User talk:Clovermoss/Mobile editing

Thoughts?

@Levivich: Feel free to ignore this if you're busy (or if I've been taking up too much of your attention lately, if that's the case please be honest and I'll back down), but I figured I might as well to actually try and experience things like the app a bit more before I had a solidly formed opinion on it. To be honest, I haven't done much yet, but I've definitely tried for a few hours or so. Obviously my experience isn't representative of everyone who tries editing via the app, but I did find it surprising how many things have caught me off-guard right off the bat. I can see why people don't nessecarily agree with how the WMF develops technology is this is the norm. Maybe I'm being too cynical here (I really try to be optimistic in general), but I don't know. There's a part of me that wants to learn more about coding just to see if maybe I could understand what is actually going on better I could feel like my opinion is more noteworthy somehow. But where would I even start? It's really easy to criticize and it's hard to come up with solutions. I also want to learn more about the WMF's perspective, I guess. I do think there's been some good points from isaacl about how software development is difficult, especially on a scale like this. I just don't want to discount anyone's opinion... but I genuinely do want to hear yours, too. I don't like feeling like I'm ever in a bubble... reasonable people should be able to disagree with each other. Is there anything you'd be curious for me to try out using the app to see how something might work? I think you might have ideas that I don't. Clovermoss (talk) 01:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

You're not taking up too much of my time (and in the very unlikely event that ever changes, rest assured I'll let you know), but you do give me a lot to think about! So I'm gonna respond more fully later, just wanted to let you know I appreciate the message and am not ignoring it. Levivich (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

To answer your question, I can't really think of anything to try using the app that you haven't already tried. However, this is pretty cool research. I think it might be useful to turn your narrative findings into a table like the one at WP:TCHY, but you'd be able to expand it beyond "communications bugs" to show all the features that are missing or reduced on the app. Someone with access to an iPhone could do the same thing for the iPhone app. I think that could be really useful to the community, to see, at-a-glance, how the desktop/mobile/app versions differ. Maybe WP:TCHY should become a section in a broader page about the apps? Or a separate page? I'm not sure, but I'm sure others would be interested in a feature comparison.

As far as I understand it, this was the norm for how the WMF used to develop software. The apps are years old; I'm not sure which WMF administration was in charge when they were released, but we all know of the famous flops of the past, like WP:FLOW, the one about the media viewer, and of course the release of VE. In including/excluding features, the devs made decisions that are basically contrary to the decisions that would be made by the community (e.g., logged out users don't need links to talk pages, app users don't need to receive notifications, etc.). I'm not sure, but I get the sort of general sense, that things have changed since those days. The roll-out of DiscussionTools -- and the software itself -- seems to be an improvement over those past experiences. It's still pretty bad, though, in my opinion. Someone on here once said something like: the only people who think the WMF develop poor software are the people who use it. It was kind of funny to see that in action here.

If you want to learn more about coding, I'd really encourage that, for basically anyone. First, I personally think it's fun (as long as it's not your job), I still code from time to time just as a hobby. If you think it's fun, that's reason to do it in and of itself. Secondly, knowing how to program, in any language, will greatly increase your understanding of technology. Not just MediaWiki, but really all software. Finally, it's my personal belief that learning how to program increase's a person's logic skills, which has wide application to life. In short: it'll make you a better thinker.

Where to start? If you want to learn more about Wikipedia, the core technologies are HTML and SQL (specifically, MySQL). MediaWiki itself is written in PHP, which, 20 years ago, was the gold standard for SQL web applications, but these days, I think might be obsolete or headed that way. Python seems to be the most common language for web applications these days, and it's actually much easier than PHP (IMO). It seems like a lot of our scripts are written in Python.

There are lots of free websites that teach HTML, SQL, Python, etc. If you already know (or learn more about) SQL, I'd check out Quarry, where you can run SQL queries against the Wikipedia database. Nothing will teach you how the database actually works and is structured like querying it directly (if you don't know what I mean by "querying", that's OK, you will if you ever decide to learn SQL). If you already know (or learn) Python, check out PyWikiBot, which is a Python library that makes it easy to use Python to read (and write!) to Wikipedia. I guess it's basically the thing people use to make wikibots.

