Ofer Arazy, Felipe Ortega, and Oded Nov have looked at career paths among
Wikipedians
<http://oferarazy.com/PDF/ArazyOrtegaNovYeoBalila%20CSCW2015.pdf>. Also,
Judd Antin, Coye Cheshire, and Nov have looked at how new Wikipedians
select into specific roles
<https://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/764c/7a3dbe3f141096f5e7acebdb62261bf4b…>
as editors.
I'm not aware of any work that speaks specifically to the "conversion
process" (from 50/500 edits ---> career Wikipedian) that you're talking
about, though.
On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 9:24 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm. Integrating "push notifications" into training, as well as using them
> for recognition and suggestions for skill development, sounds like a good
> idea. Thanks for the suggestion!
>
> Pine
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Stuart A. Yeates <syeates(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I have thought about writing a bot that congratulated active users on
>> account creation anniversaries and suggested directions for growth.
>> "Grats X you've been editing for 2 years, here's a picture of a kitten.
>> Have you thought about doing New Page Patrol?"
>>
>> "Grats Y you've been editing for a decade, here's a virtual beer, you've
>> earned it! Have you thought about applying for adminship?"
>>
>> Of course, you'd want to check account account behaviour pretty carefully
>> first.
>>
>> cheers
>> stuart
>>
>> --
>> ...let us be heard from red core to black sky
>>
>> On 21 February 2017 at 14:33, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Kerry,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the ideas. Jonathan Morgan, Aaron Halfaker, and I have had
>>> more than one conversation about wikiprojects as a way to engage with new
>>> editors. Unfortunately, there are a lot of derelict wikiprojects.
>>>
>>> I have some ideas about how to improve the training system for ENWP and
>>> Commons in particular. But that's different from the motivation issue,
>>> which I think is more challenging. With enough money and time, the training
>>> system can be upgraded. I'm not sure if the same is true for motivation. I
>>> have the impression that student Wikimedians are mostly motivated by grades
>>> (hence the precipitous decline in their participation after their Wikipedia
>>> Education Program class ends), and many other people are motivated by money
>>> or PR (hence we get a lot of people engaging in promotionalism or PR
>>> management.) It's not clear to me how someone goes from being wiki-curious
>>> to feeling motivated enough to contribute for years. There are many other
>>> hobbies that are lower stress, healthier, offer more opportunities for
>>> socializing, and offer a friendlier environment. I think that some
>>> Wikimedians are motivated by desire to promote or share their interest in a
>>> particular topic, which might keep content creators interested and engaged
>>> for years, particularly if they meet people with similar interests. But
>>> it's a phase change to go from being a content creator or curator, to
>>> taking on roles that benefit other individual Wikimedians, or broad
>>> cross-sections of the Wikimedia community. We could use all of those kinds
>>> of good-faith long-term contributors.
>>>
>>> Perhaps we should include information in our training about "career
>>> paths" for Wikimedians who would like to develop their skills and/or move
>>> into new roles?
>>>
>>> I'm not sure what else to suggest. I find it challenging to figure out
>>> how to motivate people to want to contribute productively for years, and
>>> there are some roles for which lengthy experience is an informal but
>>> significant prerequisite for acceptance and/or success. I'd like to see
>>> more people make that journey.
>>>
>>> Pine
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Pine,
>>>>
>>>> It sounds to me that there are two separate parts to your question.
>>>>
>>>> One relates to the survival of such editors to being ongoing active
>>>> editors. The second seems to relate to recruiting them and perhaps
>>>> upskilling them for specific purposes, eg administration, guild of copy
>>>> editors, and whatever initiatives you have in mind.
>>>>
>>>> The first question probably relates to being able to get them better
>>>> informed about the policies of Wikipedia at least in relation to the area
>>>> of their contributions and how to engage with the community because it is
>>>> the abrasive interaction with the community that seems to drive people away.
