Hi Quim and Sarah,
I should have worded my question more precisely. I'm asking what Wikimedia could do to recruit people who play video games on various platforms and in various types of games (casual, FPS, MMPORG, and so on) so that they convert the time they currently use for gaming into time spent contributing to Wikimedia projects of any kind or subject rather than on the important but narrower subject of video games. For example, what would it take to convert people who currently play crossword puzzles or Scrabble on their smartphones into editors of Wiktionary? What would it take to convert people who play geocaching into photo contributors to Commons? What would it take to convert FPS gamers into NPP or anti-vandalism editors?
The people on the Research list are generating a lot of good discussion about gamification within Wikimedia to encourage more and higher quality participation, and we're also discussing how to recruit gamers to become new Wikimedia contributors. Please come over to the thread on Research-l and let's continue talking there. (:
Pine
> Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 07:31:17 -0700
> From: Quim Gil <qgil@wikimedia.org>
> To: ee@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [EE] Recruiting gamers to edit Wikimedia
> Message-ID: <51D6D8B5.4040904@wikimedia.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 07/04/2013 12:46 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
> > I've asked these questions in other ways and places and I'd like to hear
> > what other people on the Research and EE lists think.
> >
> > There are many video game players of diverse ages, genders, languages,
> > and locations. How could Wikimedia editing be made into an appealing
> > activity for people who are currently video gamers? How could Wikimedia
> > market itself to gamers, including console, LAN, FPS, MMORPG, and mobile
> > gamers?
>
> Have you asked at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games ?
>
> (as an outsider) I would say that gaming in general is pretty well
> covered, at least in comparison with other areas of knowledge. Or what
> would be the reason to target gamers?
>
> Editing per se is not the problem. There is no lack of gamers using
> wikis (and MediaWiki!) e.g. http://www.wikia.com/ or
> http://www.minecraftwiki.net/ . The average gamer probably gets the idea
> of crowdsourcing knowledge pretty well. Those wikis are community wikis
> though, as an editor you won't need to deal (much) with relevance,
> references, POV, essay, etc. I don't know what are the conditions to
> upload copyrighted content but probably these wikis are more permissive
> than Wikimedia's.
>
> Well, I guess http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Move_to_gaming_wiki
> exists for a reason. Maybe if we would send gamers (also) to
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Games we could keep a bit more
> talent around...
>
> --
> Quim Gil
> Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
>
>
> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 08:26:14 -0700
> From: Sarah Stierch <sstierch@wikimedia.org>
> To: WMF Editor Engagement Team <ee@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [EE] Recruiting gamers to edit Wikimedia
> Message-ID:
> <CAFk0ehVOcyV-N5KMchop-C0r7wY649adXMDHg5U+CVbjGhaVPw@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi,
>
> And yes, if you're interested in engaging (or re engaging) with people
> already in the community or who don't edit as frequently perhaps, you can
> contact people who have userboxes on English Wikipedia saying they are into
> video games:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Userboxes/Games/Video_games
>
> I do this for women's history projects and programs. I either use
> EdwardsBot and spam them with a template inviting them to something or
> whatever, or invite them individually (more time consuming of course).
>
> Sarah
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Quim Gil <qgil@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > On 07/04/2013 12:46 PM, ENWP Pine wrote:
> >
> >> I've asked these questions in other ways and places and I'd like to hear
> >> what other people on the Research and EE lists think.
> >>
> >> There are many video game players of diverse ages, genders, languages,
> >> and locations. How could Wikimedia editing be made into an appealing
> >> activity for people who are currently video gamers? How could Wikimedia
> >> market itself to gamers, including console, LAN, FPS, MMORPG, and mobile
> >> gamers?
> >>
> >
> > Have you asked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**
> > Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_**games<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games>?
> >
> > (as an outsider) I would say that gaming in general is pretty well
> > covered, at least in comparison with other areas of knowledge. Or what
> > would be the reason to target gamers?
> >
> > Editing per se is not the problem. There is no lack of gamers using wikis
> > (and MediaWiki!) e.g. http://www.wikia.com/ or
> > http://www.minecraftwiki.net/ . The average gamer probably gets the idea
> > of crowdsourcing knowledge pretty well. Those wikis are community wikis
> > though, as an editor you won't need to deal (much) with relevance,
> > references, POV, essay, etc. I don't know what are the conditions to upload
> > copyrighted content but probably these wikis are more permissive than
> > Wikimedia's.
> >
> > Well, I guess http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Template:Move_to_gaming_wiki<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Move_to_gaming_wiki>exists for a reason. Maybe if we would send gamers (also) to
> > http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/**Subject:Games<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Games>we could keep a bit more talent around...
> >
> > --
> > Quim Gil
> > Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/**User:Qgil<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil>
> >
> > ______________________________**_________________
> > EE mailing list
> > EE@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/ee<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *Sarah Stierch**
> Wikimedia Foundation Program Evaluation & Design Community Coordinator
> *Donate<http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Donate/en&utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&language=en&uselang=en&country=US&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CDMQFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdonate.wikipedia.org%252F%26ei%3DYpsET93HN6isiQLIoJjSDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNG-7hzT9rkEvAjlNqBIOQ1ZDIpdYA>today
> and keep it free!
>
> Visit me on Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>!