Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
Hoi. I had a look at the youtube video. Really important in this context is the presentation by Dario. In it he shows how editing is taking of from mobile users using tablets. This is a recent shift but the implication as I see it that working on better tooling for mobile / tablet editors will get us more results.
If anything, it shows that the work done to get people to edit from mobiles take its time to have an effect. Thanks, GerardM
On 24 August 2014 03:55, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
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On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 6:55 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
Task recommendations is one nascent initiative that my team is working on.[1] We're still in the very early prototyping and testing stages. (BTW, the whole video segment starts two minutes earlier at about the 58:00 mark.)
Task recommendations is far from the only thing we're doing to attract and retain active editors. Pretty much the entirety of the features development roadmap for desktop and mobile is focused on this problem. VisualEditor, Flow, mobile web and apps work, and more all address this problem from different angles. You can keep up with what the Foundation is doing by checking out the monthly engineering reports.[2]
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
We practically can't and don't take on initiatives that directly try to provide more free time or money to editors. We can, however, help people do more with the free time they have, and ask new people to become contributors. Both of those are things we're tackling. A central goal of improving the usability of the core editing experience across devices is to save people time and energy. My team's also trying other things to attract new community members, such as actually inviting people to sign up.[3]
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Task_recommendations 2. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/Report/latest 3. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition#Invite_users_to_...
Thanks James for addressing such a crucial issue. It is a vital matter but being discussed far less than other topics, in offline or offline programs, activities. Among measures fore retaining editors, there were some banners that appeared on top of articles viewed by new editors or readers. I've heard that this worked somewhat but didn't continue. In Bangladesh, we're (Wikipedians/Wikimedians) particularly discussing and talking on how to how to retain more editors. Many people are becoming new editors but most of them leave after some days and become inactive. The Task recommendations seems quite interesting, but I was unaware of it. What about its implementation? was it ever tested on any Wikipedia and if so, how successful was it?
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 8:35 AM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 6:55 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
Task recommendations is one nascent initiative that my team is working on.[1] We're still in the very early prototyping and testing stages. (BTW, the whole video segment starts two minutes earlier at about the 58:00 mark.)
Task recommendations is far from the only thing we're doing to attract and retain active editors. Pretty much the entirety of the features development roadmap for desktop and mobile is focused on this problem. VisualEditor, Flow, mobile web and apps work, and more all address this problem from different angles. You can keep up with what the Foundation is doing by checking out the monthly engineering reports.[2]
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
We practically can't and don't take on initiatives that directly try to provide more free time or money to editors. We can, however, help people do more with the free time they have, and ask new people to become contributors. Both of those are things we're tackling. A central goal of improving the usability of the core editing experience across devices is to save people time and energy. My team's also trying other things to attract new community members, such as actually inviting people to sign up.[3]
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Task_recommendations
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/Report/latest
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition#Invite_users_to_... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support the three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support the three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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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On 26 August 2014 02:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
I believe there is a software-facilitated way of doing this. You are quite right that the most effective way of retaining new editors who have good potential is for them to have some personalised contact and a sense of community, but you are right that it is time-consuming and it is also difficult to identify people who are a) new, b) have potential and c) are people that you personally are interested in helping.
IMO the most likely way to help identify those people is to leverage the power of the WikiProjects (e.g. Birds, Military History, France, Mathematics...) to bring new users closer to communities-of-interest quickly. Erik Moller has spoken about this at Wikimania both this year and also a couple of years ago and I completely agree with him.
Perhaps when a new user registers they can be asked to name a few things they're interested in (perhaps prompted from a list). This automagically connects them to the relevant Wikiproject and somehow tells the members of that wikiproject that a new user has just registered and expressed an interest in their topic. Proactive WikiProjects might set up some form of mentoring scheme, or welcoming committee, or 'tasks that newbies can do' list. It would be up to the WikiProject to work out the best ways to coordinate their work with newbies. Rather like the beginning of the academic year at a university - all the student clubs set up tables to compete to recruit new members :-)
Yes - this requires software development and therefore needs to be put on a roadmap, budgeted for etc. etc. But, if we're talking about editor-retention and *personalised support, *I think it's high time that the WikiProjects receive some developer attention - in recognition of the fantastic work that they do in both coordinating the creation of good quality content and also in building a sense of community among editors (old and new).
