Dear All,
The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention.
We have conducted over 13 outreach sessions in the past one month and have many more events scheduled to participate in over the coming weeks. (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Outreach_Sess...). It's amazing that we're doing so many outreach events all over the country to create awareness about Wikipedia, motivate attendees to learn about editing and training newbies to contribute to Wikipedia in their own special way.
The single biggest challenge is that we don't know the actual outcome of these efforts in most cases, and the results are weak when we have the data. I think most of us agree that outreach can be made to work better. (For example, 2 outreach sessions conducted recently by the Assamese community had about 80 participants, and 8 active editors emerged - which is a hit rate of 10% - which is FANTASTIC!) For most other sessions, the results have been closer to 1-2% or even lower - which is depressing. What makes outreach work? How can outreach work better? Is there anything you need from me?
Over the past 3 months, I have been working on building a handbook for Outreach (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Handbook) where you can get presentation material and tips. Please do go through it and help me build it.
My post consists of 5 (deliberately) provocative statements on the day of and the days after an outreach session. These are framed with the objective of generating debate and suggestions.
THE DAY OF
Hypthesis 1: Don't Shoot the Puppy: Outreach is not being done effectively and we aren't adequately introspecting on what we can do better; instead choosing to lose faith in attendees
Should we discontinue general introduction sessions completely and just convert everything into Wiki workshops? Every second of volunteer time is precious and we need to make sure that every second is made to count. The good sessions appear to be those where people are actually shown how to edit - rather than just doing a song-and-dance about Wikipedia. The best sessions are those where people have actual hands-on editing opportunity. Shall we limit the intro session on Wikipedia to just 15 minutes and then spend 45 minute on basic editing, 30 minutes on hand-on editing and leave 30 minutes for Q&A? Not everyone is a natural presenter and might need help on basic outreach skills. Is there value and interest in a capacity building roadshow where we help existing editors who want to improve their outreach and presentation skills? Is it useful to pair up a good presenter with a not-so-confident presenter when we are doing outreach? THE DAY AFTER
Hypothesis #2: Staying in Touch: We assume the job is complete after the outreach session when in fact the journey has only just begun
Can we gather (basic) information about attendees (e.g., names, usernames & email IDs?) so that we can stay in touch with them after sessions? Can we get feedback on sessions (duration, level of detail, quality of presenters, etc.?) so that we can all improve? Do we need some sort of CRM solution for this or will something like Google Docs suffice? How do we get more folks to actually provide their contact details and feedback? Which of the following will get higher response rates: asking for these just before the end, immediately after the end or the day after a session? Hypothesis #3: Nudge-Nudge: Newbies struggle with the most basic things - including which article to select
Should we send links to useful wiki pages and tutorial videos where they can read up more about how Wikipedia works and how to edit Wikipedia? Can we leave handouts on basic editing after all sessions? Can we send them links to the actual presentations made at the session. Can we suggest / elicit potential articles that individual newbies will work on after the workshop? Can we give them individual pointers on what they can do with each article by reviewing them there-and-then during the session? Can we schedule a follow-up session (even if virtually using google+ hangout) to clarify any doubts about Wikipedia editing or otherwise - maybe 2 weeks after a session? Hypothesis #4: Loneliness - Newbies feel alone and the only time they sense the community is when their edits get reverted
Should we not encourage them to join project pages (such as the WP:INDIA) and/or the India mailing list and/or their city/language mailing list to get involved with the community? Can we involve them in COTM or conduct specific editathons for them? Can we celebrate their successes and get newbies to talk to other newbies about how they learnt stuff? Hyptothesis #5: Black Hole: No one has a clue about the actual results of outreach
Can we regularly monitor number & % of active editors after 1 and 3 months of conducting all events? Can we figure out % of mainspace edits from these newbies after 1 and 3 months? Can this be analysed to provide recommendations on how we can do things better? Can we actively reach out to those who look like they are struggling? Do we need a CRM tool for something like this? Is it useful to track and attempt to co-relate age / profession / subject (if student) / sex of participants to figure out what is likely to give greatest results? I have been working to see how can we overcome these challenges and make our outreach efforts far more effective. I'd love to hear from on the above. Some of you have been actively involved in outreach sessions (attending or conducting or planning) an I'd like to know your thoughts and suggestions which might serve as solutions for this set of very real challenges.
Thanks
Nitika
Thank you very much for this email.
Most of these thoughts are useful not only for India, but for other countries, too.
2012/2/13 Nitika ntandon@wikimedia.org:
Dear All,
The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention.
