From: Andrew Owens <orderinchaos78@gmail.com>
To: Asian Wikimedia Chapters coordination <wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sun, July 25, 2010 11:31:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-asia-chapters] Free Your Knowledge Project 2010
Thanks very much Siska - that was interesting!
1. The intern result was sad - uni students are given free access to all sorts of things by the university such as Factiva and academic journals in a range of subjects, as well as hard copy stuff in the university library, and they're a goldmine of information which I have found extremely useful in my own writing. (And US$40 per week for writing articles is pretty good!)
2. The community is strange. Articles can get bogged down over trivial details e.g. fighting over one word or one line, to the extent that people are getting blocked and the article is protected. Also, over time, bureaucracies and strange rules have evolved which apparently serve no purpose and make no sense even to many established editors, let alone the new people who fall foul of them. Some new people also believe (I did too when I was new) that if an admin makes a change then you are not allowed to disagree - some admins do not help this by acting like they own the place. I imagine this would be even more of an issue when deference to authority is a cultural norm in the wider society.
3. The community resist newcomers I think because of two things - firstly, newcomers think "this is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit" and fail to learn about the culture or the rules; secondly, newcomers challenge past compromises or ideas which may not stand up to common sense but are there because that is the way it "has always been". (This is exactly the same as in many other organisations)
4. Interesting comments re more people = less power per person. If the chance to win is reduced then the incentive to compete is lower?
A few ideas, just thinking aloud:
* Maybe have someone in the chapter who is respected on WP who can watch from a distance, provide advice to new editors, and try to smooth things over if they get into unintentional conflict with the community.
* Find topics which are no longer maintained, or are not well covered. These are unlikely to have silly unwritten rules because there's no-one there at all.
* Find topics where only a few editors work, and engage directly with them (helps if you know them already) so the newcomers get a "soft landing" and can be given some idea of where their assistance would be useful.
kindest regards
Andrew (WMAU)
On 24 July 2010 22:41, Siska Doviana
<siska.doviana@wikimedia.or.id> wrote:
Ok,
It seems like I can't appointed anyone until December, so you guys
stuck with me.
I remember one email reminding people new to the list, what this list
is, so I think it is only fair to give a heads up to people who are
new to me :-)
I have receive more than one reminder off list to be polite and my
answer to that is, I think, the whole Asian continent is polite, if
you found one female who is not polite in this list, I don't think it
will kill anyone.
I want to be critical, and as a matter of fact, if there are people
who don't like my attitude, I will feed them vegetables so they live
healthy and long because if people don't like you they will give you
honest feed back - and I'm looking forward to that. So we could fix
wrong move as soon as after it was made.
I will feed my ego for complimentary someplace else - preferably with money.
Now, back to the subject
For those of you who weren't familiar with the subject: WMID launched
a wikipedia writing competition for 10 universities and train 90
participants to write in Wikipedia.
Although the project report has not finished yet, I will share with
you behind the screen result that won't make it to report, since, like
a lot of Asian, my English is not very good when it come to telling
things that people won't like.
1. Will people write wikipedia if they get paid?
I paid three intern to write in wikipedia in their training month to
get familiar with how it works. None of them know how wikipedia works.
They received USD 165/ month which is a lot for university students
without the need to actually to be in the office. Over one month they
manage to have 6 articles, 3 complete one, and 3 stubs, only one
didn't get tag improvement by the community.
So I conclude that I won't even try to pay people to write to
wikipedia. I did that, it sucked.
So the answer to that: probably, but you won't have a good quality
article by forcing people to write, they will only do so to meet
quantity target, but not quality.
2. Will people write wikipedia if they are offered "other" incentive?
Yes. In this case, students, who, in natural setting won't have
anything to do with wikipedia, when introduce to the project, they
specially react to recognition, love the challenge - the competitive
environment and its limit - die trying conquering it, and all in all -
they LOVE to travel to Europe. In short, trip incentive work
wonderfully.
3. Did they return to wikipedia to socialize?
Before I answer that, the competition at first was launch because I
thought people don't contribute to wikipedia because they don't know
how, they are not bold enough to try, etc-etc. So it is interesting
when, they already know how, and becoming very good at it PLUS I
receive email messages from participants who pledge going to help the
"free knowledge effort" no matter what.
87 participants and 72 days later.
None of them return.
Well, there is one, but I remember I asked him, have you write
wikipedia before the competition? And he nods, I believe it was only a
change of user name for him.
So what went wrong? Funny enough, I don't even have to ask...
One participant wrote to me aftermath.
"From the information I gather, I think there's a lot of crazy people
in wikipedia, I probably would come back to write because I love
writing. But I definitely won't join the conversation."
I replied and said "interesting!" (not surprising though). Maybe if
the writer could gather less-crazy people, then probably the writer
would like to reconsider not joining the conversation, and add: let's
figure out a way to do that.
So that's outside opinion for internal community. What did the
community think about bringing in more people in?
Surprisingly, they are equally resistant! Well, I only ask one person,
not exactly a representative population (for 30 v.active user). Not
mentioning name here.
"Interesting result, I would like to try 1,000 spot competition next,
already have human resources to handle it."
"Having more new people could change the game."
"What game?"
"Rule of play"
And I go, OMG, they like their power. They like the idea keep going
abroad and become knowledgeable representative. More people mean more
competition. More people mean less power, and perhaps less respect?
from an already established community. I actually never thought of
that. Or maybe I'm asking the wrong person? Not really sure.
So there you go, just a random rant. Maybe didn't mean anything, but I
think it is worth sharing.
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