User:EpochFail/Snuggle article

The English Wikipedia is a big project and there's a lot of work to do. One of the ways that our community has managed to make that work more manageable is through the use of 3rd party software tools built by community members. For example, robots like ClueBot_NG and users of tools like Huggle have made damage control manageable and have therefor become an indispensable component of Wikipedia's success. However, like most projects in this community, tool development is best when it is collaborative. Without users and feedback, these tools would have never have been so successful. I'm writing this article about Snuggle, my most recent wiki-tool, in order gather users for it and feedback on its functionality.

Why does Wikipedia need Snuggle?

I built Snuggle in reaction to recent research (some of which is my own) that shows that the decline in newcomer retention in Wikipedia is the result of an increasing negative environment for desirable newcomers and that Wikipedia's current socialization systems don't work because mentors don't find newcomers when they most need help. Snuggle is designed to help experienced Wikipedians quickly and efficiently identify desirable newcomers who are editing in good-faith and help them dodge Wikipedia's sharper corners.

How does Snuggle work?

Snuggle has two major components: a server-side component that uses Special:Recentchanges to builds statistics of new editors' activities and a browser-based web application allows Wikipedians to filter, sort and visualize these newcomers' activities. In this section, I'll discuss the user interface's functionality.

Snuggle maintains a list of ~6000 newly registered user accounts and a summary of their first 30 days of editing activity. Using snuggle, you'll be able to browse this list of users and sort them into two categories:

• "good-faith": These newcomers are at least trying to contribute productively
• "bad-faith": These are the vandals, spammers and other undesirable editors

Editors looking to operate in a mentorship role can use the good-faith list where good newcomers are getting stuck or to send out invitations to the WP:Teahouse. If there's demand for it, I can also add functionality to report the bad-faith users to the WP:AIV.

The Snuggle user-interface with relevant components called out.

From the diagram to the right:

• A: Tabs allow access to lists of newcomers: unsorted, good-faith and bad-faith.
• B: Meta-data about user.
• C: Categorization systems allows you to mark users as "good-faith" or "bad-faith".
• D: Filters allow the list of newcomers to be sorted and re-arranged based on newcomer characteristics.
• E: Compressed view of unselected users.
• F: Summary of threads on the newcomer's talk page tagged with icons describing the nature of the thread. From the selected editor in the figure to the right:
  • W = welcome template
  • csd = speedy deletion warning
  •   = non-templated discussion
  • W = warning template
  •   = non-templated discussion
• G: Interactive plot of contributions made by the new editor in his first 30 days. Each block represents a revision colored by namespace(e.g. Articles, Talk,User, User_talk). As demonstrated in the screenshot, revisions can be selected to get a page title, comment and diff. Reverted edits (not pictured in this example) are noted with a red dot in the middle of the block (e.g.  · ).

How do I get involved?

Currently the system supports the minimal amount of features necessary to demonstrate what it is capable of. I needyour help to prioritize new features and to make sure the system is actually usable. You can help me out by:

• Take the current version for a test ride.
• Join me in an IRC demo & feedback session (#wikimedia-tools, Friday. Jan. 4th at 1700 UTC/11AM CST)
• Sign up to receive notification of new developments
• Submit bugs, features and pull requests to my public repository.

Or just post on my talk page.