Incubator:Template testing

This is a page for coordinating A/B testing of user talk templates here on the Incubator. This project is also going on at several others wikis, and for a full list and summarized results, see Meta.

Scope and rationale

The purpose of doing a comparative A/B test of a widely-used user talk template is to use data to make decisions about which template styles and contents are most effective at getting the intended message across. By tracking who gets each template within a given period and setting up a relatively even and randomly generated pair of test groups for each message you want to know about, you get an unbiased look at what the impact of a user talk template is.

List of proposed or enabled tests

• (February 14-March 14) Template:Welcome-template via Template:Welcome-template-rand. This is used to automatically welcome new users via MediaWiki:Newusermessage-template. Contributions can be seen here.

Useful links

• Template:Z number doc, with a list of all the hidden Z templates used for tracking test instances