We have conducted over 13 outreach sessions in the past one month and have many more events scheduled to participate in over the coming weeks. (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Outreach_Sess...). It's amazing that we're doing so many outreach events all over the country to create awareness about Wikipedia, motivate attendees to learn about editing and training newbies to contribute to Wikipedia in their own special way.
The single biggest challenge is that we don't know the actual outcome of these efforts in most cases, and the results are weak when we have the data. I think most of us agree that outreach can be made to work better. (For example, 2 outreach sessions conducted recently by the Assamese community had about 80 participants, and 8 active editors emerged - which is a hit rate of 10% - which is FANTASTIC!) For most other sessions, the results have been closer to 1-2% or even lower - which is depressing. What makes outreach work? How can outreach work better? Is there anything you need from me?
Over the past 3 months, I have been working on building a handbook for Outreach (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Handbook) where you can get presentation material and tips. Please do go through it and help me build it.
My post consists of 5 (deliberately) provocative statements on the day of and the days after an outreach session. These are framed with the objective of generating debate and suggestions.
THE DAY OF
Hypthesis 1: Don't Shoot the Puppy: Outreach is not being done effectively and we aren't adequately introspecting on what we can do better; instead choosing to lose faith in attendees
Should we discontinue general introduction sessions completely and just convert everything into Wiki workshops? Every second of volunteer time is precious and we need to make sure that every second is made to count. The good sessions appear to be those where people are actually shown how to edit
- rather than just doing a song-and-dance about Wikipedia.
The best sessions are those where people have actual hands-on editing opportunity. Shall we limit the intro session on Wikipedia to just 15 minutes and then spend 45 minute on basic editing, 30 minutes on hand-on editing and leave 30 minutes for Q&A? Not everyone is a natural presenter and might need help on basic outreach skills. Is there value and interest in a capacity building roadshow where we help existing editors who want to improve their outreach and presentation skills? Is it useful to pair up a good presenter with a not-so-confident presenter when we are doing outreach?
THE DAY AFTER
Hypothesis #2: Staying in Touch: We assume the job is complete after the outreach session when in fact the journey has only just begun
Can we gather (basic) information about attendees (e.g., names, usernames & email IDs?) so that we can stay in touch with them after sessions? Can we get feedback on sessions (duration, level of detail, quality of presenters, etc.?) so that we can all improve? Do we need some sort of CRM solution for this or will something like Google Docs suffice? How do we get more folks to actually provide their contact details and feedback? Which of the following will get higher response rates: asking for these just before the end, immediately after the end or the day after a session?
Hypothesis #3: Nudge-Nudge: Newbies struggle with the most basic things - including which article to select
Should we send links to useful wiki pages and tutorial videos where they can read up more about how Wikipedia works and how to edit Wikipedia? Can we leave handouts on basic editing after all sessions? Can we send them links to the actual presentations made at the session. Can we suggest / elicit potential articles that individual newbies will work on after the workshop? Can we give them individual pointers on what they can do with each article by reviewing them there-and-then during the session? Can we schedule a follow-up session (even if virtually using google+ hangout) to clarify any doubts about Wikipedia editing or otherwise - maybe 2 weeks after a session?
Hypothesis #4: Loneliness - Newbies feel alone and the only time they sense the community is when their edits get reverted
Should we not encourage them to join project pages (such as the WP:INDIA) and/or the India mailing list and/or their city/language mailing list to get involved with the community? Can we involve them in COTM or conduct specific editathons for them? Can we celebrate their successes and get newbies to talk to other newbies about how they learnt stuff?
Hyptothesis #5: Black Hole: No one has a clue about the actual results of outreach
Can we regularly monitor number & % of active editors after 1 and 3 months of conducting all events? Can we figure out % of mainspace edits from these newbies after 1 and 3 months? Can this be analysed to provide recommendations on how we can do things better? Can we actively reach out to those who look like they are struggling? Do we need a CRM tool for something like this? Is it useful to track and attempt to co-relate age / profession / subject (if student) / sex of participants to figure out what is likely to give greatest results?
I have been working to see how can we overcome these challenges and make our outreach efforts far more effective. I'd love to hear from on the above. Some of you have been actively involved in outreach sessions (attending or conducting or planning) an I'd like to know your thoughts and suggestions which might serve as solutions for this set of very real challenges.
Thanks
Nitika
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 17:12, Nitika ntandon@wikimedia.org wrote:
The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention.
Bumping up to grab attention. I know there are many folks with years of
outreach experience on the list. Can you please comment on the talk page? (Or even here, I could do the job of copypasting!) It is important to discuss, get perspectives / approaches towards outreach right since we would spending a lot of time,energy, donor money on this and its essential to design them well so we could make it effective and better.
