Wikipedia talk:Task Center/Archive 1

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Good idea

This seems like a good idea. I'll look it over more closely and may add to it in the morning. --FloNight 06:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a great idea. I've said for a couple of years that we needed something to replace the never-used (ok, seldom used) Requested Articles, but I've been lazy. This is a great idea because it opens the umbrella wide and makes our "work" fully representative. I'm thrilled with this idea, if people use it. (Folks will need an "I'm on it" line under each request so that everyone knows the other workers in the field to contact to cooperate and so folks don't butt heads over a task.) Geogre 12:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Okay. Put me down under category/template work, patrol of several maintenance categories, translation jobs and guideline/policy matters. >Radiant< 15:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This is absolutely brilliant. Snoutwood (talk) 18:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Scope

The idea is to have this as a self-help guide for newbies (and others), and a direction finder, not as a bulleting board for specific tasks that need to be done (we already have many of those). It's "some people are plumbers, plumbers repair plumbing, plumbers need wrenches, to find a plumber, look in...", not "plumber needed".

Maybe the title doesn't have the correct connotations. Any ideas for a better name? Zocky | picture popups 17:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

To use an obvious example, this is supposed to be a much upgraded version of the left column of Wikipedia:Community Portal#To do lists. Zocky | picture popups 18:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


job question

should i be posting jobs that are general, like wikifying? or should i be posting jobs that are more specific, like adding inline citations to a certain article? JoeSmack Talk(p-review!) 16:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

As I say above, general, not specific. Zocky | picture popups 17:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Any way that 'edit' can be inserted for each area, as opposed to having to bring up the source for the whole page? JoeSmack Talk(p-review!) 17:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I think it will requeire puting every box on a subpage. Alternatively, we could remove the subtitles from the boxes and put them above. Zocky | picture popups 18:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've decided to go for simplicity - the individual boxes are no longer subsections, so they don't appear in the TOC, but you can edit a section with 2-3 boxes instead of the whole page. Zocky | picture popups 19:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

How to go about it?

Ideally, everybody would describe a job they like doing or are at least familiar with, but it won't happen until this becomes at least somewhat useful, so visitors come by. We should therefore start by finding pages about the jobs we know about and copying the appropriate text and supplying the links. Zocky | picture popups 19:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC) As an alternative, we could spam various process pages that we know about and ask the editors there to help with theirs. Zocky | picture popups 19:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Old wikiquest list

I has a similar list made up at User:Rayc/Wikiquest, only it took more of an RPG angle on it. Feel free to use.--Rayc 20:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's a brilliant collection. I also love the "benefit to wikipedia" bit. Perhaps we should add that to this template? Zocky | picture popups 23:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Resolving Conflicts

I have spent some time doing RFC (well, a few days), and i was going to write a description for that job. However, there isn't a place to put it. Its not writing, it's not patrolling, and it's not gnoming. I am going to be bold and include a new category.--Connor K. 21:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, of course, feel free to add and regroup categories as needed. Zocky | picture popups 21:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Setting the tone

Ideally, this will become a useful page for newcomers to look over and find out how to help. I suggest that we avoid inside jokes, references to fighting, battles etc., for WP:BEANS reasons, if nothing else. Zocky | picture popups 23:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's an example: The current description of the new article patrol talks only about deletion of spam and such. A more appropriate angle would, IMO, be to talk about reviewing new additions to Wikipedia for encyclopedic value. In short, I think we should use language that a potentially useful contributor will find interesting, but that a vandal will find boring. Zocky | picture popups 23:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

A few ideas

I can't figure out how to include these, so I'm saying it here:

  • Portal Patrol - We've got lots of portals out there, and many of them would love to have information on what new articles are out there about their subjects, and what articles have recently been improved. Newcomers would be good at this sort of thing, as it basically consists of reading articles.
  • Reference Recovery (I love alliteration, don't you?) - Reading articles and determining which don't have references, or enough references, and marking them accordingly. Another thing that can be done relatively easily by newcomers.

Badbilltucker 17:37, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Rename?

I know, I know, I'm nitpicky — but honestly, these things have always caught my eye (I can't help it!). All I was thinking of is renaming the page to lowercase the "c", if that's acceptable. (I can't help but mention that secretly I want to rename the page to Wikipedia:Unemployment centre). Snoutwood (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Lowercase 'c' is fine by me. Also, i'm wondering if a redirect from Wikipedia:Unemployment centre would be objectionable (meh, i'm 'thinkin why not'?) JoeSmack Talk(p-review!) 18:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I've done the rename... hope that's O.K. Snoutwood (talk) 07:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Category and template work?

Should category and template work be on here somewhere? Well, maybe not template work, as I don't understand template codes either... But category work would be nice to see here somewhere. I've often thought of writing something about each of the areas I've worked in, just to consolidate my thoughts on those areas. But I think what I'm thinking of is more like the Wikiquest page mentioned above. Anyway, this looks like a nice clear way of introducing people to different areas of Wikipedia work. I've always found the Community Portal list of things to do terribly long. It would take years to work through the different areas mentioned there. Is this intended to be broader? If so, we probably don't want to mention individual wikiprojects, but rather just explain the idea and link to a list. Carcharoth 20:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:BORED

There already some stuff listed at Wikipedia:The Cure for WikiBoredom. Maybe some of it can be used here too… benzband (talk) 12:35, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Posting requests