-Liam / Wittylama
I have seen good results with the "thank" feature. It is easy to use and seems appreciated. When thanked users write to me in response, I have noticed that a specific and neutral "I read your edits about xyz and appreciate them" seems to be more likely to encourage more edits about xyz rather than a suggestion to do something else about xyz (such as joining a wiki project)
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 26, 2014, at 4:59 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On 26 August 2014 02:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
I believe there is a software-facilitated way of doing this. You are quite right that the most effective way of retaining new editors who have good potential is for them to have some personalised contact and a sense of community, but you are right that it is time-consuming and it is also difficult to identify people who are a) new, b) have potential and c) are people that you personally are interested in helping.
IMO the most likely way to help identify those people is to leverage the power of the WikiProjects (e.g. Birds, Military History, France, Mathematics...) to bring new users closer to communities-of-interest quickly. Erik Moller has spoken about this at Wikimania both this year and also a couple of years ago and I completely agree with him.
Perhaps when a new user registers they can be asked to name a few things they're interested in (perhaps prompted from a list). This automagically connects them to the relevant Wikiproject and somehow tells the members of that wikiproject that a new user has just registered and expressed an interest in their topic. Proactive WikiProjects might set up some form of mentoring scheme, or welcoming committee, or 'tasks that newbies can do' list. It would be up to the WikiProject to work out the best ways to coordinate their work with newbies. Rather like the beginning of the academic year at a university - all the student clubs set up tables to compete to recruit new members :-)
Yes - this requires software development and therefore needs to be put on a roadmap, budgeted for etc. etc. But, if we're talking about editor-retention and *personalised support, *I think it's high time that the WikiProjects receive some developer attention - in recognition of the fantastic work that they do in both coordinating the creation of good quality content and also in building a sense of community among editors (old and new).
-Liam / Wittylama _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I think back to when I was new on Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from someone to thank me for correcting a typo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lankiveil&diff=5647... ). It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking around.
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with. Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in the long run. The intention behind things like the "thank" button are great, but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual solution to our problems.
Cheers, Craig
On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
the
three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
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-- David Goodman
DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
This is why the "thanks" mechanism needs to work for IP edits too.
(I submit that the hazard that we might accidentally be nice to someone we didn't mean to is not a sufficient threat to block this.)
On 26 August 2014 11:18, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I think back to when I was new on Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from someone to thank me for correcting a typo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lankiveil&diff=5647... ). It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking around.
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with. Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in the long run. The intention behind things like the "thank" button are great, but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual solution to our problems.
Cheers, Craig
On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
the
three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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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-- David Goodman
DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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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I agree with Craig
The Thank function is not only good to give to new editors but also as a measurement to what action is appreciated by new beginners
I frequently get thanks from new one after I have complemented, wikiadjusted their articles (HELP is appreciated)
I never get a Thanks for putting up templates, neither on articles or an editors discussions page
To my surprise, I do getTthanks though, when I am tougher and removes an article and put the text on a subpage to the editor, followed by a message often almost harsh ("fluffy text", "unecyclopedic", "no sources", "unclear what is meant" etc) (Any type of personal feedback relevant to the person action IS appreciated)
My three key actions to new editors are HELP, fix their articles directly, wikify, put on categories, infoboxes find sources and images and do this within an hour of its creation and without putting on templates SHOW APPRECIATION when a number of good action is seen, put on a personal message of appreciation on the editors talkpage praising his/her knowledge and competence INVOLVE after a time a month or two of repeated good actions, get the person involved by asking issues in his/her expert ares, invite to a IRL meting with other experts in his/her area of interest
So absolutely "The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. " it is with personal messages and contacts and appriecation of competence
Anders
Craig Franklin skrev 2014-08-26 12:18:
I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I think back to when I was new on Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from someone to thank me for correcting a typo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lankiveil&diff=5647... ). It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking around.
