Hi Aaron
This is really a treasure trove of information. I am looking forward to savouring it in detail. Many thanks.
One question for now on Point 5: the 3rd graph with values <1 - are those percentages? Is the decimal notation correct?
Regards,
Rui
2014-05-30 1:52 GMT+02:00 Aaron Halfaker ahalfaker@wikimedia.org:
Hi Rui,
You raised a lot of questions that I think I might be able to help address. I'm a research scientist working for the WMF. My research focuses on the nature of newcomer participation, editor motivation and value production in Wikipedia. See [1] and [2] (if you have the time) for my most seminal work on the subject.
As you'll see in the study I referenced, my work directly addresses a substantial portion of the questions you've raised. See also my team's work with standardizing metrics[3] including survival measures[4] and my work exploring retention trends in ptwiki[5]. See [6] for an example of a recent, cross-language study of newcomer article creation patterns. Also, you might be interested in [7] since it confirms your general concerns about the speed of speedy deletions.
A lot of the work of /really understanding Wikipedia/ is only half-way done since it takes a long time build understanding about previously undocumented phenomena. The academic community, other researchers at the WMF and myself are in the middle of developing a whole field around how open collaboration systems like Wikipedia work, common problems they have and how they can be best supported.
While we're developing this general knowledge about engagement, production and retention in our communities, we (the research & data team) are also working directly with product teams at the WMF to measure their impact on key metrics (e.g. participation) with scientific rigor and to challenge/develop/refine theory on which product strategies lead us toward our goals and which ones do not. See [8] and [9] for examples of such studies.
I welcome anyone who'd like to continue the conversation about what we do and don't know about Wikipedia(s) to raise discussions at wiki-research-l[10]. There are a lot more researchers on that list than wikimedia-l. FWIW, I tend to follow that list more closely.
- Summary:
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/ 2. Full paper:
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfak... 3. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Editor_Engagement_Vital_Signs 4. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Surviving_new_editor 5.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Ideas/Is_ptwiki_declining_like_enwi... 6. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_article_creation 7. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_Speed_of_Speedy_Deletions 8. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians/Rollout 9.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_re... 10. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-Aaron
From: Rui Correia correia.rui@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] The first three weeks. Date: May 29, 2014 at 5:07:45 AM PDT To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi James
Do we have any figures on retention of new editors? How long does the average new editor stay? What percentage of new editors stays on for 6 months; one year; two years? Do we have these figures for all
languages?
New editors should be allowed space to grow. Wikipedia is so rich in developing all kinds of scripts, templates etc, that it would be easy
to
create something to inform others that someone is a new editor. Pages
by
new editors should be left alone for a day or two. There is nothing
more
disheartening than getting all excited about contributing only to find
that
someone comes along and either deletes your first attempt or nominates
it
for deletion. I've have seen this happen WITHIN MINUTES of the seminal version being posted, followed up by 'warnings' on the editor's talk
page.
I've seen edits reverted because the formatting of the source was
wrong.
It
should be a basic pillar that before reverting, we see if we can
improve/
fix the problem. Undoing a newcomer's work and leaving something like WP:MOS as an edit summary is not helpful - if you are going to cite a
WP
policy, then do so by pointing directly to the specific page where the
new
editor can read about it. I know it is time-consuming to fill in edit summaries, especially if one is doing a series of identical edits to a whole lot of pages. But we can use technology to speed this up - on a
blank
edit summary, a prompt will suggest earlier text and you can select an applicable one. On an edit summary with a reference to the section of
the
page this does not work - so we need to find a way around this, like splitting the field.
No amount of ink about how welcoming WP is to new editors, IT IS NOT.
For
reference, this section has some interesting facts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Contributors.
We are also losing established editors, mostly because of edit warring. There are blocks coalescing around all kinds of themes and issues and
these
defend their turf.
Pages that contain controversial details should display a specific
notice -
not difficult to do, given the array of templates already in use. Some pages are the result of a compromise reached after acrimonious debate.
