Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
š
-- brion On Apr 1, 2016 10:24 PM, "Legoktm" legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Apr 1, 2016 10:24 PM, "Legoktm" legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear.
No sadness or disgust?
This sounds like something that some random WMF team would actually implement in the near future...
Il 01/04/2016 21:24, Legoktm ha scritto:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
/me marks this email with "anger"
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 1:41 PM, Ricordisamoa ricordisamoa@openmailbox.org wrote:
This sounds like something that some random WMF team would actually implement in the near future...
Il 01/04/2016 21:24, Legoktm ha scritto:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Only one of these options? --scott, surprised, happy & a bit fearful
I can't tell if this is intended to be an April 1st joke or if it's serious. In any case, I could see this being an interesting option for talk pages, particularly where Flow is enabled.
Pine
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
To be totally honest, I think this is a great idea, but it should use emojis. Github added this for PRs and messages for instance, and it's amazingly helpful:
https://github.com/blog/2119-add-reactions-to-pull-requests-issues-and-comme...
Slack has the same thing. It's fun, people like it, and it tends to encourage better interactions.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 2:12 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I can't tell if this is intended to be an April 1st joke or if it's serious. In any case, I could see this being an interesting option for talk pages, particularly where Flow is enabled.
Pine
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of course, some might consider this feature to be controversial (I suspect they would respond to my email with "anger" or "fear"), so I've added a feature flag for it. Setting $wgDontFixEditorRetentionProblem = true; will disable it for your wiki.
Please give the patch a try, I've only tested it in MonoBook so far, it might need some extra CSS in Vector.
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/280961 [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810964 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F3810963
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Sat, Apr 2, 2016 at 12:20 AM, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
To be totally honest, I think this is a great idea, but it should use emojis. Github added this for PRs and messages for instance, and it's amazingly helpful:
https://github.com/blog/2119-add-reactions-to-pull-requests-issues-and-comme...
Slack has the same thing. It's fun, people like it, and it tends to encourage better interactions.
And, yeah: +1.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of the many initiatives to improve editor engagement and retention that the Wikimedia Foundation has launched over the years, the only one that had a demonstrable and substantial impact (AFAIK) was the Teahouse.
The goal of the Teahouse initiative was "learning whether a social approach to new editor support could retain more new editors there"; its stated design goal was to create a space for new users which would feature "warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people."[0]
Several studies were made of the Teahouse's impact on editors. One study, conducted by Jonathan Morgan and Aaron Halfaker, found that new editors who were invited to participate in the Teahouse were 10% more likely to have met the thresholds for survival in the weeks and months after registration.[1]
Another significant fact about the Teahouse is the substantial participation from women. Women make up 9% of the general editor population, but 29% percent of Teahouse participants.[2]
When new editors who had been invited to the Teahouse were asked (in a 2012 survey) to described what they liked about their experiences, many respondents spoke about the positive emotional environment, saying things like: "the fact that there is somebody 'out there', that there is a sincere community, gives a professional and safe feeling about Wikipedia", and "the editors are very friendly and patient, which is great when compared to the rest of Wikipedia in how new editors are treated."[2]
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke. I don't think any topic is sacrosanct, this topic included. But humor works best when it provides a counterpoint and a foil to "serious" discourse, and there just isn't very much serious discourse on this topic to go around. I also worry that people in and around our community who feel a need for more opportunities for positive emotional interactions will feel invalidated, ridiculous, ashamed, or at any rate less confident about ever speaking up about this topic in a serious way, and less hopeful about being heard.
[0]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse_long_term_new_editor_reten... [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse/Phase_2_report/Metrics
I like that idea, Ori. Jonathan, what do you think about testing this concept in the Teahouse, as well as wikitext talk pages and Flow talk pages?
Pine On Apr 2, 2016 18:38, "Ori Livneh" ori@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of the many initiatives to improve editor engagement and retention that the Wikimedia Foundation has launched over the years, the only one that had a demonstrable and substantial impact (AFAIK) was the Teahouse.
