What is the Newcomer Homepage?


What is the Newcomer Homepage?

  • The Newcomer Homepage is a personalized dashboard (accessible at Special:Homepage) for newly registered users. It offers a central place where newcomers can explore tools and resources to help them begin contributing to Wikipedia .
  • Key features include:
    • A Suggested Edits (Newcomer Tasks) module—suggested articles to start editing.
    • A Help panel—guides and resources while editing.
    • Mentorship module—links newcomers to experienced editors.
    • Impact module—shows the number of pageviews on articles they've edited.
    • Access to create a user page, confirm email, and other onboarding tasks .

History & Deployment

  • Development began in early 2019:
    • Design and coding started in February 2019.
    • First experiment launched in Czech and Korean Wikipedias in May 2019, followed by broader rollouts across multiple languages and devices .
  • Experimental trials across several languages (Arabic, Czech, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) showed improvements in newcomer engagement:
    • ~11.6% increase in likelihood of first article edit.
    • ~26.7% increase in likelihood of making a constructive (unreverted) first edit.
    • Higher editing activity in the first weeks .
  • The Newcomer Homepage, along with its components, is now generally deployed:
    • Enabled by default for new accounts on English and many other Wikipedias.
    • Fully available on desktop and mobile .

Effectiveness & Research Insights

  • A large-scale controlled study across 27 non-English Wikipedias found modest gains:
    • Slight increase in “activation” (making an edit within 24 hours).
    • No significant improvements in retention, productivity, or revert rates were observed in that study .
  • Meanwhile, earlier, more localized experiments showed stronger positive outcomes in terms of first edits and retention .

Recent Feature — Community Updates Module

  • In February 2025, Wikipedia introduced the Community Updates module on the Newcomer Homepage:
    • Allows communities to showcase events, editathons, thematic campaigns, or other initiatives directly to newcomers.
    • Admins can configure these via Special:CommunityConfiguration, targeting specific newcomer groups with a logo, title, description, and link .

Summary Snapshot:

Aspect Notes
Purpose Centralized dashboard for newcomers to access tasks, help, mentorship, and more.
Launch timeline Concept in 2018; coding began Feb 2019; experiments started May 2019.
Impact (Experiments) Early trials showed increased first edits and constructive engagement.
Broad Deployment Now default for new accounts across many Wikipedias.
Effectiveness Mixed results—some activation gains, but retention/productivity benefits vary depending on the context.
New Feature Community Updates module launched February 2025 for event promotion.


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