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with. Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in the long run. The intention behind things like the "thank" button are great, but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual solution to our problems.
Cheers, Craig
On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
the
three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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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The question here is about "editor retention".
Honestly we can say "thank you" or we can use a lot of emoticons but the problem is always the same.
At the first error the "thank you" and the pink sweet world disappears.
There is always someone in the other side who is so gentle like the elephants in the a store of crystal things.
The biggest problem in my opinion is to continue selecting administrators considering only their technical point of view and never their community management capacities.
Every time I meet someone who left the Wikimedia projects the problem is the same: a conflict and frequently some block which seems to be "unclear" and "incorrect".
Please introduce something that is able to associate the beautiful words to the beautiful actions.
HELP APPRECIATE INVOLVE
Are really good points and applied not only to the new editors but to all editors.
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
I agree with Craig
The Thank function is not only good to give to new editors but also as a measurement to what action is appreciated by new beginners
I frequently get thanks from new one after I have complemented, wikiadjusted their articles (HELP is appreciated)
I never get a Thanks for putting up templates, neither on articles or an editors discussions page
To my surprise, I do getTthanks though, when I am tougher and removes an article and put the text on a subpage to the editor, followed by a message often almost harsh ("fluffy text", "unecyclopedic", "no sources", "unclear what is meant" etc) (Any type of personal feedback relevant to the person action IS appreciated)
My three key actions to new editors are HELP, fix their articles directly, wikify, put on categories, infoboxes find sources and images and do this within an hour of its creation and without putting on templates SHOW APPRECIATION when a number of good action is seen, put on a personal message of appreciation on the editors talkpage praising his/her knowledge and competence INVOLVE after a time a month or two of repeated good actions, get the person involved by asking issues in his/her expert ares, invite to a IRL meting with other experts in his/her area of interest
So absolutely "The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. " it is with personal messages and contacts and appriecation of competence
Anders
Craig Franklin skrev 2014-08-26 12:18:
I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I think back to when I was new on
Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from someone to thank me for correcting a typo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk: Lankiveil&diff=5647166&oldid=5629943 ). It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking around.
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with. Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in the long run. The intention behind things like the "thank" button are great, but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual solution to our problems.
Cheers, Craig
On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of
personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
the
three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation
initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be harming active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
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-- David Goodman
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I too have seen some good results with the "thank" feature ( There are even better results when I write something specific.) I agree with Anders that the thank message is especially useful when sent to me, indicating that something I did was understood--in my case, usually that if I accepted or rescued an article the person is still around. Ideally I should follow it up with a real message. I But if it's in response to something like deletion, I am always unsure if it's genuine thanks, or meant in the opposite sense. One of the advantage in using real language is greater clarity.
I still remember exactly some encouraging things said to me by experienced users in my first few months when I first came here 8 years ago; mot were not separate messages, but in the course of discussion. When difficulties arise, I recall them to encourage myself. I even read over my RfA from time to time.
I completely agree with Liam that the way forward in many areas is with the Wikiprojects. They need further development, but I'm not sure how much of this requires additional software, rather than additional active participation. We should learn from the most successful, such as military history. (or chemistry or medicine) They're a self-organizing feature, with the advantage of not requiring funding or help from the foundation. Some have however on enWP become somewhat of a closed circle, immune to community views to the point of trying to maintain guidelines the community does not support .he remedy for this as for essentially everything else is increased participation.
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
The question here is about "editor retention".
Honestly we can say "thank you" or we can use a lot of emoticons but the problem is always the same.
At the first error the "thank you" and the pink sweet world disappears.
There is always someone in the other side who is so gentle like the elephants in the a store of crystal things.
The biggest problem in my opinion is to continue selecting administrators considering only their technical point of view and never their community management capacities.
