Hi all
Does anyone know of any information on editor retention rates based on whether the person used Visual Editor or Wikitext?
I'm sure there are many ways you could explore this subject, my specific interest is when running editor training would it be better to teach people to use VE or wikitext?
Many thanks
John
Aaron Halfaker ran a study of whether VE affected new editor retention in May: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_re...
He didn't find any difference in short term survival or productivity between VE and wikitext. That said, you should still teach newcomers with VE--editor training sessions are a very different learning context than trying to learn the ropes independently.
J
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 8:46 AM, john cummings mrjohncummings@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all
Does anyone know of any information on editor retention rates based on whether the person used Visual Editor or Wikitext?
I'm sure there are many ways you could explore this subject, my specific interest is when running editor training would it be better to teach people to use VE or wikitext?
Many thanks
John
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On the edit training session front, I can report on the sample size of 1 VE edit training session in mid August, where the two trainees both aged 60+ took to editing relatively quickly in under an hour, which compares favourably with the half day to a day it often takes to cover the same ground in the source editor due to the lack of comfort with markup. Both trainees did a few edits after the training session but neither appears to be currently active. I certainly intend to teach future sessions using the VE.
But the research question I would pose is “does edit training make any difference?” I’ve done loads of it but I haven’t noticed that it creates ongoing contributors. Most people come away from the session very positive but, when I’ve bothered to check, most don’t edit again. Having said that, after my own initial edits, I too became inactive for a year or so before doing some very sporadic edits over a number of years before getting active, so it may be that people do resurface months/years later (possibly creating a new username/password as they have forgotten their old one).
Now I have thought that maybe the difficulty remembering the markup weeks/months later might be a contributory factor to this apparent failure to create active editors and that maybe switching to the VE will make a difference. But deep down, I am not convinced that the problem of creating active editors is just about training. And I think Aaron’s study somewhat supports this. I think the problem with edit training is twofold.
1. People with a burning desire to edit don’t sit around waiting for an edit training opportunity. Edit training attracts the “just in case” learners, who think it might be useful to know how to edit Wikipedia. People with a burning desire to edit just click on “Edit” and hope they can make it work. Q. Is the VE enabled for anon editing? (I just logged out to test it and it does not appear to be – why not? Surely anon editors should be dumped into VE by default or offered both?)
2. The routine beating up of newbies. One of the joys of edit training is seeing just how unpleasant our community can be to newcomers. In most edit training sessions, trainees experience reverted contributions, quality tagging, etc, without any attempt to reach out and help them make their good faith contributions (anyone who comes to edit training is good faith, I have never seen any of them attempt to vandalise). The trainees find this somewhat upsetting. It is interesting to note that many assume other editors should know they are in a training session (they are probably mapping their real world experience that training sessions are “visible”). However, despite a couple of people telling me there is some template I can use to indicate an educational activity is taking place (not clear if it tags the user or the article) but I have yet to discover what it is. I have tried putting {{inuse}} onto the article but that’s been a failure (doesn’t deter these unfriendly folk and it’s often removed as well).
So, in summary, yes, teach the VE, it’s much easier for new users. But don’t think the problems of new users are completely solved with the VE.
Kerry
Thank you for sharing your very illuminating thoughts, Kerry. Indeed it should be the most compelling advantage of the VE that people after a while of inactivity don't have to learn wikicode again. I am curious how research will tackle the multiplicity of factors involved. The newbies assuming that others know that they are in a training situation... accidently, just today I thought about the problem of assessing edits from newbies. In theory, we could "label" newbies in Wikipedia training courses so that their "status" is visible to the community. But for typical Wikipedia reasons we don't do that.
Kind regards Ziko
2015-11-04 0:43 GMT+01:00 Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com:
On the edit training session front, I can report on the sample size of 1 VE edit training session in mid August, where the two trainees both aged 60+ took to editing relatively quickly in under an hour, which compares favourably with the half day to a day it often takes to cover the same ground in the source editor due to the lack of comfort with markup. Both trainees did a few edits after the training session but neither appears to be currently active. I certainly intend to teach future sessions using the VE.
But the research question I would pose is “does edit training make any difference?” I’ve done loads of it but I haven’t noticed that it creates ongoing contributors. Most people come away from the session very positive but, when I’ve bothered to check, most don’t edit again. Having said that, after my own initial edits, I too became inactive for a year or so before doing some very sporadic edits over a number of years before getting active, so it may be that people do resurface months/years later (possibly creating a new username/password as they have forgotten their old one).
Now I have thought that maybe the difficulty remembering the markup weeks/months later might be a contributory factor to this apparent failure to create active editors and that maybe switching to the VE will make a difference. But deep down, I am not convinced that the problem of creating active editors is just about training. And I think Aaron’s study somewhat supports this. I think the problem with edit training is twofold.
People with a burning desire to edit don’t sit around waiting foran edit training opportunity. Edit training attracts the “just in case” learners, who think it might be useful to know how to edit Wikipedia. People with a burning desire to edit just click on “Edit” and hope they can make it work. Q. Is the VE enabled for anon editing? (I just logged out to test it and it does not appear to be – why not? Surely anon editors should be dumped into VE by default or offered both?)
