Tech/News/Reader survey 2024/Results

Here are the results from the 2024 survey, plus some annotations and thoughts from members of the editorial team.

Overall results and conclusions

After 3 weeks we had 223 responses (including 50 in the final week).
Tech News readers want tool/feature announcements, to know when something is broken/fixed (bugs, outages), and more information about what WMF teams are working on.
Tech News readers are mainly 15+ year Wikipedia editors, and it's a good information pipeline to them, but we need to grow our readership among newer highly active editors.
The translation workflows need improvements, and expansion.

Full results

This is the (24 page PDF) output from LimeSurvey, containing graphs, totals, and comments. (with IDs hidden, and one PII-comment removed).

Notes on individual questions

How often do you read Tech News?
- ~60% of respondents read weekly,
- ~13% read it 1-2 a month,
- ~20% didn't answer.
Where do you usually read Tech News?
- ~30% of respondents read it on their local wiki.
- ~30% read it on their own user talkpage
- ~15% read it on meta-wiki
- ~10% read it on the wikitech-ambassadors@ mailing list
- ~5% read it via the RSS feed
- ~10% read it elsewhere (Diff, someone else's talkpage, or unspecified)
- Translators and a few others read it on Meta-wiki.
- Conclusion: People get Tech News a variety of ways; we need to continue to optimize for multiple delivery methods
What are the most useful parts of Tech News?
- Overall: Folks want/like:
  - New feature info.
  - Bigger-picture tech info.
  - Major Problem info (expected and prior).
  - Side-effects warnings for gadgets/scripts.
  - Bug fixes / context
What are the least useful parts of Tech News?
- Most don't care about the "new version" weekly reminder, but some do appreciate the link(s).
  - We should consider moving 1-2 of those links into the updated footer.
- Most don't care about the "new wiki(s)" info
  - but one comment calls out that they're important for adjacent wikis, which is a good point. Plus these entries sometimes help detect article-name conflicts, and they are useful for folks who know the new languages but might not see the wiki announced elsewhere.
What would you like to see added (or more of)?
- Overall: Similar to #3. Folks want more:
  - New feature info.
  - Bigger-picture tech info.
  - Major Problem info (expected and prior).
  - Side-effects warnings for gadgets/scripts related code-changes.
  - Plus some interest in new tech-opportunities, links to more newsletters, and interesting trivia/quotes
- Some good ideas for related outreach efforts, like more short interviews with developers. Suggest to Diff post facilitators.
The level of technical jargon and technical detail in Tech News is:
- Overall: As expected and hoped, a good balance. ~67% think it has the right level. ~3% think it's too technical, and ~8% think it's not technical enough. (~20% didn't answer.)
How often do you use Tech News to help other people on your local wikis? “Helping” means things like answering their questions or fixing things that affect the editing work of other people.
- Overall: Somewhat as expected. ~25% of respondents use the information to help other users 1-2 times/month or more.
- If you're one of the ~5 people who use Tech News to help others weekly, thank you!
How can Tech News better reach more readers?
- Overall: A desire for more translators and more translations, and remembering to use simple English,
- Also suggestions for:
  - more links to Tech News from elsewhere,
  - more posting locations (Social Media),
  - more links to elsewhere from Tech News/hub (meta-wiki navbar? Tech News weekly-footer?)
Anything else you want to share?
- Overall: Some useful ideas, and thoughtful comments. Some comments asking for more plain language, and some asking for less mechanical language. Also two notes about issues with MassMessage (phab:T94009, phab:T334906).
Home wiki? (Where you do most of your volunteering)
- ~65% of respondents said a Wikipedia, ~10% Wikidata, ~9% Commons, ~5% MediaWiki-wiki, ~7% Meta-wiki.
Other wikis where you are active:
- An expected spread of cross-wiki active users.
How long have you been volunteering on the Wikimedia projects?
- ~32% for 15+ years, ~15% for 10-15 years, ~14% for 5-10 years, ~10% for 3-5 years, ~5% for 1-2 years.
- Overall: A large group of long-term editors, which makes sense based on overall Wikimedia editor demographics, and on the organic Tech News signup system. We do hope to be of use and interest to newer editors though.
What is your main focus as an editor?
- A strong spread across all the suggested roles. (This response was hard to conclude anything from, given the multiple-choice nature of how this question was configured, and human-nature/editor-nature of being interested in many areas.)