swalling wrote:

You can see from the Quarterly Review notes you read Nemo, and our Trello board (https://trello.com/c/VOnXCK9p) that something resembling this is a high priority for us.

However, it's actually not a random list, and this is why we came to use SuggestBot for the first, test version of the extension. We are actually filtering articles on a host of attributes, such as length, pageviews, etc. and want to add more in the future (markup complexity, multiple categories, the list goes on).

In other words: thanks for filing this bug, but the project is actually quite a bit larger than one bug can reasonably describe. It's more like a data product to serve the needs of GettingStarted, as opposed to an attribute of GettingStarted the extension.

I'm not saying this replaces your project. It's a very specific feature request. You're free to WONTFIX it, in which case I'll transform it in a separate extension request.
Thanks.

swalling wrote:

(In reply to comment #2)

I'm not saying this replaces your project. It's a very specific feature
request. You're free to WONTFIX it, in which case I'll transform it in a
separate extension request.
Thanks.

No no. I don't mean it should be WONTFIXED. I mean that you've hit the nail on the head for what GettingStarted needs, but that the scope is in fact bigger. :)

swalling wrote:

With the addition of CategoryRoulette.php and RedisCategorySync.php to Extension:GettingStarted and $wgGettingStartedCategories array to CommonSettings, we're now generating tasks from categories on English Wikipedia.

We haven't yet perfectly worked out how to have different wikis generate tasks from multiple categories, or even if Redis can handle that much yet, but for first version we're doing well.

I found https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Recommender_system linked in the monthly report.
I don't see any way to just get a random article from a category there (all sorts of other custom filters are added), but who knows. Also «on other projects, after we've completed data analysis and testing to understand which kinds of tasks are ideal for first time editors» is the opposite of what I suggested, but oh well.

swalling wrote:

(In reply to comment #5)

I found
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Recommender_system
linked in the monthly report.
I don't see any way to just get a random article from a category there (all
sorts of other custom filters are added), but who knows. Also «on other
projects, after we've completed data analysis and testing to understand which
kinds of tasks are ideal for first time editors» is the opposite of what I
suggested, but oh well.

That spec is super high level, and also talks about things we're not doing yet but which are potential avenues of exploration.

If you want to look at the meat of how we're doing this and consider how it might be repurposed for the exact UI you want, I'd still say looking at CategoryRoulette , RedisCategorySync, et al. is the closest thing to a robust system for generating random tasks from categories.

Sure, if someone ever wanted to fix this bug (which doesn't ask an internal API) there will be code to repurpose; but apparently it's not within the scope of this extension, which is why I updated the resolution.

How is it invalid (that means this not a bug at all)?

In my view, we have implemented an initial task generation system. It does not have the exact structure you proposed, but our structure is not set in stone either. It will be improved over time, and using MW messages later is a possibility, though it needs investigation.

swalling wrote:

I am removing GettingStarted as the component for this bug. From his first comment and follow up ones, it seems Nemo wants tasks generated from categories for other interfaces, like the sidebar. That's not the purpose of GettingStarted and we're probably not going to do that in the near term, so if he still wants an open bug for this feature request it just shouldn't be associated with the GettingStarted extension.

(In reply to comment #9)

if he still wants an open bug for this feature request it just shouldn't be
associated with the GettingStarted extension.

Yes, I had already opened one when this bug was closed.

• This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 46918 ***