Hoi Bob,
Wikipedia is not English Wikipedia. It has its own problems and it could do
better as well. The point of a marketing approach is not only in reaching
more editors. Having people help with more content for instance with micro
tasks is achievable. The point must be that the work done makes a
difference. It is not something we have ever shown that individual work
makes a difference even though we could do this. We could produce lists of
articles waiting to be written in domains. They could be our red links,
they could be the articles that exist in other Wikipedias. They could even
be items in Wikidata.
The biggest point of our projects is not our contributors, it is what they
produce. What we could do is make sure is that this is easier available.
Has a better user experience. Take Commons or Wikisource I do not use it
because I do not know what to find and in what state I will find it. This
has technical issues but the main thing is that our audience is hardly what
we are interested in.
In them days I asked loudly for Commons but I find it impossible to find
material for my blog so I gave up on Commons. I have done a lot of work on
Wiktionary but I found that there was too much repetition so I started
OmegaWiki and hoped for the WMF to adopt it. Wikidata has much promise and
it could do a lot of good but that is where I am at the moment.
With proper marketing we will improve the user experience for our audience,
they may cooperate in micro tasks and, we will as a consequence grow an
interest by some to edit text. They could stay if we do a better job of
maintaining a friendly space. That is not marketing not technology but it
is necessary. We are at a state where we have a technology that more or
less works for most editors in the bigger projects.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 28 August 2016 at 21:26, Bob Kosovsky <bobkosovsky(a)nypl.org> wrote:
I've been active with Wikipedia since 2006. My
impression (which
corresponds with data) is that 2008 was the year with the highest number of
editors on English Wikipedia. While it may sound good on paper, in some
ways it was a mess because of the frequency of vandalism. Nowadays I know
there are more automated techniques for detecting vandalism, but if you
want to increase the number of users just to make the stats look good,
you're going to get more dubious data into the encyclopedia as well as
frustration from editors who dislike spending their time on so much
maintenance (although I'm sure there are some editors who would jump at the
chance to make corrections all day).
I suspected from the outset of Wikipedia's creation that the project would
mirror the well-known "life cycle of email lists" as I've always believed
Wikipedia is a "social encyclopedia." I feel this well-known meme
accurately reflect's Wikipedia's evolution so I repeat it here as a tool
from which to learn:
*1. Initial enthusiasm* (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot
about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
*2. Evangelism* (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list,
and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
*3. Growth* (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads
develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
*4. Community* (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as
less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other;
newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and
expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and
sharing opinions).
*5. Discomfort with diversity* (the number of messages increases
dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start
complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if
*other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2
agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is
wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads
themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
*6a. Smug complacency and stagnation* (the purists flame everyone who
asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies
are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor
issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited
to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously
congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).
*OR*
*6b. Maturity* (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants
stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many
people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives
contentedly ever after).
I feel Wikipedia is at stage 6 (both a and b). Unless there's a
significant change in functionality and design, the days of 2008 will never
return, and we should stop bothering to think it's possible to replicate
them (because their existence was due to the novelty of the project).
Instead, I think Wikimedia projects should cultivate those individuals
with specialized knowledge. A lot of these people are in specialized
communities (for example educators, medical professionals,
researchers/scholars, devoted amateurs). These are communities which
formerly looked down on Wikipedia but now are reconsidering their formerly
negative opinions of the encyclopedia. I feel the as-yet small successes in
the medical and GLAM communities (I am sure there are others) show great
promise. Being part of the GLAM community, I know there are outreach
efforts underway to others within that community. Being part of WM NYC, I
know there's a lot of librarians involved in chapter activities--and most
of those activities take place in libraries or museums (often museum
libraries).
Until this year, the WMF showed no real interest in continuous engagement
and dialogue with the community that edits the projects. I totally agree
with the person who said WMF needs to have a marketing department. This is
especially true for the kinds of research which marketers report on and are
typical of any organization, profit or non-profit. That would be a first
step: Understanding who are the variety of its users/editors from which it
can then create action items to determine how it can increase the number of
users by going after specific market segments. This would not eliminate
the "anyone can edit" ethos, but could be a more effective means to
increasing users rather than appealing to a broad public.
Bob
Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
blog:
http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44 Twitter: @kos2
Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions -
*Inspiring Lifelong Learning* | *Advancing Knowledge* | *Strengthening
Our Communities *
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