Is WP:NEF part of Editor Engagement or WP:E3 or is it something else? Thanks in advance. 64.40.54.164 ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
There are several obvious reasons for Wikipedia's decline, and obvious things that could be done about it:
The complexity of current wikisource scares novices away and makes editing a pain even for seasoned editors. Forums, rules, projects, navboxes, templates, categories, stub tags, editorial tags, and the like only consume an incredible amount of editors'work without providing any significant value to readers. The AfD gang and their notability rules must be the leading cause of editor loss.
Fancier feedback tools and new discussion forums will not solve the "oh @#$!" problem. The last thing that editors (new or old) need is more complexity and more distraction. Wikipedia needs the courage to cut its useless bells and whistles, and its notorious cancers, even if they are someone's pet project.
Good luck, and all the best. --
Jorge Stolfi (
talk) 04:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm kind of running a tiny project at pt.wikipedia to editor engagement using a template banner similar to a {{ under construction}} in articles related to the doodle at google. For example, today (24th July) we have Amelia Earhart and we will notice a huge incoming of readers comming to wikipedia to read about her. I think we should take advantage of this and try to catch reader's attention to WP:Welcome or other page. I'm registering my results here if you want to take a look. So far I don't have any improvement in editor engagement but I insist we should try a bit more. For example, Alan Turing's doodle last month had 2 million visits in just one day! OTAVIO1981 ( talk) 11:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that the "editor engagement" programs may stem from a false premise. What if the graph doesn't show a "problem", as its been labeled, but a natural development of the encyclopedia maturing? There are two gigantic factors at work: the "new and exciting" nature of wikis is gone and the encyclopedia is largely complete. Both factors contribute to fewer editors signing up and fewer editors staying. In other words, the entire line of thinking driving the "editor engagement" programs may be flawed. Wikipedia is not a business. We don't need to think of editors as "customers" we are losing. Yes, we should focus on making editing a pleasant experience and making it easier to edit but this is a totally different point of view. Jason Quinn ( talk) 17:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
For editors to stay, they need to have the feeling that their contributions are appreciated. In the early days new articles were rarely deleted outright, however crappy they were even by the much lower standards of those days. Others would jump in, improve style, spelling and formatting, and add links and references. That gave the contributor the rewarding feeling that their contribution had been accepted and adopted by the community as something adding value to the project, and created the motivation to stay and contribute more.
Nowadays, things have changed. Many articles created by new editors are summarily deleted or nominated for deletion, often within minutes after the initial submission, while the newbie is clearly still labouring to improve their newly created article. This sends a message: "We don't need your shit here!" Surely, the new editor will then have an Oh shit reaction, and not one of Oh well, next time better. There won't be a next time.
Another issue. I don't have any data on this, just a feeling, but my feeling is that the sense of us all forming one community with a shared goal is much less. The general level of unfriendliness and incivility has increased, and more personal attacks that would not have been condoned earlier now fall below the NPA radar. That tends to drive some people away, and the fewer people who care about the level of unfriendliness remain, the more it will increase: this is a vicious circle. And even if you're not immediately driven out, it is discouraging. Women are, on the whole, more likely to be discouraged by this than men.
Has any research been done on this? I shouldn't be surprised if these two issues go a long way to explaining the declining editor retention. -- Lambiam 20:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
What we need is new FEATURES. Editors do not consider current features to be attractive enough to start editing. One of possible features would be Template:Scroll gallery - nobody touched this template for 3 (!!!) years since it was said it is deprecated. I think we need a feature like this gallery so much.-- Kozuch ( talk) 09:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Likewise, I have submitted a Meta:Grants:IEG/Studying_content_interest_and_editor_engagement_factors_with_new_editors for the [Meta:Grants:IEG|Individual Engagement Grants]]. I aim to understand how engagement is produced in new editors and see if it is possible to achieve retention with suggestions and courses. In a way, I will be adopting users but at the same time studying them with methods such as interviews and metrics. I have conducted other studies with data processing in Wikipedia and surveys to understand communities. If you would like to endorse this project you can do it here. I would so appreciate any kind of feedback! Thank you very much. ---- Marcmiquel ( talk) 16:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
At the top of my page there is a star logo and a heart logo. I finally figured out what they are for, but what about newcomers? Why can't we use words instead? Unfamiliar logos are not friendly at all. Same for the mosh of abbreviations. I mean, what does TW, CSD, XFD, etc., mean to the average person? Please comment. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
The heart-to-wikilove is only visible on usertalkpages, and is primarily useful for editors who have already made a number of contributions, so is less of a concern, and probably fine the way it is - the mouseover tooltip gives a decent explanation, and testing is easy (the forced-preview is even better).
The star-to-watchlist is crucial for many editors' workflow, and it would be helpful to remind/reinforce/teach newcomers how to use it, fairly early on. ....
