Wikipedia:Mentorship

Mentorship on Wikipedia is a program of the Wikimedia Growth Team that (since February of 2025) automatically assigns a mentor to each new editor. Mentors are experienced Wikipedia editors who volunteer to answer new users' questions about editing Wikipedia.

Mentors are a key factor in order to onboard new users and encourage them to edit Wikipedia. Newcomers are made aware of their mentor at the newcomer's homepage. Mentors know who they mentor at the mentor dashboard. All user accounts created since February 2025 have the mentorship feature enabled.^[a]

You can find out who your mentor is and view a brief introduction in section § Your mentor on your User homepage.

No. You are assigned a volunteer mentor automatically.^[b]

On your homepage, look for the module labeled "Your mentor" and click "Ask your mentor a question about editing". If it's not there, it's a bug.1 2.

Mentors do their best to answer question in a timely manner, but sometimes questions don't get answered for one reason or another. You can ask questions at the Teahouse, which can get faster answers as there are many experienced editors there answering questions.

You can opt out of mentorship by going to your homepage and clicking the three dots at the top of the mentorship module. Then select "Opt out of mentorship". You will be able to opt in again later, but you might end up with a different mentor.

You can get a different mentor by opting out of mentorship as § described above, then re-opting back in. If you have a specific mentor in mind, you can also ask them on their talk page to claim you as their mentee.

You should see a 'Homepage' tablink top left on your User page. You can also get to your Homepage by typing Special:Homepage in the search bar on any page in Wikipedia.

If your homepage is not available, go to the User Profile tab of your preferences, scroll down to Newcomer editor features, and click the checkbox to enable "Display newcomer homepage" and save the changes. This will enable the homepage tablink next to your User page tablink at the top of your screen. You can disable the homepage at the same location by unchecking the box.

All accounts created since February 2025 are assigned a mentor unless they have opted out of the program, and many more have one assigned, though they might not yet be visible. To find yours, you can visit your homepage (or see the § instructions above if it is not visible). If you have § opted out of mentorship, you should be able to opt back in at that mentorship module, at which point you will be assigned a mentor.

Yes, in most cases, but only the first one is automatic;^[b] you have to request the other(s).

If you contribute to more than one language Wikipedia, you automatically get one volunteer mentor assigned to you at the Wikipedia where you created your account.^[b] You do not automatically get one at other Wikipedia(s) where you also contribute, but you can request one to be assigned automatically by enabling your User homepage in your Preference settings at the other Wikipedia.^[b] (See also, § How can I check if my Homepage is enabled? )

For example, at Spanish Wikipedia, go to es:Special:Preferences, and in the first tab (Perfil de usuario, 'User profile') scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the checkbox Mostrar página de inicio para usuarios nuevos ('Display newcomer homepage'), check the box, and click the blue Guardar button ('Save'). A mentor should be assigned to you on Spanish Wikipedia within a few hours.

You may repeat this process for each Wikipedia where you contribute and wish to have a volunteer mentor assigned to you. Note that enabling your User homepage only works at Wikipedias that have deployed Growth Team features for their users.

If you go to your User page, you should see a "Homepage" link top left.^[c]

In order to be assigned a mentor, or to § request one, your User homepage must be enabled. Go to Special:Homepage, and if you don't have access to your Homepage, an error message is shown, along with instructions on how to enable the Homepage.

Yes. If you change your username by a successful username change request, then you keep the same mentor.

If you have § requested and received a mentor at other Wikipedia projects, you get to keep those, too.

You can visit Special:MentorDashboard or Special:EnrollAsMentor to signup. The mentor list describes more of the details of mentorship.

Please check the resources available at best practices, and then introduce yourself as a mentor.

When you sign up to become a mentor, you are asked to explain to newcomers how you can help them. If you don't write this description, then a placeholder is used: "This experienced user knows you're new and can help you with editing." Admins can edit your description using Special:ManageMentors (see MediaWiki documentation). You can view other mentor's introductions at Special:ManageMentors for inspiration.

Templates are available to welcome your mentee on their Talk page. See {{Mentor welcome}}, {{Welcome mentee}}, and {{Welcome mentee brief}}.

Mentors are randomly assigned to multiple newcomers, but not all of them contact their mentor. On average, a mentor receives between 0 to 6 questions each week from newcomers.

You can go to Special:MentorDashboard and pause your activity. You can define a duration for your pause. You can return as active or shorten or extend this duration anytime. No new newcomer will be assigned to you. Newcomers already assigned to you will be informed of you being away. They will have a different mentor name to contact. However, newcomers who had already started a conversation with you, or contact you by directly visiting your user talk page, may still leave you a message. If you plan to be off for more than a few weeks, please consider quitting mentorship instead (and returning!).

You can go to Special:QuitMentorship and quit from there. This link is accessible from your MentorDashboard.

Yes, unless they have opted out. See § How can I reassign a newcomer to a different mentor? for how to do this.

If they have § opted out of menteeship altogether, then your attempt to claim them will fail, and "Username opted out of mentorship" will be displayed as the error message.

Any mentor listed can be assigned to any new account. However, some event mentors would prefer to only have event participants assigned to them. You can go to Special:MentorDashboard and select "None (I claim them manually)" in the "Number of mentees assigned to me" menu. No new mentee will be assigned to you, but you can still claim mentees. Please note: this feature has been implemented for workshop hosts or campaigns organizers. We expect regular mentors not to use it, as it would change the number of mentors assigned to mentees.

On the MentorDashboard, you can increase or lower the number of newcomers assigned to you.

This setting will increase or decrease the number of new accounts assigned to you. However, we can't predict the volume of questions from assigned users. You might increase the number of newcomers assigned to you, and not end up getting many questions. Conversely, you might lower the number of newcomers and be randomly assigned newcomers who have lots of questions.

Any mentor can claim a mentee from another mentor, using Special:ClaimMentee. The process is different if you want to reassign all your mentees, or reassign all mentor's mentees.

Type the magic word {{#mentor:Foo}} in a wikitext page, replacing "Foo" by the username, and preview. This will display the name of User:Foo's mentor. This magic word can be used in a template: welcome message, user talk page messages, userbox, etc. If the mentor changes, then the magic word picks the new mentor's name.

You can "subst:" this message if needed: {{subst:#mentor:Foo}}. User:Foo's mentor will then be saved as wikitext.

• Wikipedia:Growth Team features
• Wikipedia:Growth Team features/Mentor list
• Special:EnrollAsMentor
• mw:Growth/Feature summary#Mentorship_2
• mw:Growth/FAQ
• {{Mentor welcome}}
• {{Welcome mentee}}