>>>>
>>>> The second probably relates to raising awareness of WikiProjects and
>>>> other collaborative initiatives. (Obviously all of WP is collaborative, but
>>>> some things require higher levels of coordination and I think this might be
>>>> what you are referring to). I think probably needs some analysis of the
>>>> nature of their contributions and/or their topics of interest in order to
>>>> introduce them to targetted WikiProjects etc that seem logical trajectories
>>>> for them. The mistake we make constantly in onboarding newbies is
>>>> overwhelming them with information (think of the standard Twinkle welcome
>>>> templates) because "THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS" instead of what they want to
>>>> know "how do I do this current thing I am trying to do". For similar
>>>> reasons I think any attempts to draw them into particular
>>>> projects/initiatives should be highly targeted, not too frequent, and based
>>>> on what their interests seem to be rather where someone else would like
>>>> them to work. (I think we should avoid the mindset of "I need to recruit
>>>> some cannon fodder"). Having got their attention, someone probably has to
>>>> hold their hand through whatever upskilling is needed to get them
>>>> productive. Just pointing people at a Project page isn't helpful, there
>>>> needs to be some human outreach and shepherding.
>>>>
>>>> In some idealised universe, we should see Wikipedians as being on a
>>>> learning journey, where (through analysis of past contributions and
>>>> interactions) we are tracking them against a series of learning objectives
>>>> (as we do with coursework curriculum "they have passed this unit, let's
>>>> offer them some new units that build on that"). So, using newbies as an
>>>> example, we look for some threshold of surviving-edits that demonstrate
>>>> skills like "add text", "format text", "add list element", "make links",
>>>> "make piped links", "add citation", "add templated citations", "use a
>>>> template", "edit an infobox", "add an infobox", write on their talk page,
>>>> write on an article talk page, write on another user's talk page, add to
>>>> their own user page, etc. The idea being to suggest as various competencies
>>>> are attained how to add a new skill to their repertoire. Once they have
>>>> acquired the basic how-to skills, we could look at the suggestions of where
>>>> they might apply these skills and how to specialise their skills in various
>>>> ways.
>>>>
>>>> Kerry
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>> On 21 Feb 2017, at 2:49 am, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Research-l,
>>>>
>>>> A human resources problem that I am experiencing is a shortage of human
>>>> resources of community members who are willing, available, and have the
>>>> skills to work on a variety of useful initiatives. Is anyone on this list
>>>> aware of research that talks about motivations of long-term contributors?
>>>> In particular, I'd be interested in research that suggests ways to convert
>>>> productive, relatively new editors (say, 50-500 edits) into long-term
>>>> community members who are likely to develop into long-term, productive
>>>> Wikimedians.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Pine
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>>>> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.wikimedia.org_ma…>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
Hello Wikimedia technical contributors & developers:
Just sending one last reminder. The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for
your feedback
in a survey.
***The survey will close on February 15, 2017.***
We want to know how well we are supporting your contributions on and off
wiki, and how we can change or improve things in the future.[1] The
opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the
Wikimedia Foundation.
To say thank you for your time, we are giving away 10 Wikimedia T-shirts to
randomly selected people who take the survey.[2] The survey is available in
various languages and will take between 20 and 40 minutes.
Use this link to take the survey now:
https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6mTVlPf6O06r3mt&Aud=DEV&Src=DEV
You can find more information about this project here[3]. This survey is
hosted by a third-party service and governed by this privacy statement[4].
Please visit our frequently asked questions page to find more information
about this survey[5]. If you need additional help or have questions about
this survey, send an email to surveys(a)wikimedia.org.
Thank you!
Edward Galvez
Community Engagement
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] This survey is primarily meant to get feedback on the Wikimedia
Foundation's current work, not long-term strategy.
[2]Legal information we have to share: No purchase necessary. Must be the
age of majority to participate. Sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation
located at 149 New Montgomery, San Francisco, CA, USA, 94105. Ends February
16, 2017. Void where prohibited. Follow this link for the contest rules:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_
Insights/2017_second_contest_rules
[3] About this survey:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_Insight
s/About_CE_Insights
[4] Privacy statement: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/
Community_Engagement_Insights_2016_Survey_Privacy_Statement
[5] FAQ:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_Insight
s/Frequently_asked_questions
--
Edward Galvez
Evaluation Strategist (Survey Specialist), and
Affiliations Committee Liaison
Learning & Evaluation
Community Engagement
Wikimedia Foundation
Applications are invited for a postdoc position at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies.
The successful applicant will join an NSF-supported study of stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination that is supported through a shared work product instead of or in addition to through explicit communications. The postdoc will carry out field research with open source software developers and others to understand the mechanisms underlying stigmergy in those settings, and contribute to the design and evaluation of a system to support stigmergic coordination in another setting. Responsibilities may also include working with and supervising undergraduate, masters and doctoral students.
