[Foundation-l] Message to community about community decline

[Sarah]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 11:10, Jan-Bart de Vreede <janbart at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> It seems that our natural reaction is to immediately question the numbers and the underlying studies. We are Wikimedians and will not rest until we are sure that we are looking at 100% accurate numbers.
>
> We could also look at this another way. Looking around me and talking to people about Wikipedia (and sometimes the other projects) I hear a lot of stories which demonstrate our inability to welcome everyone and motivate them to become regular contributors. The data strongly suggests the same thing. Instead of doubting the numbers, lets just assume that we are not doing well enough in this department.

Similarly, regular editors will tell you there's a serious problem of
established editors leaving, because the quality of editing is still
too low. The problem with the survey is that it highlights the need to
attract new editors, based on some doubtful figures, without
addressing that experienced editors are becoming disillusioned.

Sarah