Wikipedia talk:GettingStarted

Feedback

This is awesome. Where should feedback on this page and workflow go? Where should requests for new GettingStarted modules be developed? What's the right format in which to develop a new module? – SJ + 17:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I left feedback regarding a suggested translation module, over at Wikipedia talk:Editor engagement experiments. But I'm not sure if here might be better, so I'm glad you reminded me to mention it here! I'm not sure about the other details, but {ping}ing @Steven (WMF): might help. :) –Quiddity (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is okay, but WT:E3 has more community members watching it. The Village Pump idea lab or proposals page works too, but you should probably cross-post here or on WT:E3 if you do so. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This works for me, thanks so much for all your efforts. I think it's a wonderful thing to have. Jarrykay8708 (talk) 04:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this extension suggesting articles to edit?

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Weird_case_of_newbie_interest_in_Ansan_Street_Arts_Festival. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Non-working Special page?

I cannot get to Special:GettingStarted. Is it a bug or has something been changed? --Jan Ainali (WMSE) (talk) 14:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

@Jan Ainali (WMSE): I updated the documentation. After our last A/B test we changed the workflow to not depend on the Special page, and thus removed it. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:38, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Some pages are too big of a challenge

Consider 2013–2014 Hamburg demonstrations (it's been renamed twice). Two newbies drew it as their getting started assignment: [good effort! and [not so useful, but correct; neither has ever edited again. Just look at what they were greeted with when they clicked on it. That was a classic WP:TNT page; I rewrote it from scratch using the sources listed at the bottom (and added one in Turkish that someone else had tried to add as a reference). These suggestions are coming out of the housekeeping categories generated by maintenance templates, correct? Those categories go down to bottomless pits of awfulness. This is not fair to the newbies; they risk drawing an awful short straw, like that one. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

So yes, the way the system works is that does roughly the following...

1. Draws pages the category (in this case, Category:All articles needing copyedit).
2. Removes anything in Category:Living people
3. Removes pages over 10kb, so as not to give people huge long pages that are overwhelming
4. We recommend people a first randomly selected page from the list
5. We give them a guided tour of how to do edit, including pointing out issue templates and the fact that pages may have multiple issues which you don't need to tackle all at once necessarily.
6. We let them select a different random page using a toolbar, so they can cycle through the recommendations until they find something they fancy

If you think a page doesn't need copyediting and/or doesn't actually have copyediting tasks that are easy to do in your judgement, you can remove the template and the included category. The system syncs with the category automatically and quickly, so the page will stop getting suggested.

About why we pick this: if we can, we first and foremost recommend that people edit a page they were reading prior to signing up (we send them back there automatically). That's about half of people, and it's more popular because it's something they're probably interested in. However, keep in mind that not everyone who signs up for Wikipedia knows what they want to edit at first. Some people just want a recommendation of something easy. We spent about a year testing this system, and when we give new editors options for different task types, they consistently pick copyediting the most. Why? Because if you can write, you can probably fix spelling and grammar. It's really simple conceptually, and doesn't involve teaching people new concepts like how to wikilink things, how to write a reference with a template, etc.

