This page is within the scope of WikiProject Editor Retention, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of efforts to improve editor retention on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Editor RetentionWikipedia:WikiProject Editor RetentionTemplate:WikiProject Editor RetentionEditor Retention articles
Latest comment: 4 years ago31 comments7 people in discussion
The main page of this WP is interesting, and has a few interesting links I've read before posting this.[1][2] I know this isn't exactly editor retention, but closest I can find. I'm looking for 3 things:
Any research or reports by WMF (or others) on why it's hard to get more editors (editor engagement, conversion, whatever you want to call it)
Any discussions/work done by devs/WMF to simplify the UI to encourage editing (other than VE), and any trendlines on what they have planned in the future
Any discussions in archives on enwiki about the community doing their part, specifically simplifying the massive lumps of policy we have, the warning templates that link to said long policies, etc.
I imagine there will be discussions (particularly of point (3)) that are scattered around different pages in archives. Ideally larger scale the better. I wouldn't really know where to start, so hopefully some people here can point me in the right direction on any of these points. Much appreciated! ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Regarding policy change, due to the problems with consensus-based decision making in a large group, it's very difficult to get agreement on substantial changes. Some guidelines do get modified—the manual of style, for instance, is regularly revised by some editors. It might help if you could narrow down the scope of your research. isaacl (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
I wrote them as broad ones because I'm not sure how much discussion we've had on these topics, so I'm afraid asking too specific questions may yield no results. Three particular areas of interest, however, as far as number (3) goes are in simplifying the verbiage (guidance documents, or creating a streamlined set of simpler ones; talk banner spam, general UI unfriendliness, too much unwieldy stuff; doing warning templates better to turn editors into productive contributors rather than what they are now: apparently designed to be a ticking clock to AIV). On top of those, perhaps interested in the idea of being able to have a more outreach-y type of mentoring, where editors are encouraged to reach out to promising but perhaps stumbling editors. Anything along these lines would be interesting, I think particularly in templates as I feel our warning templates are absolutely not fit for purpose, at least if our goal is 'rehabilitation'. I think, hope, templates is a particular area we can do some improvement as they're certainly easier to modify than PAGs, as far as consensus goes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I suspect it's hard for anyone to give you specific pointers (maybe someone with perfect recall), so it may be easier knowing what you're looking for. There are a lot of user interface discussions, including template changes, that get raised at the village pumps. I suggest looking at the idea lab and the proposals village pumps. General discussion on revising guidance pages would also take place there, but of course discussion specific to a guidance page will take place on its talk page, so it's not easy to narrow down a search. For mentoring, I would look at the talk pages for the adopt-a-user initiative and the welcoming committee. (I've discussed it here and some other places, but it didn't get any traction, so it won't be any use to search for those instances.) Now obviously the number of adopter/adoptee cases I've personally witnessed is way too small to be a representative sample, but the ones I've seen have been very hands-off, to the point where I'm not sure I see the benefit. Of course there may be other, more successful cases out there. And to be honest, with time being a volunteer's most precious commodity, it's hard to fault anyone for choosing to focus more on their own editing than trying to provide active guidance to someone else. isaacl (talk) 04:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Regarding templates being easier to modify that guidance pages, while that is probably relatively true, it can be fairly difficult to change some templates. It can be due to the bike-shed effect, or due to disputes on emphasis or detail. (Personally I prefer making everything as concise as possible, but there can be reasonable disagreements on what needs to be expanded upon.) In addition, since some people eschew the use of templates in favour of 100% hand-crafted messages, plus the vast majority of the time, there is no requirement to use a specific warning or informational template (the discretionary sanctions alert template is the only mandatory one I can think of), there isn't a strong incentive to engage in lengthy arguments about a template's wording. Editors will just use their own variations. isaacl (talk) 04:45, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I think the key to note with templates is that the vast amount of our warnings are by automated tools (Twinkle, Huggle, and perhaps now RedWarn). They all use the same set of warning templates. Thus, a change to those should make a pretty big difference, I think. The way I see the templates currently is that their de facto purpose is to tick up to 4 and off to AIV. It doesn't seem like they were designed to actually fix a stumbling editor's confusion. If they were, for example, {{Uw-unsourced1}} wouldn't link 2 long PAG pages