I noticed the Adopter list was not fully alphabetized. I can go ahead and try to do so, but I wanted to double check that I wouldn't break anything and that there's no additional qualifiers on the list (e.g., those who aren't available being moved further down). I checked the archives and wasn't sure, so I thought I'd ask you. Thanks, Perfect4th (talk) 19:57, 20 May 2022 (UTC)Reply pinging Nick MoyesPerfect4th (talk) 21:07, 12 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Perfect4th: Apologies for not replying sooner (am very busy in real life right now). I've moved your post from my talk page to here as I think it deserves input from other people, too. The ideal might be to have all currently available adopters sorted alphabetically first, and then all the currently unavailable adopters (including myself) listed alphabetically below them. I had thought about having a random assortment that swaps around so as to give everyone an even presence (rather like we do with the annual Wikimedia suggestions pages), but perhaps that could potentially only serve to confuse a returning editor who can't find the person they're looking for? But either way it would require an active bot to make those changes. We have Gabrielchihonglee-Bot (operated by User:Gabrielchl) making regular changes, though I'm not quite sure what it's operating rules and actions are. I also noticed that FormalDudeasked for it to be turned off recently, though I'm not quite sure what the precise problem was, or what the implications of that will be if it remains off. I'd welcome others' input on this. In haste, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
The bot automatically updated adopter status based on if they have edited in the last thirty days or not. This was a problem because I wanted to take a break from adopting, but I had edited Wikipedia within the last thirty days, so the bot kept overriding my status to available. ––FormalDudetalk01:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Having available adopters placed above unavailable would definitely be more convenient. I don't think the random order is necessary – I didn't have a problem looking farther down the list to find an adopter, and I've seen at least one other editor who looked through the whole list as well – but that's not to say it couldn't be of use. Is the bot still off? I was away for a few weeks recently and had changed my status to unavailable and it remained that way even though I had edited in the last thirty days. Perfect4th (talk) 15:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Concerned about people who are hacking others accounts. Stealing information from legitimate and legal people who are trying to find content to help themselves. 172.10.74.173 (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago14 comments6 people in discussion
Hi everyone, nice to meet y'all! I hope everyone around the world had a great new year. Let me introduce myself, I am PlainCroissant. I am new to Wikipedia, despite this account being created in April 2022. I aspire to become a Wikipedian as I believe an individual can learn a lot by editing an encyclopedia, as per the saying "knowledge is power". Going forward, I wish to create articles about living people as per BLP policy, edit articles, and improve articles. My niche of interest is music, sports, and comedy. Furthermore, I am looking for a mentor to help me along the way, so I have somebody to provide me clarification regarding any doubts. Kindly ping me by replying here or posting a message on my talk page if you're interested. I am looking forward to meeting you. PlainCroissant (talk) 14:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Always happy to answer questions from new editors, but I'm also a bit confused why I was specifically pinged here (I'm not signed up as an adopter either) – am I missing something Xaosflux? DanCherek (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
@DanCherek: while you aren't sign up on "adopters", I did see you are signed up on the Mentor list, and PlainCroissant is currently assigned to you as a mentee. (They may not have opted in to see this though). — xaosfluxTalk14:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
I see. I had checked my mentor dashboard before replying and they aren't listed there, so maybe there's a bug somewhere or it's because they haven't opted in. Thanks! DanCherek (talk) 14:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Xaosflux, is there a way to check which mentors new editors are assigned to? I've not been able to see anything beyond the logged reassigned mentees when a mentor retires. Perfect4th (talk) 17:25, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Perfect4th: you can query them with this, even just in preview: {{#mentor:Perfect4th}} --> Outputs: Ahmetlii. As I noted above, everyone has a mentor assigned, however not all mentees are opted in to mentorship. — xaosfluxTalk18:25, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Assuming you are not opted in right now, try to opt in in preferences and see if you get linked to see? You can always opt back out. — xaosfluxTalk18:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
@KStoller-WMF: Thoughts on the above discussion? Also, PlainCroissant, I'm not really famililar with your specific areas of interest, but feel free to ask me anything whenever. My experience with AAU was along the lines of "I'm interested in doing this, how do I get there?" "What should I do in this situation?" etc, but I could try to do something more structured. The mentorship process that people are mentioning above is a much newer initiative compared to AAU and there are differences. I'd say it's more like an automatically assigned person for Q&As for brand new editors. AAU was kind of revamped with the concept of "for people who are more intermediate editors trying to learn more" the past few years because there is stuff like the Teahouse, where you're more likely to get a quicker response than asking any one individual. Clovermoss🍀(talk)15:08, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the ping, User:Clovermoss! This is an example of the confusion that results due to the fact that on English Wikipedia only 10% of new accounts created actually see the Mentorship module on their newcomer homepage. The hope is that eventually all new accounts created will receive mentorship as default (that's how it works on almost all other Wikipedias with Mentorship enabled). However, we don't currently have enough Mentors to support the quantity of new accounts created on English Wikipedia (without overwhelming existing English Wikipedia Mentors). I am definitely interested in ideas for how we can recruit more Mentors, or improve the current situation, so please let me know if you have any ideas.
The WMF Growth team is currently working on further improvements for the Mentorship dashboard as part of the Positive Reinforcement project, and as part of that work we have an experiment planned to better measure the impact of Mentorship. If the experiment shows significant evidence that Mentorship increases new editor retention, then hopefully it will be easier to get more experienced editors interested in mentoring newcomers. KStoller-WMF (talk) 14:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
@KStoller-WMF: My advice would be to maybe seek broader input from other editors? It's well-known that the vast majority of people who create accounts don't actually edit at all, at least on en-wiki. I was #34,669,967. There are not millions of active editors here. So it's possible that other editors like me would be more open to answering questions from a larger pool of editors because such a small percentage of people actually ask questions in the first place. I personally think the benefit of reduced confusion/larger outreach for people who actually ask questions would be better than the risks, but again, broader input could be useful. Maybe on the growth team talk page or Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)? Clovermoss🍀(talk)02:20, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Clovermoss: Thanks, we'll definitely reach out to a larger audience soon! In fact, we even have a task in our backlog to get that conversation started: Phabricator Task 323048. Thanks again for the ping and feedback!
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello
I'd like to be adopted so that I can contribute to Wikipedia constructively; I also don't want to receive messages accusing me of violence. At this point, I am mostly interested in easy edits but would like to increase to medium and perhaps hard with help. Also, I am currently using software that advises me on the correct punctuation, etc., but it comes with lots of flaws. Are you able to suggest one?
Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I would like to be adopted. I have left requests on Adopters talk pages with no luck. My interests include: Nintendo, Star Wars, and internet culture. Blitzfan51 (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Can I Be Adopted? I Don't Know to edit. So can I be adopted? Interests: Cats, The Novel series Warrior Cats, Space and Animals. Anotaomo (talk2me)
@Anotaomo: Please see my reply to you at the WP:Teahouse (diff) in which I suggest to you that the adoption process is really suited to users who already have got some editing experience under their belt and are able to demonstrate through their contribution history over some weeks or months, and across various topics, that they are committed to staying the course. As of today you have still not edited one single mainspace article, and that's not likely to encourage someone to invest their time to take you under their wing at this stage. Sorry. (The Teahouse really is the best place for you to ask specific questions and to get quick responses.) Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 14:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)Reply