Hi Dan!
My answers are below
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Yury Katkov, WikiVote
On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 7:50 AM, Dan Fisher <danfisher261(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I have had a wiki for many years now. I'm not able
to say the URL
for confidentiality reasons (thanks to search engines).
I can count on one hand, the numbers of editors who have done any
significant work. They have collectively done really good work and
actually, only one editor has helped the site a lot. I feel there should be
many more editors. I feel I'm to blame for this. Lack of leadership? Not
sure what it is. I feel its a wiki so it should not require me to be there
all the time.
It is a mistake. Creating a wiki is like running a business: you have to
spend a lot of time and effort before the wiki become self-supportive
system. In Wikivote we even have special staff called facilitators that
encourage people and analyze what can be done better for them.
I like to be rational and give people the freedom to
do what
they like. The subject matter is controversial and our standards are high
and work is difficult to do. Like a good article on Wikipedia, it requires
research, fact checking and analysis. Some editors tried to join but they
could understand how we do things. A certain mindset and commitment is
required. But then that is the case for every wiki.
I don't know what to do, and how to track this down and how to grow the
community. The future of the website worries me greatly so I'm coming here
for advice. We need more editors and admins involved so it can
be guaranteed to keep existing, grow and flourish Can I do something to
attract editors and make things more welcoming? Is the wiki interface
difficult for new comers? For example a Wysiwyg editor may help. That's
just one thing though and it may not be a problem.
This IS a problem. MediaWiki syntax is objectively ugly and is the main
technical obstacle. We try to eliminate the problem with WYGIWYG editors
and semantic forms. The second obstacle is very heavy user interface.
We've hidden 60% of the buttons that MediaWiki has.
I see some other similar wikis with a lot more editing activity and I
wonder what I could do. I cant reveal my identity (that would help in
making editors more comfortable and perhaps form a personal bond with me
but I cant do it). Maybe some kind of analysis is required to see what is
keeping people from coming in.
Of course it also depends of the topic of your wiki. If it's the wiki about
some popular Anime cartoon the target audience will be bigger and people
will be very engaged. You can try some methods of Search engine
optimization to attract new readers to your wiki. Maybe you find this link
interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editor_engagement
If there's anything any of you did that improved editing activity, I would
really like to hear it. I'm open to any kind of advice, suggestions or
ideas, big or small.
1) Editor encouragement. Talk to them, greet them, tell them that they're
cool guys. Run contests, marathons. Look at Wikipedia experience.
2) Extensions that make the system's feedback to the user visual: Echo
extension is a great example
3) simplify the software. Hide all the buttons you don't need, install
Semantic Forms
4) advertise you wiki
Dan
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