Wikipedia talk:TWA/Portal/Archive 1

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The
Adventure


Ebe123

While most aspects of the script is good, I think that the writing style should be more formal. Also, I do not think most of the community is by the sysops, but by each-other. (The whole community is kept tidy by fewer than 2,000 administrators.) I'll be happy to test future versions. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 22:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Ebe, the tone is going to be tested for impact. It's our hypothesis we're testing that a playful, educational tone will be effective. I hope it will work, but if the data doesn't show that it does then a more formal tone will be an area to explore next. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Moved from WT:TWA/Portal

Images not showing

I like your game so far, but I gotta point out a bug: on Mission One, 'nstead of seein' that weird bug creature, the guide, I saw somethin' like this: "File: Guide .png" in red. (I can't really remember what I saw, but it wasn't no picture.) Other wise, I really like your game. Tambelon (talk) 00:36, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed, Thanks this was just a typo in the file name :) Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

VE bug

This game is seriously fun. It still needs some work. I wish VE wasn't breaking the flow in mission 1 userpage edits. I like the badges. Siko (WMF) (talk) 04:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I will fix the VE bug pronto. Keep the feedback coming :) Ocaasi t | c 15:17, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 Fixed Because of the issues with visual editor we've switched back to using the source editor Ocaasi t | c 02:30, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Fred Bauder

  • As each segment ends an image appears which seem to have an embedded link, "Continue on the adventure;" however, that link does not work for me. User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Thanks Fred. I know exactly what you're talking about. It could be an issue with an image overlapping. Can you tell me what browser you're using and anything about your screen size or resolution or zoom settings? Ocaasi t | c 13:52, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Known Issue
  • While I was working on this problem the program wrote the Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure! a second time on my user talk page. Should keep a record of doing that and not do it over and over. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
    • At the moment that's unavoidable and a casualty of testing. I recognize it's annoying and will look into avoiding it (though technically I'm not sure if we have the capability). I wonder if this is going to be a common issue for the actual game players (e.g. if they replay or restart a level). At the moment it basically only works properly if you play it through once. Consider this now a known issue. Thanks again for the feedback. Ocaasi t | c 16:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
      • This zoom/resolution issue is a known bug. We're still working on fixing it, but we won't release the game until it's ready. Thanks! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

Seriously fun

Awesome, I'm so glad you like it! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 3: typo save not being recognized

So, first off, this is really coming along. I'm glad I decided to wait until you'd done your work on this before I tried to make an interactive sandbox tutorial for the education trainings... now I can use a lot of this stuff.

I'm playing through the missions, and I'm stuck on Mission 3: when I make the changes to the mock Earth article, then put an edit summary and save, I still get the same "Let them know..." message over and over.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey Sage!. Will try and replicate. It's either a unique bug for that mission or a known issue with Visual Editor not yet being updated to advance the guided tour. That's tracked in bugzilla and Matt Flaschen is working on it. Glad you can get some use out of this. Let me know if you need/want any help adapting the code for the education program. It takes a bit of javascript, but it wasn't too much to handle and I'm quite the novice--complete novice actually. Cheers :) Ocaasi t | c 01:46, 9 August 2013 (UTC)  Fixed
This should be fixed with the switch back to using the wikitext source editor. Please let me know if it's still happening. Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Tour not starting

It doesn't show anything to me whan I click Misson1. What am I doing wrong? what should I do? Miss Bono [zootalk] 12:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

I think this is fixed, it was a basic javascript error, a missing comma. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

TheOriginalSoni (feedback on text version)

Some seriously misguided attempts at feedback by TheOriginalSoni (talk) below (These may be too specific)-

  • Layout wise, if this is also going to be one of the options to play, I suggest a little prominence be given to the text. B/W/Blue is nice, but the font's not.
  • The wordings at several places need some revision. Plenty of it actually. If we're actually targetting the audience I imagine we are, its best to use less jargon, and make as much as possible succinct and simple.
  • Otherwise it sounds good. Everything looks simple and fun enough, and hopefully will serve hugely for editor conversion.
  • Mission titles in the main adventure page should summarize what the mission is about. Several users taking this adventure will know some parts of the basics, and might want to skip any lesson/ go only to the lesson which interests them.
  • Missions might also be categorized based on the level (advanced/basic/moderate). Also, tests (hikes?) are suggested. Editors (from the Teahouse etc) could monitor it in real time, and help the newcomers. These tests could serve to identify what level
  • There should also be a way for the person trying the adventure to call for help. Helpme, IRC and Teahouse should be readily accessible for anyone having any questions. They must know that at any point during the adventure/in their wikipedia journey, they can always call for help.
  • Missions might also be possibly categorised using "mission types". That way its clearer, I think.
  • Overall, the initiative is brilliant, and could use more "advanced" missions for the newcomers for more advanced stuff here. Such a venture could even probably help towards having a mini-adoption program designed for editor conversion. A very nice concept, and well executed. Would want to see it in motion soon.

Some suggested CEs before I decided I should stop -

  • "A magical interstellar trek through the galactic carnival of Wikipedia. Full of real skills, tips, tools, tricks, helpers, challenges, sources, rewards, and support" - Awkward wording. Be succinct. "Journey through the magical galaxies in the universe of Wikipedia. Earn skills, and learn real tips, tools and tricks on your way through challenges and rewards. Helpers, sources, tools and support will guide you on your way"
  • "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." - Too cliche. Simplify.
  • "Wikipedia is viewed more than 8000 hits a second" - Again, awkward.
  • ".and we're only a little more than 10 years old!" Replace with "And we're built by editors like you!"

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC) [Leave a notification]

Note - I played the text only version. I am yet to go through the other version, but a cursory clance reveals a few bugs. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for this great feedback. I agree the text needs to be more prominent. In the graphic version I hope that's accomplished. I like your idea about summarizing what each mission is about. We've done that in the navigation bar, let me know if you think they're descriptive enough. I like the idea for grading levels by difficulty, something that we might indeed do if we add intermediate and advanced missions. I really like your idea of having Teahouse folks monitor and help newcomers, and an option to 'get help' during the tour is brilliant. I may add a link to the navigation bar to do just that. The 'cliche' bit about our mission is our WP:MISSION :). I will work on some of the phrasing awkwardness, thanks for the tips. Thanks for your kind words, too. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

More feedback on mailing list

There's additional feedback on the design mailing list. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 02:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm following that thread. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

love the idea & can pop-up boxes be movable

This is brilliant, thank you, i love the idea and atmosphere - just naming how difficult it is to get started, is already hugely helpful! I played the first couple of missions, and obviously you aren't finished yet, so there's a few glitches but I can't wait for more ... one feedback - the pop out boxes are not movable and sometimes obscure the text or page that you are trying to see for the example. thanks again, i think it has huge potential. Depthdiver (talk) 21:35, 23 July 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

Guider placement is something I'm working it. Blocking the text is a known issue and should be fixed within a few days. Thanks for the feedback. Once I run through the fixes I'd love to have your feedback again to see if I caught all of the instances of overlap. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 06:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Update: the guider placement should be much better now. There may be a few remaining glitches, so please let me know if anything is still blocking functionality Ocaasi t | c 16:06, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

From (new user, game tester)

I have just finished some initial test of the game 7/6/2013. These are some issues I've found:

While using Opera browser
  • faulty link at the end of to userpage editing in mission 1  Fixed
  • no message received during mission 2  Fixed
  • no continuance link after selecting response to Will's message  Fixed
  • mission 3
  • nothing happens after editing  Fixed
  • simply continuing reverts back to the galactic challenge from mission 2
  • link to mission 4 does nothing  Fixed
  • mission 5 link pops up 'You did it New badge earned: Formatter badge' and the 'What's next??' button leads to 'mission 1 complete'  Fixed
While using Google Chrome
  • nothing happens after editing userpage in mission 1  Fixed
  • mission 2
  • no message recieved during galactic challenge
  • no continuance link after challenge is completed
     Fixed
  • mission 3
  • nothing happens after editing earth page  Fixed
  • simply continuing reverts back to galactic challenge from mission 2
  • link to mission 4 does nothing  Fixed

Also Might I suggest a different theme entirely? A space adventure seems less appealing to an a wider range of users as it feels too much like a game. I understand the concept of making the learning of how to use wikipedia fun but it should be more practical. Since the subject matter is to do with information, articles, authors, editors, and the like, it might make sense if the theme of the game were more like a library instead of a galaxy. One might say a library isn't fun, but people who come to wikipedia wanting to contribute are less interested in having fun and more interested in learning. (The current theme seems to be trying to make fun practical instead of making learning fun.

Exploring the Open Source Wikipedia Library Make a huge virtual visual library that one can explore while on tour in order to learn navigation and contribution basic. Implement a new Wiki decimal system to organize individual pages (books in the virtual library) by category. Maybe the library itself can be organized by placing each of the different projects on a different floor:

  • Floor 1: Wikipedia
  • Floor 2: Wikiversity
  • Floor 3: Wikimedia
  • Floor 4: Wikidata

Each of the floors can have limitless aisles categorized by subject matter with their own pages and shelves filled with related materials (all subpages, references and links within the actual initial subject page). While walking the aisles in the virtual library (which will equate to reading the page in wikipedia or such) and taking notice of the books on the selves (related articles and references), the reader and potential contributor will have the opportunity to take notice of books (subpages etc.), virtually take them off the shelves and through a virtual relativity portal be automatically sent to a new aisle filled with infinitely more books (navigate from one page and subject matter to the next).
After first learning to explore the first floor of the Wikipedian library, the new comer will then be graduated to the next floor (Wikiversity) where there will eventually be a course dedicated to teaching newcomers the importance, method and guidelines to contributing. --Beaedyson 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Beadyson, all of this is insightful. I believe all of the flow bugs with the tour not advancing are fixed now. I appreciate you persisting through those errors! As for a different theme, the informal playful universe tone was consciously selected to attract a certain audience. It's certainly not the only way to target new editors and a future version of the tour may aim for something more formal/academic. We're going to test this and evaluate the data once we have it this fall. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from Ross Hill using account User:Ross Hill 2

Feedback #1

Just at the beginning of the adventure, and one thing I would change about the dialog boxes, is the graphic is in between the title and the main text making it a little difficult to read. An example:

Who writes this Wikipedia?
........
........
........
........

You do :) There are almost 19 million registered users. Most importantly, you don't have to be an expert to contribute. Almost all of our editors are volunteers.

  • It might make more sense to put the graphics below the text and title, as not to break up the thought.  Checking...
  • In the box Your impact can change the world, it repeats the title again at the end of the text. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but it seems a little strange.  Checking...
Known Issue
  • For the "Galactic Challenge!" maybe make the box have a Begin! button, instead of the hard to see the [X] box. I'll continue adding suggestions, but I have to go for now Ross Hill 2 (talk) 22:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Next few suggestions:
    • On the dialog box "The editing interface", it says "...Then click NEXT." The button however says "Try it out"  Fixed
    • In some of the boxes is redlinked. Checking if works...  Fixed
    • here, I think the next mission box should be more promenant  Fixed
    • Dialog box "Copy your message" it gives the same response no matter what you chose, also the username isn't wikilinked  Fixed
    • I got stuck on "Track your contributions"  Fixed
    • Ross Hill 2 (talk) 23:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Confirming alternate account: Ross Hill (talk) 23:07, 16 Oct 2013 (UTC) 23:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Ross Hill! I'm seriously considering your suggestion about text/image placement. The text indeed should have the most prominence, and I'm going to see if others have the same reaciton. The "copy your message" dialog is intentionally presenting the 'correct' answer, with the expectation that you would keep trying until you selected it. There's really only one path through the game although the challenges create the impression of choice. The track your contributions bug is now known and I'm working on fixing it. Cheers :) Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback #2

  • Okay I tried the adventure again to look for more bugs, and another thing I would change is how when you click [x] the adventure ends unless the user thinks to return to the previous page. For example, on the "Say hello to the world" bit, I unconsciously closed the dialog before I pressed the edit tab, and the dialog boxes stopped showing up. It's of course fixable by going back to the previous page, but most new users probably would not think to do that. I'd hate for a user to unconsciously hit [x] and think they lost all their progress. Can that be fixed?
  • I got stuck in a loop at "Edit summary and save". When I save with the proper edit summary, it says:
Edit summary and Save


You "Added bold, italics, and wikilinks". Just click SAVE, and your edits will go live.