While many of these pages have multiple issues, we give people a lot of handholding along the way. In addition to the fact that we step users through the process, these pages are usually very much neglected. It's rather rare that they would encounter something that a Wikipedian like yourself wants to WP:TNT in the near future. That's a good thing for a new person, who is more likely to get reverted if they make an edit to a very large, popular page like Ghana or Deaths in 2014. If people can make simple edits that are overall helpful to gross, neglected pages, all while doing something that isn't intimidating conceptually as a new editor, that seems like a win-win situation for Wikipedia. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 12:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point - while many articles in the "needs copyediting" category may need very little work (it's been observed that tags are applied rather liberally these days), there is no bottom to that category, or to other maintenance categories: there are going to be articles in there that will be a horrid shock to a newbie. In this case, the well-intentioned blind use of the category has lost us two new editors. There should be a pre-selection of articles from the maintenance categories for suitability, in addition to the purely mechanical ones you mention. This rebounded badly in this instance and will continue to do so at random intervals, especially since there is really no way to estimate how commonly the new editor will be served a really bad page. I have an awful suspicion this has been happening and the new editors have not known to complain, or how. (You might also want to look at the deletion discussion. The article was incomprehensible.) Yngvadottir (talk) 21:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's not the case that this has "lost us two new editors." The vast majority of new accounts (~70%) make no edits whatsoever. If it wasn't for the suggestion, it's really likely that these people may never have edited at all. For the ~30% of new accounts that do edit at all, many many new people manage to make a couple contributions then simply leave. This is either because they're not interested in editing further, or don't know what to do next. But the idea that the copyediting suggestion, which is entirely optional and up to the individual to try, is a "horrid shock" is simply not true. What's more likely is that, since we didn't suggest further contributions, they simply finished and haven't come back (yet anyway). Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 12:23, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Getting Started since the Special Page has been Removed

If I may ask, how would you get to the Getting Started tool since the special page has been removed? There appears to be no way to use this tool now, aside from creating a new account. SpeedyAstro (talk) 22:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

@SpeedyAstro: Yes, for now we're only delivering suggestions to people right after they sign up. We send people back to the page they were on, and suggest tasks partially based on whether that page is an editable article or not. In the future, we're considering adding in a more sophisticated method of suggested things to do on an on-going basis. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 05:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Do we have an option to check this without creating new account?

Do we have an option to check this without creating new account? --Tito☸Dutta 07:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

@Titodutta: Yes, you can force showing this even if you're not new, by adding a parameter to URLs. There are now instructions at Wikipedia:GettingStarted#Try it out. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 06:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

What's the mechanism now?

Alternative cancer treatments turned up for someone. There are no copyediting tags. It's huge. How did this complex page get inflicted on a newbie? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: We don't just recommend copyediting pages anymore, but also help new people edit a page they were reading or editing before they signed up. There is a full description and screenshots in the "How it works" section of this project page. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:14, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there a reviewing process

Is there a reviewing process? See history of Vina Vidai Vettai. Over the last three months there have been a large number of newbie edits, some good, some not so good; one of them hijacked the entire page. I only noticed it because it showed up in Wikipedia:Database reports/Stubs included directly in stub categories/1 and I happened to notice that the lead image bore no relation to the article title. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Redrose64. Do you mean a reviewing process for the pages suggested, or for the edits? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:22, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Primarily for the edits made by the newbies. It's one thing encouraging them to edit: it's quite another to let them roam freely without somebody periodically stopping by to clear up the inevitable rubbish. As I see it, the GettingStarted suggestions are non-random: the same page can be suggested to many different people. There is a limited number of pages which may be suggested, so presumably a mechanism by which volunteers may check through these pages for bad edits would not produce too long a list. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The copyediting maintenance category is actually quite large (2,988 pages at the moment) so the distribution is pretty wide, though we do remove some articles that are long and BLPs. And of course people can instead choose to edit the page they were reading before they signed up, if that's possible. Anyway, you can filter RecentChanges for GettingStarted edits using the edit tag. That will show you everything recent edited with assistance from the interface. And of course, if you think an article doesn't actually need copyediting or is attracting too much vandalism it can be removed from the copyediting category or semi-protected, either of which will remove it from recommendations. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit summaries

The boilerplate edit summary is inadequate. It would be helpful if the edit summary included a reference to the tagged issue being addressed. Jojalozzo 02:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Hey Jojalozzo. On the one hand, if someone accepts an article the system suggests, they are definitely editing an article tagged for copyediting. We could tag those as addressing copyediting. But if you want, the system also shows you how to edit the article you were reading before you signed up, which is why you see tagged edits for pages that aren't in need of copyediting. For those articles, there isn't one easily discernable issue being addressed by the edit. It could be anything, since we're just suggesting they edit a page they were interested in. Make sense? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Then perhaps we should ask the editor why they are editing the page and use that as the edit summary. Jojalozzo 03:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

We do ask them... that's what a regular edit summary is when you save an edit. It's optional, not required. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 15:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Feedback 1 May 2014

After asking for an option to check, I have checked this extension several times. Here are some questions.

