[Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics

[Marc Riddell]

on 7/27/09 8:32 AM, Dennis During at dcduring at gmail.com wrote:

> It is not entirely a matter of recruitment.
> 
> To me the problem appears in the form of how welcoming the projects are to
> the different types of contributors and types of contributions. That, in
> turn relates to the value system and cognitive and social biases of those
> who control the projects.

And it is this control group, this "consolidation of power" which was
described earlier in this discussion, that is keeping the Project from
reaching its full potential. This issue has been brought up many times in
the past, but each time has been conveniently ignored by this group - which
in psych language constitutes denial. In fact, this practice of ignoring
persons and/or issues they don't want to confront appears to be a handy
refuge for members of this group. There appears to be a fear in some of the
more forceful in this group that, if they loosen their grip, they will be
left behind. Perhaps they will if they don't grow with it. In any case, this
is one of the most pressing issues facing the Project today. And one, if not
confronted, which will cause the Project to fall into mediocrity as newer,
more tolerant, more innovative projects come into being.

Marc Riddell

> 
> As we have more to protect (formatting, layout, content organization,
> stylistic unity) there is a negative attitude toward anyone who might
> jeopardize it through clumsy attempts at improvement.  I sometime notice and
> feel a tendency to be more cooperative and patient with someone I perceive
> as being older.  I'm pretty sure that younger contributors sense my efforts
> to communicate with them as, um, adult.  This provides a bias against
> younger would-be contributors.
> 
> Facilitating contributions by newbies is part of what might help make for an
> easier induction of all new users, which provides a modest tendency to favor
> the young without disfavoring the old.  Having a bit more structure to new
> user induction seems to be the inevitable direction to go to elicit breadth
> on the projects. Out existing low-structure approaches need to be
> supplemented with attractive more-structured paths.
> 
> Perhaps inviting structured feedback (eg article ratings with links to
> article talk pages) to draw folks into low risk-of-damage active involvement
> would enable us to get more from those a little less bold and motivated.
> 
> On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Bleh.
>> 
>> When did this become an either-or proposition?
>> 
>> You go recruit retired professionals.  I'll go recruit young people.
>> Someone else can recruit soccer moms, and yet another person can go
>> after teachers.  Everybody wins.
>> 
>> The only way to lose is if either:
>> 
>> A) You believe one of these groups should not be participating in Wikipedia
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> B) You believe efforts to recruit professionals will actually
>> interfere with my efforts to recruit young people, etc.
>> 
>> If you believe A) then frankly I believe you are out of touch with the
>> ethos of the projects.  Different groups may need a different amount
>> of guidance before they are prepared to contribute, but there is no
>> group of people we should be categorically shutting out or
>> discouraging.
>> 
>> If you believe B) and somehow think that recruiting one group somehow
>> interferes with recruiting other groups, then I'd like to see an
>> explanation of that.  It seems unlikely in most cases.
>> 
>> Besides which, there are many things we can be doing (such as
>> improving the editing interface and documentation) that should widely
>> benefit most groups of potential new editors.
>> 
>> -Robert Rohde
>> 
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> 
>