I think at present, I'm in favor of option B. Mostly because it is precise and straightforward. If a new user doesn't see any contributions, they can always click on ‘Contribute’ for ways to contribute. You can also show it by default (in addition to ‘Contributions’), but there should be an option to disappear the ‘Contribute’ link if someone prefers. However, I've got a few more feedback.

Currently when I hover over ‘Contributions’, I see the following links.

• ‘Contributions’ - It's redundant as people can also click directly on ‘Contributions’, however, it can probably stay.
• ‘Translation’ - It's necessary and should stay.
• ‘Uploaded media’ - It shows media uploaded on Commons, not on local projects. That's confusing. Considering the local upload tool works fine and many new users upload files locally (experienced users then transfer them to Commons). In that case, they won't find their uploads. For example, people might need to upload Faire Use materials as well which they might want to see.

My suggestion would be, as I said, rather show both options. Leave ‘Contributions’ as is like before. When people click on ‘Contribute’ show all possible options (currently available and in the future, make it also customizable for specific project needs) to contribute.

Thanks for the feedback, @Wikitanvir.

It is good to hear that exposing both options (B) is seen as a valid approach. I also added another approach (C) for the exploration based on previous feedback.

Regarding the other suggestions, I wanted to provide some additional context. Back in the day, we added options to start new contributions that are connected to the Contributions page as part of Content Translation. The idea was to start exploring the concept of "contributions" as a way to include both past and new contributions. Including the option to translate, but avoiding a one-off solution. Creating a space instead for more ways to contribute.

At that time, those entry points and the activities included were not supported in an scalable way (translation and two general actions for which there was an special page available across projects were selected). The new Contribute entry point is expected to replace those. This includes removing both, the menu that appears when hovering contributions (T333327) and the "New contribution" section shown at the top of the Contributions page (T337294).

We also have plans to support cutstomization (T321379), but we still need to understand better which would be the most useful ways of customization. For example, should customization be about hidding, featuring/pinning, changing, and/or adding some options? Should be customizable by the community and/or individuals?

A few brief thoughts (please let me know if any need elaboration!)

• In T337294 I like the first screenshot which combines the 2 pages (Contribute & Contributions) into a single page, for 2 main reasons:
  • "Scrolling" is inherently easier & faster than "Clicking a link and waiting for the new page to load".
  • It's easy to ignore things that are hidden (collapsed, or in a tab). If new-users are less likely to stumble upon Special:Contributions, then they are less likely to benefit from it (i.e. spontaneously adopt the workflows that many experienced editors use this page for).
• As a highly-active editor, the Special:Contributions/MYNAME link is one of my most-used. I use it many times each day. The Vector-2022 placement of it within a dropdown menu frustrated me, and I now use User-JS/CSS to forcibly add it into the Personal-bar, for 1-click access. Screenshot: F37091403 .
  • I also personally know of a few editors who use it as their primary "attention list" page, and/or their primary access point for the sites, who would be very frustrated if it became harder to access.
• I think there's also likely to be widespread confusion about the overlap between Special:Homepage and Special:Contribute. I wonder how the Special:Homepage is planned to be expanded in the years ahead, and if all these entry points could link there instead? I.e. Keep the compressed short-reminder links (as in F37029989), but link all of them to Special:Homepage where they would contain the more elaborated descriptions (as in F37029987).

Hope that helps!

"Remember the last option selected" is the usual default for https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Single_edit_tab and this has occasionally created confusion, especially for less experienced users. They end up switching away from their favorite (voluntarily or otherwise) and then can't find their way back.

(For myself, if I want to go to Special:Contributions, I can edit the URL, so whatever you decide probably won't make any difference to me in the end.)

Growth's approach is to release these kinds of features aimed to help new accounts, to new accounts only.

We don't change anything for existing users. We sometimes invite existing accounts to discover the page using a few guided tour prompts. These users can choose to try the feature or not. Of course, they can change this choice anytime to their preferences.

It then implies that we don't change things for experienced users, but we expect them:

• to know that the default experience for newcomers is different;
• to be capable of finding an explanation of why the interface is different.

