I have thought about writing a bot that congratulated active users on account creation anniversaries and suggested directions for growth. "Grats X you've been editing for 2 years, here's a picture of a kitten. Have you thought about doing New Page Patrol?"
"Grats Y you've been editing for a decade, here's a virtual beer, you've earned it! Have you thought about applying for adminship?" Of course, you'd want to check account account behaviour pretty carefully first. cheers stuart -- ...let us be heard from red core to black sky On 21 February 2017 at 14:33, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Kerry, > > Thanks for the ideas. Jonathan Morgan, Aaron Halfaker, and I have had more > than one conversation about wikiprojects as a way to engage with new > editors. Unfortunately, there are a lot of derelict wikiprojects. > > I have some ideas about how to improve the training system for ENWP and > Commons in particular. But that's different from the motivation issue, > which I think is more challenging. With enough money and time, the training > system can be upgraded. I'm not sure if the same is true for motivation. I > have the impression that student Wikimedians are mostly motivated by grades > (hence the precipitous decline in their participation after their Wikipedia > Education Program class ends), and many other people are motivated by money > or PR (hence we get a lot of people engaging in promotionalism or PR > management.) It's not clear to me how someone goes from being wiki-curious > to feeling motivated enough to contribute for years. There are many other > hobbies that are lower stress, healthier, offer more opportunities for > socializing, and offer a friendlier environment. I think that some > Wikimedians are motivated by desire to promote or share their interest in a > particular topic, which might keep content creators interested and engaged > for years, particularly if they meet people with similar interests. But > it's a phase change to go from being a content creator or curator, to > taking on roles that benefit other individual Wikimedians, or broad > cross-sections of the Wikimedia community. We could use all of those kinds > of good-faith long-term contributors. > > Perhaps we should include information in our training about "career paths" > for Wikimedians who would like to develop their skills and/or move into new > roles? > > I'm not sure what else to suggest. I find it challenging to figure out how > to motivate people to want to contribute productively for years, and there > are some roles for which lengthy experience is an informal but significant > prerequisite for acceptance and/or success. I'd like to see more people > make that journey. > > Pine > > > On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Pine, >> >> It sounds to me that there are two separate parts to your question. >> >> One relates to the survival of such editors to being ongoing active >> editors. The second seems to relate to recruiting them and perhaps >> upskilling them for specific purposes, eg administration, guild of copy >> editors, and whatever initiatives you have in mind. >> >> The first question probably relates to being able to get them better >> informed about the policies of Wikipedia at least in relation to the area >> of their contributions and how to engage with the community because it is >> the abrasive interaction with the community that seems to drive people away. >> >> The second probably relates to raising awareness of WikiProjects and >> other collaborative initiatives. (Obviously all of WP is collaborative, but >> some things require higher levels of coordination and I think this might be >> what you are referring to). I think probably needs some analysis of the >> nature of their contributions and/or their topics of interest in order to >> introduce them to targetted WikiProjects etc that seem logical trajectories >> for them. The mistake we make constantly in onboarding newbies is >> overwhelming them with information (think of the standard Twinkle welcome >> templates) because "THEY NEED TO KNOW THIS" instead of what they want to >> know "how do I do this current thing I am trying to do". For similar >> reasons I think any attempts to draw them into particular >> projects/initiatives should be highly targeted, not too frequent, and based >> on what their interests seem to be rather where someone else would like >> them to work. (I think we should avoid the mindset of "I need to recruit >> some cannon fodder"). Having got their attention, someone probably has to >> hold their hand through whatever upskilling is needed to get them >> productive. Just pointing people at a Project page isn't helpful, there >> needs to be some human outreach and shepherding. >> >> In some idealised universe, we should see Wikipedians as being on a >> learning journey, where (through analysis of past contributions and >> interactions) we are tracking them against a series of learning objectives >> (as we do with coursework curriculum "they have passed this unit, let's >> offer them some new units that build on that"). So, using newbies as an >> example, we look for some threshold of surviving-edits that demonstrate >> skills like "add text", "format text", "add list element", "make links", >> "make piped links", "add citation", "add templated citations", "use a >> template", "edit an infobox", "add an infobox", write on their talk page, >> write on an article talk page, write on another user's talk page, add to >> their own user page, etc. The idea being to suggest as various competencies >> are attained how to add a new skill to their repertoire. Once they have >> acquired the basic how-to skills, we could look at the suggestions of where >> they might apply these skills and how to specialise their skills in various >> ways. >> >> Kerry >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >> On 21 Feb 2017, at 2:49 am, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Hi Research-l, >> >> A human resources problem that I am experiencing is a shortage of human >> resources of community members who are willing, available, and have the >> skills to work on a variety of useful initiatives. Is anyone on this list >> aware of research that talks about motivations of long-term contributors? >> In particular, I'd be interested in research that suggests ways to convert >> productive, relatively new editors (say, 50-500 edits) into long-term >> community members who are likely to develop into long-term, productive >> Wikimedians. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Pine >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wiki-research-l mailing list >> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wiki-research-l mailing list >> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > >
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