Please post requests to add a job on this page with the heading Job Request. User:Tortle will get back to you and approve or deny the request. Please do not edit the Job Center page if your request is denied or before you post a request. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tortle (talk • contribs) 09:17, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 9 September 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved with consensus (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 21:39, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Job Center → Wikipedia:Task Center – this page does not list paid jobs so it shouldn't be named "job center". Prisencolin (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 14:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Support, per JoeHebda above. The page is more of a list of "tasks" rather than "jobs." Gabe Iglesia (talk) 07:42, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Support, per above. --TerraCodes (talk to me) 22:12, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Support, per above - No brainer tbh. –Davey2010Talk 20:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposal: Rename to 'Task Center'

Greetings, To me a Job Center is a place to find work/employment. So I find this confusing in that WP is not offering any jobs to editors, these are Tasks. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

  • I agree, posting an RM right now.--Prisencolin (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
    • Why Did We Chose To Capitalize 'Center' When Most Project Pages Do Not Use Title Case (The only exceptions that immediately come to mind are WP:Main Page and WP:Manual of Style, both of which are exceptional)? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:43, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Grammar Editing Tasks

I didn't notice a section for editing the grammar for pages. Just wondering if that is a task category and if not can we create one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BookPortal (talk • contribs) 23:04, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:33, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Preventing users from being overwhelmed by large categories

By way of context, I'm looking at this page for potential inclusion as one of three main links on a redesigned and streamlined welcome template for new users under discussion at the Village Pump here.

I like it better than WP:Maintenance and Opentask because of its strong visual design and overall friendliness to new users. The one big downside it has compared to Opentask, though, is that it links to huge, overwhelming maintenance categories, whereas Opentask provides example random articles within those categories, making it easier to dive in. I think even most experienced users confronted with something like Category:Wikipedia introduction cleanup will often navigate away, whereas the "Improve lead sections" box at the bottom left of Opentask with five examples provides a great way to dive in, with the "More..." button always available for those who want the full list. Is there some way we could implement that here? Even a link to a random page needing intro cleanup would be better than linking to the full category. Sdkb (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I found a random page in category template, so I'll try introducing that for now. Also pinging @Nettrom:, the owner of the Opentask suggestion bot. Sdkb (talk) 20:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Okay, did that. It looks like the template isn't currently capable of searching subcategories, though, which makes it not very useful. I added some code to make it go to the current month for Articles to Be Expanded, but that makes it a bit unwieldy, and we should be ideally trying to clear all parts of backlogs. I hope the subcategory issue will be fixed, so that we can remove that workaround. Sdkb (talk) 21:54, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, it looks like Category:All articles to be expanded also exists, which might be a better solution. It's still not ideal, but since it's an improvement, I'll implement it. Sdkb (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I feel.bad that it's only me over and over again at all these help pages (I am the only one left from the help project still active that edits all these pages)....but have to say good job.I think this is much better.--Moxy 🍁 22:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy: Thanks! And no worries; I'm glad there is at least one other! It's been odd to be going through all these high-visibility pages that have clearly had a lot of work put into them, but seem pretty abandoned now (and in some cases are starting to show it, either through old design or through outdated content). I just hope that there's enough attention still being paid that it's possible to form a consensus at the pump for some kinds of changes to the welcome template (even though we disagree on which intro to link to, I think we're on the same page about overall reform; the current welcome not linking to any of the task pages is a big oversight). Sdkb (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Agree many pages abandoned.....I try to keep up with the top 100 or so help pages. We have many that could be deleted or merged. ..like the WP:Tutorial should just redirect to Help:Introduction or all redirected to WP:Adventure or all to Help:Introduction as all 3 have the same format and don't work well mobile view so why have 3..lets get one a fix it for mobile view!--Moxy 🍁 23:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Moxy: It looks like there was a proposal (that I would've supported) to redirect WP:Tutorial to Help:Introduction in 2018, but it didn't get enough consensus to pass (largely from editors unhappy with the visual editor). You were among the voices opposing it, although not for that reason; have the pages or your views shifted since then? I'm still trying to catch up on all the history, so any context is appreciated. As for the WP:Adventure, I think it does have a place, particularly for younger editors looking for a very visual/interactive tutorial, but it should be secondary; we need to fix whatever mobile issues Help:Introduction has first. Regarding that, any suggestions on where on WP to go to find someone to do it? Sdkb (talk) 00:07, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Replied on your talk..--Moxy 🍁 02:06, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Refining the tasks listed here

Having just reviewed the list of tasks, it seems there's some room for refinement.