I'm going to leave this here for now, and will try to add additional notes on suggested implementations, later. (And in case someone replies with "it's already being worked on!" type details ;) – Quiddity ( talk) 21:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear Editor Engagement people:
I was leaving a message on the Village Pump Technical talk page and at the bottom was the new section "Help improve this page", asking if I found what I was looking for. I am not sure that this is needed on a page that is not usually frequented by new users and where everyone is there trying to help each other, but in any case, I would like to report a small problem. I have one of those new Windows 8 laptops; they all have the newly popular 16:9 screen ratio. When I "pagedown" to the bottom of the page to see the new messages, between all of the footers and category listings and this large new box, there were only five lines of text of the actual help page showing. I know that I can scroll back up a little at a time, but it would be helpful if this box were a little less space-consuming. This is a small point compared to the important work that you are trying to accomplish, but you did say "help improve this page".... — Anne Delong ( talk) 14:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't like this page. It is slick and promotional to a fault, and I think it repels editors rather than engages them. It also ties editor engagement to the English Wikipedia more strongly than is appropriate or tasteful. (It is rather bizarre to see staff profiles here, and I have to confess I was relieved to discover that I had been omitted.) Finally, it positions editor engagement as a Foundation project rather than a shared area of activity and concern. Leave it to us, it seems to say. We're on the job.
I propose we move it to MetaWiki. I think MZMcBride will agree that the essay at m:Editor engagement is altogether too slanted and particular for its claim on the title to be reasonable. Let's move this content there, and in the process try to make it less of a press release. -- Ori.livneh ( talk) 05:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Your point about "getting feedback out of people" is completely irrelevant after a casual glance at the page history of this talk page and its corresponding subject-space page.
Perhaps what we need here is... ARTICLE FEEDBACK! -- MZMcBride ( talk) 16:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Oh my word. A page that looks nice on Wikipedia? Kill it with fire says the community. And we wonder why we have an issue with editor engagement and retention. Sigh. — Tom Morris ( talk) 17:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Hello, I'm doing some PR work as part of organising Wikimania 2014, and I'm particularly interested in talking about the Editor Engagement initiatives that are rolling out in the next twelve months. Where can I find out what's currently in progress? As far as I know there is visual editor, flow and notifications, but what else? And are there any other major, exciting engagement initiatives that are in the blue sky stage? Keep up the good work! EdSaperia ( talk) 22:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi folks, I've been working for the past 7 months on an interactive guided tour for new editors called The Wikipedia Adventure, as part of a WMF Individual Engagement Grant. The game is an experiment in teaching our aspiring future editors in an educational but playful way.
If you're interested, please add your name below and have at it. You can post feedback to
WP:TWA/Feedback. Thanks and cheers!
Ocaasi
t |
c 20:51, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm interested and on the bug-hunt. Will report back this week
Is WP:NEF part of Editor Engagement or WP:E3 or is it something else? Thanks in advance. 64.40.54.164 ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
There are several obvious reasons for Wikipedia's decline, and obvious things that could be done about it:
The complexity of current wikisource scares novices away and makes editing a pain even for seasoned editors. Forums, rules, projects, navboxes, templates, categories, stub tags, editorial tags, and the like only consume an incredible amount of editors'work without providing any significant value to readers. The AfD gang and their notability rules must be the leading cause of editor loss.
Fancier feedback tools and new discussion forums will not solve the "oh @#$!" problem. The last thing that editors (new or old) need is more complexity and more distraction. Wikipedia needs the courage to cut its useless bells and whistles, and its notorious cancers, even if they are someone's pet project.
Good luck, and all the best. --
Jorge Stolfi (
talk) 04:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm kind of running a tiny project at pt.wikipedia to editor engagement using a template banner similar to a {{ under construction}} in articles related to the doodle at google. For example, today (24th July) we have Amelia Earhart and we will notice a huge incoming of readers comming to wikipedia to read about her. I think we should take advantage of this and try to catch reader's attention to WP:Welcome or other page. I'm registering my results here if you want to take a look. So far I don't have any improvement in editor engagement but I insist we should try a bit more. For example, Alan Turing's doodle last month had 2 million visits in just one day! OTAVIO1981 ( talk) 11:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
It seems to me that the "editor engagement" programs may stem from a false premise. What if the graph doesn't show a "problem", as its been labeled, but a natural development of the encyclopedia maturing? There are two gigantic factors at work: the "new and exciting" nature of wikis is gone and the encyclopedia is largely complete. Both factors contribute to fewer editors signing up and fewer editors staying. In other words, the entire line of thinking driving the "editor engagement" programs may be flawed. Wikipedia is not a business. We don't need to think of editors as "customers" we are losing. Yes, we should focus on making editing a pleasant experience and making it easier to edit but this is a totally different point of view. Jason Quinn ( talk) 17:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
For editors to stay, they need to have the feeling that their contributions are appreciated. In the early days new articles were rarely deleted outright, however crappy they were even by the much lower standards of those days. Others would jump in, improve style, spelling and formatting, and add links and references. That gave the contributor the rewarding feeling that their contribution had been accepted and adopted by the community as something adding value to the project, and created the motivation to stay and contribute more.
Nowadays, things have changed. Many articles created by new editors are summarily deleted or nominated for deletion, often within minutes after the initial submission, while the newbie is clearly still labouring to improve their newly created article. This sends a message: "We don't need your shit here!" Surely, the new editor will then have an Oh shit reaction, and not one of Oh well, next time better. There won't be a next time.
