[Wikimedia-l] New year's plans for editor engagement

[rupert THURNER]

hi pine,

as a volunteer, my personal stance is that editor engagement is best
experienced on a personal, pragmatic, and not-meta level. let me give an
example:

when i met anasuya sengupta last year i was very impressed by her. such a
nice and welcoming person to talk to. such a bright person, making
intelligent suggestions to topics we have. she told us at wikimedia ch,
that we do not reach the volunteers very well - basically 50 times more
people edit wikipedia than the ones willing to engage in any form with an
organisation around the movement, like wikimedia.ch. besides that, she is
kind of the "dream wikimedian" who would be able to correct two of the most
prominent editor statistics: she is woman, she is from india. and she is
educated, she is organized, she is successful.

after meeting, i did what i usually do, look on the contributions. to my
great surprise, anasuya seems not have any billable edits ("billable" is,
in my personal definition, an edit on a page where a donor would click and
give money, so no talk page, meta, etc.). she as well does not seem to
write open source software used by the movement. i cannot say if she really
does not edit - she just does it in a way that a regular volunteer like me
would not notice.

funny enough, anasuya sits for one and a half years next to sue gardner in
the san francisco office of the wikimedia foundation. sue gardner supported
the editor engagement program, and the india program, she put efforts in
making wikipedia nicer for women. and wmf put hundred thousands of dollars
into efforts which basic target is to win anasuya as a contributor.

happy new year as well!

rupert.

ps: if this mail is the cause to have one additional editor, its goal is
fullfilled ;) and if every volunteer convinces one person to become
wikimedia volunteer this year, you, pine, will write a different mail at
the beginning of 2015.


On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 4:32 AM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> We had a good 2013 year for readership statistics, fundraising, website
> reliability, and many other metrics.
>
> We are continuing to have challenges with our editor population declining.
> Statistics are at http://reportcard.wmflabs.org. WMF discussed some of
> the research around these issues a monthly metrics meeting.
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-07-11
> .
>
> We have thousands of new accounts registered each month. However we are
> still losing more active editors than we gain each month. To date WMF and
> the chapters haven't solved this problem although resources are being spent
> on it. Projects include Echo, VisualEditor, Snuggle, GettingStarted, and
> education outreach.
>
> Some discussion of these issues for English Wikipedia is happening at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Possible_paths.2C_after_some_thoughts
> .
>
> Also check out the book review that is being published in this week's
> Signpost
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Sandbox/Notes#.C5.BBycie_Wirtualnych_Dzikich,
> and the 2010 editor study results
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf
> .
>
> I hope there will be many and sustained conversations in 2014 about
> questions such as these:
>
> * What should WMF, Jimmy, chapters and affiliates, and the online
> communities do differently regarding editor retention in 2014 and beyond?
>
> * What non-technical initiatives should be done to improve editor
> recruiting and retention?
>
> * How can we make Wikipedia editing be as mainstream as playing mobile
> games? I would like to see WMF take leadership on this issue and make a big
> push in 2014-2015 to make mobile editing a popular activity.
>
> * Since negative feedback is a major reason that editors leave, should we
> review how we revert and warn editors, how we handle content disputes, and
> how we deal with editors who are uncivil or disruptive?
>
> * How can we be a community that is efficient while being civil and
> hospitable?
>
> In the next Annual Plan I hope that someone at WMF will be appointed as a
> point person for promoting all editor engagement initiatives and regularly
> initiate discussions such as this one.
>
> Closing thought:
>
> "Whatever the weather
> We must move
> together"
>
> from a Marshall Plan poster,
> https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG, seen on the
> English WikiQuote main page on December 31, 2013.
>
> Happy new year,
>
> Pine
>
>
>
>
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