Every time I meet someone who left the Wikimedia projects the problem is the same: a conflict and frequently some block which seems to be "unclear" and "incorrect".
Please introduce something that is able to associate the beautiful words to the beautiful actions.
HELP APPRECIATE INVOLVE
Are really good points and applied not only to the new editors but to all editors.
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Anders Wennersten < mail@anderswennersten.se> wrote:
I agree with Craig
The Thank function is not only good to give to new editors but also as a measurement to what action is appreciated by new beginners
I frequently get thanks from new one after I have complemented, wikiadjusted their articles (HELP is appreciated)
I never get a Thanks for putting up templates, neither on articles or an editors discussions page
To my surprise, I do getTthanks though, when I am tougher and removes an article and put the text on a subpage to the editor, followed by a
message
often almost harsh ("fluffy text", "unecyclopedic", "no sources",
"unclear
what is meant" etc) (Any type of personal feedback relevant to the person action IS appreciated)
My three key actions to new editors are HELP, fix their articles directly, wikify, put on categories, infoboxes find sources and images and do this within an hour of its creation and without putting on templates SHOW APPRECIATION when a number of good action is seen, put on a personal message of appreciation on the editors talkpage praising his/her
knowledge
and competence INVOLVE after a time a month or two of repeated good actions, get the person involved by asking issues in his/her expert ares, invite to a IRL meting with other experts in his/her area of interest
So absolutely "The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed
from
above. " it is with personal messages and contacts and appriecation of competence
Anders
Craig Franklin skrev 2014-08-26 12:18:
I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I think back to when I was new
on
Wikipedia, pretty early on I got an honest-to-god personal message from someone to thank me for correcting a typo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk: Lankiveil&diff=5647166&oldid=5629943 ). It made me feel like this was a community of nice people that I wanted to collaborate on things with, and was probably instrumental in me sticking around.
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological
gizmos
and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative
community
that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with. Template welcomes and messages that have all the warmth of a form letter enclosed in a utility bill won't make a lasting improvement in
the
long run. The intention behind things like the "thank" button are
great,
but they should be seen as at most an enabler, rather than as the actual solution to our problems.
Cheers, Craig
On 26 August 2014 10:09, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method
of
personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in
this
is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages
,
and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia ch is doing a big investment in supporting communities.
There are three community liaisons (a third hired recently) to support
the
three national languages which are also within the biggest linguistic communities.
Anyway there is not a unique solution to be adapted easily in user retention and recruiting because the world is varioius as it is the life.
Regards Il 24/ago/2014 03:56 "James Salsman" jsalsman@gmail.com ha scritto:
Is there a list somewhere of all currently active Foundation
initiatives for attracting and retaining active editors? I am only aware of the one project, "Task Recommendations," to try to encourage editors who have made a few edits to make more, described starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbZ1uWoKEg&t=60m20s
I am not worried about pageviews at all, given that the trend is as constant as it has ever been when mobile users are added in to the total. Sadly, the greater number of mobile users appears to be
harming
active editor numbers beyond their already dismal trend, so it would be nice to have an idea of exactly how much effort the Foundation is applying to its only strategic goal which it is not achieved, and has not ever achieved. I am amazed that so much more effort continues to be applied to the other goals, all of which have always been met through to the present. What does this state of affairs say about the Foundation leadership's ability to prioritize?
Is there any evidence at all that anyone in the Foundation is interested in any kind of change which would make non-editors more inclined to edit, or empower editors with social factors which might provide more time, economic power, or other means to enable them to edit more?
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- David Goodman
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-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Wikipedia: Ilario https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario Skype: valdelli Facebook: Ilario Valdelli https://www.facebook.com/ivaldelli Twitter: Ilario Valdelli https://twitter.com/ilariovaldelli Linkedin: Ilario Valdelli <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6724469
Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Il 26/08/2014 12:18, Craig Franklin ha scritto:
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with.
