[Foundation-l] Encouraging participation

[Pavlo Shevelo]

Hello James,

It seems to me (moreover I'm quite sure) that nobody is talking about
making content editing more complicate and/or about fancy and nasty
distracting stuff like different "bells&whistles".

But now it's standard for any site to have well-structured "facepages"
(profiles) to provide for academic the mean to:
* properly introduce himself/herself;
* get the idea about who is some other contributor/peer;
* communicate with other people in well-structured way (structured by
groups with particular interests etc.) with modern means to express
support of one's opinion etc.

Yes, Wikimedia platform provides very flexible and rather mighty
(HTML-based) DIY means to organize some profile/facepage but they
distract from content creation, do not they (as well as any DIY stuff
do)?

Yes, Wikimedia platform provides very flexible and rather mighty
(HTML-based) DIY-means to organize some "groups of interest" (portals,
projects) but... (see above).

So my point is not increase of distraction from content (as main
object of contributor care, intended care I would stress) but the
opposite - significant decrease of such distraction by eliminating the
need of DIY self-care (which is not intended at all).

The last but far not least: if we really would like to attract more
academics we have to change socialization policies and/or traditions
as academics (most of them) don't like/appreciate blind (anonymous)
peer cooperation. Or we can look at that in such way: if we are
talking about credibility of content we have to talk about credibility
of contributors as peers in teamwork first.
That's why we will need as much of real&exact info on "facepages" as
possible plus as much de-"virtualization" by mean of meetups as
possible. Look on experience of de:WP.

Sincerely,

Pavlo

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 2:16 AM, James Heilman <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:
> To attract academics this is and must be viewed as a serious endeavor.
>  Yes some aspects such as reverting vandalism could have a fun twist
> applied to them but the creation of content must remain simple and
> serious.  Wikipedia already has a problem with its image regarding
> credibility.  Things that would affect Wikipedia's image must be
> carefully considered.  I personally do not need further distraction
> while I edit.  Medpedia http://www.medpedia.com/ has more of a
> facebook appearance to it and for that among other reasons I will not
> contribute their.  We need to keep our goal of writing an encyclopedia
> first and foremost.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc.
>
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