Hi guys,
We would be grateful for your advice on how to give more positive notifications to new users after their first edits.
We're looking for notification ideas that could lead new editors towards a "happy path" to encourage further contributions. Many studies have shown that positive reinforcement plays an important role in increasing a user's productivity, and we would like to provide at least one or two good solutions to support that goal in the first release of Echo at the end of March.
Here are some of the ideas which we have brainstormed to date, on our Echo feature requirements page:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Feature_requirements#Positive_notificatio...
They include:
* Useful edit notification This feature would add a 'Mark as useful' button in article history and/or diff pages, to invite experienced editors to mark edits they find useful, so they can send positive feedback to new editors. This could be done through a simple text link next to each edit (e.g. next to 'Undo'): 'Mark as useful' (or 'Useful' for short). When an editor clicks on that link, this notification would be sent to the new editor: 'Kaldari marked your edit as useful on Golden-crowned Sparrow. <View your edit>'
* Huggle/Cluebot Notifications This feature would hook into third-party anti-vandalism tools like Huggle or ClueBot. Some of these tools could be adapted to provide an "approve of edit" button (Huggle already has such a feature), which could send a notification to the user who made the 'good' edit saying something like "this was good! Keep it up".
* Contributions since your last edit Another feature we discussed is giving new users a bundled notification that '20 people have contributed to this page since your last edit'. While this type of activity is currently handled by the watchlist, this type of 'contributions' notification could have a positive impact in getting the new user to go back to a page they edited earlier (particularly if they don't yet feel motivated to use the watchlist).
* Positive notifications for active new users We have already identified a number of positive notification ideas for active new users, which include: WikiLove, Page Link, or Page added to WikiProject. While these positive notifications are likely to motivate active new users, a challenge we face is how to give positive reinforcement to new editors immediately after their first few edits, before they become active enough to start new pages or be noticed for a WikiLove message.
What do you think of these first ideas? None of them may be perfect in their current formulation, but with your help, we could be improve them to provide a practical solution that helps engage new users to participate more productively. With everyone's guidance, we can do better than only send them negative notifications when their edits are reverted (which is like a slap in the face) -- or sending them no notifications whatsoever after their first edits (which is what we are doing now).
Do you have other ideas for positive notifications we could be sending to new users?
You are welcome to respond in this email thread, or add your comments or suggestions on this Echo talk page.
Thanks for any tips or ideas you can provide to help us with this important editor engagement goal!
All the best,
Fabrice
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Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Editor Engagement Wikimedia Foundation