Applicants should have or expect shortly to receive a PhD in computer-supported cooperative work, information science, information systems or a related field. The ideal candidate will have experience with multi-method research, specifically including qualitative field research (e.g., interviews, observation, qualitative data analysis) and field experiments (e.g., evaluation of collaborative systems). Candidates should be knowledgable about computer-supported cooperative work in general and preferably about free/libre open source software development practices in particular. Programming ability is desirable but not necessary. An ideal candidate will have experience carrying out both independent and collaborative research, and of writing up research work for publication. The position requires good communication skills, including excellent spoken and written English.
In addition to work on the project, the success applicant be able to develop research objectives, projects and proposals for his or her own and joint research, with the assistance of a mentor if required.
The initial position is for one year with the possibility of extension for a second year. The position is available from summer 2017.
Potential applicants are invited to contact Kevin Crowston (crowston(a)syr.edu) to discuss the position. Formal applications should be submitted online at:
http://www.sujobopps.com/postings/68890
Review of applicants will start immediately and continue until the position is filled.
About Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university, with over 14,000 full-time undergraduate and over 4,000 full-time graduate students representing the 50 states and 124 foreign countries. Founded in 1870, it is home to 11 schools and colleges offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees in Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Education, Engineering and Computer Science, Human Services and Health Professions, Information Studies, Law, Management, Citizenship and Public Affairs, Public Communications, and Visual and Performing Arts. Syracuse is a medium-sized city situated in the geographic centre of New York State approximately 250 miles northwest of New York City. The metro-area population totals approximately 500,000 and offers many social, cultural, and recreational options, including parks, museums, festivals, a symphony orchestra and professional regional theatre. Syracuse and Central New York present a wide range of seasonal recreation and attractions ranging from water skiing and snow skiing, hiking in the Adirondacks, touring the historic sites and wineries along the Finger Lakes to biking trails along the Erie Canal. According to the latest edition of the Places Rated Almanac, Syracuse ranks in the top 10% of Best Places to Live; it is 28th on U.S. News & World Report's list of the best places to live in the United States (top in New York State).
Syracuse University is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution.
Kevin Crowston | Distinguished Professor of Information Science, Associate Dean for Research and Acting PhD Program Director | School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
348 Hinds Hall
Syracuse, New York 13244
t (315) 443.1676<tel://(315)%20443.1676> f 315.443.5806<tel://315.443.5806> e mailto:crowston@syr.edu
crowston.syr.edu<http://crowston.syr.edu/>
Forwarding a WiR job posting. Quoting from the grants page: "The
overarching goal of the project is to enhance the bioscientific coverage in
Wikidata so it becomes a visible and used resource both for Wikipedians and
in general scientific research and discourse." The WiR position includes
work with the Cambridge University Library.
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Arrow <tom(a)contentmine.org>
Date: Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 2:00 AM
Subject: [Wikidata] WikiFactMine Project is Advertising for a Wikimedian in
Residence
To: wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi,
ContentMine is currently looking to hire a Wikimedian in Residence for
the WikiFactMine Project (see:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/ContentMine/WikiFactMine).
It's a six month long position and we're looking for someone who could
spend around half their time in Cambridge, UK. We expect it to have
quite a lot of Wikidata related work.
If you're interested or know someone who might be then the advert can
be seen at: http://contentmine.org/jobs
Cheers,
Tom
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Just a reminder this will be taking place in one hour!
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 2:49 PM, Sarah R <srodlund(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this February 15, 2017 at
> 11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 UTC.
>
> YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6smzMppb-I
>
> As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research.
> And, you can watch our past research showcases here
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#February_2017>
> .
>
> This month's presentations:
>
> Wikipedia and the Urban-Rural DivideBy *Isaac Johnson*Wikipedia articles
> about places, OpenStreetMap features, and other forms of peer-produced
> content have become critical sources of geographic knowledge for humans and
> intelligent technologies. We explore the effectiveness of the peer
> production model across the rural/urban divide, a divide that has been
> shown to be an important factor in many online social systems. We find that
> in Wikipedia (as well as OpenStreetMap), peer-produced content about rural
> areas is of systematically lower quality, less likely to have been produced
> by contributors who focus on the local area, and more likely to have been
> generated by automated software agents (i.e. “bots”). We continue to
> explore and codify the systemic challenges inherent to characterizing rural
> phenomena through peer production as well as discuss potential solutions.