The goal of the Teahouse initiative was "learning whether a social approach to new editor support could retain more new editors there"; its stated design goal was to create a space for new users which would feature "warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people."[0]
Several studies were made of the Teahouse's impact on editors. One study, conducted by Jonathan Morgan and Aaron Halfaker, found that new editors who were invited to participate in the Teahouse were 10% more likely to have met the thresholds for survival in the weeks and months after registration.[1]
Another significant fact about the Teahouse is the substantial participation from women. Women make up 9% of the general editor population, but 29% percent of Teahouse participants.[2]
When new editors who had been invited to the Teahouse were asked (in a 2012 survey) to described what they liked about their experiences, many respondents spoke about the positive emotional environment, saying things like: "the fact that there is somebody 'out there', that there is a sincere community, gives a professional and safe feeling about Wikipedia", and "the editors are very friendly and patient, which is great when compared to the rest of Wikipedia in how new editors are treated."[2]
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke. I don't think any topic is sacrosanct, this topic included. But humor works best when it provides a counterpoint and a foil to "serious" discourse, and there just isn't very much serious discourse on this topic to go around. I also worry that people in and around our community who feel a need for more opportunities for positive emotional interactions will feel invalidated, ridiculous, ashamed, or at any rate less confident about ever speaking up about this topic in a serious way, and less hopeful about being heard.
[1]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse_long_term_new_editor_reten... [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse/Phase_2_report/Metrics _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I sympathize with your concern, Ori. I suspect, however, that it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why the Teahouse works when other processes (several of which have included cute symbols) have been less effective.
And the reason is: the Teahouse is explicitly designed for having conversations.
Teahouse "convenors" were initially selected for their demonstrated communication skills and willingness to remain polite when dealing with often frustrated people, and their ability to explain often complex concepts in straightforward terms. As their ranks have evolved, they have sought out and taught others those skills, and there's an element of self-selection that discourages the more curmudgeonly amongst us from participating. (There's not a lot of overlap between those who regularly help out at the Teahouse and those who hang out on ANI, for example.) We're talking about a relatively small group of people who really excel at this type of communication, although it is certainly a skill that others can develop if they have the willingness and inclination - but it really comes down to being able to identify the right "level" at which to talk to people, and then actually talking.
The Teahouse works because it doesn't [obviously] use a lot of fancy technology, because it doesn't use a lot of templates and automated messaging, because it's made a lot of effort to avoid massive hyperlinking to complex and inscrutable policies. It's people talking to people. It's scaled remarkably well - I suspect because there are more "nice" Wikipedians than people realize - where other processes have failed. Several of those processes failed because we couldn't link up the right people giving the right messages to new users (MoodBar was an example of that - on top of the really problematic technical issues it raised), and others failed because they were pretty much designed to deprecate direct person-to-person communcation (AFT-5 would be in that category).
Nonetheless, I think you've raised an important point. If we can develop processes that can better link up new users with people who have the interest and skill to communicate with those new users, we should keep trying those technologies. But those technologies need to incorporate the existing findings that the most effective way of attracting and retaining new editors is direct, one-to-one communication. Not templates. Not cute emojicons. Not canned text, and certainly not links to complicated policies. It's people talking to people in a helpful way that makes the difference. And that's a lot harder than meets the eye.
And now, having written this, I'm going to spend some time trying to figure out how to create a message to new users I encounter when I'm oversighting their personal information...without templating or linking to complex policies, but pointing them to the Teahouse. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be very easy, but I'm going to try.
Thank you for saying this, Ori.
Risker/Anne
On 2 April 2016 at 21:37, Ori Livneh ori@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of the many initiatives to improve editor engagement and retention that the Wikimedia Foundation has launched over the years, the only one that had a demonstrable and substantial impact (AFAIK) was the Teahouse.
