Hi everybody,
Back in November, I was approached by Anbar Jayadi at the Wikimedia Foundation for a project they are running on understanding how user groups like ours can contribute to bring in new contributors to Wikipedia. New contributors are the lifeblood of Wikipedia, ensuring both that existing articles will continue to be maintained and updated going forward, and bringing in new perspectives and effort to ensure the widest possible coverage.
I finally got around to setting up a page for collecting our responses [1] — sorry it took me so long to do that! Anbar has given us until Monday, December 15 to provide our answers, so please have a look at what I’ve written and add/subtract/improve/delete anything you like. I’ll send a reminder on Sunday and then I’ll send in our responses on Monday.
We’re planning to send out a survey in the next few months to all of you asking what activities you would like this group to organize, so this is also a good excuse to start thinking about that!
cheers, Gaurav
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Wikipedians/2025_Understandin...
Begin forwarded message:
From: Anbar Jayadi ajayadi@wikimedia.org Subject: Interest to contribute to organizers impact research Date: November 7, 2025 at 10:47:52 AM EST To: gaurav@ggvaidya.com
Hi there, I am Anbar. I am a Senior Process Analyst, Community Organizing Experience https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AJayadi-WMFat the Wikimedia Foundation.
I got your email from Pacita and Crystal (Wikimedia NYC). They recommended me to contact you and ask if you are interested to participate in this research project on Understanding Organizers' Impact on Newcomer Growth https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_Organizers%27_Impact_....
This research project aims to better understand organizers' existing approaches to attract and/or retain newcomer contributors, map strategies and best practices, and collect suggestions on potential improvement or experimental areas. To organizers, we ask: What methods or strategies do you use to attract newcomer editors to on-wiki participation? What do you do to support newcomer editors to transition from small and easy contributions (e.g., uploading images to Commons) to more advanced contributions (e.g., creating an article or a section of an article)? Once newcomer editors are engaged, do you have any strategies to retain them on-wiki or in your community? If you are interested, I can share a template Google doc and you can submit written responses via the doc before Dec 1st, 2025.
Thank you and look forward to hearing from you.
Cheers, Anbar
Hi everybody,
Just a reminder that I’m going to be submitting the 2025 Understanding Organizers Impact on Newcomer Growth survey [1] on behalf of our group tomorrow — please add/remove/amend anything you’d like in my response before then! Or you can email it to me if you'd prefer and I’ll add it on your behalf.
cheers, Gaurav
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Wikipedians/2025_Understandin...
On Dec 11, 2025, at 4:50 AM, Gaurav Vaidya gaurav@ggvaidya.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Back in November, I was approached by Anbar Jayadi at the Wikimedia Foundation for a project they are running on understanding how user groups like ours can contribute to bring in new contributors to Wikipedia. New contributors are the lifeblood of Wikipedia, ensuring both that existing articles will continue to be maintained and updated going forward, and bringing in new perspectives and effort to ensure the widest possible coverage.
I finally got around to setting up a page for collecting our responses [1] — sorry it took me so long to do that! Anbar has given us until Monday, December 15 to provide our answers, so please have a look at what I’ve written and add/subtract/improve/delete anything you like. I’ll send a reminder on Sunday and then I’ll send in our responses on Monday.
We’re planning to send out a survey in the next few months to all of you asking what activities you would like this group to organize, so this is also a good excuse to start thinking about that!
cheers, Gaurav
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Wikipedians/2025_Understandin...
Begin forwarded message:
From: Anbar Jayadi ajayadi@wikimedia.org Subject: Interest to contribute to organizers impact research Date: November 7, 2025 at 10:47:52 AM EST To: gaurav@ggvaidya.com
Hi there, I am Anbar. I am a Senior Process Analyst, Community Organizing Experience https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AJayadi-WMFat the Wikimedia Foundation.
I got your email from Pacita and Crystal (Wikimedia NYC). They recommended me to contact you and ask if you are interested to participate in this research project on Understanding Organizers' Impact on Newcomer Growth https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_Organizers%27_Impact_....
This research project aims to better understand organizers' existing approaches to attract and/or retain newcomer contributors, map strategies and best practices, and collect suggestions on potential improvement or experimental areas. To organizers, we ask: What methods or strategies do you use to attract newcomer editors to on-wiki participation? What do you do to support newcomer editors to transition from small and easy contributions (e.g., uploading images to Commons) to more advanced contributions (e.g., creating an article or a section of an article)? Once newcomer editors are engaged, do you have any strategies to retain them on-wiki or in your community? If you are interested, I can share a template Google doc and you can submit written responses via the doc before Dec 1st, 2025.
Thank you and look forward to hearing from you.
Cheers, Anbar
wikimedia-us-nc@lists.wikimedia.org