The routine beating up of newbies. One of the joys of edit trainingis seeing just how unpleasant our community can be to newcomers. In most edit training sessions, trainees experience reverted contributions, quality tagging, etc, without any attempt to reach out and help them make their good faith contributions (anyone who comes to edit training is good faith, I have never seen any of them attempt to vandalise). The trainees find this somewhat upsetting. It is interesting to note that many assume other editors should know they are in a training session (they are probably mapping their real world experience that training sessions are “visible”). However, despite a couple of people telling me there is some template I can use to indicate an educational activity is taking place (not clear if it tags the user or the article) but I have yet to discover what it is. I have tried putting {{inuse}} onto the article but that’s been a failure (doesn’t deter these unfriendly folk and it’s often removed as well).
So, in summary, yes, teach the VE, it’s much easier for new users. But don’t think the problems of new users are completely solved with the VE.
Kerry
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Jonathan Morgan jmorgan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Aaron Halfaker ran a study of whether VE affected new editor retention in May: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_re...
He didn't find any difference in short term survival or productivity between VE and wikitext.
To add to Jonathan's comment: Whether no difference in short term survival and productivity is a positive or negative result is application dependent, but for your specific use case, John, it can be considered a positive result. Basically, you can train people with a method that is easier to learn and use without negatively affecting their short term survival and productivity.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 8:46 AM, john cummings mrjohncummings@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sure there are many ways you could explore this subject, my specific interest is when running editor training would it be better to teach people to use VE or wikitext?
If you decide to teach VE, you will still need to teach people some level of wikitext operations since they will need to be able to communicate in Talk pages, for example. (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd train them with VE but also teach them wikitext for the purposes of the talk page, Teahouse, etc. conversations. I'd also tell them that at some point in their Wikipedia career, they may need to learn more about wikitext, but that they can decide later, when/if the need arises. (If people you're training have academic backgrounds, the (not so 1-to-1) comparison between LaTeX and Word can help. You'll learn both in many fields and you use each of them for certain use cases.)
Best, Leila
Many thanks
John
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Jonathan T. Morgan Senior Design Researcher Wikimedia Foundation User:Jmorgan (WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)
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Just noting that there are ongoing discussions on Lila's (not Leila's) talk page about the relative merits of Flow, wikimarkup, VE, improved wikimarkup, or some mix of options for talk pages: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)
Pine
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Jonathan Morgan jmorgan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Aaron Halfaker ran a study of whether VE affected new editor retention in May: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_re...
He didn't find any difference in short term survival or productivity between VE and wikitext.
To add to Jonathan's comment: Whether no difference in short term survival and productivity is a positive or negative result is application dependent, but for your specific use case, John, it can be considered a positive result. Basically, you can train people with a method that is easier to learn and use without negatively affecting their short term survival and productivity.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 8:46 AM, john cummings mrjohncummings@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sure there are many ways you could explore this subject, my specific interest is when running editor training would it be better to teach people to use VE or wikitext?
If you decide to teach VE, you will still need to teach people some level of wikitext operations since they will need to be able to communicate in Talk pages, for example. (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd train them with VE but also teach them wikitext for the purposes of the talk page, Teahouse, etc. conversations. I'd also tell them that at some point in their Wikipedia career, they may need to learn more about wikitext, but that they can decide later, when/if the need arises. (If people you're training have academic backgrounds, the (not so 1-to-1) comparison between LaTeX and Word can help. You'll learn both in many fields and you use each of them for certain use cases.)
Best, Leila
Many thanks
John
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Jonathan T. Morgan Senior Design Researcher Wikimedia Foundation User:Jmorgan (WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
The simplest way of learning wikicode (at least for those not previously familiar with html) is by imitation. When writing new articles, people at editothons understand the idea very easily. Making changes in existing article is another matter: if that's the goal, VE works better. (and I say that as a long term skeptic of VE)
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Just noting that there are ongoing discussions on Lila's (not Leila's) talk page about the relative merits of Flow, wikimarkup, VE, improved wikimarkup, or some mix of options for talk pages: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)
Pine
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Jonathan Morgan jmorgan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Aaron Halfaker ran a study of whether VE affected new editor retention in May: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_re...
He didn't find any difference in short term survival or productivity between VE and wikitext.
To add to Jonathan's comment: Whether no difference in short term survival and productivity is a positive or negative result is application dependent, but for your specific use case, John, it can be considered a positive result. Basically, you can train people with a method that is easier to learn and use without negatively affecting their short term survival and productivity.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 8:46 AM, john cummings mrjohncummings@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sure there are many ways you could explore this subject, my specific interest is when running editor training would it be better to teach people to use VE or wikitext?
If you decide to teach VE, you will still need to teach people some level of wikitext operations since they will need to be able to communicate in Talk pages, for example. (correct me if I'm wrong).
I'd train them with VE but also teach them wikitext for the purposes of the talk page, Teahouse, etc. conversations. I'd also tell them that at some point in their Wikipedia career, they may need to learn more about wikitext, but that they can decide later, when/if the need arises. (If people you're training have academic backgrounds, the (not so 1-to-1) comparison between LaTeX and Word can help. You'll learn both in many fields and you use each of them for certain use cases.)
Best, Leila
Many thanks
John
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Jonathan T. Morgan Senior Design Researcher Wikimedia Foundation User:Jmorgan (WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)
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