An
editor - old or new - who was not involved in discussions will not know this and might make an edit that detonates the powder keg and starts
the
war all over again. It would be so easy to display a notice on the EDIT PAGE saying something like "Hi, if you were planning to edit .....[ x detail] ... please read (link) the discussion and resolution on this. I
am
pretty convinced it would work far better than having thousands of
pages
locked ([semi-]protected). Some pages just require a simple message on
the
EDIT PAGE such as (example) "In the English Wikipedia we use the
spelling
*Braganza* and not *Bragança* when referring to the House of Braganza. Please do not change this.". There are 1,300 pages where Braganza is mentioned, imagine how many headaches we could spare ourselves.
Some editors seem to derive pleasure from the constant reverting/ protecting - you soon get to know who the 'group' is and can read on
their
talk pages comments and jokes about a "here we go again" scenario. It
is
as
if they actually lie in wait for the next unwary editor to come along
and
make a change.
At the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of pages that do not
meet
20% of the quality criteria and nobody does anything to remedy them.
Yet,
do something like move the page, change the infobox and immediately the 'owners' come out of the woodwork to revert.
Someone cited Ukranian in this thread and I would like to pick up on
that.
There is a tendency at the higher levels to equate Wikipedia with the English Wikipedia and all else are something else. This includes the
level
of involvement by the Foundation etc in the non-English Wikipedias,
often
with the justification (excuse?) that each is independent. And of
course
each language WP will use this independence to its advantage when convenient, as a reason why this or that is being done differently. In
the
same breath, content that is specifically marked as referring to the
En-WP
is then regurgitated as if it reflects the whole WP, as here, in the Portuguese WP:
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confiabilidade_da_Wikip%C3%A9dia#Avalia.C3.A7....
Independence is well and good, but not when for example the Portuguese
WP
votes/ debates/ discusses/ relaxing sourcing policies. If WP is to be judged on its reliability then on a number of key elements it must be
held
to one standard with criteria that apply across the board. We can't
have
different standards on reliability of sources, notibality, etc.
To shrug it off as an issue of the Portuguese WP is to bury our heads
in
the sand, to shirk responsibility, because such issues are symptomatic
of
the problems facing the WP as a whole and contributing to the reasons
that
make editors pack up and go.
Also from Portuguese WP, it is embarassing that since 2009 there have
been
all kinds of processes to arrive at a solution for what to call pages
on
animals and plants - eg: cattle/ bull/ ox/ cow/ bos ... By the looks of
it,
[[Cattle]] in the English WP has been locked for years for the same
reason.
This kind of thing snowballs and then other aspects come into play, overflow and contaminate other areas of the WP as if by contagion.
James, from the link you provided, I see a reference to bias. We all
have
our 'usual beats' but we all also edit anywhere where we might happen
to
find something wrong. In doing that, you soon find out that just about
each
page has 'owners', usually 3 or 4 and these work as a team to preserve their way of seeing it. Very worrying is that a lot of this happens on pages on big corporations, which raises the spectre of the possibility (already proven) of 'editors' working for money. Equally nefarious, I
have
noted a group of editos (5 or 6, plus socks [some exposed, others suspected] and countless IP accounts) who are active on a few hundred
pages
deleting/ sanitising negative references to CIA/ US (and 'allies') involvement in right-wing coups all over the world and generally
anything
unsavoury about the US in all pages on conflicts in which the US has
taken
part.
In my experience, resolution mechanims for situations such as any that
fit
any of the cases above tend to favour the status quo. I have
investigates
some of these cases and it is quite apparent that in many cases the
'admin'
taking a decision is also part of group that is trying to defend a
certain
point of view.
Finally, I think it is time to think seriously and hard about anonymous (IP) editing. We can all be anonymous, so with a username you are not
less
so. I do believe that IPs who make a few edits here and there, often unconstructive, would stop if they were not serious and do not want to bother registering. Conversely, one you register, it is as if you
become
officially a member. It is unlikely that one would bother registering
and
then engage in vandalism and unconstructive editing.
Best regards,
Rui
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