In T337727#8899847, @Quiddity wrote:

A few brief thoughts (please let me know if any need elaboration!)

• In T337294 I like the first screenshot which combines the 2 pages (Contribute & Contributions) into a single page, for 2 main reasons:
  • "Scrolling" is inherently easier & faster than "Clicking a link and waiting for the new page to load".
  • It's easy to ignore things that are hidden (collapsed, or in a tab). If new-users are less likely to stumble upon Special:Contributions, then they are less likely to benefit from it (i.e. spontaneously adopt the workflows that many experienced editors use this page for).

Thanks for the input @Quiddity!

One aspect we wanted to avoid is to push down the list of contributions. Currently the menu to start a new contribution contains few options, but this is expected to grow. This kind of functionality is along the lines for the start menu that you can find on operating systems such as Windows or software platforms like Google Workplace to access all apps. The intent to start a new contribution and the intent to review your previous ones seems distinct enough that having two different but connected views does not seem problematic (provided that we can adjust which is the default one to be the one the user needs most of the time).

• As a highly-active editor, the Special:Contributions/MYNAME link is one of my most-used. I use it many times each day. The Vector-2022 placement of it within a dropdown menu frustrated me, and I now use User-JS/CSS to forcibly add it into the Personal-bar, for 1-click access. Screenshot: F37091403 .
  • I also personally know of a few editors who use it as their primary "attention list" page, and/or their primary access point for the sites, who would be very frustrated if it became harder to access.

This is a very good point. This ticket is about solving this. Any of the explored solution would result in this kind of user to always land in the list of their contributions by default.

Unfortunately this was not anticipated earlier in the process, but we will not continue the deployment process beyond the initial 5 pilot wikis until this is fixed.

• I think there's also likely to be widespread confusion about the overlap between Special:Homepage and Special:Contribute. I wonder how the Special:Homepage is planned to be expanded in the years ahead, and if all these entry points could link there instead? I.e. Keep the compressed short-reminder links (as in F37029989), but link all of them to Special:Homepage where they would contain the more elaborated descriptions (as in F37029987).

Hope that helps!

We need to explore how to represent the relationship between all these related concepts (list of previous contributions, Start a new contribution, and newcomer home page). There are many options to connect those. Research will help to determine how users think about those concepts and the connections they make with those concepts.

In T337727#8901154, @Whatamidoing-WMF wrote:

"Remember the last option selected" is the usual default for https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Single_edit_tab and this has occasionally created confusion, especially for less experienced users. They end up switching away from their favorite (voluntarily or otherwise) and then can't find their way back.

Thanks @Whatamidoing-WMF. That's a good point. From my perspective, one key aspect with that approach is not to change the labels of the entry point.

Imagine visual mode is my preferred and usual mode, but I did a wikitext edit of a template as my last edit of the day. The next day I'll see in all articles the option to "edit source" and I'll have no clue where the visual editing option went. I'm required to reach the conclusion that visual editing can be reached through the option of source edit. I think this may be introducing confusion and a more general "edit" label would work better as a stable label that could lead to the usual editing mode.

The Visual editing context has the added complexity that both modes may look similar (especially with an empty contents), while the UIs for listing contributions and starting new ones are expected to be easier to recognize as different tasks.

In T337727#8902270, @Trizek-WMF wrote:

Growth's approach is to release these kinds of features aimed to help new accounts, to new accounts only.

We don't change anything for existing users. We sometimes invite existing accounts to discover the page using a few guided tour prompts. These users can choose to try the feature or not. Of course, they can change this choice anytime to their preferences.

It then implies that we don't change things for experienced users, but we expect them:

• to know that the default experience for newcomers is different;
• to be capable of finding an explanation of why the interface is different.

Good points, @Trizek-WMF.
The focus of the Homepage is on newcomers, while the menu for starting new contributions is aimed for users of all levels of expertise. It can include activities such as organizing a campaign, which are not aimed at newcomers.
In any case, it is relevant how these two spaces can be related/connected.

