What we try to do in Malayalam community generally:
1. We have a Wikipedia / Wikimedia Handbook (some 80 pages in Malayalam
language format: sub-A4 Ref:
http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:HB ) that was
compiled a few years ago. By now, it's somewhat outdated particularly
because it doesn't touch the visual editor or wikidata topics. We are
desperately looking forward to update it at the earliest.
The handbook contains a detailed introduction to open knowledge, WM project
concepts and copy right issues, very descriptive notes on most of the
essential editing skills, details on Commons uploads etc.
We find that the fresh editor retention rates are much better when they are
supplied with a pulp copy of this hand book.
2. In addition to this, we also used to hand out a rather thicker quick
cheat sheet with the most essential wiki markups and simple templates. Many
fresh users keep this sheet near to their workstation or in the laptop bag
as an instant reference.
3. During most editathons, we set up a particular topic that is readily
connected to the attendees in some way and a list of such articles to be
worked upon (created new or improved existing ones). This approach
motivates the new editors to continue working out further upon those
articles even later in the following weeks. We make them feel sharing some
ownership for those topics.
4. If there is an opportunity and privacy is not an issue, we try to talk
out loud/announce about the event through social media and also mention
some of the work accomplished by those new users in our social media
groups. Such simple acts often encourages the new user to stick onto the
learning and improving process.
5. Every time a new user is created in mlwiki, a bot adds a welcome message
to his/her talk page (eg.
https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sportsfan_1234 ) . The message
contains a concise help capsule and direct links to additional help pages.
6. The check-list idea you mentioned seems great! We are going to test it
out very soon! Thank you, Romaine!
regards,
-VP
On Thu, 31 Jan 2019 at 19:50, Romaine Wiki <romaine.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
A few days ago we organised an edit-a-thon in what we had participants
write about important women.
With most edit-a-thon we start with a group of people that know Wikipedia,
but are fully new to editing on Wikipedia. We usually start with an
introduction, which includes telling about:
- Do not copy paste from other sources, but write in your own words.
- For all facts sources need to be added.
- Link keywords to other articles in Wikipedia.
and some more things...
The participants usually do their best, but usually also forget something.
Like for example that a participant forgot to add a source for a sentence.
In our recent edit-a-thon we tried something new: besides the presentation
given and the handout of some instructions, we also created a checklist for
the participants to use at the end of their writing so they did not forget
anything.
That gave us better results than what we have got with similar groups in
the past.
This leads me to my question: when you organised an edit-a-thon, what kind
of cheatsheets, tricks, ... do you use so that the articles of participants
have a higher quality?
(Or that they are more inspired/enthusiastic, more aware, ..., etc)
Good examples?
If we can share those, we all can learn from good ideas and examples!
Thanks!
Romaine
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