Note, I had been preparing my feedback list for last 2-3 weeks. So if something mentioned below has become irrelevant now, I am sorry.

A

Geo targeting

Everytime I tried, the GS extension suggested me to edit either Russia or Japan or Germany related article. I live in Kolkata, India and had almost zero knowledge on the suggested subjects. That is the question number one: does this extension check user's IP address and suggest articles accordingly?

B

Browsing history - browsing interest

Like many other users, I have noticed too Google badly tracks a user's browsing activity in Google and serves ads of adsense accordingly. Yesterday, I went to GoDaddy, and they are now serving my all domain and hosting related ads.

Now, does this extension tracks the articles, pages a new account is browsing? For example, if someone creates an account and reads Barack Obama, White House, Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012 etc articles, one may get some clue about the account's interest.

Prefixed general interest list

(After point A above) for Indian IP address, I'd say, it is safe to suggest to edit popular Hindi cinema, recent national-level politics, cricket etc related articles. 80% editors of India will have more or less interest in these subjects.

Article type

After checking 15 or so GS suggestions, I am still unable to understand the types of articles this GS extensions suggests to edit. I have concluded, the article will be either stub or have multiple issues tag. Any insight? Tito☸Dutta 17:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@Titodutta: Hi, and thanks for the feedback! How GettingStarted recommends articles can be found here. To summarize, we don't yet do any of the filtering you describe like geotargeting. We suggest to new editors that they either edit the article they were reading before they sign up, or we give them a random article from the copyediting backlog if they want a suggestion. The only filtering we apply on those articles is to filter for length and for BLPs. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism of "Lung cancer"

A new editor has made two vandalism edits—[1] and [2]—to the longstanding featured article "Lung cancer" via Getting Started edit suggestions. What is going on? Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:20, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Axl: GettingStarted gives new editors two options for how to make their first edits: either they can edit the article they were reading before they signed up, or they can edit a suggested article drawn from the copyediting backlog. This user in question would have been reading lung cancer before they signed up, and chose to take a tour of how to edit it after registering. If you check out the main documentation of how GettingStarted works it explains in more detail. I know it's somewhat hard to grasp fully because it's not accessible to existing editors, so sorry for any confusion. In terms of vandalism: the reality is that there is always going to be some minority of new users who choose to vandalize as their first edits. We measured the rate at which new editors get reverted for any reason when testing GettingStarted, to ensure we didn't just attract vandals or spammers with the tool. Whether or not newbies have the interface, about 8% need to be reverted for whatever reason. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

This really isn't working well!

The reason that it isn't working is that the brand new editor is much more likely to be looking at a vital article than at any other sort of article e.g. they are more likely to be looking at Jesus, The Beatles, Barak Obama or Leonardo da Vinci than they are likely to be looking at Alojzy Liguda, Kelly Family, Ramón Avanceña or Antonio Pollaiuolo.

In other words, the invitation that they are offered, more often than not, is to practice the process of editing on a well-written article of major importance. This results in both inadequate editing and vandalism.

What we are effectively offering is: "Here is a nice article with a gold star at the top and 1,000 - 100,000 readers per day! Now that you are signed in, try your hand at messing it up!"