Go Back
 Fixed
and the button sends me backwards. Ross Hill 2 (talk) 22:11, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
If you don't make an edit, it sends you back. You have to actually change something. --Ocaasi
  • I was browsing around TWA, and User:WillKomen's page is formatted so the background starts behind the tabs. Probably and easy fix, and it'll just look nicer if the background is lowered  Fixed. Ross Hill (talk) 22:47, 17 Oct 2013 (UTC) 22:47, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for tboth of these tips, Ross Hill. I wonder, for the added bold, italics, and wikilinks step, did you actually make an edit? You have to make at least one edit or else it sends you back. For WillKomen's page, nice catch! I'll fix that. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:55, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from unexperienced user

I got my friend in real life to go through the adventure.

Bugs I screenshotted on his adventure

Using Google Chrome on Macbook Pro. Ross Hill 2 (talk) 02:38, 26 October 2013 (UTC)


File:Ross Hill's.png

Feedback

  • I wasn't able to see some of the text from the articles when the text box was up.
    Did it interfere with editing where you needed to? I ask because I'm not sure there's a better place besides the very bottom of the screen.
  • Also I found that some of the directions were not as explicit as they needed to be.
    Examples or suggestions? I'm happy to make tweaks.
  • Other than that the experience was very enjoyable. Good job on this project.
  • Ross Hill 2 (talk) 02:38, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
    Thanks so much for giving it another shot Ross! Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 19:33, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
    Hey Ocaasi, that was my friends response. I didn't want to put words in his mouth, so I didn't give much direction as to responding . To answer your first question, he couldn't edit the text underneath the "text boxes", so he was unable to complete those challenges. I screenshotted them (above), before telling him to continue. Ross Hill (talk) 03:23, 27 Oct 2013 (UTC) 03:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    Also, the screenshot above that is some wild formatting, that was simply incoherent. It might be a browser specific problem though. Ross Hill (talk) 03:25, 27 Oct 2013 (UTC) 03:25, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback

I don't know if this shall be very helpful, but anyhow-

Initially I was kind of confused, as it had no introduction informing one how the game would progress, I didn't really know what was going on at first. I couldn't seem to get some of the links (or at least I think they were supposed to be links) to work, which made it a little hard to navigate at points. The pop-up boxes got in the way at times. On the seventh mission I kept getting the same message which would send me back to edit page, and thus I failed to complete it.

I think it really is a good idea, though I was wondering if it could, perchance, be made less confusing? (I don't know, maybe it's just me.)  Fixed The language could, perhaps, be a bit more formal in places. I'm sorry my feedback probably isn't very helpful, but on the whole I'm impressed. On an alternate note, I'm not exactly sure what this is:

Thanks at any rate. As the Crow Flies (talk) 00:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I've added some better introductory language to the first slide to give context. It woud be awesome if you could give me the specific level/steps where pop-up boxes are getting in the way. Same with the seventh mission error message, which I would like to replicate so I can debug. Informal language is something we're consciously testing, though if you think there are glaring examples where it distracts from the content please let me know. Thanks for your kind words! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I'm going through it again and this time I'm taking notes.
I've gone through the first four steps and whilst they are still fresh in my mind, and I shall give my feedback:

Mission One

  • I wasn't confused this time, but, of course, I had already been through it before.
  • On the third message box which reads:
Why Wikipedia?


TWA guide right top.png
We have a really awesome goal.
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.
Most amazing is that...


It is happening
"Most amazing is that..." doesn't sound right, but I'm not sure what exactly it is trying to say.
  • The "Continue on the adventure" links do not work.  Fixed

Mission Two

  • When sent to "your talk page", the message box pops up and prompts you to click its button which will then take you to the galactic challenge; thus unless it is ignored, you won't read Will's message. The message box is kind of in the way here.  Fixed

Mission Three

Known Issue
  • As I said, this was my second time, and I noticed the edits and messages from the first time I had gone through it were still visible. I think it should be automatically reset when one completes it.
  • It requests that you search for typos, yet again, unless you ignore the message box, you shan't get the chance.  Fixed
  • A message then appears stating:
Edit summary, and Save
Let them know that you, "Fixed 5 typos".
Then SAVE when you're ready.
Go Back

I think this could use some sort of explanation as to how one accomplishes what it asks, I also do not believe it directs you to the "edit" button, which I think would be a good idea.  Checking...

Clicking go back returns to the edit page automatically --Ocaasi
  • Add bold!


TWA guide right top.png
Just like before, to add bold, highlight the word and click the B on the toolbar.
Done

It doesn't specify what it is one should make bold, on a different note I think an introduction to the toolbar would be helpful.  Fixed

  • A message box informs you that you've received new content, and as with some of the above scenarios, its a little difficult to actually view the new content.  Fixed
  • I'm not sure why when one completes Mission Three a message box appears and congratulates them, when this does not occur at the end of the other missions.  Fixed

Mission Four

  • I had a rather hard time reading the History Page as the message boxes were really in the way here.  Fixed
  • Also about the History Page itself, I was wondering if what it displays is accurate.
  • The TWA/4/Diff page does not exist.  Fixed
  • The non-neutral changes are never really easily viewable.
  • The NPOV policy

Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it.

If this is a short version of the policy, should that, perhaps, be mentioned?

  • Whilst the correct answers to the previous Galactic Challenges are rather obvious, The one for this mission is less so (I just found this notable)
Well, I don't have time to go over the three remaining missions currently. I hope my feedback doesn't sound really negative, because I didn't intend it to. I'm certainly not an expert on this type of thing, but nevertheless, I do hope you find this helpful. As the Crow Flies (talk) 00:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
As the Crow Flies, this kind of feedback is exactly what we need to make the game ready for hundreds or thousands of people to try it out. Thanks for being quite specific, clear, and honest. I will dig into all of your comments. Best, Ocaasi t | c 15:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Fuhghettaboutit

An interesting idea and though there's some work to do, it's well on its way. The amount of work that went into this is clear. On a general note, where a game is not thoroughly self-explanatory, it usual has an introduction that tells you about it. I think this one needs such an introduction badly. Something like, "...you will be taken on six missions, with each providing an overview and interactive examples of interacting with Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that YOU can edit...

I did essentially a line edit in note form as I went along so most of my comments will be a quote from the text displayed during the game, followed by my suggested change (which I'll generally use green to indicate). I am using a mac and the latest Firefox.

Mission 1
The amazing part of Wikipedia is you get to discover you own path and purpose.  Fixed
Typo: should be your  Fixed. I would also change discover to chart
"Let's start off by introducing yourself to the community."
This doesn't work grammatically. "Let's" is a contraction of "let us" and if you read it like that you should see why: let us ... you" (it would have to be "Let's start off by you introducing yourself to the community", which is a tad awkward. I would make it instead: A great way to start is by introducing yourself to the community.  Checking...
"Your userpage is a place to tell other editors about yourself. You can share about your background and interests and what you'd like to contribute to the project."
There's a missing word or connector here. Make it: "Your userpage is a place to tell other editors about yourself. You can share a bit about your background and interests and what you'd like to contribute to the project." You could replace "a bit" with some detail or information or something similar.  Checking...
Under "Your turn!" I only see the message "Click the CREATE or EDIT ." I am guessing what's supposed to be there is something like a graphic, clickable button, but it's not showing up). At that point I cannot move forward in the game at all, since the buttons to navigate to the next part are unavailable. I was thus forced to manually go back and started Mission 2.
You're supposed to click the actual Edit tab on Wikipedia, the lack of a button is intentional. I wonder how I can make that more clear -Ocaasi
Mission 2
This mission we're going on a quest to communicate with other editors."
On this mission we're going on a quest to communicate with other editors.
"Like the userpage, every editor has their own TALK page. People can leave you messages."
Like userpages, every editor has their own TALK page, where people can leave you messages." or
Like userpages, every editor has their own TALK page. People can leave you messages there."
"Wow, that was nice. There are like real people here."
I have no problem with being informal, but "like"? Let's not assume most users reading this guide (playing this game) are 13-year-old valley girls. Nix it (I would do much the same for some of the mission six uber-informal speech). There's a technical issue here as well. The pop up box that contains this message covers the whole left end of the welcome message we are to reply to, and the pop up box is not moveable, so we can't read it. If the pop up box was made draggable that would solve the issue entirely, but if that's not possible, it should pop in lower on the screen so it's not obscuring the welcome message.  Fixed
Mission 3
"This means most of its mass is solid. The other tree are Mercury, Mars, and Venus."
I would add one more mistake: make "its", "it's"; one easily seen grammatical error, among the five spelling errors.
Missions 4 and 5
"An easy way to see what's changed since you were last here is to use the article's HISTORY.
The history is like a watchlist of all the activity that happens at a single page.
Every change that's ever been made to an article lives there. Neat, huh?"
An easy way to see what's changed since you were last here is to use the article's PAGE HISTORY.
A page history is a form of watchlist, showing all the activity that's ever happened to an article since it was created.
Every single change that's ever been made to an article can be explored there. Neat, huh?

(Re: the page history breakdown summary)

"Each line is a change—..."
Each line shows an edit by a user—...
"info..."
information (in bytes)…
"and what happened in the edit summary"
and how the person making the edit described what they did in the edit summary.
The link you click on to see a diff (the one that's supposed to be POV I assume) doesn't work.  Fixed
"...what good sources have already written..."
...what reliable sources have already written...
"Policies are practices we practice"
Policies are generally accepted norms and best practices of conduct and editing
"Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it."
I know we're trying to keep it simple but this is dangerous oversimplification, going down the road of the incredibly common misunderstanding that articles should describe each side of every issue (e.g., in our article on evolution, we must present with equal breadth, the evolution-denier's viewpoint). We must tell people about weight, not later but here.
Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without bias, but only in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in published, reliable sources. This applies to both what you say and how you say it."
"summarize what all sides say without taking sides"
summarize what the sides say in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, without taking sides. Note that fringe viewpoints often should not be included at all, or given only a bare mention.  Checking...
I'm not going to get into it here, but I would give quite a different answer to the framed teahouse question about truth.

(I cannot tell you how many times I've seen users misunderstand verifiability to mean what we want is for them to copy and paste from reliable sources)

"...original research, or personal opinions. Just published info."
...original research, or personal opinions. Just published info. Remember though, that sources are used to verify information written in our own words. Please don't copy and paste content you find somewhere.  Checking...
Same dragging problem for the "which source should we use" test: the popup box obscures the content we are being asked to evaluate.  Fixed
When you answer a question wrong, the "Try Again" links aren't working. I looked at the responses to all answers but I was using my back button to navigate.  Fixed
Mission 6
When I get to "cool new info" I am taken to "no such special page".  Fixed

Hope this all helps.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much for this very thorough feedback :) I've made some inline comments. You're very careful with grammar and I will think about whether the license I've taken is distracting fromt the content. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Checkingfax

Using Google Chrome on 1024x768 resolution my experience matches those of the above Alpha Testers. Checkingfax (talk) 01:50, 17 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

This is a known bug now, due to images overlapping the text. Working on fixing it! Ocaasi t | c 16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Known Issue
How do I re-start from where I left off in the game? Checkingfax (talk) 11:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Checkingfax At this point, you can only really restart from the beginning of any mission. To do that you would use the navigation bar at the bottom of most TWA pagse where it lists missions 1-7 and they link to the start of each guided tour. It's not perfect, as some folks may be interrupted mid-way through a mission. I'm not sure what a better fix is here, but I will put some thought into it. Ocaasi t | c 15:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
I found a couple of typos: You see, Wikipedia is part of the Wikimedia movement, a collection of 12 projects that all focus on free knowledge in different ways. And not just in English, but in hundreds other languages, too! Should be: You see, Wikipedia is part of the Wikimedia movement, a collection of 15 projects that all focus on free knowledge in different ways. And not just in English, but in hundreds of other languages, too!  Fixed
Wiki has 15-projects, not 12. 12 is a typo.Checkingfax (talk) 00:34, 20 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed
THIS TASK SHOULD INCLUDE INSTRUCTIONS TO CLICK ON "EDIT SOURCE": Next steps

TWA guide right top.png Place the mouse after the period of the information you want to source.

