[Hypothesis] FY2025-26 WE2.1.5 Surface content gaps contribution opportunities to engage native speakers in small wikis
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Description

This task is part of the Wikimedia Foundation department's OKR (Objectives and Key Results) work. It is connected to the Language Onboarding and Development Project and aligns with the vital knowledge objective and key result under the Wiki Experiences bucket. See T391035.

Hypothesis WE2.1.5: If we surface content gaps contribution opportunities to native speakers and engage them in expanding articles using contribution tools (e.g content/section translation), a higher proportion of these contributors on smaller wikis will contribute to vital articles.

Effort

Gather topics of interest, community needs, and vital articles from the communities.
Design and launch a 4-week onboarding plan, with weekly modules. See T409231

Notes

Q1 experiment showed that targeted regional and language outreach can successfully draw native speakers to smaller wikis.
In Q2, we aim to explore:
- How can we surface content gaps and support native speakers in addressing them through tailored onboarding
- Whether this approach bridges the gap between initial awareness and actual engagement observed in Q1.
- Why native speakers who joined via the previous experiment didn’t edit and what would help them to edit.

Target audiences

Small wikis - Moroccan Arabic & Telugu wiki. The former was part of the experiment, and the latter was part of the vital content hypothesis, through which a list of articles vital to the community came into visibility.

Timeline

November 7th: Finish designing banner messaging and onboarding modules. Get approval from CN admins. Gather vital article list from communities.
November 1st-15th: Communities prepare by translating banner messages and onboarding materials, and setting up event pages for Week 1.
November 15th: First banner launches.
November 15th - December 15th:
- Communities prepare by translating banner messages and onboarding materials, and setting up event pages for Week 2, 3 & 4.
- Onboarding plan runs week by week. Each week, update banner messaging, event registration page, and send emails to registered users.
December 15th: Banners removed.

Impact

Increase in edits to community-defined vital articles via the CX tool.

Measurements

Measured three months after the experiment concludes:
- Average monthly pageviews on content pages of small wikis
- Average monthly number of active editors
- Total edits by users from the experiment to vital articles via Section/Content translation tool

Related Objects
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Status	Assigned	Task
Open	None	T391035 FY 2025-26 -Develop, implement, and evaluate interventions to support language onboarding and development
Resolved	MaryMunyoki	T404655 [FY 25-26 Quarterly plan, Q1 July 2025- Sep 2025] Language Onboarding & Development
Resolved	srishakatux	T399011 [Hypothesis] FY2025-26 WE2.1.1 Engage native speakers to improve vital content in small language Wikipedias
Open	srishakatux	T405298 [Hypothesis] FY2025-26 WE2.1.5 Surface content gaps contribution opportunities to engage native speakers in small wikis
Open	None	T409122 Set up tracking for WE 2.1.5.
Open	UOzurumba	T409124 Provide communication support to selected wikis for WE 2.1.5.
Open	srishakatux	T409128 Obtain approval from Central Notice admins to run the experiment for WE 2.1.5.
Open	ToluAyo	T409222 Generate Section Translation (SX) URLs for community-specific vital articles for WE 2.1.5
Open	srishakatux	T409231 Design and document a tailored onboarding guidance for WE 2.1.5.
Open	srishakatux	T409227 Design and deploy a CN banner on selected wikis for WE 2.1.5.

Event Timeline

srishakatux created this task.Sep 22 2025, 10:55 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptSep 22 2025, 10:55 PM

srishakatux triaged this task as Medium priority.Sep 22 2025, 10:56 PM

srishakatux moved this task from Backlog to In Progress on the LPL Onboarding and Development board.

srishakatux removed a project: LPL Projects (Engage native speakers to improve vital content in small language Wikipedias – FY26 WE 2.1.1).Wed, Oct 22, 4:30 AM

srishakatux renamed this task from Deploy a Central Notice banner on a few high-traffic Wikipedias to raise awareness of smaller wikis and content translation features to [Hypothesis] FY2025-26 WE2.1.5 Surface content gaps contribution opportunities to engage native speakers in small wikis.Fri, Oct 31, 7:53 PM

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srishakatux mentioned this in T409122: Set up tracking for WE 2.1.5..Mon, Nov 3, 11:10 PM

MaryMunyoki added a project: LPL Projects (Surface content gaps contribution opportunities to engage native speakers in small wikis - FY26 WE 2.1.5).Tue, Nov 4, 2:16 PM

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srishakatux updated the task description. (Show Details)Tue, Nov 4, 10:53 PM

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Notes from brainstorming on possible implementation scenarios with @UOzurumba and others:

Scenario 1: Community has a list of vital articles (e.g., Telugu Wikipedia)
- If the community already maintains a list of vital articles:
  - The list can be integrated into CX/SX.
  - These articles can then be surfaced directly through CX/SX. Through tailored onboarding, editors work to:
    - Improve articles section by section, or
    - Create missing articles from scratch.
  - If integration isn’t technically possible:
    - Editors can search for the source articles for existing pages manually in CX/SX and translate them into the destination language.
    - Caveat: This only works if the source article exists in English (or another supported source language). This might require a workaround. See T409222

Scenario 2: Community doesn’t have a list of vital articles (e.g., Moroccan Arabic Wikipedia)
- Approach 1: Editors work on topics that align with either their community’s needs or their own individual interests (e.g., gender gap, local literature).
  - If a category only includes existing articles:
    - There’s currently no automated way to surface sections needing improvement. This might require a workaround. See T409222.
  - If a category includes new articles:
    - Editors could look for article ideas that exist on larger wikis (e.g., English Wikipedia) but are missing locally, and use those as sources for translation.
    - Caveat: This only works if the source article exists in English (or another supported source language).
- Approach 2: Editors work on improving articles in “1000 articles” list already available in CX/SX collection.
  - Caveat: These lists may not reflect what’s most vital or relevant for the local community.

srishakatux added a subtask: T409227: Design and deploy a CN banner on selected wikis for WE 2.1.5..Tue, Nov 4, 11:47 PM

[Hypothesis] FY2025-26 WE2.1.5 Surface content gaps contribution opportunities to engage native speakers in small wikisOpen, MediumPublicActions