Bottom line, I think you're right: one can gain a better understanding of the technical side of Wikipedia by learning more about coding. By the way, aside from the coding, there's also the server architecture side of things, if you're not familiar, check out mw:Wikimedia servers.

In case it helps, there are lots of editors around who are very experienced in this area. I've always found help at WP:VPT, the tech channel on the WP:DISCORD server, and though I've never visited, I'm sure the WP:IRC chat also has helpful techy editors hanging out there. Levivich (talk) 15:45, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: Thanks for your thoughts. I'll think about including a table like the one you linked to. My basic idea is that this is basically a list of things I've noticed while trying to edit through the app. I was thinking I might eventually convert this to something more developed for the Signpost. But it's still in the very early stages of anything. I did think it was potentially useful because it seems like everyone that talks about the app (who isn't from the WMF) brings up how terrible it is but no one really explains why. The why is important if you wants things to change and be better because if there aren't specific directions to go it can basically lead to people shrugging their shoulders and saying "well what are we suposed to do about it?" or "haters will be haters". It just continues the path of "x is terrible, the WMF never does anything right, etc". From what I've seen, I agree with you that things seem to be getting better even if it's taken forever for some changes that should've been around for much longer than they have. I remember when you were able to start watchlisting things temporarily, but that didn't happen until 2020! I do try to follow the cliche of "be the change in the world you want to see". But at the same time, I realize that the Wikipedia community is basically filled with a lot of people who have tried to change things... and saying that didn't always go well is a understatement, honestly. Ignoring mistakes and failures (like unideal technology development) doesn't magically make them go away, so it's important to actually pay attention to stuff like that because in a lot of ways, having good intentions isn't nessecarily enough. I'm still trying to think through my perspective on all of this; sometimes I'm more cynical and sometimes I'm more optimistic. I'm also kind of like that in general.

As for coding, the only experience I have is with MediaWiki. I'm kind of flattered that you think I might have any experience outside of that. To be completely fair, I started editing wikiHow when I was 12, so in a way I guess I've picked some things up over the years that meet the broader definition of coding beyond basic wikimarkup even if I don't quite realize it. I really am interested into looking more into that, though. I've always had broad interests and I like learning new things. I'm a huge fan of knitting, for example. This is a blanket I made. Clovermoss (talk) 18:12, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow, nice blanket! Yeah, what you write about the why/details being important is why I think a feature comparison would be of interest to the community: like, exactly how do these apps differ from the mobile and desktop versions? And the Signpost is probably a good place to publish it. Levivich (talk) 21:05, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich Thanks. That took me like 40 hours to knit. It's a time consuming hobby. But I've been knitting since I was 10 so in a way it's like riding a bike. I actually had knitting lessons after my bible ones, so at least the knitting was useful. I can listen to music or watch movies while I do it. It's folded in that picture so it's kind of hard to see the size of it accurately, but it's a decent throw blanket. A simple design compared to what I'm capable of, but I admire the simplicity of it.

I'm still going to experiment around a bit before I think about doing something like writing another article for the Signpost. It's more of a long-term goal, no need to rush anything. It's good to take my time and think. I want to more clearly seperate my initial impressions about what I feel is intuitive and how the app functions when I feel like I've understood it better, y'know? I will say the scrolling down replies so far have actually been quite nice in this conversation even though there's a bunch of text... but then there's the whole mobile communication bugs thing, too. Not sure everything evens out in a 50/50 way, but understanding what potential advantages/disadvantages are good steps to take. Clovermoss (talk) 23:26, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: Pinging you because this is a bit more fleshed out even if it's not everything I've envisioned yet. I thought you might be interested in what I have done so far, though. That huge discussion on my talk page is still going on by the way, although it's mostly with one particular WMF staff member at this point. Clovermoss (talk) 12:03, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it's great, extraordinarily thorough, like you might want to apply for a job as a WMF QA tester :-) I'm also amazed at what a productive response you're getting from the app's product manager, hats off to Jazmin. That user talk page thread might be a record for longest user talk page thread. Levivich^😃 15:25, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: Thanks, your praise means a lot to me. Jazmin's amazing, isn't she? I still kind of feel surreal about everything going on at my talk page. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I broke some kind of record for longest conversation ever although I feel like that might be a hard record to break considering how long conversations can go on here. Clovermoss (talk) 18:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Update