This makes my first RFBOT on the Italian Wikipedia https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot/Autorizzazioni/Archivio/2013#SamoaBot come to my mind. I was much less experienced than now, and ended up flooding Recent Changes. A bureaucrat threatened https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=56154161&oldid=56152222 to block me, and I even retired https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=56157910 for a day. But I was already 'addicted' to Wikipedia and came back soon after.
Thanks to that episode, I gradually became a quite experienced operator. But... how many users would have given up in my place?
On 02/09/14 10:56, Ricordisamoa wrote:
Il 26/08/2014 12:18, Craig Franklin ha scritto:
The editor retention problem will not be solved with technological gizmos and doodads, nor with top-down solutions imposed from above. It will be solved with positive human contact and creating a collaborative community that people actually want to be a part of, rather than one that they put up with.
This makes my first RFBOT on the Italian Wikipedia https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot/Autorizzazioni/Archivio/2013#SamoaBot come to my mind. I was much less experienced than now, and ended up flooding Recent Changes. A bureaucrat threatened https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=56154161&oldid=56152222 to block me, and I even retired https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=56157910 for a day. But I was already 'addicted' to Wikipedia and came back soon after.
Thanks to that episode, I gradually became a quite experienced operator. But... how many users would have given up in my place?
If someone has already gone to the trouble of making a bot, it seems unlikely that they would give up after a single incident. I've seen it happen after a protracted series of such incidents/screwups, but that's perhaps better for everyone involved anyway at that point.
-I
Hi,
David Goodman wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
Thanks, I agree. I'm pretty passionate about making a difference in this area. I would personally go and start doing that /right now/, but the question remains open: Which activity should I engage in for all that to happen?
- Look at recent edits and collaborate with new people? That's a most thankless item on this list, perhaps, as people edit more than anything else. - Look at newly created pages and collaborate on those with due care and attention to the new people? That'd be nice. (although imo the drafts process at English Wikipedia creates an unnecessary hierarchy -- I'd love to remain a peer and treat the newcomer as a source of wonderful knowledge, not as a reviewee or mentoree. For this reason, I might perhaps only do this to articles created in main namespace.) - I had written a script [2] which makes draft review things more personal by not using a template in review comments, but I couldn't figure out whom to approach to get it deployed, or how to prevent ugly [3] templates on talk pages of people who submitted a draft for review. - Reworking the welcome template into something else? Into what specifically? - There are other things I tried to do, such as leave simple short messages such as [4], but I have not been doing enough of them to figure out who likes them. - Many many examples, warning vandals for example, completely template thing, they get reborn as trolls, etc. see also [5]. But there is a need to not feed them still, i.e. put some effort into personal communication but not too much. - Figuring out how to provide IP contributors with more software, up to the point it's technically possible? ([1] lists some software limitations). - <add your thought here>
How do I set priorities in such list? Where to start tackling the problem?
svetlana
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Musings_about_unregistered_contributors [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gryllida/DraftsReview [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Artistintown [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:128.194.3.84 [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Clogged_talk_pages
How about starting a campaign to grow and develop the community around https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Snuggle ?
*Edward Saperia* Conference Director Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email ed@wikimanialondon.org • facebook http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia • twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia • 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG
On 26 August 2014 13:03, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
Hi,
David Goodman wrote:
Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove messages , and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually
read
and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to write something specific.
Thanks, I agree. I'm pretty passionate about making a difference in this area. I would personally go and start doing that /right now/, but the question remains open: Which activity should I engage in for all that to happen?
- Look at recent edits and collaborate with new people? That's a most
thankless item on this list, perhaps, as people edit more than anything else.
- Look at newly created pages and collaborate on those with due care and
attention to the new people? That'd be nice. (although imo the drafts process at English Wikipedia creates an unnecessary hierarchy -- I'd love to remain a peer and treat the newcomer as a source of wonderful knowledge, not as a reviewee or mentoree. For this reason, I might perhaps only do this to articles created in main namespace.)