The goal of the Teahouse initiative was "learning whether a social approach to new editor support could retain more new editors there"; its stated design goal was to create a space for new users which would feature "warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people."[0]
Several studies were made of the Teahouse's impact on editors. One study, conducted by Jonathan Morgan and Aaron Halfaker, found that new editors who were invited to participate in the Teahouse were 10% more likely to have met the thresholds for survival in the weeks and months after registration.[1]
Another significant fact about the Teahouse is the substantial participation from women. Women make up 9% of the general editor population, but 29% percent of Teahouse participants.[2]
When new editors who had been invited to the Teahouse were asked (in a 2012 survey) to described what they liked about their experiences, many respondents spoke about the positive emotional environment, saying things like: "the fact that there is somebody 'out there', that there is a sincere community, gives a professional and safe feeling about Wikipedia", and "the editors are very friendly and patient, which is great when compared to the rest of Wikipedia in how new editors are treated."[2]
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke. I don't think any topic is sacrosanct, this topic included. But humor works best when it provides a counterpoint and a foil to "serious" discourse, and there just isn't very much serious discourse on this topic to go around. I also worry that people in and around our community who feel a need for more opportunities for positive emotional interactions will feel invalidated, ridiculous, ashamed, or at any rate less confident about ever speaking up about this topic in a serious way, and less hopeful about being heard.
[1]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse_long_term_new_editor_reten... [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse/Phase_2_report/Metrics _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Don't laugh, but I actually looked for the like button after reading this post (too much time on Twitter). I would like to see more of these initiatives, whatever form they might take. We have something that made a difference, let's build on that.
Ariel
On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 7:02 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I sympathize with your concern, Ori. I suspect, however, that it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why the Teahouse works when other processes (several of which have included cute symbols) have been less effective.
And the reason is: the Teahouse is explicitly designed for having conversations.
Teahouse "convenors" were initially selected for their demonstrated communication skills and willingness to remain polite when dealing with often frustrated people, and their ability to explain often complex concepts in straightforward terms. As their ranks have evolved, they have sought out and taught others those skills, and there's an element of self-selection that discourages the more curmudgeonly amongst us from participating. (There's not a lot of overlap between those who regularly help out at the Teahouse and those who hang out on ANI, for example.) We're talking about a relatively small group of people who really excel at this type of communication, although it is certainly a skill that others can develop if they have the willingness and inclination - but it really comes down to being able to identify the right "level" at which to talk to people, and then actually talking.
The Teahouse works because it doesn't [obviously] use a lot of fancy technology, because it doesn't use a lot of templates and automated messaging, because it's made a lot of effort to avoid massive hyperlinking to complex and inscrutable policies. It's people talking to people. It's scaled remarkably well - I suspect because there are more "nice" Wikipedians than people realize - where other processes have failed. Several of those processes failed because we couldn't link up the right people giving the right messages to new users (MoodBar was an example of that - on top of the really problematic technical issues it raised), and others failed because they were pretty much designed to deprecate direct person-to-person communcation (AFT-5 would be in that category).
Nonetheless, I think you've raised an important point. If we can develop processes that can better link up new users with people who have the interest and skill to communicate with those new users, we should keep trying those technologies. But those technologies need to incorporate the existing findings that the most effective way of attracting and retaining new editors is direct, one-to-one communication. Not templates. Not cute emojicons. Not canned text, and certainly not links to complicated policies. It's people talking to people in a helpful way that makes the difference. And that's a lot harder than meets the eye.
And now, having written this, I'm going to spend some time trying to figure out how to create a message to new users I encounter when I'm oversighting their personal information...without templating or linking to complex policies, but pointing them to the Teahouse. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be very easy, but I'm going to try.
Thank you for saying this, Ori.
Risker/Anne
On 2 April 2016 at 21:37, Ori Livneh ori@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of the many initiatives to improve editor engagement and retention that
the
Wikimedia Foundation has launched over the years, the only one that had a demonstrable and substantial impact (AFAIK) was the Teahouse.
