WikiConference India 2023/Submissions/Submitted/Growing with the growth features

Growing with the growth features

Abstract/description of your session

Being a newcomer at Wiki projects can be difficult sometimes. The tools, policies, and sometimes lack of knowledge on where to seek support may be some of the obstacles in their path.

The Growth team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on a set of tools that help communities to welcome newcomers and grow wikis in size and quality. These features have been shown to increase the activation, retention, and edit volume of newcomers.

• Newcomer homepage: a special page that hosts the "newcomer tasks" and is a good place for a newcomer to get started. The homepage gives access to many resources, including a link to a volunteer mentor that would reply to their questions.
• Newcomer tasks: a feed of suggested edits that help newcomers learn to edit. Newcomers have been making productive edits through this feed! The feed is located on the Homepage, as the starring feature.
• Help panel: a platform to provide resources to newcomers while they are editing. When newcomers work on Newcomers tasks, the help panel guides them on what to do.

All of these features are available right now, on both desktop and mobile. It is also available for experienced users to try them. With the encouraging results from the previously built features, now we are headed to encourage them in a more efficacious way.

How does it connect with the WCI 2023 theme/focus

• Sharing knowledge regarding Wikimedia projects is within the theme of WCI 2023. The Growth team has been developing numerous features for newcomers and has built newer features to encourage them in a more effective way. Many of these features are available widely across Wikipedia. Community feedback contributes the most while building these features and WCI, being a reconnection of community members in South Asian regions, can significantly contribute in this regard. A summary of growth features can be found here.

Speaker name/s or username/s

• Ankan (WMF)

Community/Organization

• Wikimedia Foundation

Contact details (optional)

• adastider-ctrwikimedia.org

Language of the session

• English

Session type

• lecture (15 mins)

Session outcomes

• At the end of the session, participants will get to know about the growth features and give feedback for potential tools in the future. They will be introduced to the currently available tools, the features that we will be having in the future, and how the communities can participate to improve them.

Support required from organizers

• technical support for the presentation

Consent for recording

• Yes