I think engagement (getting people to start editing) and disengagement (editors stopping editing) are separate issues.
I think it's quite true that with the rising use of mobile, we do have to look at the engagement strategies and disengagement issues that relate specifically to the mobile context. For example, a pain in the arse to do citations on mobile in my experience, which is going to make them "lower quality" edits and therefore more prone to deletion, therefore more prone to disengagement.
Of course, there are also many issues of engagement and disengagement that have nothing to do with the device you use (e.g. conflict).
There's no single answer to any of these. There are a number of legitimate lines of enquiry and perhaps remedy here.
Kerry
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From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Oliver Keyes Sent: Sunday, 14 September 2014 11:53 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] What works for increasing editor engagement?
On 14 September 2014 03:24, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Oliver Keyes wrote:
... Mobile now makes up 30% of our page views and its users display divergent behavioural patterns; you don't think a group that makes up 30% of pageviews is a user group that is a 'big deal' for engagement?
For the English Wikipedia:
>100 Million active mobile Date editors Change pageviews Change July 2009 3,795 -7% July 2010 3,517 -7% 278 July 2011 3,374 -4% 571 105% July 2012 3,360 0% 1,210 112% July 2013 3,135 -7% 1,880 55% July 2014 3,037 -3% 3,010 60%
Where is the evidence that mobile use has any influence on editor engagement?
My apologies; there's a point of confusion here. I'm not saying that the source of difficulties around editor engagement == mobile traffic increases. What I'm saying is that the increase of mobile traffic is going to have an impact on efforts to reverse the negative trend in active editors. Sure, the problem started long before Mobile became a factor, but the existence of Mobile means that the terrain has changed dramatically. If the attempts at solutions to editor engagement problems don't take that into account, we have a problem.