The goal of the Teahouse initiative was "learning whether a social
approach
to new editor support could retain more new editors there"; its stated design goal was to create a space for new users which would feature "warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people."[0]
Several studies were made of the Teahouse's impact on editors. One study, conducted by Jonathan Morgan and Aaron Halfaker, found that new editors
who
were invited to participate in the Teahouse were 10% more likely to have met the thresholds for survival in the weeks and months after registration.[1]
Another significant fact about the Teahouse is the substantial participation from women. Women make up 9% of the general editor population, but 29% percent of Teahouse participants.[2]
When new editors who had been invited to the Teahouse were asked (in a
2012
survey) to described what they liked about their experiences, many respondents spoke about the positive emotional environment, saying things like: "the fact that there is somebody 'out there', that there is a
sincere
community, gives a professional and safe feeling about Wikipedia", and
"the
editors are very friendly and patient, which is great when compared to
the
rest of Wikipedia in how new editors are treated."[2]
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea
of
designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment
by
making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke. I
don't
think any topic is sacrosanct, this topic included. But humor works best when it provides a counterpoint and a foil to "serious" discourse, and there just isn't very much serious discourse on this topic to go around.
I
also worry that people in and around our community who feel a need for
more
opportunities for positive emotional interactions will feel invalidated, ridiculous, ashamed, or at any rate less confident about ever speaking up about this topic in a serious way, and less hopeful about being heard.
[1]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse_long_term_new_editor_reten...
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
+1 to everything Ori and Risker said (obviously).
Pine: I try not to mess with the Teahouse :) I have a hard enough time convincing the Hosts that it's A Good Thing that threads on the Q&A board are posted in reverse-chronological order. If I lobbied hard for an Teahouse Emoji pilot, I would probably lose my remaining street cred, disrupt peoples' workflows, and risk alienating a bunch of awesome people who are doing really important work, for free.
If WMF ever supports any additional Teahouse-related development, it should be focused on giving more new editors, on more Wikis, access to Teahouses and Teahouse-like tools and resourcesārather than doing anything to the Enwiki Teahouse itself, which is doing just fine.
J
On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I sympathize with your concern, Ori. I suspect, however, that it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why the Teahouse works when other processes (several of which have included cute symbols) have been less effective.
And the reason is: the Teahouse is explicitly designed for having conversations.
Teahouse "convenors" were initially selected for their demonstrated communication skills and willingness to remain polite when dealing with often frustrated people, and their ability to explain often complex concepts in straightforward terms. As their ranks have evolved, they have sought out and taught others those skills, and there's an element of self-selection that discourages the more curmudgeonly amongst us from participating. (There's not a lot of overlap between those who regularly help out at the Teahouse and those who hang out on ANI, for example.) We're talking about a relatively small group of people who really excel at this type of communication, although it is certainly a skill that others can develop if they have the willingness and inclination - but it really comes down to being able to identify the right "level" at which to talk to people, and then actually talking.
The Teahouse works because it doesn't [obviously] use a lot of fancy technology, because it doesn't use a lot of templates and automated messaging, because it's made a lot of effort to avoid massive hyperlinking to complex and inscrutable policies. It's people talking to people. It's scaled remarkably well - I suspect because there are more "nice" Wikipedians than people realize - where other processes have failed. Several of those processes failed because we couldn't link up the right people giving the right messages to new users (MoodBar was an example of that - on top of the really problematic technical issues it raised), and others failed because they were pretty much designed to deprecate direct person-to-person communcation (AFT-5 would be in that category).
Nonetheless, I think you've raised an important point. If we can develop processes that can better link up new users with people who have the interest and skill to communicate with those new users, we should keep trying those technologies. But those technologies need to incorporate the existing findings that the most effective way of attracting and retaining new editors is direct, one-to-one communication. Not templates. Not cute emojicons. Not canned text, and certainly not links to complicated policies. It's people talking to people in a helpful way that makes the difference. And that's a lot harder than meets the eye.
And now, having written this, I'm going to spend some time trying to figure out how to create a message to new users I encounter when I'm oversighting their personal information...without templating or linking to complex policies, but pointing them to the Teahouse. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be very easy, but I'm going to try.
Thank you for saying this, Ori.
Risker/Anne
On 2 April 2016 at 21:37, Ori Livneh ori@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 10:24 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It's well known that Wikipedia is facing threats from other social networks and losing editors. While many of us spend time trying to make Wikipedia different, we need to be cognizant that what other social networks are doing is working. And if we can't beat them, we need to join them.