Then click the button on the editing toolbar that looks like a bookmark.

IN THIS TASK THERE IS ALREADY A REFLIST AND THERE IS NO "TILTED BOOKS" REFLIST BUTTON TO CLICK ON: Add a REFLIST  Fixed

TWA guide left top.png To make the reference show up, add a reflist

Put the mouse at the bottom of the page.

Click the reflist button (tilted books)  Fixed

Leave Group blank and APPLY CHANGES.

THERE WAS NO TAG TO REMOVE IN THIS TASK: Remove that tag :)  Fixed

TWA guide left top.png You solved the problem, so let's go delete the cleanup tag from the top. Begone!

IN THIS TASK A PERPETUAL LOOP IS CREATED THAT KEEPS ASKING ME TO GO BACK AND SAVE THE CHANGES. I HAD TO ABORT OUT OF THE MISSION: Fixed

Sample title goes here

Let them know that you, "Added an inline citation for the reliable source".

Then SAVE when you're ready.

THIS POPUP HAS FIVE TILDES INSTEAD OF FOUR TILDES: :Science and Nature Journal looks like a solid and relevant source with a good reputation. I think we can rely on it more than the others for this article. Nice research! ~~~~~ Checkingfax (talk) 00:34, 20 October 2013 (UTC) Fixed
If I play the game again and again I keep getting more Badges. Also, the Badges are centered on my Userpage; maybe allow left justification? The game is getting a lot smoother! Kudos! Still wish the popups could slide out of the way sometimes, or auto-hide.Checkingfax (talk) 01:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Suggestion: Suggest that players log-in or register and log-in to their account before starting the game. Otherwise they get kicked back to the very beginning of the game. Checkingfax (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Ypnypn

I only played for a few minutes; I hope to continue if I find the time. Anyway...

  1. When I got to the "Edit your userpage" part, although I typed an edit summary and saved the page, the page seemed to save properly, but I was told to go back and add an edit summary and save the page, again, and again, and again.... Ultimately I quit, and my Contributions page revealed no edits. The bug may have been due to my "Force edit summary" preference, which wouldn't be a problem for new users.
    It tells you to go back unless you make an actual edit to the page, so it may be that rather than the edit summary. Your script, however, seems the most likely candidate --Ocaasi
  2. In Step 10, "See, the star on this page is already blue." It wasn't.  Fixed
    I've changed this.
  3. A number of the arrows (such as "History") point to the wrong place on the screen. Is it meant for Monobook?
    The game was definitely written for vector only, as the vast majority of new users will have it
  4. Wikipedia:TWA/4/Diff doesn't exist.  Fixed
    Fixed!
  5. 4, step 21 includes <bre> when it means <br/>  Fixed
    Fixed!
  6. 6, step 8 shows [[File:TWA_guide_left_top.png|link=]] instead of the actual image.  Fixed
    Fixed!
  7. Tour 7 includes a "coders' adage"; it isn't clear to non-programmers.
    I think I explained the quote in non-programmer language on the same slide -Ocaasi
  8. Most of the popups are immovable. This makes editing really hard, since they block the editing window.  Fixed
    I can reposition the popups anywhere on the page. Can you note a specific step where it was in the way?
    One case is Wikipedia:TWA/Earth/4/Diff, the popup blocks most of the added text.  Fixed
  9. Some suggested edit summaries are pretty long – "Added wikilinks to relevant and unique terms"
  10. Some of the suggested images don't exist.  Fixed
  11. In step one, when logging in, the button says "Hello World" – another programming term unfamiliar to most people.
  12. In that same box, "It will take just a few seconds to load the universe--light only travels so fast." A real em-dash would look much better than than the two hyphens.  Fixed
    Fixed!
  13. The "Automatic magic" box feels like it's trying to explain what's going on without explaining what's going on. I doubt a newbie will understand it.  Checking...
  14. I wonder if the User Talk messages should go to the user's real talk page. This will teach the user how to see if they have new messages (by looking at the orange "You have new messages" bar). -Ocaasi
    We gave this a lot of though. Unfortunately, since you are actually sending the messages to yourself, it wouldn't trigger the new message bar anyway
  15. I made a correction to Wikipedia:TWA/5/V, which had asked about NPOV.
    Thanks!
  16. ...and another to Wikipedia:TWA/4/NPOV, adding an <abbr> tag.
    Nice idea -Ocaasi
  17. Tour 5, step 4 is missing the asterisk by "Post it".  Fixed
    Fixed!
  18. Overall, it's a great project, and I hope to see it deployed to Wikipedia soon!
    Thanks for you kind words :)

(Note: comments 1 & 2 were written originally. The others were written after I played more extensively. -- Ypnypn (talk) 22:18, 17 October 2013 (UTC))

TWA alpha testing

moved from User talk:Ocaasi

Interesting idea! I got as far as "Galactic Challenge" after selecting from the multiple-choice list of possible user pages. (I selected the "Sofy" user page.) At that point, I can't click either the "Continue on the adventure" link or the double blue arrows. I'm using Chrome 30.0.1599.101. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

Hey Seraphimblade, thanks for the feedback! That's a screen resolution issue which causes the images in the background to overlap the text box and the link inside it making it unclickable. On my 17 inch Windows laptop running the latest Chrome, it happens below 75% zoom or above 150%. I will talk to the design guru to see if we can make that not happen, or at least much less likely. Cheers :) Ocaasi t | c 04:09, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm running Chrome at standard (100%) zoom. It is on a 28" external monitor over HDMI rather than on the main laptop screen though, resolution set to 1920x1080. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:29, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and disabled the image I think was causing that problem. Please let me know if the overlapping circles (bottom right) are still in the way for you. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 19:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts

Firstly I'm using Google Chrome in 1920x1200, and I'll just write what I feel as I'm going through it below. (I was logged in to my usual account when I started).

My feedback will largely be areas for improvement, so sorry if it sounds overly critical, I did like what I saw!

  • Overall
    • Not sure I like the use of smileys, some were more appropriate than others at least.  Checking...
Known Issue
    • Between Mission 1 and 2 I went to the Lounge, then clicked on to the About page, but after clicking to Return to the Adventure I lost my progress and had to start again.
Known Issue
    • When I clicked off a page onto another it still gave me instructions for whatever I was doing (I clicked onto the Teahouse from Will's link, and there it told me to click edit to reply to Will) which was confusing.
  • First page
    • Minor thing; the "Shortcut: WP:TWA" box overlaps the background graphic which looks a little untidy.  Fixed
  • Mission 1
    • I'm not sure what the picture is of in the instruction boxes...
    • Your impact can change the world - "you get to discover you own path" should read "you get to discover your own path".
    • "Click the Create or Edit" should maybe read "Click Create or Edit" or "Click the Create or Edit button"?  Fixed
    • Would there be a way to make it detect whether your userpage exists and say 'Write some stuff' if there is no page, or 'add some stuff' if there is?  Fixed
    • Edit summary and Save - This box could do with a little copyedit (second paragraph specifically), and maybe "Then click SAVE" should say "Then click Save page"?
    • Add bold - It says to "highlight your username in the text box" but there was no requirement that I write my username and so my username isn't on the page. Perhaps this should read "Highlight some text"? The box itself is also in a confusing place, and it might be good to have it above the edit box in the top right near the B?  Fixed
    • It seems like I don't actually have to bold anything, as simply making any edit is enough to get the Formatter badge, would it be possible to require a clicking of the bold button for example?
    • Between Mission 1 and 2 the "Go on to mission 2, take a break, Editor, Formatter" box overlapped with the 'Check your stats' box
      Known Issue
  • Mission 2
    • Real people - The box was over the message so I couldn't read it, having the box underneath would probably be better.  Fixed
    • Replying to Will - Having all the div, clear, and templates at the top of the page is a little overwhelming, could the user maybe be prompted to edit section instead so that they don't see it? Checking...
      • The instructions should also probably say where to paste the reply, it's not clear where it should go Fixed.
    • User:WillKomen wasn't wikilinked despite the instructions saying it should be so they get pinged.  Fixed
    • A solution - "To follow a page just click the star at the top center of it." - The star isn't really at the top centre of the page, it's over to the right. "the star on this page is already blue." - Mine wasn't.  Fixed
    • Track your contributions - The box for these instructions went off the edge of my page requiring me to scroll sideways. Not a big deal but I assume you could align it within the page?  Fixed
    • Track your contributions - I got stuck in a loop here clicking Check out your work and couldn't progress.  Fixed

Once I can advance past here I'm happy to carry on going through it! Generally I thought it was really good and am quite impressed with what you've done! Samwalton9 (talk) 08:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the feedback! I'd love to have your help again once I've fixed that up. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:14, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Well I didnt get very far...

Here are a few screenshots of my progress up until the point that I got a wee bit stuck.

  • I got to the Galatic challenge and was not able to click on anything within the screen, ( this is the point at which a box pops up saying galactic challenge.
  • I went to the talk page to comment on this, the box came with me http://grab.by/rexy
  • I went to edit the talk page, the box came with me http://grab.by/rexA
  • I tried clicking on random article, the box came with me http://grab.by/rexE :>

·addshore· talk to me! 09:10, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Known Issue
The images are overlapping the links making them unclickable, working on fixing it. Yes, the tour does follow you around until you reach the end of a mission or click the [x] box. There's unfortunately not really a way to fix that and it is annoying. I will think about how to minimize that, but I'm not sure there's an easy fix. Thanks for the feedback! Ocaasi t | c 16:08, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I got even less far along that these folks. I got as far as "edit" or "create" your user page and when I null-edited my user page, the Adventure kicked me out. I did this twice. I must be missing something really obvious because everyone else got past that point. Call me a dummy, but call me to let me know how to finish playing please? 16:59, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    Hi, Ellin Beltz. It should have presented you with the dialog to "Go Back and Make an Edit". Did you click it? Ocaasi t | c 17:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    Yes, I clicked it to make the edit and it kicked me out. Bummer, it looks fun. Ellin Beltz (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    Ellin Beltz, can you tell me what computer operating system, browser, and browser version you're using? I'd like to fix this so you can play! Ocaasi t | c 17:52, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    Fourth time is the charm, I figured out what I was doing wrong. When it got to the User page to do the edit, I clicked the "x" in an effort to get rid of the popup box so I could see to do what it said ! Facepalm. All my fault. I only found a couple other things worth mentioning besides that popup box makes it really hard to edit even when the screen is dragged out full width:
    (a) On Adding a citation to Earth, the blue button says "Insterted".  Fixed
    (b) Where we are sprucing up the look, under "Atmosphere", it's not really clear that carbon dioxide AND methane should be wikilinked, in the text it reads *carbon dioxide and methane* in the pop up it is *carbon dioxide, methane* and it should read <no wiki> carbon dioxide and methane</no wiki>  Fixed
    (c) Still sprucing, the line "This is called convection currents" is not the sort of grammar up with which my 4th grade teacher would have put. This is not really super important but it distracted me from the task at hand. This page was really tricky to do with the immobile popup even though I knew to widen it out.  Checking...
    (d) At beginning, warn people "do not press the 'x' on the popups!"  Checking...
    Otherwise major cool! I did the whole thing in under one hour with some prior game and editing experience.
    Ellin Beltz, Thanks! You have some great observations and tips. There will be another round of testing before we deploy and I think I have a good sense of the most serious problems that need to be fixed by then (thanks to folks like you). Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 12:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments from I JethroBT

I've made some notes about bugs and comments to the game here. I've also included many screenshots to be able to more visually show some issues, some which have come up above already as I'm glancing through previous comments. I, JethroBT drop me a line 05:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Also to clarify, I was using Mozilla Firefox 24 on a Windows 7 operating system at a 1280 x 1024 resolution. I, JethroBT drop me a line 16:15, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
And actually, it's probably easier just to post this here so make it all centralized. I've divided this up based on the section I encountered the issues or had a comment to make. I, JethroBT drop me a line 16:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Userpage

