Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mobile site strapline

This is a request for comments regarding the mobile site strapline. See screenshot, or click Mobile view in any page-footer.

Background


The Wikimedia Foundation mobile team has deployed a strapline across the mobile Wikipedia site. The purpose of this request for comment is to determine whether to keep the strapline on the mobile site, and if so, what information the strapline should include.

Please discuss, sign or add a proposal below.

Include last edit time and author in strapline
The strapline is fine to include the last edit time and author. Keep it as-is.


 * Support
 * Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex : Like the tech blog said, the strapline helps to show the approximate age range of an article, which can definitely come in handy. While the username itself might not be specific (Oh look, a fan of Pokemon just edited this page about a plant, how nice), it pulls back the curtain that WikiInfants might not know exists.
 * The wording of the strapline doesn't imply ownership. If anything, saying that so-and-so is the person to have last modified an article is suggestive of a collaborative enterprise. --Ori.livneh (talk) 02:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Putting your name at the top of a document is a very basic means of indicating ownership. This is pretty ingrained in American culture, at least, I'm not sure about other cultures. Compare with putting your name at the top of every homework assignment or book report. Or perhaps compare with putting your name at the top of a computer script. By affixing a username to the top of the article, I think it definitely suggests ownership and authority without providing any real benefit to the reader. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:15, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure, and if that's all the strapline contained, I would have agreed with you. But both last and edited, as well as the time stamp, make it clear that the page is a living document produced by multiple people. --Ori.livneh (talk) 02:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine as-is. The feature is used to show that anyone can edit Wikipedia and to make it a more personal experience. It's perfectly fine to not want it to imply ownership, but I really don't think it does. It just makes the "View history" functionality easier to access. --Nicereddy (talk) 03:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. What Nicereddy said, basically. I don't feel like this implies ownership; phrasing as "last edited by [name] on [date]" implies pretty strongly that there are other [name]s and [dates]. --Ironholds (talk) 06:01, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support I think this will encourage editing and is healthy to recognise that the article is a collaborative endeavour by individuals, not from a professional expert body. I'd also support the 'last modified' proposal. --LT910001 (talk) 10:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support I hope this will help people realize that they have the power to edit as well. Even on the web, I feel like Talk Pages and "edit" tabs are largely ignored. Floatsam  (talk) 18:18, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Makes it more obvious you can edit. Hobit (talk) 05:08, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Pulls back the curtain a little and makes Wikipedia seem like a project with people behind it. That's a good thing! C. Scott Ananian (talk) 05:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Support The current wording emphasizes collaboration and allows users to see themselves recognized for their work. It's also an excellent way to easily access the history. I'd possibly like to have the article class added, but this may make the strapline too "busy". The argument that this implies or encourages ownership would only make sense if it was worded as something like "Edited by XYZ on June 3 2014", but "Last edited" clearly indicates multiple people have contributed.-- Brainy J ~ ✿  ~ (talk ) 20:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Remove strapline from pages
The strapline should be removed entirely from pages.