This process needs to be thought out much more carefully. "Vital articles" are not "sand boxes". Amandajm (talk) 05:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree, "inviting" total newbies to disrupt stable well developed articles (not only "vital" ones) is just wrong on so many levels. I propose that this experiment be terminated. However if for some compelling reason these "suggestions" must continue, they must be restricted to Stub articles only - let the newbies stuff up pages that are probably rubbish anyway. If a few somehow manage to actually improve the stubs then that's good, but expecting a newbie to improve an already well developed article with their very first edit is simply not rational. The article is damaged and the poor newbie's first experience on WP is to get blasted for vandalizing an article - not a good way to recruit long-term editors. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:32, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

What a new editors sees on a page like Jesus

This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. People want to edit articles that interest them, which are likely as not to also be the article that might interest other editors. We most definitely do not invite people to treat articles like sandboxes or tell them that they are practicing editing. We do suggest that people either edit the article they were reading before signup, or we give them alternative page which is tagged for copyediting. We show them how to make a real edit, and they could in fact do so without our help if they really want to. In short: new people are going to edit what interests them. We should show them how to do so, not try and tell them to go away. The more we help them the better. Furthermore, @Amandajm: we do not suggest people edit any of those example pages you gave. The Beatles, Barack Obama, and Jesus are all semi-protected. If a new editor is returning to one of these pages, we suggest an alternative article to edit. (See the screenshot) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:46, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Very Good! I am glad that some vital articles are protected. The vast majority of vital articles for which I am the major contributor are not protected.

I have just looked at the procedure, yet again, and the way it works is as a simple invitation to "experiment" with the (often majorly important) article that the person was reading whether they really wanted to edit that article or not. There is no question such as "Do you think you can improve this article?", or "Have you found a correction that you would like to make?" It is just a simple offer to "Edit this article", in other words:"Try your hand at editing! You can practice here!" That approach isn't working.

If this is going to continue, then every vital article that is already well developed needs protection.

The vital articles of which I am a major contributor and which are not protected includes Architecture (a very frequent target for poor and misguided editing), Ancient Greek architecture, Romanesque architecture, Gothic architecture, Renaissance architecture, Italian Renaissance painting, Giotto (a frequent target for vandalism), Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, David (Michelangelo) (a frequent target), Sistine Chapel, Sistine Chapel ceiling, Mona Lisa (a frequent target for poor editing. It is hard to keep that article in a half-OK state), Stained glass, St Paul's Cathedral and St Peter's Basilica. Could you arrange to have protection put on these?

Amandajm (talk) 01:45, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

"The vast majority of vital articles for which I am the major contributor are not protected." That's because we only protect things when we have to because of overwhelming vandalism or spam, not as a matter of default. New people are going to edit articles, and while most of them are helpful, yes they are going to make mistakes or do things imperfectly. This is how you became a Wikipedian, it's how I became a Wikipedian, and it's how we gain future Wikipedians. We want lots of new people to edit. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:06, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that we want new editors.

However, you don't seem to be taking the point that this new system of encouraging editors simply prompts them to change the articles, i.e. experiment on whatever article they happen to be at.

They are more likely to be at an important, often accessed, article than an unimportant article. Please take this point onboard!

The current instruction is to edit. There needs to be an instruction that says something like "Have you found something in this article that needs changing?" so that they only edit it, if there is a need rather than simply to find out how editting works.

The instruction needs rewording.

Amandajm (talk) 03:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

You're also missing the point that the newbie's first edit is very likely to be reverted and a vandalism or similar warning posted to their talk page, the BITE is very likely to discourage the newbie from editing again. It's like teaching someone to swim by deliberately throwing them into a pond full of piranhas - directly counter to the aims of editor retention. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit removed templates

GettingStarted appeared to remove some templates here: [3]. Was it a problem with the code or did the user remove them by themselves? Cheers. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 19:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Delusion23: GettingStarted never edits pages for someone, it just shows them how. The editor in question would have to have removed those templates. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:37, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Steven. Glad to know :) Del_♉sion23 (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Feedback -- failure

