User blog:Jpearson/Technical Updates: July 14, 2023

Hey everyone!

Check out the latest Technical Updates since June 30th. We’ll continue to update the editor community on bug fixes and product development updates on a bi-weekly basis!

Notable Changes

 * Template editor popup no longer overlaps with a warning when one or more required fields are not entered, making the entire VisualEditor responsive again.


 * Under Other special pages in Special:SpecialPages and on AdminDashboard, four items were showing raw strings instead of proper labels. All items listed on Special:SpecialPages should be localized and show proper labels!


 * LinkSuggestions left a blank box after selecting a suggestion and when scrolling outside the editor. We’ve fixed this issue, and editors will no longer experience issues when scrolling outside the editor!

Known Issues

 * Some wikis are experiencing issues as the “Special:BrowseData” Page no longer functions and only returns a white screen after going to the page.


 * There appears to be an issue with the Light Theme background not appearing properly for some users after uploading a new version through the Theme Designer.


 * When editing in mobile, two related issues occur for users: some text that is on the page is lost when saving, and some text that was deleted from the page is restored after saving. A fix is in progress and we’ll report in the next update.


 * Users are experiencing issues when they open the mobile editor on pages where tabber is present. The same problem occurs using source editor mode and trying to switch between VisualEditor and SourceEditor pages results in users being stuck on a loading state on the page.


 * When editors create an infobox and set row labels, it fails to update the source variable name.

User-Generated Content (UGC) team

 * Continued editor growth. Last month, we shared the news that May saw the first year over year increase in new and active editors in four years. We’re happy to say that trend has continued, and June also showed year over year growth! Compared to June 2022, June 2023 saw a 31% year over year increase in new editors and a 23% year over year increase in active editors.


 * Thanks extension is in testing. We will continue testing for the next several weeks before moving into the full release, with even more wikis being added into the test to ensure analytical confidence in the results. In the meantime, if you’re interested in having your wiki be part of the Thanks testing, feel free to reach out to your Wiki Representative (if applicable) or Fandom Support so we can review your request!


 * Thanks notification preference for Gamepedia. Great news! The Thanks extension is now available to Gamepedia wikis without any restrictions.


 * Usability Testing Update. We conducted user testing on the default 2017 editor! Key findings showed that the Visual Editor takes the intimidation out of editing for newer users, encouraging them to explore the interface and build confidence. When exploring source mode, new users become apprehensive and far less willing to experiment as they express their need for tutorials, which may be something we can consider in the future to make source editing less daunting. As we continue to dive deeper into our research, we look forward to finding ways to support new editors and help them along their editing journey on the platform.


 * Social proof experiment. We recently concluded an experiment we called “social proof,” which showed avatars of real people who edited a page with the hypothesis that greater awareness that wiki content is user-generated will lead to an increase in registrations and therefore editors. The placements included a note below the main Edit button that said "X people contributed to this page" (with a few avatars showing) and a call to action below the table of contents. As we looked at the results, we saw that it did drive registration and get more people informed and interested about the wiki community, but that it also had an unexpected impact on other metrics like the amount of time people spend on the site. That tells us we still have work to do on what the best placement is for social proof, as our hypothesis is that the negative engagement number was the result of pushing content a bit further down the page than it previously was. We’ll continue to experiment!

Reported Notifications: As previously announced, moderators are currently not notified in any way when social content on their wikis get reported. The UGC team is working on notifications alerting moderators of content that needs their attention which will decrease the average time it takes for reported content to be actioned. As we continue to prepare for a wider release, we'll be sure to update the progress in future technical updates!
 * Bug fixing. One of the focuses of the UGC team for July is going to be on resolving some outstanding bugs, some of which are lingering from the MediaWiki 1.39 migration. We’ll be pushing to resolve as many of those as possible throughout the month, which should not only increase our capacity to work on non-bug-related issues but also to ensure that your editing experience is even smoother.
 * Additional experiments are running. We have several other experiments currently in progress or in development to continue growing our editor community, and we’re analyzing the results. If it looks good and we decide to productize it, we’ll let you know in a future Technical Update!

User Experience (UX) team

 * Registration button implementation. Back in January, we announced that we added a registration and sign in button to the top right corner of the page which successfully increased the number of registrations and, therefore, the number of editors on Fandom. Our implementation continued to rely on the experimental version, but we are working on integrating it natively to improve its performance.

If there’s anything you still think needs to be fixed that hasn’t yet, please be sure to either contact your Wiki Representative or, if your wiki doesn’t have one, send us a bug report!
 * Experiments are running! We’re continuing to run experiments to improve the user experience. As part of that, we’re also making some changes to how we conduct experiments which we believe will have a positive impact on overall site performance.