Another issue. I don't have any data on this, just a feeling, but my feeling is that the sense of us all forming one community with a shared goal is much less. The general level of unfriendliness and incivility has increased, and more personal attacks that would not have been condoned earlier now fall below the NPA radar. That tends to drive some people away, and the fewer people who care about the level of unfriendliness remain, the more it will increase: this is a vicious circle. And even if you're not immediately driven out, it is discouraging. Women are, on the whole, more likely to be discouraged by this than men.
Has any research been done on this? I shouldn't be surprised if these two issues go a long way to explaining the declining editor retention. -- Lambiam 20:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
What we need is new FEATURES. Editors do not consider current features to be attractive enough to start editing. One of possible features would be Template:Scroll gallery - nobody touched this template for 3 (!!!) years since it was said it is deprecated. I think we need a feature like this gallery so much.-- Kozuch ( talk) 09:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Likewise, I have submitted a Meta:Grants:IEG/Studying_content_interest_and_editor_engagement_factors_with_new_editors for the [Meta:Grants:IEG|Individual Engagement Grants]]. I aim to understand how engagement is produced in new editors and see if it is possible to achieve retention with suggestions and courses. In a way, I will be adopting users but at the same time studying them with methods such as interviews and metrics. I have conducted other studies with data processing in Wikipedia and surveys to understand communities. If you would like to endorse this project you can do it here. I would so appreciate any kind of feedback! Thank you very much. ---- Marcmiquel ( talk) 16:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
At the top of my page there is a star logo and a heart logo. I finally figured out what they are for, but what about newcomers? Why can't we use words instead? Unfamiliar logos are not friendly at all. Same for the mosh of abbreviations. I mean, what does TW, CSD, XFD, etc., mean to the average person? Please comment. GeorgeLouis ( talk) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
The heart-to-wikilove is only visible on usertalkpages, and is primarily useful for editors who have already made a number of contributions, so is less of a concern, and probably fine the way it is - the mouseover tooltip gives a decent explanation, and testing is easy (the forced-preview is even better).
The star-to-watchlist is crucial for many editors' workflow, and it would be helpful to remind/reinforce/teach newcomers how to use it, fairly early on. ....
I'm going to leave this here for now, and will try to add additional notes on suggested implementations, later. (And in case someone replies with "it's already being worked on!" type details ;) – Quiddity ( talk) 21:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear Editor Engagement people:
I was leaving a message on the Village Pump Technical talk page and at the bottom was the new section "Help improve this page", asking if I found what I was looking for. I am not sure that this is needed on a page that is not usually frequented by new users and where everyone is there trying to help each other, but in any case, I would like to report a small problem. I have one of those new Windows 8 laptops; they all have the newly popular 16:9 screen ratio. When I "pagedown" to the bottom of the page to see the new messages, between all of the footers and category listings and this large new box, there were only five lines of text of the actual help page showing. I know that I can scroll back up a little at a time, but it would be helpful if this box were a little less space-consuming. This is a small point compared to the important work that you are trying to accomplish, but you did say "help improve this page".... — Anne Delong ( talk) 14:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't like this page. It is slick and promotional to a fault, and I think it repels editors rather than engages them. It also ties editor engagement to the English Wikipedia more strongly than is appropriate or tasteful. (It is rather bizarre to see staff profiles here, and I have to confess I was relieved to discover that I had been omitted.) Finally, it positions editor engagement as a Foundation project rather than a shared area of activity and concern. Leave it to us, it seems to say. We're on the job.
I propose we move it to MetaWiki. I think MZMcBride will agree that the essay at m:Editor engagement is altogether too slanted and particular for its claim on the title to be reasonable. Let's move this content there, and in the process try to make it less of a press release. -- Ori.livneh ( talk) 05:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Your point about "getting feedback out of people" is completely irrelevant after a casual glance at the page history of this talk page and its corresponding subject-space page.
Perhaps what we need here is... ARTICLE FEEDBACK! -- MZMcBride ( talk) 16:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Oh my word. A page that looks nice on Wikipedia? Kill it with fire says the community. And we wonder why we have an issue with editor engagement and retention. Sigh. — Tom Morris ( talk) 17:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Hello, I'm doing some PR work as part of organising Wikimania 2014, and I'm particularly interested in talking about the Editor Engagement initiatives that are rolling out in the next twelve months. Where can I find out what's currently in progress? As far as I know there is visual editor, flow and notifications, but what else? And are there any other major, exciting engagement initiatives that are in the blue sky stage? Keep up the good work! EdSaperia ( talk) 22:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi folks, I've been working for the past 7 months on an interactive guided tour for new editors called The Wikipedia Adventure, as part of a WMF Individual Engagement Grant. The game is an experiment in teaching our aspiring future editors in an educational but playful way.
If you're interested, please add your name below and have at it. You can post feedback to
WP:TWA/Feedback. Thanks and cheers!
Ocaasi
t |
c 20:51, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm interested and on the bug-hunt. Will report back this week