We already have hundreds of millions of users. A large proportion of people who use the internet will use Wikipedia in a given month, they use it by reading bits of it. Finding out what the barriers are for the thousands of millions who don't use Wikipdia would be useful. No doubt there are some who are aware of Wikipedia but didn't feel a need to consult an encyclopaedia in the last month, and some who are not currently in the market for an encyclopaedia because they are too young, too senile, or locked up. But research into why people don't use Wikipedia would be useful. Our mission is to make the sum of all knowledge available to all, finding out how we get to the next 400 million people, and indeed what proportion of humanity would use an encyclopaedia if it was available to them would be a great use of research. Of those hundreds of millions only a tiny proportion, perhaps 0.02% are "active editors", and that on an absurdly generous definition of active (5 edits in one month). Theory tells us that as quality continues to improve so those readers who fix a typo or some vandalism when they see it have been editing less and less frequently. We know that the edit filters have lost us many of the vandals who used to be such an important part of the raw editing figures of the site (it never ceases to amuse me that the threshold to count as an active editor was exactly the same as the typical vandal needed to get through four levels of warnings and then get blocked). We also know that the rise of the Smartphone and to a lesser extent the tablet has lost us editors, to most tablet users and almost all smartphone users Wikipedia is a read only website not an interactive one. But it would be good to test that as even the most obvious explanation is only a hypothesis until someone has tested it, better still some sort of quantification of those various issues would be very helpful. How we replace typo fixing and vandalism reversion as entry level activities to editing is one of the challenges of the community, any research on that would be very useful. On 27 August 2016 at 08:13, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The English Wikipedia alone has hundreds of thousands of items to fix - missing references, misspellings, etc. The problems are nicely sorted at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_backlog . There are millions of other things to fix in other projects. So quality is getting higher in many ways, but the amount of stuff to fix is still enormous. What we don't have is an easy way for new people to start eliminating items from the backlogs. The Wikidata games are a nice step in the right direction, but their appeal to new participants is non-existent. בתאריך 27 באוג׳ 2016 10:14,‏ "Pine W" <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> כתב:

Nice, thought-provoking post, Pine. Here's my take on two ways to attract a population of good-faith contributors 1 or 2 orders of magnitude larger than the current one, based on what I've seen over the last couple of years: *Gamified interfaces for microcontributions à la Wikidata game*. (per GerardM) there's absolutely no doubt this model is effective at creating a large volume of high-quality edits, and value to the project and communities. So far these tools have been primarily targeted at an existing (and relatively small) population of core contributors and the only attempt at expanding this to a much broader contributor base (WikiGrok) were too premature. I do expect we will see more and more of lightweight distributed curation in the next 5-10 years. In my opinion Wikidata is ready to experiment with a much larger number of single-purpose contributory interfaces (around missing images, translations, label evaluation, referencing etc) *Ubiquitous outreach, supported by dedicated technology*. I called out in my Wikimania 2014 talk <http://www.slideshare.net/dartar/wikimania-2014-the-missing-wikipedia-ads> the fact that the single, most effective initiative ever run to attract new contributors has been WLM (I am intentionally not including initiatives like WP in the classroom as they target a pre-defined population such as students, but they are probably the most advanced example in this category). Creating tools such as recommender systems and todo lists *tailored to the interests of particular, intrinsically motivated contributors* as well as the analytics dashboards <http://tools.wmflabs.org/hashtags/> to measure the relative impact and best design of these programs, is the most promising venue to expand the Wikimedia contributor population. My 2 cents. How making the edit button 10x larger is not a solution to this problem is a topic I'll reserve to a separate thread. Thanks for starting this thread. Dario On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 5:32 AM, rupert THURNER &lt;rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- *Dario Taraborelli *Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org • nitens.org • @readermeter <http://twitter.com/readermeter>

Hoi, You are absolutely right. Both approaches have promise. It is however a marketing job, not a research job to realise their potential. Marketing is where the WMF sucks. Thanks, GerardM On 27 August 2016 at 22:49, Dario Taraborelli &lt;dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

WMF sucks at marketing because it *has no marketing department*. Every other company on the planet has a marketing department. We assume because we get SEO for free that somehow we don't need one. Marketing departments don't just make adverts - they also do market segmentation and research to try and figure out what causes conversion (e.g. readers -> editors), and then act on these insights. Wikipedia could absolutely have 100x the number of editors it has now. *Edward Saperia* Founder Newspeak House <http://www.nwspk.com> email &lt;edsaperia(a)gmail.com&gt; • facebook <http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia> • twitter <http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia> • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG On 28 August 2016 at 06:37, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I get where you're coming from, but a great way to inspire the projects to improve their onboarding processes would be an endless influx of newbie editors. *Edward Saperia* Founder Newspeak House <http://www.nwspk.com> email &lt;edsaperia(a)gmail.com&gt; • facebook <http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia> • twitter <http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia> • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG On 28 August 2016 at 11:03, Stuart A. Yeates &lt;syeates(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Dario Taraborelli &lt;dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org&gt; writes: I agree on these interfaces, but at least in my use of them, and that of the other people I know who use them, the 'gamification' part is a red herring and not why we use them: the important part is the interface and its functionality. The confusing point/leaderboard system (which I never check) isn't really a draw, but the tools are actually useful to do things that are tedious otherwise, and at least somewhat enjoyable to use. It's useful that it tries to find e.g. new articles that might match an existing Wikidata topic but are unlinked, and presents side-by-side information that helps quickly eliminate some false positives, with a fast interface where you just press '1', '2', or '3' on the keyboard to move on. So a different way of looking at this category is: interfaces to make microcontributions non-tedious, and easy to curate in a "dashboard-style" way. Those interfaces might or might not have some gamification layer too, but I don't think that's the important part. Best, Mark -- Mark J. Nelson The MetaMakers Institute Falmouth University http://www.kmjn.org

