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Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Mobile and apps/Add information on sister projects to mobile apps

< Community Wishlist Survey 2021‎ | Mobile and apps

Add information on sister projects to mobile apps

  • Problem: Currently mobile apps don't acknowledge the existence of sister projects. For example, Wikipedia app will not inform the readers that they can get more images on Wikimedia Commons or see a travel guide at Wikivoyage.
  • Who would benefit: Everyone.
  • Proposed solution: Just like we have a button for toggling between different languages, we should have a button for sister apps. We don't need to add support for rendering if this is a problem, just launch a default browser with the sister site, this will be good enough for now.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Piotrus (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

On the Italian Wikipedia we have a section called "Altri Progetti" in every page where there are links to sister projects. --Yacine Boussoufa (talk) 15:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yacine Boussoufa:
It is not a good solution as it implies:
  1. There is a bot that continuously checks whether there are links to sister projects, and this bot modifies the articles. OR
  2. It is the responsibility of the editor/s of each article (or an administrator) to verify if the links exist and modify each article.
This system is not functional.
Jmarchn (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]


@Piotrus and Yacine Boussoufa: The following drop-down menus are available on Wikipedia (in Mobile mode):

Mobile menus
English Catalan Italiano
Language Llengua Lingua
Watch Deixa de vigilar Segui
History Historial Cronologia
Edit Modifica Modifica
More Més

In Catalan is included Més, but in English More or in Italian Più are not displayed. Or more exactly, in English, only "More" is visible in "Advanced mode" which the user hardly discovers. The drop-down menu "More" contains: "Page information", "Permanent link" and more commands.

I have two proposals:

  1. "More" menu should always be visible and contain linking commands to sister projects; and in any case with sister project commands at the beginning (and "Wikimedia Commons" as first).
  2. There were button-icons (and only icons) of sister projects alongside these drop-down menus, as there is enough space. This proposal is similar to Piotrus', and I think it's the best option, because it's more visible.

But it is not an acceptable proposal to leave it as it is at present or postpone a decision.

Jmarchn (talk) 22:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine with the above idea. --Piotrus (talk) 08:48, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have the "vertical ellipsis / three dots / ⋮ / More" button on English Wikipedia in mobile/Minerva, @Jmarchn. Could it be that you enabled mw:AMC on Catalan but not the other wikis?
But yes, they enabled the AMC-style toolbar (with 4 buttons) for everyone, and the fifth More button is opt-in only (at least on w:en and some other wikis that I have tested with). So there are two components to this: (a) should the fifth button be turned on for everyone, or should the not-logged-in mobile experience remain dumbed-down? (I don't mean that in a bad way, I believe it was originally simplified because that was perceived as a need for mobile users at the time) and (b) does "in other projects" go into the More drop-down alongside "Wikidata item" and other page tools? Pelagic (talk) 06:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the iOS app, I have five buttons across the (screen-) bottom bar (always visible): TOC, language, bookmark, share, appearance, find. Talk, history, and "similar pages" are at the page bottom (scroll down), under a heading "About this article" (styled differently from a content section heading). Those above talking about the mobile menu appear to be referencing mobile web. So is this wish about web, app, or both? ("In other projects" shows in neither for me.) Also: in the iOS app, if I tap out via an on-page link to another project like Commons or even another namespace within Wikipedia, that opens in an embedded browser not in the app UI. So no dark or sepia theme, no save for later, etc. Pelagic (talk) 05:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For app, consider where is best placement: with ''Languages'' (they are both based on Wikidata sitelinks, but that's not going to mean anything to the average reader), under ''About this article'', under ''Read more'' (logically correct, but maybe jarring alongside the "related articles" type links), or in the footer alongside ''View article in browser''. Also consider: do we go down the route of having dedicated apps for Commons and 'Data, do we expand support in the Wikipedia app, or just keep kicking the user into the embedded browser for "other projects"? Pelagic (talk) 06:27, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there was a conversation recently on Wikidata Project Chat about the link for "Wikidata item" only appearing on mobile web if you're logged in and have AMC enabled. Pelagic (talk) 05:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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