  • Balancing out more and less important tasks: There are some relatively obscure tasks that seem to be given too much prominence (i.e. new image patrol has its own section but should probably be rolled into new image maintenance), and there are some more significant tasks that seem to be somewhat hidden (i.e. adding images is only barely alluded to under the image maintenance section).
  • Adding missing tasks: Off the top of my head, I can think of some important tasks not listed here, such as WP:AfD and portal maintenance. We should have some discussions about what's missing.
  • Targeting to new editors with specific skills: Some editors may come in with specific skills or interests, such as copy editing or copyright law. The page doesn't currently do a good job directing those editors to the best place for them to contribute — the "general article maintenance" section should probably be renamed and feature language plugging the benefits of copy editing, for instance.
  • Updating and better targeting the "Do it!" links: I have the sense that the links in the "Do it!" column aren't always the best option for their task, and some may be out of date. For instance, is the {{Help Me}} template really still used all that much, or should we remove the Category:Wikipedians looking for help from that section? The WikiProjects associated with each section might be able to help us out with that, although we'd need to limit them adding too many minor links, per the balancing concern above.
  • Directing new editors to tasks suited for them: As I see it, this page is designed explicitly to be friendly to newcomers, with WP:Maintenance offering a more comprehensive overview of tasks. (I just added a hatnote to that effect. WP:Maintenance also needs a lot of work, but that's a separate issue.) There are some tasks listed here that don't seem very newcomer-friendly, such as Good Article Patrol. We have two directions we could go with this:
    1. Remove them, leaving them for WP:Maintenance. This has the benefit of making this page less overwhelming, but also makes it less useful for more experienced editors (including newcomers who keep referring to it as they become more experienced).
    2. Keep them, but mark which tasks are newcomer-friendly and which require more experience. (I did just remove the bare-bones version of this, but that was because it referred only to technical permissions and was thus of almost no usefulness.) This would make this page more useful to experienced editors, but could clutter it up if not well-designed, and created overlap with WP:Maintenance.

Overall, none of these issues are so glaring as to impact the functioning of this page; I still think it's ready in its current state for use with a redesigned welcome template. Indeed, having more attention on this page from such a placement might help a lot with getting it up to speed. That said, the issue of how to handle tasks for more experienced users in particular shouldn't just be left dangling. I'd appreciate thoughts from others on which direction we should go with that, and I hope all of this serves as a useful guide for further future development of this page. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 23:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, I agree that some changes would be good. In newcomer-friendliness, "Creating an article" is not the most newcomer-friendly task and should probably not come first. Separately, I'd suggest Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors as a good task to link to. AfC is also in need of people to re-write and rescue articles; almost no-one does this, and it would probably massively WP:encourage the newcomers. Listing of some tasks that help new editors here might be very productive. WP:WikiProject Inline Templates, for adding Inline cleanup tags to newbie edits, for instance, has been shown to increase retention by prompting newbies to improve and cite their edits. HLHJ (talk) 19:30, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Copyright check with our tools (copy-patrol) is very easy for new editors as well. --Moxy 🍁 19:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Good point, and it's an educational task. It seems as though there are a lot of tasks for newbies that we aren't recommending. An RfC to collect such tasks might even be useful, or even a task center with needed-experience rankings for the tasks. HLHJ (talk) 22:11, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
@HLHJ: I'm not familiar with using RfCs to answer a question as open-ended as that. Is that allowed/what would it look like? I'm certainly interested in bringing in wider participation to help with revamping this page. Sdkb (talk) 23:22, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb, RfC is short for "Requests for comment"; I've sometimes seen it used to gather ideas, and I think it would be fine. If you want to check, posting to Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment should get you a quick response (turns out you don't need to; someone else has, and it's fine). I'm thinking a question like "We request nominations for well-defined tasks to be listed on Wikipedia:Task Center. Suggestions with a suggested text and links are particularly welcome; if you can, please also comment on the experience needed to perform the task."
I'd suggest categorizing the tasks by the experience level need by the editor, with the easiest first. So copyediting before new article patrol, and new article patrol before serving on arbcom! HLHJ (talk) 03:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
@HLHJ: Okay, so I just took a stab at introducing an "experience level" parameter. How does it look? Feel free to modify any of the ratings I assigned; I may have gotten some wrong. Sdkb (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
That's great, Sdkb! Thank you very much. I'm sure editors more expert in each of the individual tasks will soon turn up with comments if the estimates are off, but nothign looks unreasonable. Photo requests, which tend to be totally ignored at the moment, would be a good task for newcomers if framed as taking, not finding photos; anyone can take a photo and upload it. A separate issue is what we use as a primary key. Listing tasks by ascending experience level rather than categorizing by type of work might prioritize the newcomers. I guess the question is what categorization is most useful; what are people going to be choosing tasks by? Some chunking might reduce choice overload. HLHJ (talk) 03:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
This might require some more coding to implement, but my ideal would be keeping tasks sorted by type but allowing filtering by experience level. There could be a menu up top, for instance, asking "how much experience do you have?" and it would then display tasks with that level or easier. Sdkb (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I've repeatedly thought that we need filterable tables as well as sortable tables. This would be especially useful with tables automatically generated from Wikidata, where one field (say, the countries in which a species is found) may return multiple values that go in one table cell, making sorting by that column fairly meaningless. Here's another application. HLHJ (talk) 03:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, I don't think I'd ever come across this page before being pinged at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-01/Opinion, but I'm loving it. This format has a lot of potential for being very useful to readers getting started as editors, I think, but it could be revamped. Definitely "Creating an article" is not good for newbies; "Conflict Resolution", "Good Articles", "Help Someone" and "The Rewards Board" also don't strike me as great places for new editors.