I've written a patch[1] that introduces a new feature to the Thanks extension called "feelings". When hovering over a "thank" link, five different emoji icons will pop up[2], representing five different feelings: happy, love, surprise, anger, and fear. Editors can pick one of those options instead of just a plain thanks, to indicate how they really feel, which the recipient will see[3].
Of the many initiatives to improve editor engagement and retention that
the
Wikimedia Foundation has launched over the years, the only one that had a demonstrable and substantial impact (AFAIK) was the Teahouse.
The goal of the Teahouse initiative was "learning whether a social
approach
to new editor support could retain more new editors there"; its stated design goal was to create a space for new users which would feature "warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people."[0]
Several studies were made of the Teahouse's impact on editors. One study, conducted by Jonathan Morgan and Aaron Halfaker, found that new editors
who
were invited to participate in the Teahouse were 10% more likely to have met the thresholds for survival in the weeks and months after registration.[1]
Another significant fact about the Teahouse is the substantial participation from women. Women make up 9% of the general editor population, but 29% percent of Teahouse participants.[2]
When new editors who had been invited to the Teahouse were asked (in a
2012
survey) to described what they liked about their experiences, many respondents spoke about the positive emotional environment, saying things like: "the fact that there is somebody 'out there', that there is a
sincere
community, gives a professional and safe feeling about Wikipedia", and
"the
editors are very friendly and patient, which is great when compared to
the
rest of Wikipedia in how new editors are treated."[2]
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea
of
designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment
by
making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke. I
don't
think any topic is sacrosanct, this topic included. But humor works best when it provides a counterpoint and a foil to "serious" discourse, and there just isn't very much serious discourse on this topic to go around.
I
also worry that people in and around our community who feel a need for
more
opportunities for positive emotional interactions will feel invalidated, ridiculous, ashamed, or at any rate less confident about ever speaking up about this topic in a serious way, and less hopeful about being heard.
[1]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Teahouse_long_term_new_editor_reten...
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On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 7:02 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I sympathize with your concern, Ori. I suspect, however, that it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why the Teahouse works when other processes (several of which have included cute symbols) have been less effective.
And the reason is: the Teahouse is explicitly designed for having conversations.
Teahouse "convenors" were initially selected for their demonstrated communication skills and willingness to remain polite when dealing with often frustrated people, and their ability to explain often complex concepts in straightforward terms. As their ranks have evolved, they have sought out and taught others those skills, and there's an element of self-selection that discourages the more curmudgeonly amongst us from participating. (There's not a lot of overlap between those who regularly help out at the Teahouse and those who hang out on ANI, for example.) We're talking about a relatively small group of people who really excel at this type of communication, although it is certainly a skill that others can develop if they have the willingness and inclination - but it really comes down to being able to identify the right "level" at which to talk to people, and then actually talking.
The Teahouse works because it doesn't [obviously] use a lot of fancy technology, because it doesn't use a lot of templates and automated messaging, because it's made a lot of effort to avoid massive hyperlinking to complex and inscrutable policies. It's people talking to people.
Yes, fair point. But as long as there exists a need for developing new features and modifying existing ones, I would like us to consider the contribution that modifications to the user experience make to the interpersonal climate on the wikis. Because the contribution is very much greater than zero. Of course at the end of the day it is about people making choices about how they relate to one another, and no amount of Fisher-Price gadgetry will ever change that. But we don't communicate via mind melds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(Star_Trek)#Mind_melds; we use imperfect and idiosyncratic media which end up shaping and coloring both what we communicate and how it is received. So we ought to think carefully about these effects.Ā¹
(By the way, there was a great Radiolab http://www.radiolab.org/ episode about this recently: The Trust Engineers http://www.radiolab.org/story/trust-engineers/. Keep in mind that I am recommending the *episode*, not endorsing all the practices it describes, some of which make me queasy.)
Ā¹ Concrete example: the way that jenkins-bot gives you a -1 for changes it can't rebase. Ugh!
On 04/02/2016 09:37 PM, Ori Livneh wrote:
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke.
For what it's worth, as someone who wasn't involved in that April Fools's "feature", but joke-reviewed it, I did not intend to to discourage any serious efforts to encourage a warm and productive editor community.
