Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Miscellaneous/Structured user pages

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Structured user pages

  • Problem: Users currently don't have structured user pages/profiles
  • Proposed solution: Allow for the possibility of structured user pages
  • Who would benefit: New users specifically, everyone generally
  • More comments: Currently users start the Wikimedia journey with a blank user page/a red link. This creates confusion among new users which have to learn the differences between the account and the user page, both concepts which can exist independently of each other in MediaWiki. Most new users, coming from the social media era, expect to find "a profile" when they create an account, a premade structured user page that showcases some basic information, maybe their contributions/achievements or even a way to easily reach into their preferences. The idea was entertained a bit in the Growth initiative with the homepage update but was deemed a bit hard to follow through currently. Having the possibility of structured user pages (maybe starting by expanding the functionality of the homepage tab) would not only help in alleviating the confusion the current system creates on new users (witnessed it first hand in many wiki-workshops) and help them actually have a profile other than a page with the text "Hello!" at most, but it would also help in bringing more integrity to the account itself, possibly suppressing the multiple fake account creation process by one user, given that an account would appear to be more than a "random red link" then. More detailed information can be found in this conversation where the idea is discussed more thoroughly in a brainstorming way.
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Klein Muçi (talk) 01:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

See phab:T173145.--GZWDer (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GZWDer, I did read what you just linked to but I'm not sure if it is really related to what I'm proposing above. Can you elaborate on that please? - Klein Muçi (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I completely support efforts into this area, there is an urgent need for that! I expect, the disorder and non-existing usability to build social infrastructure might be the main issue that leads to loss of newcomers and especially female authors (gender-gap). Males might suffer under this as well, but maybe they're more able to compensate this in any way than women. I don't know whether situation in DE:wikipedia is the same as in other languages, at least from my perspective there are two central nodes to establish a functional social infrastructure: Perspective 1: Wikipedia:Babel might be a great tool to build your own social profile (not only about languages). However, for newcomers it is hard to understand how to build your own babel/contribute new babel-parts. And, you can't search for user attributes easily that babel data actually provide. I guess it should be possible to overcome this, if somebody really takes work into this. Perspective 2: Category:Wikipedia user space actually provides information as a social network. However, it honestly NOT seems like this. An intensive maintainance/administration of those category-pages could qualify them to a very efficent social infrastucture. Not to talk about funny cats, it is needed to find authors with similar interests to work more efficent together and to avoid the feeling that you're surrounded by cold bots just revoking your edits... should I make a new propose for that or could it become combined with the proposal here?--Max schwalbe (talk) 09:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Klein Muçi -- thank you for proposing this! I'm the product manager for the Growth team, and I just wanted to say that we agree that a structured user page would be helpful for newcomers. We think it will allow them to build an identity on wiki that will help others trust them, and make them more likely to stay engaged. I'm going to link this wish to the project page where we considered this project. We still do want to build it one day, but have prioritized other work for newcomers. I'll be sure to contact you to follow along if we return to the idea. MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@MMiller (WMF), glad to read that. Ever since I've joined Wikimedia (8 years ago), 2 were the things that have baffled me:
  1. I have to somehow sign every comment?!
  2. Where's my profile?!
The first concern has been taken care of lately, so I feel strongly about the 2nd one now. I'd appreciate knowing more about this in the future. :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 11:07, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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