I think the "Do It!" sections are a bit overloaded with too many links, and sometimes the links aren't that helpful. Take "Translate an Article": I click on three links and two of them ([[Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English|1], 2) are non-navigable messes that don't mean anything to (hypothetical) me, a reader who has never seen an internal Wikipedia page before, because it's not signposted enough which text I'm (a) reading for advice or (b) looking as examples of work to do. The third one is "random link in category", which is what I want... unless the tag is in a subsection of the article, like the article I happened to get, which would confuse the hell out of somebody new who is sent to the top of the page. Some of the "More Information" links are also a bit unhelpful: how do I know which of WP:Translation and WP:Translate us I want? The simplest possible link is the right one—in this case, Wikipedia:Translate us (spell the namespace out in full). — Bilorv (talk) 22:57, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed that each task should have a single newbie-comprehensible start point, or more than one with a clear reason for the choice. HLHJ (talk) 03:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
let's assemble links we think may be new user friendly..... Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism (Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit)...Wikipedia:Typo Team...making links Wikipedia:Orphaned articles by WikiProject (Wikipedia:WikiProject Orphanage).--Moxy 🍁 03:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for those thoughts, Bilorv, and agreed! Regarding translation specifically, Category:Articles needing translation from foreign-language Wikipedias was one of the few categories I didn't replace with a "go to random page in" link, since editors will likely want to translate a page from a language they're proficient in. Perhaps we could add some signposting at the category page itself? And the subsection issue is something I've found when testing links for a bunch of categories here. The random page in category tool is definitely not advanced enough to handle linking to anchors part way down a page (it can't even handle subcategories currently), so the most we might be able to do is to warn people here that they might have to scroll. That's definitely not optimal. One other issue with the random tool: when a category is empty (as is often true with Category:Wikipedians looking for help and possibly some others here), it just goes to the tool's page, rather than displaying any error message. Sdkb (talk) 18:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
There are templates to insert the current sizes of backlogs; this could not only give you the clue that the zero-backlog link won't work, but also hint where work is most needed. I edited the translation description; I think relaxing the edit notice a bit for a while might be useful. I propose Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user, (more commonly called "mentoring", for advanced editors. The number of editors is declining; we all need to train at least one editor to succeed us. HLHJ (talk) 03:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The tricky part about listing the size of backlogs would be that some of them are "naturally" much larger than others, and some are worked through much more quickly than others. The folks who choose the backlog of the week might have better insights about how to identify which backlogs most urgently need clearing. Agreed about adopt-a-user. And also agreed about the edit notice — I transferred it a week or so ago instead of getting rid of it since a page like this is at very high risk of becoming bloated with every editor's favorite obscure WikiProject, but while we're constructing it let's get it up to speed before we start pruning. Sdkb (talk) 04:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks! The natural-size problem could perhaps be partially fixed by using the templates that give the backlogs in terms of time in the queue. We could also code them by colour; delay number is in a red box, overwhelmed, blue box, just fine, various shades of purple in-between (I think this would meet the accessibility guidelines for those with colourblindness, but a non-colour secondary coding might be good, too). This would require allowing every project to set a standard, though it would be easy enough to set sensible defaults. You could then skim to see where editors were needed. The current list is a bit bulky for an overview; could we maybe collapse the descriptions and links? HLHJ (talk) 03:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

order of things

So great progress here...so let order as per difficulty levels ....easiest to hardest.--Moxy 🍁 08:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  1. Anti-Vandalism (no coding involved)
  2. Categorization (very simple coding)
  3. Image Maintenance (very simple coding)
  1. Copy editing (need to know Wikipedia:Core content policies)
  2. Copyright violations (great introduction to our simplest tool CopyPatrol)
  3. Fact-Checking (need to know Wikipedia:Core content policies and Wikipedia:Reliable sources)
  4. Translate an Article (need to know Wikipedia:Core content policies and Wikipedia:Reliable sources)
  1. Expand a Short Article (getting more difficult ...need MoS and sourcing knowledge)
  2. Merging and Splitting (WP:Merging and WP:Splitting)
  3. All discussions - Contribute to Noticeboards
  4. Help Someone
  1. New Pages Patrol/New Images Patrol
  2. Create an Article
  3. Good Articles/FA
  4. Conflict Resolution
To confirm, you're categorizing tasks into four levels here? Looks good to me. I think your ratings pretty much line up with the current "suitable for" tags. I'd move translation up a bit (assuming the article in the source language is decent, all you really need is language proficiency) and swap noticeboards with helping (discussions that get to the point of being brought to a noticeboard are almost always tricky, whereas most questions asked on help pages are simple), but those are small quibbles. I think we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves, though — let's make sure we've defined the tasks we want before sorting them. Also, as I said above, I do like having the broad sections (currently writing, maintenance, and community) — I'm fine ordering by difficulty within those, but I wouldn't want them to fully go away. Sdkb (talk) 08:27, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
this looks really terrific, Moxy. thanks for your efforts, and for setting up this highly-useful system. looks good, thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
It is somewhat useful.....but one of the reasons it has been neglected as of late is because of feedback. Many don't find linking a category listing thousands of pages to fix starting with number articles all that encouraging and leading contributing....it's why the project made Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask for newbies. So having different levels here is best as most newbies will move on but intermediate and advanced editors can be guided to the right place. New editors real are not a fan on non standard pages....because they grew up on the article format....older editors appreciate stylistic pages. Same reason we can't get newbies to read multiple page tutorials....simply not the norm they are accustomed to...thus making things even more confusing so they simply give up.--Moxy 🍁 22:26, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Remove rewards board?

It seems pretty inactive, with few postings and (presumably) even fewer editors taking up those postings. And most of what's listed there isn't beginner-friendly anyways. And (more minorly) the idea of editing for the purpose of getting a reward doesn't seem to fit with our culture very well. Sdkb (talk) 22:47, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Add example articles?

