On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:08 PM, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Turnout was much greater than we expected, and everybody seemed to
have a great time!
Personally, I had a great time, and will definitely do booth duty again
next year.
A few thoughts:
It was great to hear the stories people had to tell about Wikipedia. I think
it would be wonderful to record some of them for various purposes. The
people gushing about Wikipedia were a great reminder to me that what we do
really matters in the daily lives of millions. The people with particular
issues put a human face on problems that are often reduced to abstract
acronyms in our world (ones that came up on my shift: WP:BAND, WP:NOT,
WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:COI). And the responses I got to asking, "What did you
use Wikipedia for?" would be fabulous to show to potential donors, so they
know how big an effect it has.
The number one answer I got when I asked what people used Wikipedia for was
a brief pause followed by an exclamation: "Everything!" The best one was a
couple who looked at one another, laughed sheepishly, and said: "To settle
arguments!"
Most people don't believe they can edit. Over and over, I told people that
all it took was two mouse clicks and a little typing. No making an account,
no logging in, just seconds to fix a spelling error or a confusing sentence.
They were always surprised. It would be great to have a one-page handout
that says "You Too Can Edit Wikipedia!" and gives a simple introduction. If
that's been done already, let me know; otherwise I'll put it on my to-do
list.
There are a ton of subject matter experts out there who would like to
contribute, but will never become Wikipedia editors. Some are bemused by
Wikipedia, some frustrated. We should find a way to capture their
contributions as primary sources, raw material for our army of editors to
work from.
The common misconceptions and puzzlements about Wikipedia are indeed common.
I'd love to put together a common list of frequently asked questions from
events like this. At the very least, volunteers could prepare themselves
with ready answers. But a series of handouts might eventually evolve from
that.
I gave my card to several people. Some were people who would be valuable
contributors. Others were people who had article issues (BLP, deleted
articles, concern about corporate COI and POV-pushing). I wanted all of them
to have somebody to get them over the hump next they got stuck in our
sometimes-overwhelming operation. I'm not so scalable, but perhaps we could
have cards for some OTRS-like queue to get good people more help than can be
provided by a booth volunteer.
Overall, I had a lot of fun. Thanks to Jay, Cary, and the others who made
this happen.
William
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I agree. Lots of fun! I'll definitely help next time around. I also
have a few comments from my experience:
* Most people know what Wikipedia is and how to use it. I think there
may have been a total of 1 person an hour that stopped in (and I
talked to) that didn't know what it was.
* Agreeing with William on the fact that alot of people don't
understand editing. Either they were scared, thought they weren't
knowledgeable enough or simply thought they shouldn't.
* It was great to have the book - I made sure everyone who thought
they couldn't edit for one reason or another took a copy since it had
a little section on how to get started. Since there probably wont
been little books to give away - 1 page flyer's or pamphlets would be
good. Along with "how to" they should include useful starting info
like "Be Bold" and where to go for help.
* Also maybe flyer's/pamphlets for some of the other big projects,
like Commons. I think a decent number of people were really
interested in what Commons was.
* It would have also be nice to have some small table top posters w/ a
list of all the projects and what they are about. Additionally a run
down of facts & figures would be nice (# of registered users, # of
articles, etc)
* Tip jar was good ^_^
* Again - with what William said - the biggest complaint I heard from
people who had edited at least once: was being scared off. Mainly
from having their changes immediately reverted - and generally it was
from over zealous editors who were "protecting" their article
(rightfully or not). This isn't anything new - but none these people
knew where to go to get help or be heard. Honestly I didn't know so
my suggestion was the Talk page.
* I think this exists somewhere: but a quick flash video of how to
edit w/ very basic formatting. Something that could be played on
demand for people to give them an idea of how truly easy it is to
edit. Run on little laptops on the front tables.
Side note on stickers:
* Whom ever dropped off the [citation needed] stickers is AWESOME and
were, by far, the most popular sticker.
* I still think we should have little commons stickers (like the
wikipedia ones) to affix to Camera's. Ok - that might just be me...
* The project stickers were very popular. I snuck off with a few at a
time (so as to not waste them) and they disappeared very quickly.
-Jon "ShakataGaNai"