That really depends on how you define 'gamification'. To me, the gamification is not the leaderboards, but exactly the elements you mention - the splitting of the whole into simple microtasks plus giving out those microtasks to users for a large part at random. In fact, I usually play the 'distributed' version of the wikidata game, and as far as I know there is no scoring or leaderboard there at all, but I would still say the whole is gamified. Andre Engels On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 1:12 PM, Mark J. Nelson &lt;mjn(a)anadrome.org&gt; wrote: -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

I've been active with Wikipedia since 2006. My impression (which corresponds with data) is that 2008 was the year with the highest number of editors on English Wikipedia. While it may sound good on paper, in some ways it was a mess because of the frequency of vandalism. Nowadays I know there are more automated techniques for detecting vandalism, but if you want to increase the number of users just to make the stats look good, you're going to get more dubious data into the encyclopedia as well as frustration from editors who dislike spending their time on so much maintenance (although I'm sure there are some editors who would jump at the chance to make corrections all day). I suspected from the outset of Wikipedia's creation that the project would mirror the well-known "life cycle of email lists" as I've always believed Wikipedia is a "social encyclopedia." I feel this well-known meme accurately reflect's Wikipedia's evolution so I repeat it here as a tool from which to learn: *1. Initial enthusiasm* (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls). *2. Evangelism* (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies). *3. Growth* (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up). *4. Community* (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions). *5. Discomfort with diversity* (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed). *6a. Smug complacency and stagnation* (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list). *OR* *6b. Maturity* (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after). I feel Wikipedia is at stage 6 (both a and b). Unless there's a significant change in functionality and design, the days of 2008 will never return, and we should stop bothering to think it's possible to replicate them (because their existence was due to the novelty of the project). Instead, I think Wikimedia projects should cultivate those individuals with specialized knowledge. A lot of these people are in specialized communities (for example educators, medical professionals, researchers/scholars, devoted amateurs). These are communities which formerly looked down on Wikipedia but now are reconsidering their formerly negative opinions of the encyclopedia. I feel the as-yet small successes in the medical and GLAM communities (I am sure there are others) show great promise. Being part of the GLAM community, I know there are outreach efforts underway to others within that community. Being part of WM NYC, I know there's a lot of librarians involved in chapter activities--and most of those activities take place in libraries or museums (often museum libraries). Until this year, the WMF showed no real interest in continuous engagement and dialogue with the community that edits the projects. I totally agree with the person who said WMF needs to have a marketing department. This is especially true for the kinds of research which marketers report on and are typical of any organization, profit or non-profit. That would be a first step: Understanding who are the variety of its users/editors from which it can then create action items to determine how it can increase the number of users by going after specific market segments. This would not eliminate the "anyone can edit" ethos, but could be a more effective means to increasing users rather than appealing to a broad public. Bob Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts blog: http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44 Twitter: @kos2 Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users - My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions - *Inspiring Lifelong Learning* | *Advancing Knowledge* | *Strengthening Our Communities *

