Mobile editing
Sometimes, you hear about editors who edit on their phones. There are two main ways experienced editors edit using a mobile device: using desktop view on a mobile device[a] or using mobile view through a standard web browser. What you don't usually hear about are people who download the dedicated Wikipedia app on their mobile devices even if it is technically an option. As far as I know, I'm the only experienced editor who has tried to edit somewhat frequently with the Android version of this app. I don't have an iOS device so my observations may not be relevant in that context. While I have had brief experiences with the app before this essay, typically when editing on my phone I would use desktop view.
As an experienced editor, what stood out to me immediately was this:
- It is impossible to create a new page[b]
- It is impossible to see recent changes
- In preview, redlinks show up as blue (or sometimes as bold text).
- There's a box that claims my edit quality is "perfect"
- Typically, you can only edit individual sections, but you cannot edit subsections directly. If you know how to access it, there is also a way to edit a page in its entirety.
- Most templates do not display
- There is no access to help resources or learning how to contribute literally anywhere unless you manually know how to search for the exact page titles. Almost no new editor is going to know how to do that.
I'm a 20-year-old with basically no understanding of computer science. My perspective is mostly from someone who has grown up in a world geared towards user friendliness and the Android Wikipedia app does not perform the way I've become accustomed to expect. While mobile view doesn't have the full functionality of desktop view, it functions much better in comparison. Despite all of this, the app has definitely grown on me over time. I'm glad that technical issues were fixed even if I was surprised that I had any sort of role in identifying them. I plan to keep using the app and seeing how it improves over time – I think it can get better and I'm cautiously optimistic after my experience interacting with WMF staff.
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