I just wanted to add that I totally agree with Anthere :) She speaks
with wisdom and experience! I also really appreciate your
thoughtfulness, Brandon, and list of ideas, and I am glad that you and
many others are working on this.
And for everyone else, yes, let's think about increasing participation
as well. And I have a general question: even if you are here with a
bad experience you still were a participant at one point, so what got
you there? What made you want to join in the first place? What are the
good aspects of the project -- not in theory, but in reality, that we
can build on?
Phoebe
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 3:15 AM, Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org> wrote:
Hello
Just a quick word to say that I really appreciated your (2) emails about
Solutions. Whilst I agree that issues you raise are not directly related
to the "gendergap", I do not think we should aim necessarily in finding
solutions to address the women issue, but rather aim at identifying what
would facilitate participation and help where we can.
Do not get boggued down by rather critical comments or limited comments
from members of this list. What you suggest could have significant
social impacts within our community, and we should always be careful to
avoid breaking what basically works. It is normal that people be
hesitant and it will take a long time and many many many discussions
before some of your suggestions are implemented and go live. But if it
goes in the right direction, there is no hurry. We have been there for
already 10 years and we plan to be there for many years to come. There
is nothing urgent. Time is the essence :)
Anthere
On 2/9/11 8:17 PM, Brandon Harris wrote:
As promised, here is a mail in which I talk
about possible directions.
A lot of this has to do with the discussion system that is used by
Wikipedia.
It is abundantly clear that Talk pages are a plague upon all the
houses. They are intensely difficult to use and understand. They are
*incredibly* difficult for new users to understand and navigate for many
reasons (which I can elaborate on, but I'll assume we all know what they
are).
So let's get rid of them. Let's move to a modern discussion system
(which is the promise of LiquidThreads) - one that users are likely to
be more familiar with, one that is easier to use, and one that
encourages several principles.
* Identity Emphasis
It is a known problem that Talk pages do not engender (hah!) identity.
In fact, the only notification that a comment exists from a different
user is an indent and (possibly) a signature. To a new user, however,
that doesn't help much. In fact, we've seen time and time again that
newbies have difficulty distinguishing "that one guy was a jerk to me"
versus "Wikipedia was a jerk to me."
I should be clear that I'm not talking about "real" identification
(e.g., "Brandon Harris" vs. "Jorm") but rather the ability for a
new
user to easily connect all of Jorm's comments together.
There are several small things that we can do to make this better which
will have a larger benefit than their sum.
First, research has shown that people are far less likely to provide
hostile or negative responses *if they believe they are talking to
another person* and *if they do not feel anonymous*.
Accordingly, attaching a sense of identity to both the poster and the
replier can help to alleviate this. One common way to do this is the
inclusion of avatars to discussion posts.
By encouraging communication between individuals we will go a long way
towards creating a social structure that can build grass-roots style.
* Positive Feedback Systems
As a culture, Wikipedia has developed several mechanisms to indicate
displeasure with an individual's activities. However, we have next to no
methods for telling someone that they have done a good job, or "thanks
for the comment". Sure, we have barnstars, but they are a non-standard
feedback mechanism and likely to be confusing to new users.
A simple "thanks" button, or "this was helpful" mechanism can
go a long
way towards solving for that. Promoting helpfulness will make being
helpful a desirable trait and will go a long way towards alleviating
"newbie bite."
* Newbie Protection Mechanisms
A sad truth is that there are many people on Wikipedia who are jerks or
trolls. Experienced users know to avoid such people but new users are
thrown into the gladatorial arena without protection.
A system where low-value contributors (trolls) can be flagged or
"downvoted" can go a long way towards addressing this. In
LiquidThreads, unhelpful comments could be automatically "collapsed" and
de-emphasized.
That leads me to. . .
* Reputation Systems
A reputation system is a form of soft "social currency." Helpful
individuals (those with high "helpful" marks) are called out and those
with low-value are de-emphasized. New users would be able to recognize
individuals that the community has determined to be high-value. This
helps to encourage trust, which promotes community health and vibrancy.
I have a lot of other things I've been looking at but I think this is a
sufficient launch point for now.
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