>
>
> Wikipedia Navigation VectorsBy *Ellery Wulczyn
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Ewulczyn_(WMF)>*In this project, we
> learned embeddings for Wikipedia articles and Wikidata
> <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page> items by applying
> Word2vec <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word2vec> models to a corpus of
> reading sessions. Although Word2vec models were developed to learn word
> embeddings from a corpus of sentences, they can be applied to any kind of
> sequential data. The learned embeddings have the property that items with
> similar neighbors in the training corpus have similar representations (as
> measured by the cosine similarity
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosine_similarity>, for example).
> Consequently, applying Wor2vec to reading sessions results in article
> embeddings, where articles that tend to be read in close succession have
> similar representations. Since people usually generate sequences of
> semantically related articles while reading, these embeddings also capture
> semantic similarity between articles.
>
> --
> Sarah R. Rodlund
> Senior Project Coordinator-Product & Technology, Wikimedia Foundation
> srodlund(a)wikimedia.org
>
--
Sarah R. Rodlund
Senior Project Coordinator-Product & Technology, Wikimedia Foundation
srodlund(a)wikimedia.org
Hi Everyone,
The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this February 15, 2017 at
11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 UTC.
YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6smzMppb-I
As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. And,
you can watch our past research showcases here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#February_2017>.
This month's presentations:
Wikipedia and the Urban-Rural DivideBy *Isaac Johnson*Wikipedia articles
about places, OpenStreetMap features, and other forms of peer-produced
content have become critical sources of geographic knowledge for humans and
intelligent technologies. We explore the effectiveness of the peer
production model across the rural/urban divide, a divide that has been
shown to be an important factor in many online social systems. We find that
in Wikipedia (as well as OpenStreetMap), peer-produced content about rural
areas is of systematically lower quality, less likely to have been produced
by contributors who focus on the local area, and more likely to have been
generated by automated software agents (i.e. “bots”). We continue to
explore and codify the systemic challenges inherent to characterizing rural
phenomena through peer production as well as discuss potential solutions.
Wikipedia Navigation VectorsBy *Ellery Wulczyn
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Ewulczyn_(WMF)>*In this project, we
learned embeddings for Wikipedia articles and Wikidata
<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page> items by applying
Word2vec <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word2vec> models to a corpus of
reading sessions. Although Word2vec models were developed to learn word
embeddings from a corpus of sentences, they can be applied to any kind of
sequential data. The learned embeddings have the property that items with
similar neighbors in the training corpus have similar representations (as
measured by the cosine similarity
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosine_similarity>, for example).
Consequently, applying Wor2vec to reading sessions results in article
embeddings, where articles that tend to be read in close succession have
similar representations. Since people usually generate sequences of
semantically related articles while reading, these embeddings also capture
semantic similarity between articles.
--
Sarah R. Rodlund
Senior Project Coordinator-Product & Technology, Wikimedia Foundation
srodlund(a)wikimedia.org
Please take this as a final opportunity to do review/suggest
changes/etc. to the Amendments section of the draft Code of Conduct.
This text has been up for a while, but I recently put in a small
proposed change to make it harder for the Committee to veto amendments.
This is the last section. After it's approved, the Code of Conduct will
become policy, and the Amendments section will specify how future
changes to the policy work.
* Current text:
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Code_of_Conduct/Draft&oldid=238…
(under "Page: Code of Conduct/Amendments")
* Discussion:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft#New_proposal_for_…
The approval discussion hasn't started yet. It will be next and I will
send out a separate email.
Thanks,
Matt Flaschen
P.S. You can still participate in deciding whether to approve "Creation
and renewal of the Committee" at
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Finalize_.22Creat…
.
Hi all,
Thanks for launching this to the public! I have created an unofficial SSE
stream based on the IRC stream for open consumption for a while now at
http://wikipedia-edits.herokuapp.com/ (see link on top).
Looking forward to migrating over to the new official SSE stream, but
wanted to check first if anyone relied on mine? I would probably turn it
off soonish (time permitting), but could also keep it running indefinitely
if people rely heavily on it. Just let me know.
Cheers,
Tom
--
Dr. Thomas Steiner, Employee (https://blog.tomayac.com,
https://twitter.com/tomayac)
Google Germany GmbH, ABC-Str. 19, 20354 Hamburg, Germany
Managing Directors: Matthew Scott Sucherman, Paul Terence Manicle
Registration office and registration number: Hamburg, HRB 86891
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