Having spent three weeks collecting data on which interface design prompts the most useful feedback, the ArticleFeedback version 5 trial entered its second phase this week. This phase will look at the impact of interface placement on the quality and quantity of feedback solicited from the small percentage of pages on which the extension will be active. As Oliver Keyes, a WMF Community Liaison helping with the tool described:
“ | Even with Wikipedia readership reaching half a billion users per month, the feedback form its current position (at the end of the article) doesn’t see a whole lot of activity. In this test, we’ll be experimenting with a more prominent way to access to tool. When a user loads the page with the test version of the Article Feedback Tool, they will see an "Improve this article" link docked on the bottom right hand corner of the page.
The introduction of this link will undoubtedly increase the amount of feedback. We need to, however, understand how it affects the quality of the feedback. ... As with the last tests, it'll be on a very small subset of articles and probably won't be noticed by most people. ... We'll also be doing some preliminary analysis on whether such a prominent link cannibalizes editing behaviour. |
” |
It is possible for logged-in users to hide the display of both the current version 4, and the new version 5, of the ArticleFeedback extension via their user preferences; an RfC is also currently open for editors wishing to influence the future direction of the extension, particularly with regards to handling textual feedback such as general comments about the article. As already noted, it is planned that phase 3 will focus on the impact of the extension on editing levels. Phase 4 is set to focus on the impact of the tool on readers; phase 5 will look at its longer term impact on editor levels. Although versions of the extension are trialled on the English Wikipedia, other wikis also run versions of it.
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
Having spent three weeks collecting data on which interface design prompts the most useful feedback, the ArticleFeedback version 5 trial entered its second phase this week. This phase will look at the impact of interface placement on the quality and quantity of feedback solicited from the small percentage of pages on which the extension will be active. As Oliver Keyes, a WMF Community Liaison helping with the tool described:
“ | Even with Wikipedia readership reaching half a billion users per month, the feedback form its current position (at the end of the article) doesn’t see a whole lot of activity. In this test, we’ll be experimenting with a more prominent way to access to tool. When a user loads the page with the test version of the Article Feedback Tool, they will see an "Improve this article" link docked on the bottom right hand corner of the page.
The introduction of this link will undoubtedly increase the amount of feedback. We need to, however, understand how it affects the quality of the feedback. ... As with the last tests, it'll be on a very small subset of articles and probably won't be noticed by most people. ... We'll also be doing some preliminary analysis on whether such a prominent link cannibalizes editing behaviour. |
” |
It is possible for logged-in users to hide the display of both the current version 4, and the new version 5, of the ArticleFeedback extension via their user preferences; an RfC is also currently open for editors wishing to influence the future direction of the extension, particularly with regards to handling textual feedback such as general comments about the article. As already noted, it is planned that phase 3 will focus on the impact of the extension on editing levels. Phase 4 is set to focus on the impact of the tool on readers; phase 5 will look at its longer term impact on editor levels. Although versions of the extension are trialled on the English Wikipedia, other wikis also run versions of it.
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
Discuss this story