 * Support
 * This is what's wrong with Wikipedia. Well-written articles don't need to be refreshed. Editors, especially trolls, don't need advertisement. Display how the article is assessed, instead. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 03:49, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * First choice While I can appreciate the mobile team's concern that people still don't know that anyone can edit, and their desire to use this as a platform to attract new users, I think that this isn't a good way of addressing the problem. There are three main reasons for this.
 * First, when an article was last edited has very little bearing on the quality of an article. A well written article can go untouched for years and still be well written. Likewise, a terrible article could have had a number of recent edits - either in the form of content building, or in the form of vandalism and vandalism reversion - and still need a good deal of work.
 * Second, the ability to see the most recent article a given user has edited is, in most cases, not going to be interesting or useful to people that don't already know how to find that out (i.e. editors). If the last edit was a vandalism revision, the list of recent articles is going to be completely scattershot; whatever else was vandalized around the same time and was reverted by that same user. If the last edit was by a bot, users are not only going to see a completely random editing history, but they may also come away confused about the role of bots on the project.
 * Third, while I appreciate that mobile devices are an increasing share of all internet-connected devices, and I feel that the mobile reading interface is largely solid, editing from a mobile device is so awful that I feel it should be actively discouraged. Compared to using a keyboard, it is inefficient, tedious, and error prone. All of the editing tools that desktop users rely on are unavailable on mobile devices, and the effort to create an easier editing experiance (Visual Editor, et. al.) doesn't carry over to mobile. When you make a mobile edit, an abuse filter marks it as such in the edit summary. While I am not sure if that was set up to help the mobile team or to help vandalism fighters, considering the number of problem edits I've seen among edits tagged as mobile, the latter certainly seems plausible. Between malice and mistake, most of the edits I've seen from mobile edits are not constructive.
 * All in all, I don't believe that this adds value, and it certainly doesn't add enough value to outweigh the concerns that have been voiced in this section and the section below. While I've been supportive of other features that the Foundation has rolled out, I don't think that this one is a good idea.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In order: quality? Sure, last edited is irrelevant. But for an approximate feel of whether the article is curated or kept up to date, it's useful. I don't think showing the most recent article a user has edited is important here, I'd agree there: I think it's about showing the most recent user to edit that article. It's a little piece of "hey, I helped build this" that I think is a positive. And, third, why don't we test this? "most of the edits I've seen" is still anecdata; if you're interested in testing this theory I'm happy to sit down with you (and anyone else who is interested) and do a small hand-coding test of mobile edits from newcomers versus desktop edits from newcomers and see what we get. --Ironholds (talk) 06:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Ironholds: My point in talking about quality is that some older articles don't really need editing, they're fine as is. As to showing the most recent user, I'm don't believe that "Hey, I helped build this" is what the tool is aimed at (the blog post, to me at least, reads that the tool was designed for editor recruitment). Regardless, experienced editors don't need that feeling and people that never edited wouldn't get that feeling from seeing someone else's name. The only group that might benefit would be very new users that are still wrapping their head around the concept that they can actual edit Wikipedia. For them, the argument could be made that the message would be good for retention, but I still don't see how it would be good for recruitment. As to the third point, While that data would be interesting to see, I an more interested in seeing the percentage of overall mobile edits that are either malicious or malformed, compared to the percentage of overall desktop edits that are malicious or malformed. It well could be that my personal frustrations with trying to edit on my phone, combined with the edit filter tag making mobile edits easy to spot, but my perception is that a lot of good faith mistakes are made in mobile editing, and vandalism is especially prevalent in that medium as well. This last part is probably off topic, though. We should talk about it though; shoot me an email.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:33, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think percentage of overall mobile edits versus overall desktop edits is going to be a useful comparison because, well, we know most experienced users use the desktop mode. It's not apples-to-apples, is my point. I dunno; I can see how it could be useful in recruitment, insofar as it's helpful to inform people that they can edit Wikipedia and that Wikipedia is in fact actively being edited by RandomPseudonymousUsernameLikeYours. It's hard to tell from where we are, since we're inside the machine, but the knowledge that people can actually edit Wikipedia and that it's not, well, some group of specially-selected people, is actually not universal: I used to encounter a lot of people whose reaction to "have you ever tried editing" was "don't you have special people for that?"
 * If there are articles that don't need editing, I haven't seen them: as the writer of a lot of GAs and FAs, I'm constantly seeing people actively tweak and poke my high-quality articles, most of the time very productively. High quality content is not perfect content, and as the author of some of it, I know that as well as any of us ;). I would also note in addition that most of the FAs I see about are not in areas where I'd expect a lot of readers to accumulate, so... Ironholds (talk) 16:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Remove strapline If radical new features like this are to be included there should first be community consensus. There is no community consensus for this. It breaks from precedent and what is already proven to be effective. I do not wish to support a risky modification to a working system especially when it seems to have been pushed inappropriately to live space.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  18:19, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Remove strapline: Again, another intrusive change without concensus or wide community awareness. Fylbecatulous  talk  20:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Remove author info, but keep last edit time
The strapline should be modified to remove the author information (the username), but should continue to include last edit time. Signatures and other pages make it clear that articles are intentionally unsigned. Including the username of the person who happened to most recently edit the page is inappropriate.