- I had written a script [2] which makes draft review things more personal
by not using a template in review comments, but I couldn't figure out whom to approach to get it deployed, or how to prevent ugly [3] templates on talk pages of people who submitted a draft for review.
- Reworking the welcome template into something else? Into what
specifically?
- There are other things I tried to do, such as leave simple short
messages such as [4], but I have not been doing enough of them to figure out who likes them.
- Many many examples, warning vandals for example, completely template
thing, they get reborn as trolls, etc. see also [5]. But there is a need to not feed them still, i.e. put some effort into personal communication but not too much.
- Figuring out how to provide IP contributors with more software, up to
the point it's technically possible? ([1] lists some software limitations).
<add your thought here>
How do I set priorities in such list? Where to start tackling the problem?
svetlana
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Musings_about_unregistered_contributors [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gryllida/DraftsReview [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Artistintown [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:128.194.3.84 [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Clogged_talk_pages
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 5:03 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
- Look at newly created pages and collaborate on those with due care and
attention to the new people? That'd be nice. (although imo the drafts process at English Wikipedia creates an unnecessary hierarchy -- I'd love to remain a peer and treat the newcomer as a source of wonderful knowledge, not as a reviewee or mentoree. For this reason, I might perhaps only do this to articles created in main namespace.)
Take a look through WP:PAFC--you'll find lots of new people, and many of them getting burnt not just by rude comments but by waiting weeks for any comment at all.
Quite a bit of gatekeeping is necessary there, however. There's more advertisements and copyvios than serious content coming in through that channel. I would prefer, however, that AfC head more toward quickly assessing that, and take on a more collaborative role beyond the most serious issues.
The gatekeeping function would be a lot easier if the New Pages Feed tool was modified to work in this arena, but I'm told that there's been resistance to this idea from engineering. If that's true, and it may not be, it's a pity.
Our automation for copyvio detection is also pathetic, I can catch more copyvios by "pick a sentence, Google it" than CorenBot and its kin identify automatically. Smarter technology there built into the right tool for the job would be extremely helpful, why are we throwing away the limited resource of experienced editor's time doing mechanical checks?
- I had written a script [2] which makes draft review things more personal
by not using a template in review comments, but I couldn't figure out whom to approach to get it deployed, or how to prevent ugly [3] templates on talk pages of people who submitted a draft for review.
There are a couple folks to talk to, but they all follow WT:AFC, and I'd start there. But better would be to figure out how to integrate that work into Special:NewPagesFeed.
However, while all of this is true, I think it's not the biggest problem.
What is? Right now, there are around 2600 new editors waiting for a friendly word from anyone, and over 1000 of them have been waiting for three weeks or more.
Endless waiting is not engaging.
Any discussion which attempts to imagine we can help attract and hold new editors without finding a plausible, constructive solution to that backlog is missing the forest through the trees. Improved automation (Special:NewPagesFeed, copyright detection improvements), nicer wording, and so forth could both make the process more pleasant for experienced editors to participate in and focusing attention away from serious problems and onto engagement with editors with serious potential. There is room for technology to play a significant supporting role.
The whole process of new articles from new editors needs a fresh look as well.
80% of those new editors are going to fail at what they are trying to do--their articles will get deleted. In most cases, no amount of help would have saved their particular article idea. It's a damn shame that Foundation policy the editing community prevents us from educating them before they invest quite a bit of work into articles that are doomed to failure, because I'm pretty sure that "I put a good deal of work into something over a couple months and it all came to nothing" is a recipe for whatever the opposite of editor retention is. And we need to face that fact straight in the eye and come to some sensible way of fixing it.
--Joe
I think, especially given that the Foundation has indicated some willingness to review their stance regarding such community initiatives, it's time to revisit the idea of a time-limited trial of restricting mainspace new page creation to autoconfirmed (and manually confirmed) editors. The concern there was that it would hurt in attracting new editors, but I think it'd be immensely helpful in doing so.