Forwarding a wikitech-l note from Moushira (cc'ed) and the WMF reading team, relevant to the discussion on microcontributions. Hello Everyone, I am writing to share with you an effort from the Android team to start identifying themes of products <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions> [0] that would allow readers to create micro-contributions that are welcomed and actually needed by fellow Wikipedia editors. The team has already identified 18 ideas as examples of tasks readers can do to help editors, we would like to expand the conversation to help us evaluate the importance of the idea*s*. While thinking, the team already had criteria for evaluating the ideas <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions/Reading_team_thoughts>, but this is still missing community input on how ideas are evaluated and what would actually get high votes for being something that matters, in order for the team to start working on. Please feel encouraged to add more ideas and adjust criteria for evaluation if needed. This work is a continuation of the reading consultation <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Interaction_Consultation> earlier done in April. The team is excited to continue the conversation early with the community in order to define product themes. Ideas promoted from this conversation will be designed in Android first, given the consideration of lower traffic and relative ease of implementation, but the team will be excited and watching for lessons learned in order to move ideas to the web. This work is made possible by Jon Katz, Reading team's senior PM, and Dmitry Brant, the product owner of Android. Thanks for their thoughtful and collaborative approach". We will allow the conversation to run for a month, after which we can already start exploring ideas for implementation in Q3. Please help spread the word across village pumps. Looking forward to your input -- Best, Moushira Community Liaison for Reading team [0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Readers_contributions /Reading_team_thoughts [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_Interaction_Consultation On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 12:52 PM, Gerard Meijssen &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com > Hoi Bob, > Wikipedia is not English Wikipedia. It has its own problems and it could > do better as well. The point of a marketing approach is not only in > reaching more editors. Having people help with more content for instance > with micro tasks is achievable. The point must be that the work done makes > a difference. It is not something we have ever shown that individual work > makes a difference even though we could do this. We could produce lists of > articles waiting to be written in domains. They could be our red links, > they could be the articles that exist in other Wikipedias. They could even > be items in Wikidata. > > The biggest point of our projects is not our contributors, it is what they > produce. What we could do is make sure is that this is easier available. > Has a better user experience. Take Commons or Wikisource I do not use it > because I do not know what to find and in what state I will find it. This > has technical issues but the main thing is that our audience is hardly what > we are interested in. > > In them days I asked loudly for Commons but I find it impossible to find > material for my blog so I gave up on Commons. I have done a lot of work on > Wiktionary but I found that there was too much repetition so I started > OmegaWiki and hoped for the WMF to adopt it. Wikidata has much promise and > it could do a lot of good but that is where I am at the moment. > > With proper marketing we will improve the user experience for our > audience, they may cooperate in micro tasks and, we will as a consequence > grow an interest by some to edit text. They could stay if we do a better > job of maintaining a friendly space. That is not marketing not technology > but it is necessary. We are at a state where we have a technology that more > or less works for most editors in the bigger projects. > Thanks, > GerardM > > On 28 August 2016 at 21:26, Bob Kosovsky &lt;bobkosovsky(a)nypl.org> >> I've been active with Wikipedia since 2006. My impression (which >> corresponds with data) is that 2008 was the year with the highest number of >> editors on English Wikipedia. While it may sound good on paper, in some >> ways it was a mess because of the frequency of vandalism. Nowadays I know >> there are more automated techniques for detecting vandalism, but if you >> want to increase the number of users just to make the stats look good, >> you're going to get more dubious data into the encyclopedia as well as >> frustration from editors who dislike spending their time on so much >> maintenance (although I'm sure there are some editors who would jump at the >> chance to make corrections all day). >> >> I suspected from the outset of Wikipedia's creation that the project >> would mirror the well-known "life cycle of email lists" as I've always >> believed Wikipedia is a "social encyclopedia." I feel this well-known meme >> accurately reflect's Wikipedia's evolution so I repeat it here as a tool >> from which to learn: >> >> *1. Initial enthusiasm* (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot >> about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls). >> >> *2. Evangelism* (people moan about how few folks are posting to the >> list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies). >> >> *3. Growth* (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads >> develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up). >> >> *4. Community* (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of >> information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as >> less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; >> newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and >> expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and >> sharing opinions). >> >> *5. Discomfort with diversity* (the number of messages increases >> dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start >> complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if >> *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 >> agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is >> wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads >> themselves; everyone gets annoyed). >> >> *6a. Smug complacency and stagnation* (the purists flame everyone who >> asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies >> are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor >> issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited >> to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously >> congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list). >> >> *OR* >> >> *6b. Maturity* (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the >> participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few >> weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the >> list lives contentedly ever after). >> >> >> I feel Wikipedia is at stage 6 (both a and b). Unless there's a >> significant change in functionality and design, the days of 2008 will never >> return, and we should stop bothering to think it's possible to replicate >> them (because their existence was due to the novelty of the project). >> >> Instead, I think Wikimedia projects should cultivate those individuals >> with specialized knowledge. A lot of these people are in specialized >> communities (for example educators, medical professionals, >> researchers/scholars, devoted amateurs). These are communities which >> formerly looked down on Wikipedia but now are reconsidering their formerly >> negative opinions of the encyclopedia. I feel the as-yet small successes in >> the medical and GLAM communities (I am sure there are others) show great >> promise. Being part of the GLAM community, I know there are outreach >> efforts underway to others within that community. Being part of WM NYC, I >> know there's a lot of librarians involved in chapter activities--and most >> of those activities take place in libraries or museums (often museum >> libraries). >> >> Until this year, the WMF showed no real interest in continuous engagement >> and dialogue with the community that edits the projects. I totally agree >> with the person who said WMF needs to have a marketing department. This is >> especially true for the kinds of research which marketers report on and are >> typical of any organization, profit or non-profit. That would be a first >> step: Understanding who are the variety of its users/editors from which it >> can then create action items to determine how it can increase the number of >> users by going after specific market segments. This would not eliminate >> the "anyone can edit" ethos, but could be a more effective means to >> increasing users rather than appealing to a broad public. >> >> Bob >> >> >> >> Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts, >> Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts >> blog: http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44 Twitter: @kos2 >> Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users >> - My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions - >> >> *Inspiring Lifelong Learning* | *Advancing Knowledge* | *Strengthening >> Our Communities * >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- *Dario Taraborelli *Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org • nitens.org • @readermeter <http://twitter.com/readermeter>