I have coincidentally raised the question of fair-use images for living people at the Gender Gap Taskforce talk page. Perhaps this is something we shoudl take to the policy talk page?
On 26 August 2014 14:24, Tim Davenport <[email protected]> wrote: > David Goodman has this exactly right — new volunteers (as opposed to casual > contributors) aren't made with templates of cookies or beer, they are > generally made one at a time, with personal attention and personal > assistance. Teahouse is one of the best ideas of the last five years, being > a place where newcomers can go to ask specific questions. Mentoring > programs is another very correct step. > > I'm currently working with a buddy who is getting into it. Wiki markup gunk > isn't a big problem for him; he's about 40 years old and has been around > html enough that it doesn't put him off. Footnoting he initially found > difficult, but I taught him how to do it long form rather than using layout > clogging templates, so that might have added an hour or two to the learning > curve. Still: not that difficult and he already has the knack of it — and > once you learn that, it's all very simple. > > I'm going to write him a couple thousand word email on linking today. > That's all pretty self-evident. > > We had lunch yesterday and I explained to him the way that some topics > which interest him (alternative medicine) are going to be battleground > areas in which he really must be a master of NPOV; while other interests, > relating to popular culture and sports, are less intense, with rawer and > worse articles standing that need Tender Loving Care. > > He's enthusiastic about WP, and there is absolutely no substitute for that. > That is the thing that is missing in college students doing class projects. > My experience thus far with them is that they dive in at the 11th hour, do > minimally decent work necessary to complete the assignment, ask zero > questions, and then vanish. > > Serious, longterm editors are made one at a time, I think. It starts with > personal attention. It requires someone to explain editing techniques and > (just as importantly) WP culture and policies and tour-guiding them through > all the policy pages and various backstage aspects of WP. > > It also involves something we have totally ignored so far: making sure they > have something to do: assigning projects."You like this band? Dig up more > sources, flesh it out. Oh, your grandpa was a pro athlete and already has a > page? Dig up some news stories on his career... Write about his > teammates... Hey, this article on the NFL championship game he played in is > pretty terrible, why not see if you can make it better? > > Another unspoken problem is photo rights, which is (1) confusing to start > with; (2) subject to one of the worst decisions ever, the choice to use > free files rather than to make use of American fair use legal doctrine; (3) > populated by anal retentive volunteers who delete first and ask questions > never, engage only with templates, work too fast, and who in many cases I > suspect take malicious joy in their work. I know that that was the aspect > of WP that alienated me the worst as a newcomer. It still does. > > So, WMF sorts: remember that this is a slow process and that there are no > magical software solutions. Creating new Very Active Editors takes > motivated candidates and volunteers willing to take newcomers under their > wings. > > Tim Davenport > Corvallis, OR > "Carrite" on WP /// "Randy from Boise" on WPO > > > DAVID GOOMAN WROTE: > >>Perhaps the best way of doing this is the admittedly laborious method > of personally communicating with new editors who seem promising > and encouraging them and offering to help them continue. The key word in > this is "personally". It cannot be effectively done with wikilove > messages, and certainly not with anything that looks like a template. > Template welcomes are essentially in the same class as mail or > web "personalized"advertisements. What works is to show that you actually > read and appreciated what they are doing, to the extent you wanted to > write something specific. > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> -- Landline (UK) 01780 757 250 Mobile (UK) 0798 1995 792 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