Hey Levivich! It's less work-in-progress-y now. I was thinking of trying to make sure it's ready for the next issue of the Signpost [1]. What do you think? Any suggestions? If there's something that should be clarified I should probably do that beforehand. I also wanted to make sure that you're okay with me linking the growth team discussion on your talk page. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 03:20, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: Good job! I think it'll make for a fine Signpost essay. Here are some thoughts:

• Category:Wikipedians who edit by smartphone is probably not the best indicator of how many editors edit by smartphone; I'm sure it's way more than the number of people who added themselves to the category. The WMF must have some statistics? I couldn't find any on Wikistats (just mobile views, not mobile editing), but there must be some statistics (because we track mobile edits with tags), and I'm sure it's something like 40% of editors are mobile editing (way more than 150). If you can't find the stats, maybe ask Jazmin or someone else at the WMF?
• "As far as I can tell, no experienced editor uses the app to edit..." This seems to be the first place you introduce the app. I think the essay would be improved with a few sentences or a paragraph explaining what the app is, for editors who may be entirely unaware or only vaguely aware of it. You know this stuff better than I do, but I think there are four permutations of mobile editing: desktop-on-mobile (viewing the en.wikipedia.org site on a mobile device, with desktop skins like Vector), mobile-on-mobile (en.m.wikipedia.org on a mobile device, with Minerva as the skin), iOS app, and Android app, right? Might be helpful to lay that out for the unfamiliar reader. It might also be helpful to drop in some comparisons here and there between how something works on desktop v. mobile v. app.
• You don't mention WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU which is probably a number of editors have heard of by now and they might be wondering why it's not mentioned or how it fits in. You might mention it somewhere in a sentence or part of a sentence. My understanding is that the bugs you looked at with the WMF go far beyond WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU issues (also, that the WMF has already started and maybe finished tackling the THEYCANTHEARYOU problems).
• "I'm genuinely trying to be understanding that because I don't understand the why behind what I experience and that fixing these problems are likely not as easy as they sound" - typo or missing or extra words in this sentence?
• I would make a run through it and copyedit it strictly for length. I don't think you need to cut out any entire sections or even lose any content, but I think the writing could be "tighter", meaning you can say the same thing but just use fewer words, with the goal being to reduce the overall word count of the essay. I follow Strunk & White's advice of reading it, removing all words that are not strictly necessary, then repeating that over and over until you have no more words you can remove without removing meaning. I did one paragraph just to give you an example:

−

When I first started trying to edit through the app, what got to me most was the sheer frustration of it all. At least to me, very few things felt like they were intuitive. It was like learning how to edit all over again. The first thing that took me by surprise when I logged in? I had automatically downloaded articles for offline reading, back from when I briefly experimented with the app in 2019. Back then, I made a handful of edits. Most were a typo fixed here or there. For those who are interested, all of my edits made through the app can be seen here [1]. I later found out that these articles were automatically downloaded for offline reading because of a default setting through the app to sync across devices, which makes sense in hindsight even if it caught my off-guard.

+

When I first started trying to edit through the app, what got to me most was the sheer frustration of it all. Very few things felt like they were intuitive, it was like learning how to edit all over again. The first thing that surprised me was that when I logged in, it automatically downloaded articles from when I briefly experimented with the app in 2019 because of a default setting to sync across devices, which makes sense in hindsight even if it caught me off-guard.

• You might consider using footnotes for some of the links or asides if it helps shorten the text. For example, the link to your own mobile app edits could be a footnote, or just a link over the words "edit through the app" (or somewhere else).
• I think it needs some kind of "ending", maybe another paragraph before the one that begins with "Overal,..." that "ends the story" as it were, or tells the reader, like, so what happened? What's happening now? Did they fix all the bugs? Is it still ongoing? What can/should the reader do about any of this?
• I can't tell if you're writing to let people know about problems with the mobile app, or writing to share an experience about working with the WMF, or -- as I suspect -- trying to do both at the same time. I think if you are trying to both, that's perfectly fine, no need to change it, but you might try to tie it together with some kind of ... I hate to say "moral of the story," but maybe "thesis statement." Like, what's your point? There's a lesson here, I think, about how the technology sucks until both WMF engineers and Wikipedia volunteers work together -- that this is what's required in order for us to create a mobile app that doesn't suck (and thus, I suspect, a large part of the reason the software around here sucks -- we haven't been cooperating well historically). I wonder if you're hesitant to "beat the reader over the head" about this point, but I think the essay would improve if you laid this out a bit more explicitly. There's a lesson here somewhere about cooperation and diversity being necessary components of a crowdsourced encyclopedia.

