[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Do you want to write pages that thousands of people see every day?

[Lennart Guldbrandsson]

Of course we want them keep editing, not just starting. :-) And there are
several measures we can have for success, but Sue Gardner and several others
have spoken about the focus this year. One measure that have come up is that
we look at the newcomers' first 100 edits. After that they should be
prepared for what Wikipedia is. And to get them to actually make 100 edits
we may need to handhold them better.

But let's step back a bit. I think we need to think of this in several
steps:

1 let non-Wikipedians know that they actually *can* edit (more people than
you imagine do not actually know that *they* can edit Wikipedia, even if
they know that *you* can edit)
2 encourage them to start editing
3 not scare them away

What this project is focused on is not step 1 or 3, but parts of 2. My
Fellowship is after all only 6 months long and we need to have some limits
to it.

The Account Creation is something fairly simple to improve. We change some
pages and measure what effect that has, and pick whichever change has the
best result. The other things are much more difficult, and may even *gasp*
require some soulsearching among the regular Wikipedians to see what we can
do better. So let's start with something easier and make more versions of
the landing pages.

Best wishes,

Lennart


2011/2/21 Elias Friedman <elipongo at gmail.com>

> Okay then, let me ask how do you intend to measure "start them editing"?
> Raw edit counts? Over what period of time? Will what namespace matter?
>
> Frankly I'm not as interested in getting new people *started* editing as I
> am I in *keeping* them editing. Many new editors get frustrated because they
> don't understand basic rules like proper sourcing and citation. Many are not
> good at reading our written rules - that's why I was excited to see those
> tutorial videos. I really think they can bridge the gap for the majority of
> people who don't do well with just RTFM. That's why I say that at least a
> link to those videos should be on *every* version of that landing page.
>
> Sent from my Droid2
> Elias Friedman A.S., CCEMT-P
> אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי
> elipongo at gmail.com
> On Feb 20, 2011 6:33 PM, "Lennart Guldbrandsson" <wikihannibal at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>



-- 
Lennart Guldbrandsson, Fellow of the Wikimedia Foundation and chair of
Wikimedia Sverige // Wikimedia Foundation-stipendiat och ordförande för
Wikimedia Sverige