Wikistories for Wikipedia

The Wikistories tool is currently operational as a beta feature only in Indonesian Wikipedia; it is maintained by the Wikimedia Language and Product Localization (LPL) team. The LPL team is monitoring and evaluating its usage to determine the next steps.

Wikistories is a project, under development since July 2021 by the Wikimedia Foundation's Inuka team , that will let editors create short, visual and reliable knowledge from Wikipedia for quick consumption and easy sharing. It generates content in visual format to capture and distribute encyclopaedic knowledge that is less suitable for long form articles.

The 2030 Movement Strategy emphasises the need for equitable distribution of knowledge sharing opportunities across Wikimedia Communities around the world.

Wikistories is one of the initiatives intended to meet this need; it is focused on visual representation of content available on Wikimedia sites, and workflows that can serve contribution and discovery towards such content.

Visual content plays a big part in how Wikimedia project content is consumed. Pictures and video enhance the experience of reading articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and contribute immensely in preserving visual memory through the millions of multimedia files on Wikimedia Commons.

On the internet in general, visually engaging content has become the primary form of content being consumed.

The Inuka team has been exploring how to make use of Wikimedia content for a more visual experience, through design experiments and usability studies that have contributed to projects such as the Wikipedia KaiOS app and Wikipedia Preview . Wikistories is a further step in that direction, and is intended to make interacting with Wikimedia content more meaningful and inclusive for audiences across regions and demographics and their digital habits.

The goal for wikistories is to: amplify wikipedia content in short-form, visual formats, driving readership with new audiences. The Wikistories tool would:

• allow users to engage with Wikimedia content both as consumers and creators in a way that matches contemporary internet experiences.
• be visually appealing, easy to contribute to, and meet reader needs with visual knowledge and be shareable.
• provide a way for quick contribution and consumption of visual knowledge from an information source that is reliable.
• reach a larger, newer and diverse audience, both in contributors and in readers.

The objective of Wikistories is to: support contributions that require repackaging available long-form content in Wikipedia in an experience that is image/visual led.

This form of contribution takes into account the preferences of new audiences when contributing content, and makes it easier/more welcoming to contribute to knowledge successfully through mobile phones.

Wikistories aims to help achieve the objective of increasing short, visual content that positively influences contributor & reader engagement of new audiences with encyclopaedic content. Users can create, curate, contribute and consume our content in a visually-driven experience.

• If we provide an easy way for contributors to create/curate wikistories through their phones, then we will see an increase in diverse contributors from regions, communities, and languages that have been underrepresented in digital spaces.
• Increase in visual content led experiences will lead to increased reader engagement with encyclopedic content.
• An easy way to contribute using Wikistories would motivate new GLAMs to get started in the Wikimedia movement.

A very early version of a design concept was attempted in late 2020 and then again with more details in May 2021.

• Wikistories Indonesia Concept testing research gathered feedback from Indonesian editor communities on early concepts and designs for Wikistories, focusing on the experiences of potential Wikistories creators coming from the editing community
• Wikistories Africa Concept testing user research in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa with new/potential contributors investigated the behaviour of content creators and consumers in three African countries with distinct user behaviours and context especially relating to Wikimedia.
• Early adopters survey feedback: In collaboration with Wikimedia Indonesia organised a series of workshops and trainings for Wikistories. These workshops took place in-person in five Indonesian cities (Yogyakarta, Bandung, Padang, Jakarta, and Denpasar) between July and October of 2022. This survey project gathered structured feedback from Indonesian Wikipedia editors who attended these workshops, all of whom were early creators of Wikistories.
• Early adopters moderated research: In order to more effectively conduct research with the Indonesian community, we worked with FloLab, a Jakarta-based UI consultant to help us with this project. Our aim was to understand the experiences of early Wikistory adopters, both creators and readers, focusing on their motivations and experiences creating and sharing stories. We also wanted to understand what motivated current and potential Wikistories readers and creators to engage with this feature.

• Starting July 2022, Wikistories has been in pilot under beta cluster in the Indonesian wiki ( link ).
  • So far, 800+ stories have been created by idwiki members + GLAM professionals from Indonesia.
  • To date, 200+ new editors have signed up on Indonesia Wikipedia & created at least 1 wikistory.
• On June 30, 2022, the very first version of Wikistories for Wikipedia with minimal features focused on story creation, discovery and story consumption, was deployed in Bahasa Indonesian Wikipedia.
  • Following the deployment, there were several community and GLAM engagement activities that acted as channels of feedback on user experiences including early adopters survey & moderated research .
• On October 5, 2022 we shared with the Indonesian community our plans to move out of beta to make stories created by contributors accessible to readers.
  • The feedback here entailed feature related improvements, product related improvements and policy related feedback. From this conversation; 6 votes agreed, 6 votes disagreed and 3 votes opposed having Wikistories on Indonesian wiki completely.

