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Homepage: Allow mentors to identify as "away"
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Description

Some mentors might go on wikivacation from time to time, and would not respond to questions in a given time. It would be helpful to allow them to self-identify as away, so the Homepage will know they're not available at this moment.

This should cause the homepage to not assign this mentor to any new users, and for users that already has this mentor assigned, to display something like "Your mentor is currently not available." and display the mentor with a grey background or something. Ideally, this would also select a replacement mentor, so the user can still ask a mentor if they want to :).

Event Timeline

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kostajh added subscribers: MMiller_WMF, kostajh.

@MMiller_WMF I will let you triage this. I imagine it would need some more specification and design time before we can write any code.

MMiller_WMF moved this task from Needs Discussion to Q2 2019-20 on the Growth-Team board.

Thanks for filing this, @Urbanecm. I don't consider this an urgent priority, but it is a good idea. We need to look at more data on how users interact with their mentors.

Change 530436 had a related patch set uploaded (by Urbanecm; owner: Urbanecm):
[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] [wip] Allow mentors to identify as away

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/530436

@Urbanecm -- I don't think we went over your work on this together. What did you end up building? Do you have screenshots?

Sure @MMiller_WMF!

If your mentor is currently away, you'll see this (no difference from the normal view)

image.png (584×548 px, 43 KB)

If you click "Ask your mentor a question", you'll see this:

image.png (514×638 px, 55 KB)

How is a mentor determined as 'away'? By presence of Template:Wikibreak on their page, being inactive for several days, some other sign?

Hi @Ata! Thanks for your interest in this. My current patch uses a magic word __AWAY__, which can be used either manually at a user page, or through a template.

Notes from the demo:

  • the __AWAY__ magic word can be used on a template
  • the feature links to another mentor
  • it would be possible to set a return date (like for when you go on vacation)
  • the message should be in the overlay only, the mentor module should remain untouched.
  • in the overlay:
    • preferred message: "Your mentor, Test, is currently away from Wikipedia. In the meantime, you may ask a question to a substitute mentor, Mentor."
    • the message should be in bold
  • a full demo is needed before we take a decision

This should also cover protected mentors' talk pages: when a talk page is not open for porting, the away system should suggest a different mentor too. The message have to be changed to reflect this.

We need to find time to review the code.

Ad those above screenshots: I just wanted to post them as an update, showing how the overlay looks after the changes requested in the meeting were implemented. I'm still working on the return day one, but the rest of the mentioned points were acted on. @MMiller_WMF or @Trizek-WMF in case you have any comments before the checkin, feel free to comment.

I would change the "Your question" to "your question to your substitute mentor". Because as I read it, I feel link I have to go elsewhere to ask my question to my substitute mentor.

We're actually working right now on this one.

I'm a bit skeptical how much people will actually use this (unless cswiki already has an established away-template habit?). Something that can be turned on-off with a gadget seems more feasible (and in the longer term would fit nicely into structured userpage plans).

@Tgr It's a custom for Czech users to add something to their userpage, like https://cs.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedista:Horst&diff=17269425&oldid=17252101. It's not a standardized template, since all users like different appearances. Changing this into a preference is possible too.

This was briefly discussed at my check-in with @MMiller_WMF and @Trizek-WMF. This should be ready to go through code-review.

If we work with more communities in the future, we need to offer good tools to mentors so that they can help newcomers without side effects. I think this task should be in our Scaling plans.

@Urbanecm_WMF -- could you remind us the status of this? Is there more work needed? Or should it be in Code Review?

@Urbanecm_WMF -- could you remind us the status of this? Is there more work needed? Or should it be in Code Review?

Sure. This needs the patch to be revisited by myself (or another developer), so it can be reviewed again. It's not ready for code review now. So "Needs more work" is the right column (or removing from sprint, as it's not ongoing work right now).

Change 530436 abandoned by Urbanecm:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Allow mentors to identify as away

Reason:

archive-level code, not worth keeping opened

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/530436