Hope this helps! But of course, feel free to take or leave any of this advice. You've put in a ton of work here, you should be proud! (Oh and of course it's fine to link to my talk page archives, anytime!) Levivich (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Levivich. I really appreciate your thoughts on this matter. I'll try to make myself more concise! I think part of the problem when it comes to my typical conversation style and writing is that I mince my words a bit because it sounds less confrontational to me. I have a difficult time finding a way to say I disagree without feeling terrible. Something I've been trying to work on is being more 'outspoken' without losing the kindness and empathy. I'm also trying to work a bit more on my self-confidence. I'm not crazy, I'm allowed to have opinions, kind of mentality.

If I had to give a moral of the story, I'd say what you brought up is actually what I had in mind. I noticed a lot of little things that fit in with my prexisting assumptions (maybe that's confirmation bias or maybe it's an accurate accessment of the situation) that there was a lot of obvious issues. I'm not a particularly amazing individual and who knows how long these issues may have remained if I didn't bring greater awareness to them. The most glaring technical issue of the lot imo is that adding a line break to the end of any page would cause the app to crash. That's huge. I appreciate that it was fixed and I'm trying to be sympathetic to how people who work in IT usually only hear criticism, but at the same time it doesn't look that great from a PR perspective that a random 20 year old is giving such crucial observations about app performance. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:04, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hey Levivich, what do you think now? I've made a series of edits and this actually feels somewhat complete now. If you have any other suggestions (especially in regards to my writing), free free to just fix that directly. I'm actually feeling quite proud looking at the current state. Everything was a few months in the making, afterall. :) I've never really undertaken a massive project like this as a leisure activity but it's been an interesting experience. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:51, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm also not sure how to incoporate THEYCANTHEARYOU. I have a bunch of "see also" links at the end where people can kind of get previous context for why the app/mobile editing has such a bad reputation but I'm not sure if there's a better way to fit that in somewhere. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:04, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it looks good to go. I like the new intro. And I think See Also is a fine place for the link to theycanthearyou. Overall, a very impressive project! Levivich (talk) 01:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Auto pinging

I use ping very sparingly, and certainly wouldn't want it on by default. If people want to watch conversations they can watchlist pages. What I would like to do is have an option for slow pings that are triggered after 24 hours after the recipient next edits, provided they haven't returned to that page in the meantime. I'd also like some sort of throttle on the number of pings any one user can use per month. ϢereSpielChequers 15:17, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not pinging you since you just indicated your preference here but I think it's a good idea to have more options. Is what you want like the "daily summary of notifications" you can set as a preference for notifications for emails but as an on-wiki setting? As for automatic pings... Wikipedia is pretty much the only website I use that doesn't automatically notify someone when you reply to them (assuming you're using desktop view/standard mobile view). At least in my experience, a lot of people in the newer wikigenerations prefer being pinged while editors who've been around like 7+ years tend to prefer using their watchlist. Clovermoss (talk) 17:05, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

This may be a Wikigeneration thing, and I think my ping concern is not so much about exchanges I'm part of. though asynchronicity is a thing - I have often been in dialogue with people who edit at very different times/days to me. My idea of a triggered ping is that if you are watchlisting a page and get back there within 24 hours the ping does not happen. ϢereSpielChequers 23:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Forcing an edit summary

Um, whoever decided to force all mobile editors to use an edit summary is missing the point. The main benefit of edit summaries is surely that they are optional and therefore vandals usually self identify by not giving an edit summary. That's why forcing everyone to give an edit summary is on the Perennial proposals list of bad ideas that should never happen. ϢereSpielChequers 23:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)