Hi Rupert,
I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors?
I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is "simply" to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis.
Pine
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100 From: rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement Message-ID: CAJs9aZ_zynDU8JEEeahzJekiu3riEH7VcRJ2vwUddWf9a0O0HA@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
hi pine,
as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an example:
when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch, that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is kind of the "dream wikimedian" who would be able to correct two of the most prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is educated, she is organized, she is successful.
after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits ("billable" is, in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me would not notice.
funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor.
happy new year as well!
rupert.
ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at the beginning of 2015.
On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website reliability, and many other metrics.
We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining. Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11 .
We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and education outreach.
Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Po... .
Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's Signpost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualn..., and the 2010 editor study results https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_A... .
I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about questions such as these:
- What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online
communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond?
- What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor
recruiting and retention?
- How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile
games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity.
- Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we
review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive?
- How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and
hospitable?
In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed as a point person for promoting all editor engagement initiatives and regularly initiate discussions such as this one.
Closing thought:
"Whatever the weather We must move together"
from a Marshall Plan poster, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG, seen on the English WikiQuote main page on December 31, 2013.
Happy new year,
Pine
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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 118, Issue 2
Sorry. Email subject line corrected.
Hi Rupert,
I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors?
I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is "simply" to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis.
Pine
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100 From: rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement Message-ID: CAJs9aZ_zynDU8JEEeahzJekiu3riEH7VcRJ2vwUddWf9a0O0HA@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
hi pine,
as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an example:
when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch, that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is kind of the "dream wikimedian" who would be able to correct two of the most prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is educated, she is organized, she is successful.
after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits ("billable" is, in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me would not notice.
funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor.
happy new year as well!
rupert.
ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at the beginning of 2015.
On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website reliability, and many other metrics.
We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining. Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11 .
We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and education outreach.
Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Po... .
Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's Signpost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualn..., and the 2010 editor study results https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_A... .
I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about questions such as these:
- What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online
communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond?
- What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor
recruiting and retention?
- How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile
games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity.
- Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we
review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive?
- How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and
hospitable?
In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed as a point person for promoting all editor engagement initiatives and regularly initiate discussions such as this one.
Closing thought:
"Whatever the weather We must move together"
from a Marshall Plan poster, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG, seen on the English WikiQuote main page on December 31, 2013.
Happy new year,
Pine
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 118, Issue 2
Hi pine, I'd probably state it open that we desire it, maybe by using a banner for a short period if time every year. just like we state if every reader of the fundraising notice would give a small sum then fundraising would be over in a couple of hours. With it we would have then three banners a year, one fundraising, one contributor searching, and one for a competition like wlm. A fourth one would be nice as well, a call for new software development.
Rupert Am 04.01.2014 07:23 schrieb "ENWP Pine" deyntestiss@hotmail.com:
Hi Rupert,
I agree that individual outreach can be effective. How do you suggest that we get a substantial number of our existing editors to feel motivated to recruit new editors?
I think our problems with editor retention are widespread enough that they need to be addressed on a meta scale, even if that is "simply" to find effective ways of motivating existing users to assume good faith, be civil, and invite new people to edit on an individual basis.
Pine
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:14:45 +0100 From: rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement Message-ID: <
CAJs9aZ_zynDU8JEEeahzJekiu3riEH7VcRJ2vwUddWf9a0O0HA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
hi pine,
as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an example:
when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch, that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she
is
kind of the "dream wikimedian" who would be able to correct two of the
most
prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is educated, she is organized, she is successful.
after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits ("billable" is, in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click
and
give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she
really
does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like
me
would not notice.
funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner
in
the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner
supported
the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of
dollars
into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor.
happy new year as well!
rupert.
ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at the beginning of 2015.
On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com
wrote:
We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website reliability, and many other metrics.
We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population
declining.
Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11
.
We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF
and
the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being
spent
on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted,
and
education outreach.
Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Po...
.
Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's Signpost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualn... ,
and the 2010 editor study results
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_A...
.
I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about questions such as these:
- What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online
communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and
beyond?
- What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor
recruiting and retention?
- How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile
games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make
a big
push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity.
- Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should
we
review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes,
and
how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive?
- How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and
hospitable?
In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed
as a
point person for promoting all editor engagement initiatives and
regularly
initiate discussions such as this one.
Closing thought:
"Whatever the weather We must move together"
from a Marshall Plan poster, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG, seen on
the
English WikiQuote main page on December 31, 2013.
Happy new year,
Pine
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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