 * Support
 * MZMcBride (talk) 01:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 *  Imzadi 1979  →   01:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Such attribution is anti-wiki, and a memorial for the last whitespace adjustment or vandal is not helpful. What about User:Jimbo is GAY? Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, attributing editors for their work follows closely with the wikiphilosophy. It's technically required to be displayed somewhere onwiki by policy. I'm not sure whether or not we need to have the last contributor's username displayed prominently at the top of the page though. As Johnuniq brings up: it may encourage username policy violations for trolls editing from mobile. Mz7 (talk) 04:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * People confuse Wikipedia with Wikileaks, and the strapline feature is for those who do not understand they can edit. Those readers will assume the name shown is the author—that is what is anti-wiki. Johnuniq (talk) 04:59, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * And shouldn't we inform those people? We should be striving to get as many good-faith, sensible people involved in editing as possible, and surely informing people that they can edit is the first step in that. I don't read it as "this person is the author", actually; the syntax of "last edited by [user] at [time]" implies there have been other [user]s and [time]s. --Ironholds (talk) 06:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Second choice, behind removing the strapline altogether. See my comment there for additional details.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * First choice by keeping the edit time you are encouraging readers to consider becoming new editors, which is encouraging diversity of this wiki community. But the author name does encourage trolls with fake user names Jooojay (talk)
 * Do we have any examples of that happening in practice? The bots tasked with evaluating incoming usernames are usually pretty good at blocking them. Ironholds (talk) 20:59, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Ironholds: You mean inappropriate usernames in english and on english Wikipedia? (Isn't the strapline live on all language versions of mobile Wikipedia?) --Atlasowa (talk) 11:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep, and, yep. I mean, if we're having an RfC on the English-language Wikipedia I assume we're talking about English-language events. Ironholds (talk) 19:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Aha. So the WMF putting "FickDichIronH" on top of english articles is a "non-English-language event". And putting "GoAndGetFucked" on top of german Wikipedia biographies is also a "non-English-language event". That's an endearing attitude. --Atlasowa (talk) 15:17, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed to having the author listed not per the reasons stated at the top, but because listing the last editor is rather irrelevant for the common reader and relatively doesn't say much at all when the entire edit history is what's valuable in terms of authorship. The date last edited is much more important in regards to how out-of-date the article might be, whether it is currently undergoing active editing, etc. ~Super Hamster  Talk Contribs 05:51, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Listing the username of the last editor may imply ownership to those who don't realize that everyone can edit, and may encourage username trolling, but most importantly it just isn't vital information. Ordinary readers don't need to know, and editors will be more interested in the full history. Knowing when an article was last edited, though, is useful for both readers and editors, and could help readers realize that they can be editors too. Novusuna talk 18:50, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Second choice. I am a bit worried about the author name increasing trolling, but think it's more likely to get us new editors if they see a name there.  But not an unreasonable compromise. Hobit (talk) 05:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * First choice per others; WP:OWN and all. APerson (talk!) 13:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Make the strapline more graphical and rich in information
The current format showing details of the last edit is mildly interesting but takes up too much space for the sparse information that it is conveying. How about a set of icons in a dashboard style which could convey information such as:
 * article status - featured, GA, locked &c.
 * article size - some clue as to whether the article is too big to read easily on a mobile device
 * article traffic - how often people read and edit the article
 * navigation - disambiguation link(s), in case the reader hasn't found the topic they really wanted