Copying over from Wikipedia talk:New user landing page:

the task center links to a page like Category:All stub articles over the Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask that lists some examples and also links Category:All stub articles. Can we work on the WP:Task Center to list examples over (−1)F for a new editors 3rd click.
— User:Moxy

I'm inclined to agree that this would be nice. The "random" button I introduced is a big step up from the raw categories used prior, but there's still something about actually seeing the name of the article I'd be editing that helps draw me to do so. There are two main things we need to figure out to implement this. The first is formatting. I'd support modifying {{Job description}} to be more like four equally-spaced columns, with the last one containing examples from the most pertinent category of the section. How does that sound? Secondly, we need to figure out how to get the bots that update the articles working here. Pinging PFHLai, who seems to be the one updating them at Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask: what would be needed for that? Sdkb (talk) 15:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, to everyone, the proposal at that page to link to the Task Center here could use a little more discussion to make consensus clear enough for my edit request to be resolved. Feel free to share thoughts. Sdkb (talk) 08:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

New Job Proposal

Maintenance

Answer an Edit Request

Suitable for intermediate editors
Help someone add their content on the behalf of them.

Sometimes, users cannot add content because the page is protected. Users with a conflict of interest or are paid to edit to an article are almost always not allowed to add content. Instead, they have to make an edit request, and you will review their request to see if they should be included.

More Information
Do It!

Our 2 most backlogged edit requests. Pending changes, EPER, TPER, FPER, and IPER are not always backlogged, probably because they are made by more experienced users and those type of protections are not used as often, apart of pending changes which is reviewed more often. However, SPER and COI edit request are always backlogged. They will get a monthly low, and then sky rocket again, just like when you reopen the country too early during a COVID-19 epidemic, or pending changes getting a monthly high. Of course, this won't eliminate the backlog, but maybe just make people more aware of it. Oh are they aware of it already? Oh well it's something for people ot do at least. {{replyto}} Can I Log In's (talk) page 17:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Can I Log In: Looks good to me; feel free to add it! One question: "Intermediate" seems about right, but I haven't done much edit request handling. For COI requests in particular, does it take a lot of skill to parse which requests are safe to approve and which are trying to sneak non-neutral or otherwise objectionable material into the article? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Umm, Spintendo has done the most COI edit request out of any wikipedians according to his graph and month counts. Oh well, gone on break. So here my experience.
COI edit request are the most complicated, which is why almost nobody does them. There is a reason we make them propose edits. Are they verifiable is the most important thing to go after, which can take some time. From paid editors who may not have a non-finacial COI, they may have provided sources to verification, but then remember, they have a financial COI. In that case, I would find the sources my self, because do not rely on the sources provided by the paid editor. I've also seen WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE, so in that case, paraphrase it yourself neutrally, like the one here containing close paraphrasing and a promo tone. It's verifiable, but may be promo. here was a COI edit request I accepted that was apparently according to an SPI was problematic.
Normally in SPERs, the main issue is verifiability. In COI edit request, it's verifiability and NPOV and promo. Maybe you could dig up on Spintendo's COI edit request evolution since 30 months compared to 1.5 ‒ 2 months.
Overall, check for copyvio, verify, NPOV, promo, and done. Any issues, be bold and fix it yourself if you can. So intermediate seems right, but yeah could lean to advanced. Protected edit request can help. {{replyto}} Can I Log In's (talk) page 00:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@Can I Log In: Hmm, so it seems that SPERs are intermediate but COIERs are possibly advanced. Not sure how we should handle that, since we'd ideally want to make that distinction clear to anyone who wants to try doing them. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Link to empty category?

In the "fact-checking" box, there is a link that appears to go to a random page in Category:All articles with bare URLs for citations. However, that is an empty category. Perhaps it used to have articles that were since removed? This seems like it needs updating , whether that is removing the link or adding articles to that category. Agdearshah (talk) 21:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Agdearshah, it's a category that can be frequently empty. Any article tagged with {{Cleanup bare URLs}} will be added to the category. The reason it exists is because of link rot. If we can't use the URL for verification, then we can always use other parts of the citation. So any article in that category we will expand the citation. {{replyto}} Can I Log In's (talk) page 23:43, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
@Agdearshah and Can I Log In: Yep, I asked about this at the random tool two months ago, but no response yet. It should at least throw up an error message so you know why you're not being given a page. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:44, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request service

The WP:Feedback request service currently isn't working, but it should be added here when it's up and running again.

By the way, I think it might be a good idea to restructure the page with the easy/anyone tasks at the top, moving to intermediate then advanced at the bottom. Alsee (talk) 05:16, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Alsee: Good thought. Under the "contribute to noticeboards" section, I replaced a link to a massive category of noticeboards with a link to WP:Dashboard, which includes RfCs (although probably not prominently enough; that should be fixed there).
Regarding ordering, it's semi done that way currently. I think the best solution would be to enable users to toggle an option that filters by difficulty level, so they can see all the tasks they might want to so. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:24, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Chnage the 'suitable for all editors'

Hello. I am a newcomer and I wanted to help here, but I quickly noticed that some things are wrong with the classification of this page.

I don't think 'suitable for all editors' is right for the section 'Writing'. These tasks are not easy tasks, especially for newcomers. Writing a Stub article is requiring a lot of research and some articles are so small that they seem to be as hard as recreating it from scratch. I would suggest making this to 'Suitable for intermediate editors' at least. Also, saying that translating an article is easy is quick.

I would suggest making the 'Maintenance' section first in the list, because these are really tasks that are friendly for newcomers to understand how editing Wikipedia works and what they can do if they don't know what to do.