  • There doesn't appear to be a way to go back to a previous message. I can definitely imagine a new editor (or an experienced one) accidentally clicking too fast and missing a message that may have been helpful to read.
    This is a tradeoff issue. You can either have each step be go-back-able or have each page load quickly, but you can't have both. At the moment it's a compromise where you can go back several steps at a time, to keep page load manageable but not completely lock you out from going backwards. --Ocaasi
  • Hitting the back button while on the user page portion of The Adventure throws you back to the beginning. The user can get back to the user page portion of The Adventure by clicking through it all again. Is there a way to present a warning on the UI that using the back button will fling users all the way to the beginning? Some users may think it will allow them to see the previous message.  Checking...
Known Issue
  • Some graphical, distracting overlap between "Wikipedia:TWA/1/Bio" title and "3...2...1...Galactic challenge!" header on page. (See File:TWA_Screenshot1.png)
    To be honest, we're not even trying to support monobook. I don't have this happening in vector.
  • On Step 11, when I click on edit as it instructs, another dialogue box appears next to the editing window. However, if I close the dialogue box on Step 11, followed by clicking on "edit" to start making the user page, there was no subsequent dialogue box on the editing window. This should probably appear regardless of what a user does with the dialogue box on Step 11.  Checking...
  • Same bug as above for Step 15.  Checking...
  • Got a dialogue box that seems to be intended for the previous screen where the actual editing was taking place (See File:TWA_Screenshot2.png).
  • End of Userpage: Graphical errors make later lessons hard to read because the background graphic is not sufficiently long (see File:TWA_Screenshot3.png)  Fixed

Talking with Others

  • Interesting bug...I (intentionally) got the question wrong here [[1]], but the link sends the user to the wrong place. I've corrected this here  Fixed (THANKS!)
  • Copy and pasting the content suggested in the response you need to leave from WillKomen will not get the desired wikilinks the editor's name and instead looks like: User:WillKomen. (See File:TWA_Screenshot4.png)  Fixed
  • There's a stray open quote in the text response for GaiaGirl: :"Awesome User:GaiaGirl86, it's my favorite planet! How do I get there?  Fixed

NPOV

  • This page appears to be incomplete, as it is intended to be a diff, and instead is an empty page!  Fixed
I still get an empty page here, actually. Is there any reason why we might be seeing different things? I, JethroBT drop me a line 17:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Hanging <bre> (probably intended to be a pre tag) found in dialogue box here.  Fixed

Civility

  • This page does not appear to exist under the Special: set of subpages.  Fixed
  • Image missing from this step here. Wiki-markup currently reads [[File:TWA_guide_left_top.png|link=]]  Fixed
  • After providing an incorrect response on how to respond to Taggy, and hitting Try Again, I got a weird dialogue box pointing me back to Verifiability. (see File:TWA_Screenshot6.png)  Checking...

Images

  • Adding in images will be rather difficult when the dialogue box is very much in the way (see File:TWA_Screenshot7.png).  Fixed

Restarting and other problems

  • The script appears to insist that you go through every step every time you work through it. There should be a way of saying "yes I have done this before, skip to next step" • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)  Checking...
  • Does not want to save and continue after editing user page. I put in an edit summary of "dummy edit" and clicked save, and it returned to the dialog box which said I still needed to save. Since I had just clicked save, this is not helpful. If you insist on a real edit, or a specific edit summary, say so, otherwise it gets confusing/frustrating/annoying when one is told to do exactly what one has just done in an apparently infinite loop. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed
  • What age group is targeted? The language gives the impression of condescension, or possibly poor language skills. Less synthetic enthusiasm might help.
    The target age group is college aged men and women who want a playful, educational introduction to Wikipedia. The informal tone is a conscious choice which we will test and analyze for effectiveness in the next few weeks/months --Ocaasi
  • Sometimes the dialog box obscures the text. This happened with the "Real people" dialog on the dummy talk page.  Fixed
  • The "Edit summary and save" dialog box seems to have crept onto this page. Is this intentional? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:11, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
    Known Issue
  • Honestly, if I was starting to edit here I would be a little concerned about the target group demographic. It does not seem to be specified on the project page.
  • The script seems to have crashed on Earth. (not opening edit box). Mildly ironic, probably not intentional.  Checking...
  • Red and blue text on a black background is virtually illegible. ("This is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved! → Go to editing area")  Checking...
  • The demonstration of diffs is broken.  Fixed
  • There is a persistent box stating "Galactic Challenge" in the middle of the screen at times, It is not obvious what this is for.  Checking...
  • I am using Chrome on WinXP in case any of these problems are browser specific.
  • Sometimes "The Wikipedia Adventure" screen opens over itself. This does not look right. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:54, 18 October 2013 (UTC)  Checking...
Known Issue
  • After I closed the pages I kept getting dialog boxes on other pages I opened. I had to close my browser to get rid of them. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:22, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't know if this is already part of the system, but how about a quiz on wikiprotocol and policies that selects random multiple choice questions and automatically scores the user and provides feedback on the chosen answers. This could be broken down into sections on policies, MoS, wikimarkup, VE, feedback, conflict resolution, civility etc. Maybe a good learning aid for slightly more advanced users. It would be an interesting experiment in crowdsourcing a multiple choice question database too. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:35, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Notes from Matty.007

  • In the first mission, on the 'Edit summary and Save' box, I feel that the fact that you have to leave an edit summary should go before telling you to click the 'save' button. Also, I may be wrong, but I think that 'save' may need the 's.  Fixed
  • One or two slides on, it has 'Edit' in bold, I feel that a consistent referencing to the buttons is needed, i.e. they all need to be bolded or put in '.
  • When you are editing, such as on the 'Add bold' slide, the editing goes behind the slide making it difficult to see, and obscures text which people may want to bold/wikilink. Perhaps make the slide moveable?  Fixed
  • On the 'Add Italics' slide, it says "Now highlight your interests and put them in italics. Then click i on the editing toolbar.". This should have about clicking the 'i'before the bit about putting them in italics  Fixed
  • When you get the chance to look at badges, when you look at the pages, e.g. Wikipedia:TWA/Badge/1, whenever you go back onto the Adventure page then the slide saying "Mission 1 complete! Journey on to mission 2..." always comes up when you go back onto the adv. page (although I doubt that this is fixable)  Checking...
  • On the 'real people' slide, it says "There are like real people here", which is not really proper English. "There are real people here" would probably be better  Fixed
  • When replying to 'WillKomen', the bit which is copy and pasted has five tildes, rather than four  Fixed
Known Issue
  • Whenever I click on the button to go on to the next slide in the editing process, IE asks me if I am sure I want to leave the page  Checking...
    I will have to do a full usability test in IE, as i've been working in Chrome/Firefox mostly. I'll also check Safari. --Ocaasi
  • When you have multiple adv. tabs open, the conversations merge
  • The 'Track your contributions' slide goes off the right edge of the page  Fixed
  • The slides follow you to any tab you use (which can get a little annoying)
    Known Issue
  • The reply to 'GaiaGirl86' doesn't link to her username in the copy paste text (no square brackets)  Fixed

Sorry for mistakes, and if these are too in depth, but they are my thoughts. More to come... Thanks, Matty.007 19:28, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


  • The 'So this is Planet Earth!' slide seems to block some of the text, and has an arrow pointing at the toolbox  Fixed
  • "Articles on Wikipedia give an encyclopedic overview of a subject: They tell readers": I don't think that the 'they' needs a capital letter  Fixed
  • Again, the 'Spot the typos' slide is pointing into the toolbar on the left, and obscuring the text it is telling you to check for typos; when you click the button to look for typos, you can't see them all as they are obscured by the slide  Fixed
  • The message to add bold comes after you have clicked 'save'  Fixed
  • 'New content...' slide covers the new message partially  Fixed
  • 'What's new?' slide pointing to toolbar' perhaps pointing at the 'View history' button would be better  Fixed
  • On the Adv. page behind the slide 'This looks familiar!', could the dates be the present date, or is that unfeasible?  Fixed
  • When it is saying about clicking the 'Prev' button, they aren't clickable in the text, so perhaps a warning that they don't work on that page  Fixed
  • GaiaGirl86's new contributions are hidden behind the slide  Fixed
  • 'Policies are practices we practice' seems a little... odd. Perhaps 'Policies are guidelines we practice'?
  • On this bit, rather than putting * around 'about', perhaps put it in italics?  Fixed
  • On the 'Removing Bias' slide, clicking 'Okay' seems to act simply to close the box, rather than anything productive  Fixed
  • Perhaps making it more clear to editors that the non-biased text about Earth needs to be copied from the slide  Fixed
  • Again, 'Interesting question...' slide has an arrow pointing to toolbar, and 'Okay' button does nothing  Fixed

Sorry if you already know about these, missions 5-6 should be forthcoming in the next few days. Thanks, Matty.007 08:02, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

  • When looking at the history of the Earth article, the user's name isn't listed, despite making a spelling edit (I later found that we are 'Galactic Trekker'
  • On the 'We're on!' slide, I am unsure who 'SocraTease' is (although I may have missed one or two steps by accident)
  • The 'This is important' slide covers the reply  Fixed
  • We are earlier (when looking at page history) told (or assumed) to be 'Galactic Trekker'. However, GaiaGirl86's message is to 'GalacticTrekker', no space  Fixed
  • Something seems to have gone majorly wrong on the '3 Sources' slide, where 'The Wikipedia Adventure' heading is on the page twice, one lower down, which obscures some text  Fixed
  • On the 'What now?' slide, GaiaGirl86 is mistakenly called 'GaiaGirl1988'  Fixed
  • Different spellings of 'OK': spelt 'okay' earlier on (see one of my above comments', but 'ok' here  Fixed
Known Issue
  • On the 'Reply to GaiaGirl' page, the heading thing happened again: the template is on the page three times  Checking...
  • Again, on 'Copy your message at the bottom', there are 5 tildes  Fixed

Done all missions up to (not including) 6. Thanks, Matty.007 15:57, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from Estaling

Here is my humble feedback...

  • Mission 1 - Edit User Page - popup blocked edit text box  Fixed
  • Mission 2 - Reply to first message - Four Quick Things popup mentions using Visual Editor in Mission 1, but I don't believe I used visual editor.  Fixed
  • Mission 3 - Earth page, uses "hour" instead of "our", but not listed in mistakes to find  Fixed
  • Mission 4 - Put NPOV to Work popup, asks if I see any problems with Earth article, but the tour previously navigated me away from that page, so I can't see the problems.  Fixed
    • Fix and Replace popup blocks edit text box (when trying to add the neutral text). Button said DONE, not COPIED like the other similar popups  Fixed
  • Mission 5 - This Is Important popup (right after first Teahouse reply) - One, it blocks the response. Two, it is pointing to the Print/export link on the left toolbar (slightly confusing, but minor)  Fixed
    • Checking out GaiaGirl's sources, the 3 Sources popup, says "we wan" instead of "we want"  Fixed, "Sources we can rely on." is a sentence fragment (technically), and the popup blocked the list of sources, making it hard to read  Fixed
  • Mission 6 - Reply to Taggy popup - should say "so that he knows" or "so that he/she knows" instead of "so that they know"
    • I (purposefully) picked the wrong response to Taggy. I love the crying unicorn, but on the Name-Calling line of the pyramid, "ass hat", while hilarious to me, seemed slightly inappropriate (even as an example of inappropriateness)  Checking...
    • When about to add the first citation, and the Next Steps popup appears, it navigates to the Article page not the Edit page  Fixed
    • Once ready to cite, the Cite It popup doesn't let you highlight and copy the reference info from the popup (and it's a lot to type).  Fixed
    • Add a REFLIST popup says to click the reflist button, which I don't see. (Again, I'm not in Visual Editor, which I've never used, so don't know if that makes a difference)  Fixed
    • Next popup tells you to remove the cleanup tag, but with no instructions on what to look for or how to do that.  Fixed
  • Mission 7 - Returning to Earth page, when the Wow What Vibrant Additions popup appears, the Earth page has a Cite Error (no reflist tag). Makes it seem like the popup is saying "Wow an Error! Let's Fix It!"  Fixed
    • All the content on the Earth page is duplicated. After the first References section is another Shape and Structure section, Tectonic Plates, etc. ending with a 2nd References section (I didn't do that).  Checking...
    • Linus Law popup - should it be "Linus' Law", like the previous popup?  Fixed
    • Adding sections, popup tells you to open the Advanced toolbar, but then doesn't tell you a button to click.  Fixed
    • The Treasure of the Commons popup begins "Commons, has..." instead of "Commons has..."  Fixed
    • Adding images, says to click the Mountain icon, which I don't see. I have an Embed File button, and on the Advanced toolbar an Insert Picture Gallery button.  Fixed
I could not find the "Mountain" icon either. I do have Embed File and Insert Picture Gallery Checkingfax (talk) 01:39, 21 October 2013 (UTC)  Fixed

Overall, I'm really impressed by the guided tour. If that was my first introduction to Wikipedia contributing, I would feel pretty confident afterward. I do agree that the ability to go back to a step/popup would be very beneficial. I love the playfulness of the tour; it is a great contrast to the tons of technical instructions currently available. All-in-all really great job!

