Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Miscellaneous/Structured user pages/Proposal

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  • 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]