Ŋun su yɛltɔɣa:Masssly/Archive/July 2025
Pahimi yaɣiliBooks & Bytes – Issue 69
[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]
Issue 69, May–June 2025
In this issue we highlight a new partnership, Citation Watchlist and, as always, a roundup of news and community items related to libraries and digital knowledge.
Read the full newsletterSent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team – 13:11, 1 Silimin gɔli July 2025 (GMT)
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Second quarter of 2025
[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]Hello, and welcome to the second newsletter of 2025! In this edition, we’ll walk you through exciting experiments, features, and improvements that took place in the Wikipedia mobile apps during March, April, and May.
Tabbed browsing is one of the most requested features, and we’ve made major progress this quarter:
- We finalized the designs for tabs and released the feature to Beta.
- An A/B test is planned in select languages and regions before a broader release.
- Usability testing results helped shape the experience. See our full testing analysis and interface feedback recommendations.
We launched a 30-day experiment on Chinese, French, Spanish, and Turkish Wikipedias to explore whether a centralized "Activity" space could increase user engagement.
The experiment shows the Suggested Edit “Add an image” feature to newcomers, and we hope to learn if it helps them activate and begin editing. We also hope to learn what users think about an early “Activity tab” prototype that summarizes their weekly editing, reading, and saving activity.
We’ll evaluate outcomes after 30 days.
Personalized Wikipedia Year in Review
We began backend improvements to support the next version of the Year in Review:
- The 2024 version showed strong engagement. We’re planning to integrate improved stats, collective movement insights, and recognition for donors.
- We added support for insights about reading time, link follows, and categories.
Navigation Refresh & Article Search A/B Test
We completed our test of a more prominent article search bar on four Wikipedias—French, Arabic, German, and Japanese.
- The A/B test showed a +23.8% increase in article-view search usage.
- While retention didn't shift significantly, the test gave us confidence to scale this UI improvement to all languages.
We released support for Temporary Accounts to Wikipedias where the feature is currently enabled. This helps protect IP addresses of unregistered editors.
Bug Fixes & Enhancements
Thanks to internal and volunteer efforts, we resolved:
- Incorrect date formats on Talk pages
- Alt Text keyboard overlap
- Inactive cursor on search
- Broken insert-link suggestions
Android
[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]WikiGames & WikiTrivia Expansion
We expanded WikiGames and continued work on WikiTrivia:
- New enhancements: game archive, calendar view, score sharing, sound control to the game.
- 81.5% of players complete the game, and over half replay it on another day.
- Bug fixes include language mismatches and game crashes.
We continued migrating our UI to Jetpack Compose, including:
- MessageCardView
- LangLinksActivity
- SearchEmptyView
- WikiCardView and more
This helps modernize the app and improves long-term performance.
Rabbit Holes & Personalized Reading Lists
We completed our Rabbit Holes experiment, and began work on a permanent version of Personalized Reading Lists, tracked in this Epic ticket.
Early designs aim to make suggested reading lists more useful, personalizable, and persistent.
Bug Fixes & Improvements
We addressed:
- Talk page crashes
- Search-related language issues
- OATHAuth hyperlink bug
- On This Day incorrect year
- Samsung Galaxy S25 editing toolbar bug
- UI bugs with Picture of the Day
- Language display issues
Other Updates
- A 50-edit requirement was added to use Article Descriptions on English Wikipedia.
- We fixed pageview analytics and updated reading list icons.
Looking Ahead
From long-requested features like tabbed browsing to smarter personalization and more engaging games, this quarter was packed with progress. Your feedback continues to guide our path forward.
Make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter to stay in the loop — and thank you for being part of the journey!