Matt
Ori said:
I would like us to consider the contribution that modifications to the user experience make to the interpersonal climate on the wikis.
I think that this is important. Our social experience in computer
mediated spaces is intertwined with the technologies that manage our interactions. This is certainly true to Wikipedia[1] and I think it is true generally[2]. While we may find it easy to discuss the technology and social things separately, it is very important that we don't interpret this as a real separation. Our social patterns affect how we choose and design our digital technologies and our digital technologies -- in turn -- affect our social patterns(for more discussion, see [3]).
J-Mo said:
If WMF ever supports any additional Teahouse-related development, it should be focused on giving more new editors, on more Wikis, access to Teahouses and Teahouse-like tools and resourcesārather than doing anything to the Enwiki Teahouse itself, which is doing just fine.
But J-Mo, we're literally planning to explore supporting the Teahouse with
more digital technologies right now -- you and I! E.g. using ORES https://ores.wmflabs.org/ to identify more good-faith newcomers to route to the Teahouse & building a search interface to help newcomers explore past questions. Maybe it's OK because we don't plan to do anything *to* the Teahouse, but rather to work *with* the hosts to figure out how to build up capacity. I suspect that, if the technologies we develop are able to make the positive social interactions that the Teahouse excels in available to more newcomers -- we'll succeed. And hopefully, if our technological investments into the Teahouse fail and somehow make positive, human interactions more difficult or otherwise less common, we'll have the insight to not deploy them beyond an experiment.
This thread started out as a harmless (and humorous!) joke and it has turned into a debate around our values with regards to technologies that we intentionally integrate with social behaviors. I think this is a conversation we ought to have, but I'd really like to see us move beyond platitudes. Technology isn't good or bad. It certainly isn't easy to get right, but I believe we can co-evolve our tech and our social structures. In a computer mediated environments such as ours, this socio-technical co-evolution is our only hope to actually making real progress.
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_Rise_and_Decline 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-We4GZbH3Iw#t=34m04s (my "Paramecium talk")
-Aaron
On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 7:30 PM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 04/02/2016 09:37 PM, Ori Livneh wrote:
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke.
For what it's worth, as someone who wasn't involved in that April Fools's "feature", but joke-reviewed it, I did not intend to to discourage any serious efforts to encourage a warm and productive editor community.
Matt
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Keeping the teahouse thread alive...
...for some time I've wanted to prototype some real-time chat and editing features with the Teahouse folks (eg, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TogetherJS) to make the "conversations" Risker mentions easier/more natural. If anyone has suggestions about who to talk to about this, let me know. --scott
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Aaron Halfaker aaron.halfaker@gmail.com wrote:
Ori said:
I would like us to consider the contribution that modifications to the
user experience make to the
interpersonal climate on the wikis.
I think that this is important. Our social experience in computer
mediated spaces is intertwined with the technologies that manage our interactions. This is certainly true to Wikipedia[1] and I think it is true generally[2]. While we may find it easy to discuss the technology and social things separately, it is very important that we don't interpret this as a real separation. Our social patterns affect how we choose and design our digital technologies and our digital technologies -- in turn -- affect our social patterns(for more discussion, see [3]).
J-Mo said:
If WMF ever supports any additional Teahouse-related development, it
should
be focused on giving more new editors, on more Wikis, access to Teahouses and Teahouse-like tools and resourcesārather than doing anything to the Enwiki Teahouse itself, which is doing just fine.
But J-Mo, we're literally planning to explore supporting the Teahouse
with more digital technologies right now -- you and I! E.g. using ORES https://ores.wmflabs.org/ to identify more good-faith newcomers to route to the Teahouse & building a search interface to help newcomers explore past questions. Maybe it's OK because we don't plan to do anything *to* the Teahouse, but rather to work *with* the hosts to figure out how to build up capacity. I suspect that, if the technologies we develop are able to make the positive social interactions that the Teahouse excels in available to more newcomers -- we'll succeed. And hopefully, if our technological investments into the Teahouse fail and somehow make positive, human interactions more difficult or otherwise less common, we'll have the insight to not deploy them beyond an experiment.
