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Maniphest T396382

Deployment Plan: Allow limiting "Add a Link" to new editors
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Description

User story & summary:

Task-specific user story:

  • As the Growth team, we want to deploy this feature set to a single wiki before releasing it more broadly to all wikis with the "Add a Link" task, so that we can identify and address any unforeseen issues with reduced complexity and impact.

Project-specific user stories:

  • As a new Wikipedia editor, I want a simple and guided way to start contributing because getting started feels overwhelming and too open-ended.
  • As an experienced Wikipedia editor, I want to prevent excessive "Add a Link" tasks from overwhelming my wiki, as they create a high volume of low-impact edits and add extra burden for patrollers.
Related tasks:

T390079: Design Exploration: Allow limiting "Add a Link" to new editors
T386034: Add a Link: Community Configuration setting to allow limiting "Add a Link" to new editors

Deployment plan:
  • This feature will NOT be A/B tested.
  • This feature will be community configurable, and will be rolled out as "turned off" (so there should be no user impact unless an admin adjusts Community Configuration)
  • Product will work with Product Ambassadors to inform communities
Acceptance Criteria:
  • Release as "turned off" to one Wikipedia: enwiki (Community Configuration set to "No"). Released on Monday, Jun 30, 2025, 7:34:27 PM UTC+02:00
  • Released as "turned off" to dewiki: Wednesday, July 9, 2025
  • Release as "turned off" to all wikis with "Add a link" available(Community Configuration set to "No") that have the "Add a Link" Structured Task available. Release Date: Monday, July 14, 2025

Details

Due Date
Sun, Jul 13, 10:00 PM
SubjectRepoBranchLines +/-
[Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikisoperations/mediawiki-configmaster+1 -7
Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewikioperations/mediawiki-configmaster+1 -0
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Event Timeline

KStoller-WMF created this task.Jun 9 2025, 4:01 PM
KStoller-WMF triaged this task as Medium priority.
KStoller-WMF moved this task from Inbox to Up Next on the Growth-Team board.Jun 9 2025, 4:06 PM
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 9 2025, 4:10 PM
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 9 2025, 8:14 PM
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 9 2025, 8:24 PM
KStoller-WMF edited subscribers, added: Urbanecm_WMF; removed: UrbanecmTest.
KStoller-WMF added a subscriber: Cyndymediawiksim.
Nemoralis subscribed.Jun 9 2025, 8:26 PM
KStoller-WMF moved this task from Up Next to Current Sprint on the Growth-Team board.Jun 10 2025, 4:55 PM
KStoller-WMF edited projects, added Growth-Team (Current Sprint); removed Growth-Team.
Johannnes89 subscribed.Jun 12 2025, 3:43 PM

Is it possible to become part of the early release like enwiki?
The add link task is still intensely discussed on dewiki. While there's a rough consensus that having this task as a start might be useful (discovering that it's actually possible to edit Wikipedia article), more and more people are getting annoyed of editors with dozens or hundreds of add link edits which serve little value to articles while those users apparently have no intention to turn to other tasks.
We've already restricted the options currently available via Special:CommunityConfiguration/GrowthSuggestedEdits to mitigate the issue and could potentially loosen some of the options (e.g. the daily limit of 4 edits) if there was an absolute limit.

KStoller-WMF added a comment.Jun 12 2025, 10:14 PM

The hope is that after QA on testwiki, that we can release to one wiki who plans to enable the limitation so we can closely work with the wiki if there are any unexpected bugs. But as long as we don't discover any bugs we plan to release to all wikis ASAP.

So yes, we can either include dewiki in the early release or at least make sure this is scaled to dewiki very soon after.

Sgs updated the task description. (Show Details)Wed, Jul 2, 9:21 AM
Sgs added a comment.Wed, Jul 2, 9:59 AM

@KStoller-WMF do we need to communicate with enwiki to let them know the feature is already available there? So far no limit has been set in MediaWiki:GrowthExperimentsSuggestedEdits.json.

Michael added a subscriber: Sdkb.Wed, Jul 2, 10:30 AM
In T396382#10966792, @Sgs wrote:

@KStoller-WMF do we need to communicate with enwiki to let them know the feature is already available there? So far no limit has been set in MediaWiki:GrowthExperimentsSuggestedEdits.json.

Probably yes, but I think that can wait until @KStoller-WMF/@Sdkb are back. As I understand it, they will need to first have a conversation about what value to limit it to anyway. So, we might even roll forward to another wiki (probably dewiki?) before that happens, maybe next week? IMHO, that's probably also something for @KStoller-WMF to decide next week.

Also, T393771: Send a notification to newcomers when Add a link edit threshold is reached is only rolling out with the train this week.

Johannnes89 added a comment.Wed, Jul 2, 10:57 AM
In T396382#10966926, @Michael wrote:

So, we might even roll forward to another wiki (probably dewiki?) before that happens, maybe next week? IMHO, that's probably also something for @KStoller-WMF to decide next week.

We are happy to pilot the feature :)

KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Mon, Jul 7, 8:49 PM
KStoller-WMF added a comment.Mon, Jul 7, 8:52 PM
In T396382#10967100, @Johannnes89 wrote:

We are happy to pilot the feature :)

I've updated the task. Let's release to dewiki, ideally tomorrow (Tuesday July 8th).

KStoller-WMF added a comment.Mon, Jul 7, 8:52 PM
In T396382#10966792, @Sgs wrote:

@KStoller-WMF do we need to communicate with enwiki to let them know the feature is already available there? So far no limit has been set in MediaWiki:GrowthExperimentsSuggestedEdits.json.

