Jump to content

Wikipedia Zero Starting Page

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

For Zero users, when visiting m.wikipedia.org, we have to show a custom start page tailored to the specific mobile provider. A typical startup page has a custom banner, e.g. "Wikipedia at no cost by [Company]", and a list of common languages in that country. The language of the page is always set to the provider's default language.

We now have an option to add some additional text on the startup page, as otherwise the page looks empty and not very inspiring. That text is an HTML blob, similar to the WWW page, but significantly smaller due to most devices having a tiny screen. The text is different depending on the default language set by the provider, and could also differ between various projects - Wikipedia vs Wikinews. The text is stored on translatewiki.net, with the overrides residing in the project's MediaWiki:Zero-landing-welcome pages.

The text could be a one sentence "welcome to {{SITENAME}}", it could be some famous quote, a news item, word of the day, link to featured article, or anything else the community may decide to post:

<blockquote>
  Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress
  is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration.
  <div style='padding-left:4em'>— ''Henry Brougham''</div>
</blockquote>

See sample screenshots for Android, iPhone, iPad.

Please keep in mind that most of the users coming to this page will be directed there by the carrier advertising Free Wikipedia, so a lot of new users.

To test, make sure you open your private browser - Ctrl+Shift+N in Chrome, Ctrl+Shift+P in Firefox, and go to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ZeroRatedMobileAccess?X-CS=-TEST-ALL to see what users would see when visiting the starting page from a carrier's network if their main language is English. Change the language code in URL to see other languages. Just clicking that link might not work as you might have some cookies set.