I just checked this out on a random article, George Irumbayam (via the Random article link on the left), and it was a total failure. A banner showed up at the top of the article, "This article may have grammar or spelling errors you can fix. Show me how" and the banner blocked the "Edit this page" button that is necessary to use in order to make the fixes. This occurred on every subsequent article I tried to move on to instead. Softlavender (talk) 08:50, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@Softlavender: Thanks for the report. Can you tell me what browser and operating system you're using, and maybe share a screenshot? When I try it out on Chrome/OS X, the toolbar does not block the edit button or other contents, and looks as intended. What's more, this should only appear on articles that have been tagged for copyediting, not all. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:55, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm on Chrome, Windows 7. The main difference is that I have opted out of the new Wikipedia font style, and I use the old sans-serif style. This is not likely to be a problem with someone who has never even edited Wikipedia before, but it will be a problem with anyone who does not use the new Wiki interface. (I don't know how to conveniently/quickly do a screenshot.) Softlavender (talk) 23:12, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@Softlavender: Please see WP:WPSHOT. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:09, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

@Softlavender: The font change should have no impact I think. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:17, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

File:Wikipedia_Getting_Started_problem.jpg -- Softlavender (talk) 22:11, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

This is MonoBook skin, and it appears from examining the HTML of a typical page that the <div id="column-content">...</div> is displaced downwards by an appropriate amount, but the <div id="column-one">...</div> is not. It is that second div that contains the tabs, also the links for user page, user talk page, watchlist, contribs etc. so all of these become hidden. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah okay. This bug 51076. We haven't fixed this because the GettingStarted toolbar is only delivered to new users, and as such basically none of them have Monobook enabled. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Since User:Redrose64 has determined the internal cause of the bug, would someone consider fixing it? It would be nice if experienced users could use it as well, especially since it isn't a tutorial per se, but rather a list of tagged articles that need fixing (by anyone, not just by new users). Also, I'm compiling a rated list of Wikipedia tutorials and articles needing help, and I'd like to include this on my list. Thanks. Softlavender (talk) 22:18, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Why drop-off in usage?

I sometimes bring up a Recent Changes list, filtered on the "gettingstarted edit" tag. Normally a list of 50 changes has extended over about 2 hours. Now quite suddenly such a list extends over about 48 hours. What has changed that far fewer edits are now carrying this tag?: Noyster (talk), 14:34, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from a new sockpuppet

I'm actually an experienced user, but I just created another account for privacy purposes. So I saw this feature for the first time, thought "What a great idea!" and gave it a try. The page I was presented with was Cue Ball Wizard (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch. Here's some feedback:

1. The first message was "These banners identify problems with this article." That message was too low, so that the tip of the arrow ended (in my case) on a link, which may be misunderstood by new users who are not familiar with our use of the term "banner".
2. When editing, by default, the "Advanced" tab is displayed. (Or could that be because that setting is somehow remembered from my regular account?) It's not actually a feature of GettingStarted, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
3. There is no explanation of edit summaries, let alone a recommendation to use them.
4. The article was tagged as "This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling.", but I didn't actually see much wrong with the article. It turns out that the article had been edited by another user since the {{Copy edit}} template had been added.
5. After saving, I still got the message "This article may have spelling or grammar errors you can fix.", and when I clicked "Show me how" again, I got caught in the same loop.
6. There was no invitation to provide feedback, and I had to ask on the help desk to find this page.

AnonymousUserAugust2015 (talk) 06:58, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

How I can add Information about person

How I can add information about personality who can influence others? Kalhoro4098 (talk) 16:11, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Too many things to change...

This is not a way to help newcomers, but it could if this tool indicates also some guideline and other tools helpful for newcomers. How can I have access to the code and change this tool? --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 23:07, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October

The GettingStarted extension provides an onboarding process for new editors of a few versions of Wikipedia. However, Growth features provide a more complete onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features (including English Wikipedia, as a trial), GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October.

If needed, please update this project page, and inform your community about it.

Thank you. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2021 (UTC)