Slightly related :- <shamelessplug> http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Phy... </shamelessplug>
On Feb 18, 2012, at 3:52 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 17:12, Nitika ntandon@wikimedia.org wrote: The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention.
Bumping up to grab attention. I know there are many folks with years of outreach experience on the list. Can you please comment on the talk page? (Or even here, I could do the job of copypasting!) It is important to discuss, get perspectives / approaches towards outreach right since we would spending a lot of time,energy, donor money on this and its essential to design them well so we could make it effective and better.
Slightly related :-
<shamelessplug> http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Physical_Outreach </shamelessplug>
Bumping right back to get attention since this is such an important topic. Here are 10 questions that we need answers for and the India Program team is grappling with Do we know what is the right profile of audience for an outreach session? (tech or non-tech / students or professionals / age group / language group?) We must avoid shooting in the dark and that's the only way that the current conversion rate of <0.1% (my guesstimate) can be come more reasonable. How do we draw the right balance between giving them enough information during and outreach session that the feel adequate to successfully edit but not too much that they get intimidated and run off? Can we make sure that ALL workshops are not theory sessions but that everyone has a computer in front of them and can actually do very basic editing - like creating a user name and making 5 edits, even if they are not particularly complex. Theory will get us nowhere. This also has implications on the maximum number of attendees as well as our not doing sessions where all we have a box to stand on and give random gyan. What can we do to make sure we stay in touch with newbies post the session. We have to figure out an efficient way of reaching out after the workshop because their heads will be full of doubts once they actually start editing. Also, once they have been "warmed-up" by the workshop, we must gently nudge them read up more and click on edit. How can we anticipate the inevitably teething up issues for newbies and proactively address them - in the outreach and in the post-outreach contact. I'm wildly generalising but I fear I might be right that we already know the typical problems newbies. .First of all, they want to create brand new articles - instead of looking at incremental improvements to existing articles. Secondly, especially on en-wp, they find it difficult to figure out what topic to work on because "everything is covered fully" - which we know is not the case. Thirdly, they stumble on notability, NPOV and MoS. Fourthly, they find referencing tedious. Fifthly, some mess around and find vandalism fun. Sixthly, something like notability isn't immediately clear to them because one often approaches things with a insular frame of reference. Can we address clinically address these in workshops? How do use social networks effectively - but not get drowned in them. fb is a great way of attracting users to workshops or photothons - but is a terrible place to discuss policies. How do we get the right balance? Specifically for Indic languages, how do we make sure that we have relatively less rigid and comprehensive policies (which work for en-wp with tens of thousands of editors - but is totally impractical when we have <50 editors which is the case for all but 3 Indic communities.) Specifically for en-wp, how do we provide some kind of additional support on encyclopedic writing in English - especially given that English is not a native language. Would having newbie English editors from India as part of some kind of a group with experienced English editors from India (who would therefore be intimately familiar with the linguistic challenges) to support them make sense and is it practical? (While I write this, I am also acutely aware that we can't right a lifetime's education of a newbie - but can we make useful baby steps?) Is there a way we can get existing editors who might not be confident of their public speaking skills - but are great 1-on-1 - to adopt newbies and have mini workshops on an individual basis? (I know this is inefficient - but it affords them a chance to contribute in outreach as well and over time, I am confident that many will gain the self-assurance to handle larger audiences.) Lastly, and most certainly not the least, how do we measure the impact of every single outreach session, analyse the reasons for success or otherwise? How do we disseminate these learnings to the community? Have posted these on the page Logic referred to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs
<shameless-re-plug> http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Phy... sounds like a fantastic session to attend! </shameless-re-plug>
hisham
The core question, one must ask if one wants to improve outreach is how much effort one wants to put in because, remember,every action takes effort & preparation & most importantly follow up. Obviously, all this effort will have to be shared and encouraging and motivation of outreach volunteers needs to be done to encourage them to take up all aspects of outreach.
If the will is there, the way is open. There are lots of hints online now thanks to those of the Community who so painstakingly took the trouble to write down all these aspects.
Conversely, it is good news, because the success of outreach can now be seen to be a matter of effort. Lots of work WILL give dividends.
Motivation of outreach volunteers however remains core to the issue.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Hisham hisham@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Feb 18, 2012, at 3:52 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 17:12, Nitika ntandon@wikimedia.org wrote:
The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention.