What do you think? --Chopin2712 (talk) 08:07, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Chopin2712, the "expand a short article" was intermediate until someone changed it in June. I agree with you; I'll change it back. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb OK good idea :) --Chopin2712 (talk) 08:17, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Translation color and term

Sdkb, in this edit, you changed the color of the Translation level from goldenrod (sample text in goldenrod) to green (sample text in green), with the edit summary, "the colors are more difficulty level than widespreadedness". I had assumed that green was for the easiest tasks, so I'm confused. Can you explain?

Secondly, you changed the text from "bilingual editors" to "multilingual editors", but translation from one language to another never requires multilingualism, only bilingualism. Mathglot (talk) 02:24, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Mathglot, when we set up the colors a few months ago, the intention was for them to correspond to difficulty level, with green being easiest. Translating is (as far as I'm aware, with the caveat that I'm not too involved in that area) a fine task for beginners that know multiple languages, so I reverted the change from green to yellow. In other words, just since not all editors are multilingual doesn't mean it's not an easy task for those who are.
Regarding bilingual vs. multilingual, I think the latter is grammatically correct. A given translation will only ever involve knowledge of two languages, yes, but the word refers to the editor, not the translation, and "bilingual" would exclude editors who know more than two languages. It's a minor point since no one is going to mistake the meaning, but we may as well be correct. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:33, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Look up bilingual or multilingual in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Grammatically correct? Of course they are both grammatically correct, but that has nothing to do with the issue, which is about semantics, not grammar, right? Your subsequent comment is exactly backwards: the word "bilingual" does not exclude editors who know more than two languages; the fact that someone is, say, a French-English bilingual competent to translate articles from fr-wiki, says nothing one way or the other about whether or not they know German and Spanish as well. On the other hand, saying that someone is multilingual, means they speak at least three languages, and that is not required for translations. Accordingly, I've reverted that portion of your change, to read "bilingual" again.
As to the color issue, you said:

just since not all editors are multilingual doesn't mean it's not an easy task for those who are.

Seriously? Sdkb, I really respect your work in a lot of areas around here, so I'm not going to get into a debate with you about this, especially when the end result of what we would be discussing is a font color. So I'm just going to leave the color the way you chose it. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 06:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I was actually going to boldly make these edits, but since there's been recent discussion of this I guess I should chime in first. I think that translation should be listed as a task for intermediate editors with bilingual proficiency. While translation can sometimes be pretty straightforward, articles that exist on other Wikipedias may not meet notability guidelines here, and there can also be issues with scope when article subjects don't translate easily across languages, and articles on other Wikipedias may be in poor shape. All in all, I don't think that translation, and especially translation from smaller projects to enWiki, is significantly easier task than writing an article from scratch. I think that the entire writing section should be moved below maintenance, since by and large they are a more difficult (or at least time-intensive) set of tasks. signed, Rosguill talk 17:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
    @Rosguill: That's persuasive enough to me; feel free to make the change. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:12, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Advanced editors?

Wikipedia:Task_Center#Writing expanding a stub is for intermediate editors? Creating an article is for advanced editors? These are the core of what Wikipedia does...?? That's at the same level as reviewing GA nominations! Both should be lowered to suitable for beginner editors. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I think that having stub-expansion listed as beginner-friendly and article creation as intermediate would be appropriate. signed, Rosguill talk 17:43, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
  • This page as a whole is designed for new editors. Comparing to other tasks, I think intermediate for stub expansion is okay, since it's a substantial step up from e.g. fixing typos. Regarding creating articles, that's certainly not as hard as GA review (I'm going to change the latter to "very advanced", since it's in its own category), but I do think it's a step up from the intermediate tasks, since it requires lots of skills together: notability, referencing, summary style, neutrality, etc. A large purpose of the task center is to take the giant flood of people who come here wanting to make a page and persuade them to do something else first instead to give them time to learn. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
    That's true, but they can still give it a shot, WP:WIP. It takes just 10 edits 4 days to make one, not the end of the world if it needs cleanup, and they can't possibly do worse than many of the articles sitting in maintenance cats, or all the promo submissions. Plus, it's pretty much equivalent to expanding a stub. Despite 6 million articles, I constantly come across notable stuff which doesn't have an article. I think it makes sense not to discourage people from creating them, by calling it 'advanced'. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:01, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposing to add citationhunt in Fact Checking Category

I found citationhunt to be a very easy and straighforward way to contribute to fact checking. It has a modern and simple interface, and I can see the citation that is needed before I decide if I want to work on it. It simplifies the workflow for a new editor like myself. Would there be any interest in adding it to the table along the other options? QuantumWasp (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

QuantumWasp, great idea!  Done. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:48, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Layout/design improvements

@Moxy and BrandonXLF: Okay, so BrandonXLF and I made a flurry of design modifications to this page earlier, resulting in this version, which Moxy then brought back to the status quo. Separating them out, the changes were:

  • Making the shortcut box small. (I think we all agree on this one, at least?)
  • Putting the "this week" boxes on the same line as the TOC/shortcut box to eliminate the excess white space there
  • Alternately, finding some way to move the "this week" boxes to the bottom of the page
  • Changing the coloring/formatting of the main header. I had it at the version linked above, but after some playing around with a box that I shamelessly appropriated from Yug's userpage, I've created the version below, which I think is better.
  • Moving {{Maintenance departments}} to the bottom of the page, rather than above even the main header

Which of these changes do you or others support or oppose? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Moxy, I'm fine moving the weekly stuff to the bottom; an inexperienced editor just directed to Meatloaf because it's the article of the week isn't going to have much idea what to do, so it's not that useful. Are we agreed about making the shortcut box small and moving {{Maintenance departments}} to the bottom as well? If so, let's implement. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:11, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed new header

Welcome to the
Wikipedia Task Center!


