There are already plenty of mentors on Wikipedia...no one needs to pay for it. There is already an individual engagement grant focusing on a mentor program. Can't link to it but on my user talk page there is an invite to participate.
That is funded. When I worked at WMF they decided to out the onus on the community. so don't expect WMF to be leading the fight.
That changed years ago. It's up to the community to do it.
Sarah
The below definitely are interesting issues which deserve their own thread. I kept reading the proposals but had not run into the implementation very often.
On 12/30/2014 3:24 PM, Risker wrote:
Keep in mind that the majority of Wikimedians (i.e., people making edits on the 900+ sites hosted by the WMF) do so without registering an account. The existence of these projects was entirely dependent on that fact in the early days (and in younger and smaller projects, still is). I recall seeing data indicating that over 90% of Wikimedians made their first edits without creating an account, and I'll wager the same is true for the majority of people on this list, at least anyone who joined before about 2009. However, as time has progressed, it's become increasingly difficult to get edits accepted from unregistered editors: some projects have flagged revisions for every single edit, for example, which means that an edit by an IP isn't even visible until it's been "approved" - which can sometimes take weeks;**Wikiprojects themselves can do it? What percentage of projects do it and articles covered?
others have groups of 'recent changes patrollers' that revert almost all edits by unregistered users ("anti-vandalism patrol") whether or not the content is reasonable or even good.**I somehow ended up as one on the "devolution" article and dealt with it; what happens when all patrollers for an article stop watching for whatever reason?
A while back, I decided to do some minor copy edits without logging in, and was within a whisker of getting blocked for fixing typos - 70% of my edits were reverted, even though 100% of them were correct.**Which of the above systems did this or usual editing practices from questionable editors?
Does this show that WMF is more interested in looking for techno-fixes to the problems of vandalism or crappy editing by inexperienced editors? That projects are being dominated by individuals, possibly for personal reasons or POV reasons?
I think it was Wikipediocracy that alleged they are putting most of their $50 million a year into tech. With a little for research, but nothing to support editors.
REAL ENCYCLOPEDIAS do help out their writers. Why not hire a) mentors to help new editors out, including dealing with civility issues, at least showing them where to go or asking uncivil jerks to lay off and b) mediators for more experienced editors having content disputes.
Maybe that's another theme to guilt trip WMF about - being a REAL encyclopedia and not just a technopolis (or whatever negative term best describes whatever it is they are doing.)
CM
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