This thread started out as a harmless (and humorous!) joke and it has turned into a debate around our values with regards to technologies that we intentionally integrate with social behaviors. I think this is a conversation we ought to have, but I'd really like to see us move beyond platitudes. Technology isn't good or bad. It certainly isn't easy to get right, but I believe we can co-evolve our tech and our social structures. In a computer mediated environments such as ours, this socio-technical co-evolution is our only hope to actually making real progress.
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_Rise_and_Decline
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-We4GZbH3Iw#t=34m04s (my "Paramecium
talk")
-Aaron
On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 7:30 PM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 04/02/2016 09:37 PM, Ori Livneh wrote:
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the idea of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional environment by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke.
For what it's worth, as someone who wasn't involved in that April Fools's "feature", but joke-reviewed it, I did not intend to to discourage any serious efforts to encourage a warm and productive editor community.
Matt
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I would start the conversation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Teahouse/Host_lounge
Cullen328 and DESiegel are probably the most experienced/involved hosts right now. Their voices are respected. But of course there's no leader :)
Jonathan
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 12:08 PM, C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Keeping the teahouse thread alive...
...for some time I've wanted to prototype some real-time chat and editing features with the Teahouse folks (eg, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TogetherJS) to make the "conversations" Risker mentions easier/more natural. If anyone has suggestions about who to talk to about this, let me know. --scott
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Aaron Halfaker aaron.halfaker@gmail.com wrote:
Ori said:
I would like us to consider the contribution that modifications to the
user experience make to the
interpersonal climate on the wikis.
I think that this is important. Our social experience in computer
mediated spaces is intertwined with the technologies that manage our interactions. This is certainly true to Wikipedia[1] and I think it is true generally[2]. While we may find it easy to discuss the technology
and
social things separately, it is very important that we don't interpret
this
as a real separation. Our social patterns affect how we choose and
design
our digital technologies and our digital technologies -- in turn --
affect
our social patterns(for more discussion, see [3]).
J-Mo said:
If WMF ever supports any additional Teahouse-related development, it
should
be focused on giving more new editors, on more Wikis, access to
Teahouses
and Teahouse-like tools and resourcesārather than doing anything to the Enwiki Teahouse itself, which is doing just fine.
But J-Mo, we're literally planning to explore supporting the Teahouse
with more digital technologies right now -- you and I! E.g. using ORES https://ores.wmflabs.org/ to identify more good-faith newcomers to
route
to the Teahouse & building a search interface to help newcomers explore past questions. Maybe it's OK because we don't plan to do anything *to* the Teahouse, but rather to work *with* the hosts to figure out how to build up capacity. I suspect that, if the technologies we develop are able to make the positive social interactions that the Teahouse excels in available to more newcomers -- we'll succeed. And hopefully, if our technological investments into the Teahouse fail and somehow make
positive,
human interactions more difficult or otherwise less common, we'll have
the
insight to not deploy them beyond an experiment.
This thread started out as a harmless (and humorous!) joke and it has turned into a debate around our values with regards to technologies that
we
intentionally integrate with social behaviors. I think this is a conversation we ought to have, but I'd really like to see us move beyond platitudes. Technology isn't good or bad. It certainly isn't easy to
get
right, but I believe we can co-evolve our tech and our social structures. In a computer mediated environments such as ours, this socio-technical co-evolution is our only hope to actually making real progress.
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_Rise_and_Decline
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociotechnical_system
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-We4GZbH3Iw#t=34m04s (my "Paramecium
talk")
-Aaron
On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 7:30 PM, Matthew Flaschen <
mflaschen@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
On 04/02/2016 09:37 PM, Ori Livneh wrote:
Why am I going on about this? I guess I'm a bit bummed out that the
idea
of designing user interfaces that seek to improve the emotional
environment
by making it easier to be warm and personal to one another is a joke.
For what it's worth, as someone who wasn't involved in that April
Fools's
"feature", but joke-reviewed it, I did not intend to to discourage any serious efforts to encourage a warm and productive editor community.
Matt
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- (http://cscott.net) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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