[Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics

[John Vandenberg]

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Henning
Schlottmann<h.schlottmann at gmx.net> wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>> English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can
>> still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just
>> different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any
>> reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article.
>> [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De.
>
> Ordnance Survey would be a great addition to de-WP. I might write it
> myself *g*. But do you expect kids to write on those - for them -
> obscure topics? And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding
> on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find
> the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs.

Child prodigies and young people motivated by the free culture ethos
will come without recruitment, however there are many people who are
neither of those.

By participating in Wikimedia, young people can *become* more
educated, and can *become* motivated by the free culture ethos.

Contributors, both young and old, do not need to be interested in the
topic they contribute to - they need to see the value of the skills
that they acquire in the process.  And we can help them learn about
the benefits.

On wikimedia, bilingual young people can improve their mastery of
second languages by translating articles into different languages.

On wikimedia, young people learn how to properly reference an article,
which will help them as they progress in their education.

On wikimedia, young people can rub shoulders with people who are
knowledgeable in fields that they are considering undertaking higher
degrees in.

On wikimedia, young people can learn to interact sensibly online,
provided that our code of conduct is kept high above the average of
Internet forums.  They can watch people act badly and be banned, and
learn from it.

On wikimedia, young people can learn about the world around them by
interacting with people from other cultures, including the vandals.

Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the
skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping
them in their many years to come.

> Recruiting efforts should be done where contributions to Wikipedia are
> not coming naturally. One of those fields are retired professionals.

I do agree that retired professionals are potential contributors that
we should be focusing on.  However they will also come if they want
to.  Retirees usually have a full life, so they have less time and
motivation to become involved.

--
John Vandenberg