• On April 6, 2023, the voting for Wikistories for Wikipedia Editorial policy kicked off.
  • On April 19, 2023 the voting came to an end with 11 votes agreeing with the proposal.
• Inuka team reviewed the feedback provided by the community members on Indonesian wiki and began the definition and development of Wikistories editorial moderation features as proposed by the community.
• Inuka team rounded up active improvement and development of the Wikistories tool at the end of June, 2024 (FY2023-24).
• The Wikistories tool is currently operational as a beta feature in Indonesian Wikipedia and is maintained by the Language and Product Localisation team.

1. Storytelling with Paperclip:
   • In December 2022, the Inuka team collaborated with Indian media company The Paperclip, during which time The Paperclip created four stories relating to football and history, sourced entirely from knowledge available on Wikimedia projects. The stories were shared by The Paperclip on their website, Twitter feed, and other social media channels. You can see the stories as Twitter threads here: 1, 2, 3,4.
   • Learnings from this collaboration have been summarised in this diff blogpost.

Wikistories has been in pilot under beta cluster in the Indonesian wiki since July, 2022 and the team continues to improve and maintain the tool for the purposes of testing these initial assumptions:

• If we provide an easy way for contributors to create/curate wikistories through their phones, then we will see an increase in diverse contributors from regions, communities, and languages that have been underrepresented in digital spaces.
• Increase in visual content led experiences will lead to increased reader engagement with encyclopedic content.
• An easy way to contribute using Wikistories would motivate new GLAMs to get started in the Wikimedia movement.

Please visit the Office hours page

CO-CREATION/ COLLABORATION: by partnering with the Indonesia affiliate and community members, we were able to uncover 2 dynamics:

• Speed of Testing: experimenting and testing the new content format at different stages took time to reach a consensus with the community; working with them unfolded other unexpected needs for the tool. One of them which was a must-have, was to have an approved, editorial guideline in place, a process that we had to navigate at the community's pace.
• Targeted approach towards editors: identifying different types of editors/creators that preferred snackable content formats would have helped with editor motivation along with adoption & retention strategies. Wikistories Indonesia Early Adopters Research (Creators/Editors Segment) by FloLab highlighted 5 personas who we could have identified within the idwiki community to better understand editor motivations.

STORY CREATION PROCESS: by partnering with Paperclip, we aimed to understand how:

• Long-form, encyclopaedic content can be made into bite-sized content i.e. through curation.
• Repurposing content can happen with proper attribution.
• Content sourced & curated exclusively from wikipedia sources would be perceived by readers.

This case study uncovered 3 things:

• Curation: Curating from multiple article sources takes time and effort to dig deep and put together a compelling storyline; in comparison to a single sourced article. Curation was not heavy in the single-sourced thread (Indian roller) as compared the multiple-sourced thread (Football unheard series).
• Story creation: We saw that story creation could also take a text-first approach with images being used later in the creation journey to complement the narrative. Wikistories tool has taken an image-first approach similar to how most social platforms are designed.
• Reader Engagement: Stories that were relatable to readers received better engagement levels on Twitter.

CONSUMPTION/ READERSHIP: by hosting wikistories on Indonesia Wikipedia under beta cluster, we were able to uncover how testing readership would look like.

• Speed of Testing: pursuing different approaches to evaluate readership and consumption while still in Beta would have been an ideal strategy to ensure quick learnings. One possibility could have been, performing a controlled experiment with readers as soon as the product was launched.

After 1 year of Wikistories being in use, Indonesian Wikipedia (idwiki) carried out a series of re-engagement activities between June-September 2023. Inuka team continued to monitor the uptake of the feature using data and surveys with learnings drawn from these exercises.

a. Non-campaign period : 1106 stories

• In total, 281 users made at least one edit or created at least one Wikistories from July 2022.
• On average, 255 users created 3.4 stories and made 1.2 edits.
• 15 users created at least 1 Wikistory in the last 8 weeks, and 22 users were active in Wikistories in the last 8 weeks.

b. GLAM campaign (Sep-Oct 2022) : 386 stories in 3 weeks

• 35 users participated in the campaign.
• 15 new users registered, 5 of them came back to edit or create stories after the campaign.
• On average, every editor created 13 stories and made 4 edits.

c. Try-Wikistories campaign (Sep 2023) : 2148 stories in 10 days

• 31 users participated in the campaign.
• 4 new users registered, 2 of them came back to edit or create stories after the campaign.
• On average, every editor created 62 stories and made 1 edit.

a. Experience levels

• 81 (29%) are new editors who registered less than 30 days before their 1st story edits/creations.
• 63 (23%) of the editors made their 1st WS edit/creation on the day of registration.
• 200 (71%) are experienced editors who registered over 30 days before their 1st story edits/creations

b. Wikistories Creation vs Editing activity

• 176 (64%) of editors only created new stories but never edited stories.
• 34 (12%) of editors only edited but never created stories.

c. Engagement with other WP projects

• 76% of editors made both WS edits/creations & edits on idwiki. Few of them are new editors.
• 24% of editors made WS edits/creations only & never made any other edits on idwiki. Majority being new editors & were active only during the campaigns; average active days is 1.6 days.

Please visit FAQ page

• Wikistories for Wikipedia/2023-24 Status Updates
• Wikistories for Wikipedia/2022-23 Status Updates
• Wikistories for Wikipedia/2021-22 Status updates