[Foundation-l] Question of the week on strategy-wiki

[Philippe Beaudette]

There's a new question of the week at Strategy wiki - http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Question_of_the_week

This week's question is:
The Wall Street Journal published an article last week detailing the  
research of Felipe Ortega, indicating that the number of editors has  
declined in recent years. Representatives from the Wikimedia  
Foundation, meanwhile, noted that a different methodology indicates  
that the number of active editors has in fact stabilized in the same  
time period--as opposed to having declined.

Regardless of the methodological differences, there appears to be a  
consensus that the Wikipedia community is becoming less friendly,  
particularly for new users. A few relevant data points:

Ed Chi's research (at the Palo Alto Research Center) indicates that  
new editors see 25% of their edits reverted
Comments left on the blog for the WSJ article indicate that a number  
of editors have left because of unfriendly treatment from other  
editors (e.g., edits reverted without explanations of why), and  
comments on this Wiki have echoed this impression
Proposals on this Wiki have indicated that a good reward system for  
contributions does not exist
Given all of the above, how could the community better reward  
contributions and nurture new editors? How can the Wikimedia projects  
become a friendlier and more welcoming place to share knowledge?

We'd love to have your input on the talk page of that question!

Philippe

____________________
Philippe Beaudette	
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation

philippe at wikimedia.org

mobile: 	918 200-WIKI (9454)

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