The problems indicated on this thread are the exact ones this was intended to fix, from two angles. The first is that it will help to stem the tide of true garbage from editors who don't ever intend to be helpful. Copy-pasters, spammers, and vandals will probably largely be put off by that requirement rather than bothering to fulfill it. Right now, new page curators are spending so much time dealing with that crapflood that they just don't have time to personally engage those whose articles are deleted, especially when many of them just wanted to post an advertisement or "JOHN U SUCK LULZ!!!!!" and have no interest in anything else.
The second benefit, though, allows us to take that time saved to focus on the good-faith but green new editor, who's maybe about to start writing a page about their friend's garage band. A lot of people have no idea that type of thing isn't accepted on Wikipedia, and really think they're being helpful by writing it. They might be the type who's willing to engage a bit, make a few helpful edits, get some contact with experienced editors, and realize that their article idea isn't going to fly. That's a great deal better than getting the "Your article will be nuked from orbit, sorry" message after they actually did put some time into learning markup and writing halfway decently. At the very least, they'll be funneled into a guided process instead, where they hopefully can be given more helpful feedback.
At the very least, it's worth taking another look at the proposal to try it and use the trial period to gain useful data on its effects.
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 9:36 AM, Joe Decker joedecker@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 5:03 AM, svetlana svetlana@fastmail.com.au wrote:
- Look at newly created pages and collaborate on those with due care and
attention to the new people? That'd be nice. (although imo the drafts process at English Wikipedia creates an unnecessary hierarchy -- I'd love to remain a peer and treat the newcomer as a source of wonderful
knowledge,
not as a reviewee or mentoree. For this reason, I might perhaps only do this to articles created in main namespace.)
Take a look through WP:PAFC--you'll find lots of new people, and many of them getting burnt not just by rude comments but by waiting weeks for any comment at all.
Quite a bit of gatekeeping is necessary there, however. There's more advertisements and copyvios than serious content coming in through that channel. I would prefer, however, that AfC head more toward quickly assessing that, and take on a more collaborative role beyond the most serious issues.
The gatekeeping function would be a lot easier if the New Pages Feed tool was modified to work in this arena, but I'm told that there's been resistance to this idea from engineering. If that's true, and it may not be, it's a pity.
Our automation for copyvio detection is also pathetic, I can catch more copyvios by "pick a sentence, Google it" than CorenBot and its kin identify automatically. Smarter technology there built into the right tool for the job would be extremely helpful, why are we throwing away the limited resource of experienced editor's time doing mechanical checks?
- I had written a script [2] which makes draft review things more personal
by not using a template in review comments, but I couldn't figure out
whom
to approach to get it deployed, or how to prevent ugly [3] templates on talk pages of people who submitted a draft for review.
There are a couple folks to talk to, but they all follow WT:AFC, and I'd start there. But better would be to figure out how to integrate that work into Special:NewPagesFeed.
However, while all of this is true, I think it's not the biggest problem.
What is? Right now, there are around 2600 new editors waiting for a friendly word from anyone, and over 1000 of them have been waiting for three weeks or more.
Endless waiting is not engaging.
Any discussion which attempts to imagine we can help attract and hold new editors without finding a plausible, constructive solution to that backlog is missing the forest through the trees. Improved automation (Special:NewPagesFeed, copyright detection improvements), nicer wording, and so forth could both make the process more pleasant for experienced editors to participate in and focusing attention away from serious problems and onto engagement with editors with serious potential. There is room for technology to play a significant supporting role.
The whole process of new articles from new editors needs a fresh look as well.
80% of those new editors are going to fail at what they are trying to do--their articles will get deleted. In most cases, no amount of help would have saved their particular article idea. It's a damn shame that Foundation policy the editing community prevents us from educating them before they invest quite a bit of work into articles that are doomed to failure, because I'm pretty sure that "I put a good deal of work into something over a couple months and it all came to nothing" is a recipe for whatever the opposite of editor retention is. And we need to face that fact straight in the eye and come to some sensible way of fixing it.
--Joe
-- Joe Decker www.joedecker.net _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines 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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