[Gendergap] Emails to friends, lists to encourage participation

[Birgitte SB]

>
>From: Pete Forsyth <pete.public.email at gmail.com>
>To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects 
><gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Tue, February 22, 2011 5:49:29 PM
>Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Emails to friends, lists to encourage participation
>
>Whoops. I just re-read Carol's message -- I had misunderstood at first. If this 
>is an effort to recruit *brand new* contributors (as opposed to retaining those 
>who have dabbled), the research I cited above doesn't really apply :)
>
>But, I do think the findings of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative would be 
>informative;[1] Carol, I'm not sure if you've had contact with this program or 
>not.
>
>But in general, it ties in with what Sue brought up: people brand new to 
>Wikipedia often need a *lot* of support and advice before they start to get 
>their legs. So directing them to educational resources, and establishing a 
>"cafe" type space to ask questions and build a sense of community, would 
>certainly be helpful in keeping with what we've learned from our outreach 
>efforts.
>
>And personalizing the message a little bit, tailoring it to the specific woman's 
>interests by suggesting articles she may want to edit, couldn't hurt either!
>If you really want to ease new recruits into Wikipedia, you wouldn't send them 
>straight to Wikipedia. Create the cafe space on Meta and use it as welcoming 
>committee and a place to ask for general guidance without bringing in the 
>turf-battle baggage.  Plus since there are not a large number of women who 
>understand the wikis, we would be better off consolidating ourselves there 
>instead splitting up by language where perhaps our voices might be drowned out 
>in a local forum.

Also try and start them off outside of the Wikipedia's where they can get a 
handle on the interface and mark-up without having a creative investment in the 
content they are working on.  I would recommend proof-reading on Wikisource [1] 
for the most timid, as you only very occasionally have a completely ambiguous 
decision to make and if you do the first proofread it is guaranteed that another 
person will check all you work during validation. You could watchlist the pages 
see the validation happen and check the diff to see if any of your work was 
corrected or not.  It is really a good introduction to wikis for those who want 
confirmation they are doing things right at first.  I am sure Commons and other 
wikis have many gnomish tasks that will get new recruits used to how to work on 
wikis.  Also send people to do peer reviews at the Wikipedias.  They can give 
feedback on articles that interest them and begin getting used to the to 
interaction with people who are invested in the articles they worked on while 
nearly being guaranteed a positive interaction. Then they will feel more 
comfortable changing things in Wikipedia articles and better able to understand 
what is going on when their edits are challenged.  


There is more to even Wikipedia the writing articles.  I am personally a 
terrible writer and only make a great deal of work for people when significantly 
edit articles.  I am rather good at peer reviews. I have an excellent 
understanding of text-based copyright issues. I am a decent mediator.  


People need to be sent to work on their passions with their personal strengths, 
not just told in a blanket fashion to write some articles.

Birgitte SB

[1] 
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Wikisource:Proofread_of_the_Month

Click on the work listed for the month (Ornithological biography, or an account 
of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1) and then 
pick one of the numbers highlighted in yellow on the target page.  


      
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