Hi Igor,
Sounds like an interesting & worthwhile project. Have you heard about our upcoming Research Hackathon Day[1]? That could be a good opportunity for you to connect with community members and other researchers who might be able to assist with your study or connect you with people who you can talk to.
If you haven't done so yet, it's a very good idea to write up a description of your project on-wiki. You can create a new project here[2], and read some of the best practices for Wikipedia research here[3].
There are several other links that I'm tempted to put here too... but I don't want to overwhelm you if you're new to research in this domain :) Follow up with me personally if you want.
Cheers, Jonathan
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/Hackathons/November_9th,_2013 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_good_practices_on_Wikipedia_researc...
On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 10:37 AM, Igor Steinmacher < igorsteinmacher@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello
My name is Igor Steinmacher and I am a Research Scholar at University of California, Irvine. I am conducting a research aiming at finding how to support new contributors during their first steps in the project. My final goal is to verify what kind of tooling is appropriate to support the newcomers overcoming their difficulties when they are willing to contribute to the project.
The first step of my research is to find out what are the main obstacles and difficulties faced by these newcomers. My goal is to hear from the community itself, interviewing new contributors and core members.
By having the information regarding the main problems, I will start figuring out which mechanisms can be applied to provide the support. I will keep the anonymity of interviewers and I have the commitment to publish/return the results of myresearch to the community.
I need your help answering my interview. We will conduct the interviews via textual chat, and we can schedule it at the time that fits better for you. Please send me a private email if you are interested in supporting my research.
I also request your help reaching out core contributors so that I can gather the best information. The data will help gain insights about newcomer issues, and allow us to propose initiatives to alleviate the problems faced by newcomers, as a tentative to retain them.
To volunteer you must be 18 years or older, be English speaking, and have experience in software development.
Feel free to contact me in case you have any doubt or question regarding myresearch or the interview process.
Thanks in advance
Igor Fabio Steinmacher Visiting Scholar in Dept of Informatics at UCI (http://www.informatics.uci .edu/) Faculty in Dept. of Computing at Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l