Welcome! I have to say that http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results of which I've just learned from your post is an excellent piece of research, one that was needed for a very long time.
One question comes to mind: we now, roughly, how many editors we are gaining per months. Are there any estimates on how many we are losing (per month, year, total)? I cannot find such numbers in that survey. -- Piotr Konieczny Parul Vora wrote: > Hello everyone, > > We (most of the current staff at the Wikimedia Foundation currently > engaging in research) had a chance to meet some of you at Wikisym and > Wikimania this year and thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves > and say hi to all of you! All of us have joined WMF in the past two > years and are working on projects or research questions that may be > relevant or of interest to all of you. Also, as far as I know, we are > all new to this list and will hopefully be talking and collaborating > with you more in the future - both here and on the Meta Research page. > > So, in no particular order, some introductions from all of us: > > From Nimish <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Nimish_Gautam> > ([email protected]): Hi, I'm Nimish Gautam. I started with the > foundation in 2009 doing development for the Usability Initiative, which > focused on new editors. I like analyzing user behavior to figure out how > people use the tools we give them (turning templates into a programming > language, who would've guessed?) and spotting trends so we can improve > those tools to help people accomplish what it is they're trying to do. > Currently I'm doing qualitative and quantitative research on user > behavior for the foundation and its various projects, and very > interested in finding ways of chunking all this information together to > make pretty, compelling, informative resources so people know what's > going on in the wikiverse and hopefully want to be a part of it. > > From Howie > <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff#User_Experience_Programs> > ([email protected]): Hello! I'm Howie and I'm a Senior Product Manager > at the Wikimedia Foundation. As a product person, I'd like to work with > the community towards more data-driven decision making. One area I'm > particularly interested in is getting a better understanding of our > user's lifecycle with our projects -- how they come to the projects, how > they start contributing, their experiences as a contributor, why they > leave, and why they return. I like to use both quantitative and > qualitative methods to obtain as complete a picture as we need to guide > our decisions. On the quantitative side, I'm working on getting better > web analytics for our projects. I'm also interested in any data mining > projects along these lines (e.g., contribution behavior, user lifecycle > patterns, etc.). On the qualitative side, I worked on the "Why Editors > Leave Wikipedia" survey and would be interested in other qualitative > measurements (e.g., interviews, surveys, focus groups). If you're > interested in any of the above topics, please drop me a line. > > From Amy > <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff#Public_Policy_Initiative> > ([email protected]): Hi, I'm Amy, the Research Analyst for the Public > Policy Initiative > <http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative>. My task > is to assess the project's impact on: U.S. public policy article > quality, public policy categorization, new articles, and new > contributors. Through the project I have focused on article quality > assessment, and worked with the community to add a quantitative value to > the current article assessment > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Quality_rating#Rubric>. > As a data analyst, I am interested in improving data accessibility from > Wikipedia. In my dreams, I envision data from the assessment tools that > exist within Wikipedia are captured in a real-time database, so that we > can observe what is currently happening in Wikipedia and how it is > evolving in the present, rather than having to use data dumps to get > snapshots of the state of Wikipedia. I have experience analyzing and > designing surveys and would like to use that experience to take a more > in depth look at contributor demographics and motivations. I am excited > to be a part of this huge collaborative project with a mission to make > knowledge accessible. > > >From me, Parul Vora > <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Parulvora> > ([email protected]): Hi Everyone! I'm a researcher and designer with a > focus on participatory and collaborative spaces. I started at the > Wikimedia Foundation in 2009 and moving forward have interest in: > creating new forms of participation (beyond editing) on the projects > that better engage a wider audience with the content and each other; > assessing, evaluating and addressing the demographic and cultural biases > in our projects; and exploring location, culture and language as they > affect the development patterns of different language Wikipedias in an > effort to identify potential for experimentation and catalysis in > younger projects. I'm currently exploring the potential effect feedback > systems (article ratings, expert reviews, visualizations of an article's > history or a user's contributions) can have on the engagement of > readers, actions of editors, and the quality of content over time. I > like infovis, ux research, and unresearched innovation and I am > interested in learning more about research with wikipedia on motivation, > behavioral economic modeling and/or game theory, using geolocative data, > mobile experiences, and profiling and trend visualizations......and your > work too! > > Let us know if you're interested in learning more, participating in, or > contributing to our efforts. And drop any of us a line if we could learn > from or contribute to what you've been working on....... > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