What do Wikipedians do?

If you are looking for a way to help, find a task that suits you, read the appropriate background pages, and be bold.

And if you are here for the fuzzy feeling, stand back and marvel at the range of work that is done daily by other Wikipedians.

– {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

looks great ...but...mobile view....move this weeks stuff to the bottom. Don't WP:Sandwich stuff. --Moxy 🍁 13:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
BrandonXLF, sorry to keep calling on your help, but I have no clue how to do this, so... any chance you might know how to modify the code for the box so that it'll display alright on mobile? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:13, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The image not showing is a talk page only issue, see [1]. – BrandonXLF (talk) 23:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
@BrandonXLF and Moxy: Oh cool! For me, it's displaying okayish on mobile — you see the text on the left fine, but then the globe is offscreen to the right, and the page width is expanded so you have to scroll sideways to see it. We have a few display options, any of which would be better: (1) not show the globe on mobile, (2) show the globe on top on mobile, and (3) lower the opacity for mobile and then use the globe as a background in the box with the text on top of it. I think the third option could be kinda cool. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:57, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
ok tried something pls take a look...do we really need {{Maintenance departments}} its just in the way and most links are at the bottom already. Have not been around much taking care of our COVID project...lets get this moving so we can all get more important stuff done.--Moxy 🍁
Wonderful proposal, I've just noticed the new header. Beautiful. Thanks! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Very nice. Just wondering if it could/should say something about having an account and logging in. For example: Yes you can just go ahead and click the edit button but it is "better" if you have log in. Vtaylor (talk) 21:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Vtaylor, hmm, I am trying to resist the urge to give out general getting started advice here, since it's not a getting started-type page. If there are tasks that require you to have an account, though, we could add a notice for those tasks shown only to IP users (as is done e.g. at H:ITW using {{If IP}}. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Levels of experience

Hello, I'm Chicdat. I was just looking at this page, and I noticed that it was very unclear when beginner turned into intermediate, and when intermediate turned into advanced. How could we make this more clear? 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 12:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm open to ideas. What specifically is making it unclear? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 15:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether I'm intermediate or advanced. But I'm also concerned that newbies that just turned extended confirmed may mistakenly describe themselves as "intermediate" when really that comes when they've made their way up part of the learning curve, and that advanced comes when they've climbed the better part of it. Instead, they may think (as I did!) that there is a fixed position where we gain more experience, perhaps extended confirmed, or (!) autoconfirmed. Users below that are "new", users above that are "experienced." New users need to know this. I quote from a trusted longtime admin:[nb 1] "There are some users with 10,000 edits [and a year of experience] that still don't understand 3RR, and some editors, barely extended confirmed, who quote core Wikipedia policies, and don't just read them, but know them." I know that quote; they should, too. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 11:30, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
  1. ^ I hope I got it all right.
Ah, that makes sense. I think what we ought to do then is add a key that explains what we mean by the different levels. Any ideas on how to design that? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 15:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not a very technical user. I'd say find someone with template experience. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 11:03, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
We'd have to make it clear though that the levels aren't set in stone. It might be detrimental to the wiki if editors that come here, who might be perfectly capable of helping out with tasks, think that they can't because they're not an advanced editor. βӪᑸᙥӴ • Talk • Contribs 23:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Job request

I have been working on a Wikipedia page called list of Crayola colors but it sometimes fells like I'm the only one putting improvements on the page so I request that list of Crayola colors is on article of improvement and its ok if its not accepted.

You can nominate it at WP:AFIN if it meets the criteria there, but it might not for pageviews. Quite often when working on an obscure page you'll be the only one doing so, but you can always ask questions or seek help at the WP:Teahouse and other venues. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:41, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Growth features and tasks for newcomers

Hello Task Center folks -- I'm Marshall Miller; I'm the product manager for the Wikimedia Foundation's Growth team, which works on features meant to increase the retention of new editors. The features give newcomers clear tasks to do to get started, and connect them with an experienced mentor to answer their questions.

Screenshot of suggested edits module in Czech Wikipedia

In the past year, we have found evidence that the Growth features have a positive impact on newcomer engagement, and this has led us to deploy the features to a total of 33 wikis, including some large ones like French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese Wikipedias. So far, so good! Because we've seen the features lead to good outcomes, we have started the conversation around what it would be like to try them on English Wikipedia.

I'm posting here because you all have thought a lot about how newcomers can find tasks, and that's exactly what the Growth features are about. Specifically, they source tasks from maintenance templates that already exist on the articles in the wiki, and let users filter by topic (e.g. art, music, physics). Since the feature was first deployed 1.5 years ago, 93,000 of these edits have been done by 14,000 distinct people, with revert rates comparable to the usual revert rates from newcomer edits. I hope some of you can check out the project page and also the discussion where we are thinking about how to try these features on English Wikipedia. Please do chime in either here, or on that discussion page. If you want to try out the features, you can see these simple instructions for how to try them on Test Wikipedia. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello everyone -- I'm following up here to let everyone know that the Growth features are now available to test on English Wikipedia. They are not being assigned to any newcomers yet, but experienced users may turn them on in preferences to try them. We hope you try them out on desktop or mobile and leave any notes here (or on the project talk page). After a couple weeks, and after we iron out any issues, we plan to start giving the features to 2% of newcomers to get a sense of how they work on this wiki, and so that we can make plans for next steps.
To test the features, please go to your user preferences and then:
This will give you access to the homepage (Special:Homepage), and, from there, you will be able to:
  • contact your mentor
  • select your favorite topics and tasks to make some suggested edits
  • browse help pages
  • see your impact
You will also see the help panel being visible when editing, or when browsing help pages.
-- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:49, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes Rahaish789 (talk) 10:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Growth team feature test begins tomorrow (June 8)

