Siska,
I informed Revi during both the chapters' meeting and Wikimania that WMPH would like to work with you guys to get a similar project done here in the Philippines. During our first quarterly meeting, the general membership decided that a Wikipedia article-writing contest would be one of our priority projects in the short-to-medium term (between now and 2013, when WMPH Board seats become open for elections), and that the Free Your Knowledge project is a good model for us to base it on. As I've received complaints that growth on the Philippine-language Wikipedias is not short of being called "anemic", we're hoping this project could jumpstart that type of growth which we hope to see on our local projects, particularly on the Tagalog/Filipino Wikipedia.
While we have no firm timetable as to when the project will be launched (we're currently prioritizing participation in two conferences, plus our grand launch coinciding with Wikipedia Day, plus a potential Wikimania 2012 bid), we hope to be able to work with WMID to ensure that whatever success was obtained from the Free Your Knowledge project will likewise be seen here. I'll inform the Board about this potential tie-up in the next few days.
Regards,
Josh
JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM Block I1, AB Political Science Class of 2013, Ateneo de Manila University Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
President (2010-2011), Wikimedia Philippines Assistant Vice-President for Sponsorship and Sales (2010-2011), The Assembly Varsity Member, Ateneo Debate Society Member, Ateneo Lingua Ars Cultura
jamesjoshualim@yahoo.com | +63(917)358-2508 Friendster/Facebook/Twitter: akiestar | Wikimedia: Sky Harbor http://akira123323.livejournal.com
________________________________ From: Siska Doviana siska.doviana@wikimedia.or.id To: Asian Wikimedia Chapters coordination wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 10:41:10 PM Subject: [Wikimedia-asia-chapters] Free Your Knowledge Project 2010
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.