Bumping up to grab attention. I know there are many folks with years of
outreach experience on the list. Can you please comment on the talk page? (Or even here, I could do the job of copypasting!) It is important to discuss, get perspectives / approaches towards outreach right since we would spending a lot of time,energy, donor money on this and its essential to design them well so we could make it effective and better.
Slightly related :-
<shamelessplug>
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Phy...
</shamelessplug>
Bumping right back to get attention since this is such an important topic. Here are 10 questions that we need answers for and the India Program team is grappling with
- Do we know what is the right profile of audience for an outreach
session? (tech or non-tech / students or professionals / age group / language group?) We must avoid shooting in the dark and that's the only way that the current conversion rate of <0.1% (my guesstimate) can be come more reasonable. 2. How do we draw the right balance between giving them enough information during and outreach session that the feel adequate to successfully edit but not too much that they get intimidated and run off? 3. Can we make sure that ALL workshops are not theory sessions but that everyone has a computer in front of them and can actually do very basic editing - like creating a user name and making 5 edits, even if they are not particularly complex. Theory will get us nowhere. This also has implications on the maximum number of attendees as well as our not doing sessions where all we have a box to stand on and give random gyan. 4. What can we do to make sure we stay in touch with newbies post the session. We have to figure out an efficient way of reaching out after the workshop because their heads will be full of doubts once they actually start editing. Also, once they have been "warmed-up" by the workshop, we must gently nudge them read up more and click on edit. 5. How can we anticipate the inevitably teething up issues for newbies and proactively address them - in the outreach and in the post-outreach contact. I'm wildly generalising but I fear I might be right that we already know the typical problems newbies. .First of all, they want to create brand new articles - instead of looking at incremental improvements to existing articles. Secondly, especially on en-wp, they find it difficult to figure out what topic to work on because "everything is covered fully" - which we know is not the case. Thirdly, they stumble on notability, NPOV and MoS. Fourthly, they find referencing tedious. Fifthly, some mess around and find vandalism fun. Sixthly, something like notability isn't immediately clear to them because one often approaches things with a insular frame of reference. Can we address clinically address these in workshops? 6. How do use social networks effectively - but not get drowned in them. fb is a great way of attracting users to workshops or photothons - but is a terrible place to discuss policies. How do we get the right balance? 7. Specifically for Indic languages, how do we make sure that we have relatively less rigid and comprehensive policies (which work for en-wp with tens of thousands of editors - but is totally impractical when we have <50 editors which is the case for all but 3 Indic communities.) 8. Specifically for en-wp, how do we provide some kind of additional support on encyclopedic writing in English - especially given that English is not a native language. Would having newbie English editors from India as part of some kind of a group with experienced English editors from India (who would therefore be intimately familiar with the linguistic challenges) to support them make sense and is it practical? (While I write this, I am also acutely aware that we can't right a lifetime's education of a newbie - but can we make useful baby steps?) 9. Is there a way we can get existing editors who might not be confident of their public speaking skills - but are great 1-on-1 - to adopt newbies and have mini workshops on an individual basis? (I know this is inefficient - but it affords them a chance to contribute in outreach as well and over time, I am confident that many will gain the self-assurance to handle larger audiences.) 10. Lastly, and most certainly not the least, how do we measure the impact of every single outreach session, analyse the reasons for success or otherwise? How do we disseminate these learnings to the community?
Have posted these on the page Logic referred to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs
<shameless-re-plug>
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Phy... sounds like a fantastic session to attend!
</shameless-re-plug>
hisham
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 16:13, Hisham hisham@wikimedia.org wrote:
I shall try to reply to the 10 when I find some time. Meanwhile an interesting post to read[1]
Specifically for Indic languages, how do we make sure that we have
relatively less rigid and comprehensive policies (which work for en-wp with tens of thousands of editors - but is totally impractical when we have <50 editors which is the case for all but 3 Indic communities.)
This is no where close to anything about outreach. So am replying here,would like to say 3 things on it.
1. Policies should always be determined, drafted, discussed by the community. Please sit and watch at bay. Do not interfere with community's autonomy unless its an extreme situation. 2. Chapter / Programs / Foundation interference on these must be minimal, only when there is a extreme danger to the health of wiki / risking the entities. (Interfere if a wiki is not drafting copyvio policies and is soft on it) 3. There might be people who understand Wikipedia culture differently, people having no idea about Wiki culture who reboot the inactive communities, in such cases, India Programs should only be helping educate those users about core values, policies in other wikis and the decision on policies must always be taken by the communities themselves.
[1] http://blog.tommorris.org/post/18271663638/wikipedia-and-teaching-game-rules
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