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 _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 10:17 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hi Gerard, I am cautiously optimistic that Wikipedia is sustainable for the long term. (If I was not, I would not be here.) The nature and number of contributors may continue to shift over time; perhaps someday there will be so few volunteers in certain areas of running Wikipedia (Arbcom comes to mind as a particularly demanding, thankless, high-stress role for which I do not ever think I will volunteer) that WMF will have little choice but to pay people at least stipends for the work to get done in a timely and reasonably high quality manner. But I am cautiously optimistic about the quality of many of the volunteers that we do have. Also, I am cautiously optimistic that we can *improve* both the quality and quantity of those volunteers, as well as the quantity and quality of the participants in education, GLAM, and affiliate programs related to Wikimedia. I have observed that criticizing the admins as a group is somewhat common. While I have met a few admins that I would consider removing from office if I had the choice, I have also met several admins who do their jobs competently, helpfully, and tactfully. I'd like to see more of the good and less of the bad, and I think that there are actions that can be taken to encourage that, for the admin corps and for the Wikimedia population in general. The situation will never be perfect, but we can make small course adjustments over time that may have a positive long-term cumulative effect. Pine Pine > On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 10:50 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hoi, > What you call a career I call a dead end. What I find is that all too often these careermen (typically) insist on their superiority and point of view. It results in a bias that has people say that it takes 10 sources even for something like a stub, it negates notability as it is not as they see it; consequently the sum of all knowledge is not served well. I also find that it has ossified what we do and the result is that we know arguments as what we do and not what we have. > > What you call a career, I see as a dead end. There are enough things that can be done that do help us along but the admin side you promote is hardly healthy. > Thanks, > GerardM > > > Op di 21 feb. 2017 om 02:34 schreef Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> >> 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 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wiki-research-l mailing list >> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wiki-research-l mailing list >> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l