Hmm. Integrating "push notifications" into training, as well as using them
for recognition and suggestions for skill development, sounds like a good
idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

Pine


On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Stuart A. Yeates <[email protected]> wrote:

> 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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>
>> 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 <[email protected]> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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