Edit check/Status/2024

Edit check updates: • •

GIF showing the Paste Check desktop experience as of December 2024
Paste Check desktop experience as of December 2024

Paste Check Proof of Concept

A proof of concept for the Paste Check user experience (desktop and mobile) is ready for you all to try.

To try experience and share what you think about it, please see the instructions on the talk page.

Layout change for the Edit Check feature

Last week, a new design for Edit Check on desktop was introduced.

This design change shifts Edit Checks from appearing within article text to appearing within a new sidebar alongside articles.

This layout change creates space to present people with new Checks that appear while they are typing.

Paste Check Technical Overview

The technical foundation the Paste Check user experience depends on is now in place.

Specifically, we have introduced a way for to detect where the text people are pasting is coming from.

This new capability unlocks the potential for volunteers to do things like:

  • Suppress the Paste Check when people are pasting text from another Wikipedia article or Google Docs
  • Customize the Paste Check message when people are pasting content from a specific source
  • Show a tool like Citoid when someone pastes content from a source volunteers have deemed to be reliable

Paste Check mobile user experience walkthrough.

Paste Check

Here is a 4-minute video recording that walks through the proposed user experience for Paste Check.

We hope this helps you all help us answering the open questions we are thinking through.

Mockup showing how Paste Check might appear to people pasting text into the visual editor.
Mockup showing how Paste Check might appear to people pasting text into the visual editor.

Next Check

The Editing Team is actively working on a new Edit Check: Paste Check.

Paste Check will intervene when people paste text into an article they are likely not to have written.

Now that the general scaffolding of the user experience is in place, we need help answering some open questions.

You can find the questions we need help answering on the talk page.

Thank you to @Pikne and Lectrician1 who helped inspire this Check.[1][2]

Edit Check work is ongoing in a few areas:

Selena Deckelmann Demo'ing Reference Check at 2024 Wikimania
Reference Check demo at Wikimania (2024) by Selena Deckelmann, Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Product and Technology Officer
  1. T341308 - Refining the user experience for showing multiple Edit Checks within a single edit
  2. T360591 - Developing an API to increase the speed and ease with which new Edit Checks and Suggested Edits can be introduced within/alongside the visual editor.
  3. T364505 - Creating a UI framework to ensure people experience new Edit Checks and Suggested Edits as part of a common language
  4. T368274 - Researching the feasibility of using a large language model to detect peacock behavior within the edits people are making.

Looking ahead, the Editing Team will continue developing Edit Check during the 2024-2025 fiscal year. This work will support the Wiki Experiences Objective.

In other Edit Check news:

This Wednesday (3 July) from 17:30 until 18:50 UTC, the Editing Team will host the next Community Conversation.

Wednesday's conversation will be focused on the following Edit Check-related topics:

  1. Discussing the user experience for Paste Check. This next Edit Check we'll be introducing is meant to help newcomers adding new content unknowingly make a copyright violation.
  2. Reviewing the state of the Edit Check project. What Checks are available at what wikis? What new Check are being planned? More broadly, what strategy is guiding the Edit Check in this coming year? Etc.

On Tuesday (18 June), Reference Check became available by default at all Wikipedias except bn, de, en, hi, id, nl, pl, and ru.[3]

Screenshot showing the feedback people will receive when attempting to link to a blocked domain within the visual editor.
Feedback people will receive when attempting to link to a blocked domain within the visual editor.

Beginning Thursday (13 June), people who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor (desktop and mobile) will receive immediate feedback when they attempt to link to a domain a project has decided to block.

Link Check (as we are calling it) evaluates all external domains people attempt to link to against the following sources:

  • Local lists: MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json and MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
  • Global list: meta:Spam_blacklist

Technical demo showing what it could be like for Edit Checks to appear within/alongside the editable surface.

Demo: Edit Checks while actively editing Currently, people have the potential to encounter Edit Checks in one of two moments while editing:

  1. In the publishing flow, when people attempt to publish new content without a reference

In Citoid, when people attempt to cite a domain that a project has deemed worthy of blocking

While presenting Checks in the moments above have proven effective, for a while, volunteers and staff have been sharing ideas for Checks that could appear while people are actively adding/changing content within the article.

With this initial technical demo, the Editing Team is exploring what it could be like for Checks to:

  1. Appear within/alongside the editable document, in the moment when people make a change that causes a check to be activated
  2. Respond when people make a change that impacts the Check that they activated

What do you think about this idea? What questions/concerns/ideas/etc. does it bring to mind?

Please share what you think on the talk page!

References check A/B report is now available. Reference Check caused an increase in the quality of edits newcomers publish and did not cause any significant disruption.

Initial results of Edit Check A/B test (T342930) have returned the following results:

  • Newcomers and junior contributors are 2.3 times more likely to add a new reference to a new content edit when edit check is available.
  • No drastic decreases in edit completion and edit abandonment rate were observed.
  • Edit check is especially impactful for newcomers and users on mobile.
  • We observed a slight decrease to no changes in the edit quality where edit check was shown compared to where it was not.
  • It does increase the proportion of new content edits with a reference that are reverted. We need to investigate impact further.

As a consequence, Edit Check was deployed as default on the A/B wikis.

Reference Reliability

On 7 March, the first iteration Reference Reliability check became available to everyone at all wikis, by default.

This means that whenever anyone attempts to cite a source that a project has blocked, they will be made aware directly within Citoid and prompted to try another source.

Where "blocked" on in this context means the domain someone is attempting to cite is listed on MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json.

Active

  • Reference Check deployments - the first Edit Check (references) is now live at 22 wikis. The new set of wikis is for an A/B test. We will verify if users interact with the check and keep editing.
  • Multi-Check - Currently, Edit Check is configured to show people one piece of feedback, regardless if other feedback might be warranted. The design of the user experience is in progress to display multiple checks within a single edit.

Upcoming

  • Reference Reliability - Reference Reliability informs users if a source is listed under MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json. It will be deployed along with the A/B test of Reference Check.

Edit check updates: • •

  1. ↑ T300942#9597055 via @Pikne
  2. ↑ T300942#9597611
  3. ↑ Reference Check will be made available to remaining wikis via T366381 and T367343.