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.
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.
Josh,
I really care about the Wikimania 2012 bid for Philippines. I hope it can really make it anyway. So if your plan is ready, please put it on the mailing list, then we can discuss about it. Thanks!
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:24 AM, Josh Lim jamesjoshualim@yahoo.com wrote:
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
-- Siska Doviana | Pendiri (Co-Founder) | Wikimedia Indonesia Ph. +62 816 484 5052
Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan: http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-asia-chapters mailing list Wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-asia-chapters _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-asia-chapters mailing list Wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-asia-chapters
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
-- Siska Doviana | Pendiri (Co-Founder) | Wikimedia Indonesia Ph. +62 816 484 5052
Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan: http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Wikimedia_Indonesia:Donasi _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-asia-chapters mailing list Wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-asia-chapters
I've noted in the past that, for reasons unknown to me, community dynamics have shifted in such a direction that we've become more like static seniors who wish for nothing to change. It seems to me that the projects are beginning to suffer from founder's effect, and it's not a very good prognosis for a lot of them. But I digress.
While having a chapter-appointed Wikipedia liaison may be a good thing for contests like these, I think that this is better off left to the Village Pump (the Warung Kopi for id.wiki). Chapter members more often than not are editors as well, so there is a potential for "balancing out" the various viewpoints of different editors should a contestant seek advice. In addition, we have to realize that while Wikipedia can at times get too hot for people to handle, people have to get accustomed to these things because the intention of a contest like this is to retain editors, and babying editors to smooth out conflict may not necessarily contribute to this. Better prepare them now than later, I'd say, so they can better handle the situation later on.
Topic-wise, expanding the realm of knowledge is in many cases better than improving on existing realms of knowledge. However, I see the contest as a learning experience both for contestants and the editing community as a whole: like Eternal September on Usenet, the community needs to get used to an influx of new editors, and more often than not what newbies know is also what older editors know. There are ways for the community to work amicably with one another, so we should embrace newbies rather than repel them.
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: 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
--
Siska Doviana | Pendiri (Co-Founder) | Wikimedia Indonesia Ph. +62 816 484 5052
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Andrew,
- 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!)
On the contrary my dear, I find the intern result was not sad. I find that they are not as interested when offered money than they are when being offered incentive of recognition and competition. I forgot to mentioned the comparison on the previous email.
Paid USD 165/months * 3 interns = result 6 stubs/ complete article/ month Competition name recognition + Europe trip * 87 participants = result 1,386 articles both fix, complete, stub or made new in 72 days (+ around 150+ articles did not met competition quality and contestant dropped off)
Don't take my word for it for yourself: http://wikimedia.or.id/wiki/Kategori:Kontribusi_Peserta_BP2010 (only 17 participants made it until the end, and this 17 participant have a good stomach, because they can handle me. Believe me if I said I can raise hell).
- 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.
- 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)
Ah, That is how the competition is different, the new comers flooding in already "knowing" the rules. This apparently scared the shit out of the already established ones, because non of their power can be implemented to the new comers except "delete" (because the new comer have me <-- project director, I told the participants you will be swimming with the shark, in the end of the day let see how many of you survive and keep editing).
Worse of, the new comers (participants) edit in the speed of light, in better quality for some people that is already there for several years who at times all talks and no action.
- Interesting comments re more people = less power per person. If the chance to win is reduced then the incentive to compete is lower?
I'm sorry I didn't get this.
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.
This is done in the competition, the participants were monitored closely by comittee + me, erwin, gombang, panji (4 very active wikipedians) and all participants questions directed to one sysop only: tmoel.
- 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.
This might work in EN WP, but remember ID WP only have 130 thousands plus articles. Our aim is to create new articles or fix old nonsense ones with references. Plus the danger of already decided topic is you limit participants interest to write subject that they like and you don't. For example, one participant actually only wrote singers and international models, which I think a complete crap, but I am there only making sure that the reference code are correct and interwiki etc, and restrain myself not meddling over content.
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