Thanks for this fantastic feedback. I'll get to all these errors in the next few days :) Ocaasi t | c 02:33, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Talk messages

Out of curiosity, I ended up looking at this. After I got fed up, I navigated away to a different page and the adventure was actually following me around, giving me popups as if I was still on the page. Then I wake up this morning and find it has made an edit to my talk page on my behalf. I don't recall ever seeing a warning that this page could make edits using my account, but apparently I am blind because there is a notice there, although it's not very prominent. Still, it seems a bit misguided to do so without giving a very prominent warning to people that this page, and the code in it, can make edits on your behalf. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 08:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Deskana. The tour is persistent unless you reach the end of it or click the x in the top right corner. That's intended in Guided Tours so that editors can navigate around Wikipedia pages. I realize it's frustrating and I'm looking into making it not happen.
I placed a disclosure at the top of WP:TWA stating that the game makes automatic edits to your own userpages. I also added the same message in step two of mission 1, the second step of the tour. Do you think I can make this more clear? Ocaasi t | c 08:48, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I'll have a think about the best way to inform people, and get back to you. Thanks for the quick response! --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 08:50, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Intrusive popups

You may want to re-check how you're using the pop-ups with instructions. At Mission 3, when starting the VE, the 5 fixes popup was obscuring the final sentence of Earth's content. When I closed it to see the text below, there was no way to recover it to continue the wizard. Diego Moya (talk) 20:12, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I've just done an whole reworking of the pop-up placement. Please check again and let me know if you see any remaining errors. Thanks for the feedback, Diego ! Ocaasi t | c 18:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Not working

It is not working for me. Whe I click Mission1 2 3, etc. I doesn't show anything. What is wrong? What it does supposed to do? I have enabled VE. Miss Bono [zootalk] 13:43, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey Miss Bono, you might have just caught it at a time while I was updating a bug. It's loading now, so please try again. Also there are still kinks I'm working out (known bugs), but I'd still be curious where you get tripped up. Cheers :) Ocaasi t | c 19:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Universal?

"Earth...has literally universal appeal." It kind of depends on how you define universal. - Ypnypn (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC) (late sign)

Feedback from Jackmcbarn

Mission 1:

  • When I X-out of the "Welcome to Wikipedia!", "Automatic magic", etc. boxes at the beginning, it's not obvious that you have to start over, or what you'd need to do to start over. Perhaps the background shouldn't be dimmed and the X button should just be removed, since some users won't want to read through all that, not realizing they have to click through it to continue.
  • When I X-out on my user-page, the same thing happens. I'm "lost." (Okay, I've noticed this is common throughout; I'm done reporting it)
  • When I'm picking the best userpage, "SELECT the best option below." shouldn't appear on the "Try again" or "Continue on the adventure" screens.  Fixed
  • Why is "Editor Badge" referred to as a tool? That makes it sound like you can use it for something. (Same for other badges.)
  • It says to "Highlight your username in the text box with your mouse." but not everyone wrote their username on the page. It should make it clear what to do if you didn't.  Fixed

Mission 2:

Known Issue
  • If you left and came back since mission 1 rather than proceeding immediately, it forgets where you were (and the stat bars) and you have to choose mission 2 manually.
  • Hitting "Let's dive in" at the beginning of mission 2 should add the talk page message, rather than hitting "Check your new message", so it's there already when it says "Someone sent you a message."  Checking...
  • It's kind of strange for the message to say "Real people", but if you click WillKomen's name, it says "I'm fictional." Not really sure how to fix that.
  • Just curious, is there a reason it uses a talk subpage instead of your real talk page?
    We wanted the game to not clutter people's talk pages, which they'd then have to learn to clear or archive. This could have gone either way, we just wanted to make sure that the game was clearly demarked as separate from 'real' Wikipedia -Ocaasi
  • The "copied" button may be misinterpreted by some users as a "copy" button, and then the message will disappear, and they won't know how to proceed.  Checking...
Known Issue
  • Is it possible to have a way to go back to the last step?
  • Once I started typing in the edit summary box, the help message for it disappeared (happened consistently)  Fixed
  • When it says "Click WATCHLIST at the top right", it should have an arrow or something pointing to it.  Checking...
Known Issue
  • When it says "CLICK CONTRIBUTIONS ABOVE^", does it really need a "Clicked." button? Can't it tell when you click Contributions?  Checking...
  • When it says "They're all to your userpage and Talk page...", it's assuming the account is brand-new, and not an existing account that started the adventure.  Fixed
  • When replying to the message about Earth, it should introduce the section edit link, rather than the whole-page edit link again.  Checking...
  • When it says "Hey, let's reload the page to see if GaiaGirl responded!", it should emphasize that in real life, it might take a long time to get a response.  Checking...

Mission 3:

  • When I go to Earth, the box cuts off the left side of the screen (on Chrome 30.0.1599.101) and can't be read (screenshot).  Fixed
  • When fixing the typos, it should prompt you to mark as a minor edit.
  • The word Earth appears more than once. When asking you to bold it, it's not clear that it's the first one that should be bolded.
  • "Added bold" isn't a very good edit summary.

Mission 4:

  • Instead of saying "You show up as GalacticTrekker, because that's what you are.", can you use JavaScript to inject the user's actual username and date, and make the links work?  Checking...
  • On the "Fix and replace" screen, it says "Copy and past" instead of "Copy and paste", and it doesn't tell you to remove the biased text when you add the neutral text.  Fixed

Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 5:

  • Can you use the user's real username instead of GalacticTrekker on the automated Teahouse post, and on GaiaGirl86's post on your talk page?  Checking...
  • The Earth talk page says "Retrieved {today}". I assume this should autofill the actual current date.  Fixed

Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 6:

  • When I start mission 6 right after finishing 5, the "Editing", "Social", and "Policy" graphs are all significantly lower than they were at the end of 5.  Checking...
  • When I clicked Edit on Earth to add the summarized content, I got the mission 5 complete box again. After clearing my cookies and trying again, clicking edit just gave me the "Click edit" message on the edit page again. At this point, I can't proceed.

Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)  Checking...

Mission 6, take 2:

  • "Click edit" issue above seems to be gone now.
Known Issue
  • I noticed you anchor the message boxes to the footer a lot. Shouldn't they usually be anchored to some relevant text instead?
    It's not possible to anchor to text, so it's quite tricky to find a place on the page that won't overlap what they user is supposed to read. Footer is often the safest, best option. --Ocaasi
  • I don't like the talk page message being phrased as a poem. I think it seems a little bit unprofessional.
  • The cleanup tag should be at the top of the page, but it ends up at the bottom. If that's not feasible, maybe the inline {{citation needed}} tag could be used instead.  Checking...
  • On the Galactic Challenge, I think the pyramid should be above the text.  Checking...
  • The date on the example source is "March 21, 20." That seems like a typo. And the "retrieved" date should be dynamic, always the current day.  Fixed
  • Should a {{cite web}} tag be used? Not sure, maybe.  Checking...
  • The reference and the "cite it" instructions should be on the same screen.  Checking...
  • "Insterted" should be "Inserted", on the button.  Fixed
  • When it says to add the reflist, it should say to add == References == on the line before it.
    That's addressed in the next mission -Ocaasi

Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 7:

  • The newly revamped Earth article doesn't have the name in bold at the beginning, despite the player adding it back in mission 3.  Fixed
  • There's a lot of weird inconsistencies on Wikipedia:TWA/Earth/History/2.  Checking...
  • Early in mission 7, it sends you to Special:MyPage/TWA/Earth/2, but later, it sends you back to the older one, Special:MyPage/TWA/Earth.  Fixed
  • It then says "First, highlight the section title "Shape and structure".", but since you're on the wrong version of the page, there's no such title. I can't proceed further from here.  Fixed

Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:43, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 7, take 2:

Known Issue
  • When you restart a mission, the pages related to it in your userspace end up with a lot of weird duplicated content.
    Messages are resent and the background duplicates. If you want to retest, for now it's best to use a legitimate alternate account you register just for testing (like User:OcaasiTWA17) -Ocaasi
    I'm more so concerned with this because a user could be halfway through a mission, accidentally close a box, and then have to start over, and it wouldn't work right for them then. Jackmcbarn (talk)
    That's a great point. I'm considering some kind of warning, at least.
  • When it says "A note" while adding headings, it should be made clearer that that's just for future reference, and not anything that needs done to this article.  Checking...
  • It's kind of a pain to look for all 10 words to wikilink. Maybe they could be arranged in the message to match the order they're in on the page.  Fixed
    Great idea, will do. -Ocaasi
  • The popups while editing cover up part of the edit box, and can't be moved.
    How much did it interfere with the editing tasks you needed to do? I ask because that's the best place for them I've found and anywhere else will be a tradeoff (they'd have to go at the bottom of the page) -Ocaasi
    I'm sure on smaller screens it would interfere more, but for me, it covered up one of the words I needed to wikilink. Jackmcbarn (talk)
    I'll double check, thanks.
  • Should the images listed on the talk page be wikilinked?  Checking...
    Interesting idea. Will think about it! -Ocaasi
  • Why are there underlines in the image names it tells you to copy instead of spaces? Fixed
    Spaces and underlines do the same thing, I can remove the underlines and it will still work. Nice catch. -Ocaasi
  • It should be made clear to paste into the Filename box. Fixed
    Nice point -Ocaasi
  • When you say to add an image under each section, you should mention to skip the References section. Fixed
    Good point, will fix. -Ocaasi
  • I think a barnstar is a bit much to automatically award everyone who plays. Maybe change that to some other kind of WikiLove.
    I'll think about this one, it's a fair point.-Ocaasi

Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:34, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Generic:

  • When on pages that hide their real title, the text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (and other things, such as redirect notices and subpage links) overlap with the background.  Checking...

Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:36, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Still haunted by pop ups

I don't know if you've worked on this already, I know it's been mentioned before, but I'm still being followed around by popups ever since I started and quit the Earth section. Some are in the middle of the screen, others are half visible on the side of the screen. They even follow me here (see capture). There's still some serious bug squashing to do, I think. I'm using Firefox, if that's any help.

Also, a minor issue, when I tag the test messages left on my Talk/TWA for speedy deletion the CSD template doesn't show properly. The TWA code doesn't like it, I guess. It's not a bug but I assume more people will want these tests (eventually) deleted from their user pages, so it is something to look into. Yintan  09:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

How was your experience playing the game?

Mission Five Feedback from As the Crow Flies

[I created a new section, because when I added this to the section I previously used, I appeared to have caused a glitch.]

Sorry for taking such a long time. My feedback on Mission Five:

Mission Five

  • Minor: Personally I found "SocraTease riddled us with a puzzling question" a little redundant.  Checking...
  • I like the fact that you are now informed that you have received a badge instead of them just appearing on your user page. [Thanks!]
  • The message box obscures TheHelpFullWand"s answer at the Teahouse.  Fixed
  • At GaiaGirl86's "Reliable sources about Earth?" I noticed Taggy's comment:
"What are you doing??[edit]
The info you added does. not. reference. a. source. That's bad, bad, bad! Does anyone know even where this freakin' came from???? --Taggy McTaggerstein (talk) 22:06, Wednesday October 23, 2013 (UTC)"
was in the background  Fixed
  • Cite error: There are [reference] tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {reflist}
appears on the Earth article page  Fixed
  • A message says:

Add section headings

TWA guide right top.png

First, highlight the section title "Shape and structure".

