Few notes on how I might implement this:

We can use the https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Random to get a random page

• We might want to update the API to take a pagelen as parameter. This can be used to avoid loading very small articles.
• Select pages in the main namespace and avoid loading redirects
• It would also be nice to filter on the basis of content model. We only want wikitext.
• Fetch only a single page

We can use siteMapper.getApi( language ); to fetch the API URL and then make the call to the https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Random API.

The random topic button will navigate to the confirm topic page with the target language selected. If a source language is selected, then the random topic will be selected from that source language. If no source language is selected, the topic will be selected from a random language falling back to English if no article could be found with the given criteria.

Change #1125635 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/core@master] ApiQueryRandom: Add support for minsize and maxsize

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1125635

Change #1125641 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/core@master] ApiQueryRandom: Allow filtering based on content model

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1125641

Change #1125635 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] ApiQueryRandom: Add support for minsize and maxsize

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1125635

Change #1125641 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] ApiQueryRandom: Allow filtering based on content model

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1125641

Change #1130318 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: Implement random topic functionality

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1130318

Change #1130318 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: Implement random topic functionality

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1130318

The random topic button can now be tested on: https://language-cx.wmcloud.org/index.php/Special:AutomaticTranslation

Relevant comment: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T364905#10616475

Tested and works as expected.

@PWaigi-WMF was this tested using the URL : https://ig.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%BB%8Cp%E1%BB%A5r%E1%BB%A5iche:AutomaticTranslation ? as its not working here yet

can you pls point me to where you tested it. thanks alot

@EChukwukere-WMF Use this -> https://language-cx.wmcloud.org/index.php/Special:AutomaticTranslation. Tagged you on Slack for context.

In T364905#10670384, @abi_ wrote:

The random topic button can now be tested on: https://language-cx.wmcloud.org/index.php/Special:AutomaticTranslation

Relevant comment: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T364905#10616475

@EChukwukere-WMF Please see the comment above

The feature works for me now when i press on the random topic

@abi_ I am now able to Generate a random topic using the random button

Just to confirm ( as shown in the video below) the functionality of this button before I am mark it as pass

• it generates a random topic and goes off the screen of the user?

• it generates a random topic from an language wiki ?

@EChukwukere-WMF Please see my comment here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T364905#10616475

Some more clarification:

1. Based on the target language, we select a random language that can be translated to that target language.
2. We then get the Wikipedia URL for that language, and then use the API: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Random API to fetch a random article with the following criteria:
   • Should have atleast 1000 byes
   • Should not be a redirect
   • Should have content type of Wikitext
   • Should be in the main namespace
3. We then redirect the user to confirm step with that random article

If the API call in 2) fails to return an article, we set the source language to English and try again once more. If both API calls fail, we show the user an error message.

@abi_ thanks for clarifying this. I will mark this as done. I will keep this ticket for reference later. Thanks again