If such information was presented in the form of icons, readers would get an initial grasp from their appearance. Perhaps the reader could then touch them to get a scrolling pop-up with more details like the details of the most recent edit. Also, the icons could be integrated with the similar row of icons which currently appears under the article title - edit tool, watchlist star, &c. Andrew (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Article traffic isn't something we can reliably get at now - and aren't disambigs normally in the actual content? Size seems extraneous insofar as the major concern with size on mobile is load time and lag - and the only way they'd be able to see this information is if they've already loaded the page. 16:53, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, we do have stats about article traffic - both readers and editors - and I find these stats quite useful. And, no, the page is not fully loaded on the mobile interface.  You just get some elements of the lead and section headings.  This gives some clue as to size but some general indicator of the total page size might be helpful. Andrew (talk) 17:16, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Not really, on both. So, we have stats about article traffic, through the pageview dumps, but they aren't usefully internally accessible through MediaWiki. And the page is loaded through two API calls, the first of which (as you say) gives the lead and section headings, and the second of which gives everything else - but I have no idea if the second is triggered as soon as the first is loaded, or as soon as you try and open a section, or.... Ironholds (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Move the strapline
Move the strapline to the bottom (the content can be kept or changed per the above.


 * Support as proposer. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support It is less distracting and more appropriate at the bottom, instead of right above the article, whatever information is chosen to be on it. Floatsam  (talk) 18:14, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This position pretty much guarantees it'll never be useful; people just don't go all the way to the bottom of articles. Ironholds (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't fully agree with that, for example the new native mobile apps are putting this information at the bottom of the page. Legoktm (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there a compromise?
I don't want to support or oppose any particular proposal immediately; I haven't seen significant discussion of the feature or the reasons it should be kept/removed/modified, and I'd rather not see this devolve into a mob demand for the Foundation to retract the feature. I especially dislike that plans for action are being presented before any discussion; I added the "discussion" section to the RFC with this comment.

I see two competing principles at hand: the wiki principles of content over contributor, and the outreach principle of exposing newbies to the editing process. The former presents an argument against including a strapline: we don't want to imply article ownership or a single author per page, nor highlight username trolls, et cetera. The latter offers an argument for a strapline: we currently display very little about the editing process on content pages, and increasing what's shown to readers is desirable for increasing participation, which is a major concern.

I find both arguments compelling. Is there a compromise, or an alternative, which would balance these principles? {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 19:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The mobile team trials all its code in a beta mode of the site first so that users can feed back to us and get involved in development. This particular feature was added in April 2013 so there has been a good year you could have raised these arguments. If you're feeling excluded in this process please opt into the mobile beta mod on Special:MobileOptions Jdlrobson (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC) Thanks for starting the discussion Nihiltres. I agree with many of the perspectives detailed in 64921, particularly that this strapline addition could be a good motivator for some people to become editors, and is one good way to propagate the idea that articles are edited by individuals. That said, and beyond the issue of "singling out an editor" as discussed further above, I do have a few concerns that might deserve consideration:
 * WTF is a "strapline"? Not everyone wallows in computer nerd jargon all day long.And I say that as a computer nerd.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * If you look at the top of every article and see "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" - that's a strapline. Nihiltres, thanks for setting this section up; I'm glad to see it happen :). Looking at people on the do-not-want side of things, it seems like one of the priorities is avoiding giving the impression that one particular editor is "responsible" for an article; I don't see it myself, but I understand how someone could. What if we did something as simple as throwing around ideas of ways to reduce this risk? Rephrasings of the strapline to allow us to acknowledge that wikipedia is written by people like [name] (and, by implication, people like you, the reader) but more explicitly setting out that it's people, plural, not a specific person? Would people be interested in that, and if so, would the mobile team be interested in experimenting with it? Ironholds (talk) 20:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish: strapline or the background section above? Perhaps a better name should be used? Feel free to move the page. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nihiltres: While I see your point, perhaps I missed the discussion before implementing this feature? You and I are having a discussion and this page provides multiple options, including keeping the new status quo or removing the bar altogether. (I'll avoid the term "strapline" until SMcCandlish gives me a better term.) I think if the mobile team were interested in discussion, they would have started a discussion. Instead, they seem to be intent on marking bugs such as 64921 as wontfix, with undue haste. The bar seems to only be green for about 24 hours before it switches to grey (and the article is considered stale?). I'm not sure we want to encourage editing for the sake of editing. Conversely, I've seen articles where there was vandalism and a revert and that's considered recent activity (green bar, edited within the past few hours... but it wasn't an actual edit, just a simple reversion). We should discuss the bar, including its placement and color and the text it includes, and this seems as good a place as any to have that discussion. A separate discussion will likely be needed for desktop. (LastModified died, I guess.) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * MZMcBride: I agree that the fact of the WMF either not offering or not advertising advance discussion of this feature, and the larger trend of similar cases, is a problem. My issue is that the structure of the RFC here is focused on the actions that could be taken rather than the principles that would lead to good actions. If we want the best solution, we should be identifying the problems and advantages of the bar as-is, the problems and advantages of no bar, and possible alternatives or changes that would alleviate problems and improve advantages. I'll introduce another discussion subsection for those; that should largely address my concern. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 17:04, 7 May 2014 (UTC)>
 * Jdlrobson: While this is a good point, it should still be highlighted that the beta option doesn't offer any information on how or where to comment, which inhibits such discussion. The mobile site ought to follow the desktop site's example: the desktop "beta" preferences section includes an "information" and "discussion" link for each beta feature. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 17:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Nihiltres the mobile beta site predates the desktop beta features by two years and its success was the reason we added it to desktop. We are currently not moving to the BetaFeatures model as we like to test our features on anonymous users which desktop doesn't currently support but we are working closely to bring these 2 in line but I agree we should definitely explore a better feedback mechanism for it! :-) Created this bug to track this! Jdlrobson (talk) 15:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) I think the strapline could be usefully tweaked, to indicate that: "[dozens/hundreds/two] editors have worked on this article over its lifetime" - This would provide useful context for understanding articles-in-general, and the individual-article being looked at. (i.e. "it's only been edited by 1 person! Suspicion!"). I'm not sure what (succinct and translatable) wording to suggest...?
 * 2) I'm concerned about editing controversial/taboo articles, and having my username at the top of the page for months thereafter. I might be less likely to edit [niche sexual practice] for fear of my username/realname appearing in screenshots or news-articles. I'm proud to have edited some articles, and embarrassed to have edited other articles...
 * 3) I'm concerned about borderline-offensive usernames appearing, eg. many items at UAA/HP (or March's archive). Also, this might lead to more kids trying to game that system. Especially if this strapline is adapted/adopted on the desktop-site, as mobile-features sometimes are; i.e. we've had "This page was last modified on [date&time]" at the bottom of all desktop-site pages for many years.