Then Click ADVANCED in the toolbar to show the HEADING menu. You want to use Heading LEVEL 2.

Do the same for EACH of the section titles: 1) Shape and structure, 2) Tectonic plates, 3) Surface, 4) Atmosphere, 5) Weather, climate, and water cycle, 6) Orbit and rotation, and 7) References.

Added headings

It does not mention the See Also section. Checking...
  • A similar issue with the next message, it does not list "leap year" in its list of key words and phrases to wikilink.  Checking...
  • After this point I received the message:

Edit summary and Save

Let them know that you, "Added wikilinks to relevant and unique terms".

Then SAVE when you're ready.

Go back and make an edit

Which sent me to: User:As the Crow Flies/TWA/Earth&action=edit&action=edit
Which does not exist  Checking...
I did what it said, but I was still sent back to that page, and thus, I couldn't continue.
  • The "Continue on the adventure" link makes everything run smoother, but I lost track of where I was. I may have proceeded into another mission, though I do not think I did.

I hope you find this helpful! Please forgive my comments being a bit of a mess. As the Crow Flies (talk) 23:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Missions Six & Seven

I went through the last two missions using an alternate account.

  • Whilst the back arrow is a nice feature, proceeding after backing up causes a redundant number of messages to appear.
  • The "Unrefernced" tag is placed below the earth article, when in general (I believe) they are placed above the article's text.
  • Minor: Regarding this statement, Okay, stay cool.... deep breaths, deeeep breaths, deeeeeeeep breaaaaths. I get the point, but I believe it would be better if "breaaaaths" was simply written "breaths" as the former looks rather strange.
  • The Challenge yourself... message seems to follow you around. To clarify, it first appears on the "Galatic Challenge" page, but it additionally appears on the answer pages as well, including the one that congratulates you for selecting the correct answer.
  • Though, yes, I realise it is pretty obvious, the message giving you a list of images to add to the article could be more clear about where to place each image.

I know this isn't much, and all of the above are not major issues. Most of the problems seem to have been solved. I am impressed by the tremendous amount of work you must have done, and I wish you and the TWA success! As the Crow FliesTWA (talk) 21:12, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is necessary, but the above and I are, indeed, both the same person. As the Crow Flies (talk) 21:20, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts v2 - New account and different browser

Trying a new browser (Firefox 17 - Not sure if this is up to date as I usually use Chrome) and am on a brand new account, here are my thoughts as before:

  • Overall
    • What is the drawing of? As a few others have mentioned I don't understand it.
      It's... an intergalactic space guru? An androgynous alien helper? A purple encyclopedia sprite? What do you think it is :) We wanted to pick a guide that would be non-gendered and not culturally specific. That left basically animals, which didn't meet the space theme, or machines, which didn't seem inviting. So we went with humanoid and kind of eclectic. --Ocaasi
    • I feel like the badges are good but should be displayed horizontally, vertical placement makes them take up so much room.  Checking...
      It's supposed to look like: Wikipedia:TWA/Badgeometer, I will work on that. Good catch! --Ocaasi
    • I don't think ALL pages need to have The Wikipedia Adventure colour style and headings. Having, for example, the talk and history pages be the actual ones might better prepare users for the real deal and would clear up some scary looking formatting templates.  Checking...
    • I think (unless this comes up in the missed Mission 3), that the Show Preview button should be explained as it's very helpful for new editors to check that wikitext is translating how they want it to.  Checking...
  • Mission 1
    • Had no issues, good introduction to the site.
  • Mission 2
    • All the templates and colour styles on your talk page are still a little overwhelming as per my previous comment.  Checking...
  • Mission 3
    • Mission 3 wouldn't start. Clicking through to advance did nothing as did specifically clicking on Mission 3 at the bottom of the page, so I went straight on to Mission 4.  Fixed
  • Mission 4
    • "Interesting question..." - This box came up at the bottom of the page and I'm not sure it is supposed to be there.  Checking...
  • Mission 5
    • "SocraTease riddled us with a puzzling question: How do we know if information on Wikipedia is true?" Did he? When? If this was in Mission 3 then I would have missed it I guess. (Unless this is a joke that went over my head)
      It was the end of mission 4, the 'interesting question', maybe you didn't see the last post to the talk page. --Ocaasi
  • Mission 7
    • When being asked to add wikilinks I decided against it and just attempted to continue. After telling me to go back and make an edit this broke it by trying to put me onto a page titled "User:Samwalton9TWA/TWA/Earth/2&action=edit". It got stuck in a loop of continually adding "&action=edit" to the article title whenever I clicked Go back and make an edit. Fixed this manually by navigating to the edit page.  Checking...
    • Adding one or two images is probably enough, I was getting bored adding more than that.

Overall much better than when I last tested it and provides a nice overall introduction to editing. I'll get someone who doesn't edit Wikipedia to try it soon. Samwalton9TWA (talk) 18:11, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Quick confirmation that this is my testing account! Samwalton9 (talk) 00:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Ebe123

[responses inline--Ocaasi][replied inline--Ebe123]

My suggestions:

  • WORDS OR Letters IN ALL CAPS are annoying in messages or examples. (i.e. "CLICK CONTRIBUTIONS ABOVE^")
    CAPS are used for emphasis, especially when instructions could be easily misunderstood.
  • Why are there askerisks on buttons? I would remove text in buttons like "Done!*".
    The asterisks signal a message is being sent using the API. This was agreed to so editors were not surprised that this was happening automatically. It also helps prepare expectations for slighty longer page load times as the message is sent.
  • The "I think you could do better" text should be on the right, not just above the silly illustration.
    We wanted the 'outcome' text to be read first, then the illustration viewed, then the full explanation. I'm willing to look at a center or right alignment, but just know we gave this one some thought.
  • Sometimes, on my screen, the pop-up boxes get cut on the screen, sometimes covering up the edit box.
    Did they cover up the edit box in a way that prevented making the necessary changes?
    • It did when I was supposed to reference the Earth page, and more, of which I do not remember much.
  • When steps are re-done in the wrong order, it gives the wrong pop-up boxes or duplicates itself.
    This is a known issue. Unfortunately, the game is not smart enough to know when you've played before, or if you're going out of order.
  • The Earth page bolding instruction can be erroneous.
    Could you explain how? I'd like to fix that.
    • "Earth" apprears twice, and so it should specify the first instance of "Earth"
  • GaiaGirl86 can type perfectly on talk pages. Why not on articles?
    Artistic license ;)
  • The history page simulation dialog can be improved. (such as changing "because that's what you are.")
    Any suggestions?
  • A bit strange the only wikilink on talk pages are to UTC.
    The only way I know to get current dates is to use {{currentdate}}, which autowikilinks the UTC. I'll take a look and see if there are some places to add wikilinks elsewhere. Thanks for the tip.
  • The transition to mission 5 isn't as nice as others.  Checking...
  • Edit links for talk pages should go to the section where text is to be added.
    This has been suggested by many and is a good idea I'll look into.

Overall, the adventure is good but is a bit too childish. Ebe123 Testing (talk) 19:59, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Good but too childish. I'll take it :)

Also, the pages do not render correctly on the Modern skin.

We are only supporting vector, as that will cover the vast majority of new editors. Thanks for your feedback!
  • Badges could be made to go side-by-side. At the end of the adventure, the user page becomes long with lots of white space.

~~Ebe123~~ → report 20:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback

The Wikipedia Adventure is one pretty cool game/interactive tutorial. It was easy to complete, use of instructions were easy to understand and concise. However in some instructions such as adding the picture instruction in Mission 6 should include a image of what the icon looks like as I was confused in trying to find it. However great job, got some instruction dialog window out of view. ///EuroCarGT 22:43, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I've added a note on easy identification on the image icon, I'll see if I can get that photo as well, that'd be great. Thanks! Ocaasi t | c 23:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Checkingfax-TWA

Using a new username: Checkingfax-TWA

  • Using Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP Pro on 1024x768 resolution.

Mission-1

  • Hello World: "For the rest of the journey you need to be logged in". Should read: For the rest of the journey you need to be registered and logged in.
  • Galactic Challenge! [x] What's that? It blocks the popups behind it.
  • The editing interface: Blocks the userpage behind it, making it uneditable.
  • When I click on "typed it" a box pops up saying "are you sure you want to navigate away from this page"?
  • "Edit summary and save": Should recommend to "Preview" the page first. It's a good habit to get in to.
  • When I click on the "Bolded" button it again asks if I'm sure I want to navigate away from the page.
  • "Italics" same thing.
  • "Add wikilinks" same thing.

Mission 2:

  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What's that pop-up for? What happens if I "x" out of it?
  • [2] there was never a request to paste the reply to Will.
  • "Write your message

Copy your reply into the text box at the bottom underneath GaiaGirl's message." Should say: Copy-and-paste your reply ...

  • Encountered the "are you sure you want to navigate away from this page" again.

Mission 3:

  • Encountered the "are you sure you want to navigate away from this page" again.
  • Encountered the "are you sure you want to navigate away from this page" again.

Mission 4:

  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?"

Mission 5:

  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • "Copied" should read: "Copied-and-pasted".
  • "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?"

Mission 6:

  • Galactic challenge! [x]: What is this for again?
  • The "Cite it" pop-up is in the way of the text box.
  • Button says "Insterted" instead of Inserted.

Mission 7:

  • A trick I learned by now is to click on the 'next' buttons to get the pop-ups out of the way, before doing the editing in the text box.

Checkingfax-TWA (talk) 01:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC) Checkingfax (talk) 02:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

    • Hi Checking Fax, thanks again for your thorough testing and your second go at it! It appears that Guided Tours may not be compatible with earlier versions of Internet Explorer. It worked fine for me in IE10. That is a problem beyond my scope unfortunately, but I may have to just list newer browsers as a requirement (along with enabled javascript).
    • I will do some more on this and fix the rest of your great bug-catches. The [x] on the Galactic Challenge is supposed to be irrelevant because your task is to select an answer. It's actually fine if you close the box using the [x], although that's probably not so clear as you would not want to do that on any other page where the [x] is present.I will think about making that a bit more intuitive.
    • Your 'click next' trick is clever. I may incorporate that as an instruction, provided I can't find a better alternative placement for the box. Thanks again! Sincerely, Ocaasi t | c 17:27, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

TambelonTWA18 (second try)

I liked the game-it's improved since I played it last. The bugs that I saw weren't that distracting for me, but I made a list of them:

1. When I earned the Copyeditor badge, I didn't see a picture- just a box and letters. This also happened when I earned the Citer badge, and the Sourcer badge.  Fixed

2. Though this isn't exactly a bug, I noticed that it took at least 20-40 seconds or more to progress from stage-to-stage in mission 5. I was using Firefox, not Chrome.  Checking...

3. Perhaps you should mention WikiLove. Being polite to other editors is, after all, part of it.  Checking...

Besides these, I thought this game was very good, especially for new users. A neat way to learn more about Earth, too. Keep up the good work! TambelonTWA18 (talk) 17:18, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm so glad to hear it is getting better. You're great for trying it a second time! Ocaasi t | c 17:42, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Restarting adventures

To fix the issue with restarting an adventure duplicating the page, could TWA-related pages just have their contents replaced instead of being appended to when missions are started? Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea, and I'll think about it. My first thought is that I don't think I couldn't implement it even if it was technically possible to replace a page using the API. Because sometimes you would want to replace, and sometimes you'd want to append, and I can't think of a way the game would know which was which. I'll look into this, though. Thanks! Ocaasi t | c 20:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback from Christine (Figureskatingfan)

This is a fine idea. I'm an long-time, established editor, and I'm always willing to help improve things here, so I decided to beta-test this game. You want feedback? Here's some! ;)

First, a picky note: The instruction that pops up with the edit summary "Let them know that you,...." is grammatically incorrect. The comma doesn't need to be there.

Known Issue

I think that you should introduce the preview button earlier. Since you're not teaching Wikieditor here, I think teaching new editors to preview everything before hitting "save" is an important habit to introduce.

Known Issue

I found a major bug in the game. I tried to following the editing directions in Part 7, but the dialogue box was in the way, so I exited it. Then I was stuck, and couldn't navigate my way back. I tried to go back a few windows, but it wouldn't let me continue, so I wasn't able to complete the game. That could be a big problem.  Checking...