In T337727#8990066, @Pginer-WMF wrote:

The focus of the Homepage is on newcomers, while the menu for starting new contributions is aimed for users of all levels of expertise. It can include activities such as organizing a campaign, which are not aimed at newcomers.
In any case, it is relevant how these two spaces can be related/connected.

The point here is that experienced users don't like to have their cheese moved. :)
We have to compromise. Forcing them to accept the change will lead to a backlash.
Hence, you should offer an option to opt-out Special:Contribute (and keep the top menu/banner in Special:Contribution as the alternate solution to access the to-be-added new invites) for these users.

Even after a long time, this issue is not being resolved. Since this change has been deployed to Bangla Wikipedia without informing the community and is not being resolved despite community objections, I will start a discussion to disable this Contribute entry point.

In T337727#9122887, @MdsShakil wrote:

Even after a long time, this issue is not being resolved. Since this change has been deployed to Bangla Wikipedia without informing the community and is not being resolved despite community objections, I will start a discussion to disable this Contribute entry point.

Hi @MdsShakil. I'm sorry if this is taking more than expected.

We wanted to make sure the instrumentation was working well before making further changes. The instrumentation efforts in T321386 had recent progress, and are expected to be completed very soon (only pending verification).
With instrumentation in place, we can better evaluate alternative approaches. For example, changing the default may result in less views but not reduce the people that access the option to translate (i.e., those interested in such activity can still find it).

I'll create a sub-ticket with the selected proposal to try so that development can start as soon as possible.

In T337727#9122929, @Pginer-WMF wrote:

In T337727#9122887, @MdsShakil wrote:

Even after a long time, this issue is not being resolved. Since this change has been deployed to Bangla Wikipedia without informing the community and is not being resolved despite community objections, I will start a discussion to disable this Contribute entry point.

Hi @MdsShakil. I'm sorry if this is taking more than expected.

We wanted to make sure the instrumentation was working well before making further changes. The instrumentation efforts in T321386 had recent progress, and are expected to be completed very soon (only pending verification).
With instrumentation in place, we can better evaluate alternative approaches. For example, changing the default may result in less views but not reduce the people that access the option to translate (i.e., those interested in such activity can still find it).

I'll create a sub-ticket with the selected proposal to try so that development can start as soon as possible.

We may exclude this feature until your work is completed. It's probably not a good idea to implement incomplete features on a production wiki.

In T337727#9122938, @MdsShakil wrote:

We may exclude this feature until your work is completed. It's probably not a good idea to implement incomplete features on a production wiki.

The situation with instrumentation was that only mobile events were captured, leaving out the desktop ones. This was a bug that is being fixed.
Excluding the feature at this point I think will be adding noise to the process: making it hard to check if instrumentation works properly and altering the numbers we want to use to understand the overall behaviour.

As part of the translation Boost Initiative we've had a great collaboration with the Bangla community to release early features and incorporate their feedback including mobile translation where extensive research was conducted in collaboration with Bangla editors. If the Bangla Wikipedia community wants to opt-out from the initial pilot group, that's ok too.

Unlike previous scenarios, this situation deviates because initiatives like section translation didn't impose themselves on all site users, leaving room to abstain. The community is still enthusiastic about participating in research and software development, as demonstrated previously. Yet, maintaining a smooth workflow for regular tasks and contributions is also a priority.

In T337727#9123287, @MdsShakil wrote:

Unlike previous scenarios, this situation deviates because initiatives like section translation didn't impose themselves on all site users, leaving room to abstain. The community is still enthusiastic about participating in research and software development, as demonstrated previously. Yet, maintaining a smooth workflow for regular tasks and contributions is also a priority.

In general we try to isolate new features as much as possible. However, entry points and invites are often exposed a bit more to provide a balance between not affecting user workflows and giving users a chance to discover new features to try.

In this case we underestimated the impact of this entry point. While being possible to dismiss it in one click, the repeated use of the contributions page made this additional action to have a negative impact. This is something we'll keep in mind for future cases.

I created a specific proposal that will avoid the issue and we plan to start working on it soon: T345102: Select the default tab between "Contribute" and "View contributions" to minimize tab switching for users frequently using one of them