Hello everyone -- in the past weeks, lots of English community members have tried out the features, and we've heard largely positive reactions and ideas. We also have 16 mentors signed up (we don't need more for this test, but we will need more in the future!) After discussing it with the most involved community members, we set a date to begin testing the features on this wiki. Our plan is to start giving the Growth features to 2% of newcomers starting tomorrow, June 8. This means that for all new accounts created starting tomorrow, 2% of them will have the Growth features and the rest will not. Because English Wikipedia gets about 130,000 new accounts per month, we expect this will amount to 2,600 newcomers having the features over the course of the month.

I don't think this deployment will affect the day-to-day for the Task Center, except it's possible some newcomers may ask about the difference between the Task Center and the suggested edits they get via the Growth features. If that happens, it will definitely be important to know, and we can talk about how to address that distinction (or maybe combine efforts) in the future. Edits from newcomers with the Growth features will be visible in Recent Changes and watchlists with the tags #Newcomer task, #Mentorship module question, and #Mentorship panel question.

While the test is running, the Growth team will monitor newcomer activity to identify if anything negative is occurring (like an increase in vandalism) -- if something goes wrong, we'll be able to quickly make changes. At the end of about four weeks, we'll reflect on the data and ask mentors about their experiences to decide how to proceed, in terms of whether to increase the number of newcomers who receive the features.

I hope this sounds good to everyone here -- we think we've planned this carefully with community input, but I definitely want to hear if anyone has questions or concerns. I'll plan to post again tomorrow to confirm that the test has started. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 18:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Main page sections?

Should we add a section here for the various ways you can help out with main page sections, e.g. DYK, ITN, etc.? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Highly advanced editors

Hi,

The phrases "advanced editors" and "highly advanced" sound odd to me. Perhaps this is a common phrase that I'm simply not used to (I'm an ESL), but to me the word "advanced" mainly connotates "complicated" or "difficult", and is generally something I would apply to an object or task, not a person.

If I understand its purpose correctly, I believe the word "experienced" may be more accurate here. Perhaps if we use that, it would make it less confusing, with the intended outcomes of: 1) people who are less experienced but don't mind a task that is time-consuming or difficult will be less likely to accidentally attempt them, 2) people who are not yet experienced may feel less isolated and understand that this is something they may do after they gain more experience, and 3) people who identify as "very experienced" may find these more appealing to them. --Krinkle (talk) 22:03, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

One common way of categorising difficulty in English is using "beginner", to describe people who are new to something, "intermediate" to describe people who are somewhat expereinced, or "advanced" to describe people who are very experienced. All 3 of these can be applied to either the task or the person completing it, so "advanced" in this case is a normal use. I do understand how that could be confusing if English wasn't someone's first language, and "experienced" may work better here, but "Advanced" isn't incorrect, its simply a word which is applied in strange ways in English. DirkJandeGeer (talk) 13:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

should we add Recent Changes

After using both Doublecheck and Recent changes, I've found Recent Changes to be more useful for anti-vandalism edits. Maybe that would be worth adding to the Anti-Vandalism section? DirkJandeGeer (talk) 13:49, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not a vandalism patroller, so I don't have any strong attachment to any tool. But we should make sure that whatever we choose is accessible to newcomers rather than a more advanced tool used by more experienced editors, and we should avoid listing more tools than necessary (ideally only one) so as to avoid overwhelming and confusing. The recent changes feed isn't something I think most newcomers would be able to understand at a glance. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:14, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Volunteering

I came here to volunteer and see lots of examples where that's needed and how as far as tasks that need to get done, but nothing I could find that says, "To help, show up..." or "To volunteer for a task, post your user name..." I even searched for the word volunteer and it isn't here. Not a complaint, perhaps a suggestion and definitely a question. So if I missed something, what is it? Allreet (talk) 20:37, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

You just.. do the tasks. You don't have to sign up anywhere, other then getting an account which you already did. Go in and do any task that suits your fancy! casualdejekyll 21:49, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Growth Team Features; we need mentors!

You may all have read about the Growth Team Features in past threads on this talk page, so I won't go into it too deeply. One of these new features is a 'mentorship' program, where new users are assigned to an experienced 'mentor' to whom they can ask specific questions via a 'Your mentor' box in a new 'Homepage' tab. Currently, this feature is given to 2% of new users, but we plan on bumping this percentage up to 10% in the near future.

To lessen the load on our current list of around 60 mentors, I'm reaching out here and elsewhere to see if any experienced editors who like helping others might be interested in signing up as one. The workload is relatively small; User:Panini! reports receiving four questions a month, on average, all of which were simple ones of the type we often see at the Teahouse and elsewhere. To view a list of every question asked of all mentors over the last 14 days, Click Here.

If becoming a mentor and helping new users on their first few days here interests you, then please sign up at Growth Team features/Mentor list.

Thank you! Nick Moyes (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

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