Now for the positive feedback: It was fun! I think this is a good way to introduce new folks to editing. When I showed up way back in 2008, I had a lot of help and mentoring, but I basically had to figure it out myself. A game is a good way for more modern users to navigate through the complexity of editing. I kinda wish I had something like this. That being said, as an established editor, I found it a little basic and patronizing. I'm not sure how you can fix that. I also liked that as you went along in the test, some of the steps that I had already gone through were bypassed.

I hope that you get lots of feedback and suggestions, because this could be one of the ways to encourage new editors to contribute. Good luck, and let me know how else I can help. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Christine!. I am working on addressing the issues you raised. I really appreciate your thoughtful reflection, too. I realize the game is pretty basic. I hope it comes off as playful and encouraging, rather than patronizing. Most of our introductory material is quite complicated and overwhelming, so I erred on the side of simple and informal--while still being informative. This is a conscious experiment that we're going to test for impact. If the game doesn't work, the informal/playful tone will be one of the aspects to reexamine. Ocaasi t | c 21:14, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I forgot to say before that I this was my perspective as an experienced user, so it's hard for me to understand how a new editor might respond. I agree that the game is playful and encouraging; I'd add that there are parts that are humorous, which will go a long way. I also think you do a good job of presenting complicated material in an approachable way. Perhaps it would help if you removed the steps earlier. I'll look out for how this progresses. Again, best of luck, and keep up the good work. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:07, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Mobile Testing

I've been testing The Wikipedia Adventure on a iPad and Google Nexus 7 here are some screenshots:

The Wikipedia Adventure on a mobile tablet
  • Here is a screenshot of TWA running on Google Chrome for iPad, works quite well. (The Wikimedia Foundation banner on the top was obstructive)
    Here is a screenshot of TWA running on Google Chrome for iPad, works quite well. (The Wikimedia Foundation banner on the top was obstructive)
  • In on part, it asks for citing a source and I couldn't see the icon.
    In on part, it asks for citing a source and I couldn't see the icon.
  • Very easy to select from the info dialog box.
    Very easy to select from the info dialog box.
  • Due to the smaller screen resolution some content was out of the page
    Due to the smaller screen resolution some content was out of the page

I'm still not done testing on a tablet, however it runs just perfectly as on a desktop or laptop. ///EuroCarGT 22:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, it's great to see this! I probably can't improve the presentation any, but it's quite neat to know that it 'mostly' works on a Tablet. Look forward to more feedback, Jake Ocaasi t | c 00:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission three

COPIED from talk page "Hi - not sure if feedback should go here? I tried mission 3, and as before, I like the layout etc and generally it was smoother and easier to follow - only problem was in order to fix the typos i had to close the game dialog box and then I couldn't get it back and now I'm stuck or locked out :-( " I left the above feedback on the talk page for the mission i was in, and then found my way back to the start, so all good, but especially for a new user, not familiar with the options, once the dialog box is gone I felt a little lost, there didn't seem to be a way to keep going with the game. On the tone, i really like it, i like the casual and friendly informal language, tho sometimes it can seem oriented to a very young audience which may alienate adult editors. I would love even more commentary, for example the first time you get to see 'behind the scenes' - something like, 'wow, looks complicated doesn't it? but don't worry you'll get the hang of it in no time!' Overall THANK YOU for building this - it is a fantastic engagement tool Depthdiver (talk) 23:33, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey DepthDiver, I've catalogued this as a known bug. I will either a) move the dialog box below the editing field, and/or b) give a clear instruction Not to [x] out of the guider. I'm also looking into some way to let people pick back up where they left off, or in worst case start over and then skip ahead to where they were. All of these are on the short-list for fixes before deployment. Thanks again for the reminder. I like your phrasing for the 'get the hang of it' message, I'll see if that would fit well anywhere. And thanks for the kind words! Ocaasi t | c 00:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Beta test from Matty.007

I will be beta testing using a different account on Firefox, focusing on missions 5 onwards. Thanks, Matty.007 12:54, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Mission 5:

  • Perhaps remove TWA border around Teahouse?  Checking...
  • In the reply from 'TheHelpfulWand', "This is part of our core policy called Verifiability" might be better as "This is part of our core policy called 'Verifiability'"  Fixed
  • GaiaGirl86 is sometimes called simply 'GaiaGirl' (e.g. one or two slides before 'What now?' slide, 'Rock on!' slide), but at others 'GaiaGirl86' (e.g. 'What now?' slide)  Checking...
  • Editors may be confused that some of their edits are made by 'GalacticTrekker' and some by their account name  Checking...

Mission 6 and 7

  • I got sent to a non-existent page here
    That page iscreated in mission 3., one reason you have to play the tour through in order.
  • Therefore, 'Click edit.' should read 'Click create'
    Since that page is created in mission 3, that would normally just say Edit if you went in order.
  • Clicking create messed up the order of the slides
  • Edit summary suggestion of "Added more reliable, neutral info about Earth's history and from the talk page" doesn't make sense. Perhaps "Added more reliable, neutral info about Earth's history from the talk page"  Fixed
  • On 'Hey Look...' slide, New Message either needs to not be caps or look like this: 'New Message'  Checking...
  • In "The answer to your question is within" talk page post, "Wikipedia has our preferences" sounds awkward. Perhaps "Wikipedia has preferences" or "We on Wikipedia have preferences"  Checking...
  • In the 'How and why citations' slide, it says "An inline citation shows up as a [number] in the text of the article. And it links to a reference at the bottom.". Again, this is awkward, perhaps "An inline citation shows up as a [number] in the text of the article; it also links to a reference at the bottom."  Checking...
  • In 'Next steps' slide, the date for accessing the book is sometime in April as opposed to the current date  Fixed
  • On the 'Let's see what's new!' slide, it says "We're starting off right at the Earth Article.". "We're starting off right at the article about Earth." may be better sentence structure  Fixed
  • In the history of 'Earth', when the tag is added the page gets smaller, "-273", which wouldn't happen  Fixed
  • You may want to get rid of the stuff formatting the page border/tell people not to do anything to it  Checking...
  • In 'Add section headings', "1) Shape and structure," has a comma, but is the only one. I think that as it is a list, all the headings listed should have a comma  Checking...
Known Issue
  • 'Add wikilinks' slide blocking parts of text
  • 'Urbanisation' is so spelt, but I think that there are several American spellings elsewhere (with 'z's in place of 's's)  Checking...
  • In 'Weather, climate, and water cycle', it should read "This occurance is called convection currents" or something similar
  • On the 'Add wikilinks' slide, perhaps a note saying what the link button is/looks like
  • 'Edit summary and Save' says "Let them know": let who know?
  • In edit summary slides, instead of "EDIT", it should be "'Edit'"
  • Have you considered linking to the adoption process at the end?  Checking...

Overall, I was impressed, it was fun and informative, but not too patronising. Great work! Thanks, Matty.007 TWA Testing (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

THANK YOU :) !! Ocaasi t | c 16:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

For an "alpha test", Mission 1 was fine

I've glanced at the other feedback and you're really after beta test detailed issues, but as quick alpha test of Mission 1, I found no glaring problems other than I'm on Monobook, so there's some overwriting of text at the top of the page, but it is mostly blank on black so you mostly don't see it anyway.

I'll come back at some stage and try further testing & missions (but it won't be for a while due to other commitments). Mark Hurd (talk) 05:09, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Bugs from Mission 1

Nice toy! Just a couple of things: it prompts you to click on Edit, but it should prompt to "Edit source". Edit points to the VisualEditor, and the game still asks you to click on Edit... Another problem is that I cannot access to the whole editing window, since it is partly covered by the instructions box. --Cruccone (talk) 14:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm working on both of those issues, Cruccone. I added a note about using the source editor, and I'm currently working on improving the guide box placement where I can. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussed on German WP

Hi there, The Wikipedia Adventure is currently discussed at de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#The_Wikipedia_Adventure and the general reception is quite positive. Some find "gamification" a bit of a dirty word (i can understand the sentiment about the term, but the underlying idea is great). A (female?) user asked if the design wasn't too male/trekkie targeted ("i would never have thought that i would comment on gender gap issues..." ;-) ) There was even a question about translation. Anyway, feel free to chime in! I think TWA is great, eventhough it spammed my talk page when i tested it ;-P --Atlasowa (talk) 10:54, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Atlasowa! I will check out the discussion. We aimed for warm colors and inviting prose so that it wouldn't read as too Trekkie, but more Galactic Trekker (in the hiking sense). I can see how it may read as 'male' to some, just as it may read as 'young' to others. We hope to have better data in the next few months to examine those suspicions, neither of which was intentional. Indeed, we aimed explicitly at a diverse group of college-aged men and women. Translation should be explored after we run the beta-test in November. If the data looks good, I don't know why we wouldn't want to give that some thought and enable communities to adapt this and help them do so. That's getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but I like the idea! Ocaasi t | c 02:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

GenQuest feedback, esp: 'Mission Breaks'

Second try (13 days after initial attempt):

  1. ) When going to the 'take a break' area (after mission 4 as it turned out), I found I was lost as to what mission I was on when I left, as each time I moved around the break area, the prompt box (Mission {x} complete! Journey on to mission {y}... Congrats me!) dropped back another level, until it was questioning if I wanted to proceed onto 'Mission 2;
  2. ) Using an HP laptop running Firefox 24.0, I have finally completed the tour (thrown out last week when it brought me to my user page to create–a bug now fixed, obviously), but find I now have eleven tabs open; minor, I know;
  3. ) Even now, the 'Mission 4 complete! Journey on to mission 5...' dialogue box is smack dab in the middle of my screen. I have completed the journey, but that is where I originally left it to check out the 'Take a break' feature; ALSO: I have just opened another window into WP Village Pump (proposals) and that dialogue box is popping up over there too.
  4. ) Minor nit(s): the graphics on the dialogue boxes are often difficult to discern just what the heck they are. Too stylized, perhaps? Also: "Congrats me"??? not sure about that wording.

All in all, a good, fun way, IMHO, for the newbies to find their way thru the early edit learning stages. Well done. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 23:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks GenQuest! The TWA navigation menu includes some short 'mission descriptions', do you think they're insufficient to get you to where you need to be? yes, it's quite annoying that the dialogue box follows you around. Since guided tours uses a browser cookie and permits you to travel around from page to page in an exploratory fashion, this is actually tied to one of GT's top features. However, since there's no way to turn it off automatically or tell the game that you're 'outside' of the tour, it's simply a known, crappy bug for now. You mean the graphics like the avatar/guide? I could make those slightly larger, but I want the text to remain the priority. What do you think? 'Congrats me' is informal and self-congratulatory, and yes a bit odd. I'll see if others find it off-putting. Thanks for your kinds words and for taking the time to go through the game! Ocaasi t | c 15:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

General feedback

When I first found out about this yesterday, I loved the idea, but was a bit concerned with the imagery not being appealing to a mainstream audience. Having played the game through, that still stands a bit (particularly imagery) but I think that the tone improves later on as it gets more advanced. Thoughts:

  • At the start of mission 5 I accidentally clicked on the screen, lots the lightbox and had to start on that section again.
  • As per others, the fact that it can't remember you is a bit offputting. I knew I'd done level 1 already so just went straight to level 2.
  • When there's no action button to click on the lightbox (take me to earth etc), I found myself unconsciously clicking the back button in the box given it was hard right. would this be better on the left?
  • The image task in Level 7 has a lot of links, and I found it a bit hard to have it, the image box, and the image lightbox on the same screen (the info box sometimes obscured 'insert').
  • It'd be nice during or after the challenge to see where there are articles that relate to various things, particularly in the latter levels. It's done in a few instances, but it would be reassuring to know that I could get at bits that were important later on even if I couldn't remember the exact word to search.

Unsolicited idea: I'd love to see an entertainment based on for this e.g. doing something on a band.