Based on all the above, I would tentatively suggest changing the strapline to instead say something like: and then on wikis that use an article-assessment system (ie. some Wikipedias, but not many), it could add that info: Note: Usernames are limited to 40 characters, so the length of this line should not be a major issue (though it will line-wrap more frequently), compared to the current:
 * "Last edited 10 months ago, by one of 245 editors"
 * "Last edited 10 months ago, by one of 3 editors. Stub-class quality."
 * "Last edited 10 months ago by Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet orci aliquams"

HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 20:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Isn't there something more useful?
Why waste valuable screen space on this? Right now, if you are logged in at least, on mobile, you see something that kind of looks like a pencil (or a forward slash?), mountains that are locked with a padlock, and a star. I'm an experienced user and I had trouble figuring out what those icons are supposed to do. I'm still not sure what "locked mountains" are about, something about images. If anything is discouraging mobile editing, it's the rest of the UI, not the lack of a strapbar that tells me who edited this last. Gigs (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * agreed. We can reasonably expect most people who come here even on mobile devices to have some knowledge of the nature of the site; for the ones who do not, there should be information--but not at the very top, where it tends to destroy the very reason that we have a separate mobile interface, the limited screen space available. The nature of the display medium forces a compromise with what we might ideally like to put there.  DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Then you'd spend the space on...? --Ironholds (talk) 05:25, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * On simply moving up the rest of the content I presume. Tazerdadog (talk) 18:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Why have it be different?
Why not just have it reflect what each community has already established as acceptable by reflecting whatever is in MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedat? Currently, on this site, it just says when it was last modified, and not by whom or anything else. Also, note, it is displayed at the bottom of the page. Doing it this way (or even using MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedat-mobile) leaves the choice of what goes in there to the wiki instead of worrying about hard-coding it in do everyone will be happy. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 19:47, 8 June 2014 (UTC)