Yes! Ideally @Sdkb will start communication this week: T390613: Movement Communications Task: Share experiment results for enwiki "Add a Link" experiment & rollout communication

Sgs added a comment.Tue, Jul 8, 3:55 PM
In T396382#10980993, @KStoller-WMF wrote:
In T396382#10967100, @Johannnes89 wrote:

We are happy to pilot the feature :)

I've updated the task. Let's release to dewiki, ideally tomorrow (Tuesday July 8th).

Sorry, just reading this now. I can enable it tomorrow UTC morning.

Sgs claimed this task.Tue, Jul 8, 3:56 PM
gerritbot added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 11:35 AM

Change #1167587 had a related patch set uploaded (by Michael Große; author: Michael Große):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1167587

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Wed, Jul 9, 11:35 AM
gerritbot added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 1:09 PM

Change #1167587 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1167587

Stashbot added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 1:10 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-09T13:10:27Z] <sgimeno@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1167592|Add new script to update old freetext country data new schema (T397270)]], [[gerrit:1167587|Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewiki (T396382)]]

Stashbot mentioned this in T397270: Create a script to update the country schema to the new format.Wed, Jul 9, 1:10 PM
Stashbot added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 1:12 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-09T13:12:32Z] <sgimeno@deploy1003> mhorsey, sgimeno, migr: Backport for [[gerrit:1167592|Add new script to update old freetext country data new schema (T397270)]], [[gerrit:1167587|Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewiki (T396382)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Stashbot added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 1:20 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-09T13:20:35Z] <sgimeno@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1167592|Add new script to update old freetext country data new schema (T397270)]], [[gerrit:1167587|Growth: Enable limiting Add Link for dewiki (T396382)]] (duration: 10m 07s)

Sgs moved this task from Incoming to Doing on the Growth-Team (Current Sprint) board.Wed, Jul 9, 1:22 PM
Sgs added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 1:28 PM

Released today to dewiki ~13:20 UTC. Should we define a tentative date for the scaling to all sites in this task? Or wait for some monitoring in the enabled wikis? cc @KStoller-WMF

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Wed, Jul 9, 1:43 PM
KStoller-WMF added a comment.Wed, Jul 9, 5:25 PM
In T396382#10988110, @Sgs wrote:

Released today to dewiki ~13:20 UTC. Should we define a tentative date for the scaling to all sites in this task? Or wait for some monitoring in the enabled wikis? cc @KStoller-WMF

dewiki has already made use of the feature (thanks Johannnes89). Let's wait until next week and release to all wikis if we don't see any issues.

Release Date to all wikis with "Add a link" available: Monday, July 14, 2025

Does that sound good?

KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)Wed, Jul 9, 5:28 PM
Sgs moved this task from Doing to Incoming on the Growth-Team (Current Sprint) board.Thu, Jul 10, 10:19 AM
Michael set Due Date to Sun, Jul 13, 10:00 PM.Fri, Jul 11, 6:43 PM
Michael added a comment.Fri, Jul 11, 6:50 PM
In T396382#10989283, @KStoller-WMF wrote:
In T396382#10988110, @Sgs wrote:

Released today to dewiki ~13:20 UTC. Should we define a tentative date for the scaling to all sites in this task? Or wait for some monitoring in the enabled wikis? cc @KStoller-WMF

dewiki has already made use of the feature (thanks Johannnes89). Let's wait until next week and release to all wikis if we don't see any issues.

Release Date to all wikis with "Add a link" available: Monday, July 14, 2025

Does that sound good?

I'm not seeing any errors for dewiki that seem related, so I think we're good.

gerritbot added a comment.Mon, Jul 14, 10:09 AM

Change #1169064 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikis

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1169064

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Mon, Jul 14, 10:09 AM
Sgs moved this task from Incoming to Doing on the Growth-Team (Current Sprint) board.Mon, Jul 14, 10:14 AM
gerritbot added a comment.Mon, Jul 14, 1:16 PM

Change #1169064 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikis

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1169064

Stashbot added a comment.Mon, Jul 14, 1:16 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-14T13:16:50Z] <lucaswerkmeister-wmde@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1169064|[Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikis (T396382)]]

Stashbot added a comment.Mon, Jul 14, 1:18 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-14T13:18:45Z] <lucaswerkmeister-wmde@deploy1003> lucaswerkmeister-wmde, sgimeno: Backport for [[gerrit:1169064|[Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikis (T396382)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Stashbot added a comment.Mon, Jul 14, 1:25 PM

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2025-07-14T13:25:19Z] <lucaswerkmeister-wmde@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1169064|[Growth]: make limiting add a link available to all wikis (T396382)]] (duration: 08m 28s)

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Mon, Jul 14, 1:32 PM
Sgs added a comment.Tue, Jul 15, 9:57 AM

The deployment was done on Jul 14 ~15:25. Unless we find argument to keep this feature togg-able I'd recommend to make it part of the standard Add Link feature. The only thing to do is to deprecate the config feature flag GENewcomerTasksStarterDifficultyEnabled.

Sgs moved this task from Doing to Test in Production on the Growth-Team (Current Sprint) board.Tue, Jul 15, 9:57 AM
Michael added a comment.Tue, Jul 15, 12:13 PM
In T396382#11003772, @Sgs wrote:

The deployment was done on Jul 14 ~15:25. Unless we find argument to keep this feature togg-able I'd recommend to make it part of the standard Add Link feature. The only thing to do is to deprecate the config feature flag GENewcomerTasksStarterDifficultyEnabled.

I concur. Maybe waiting a week or two for anything to come up, but then we should look into removing that feature flag again.

Etonkovidova updated the task description. (Show Details)Thu, Jul 17, 10:48 PM
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