All up, a great idea and interested to see how it develops. Vickytnz (talk) 15:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Vickytnz, thanks for your thoroughness and honesty, it's well-delivered and you can consider it well-received. I'm glad you think the tone is somewhat redeemed. I've gone a little ways towards changing some language away from 'trek' to 'journey' and from 'trekker's lounge' to 'interstellar lounge' partly due to yours and others' feedback. As for the graphics, our design inspiration was always space not sci-fi, and well, we're stuck with them for this version! We'll see how they play to the 'mainstream' once the mainstream gets a crack at the game en mass. Re: losing the lightbox, that's a known bug and the best I can do is give a clear heads-up at the game's outset and then provide accessible mission restart entry points. Re: the game can't remember you.. We've used an pretty simple guider tool as the engine for a fairly complex interactive tour. This tool is not a true game engine and never was. As far as AI goes, it's dumb, and it has no server side storage, no sophisticated cookie system, and no intelligence. Perhaps version 2 could incorporate some light features which move towards that reasonable goal. Re: level 7 images, I thought the info box was out of the way because it's at the bottom right below the editing field. If it's getting in the way still I'll have to tweak it. Any chance you could provide a screenshot? I very much like your idea of providing links to refreshers and continuing education. I'll build that into the end of the game, because I want people to finish the adventure and then reflect and refresh on what they've learned. Having your usability background and demographic perspective is pretty invaluable, so I thank you again for taking the time and 'putting your money where your mouth is' (as you phrased it). Good feedback and clear constructive criticism makes us better, so thanks. Ocaasi t | c 16:07, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
No problem! Yes, your point on people not being led away from the game by links off is a good one and something I forgot to mention when I was writing. Having them at the end also means it's more like review notes after the game. Vickytnz (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
If you follow the third bullet point at the mission 7 end page "Review what you learned and learn more", you'll see I set up an extensive portal for exploring Wikipedia further, as well as reviewing the content of this game. I hope that helps. It was a great suggestion, Vickytnz! Ocaasi t | c 16:33, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

feedback from Sage Ross

[responses inline --Ocaasi]

Landing page

  • The list of missions is below the fold. Is that intentional?
    It was intentional. We mainly want users to start at the beginning of the game and play through in a single 1-1.5 hour sitting. The TOC is discoverable, but putting at the bottom encourages people to play in order. As the game has a linear narrative which builds on prior skills, messages, content, and story, I wanted the navigation to be a little less prominent.
  • The "Start the adventure" link spans two lines, and doesn't stand out relative to other elements on the page
    I have the Start the adventure link in a single button at any zoom level in the latest Chrome, but I see your bug replicated in Firefox. Will address this somehow (unfortunately clickable buttons are not all browser compatible).
  • The cicles thingy at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure links to Wikipedia:TWA/Portal. This is a little confusing.
    Agreed, the original inspiration was to have WP:TWA be a project page but WP:TWA be the game entrypoint. I will fix this as it's needlessly loopy.

Mission 1

  • Page titles get hidden, so the list of missions is now only partly below the fold... which is actually even more weird. In general, I think this would work better if all the content was put above the fold for typical resolutions.
    Per your above comment I'm going to look into shifting the navigation so it's better positioned.
  • Welcome to Wikipedia: says each mission has "its own skills", which doesn't quite make sense.
    I take some linguistic license here. I mean, "Each mission has its own skills you will learn". It's odd for a mission to possess skills, and maybe that needs to be tweaked. Will give it some thought.
  • Know before you go": says "This box is your spacesuit", which is kind of frightening (and cool). But there's no followup about being vented into space and dying a horrible death, or any other explanation of what it means for the box to be your spacesuit. Adding more explicit framing of this as a game might help, since the natural following to being vented into space and dying in a game is that you have to start the mission over. (It says "when you play this game", but for my taste, I'd rather see it play with the game idea even more... the more genre savvy and medium aware the text is, the better. That will help keep it from feeling patronizing.)
  • Hello world: why is this step the one where a talk page message gets posted, even though we don't visit the talk page yet but instead explore the main userpage?
    I can only send one message per step (to my knowledge), so sometimes it was necessary to post messages out of sync so that they'd all be in place by the time the user arrives at that step. The sent-message notification serves to notify users that that step might take slightly longer to load, as well as to assuage concerns from experienced editors that automatic messages were being sent at all. You're the first person who noticed this inconsistency so I'm curious how disruptive or confusing it is.
  • The editing interface: "Type into the text box to the left", but the text box is above this message, not really to the left of it. (The box is to the right side beneath it, so part of it to the left, but the box also covers up the end of the edit summary box, which is the more "box to the left".) For "make at least One improvement", change one to bold or italic, not capitalized.
    Both of these are good points. Will address.
  • Edit summary and Save: "Click SAVE when you're ready", but the button says "Save page", not SAVE. (Same later on for EDIT and other SAVE instructions. I prefer the text to match exactly what the buttons say, with other methods of adding emphasis that keep the
    Your point reflects usability best practices. I will add this to a list of tweaks.
  • Congrats! NEW TOOL EARNED: Editor Badge: It would make more sense if the text or button explicitly prompted you to "add your new badge to your userpage" or the like, since that's what the "*" here does. Same goes for the second badge later on.
  • Add bold: Unlike before, page does not scroll down to reveal the whole message. Content of this one is below the fold, mainly thanks to the image, around which the text does not wrap. What is that image supposed to represent? The head of the insect-like alien guide who is walking me through the mission? It's a neat design, but I have trouble interpreting it.
    The badges are automatically posted to the userpage at different steps. The gender-neutral, race-neutral, humanoid galactic guide is supposed to be someone you can enjoy and learn from without triggering any particular cultural connotations.
    I like the concept of a gender- and race-neutral humanoid guide. I don't think the images of it are quite anthropomorphic enough, though. I have trouble seeing a face in them.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:52, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The add bold, italics, wikilinks series is good content, but it should explicitly direct the player to look at the resulting wikicode when those toolbar tools are used, so that they can also recognize these syntax elements in a page of pre-existing wikitext.
    This is a nice point that I underemphasized partly due to the easily discoverable nature of the markup being added immediately after the toolbar is used, and partly because the future of editing for most users will be with Visual Editor. I will give this some more thought, whether the added cognitive load is worth the useful explanation.
  • At the end of the mission, it's not really clear how you're intended to pick up where you left off based on the posts to your userpage and talk page. The mission index is on the talk page, but no marker of how far you've gotten. The badges on the userpage don't explain how to continue on from the last completed mission either.
    I was planning for most users to click the Continue buttons at the mission end page. The only thing necessary to pick up where you left off is to click continue, or to click the link in the navigation to the level you want to do next. You're right that the game has no progress indicators. It might be a nice feature to send actual talk page messages congratulating users on completing a mission and linking to the next mission. That'd actually be a very nice feature, and it would avoid more sophisticated in-game tracking which frankly Guided Tours is not well equipped for.

...more to come.--Ragesock (talk) 16:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Mission 2

  • Why use a talk subpage rather than the user's main talk page? This is a confusing element, especially as the text is centered on describing the use of an actual talk page rather than a subpage (where notifications do not work the same way). Why do these talk page messages use {{currentdate}} rather than substitute the actual time of posting? It means that the times change each time the user returns here.
    We decided to use talk subpages so that it would always be clear what parts of TWA were 'the game' and what parts were 'real Wikipedia'. This addressed a concern early on that editors never be confused about which was which, whether they were playing the game or finding someone else playing it. While it would make the game more discoverable for others to use the real talk page, and it would encourage clicking the real talk page links, it would also add a significant amount of clutter to new editors' talk pages and also break that game-space separation. I will think about this more for version 2, as it's a good idea but one I wanted to be more conservative with the first go-round. I transclude currendate rather than substitute because the message has to be a real page before it gets sent. I frankly couldn't figure out how to send a subst date that is current but also sticky to the time of sending. I can look into ways to perhaps use noinclude for that improvement. Nice catch.
    Cool. I think with the right wikicode magic, you can make the substitutions work the way you want. Maybe something involving safesubst, or some other arcane trick. As the game progressed, the decision to use subpages made more and more sense to me, though.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • If there is a way to pre-populate the talk page with the chosen reply at the end, rather than instructing the user to copy and paste from the tour box, that would be a big improvement.
    Your solution would be technically more complicated and require some kind of preloaded content. I agree it's a bit clunky the way it is now, and will add this to my feature wishlist.
  • Three quick things: the description of Notify is confusing. When it says "If you're on Will's user talk page, it will notify him automatically.", it's not clear enough that this is in distinction to any other talk page, where the user will get notified when you link to their username and sign your post. The Sign description should explicitly indicate "four tildes" in addition to showing what it looks like. Understanding each of these three things is fairly useful, so I think separating them out would be better: signing messages and the transformation of tildes into username/timestamp, and then the use of Mention notifications and the receipt of them. If there was a way to trigger a Notification from WillKomen's message, that would be really handy.
    Yeah, unfortunately, to my knowledge there isn't an API for notifications so I can't trigger them because the user is sending these messages to themself (and self-posts never trigger a notification). I will revise the language on the notifications slide, particularly that it's the Username link which triggers the notification, as well as clarifying what 'four tildes' are.
  • reply to GaiaGirl: second option should read "knows enough to trim them".
     Fixed

Mission 3

No comments, except that this feels like a short mission.

  • It is short. There's a little variety in pacing throughout the game with the first 3 levels being more brisk and the last 4 being more involved. I think that's ok as it gives a sense of momentum. This is also the first time an editor actually edits an article, and I wanted that skill to stand alone. If I have content that would be good to add to the game, level 3 will be a good place to put it.

Mission 4

  • Page history: this might work better with a series of screenshots, so that the appearance is more like what a real history page looks like. The lack of radio buttons, in particular, makes the explanation of selecting an arbitrary diff hard to understand.
    Agreed, this is a very low-fidelity reproduction. I'll look into whether or not I could use a screenshot or image in some way. I'll add this to the feature wishlist.
  • Well, that's pretty biased...: instead of giving the answer to the question of "what do you think", this might be a good place for another Challenge, with choices for evaluating it (looks good vs looks biased vs something else) and also choices for how to deal with it (leave it alone vs remove the material vs edit it). Most newcomers have an intuitive grasp what Wikipedia is trying to be neutral, so letting them make NPOV-related choices before they learn the explicit policy could be quite motivating and more interesting than the 'prove-that-you-read-the-last-part' NPOV challenge that follows.
    I do like this suggestion, although it would be difficult to implement the choices for 'how to deal with it', since the game ultimately only supports one decision-path. More meaningful choice is something I would like to add to the game, perhaps in a future version where there is more time to expand upon the options and also when GuidedTours is better equipped to support forked pathways.
    I was thinking about it in terms of waiting for the user to find the correct answer to the first one, and then presenting the second one right afterwards. Forked pathways aren't necessary.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • With the NPOV challenge, the right answer contradicts the game world setting, by saying that "Earth is the only planet in the galaxy which is known to support life." Instead, it should have info that is true, but also consistent with game setting.
    Ah, that assumes our galactic guide isn't from Earth! I see what you mean here, and I'm ok with taking the Adventure's setting loosely in the context of known extraterrestrial beings.
  • With all the challenges, I'm really missing the implied sound effect for "3...2...1...Galactic challenge!" Maybe there could be a little "play" icon next to that text, which would play an awesome sound effect.
    I decided not to use sound as this might be used in a variety of academic or library settings where noise would be disruptive. I do like the idea, though and will add it to the feature wishlist.
    Yeah, sound should definitely not be the default. But here especially, it's drawing on sound-based gaming conventions ... the story being interrupted for an interactive challenge, with blaring klaxons or the like ... so it's a chance to delight users.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Interesting question...: Why does this message appear at the bottom of the screen beneath the page content and the meta info at the bottom. There's a flow error, skipping from step 21 (That was great) to step 23 (Interesting question), but step 22 (Ooh, a new message!) got skipped until I pressed "Back". Even then, when the "Interesting question..." box shows up properly it still doesn't connect directly enough to the last talk page message.
     Fixed by User:Ocaasi already.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Mission 5

  • Ask away!: I lost the context for the text on this slide, which seems disjointed.
     Checking...
  • This is important: The tour box covers up some of the reply message at most typical resolutions (but not 1080p). That answer is long.
     Checking...
  • Three sources challenge: It might be good to keep the full citations on the choices page, not just the name of each source.
    I like that idea, although I did want to keep the presentation simple at first. I will give this a little thought.
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