link suggestions available by the end of 2023.
- We plan to scale the new Impact Module to all Wikipedias soon, but first we are investigating a bug with the job that refreshes the Impact Module data. (T344428)
- At some wikis, newcomers have access to the "add an image" structured task. This task suggests images that may be relevant to add to unillustrated articles. Newcomers at these wikis can now add images to unillustrated articles sections. (T345940) The wikis that have this task are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table.
Other news[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We disabled the “add an image” task temporarily (T345188) because there was a failure in the image suggestions pipeline (T345141). This is now fixed.
- You can read a report about the Growth team’s representation at Wikimania in Singapore here. Growth team members presented two sessions at Wikimania Singapore.
- After a 2.5 years-long collaboration with Bangala Wikipedia, we have decided to start a collaboration with another wiki. Swahili Wikipedia is now a pilot wiki for Growth experiments.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Trizek_(WMF) Diskussion 01:16, 17. Okt. 2023 (CEST)
Growth team newsletter #29[Quelltext bearbeiten]

Welcome to the twenty-ninth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations
Community Conversations[Quelltext bearbeiten]
The Growth team will host its first community conversation Monday, 4 December (19:00 - 20:30 UTC). The topic for this meeting will be Mentorship.
This first meeting language will be English, but we plan to host conversations in other languages, and about other topics. Please visit the conversation page on-wiki for the details on how to join. You can also watch the page, or suggest ideas for upcoming conversations there.
Impact Module[Quelltext bearbeiten]
At the beginning of November 2023, the Growth team deployed the New Impact Module to all Wikipedias. We recently released a follow up improvement to how edit data was displayed based on editor feedback. [42]
Add a Link[Quelltext bearbeiten]
We released “add a link” to 35 more Wikipedias. [43] [44]
We have a few Wikipedias remaining:
- German and English Wikipedia will be contacted at the beginning of January 2024.
- There are a few small wikis that will not receive the task until they have enough articles for the algorithm to work properly.
Community Configuration[Quelltext bearbeiten]
- We shared Community Configuration 2.0 plans with technical stakeholders. [45] 🖂
- Initial Community Configuration design ideas have been shared and discussed with community members.
- A basic Community Configuration 2.0 demo is released on ToolForge.
- Developers can find some initial proof of concept code shared on gitlab.
Mentorship[Quelltext bearbeiten]
When a mentor marked themselves as "Away", they were not getting their name assigned to new accounts when they returned. This has been fixed. [46]
We improved the message received by newcomers when their mentor quits, to reduce confusion. [47]
We worked on ensuring that all mentees are assigned to an active mentor. This required reassigning mentees with no mentors to a new mentor. We paused this as the clean-up script confused some editors. We will resume it when the identified blockers are resolved. [48]
It is now possible to create an Abuse Filter to prevent one user from signing up as a mentor. [49]
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:04, 1. Dez. 2023 (CET)