WikiQueer:WikiProject user warnings/Testing

This page is the tracking page for efforts on the English WikiQueer to improve the quality of user talk warnings.

Scope
The purpose of this page is to measure the efficacy of different user talk templates through randomized testing. This effort does not entail creating new categories of user warnings or to organize them more efficiently, but rather to improve on the quality of our current communication methods.

We're aiming to fine tune the template messages we send to editors, in order to encourage more good faith contributors and discourage outright vandals, spammers, and other bad faith contributors.

Participants
Sign up here if you'd like to stay notified about testing updates.

Those pages each have lists and dates of all the templates tested including results if available. The following are tracking tables with start and end dates.

Testing method
The following are the requirements to conduct comparative A/B testing of any user talk template. Doing randomized experiments allows us to get hard data about what kinds of content are most successful at helping us achieve these goals. What you'll need is...
 * 1) A "randomizer" that delivers all the templates in your test. This is the template that should be included in the configuration of whichever bot or tool you are testing with, and it randomly delivers one of the templates via a parser function.
 * 2) A control, usually the existing default template. Note that you should replicate the default in a new template rather than use the current template page, in order to avoid including old instances of the default in your experiment.
 * 3) A new version or versions of the template you want to test. Try to use a canonical name that matches the type, purpose, and level of the warning you're interested in.
 * 4) A Z number tracking template for all templates being tested. If you do not include a separate Z number in each template, you will lose track of your test cases once they are substituted.

In some cases, such as for bots where all contribs are by one account, this method can be greatly simplified.

Analysis
We have so far used a mixed method of both quantitative measurement and qualitative assessment. If you'd like to help sort and analyze tests, please sign up above.

de:WikiQueer:Projekt Warnhinweise pt:Wikipédia:Projetos/Avisos aos usuários/Testes