On 4/17/12 12:07 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
Consider, for example, that Zynga and Facebook have successfully
managed to get millions of people to log in at all hours of the night
to milk virtualcows and harvest virtual beans (or whatever it is that
people actually do in Farmville). Could we do something similar to
drive particpation, particularly in editing areas that don't require
long-duration sessions (e.g. adding or verifying citations,
categorizing articles, etc.)? Even a few percent of Farmville's user
base would be an order-of-magnitude increase of our own editor base;
and if the price for that is letting these editors display
Citationville badges on their user pages and send each other silly
messages, is it not worth it?
Gamification is a huge aspect of crowdsourcing these days. It isn't
enough to just "share free knowledge," anymore (and for many people who
currently contribute, it is, but..). People want some type of validation
that goes beyond the mission, whether it's a "prize," an award, etc.
We've seen how valuable awarding people Barnstars are in English
Wikipedia. It helps with user retention - when it's genuine and awarded
to people for the right reasons (yes, I've seen malicious barnstar
awards in my day), it has a powerful impact on keeping that editor
around. I also think it's valuable when people see that other /people/
edit Wikipedia. While I'm against becoming a social network in the
traditional sense ("traditional" meaning Facebook, Myspace, oh, remember
Friendster?), I think there is a lot of value in encouraging people to
bring their personalities to Wikipedia by way of their user page, etc.
In this world we live in today, people want to share a picture of
themselves and so forth. Saying "That is what a user page is for," isn't
enough, and we've struggled to make an easy to use userpage that
encourages new editors to share images of themselves. Wikipedia has
served as a social network for me - whether people like to hear that or
not. I have friends I care for a lot around the world that I spend time
with online and offline. I think it'd be really valuable to express that
to the world and it could be used to encourage participation. (We do it
for donations..what about for attracting editors?)
Through Wikipedia, not only have I gotten to share knowledge with the
world for free, but, I have also gotten to know an amazing group of
people that have inspired me.
-Sarah
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Support the sharing of free knowledge around the world: donate today
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/><<
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