Change 829740 had a related patch set uploaded (by Urbanecm; author: Urbanecm):

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Make Special:ManageMentors includable

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/829740

FYi @Trizek-WMF: once this is done, this might be useful for communities to migrate to the structured mentor list.

In T317013#8215231, @Urbanecm_WMF wrote:

FYi @Trizek-WMF: once this is done, this might be useful for communities to migrate to the structured mentor list.

Then let's do things in the right order:

1. migrate every wiki to the structured list
2. deploy this transclusion

In T317013#8215395, @Trizek-WMF wrote:

[...]
Then let's do things in the right order:

1. migrate every wiki to the structured list
2. deploy this transclusion

I'm not sure I understand. This task is about making {{Special:ManageMentors}} expand to the list of mentors (so it can be added to the wikitext page about mentorship). I don't understand why making the transclusion work needs to be done only after deploying structured list – it looks like largely independent steps to me.

@Urbanecm_WMF, I think I misunderstood your question. I thought it was
about having {{Special:ManageMentors}} working that requires having the
structured list being deployed first. Can you re-explain what is it about?

In T317013#8215785, @Trizek-WMF wrote:

@Urbanecm_WMF, I think I misunderstood your question. I thought it was
about having {{Special:ManageMentors}} working that requires having the
structured list being deployed first. Can you re-explain what is it about?

Sure! So, as of today, the wikitext-based mentor lists include the usernames of the mentors (cswiki example). When we tell the communities that we plan to switch to the structured mentor list, I think it would be nice to say "if you want, you can transclude the list of mentors by putting {{Special:ManageMentors}} to the wikitext page.

Special:ManageMentors will be autmatically available when the structured mentor list gets deployed. My plan is to make the special transcludable, so the wikis can seamlessly continue to display the list of mentors in their wikitext list, if they want to. In other words, I think we should do something like this:

1. Make Special:ManageMentors transcludable (this task; so communities can make use of the transclusion right away)
2. Announce structured list deployment (and perhaps mention that Special:ManageMentors will be transcludable)
3. Deploy structured mentor list
4. (Some) communities add the transclusion to their wikitext list

Thank you for re-explaining it.

I think we should proceed according to your plan, except with one detail, if possible: let's transclude {{Special:ManageMentors}} by default. This way, existing pages won't be changed much.

The only change mentors will have to make to their list is to add the process to become a mentor to it. Could we imagine to add the process automatically to the wikitext page along with the transclusion when we will convert the lists?

We would convert

[Content of the page]
[List of mentors]

to:

[Content of the page]
[Sentence explaining the process]
{{Special:ManageMentors}}

The content of the sentence would be rather simple:

To add or remove your name from this list, please visit [[Special:MentorDashboard]].

The sentence would be in English, communities would translate it.

Change 829740 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/GrowthExperiments@master] Make Special:ManageMentors includable

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/829740

@Trizek-WMF What you described in T317013#8224346 sounds good to me. We can add the sentence as a translatable message, so it can be pre-translated via TranslateWiki.net, too.

Not sure if we should prepend the auto-generated content, or replace the content of the page with it. It can be tricky to automatically distinguish between "introductory content" and "list of mentors", I'm afraid that'll be heavily inconsistent across wikis.

In T317013#8232903, @Urbanecm_WMF wrote:

We can add the sentence as a translatable message, so it can be pre-translated via TranslateWiki.net, too.

As I 'd like to have a chance for this sentence to be translated, it means shifting the deployment date to have the sentence being translated. Can we skip the translation for pilot wikis, as Ambassadors can translate it immediately?

Not sure if we should prepend the auto-generated content, or replace the content of the page with it. It can be tricky to automatically distinguish between "introductory content" and "list of mentors", I'm afraid that'll be heavily inconsistent across wikis.

Can't you identify if the pattern [[user:Foo]]|Description is repeated or isolated? If cases I observed at consistant, the pattern used as an example is usually used in a sentence or followed by a pararaph of text.

@Trizek-WMF I did that at the two pilot wikis (manually, since it's just two lists [three, if I include cswiki, where I can customize it myself immediately).