to a new editor who is (a) unlikely to read them and (b) unlikely to grasp them and (c) it will overwhelm them either way. They should link to simpler, far shorter guides (which we have), which will suffice for whatever little mistake the editor made. The verbosity we're used to on talk pages doesn't translate well when chucking it at a new editor who stumbled across the edit button in their day looking to change a single sentence. I've done a good number of AV edits, and I'm not sure any automated messages helped create a lasting editor (to be fair, I don't think the personalised ones did either, but they got a response and some understanding). Might be difficult to change, but relatively speaking maybe easier than some other parts and a nice place to start, at least I'd like to try. Imagined finding some old discussions on this might help me understand why it hasn't already been done / what the blockers are. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:39, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Please let us know the results of your searches. I do believe the warning templates have been discussed many times. The key problem in many Wikipedia proposals is getting enough engagement from enough people for a sufficient period of time to establish a consensus. isaacl (talk) 15:06, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Would you happen to know the names of any editors who've tried to do work in this area before, who might be able to point me on the right track / offer some advice? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, thanks for linking me to this. I agree that the user warning templates are often overlinked. I think there are two separate problems contributing to it, beyond the normal overlinking tendency. The first is that we have too many duplicative introductory pages, and consolidating them is difficult. The second is that too many pages are trying to be both comprehensive explanations of rules and beginner introductions to the essentials; both of those are necessary, but they're incompatible functions. You and I have previously discussed moving forward with an initiative to separate them cleanly, but I'm waiting for the fight between the Help:Intro series and various alternatives to be a little more settled before moving with that, so that it'll hopefully be less contentious. Once we have a stronger system of help pages to link to, it should be easier to find a single main link to use (perhaps bolded) for each warning template.
Yes, I don't like how many beginner pages we have either. That alone is overwhelming. Personally, if I'm shown a beginner guide, I expect it to be a well thought out one. I shouldn't need to pick which beginner guide to read (or have to read multiple), or be shown multiple. It's just confusing. By that point I might as well read the full pages with 10k+ words together. The summary you linked is a perfect description of the issue here imo. What's the current status on this work on the help pages? Speaking of, at the very least the lvl1/2 warnings can just be a basic English sentence of what's probably wrong (after all, the majority of stuff that would prompt an Unsourced template can be boiled down to a couple of sentences to cover all). Will take a look at that page. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Sidebar: We begin this thread with "I know this isn't exactly editor retention, but closest I can find"... But it is Editor Retention. It's about retaining the most important editor we have; the new customer that walks in the door looking for something to buy. Years ago I use to welcome 50 editors a day using what I thought was the most concise and easy to use "Welcome" there was. I have no idea if they stayed and became great veteran editors or if they turned around and walked out the door. There have been many welcome initiatives over the years but most died on the vine. One I participated in was Category:WikiGuides among others. To use some football parlance "a lot of motion in the backfield but not much advancing toward the goal". Glad you are using the WER talkpage to have this important conversation. ―Buster7☎21:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
It's the old "Standards are great—that's why everyone has one" problem, plus "everyone decides = no one decides". The lack of hierarchical decision-making means no one can decide to obsolete any documentation on their own. Generally people don't like discarding the hard work of dedicated volunteers, so existing documentation accretes additional changes (as Sdkb discussed), and new pages get created rather than revamping existing pages. As per its name, the strength of a wiki is how it enables new pages to be created quickly. Curating and managing those pages remains a difficult problem. isaacl (talk) 23:17, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
One of our biggest problem with the older help page is bloat and the new generation of help pages are not accessible for many and just link back to our bloated pages. We have a recent push as seen above to lead our readers to non standard pages that require a small learning curve that looses us potential new editors just as the huge pages do. So what we have is to types of pages that have different problems....both related to quick accessibility to information. New pages also only mention tool bar ways of doing things despite 60% of viewers not having the tool bar. Another problem is target audience for our new click next style help pages...our articles are geared towards high school and University students but our intro pages should be geared towards an academic audience we are trying to attract. It's wonderful we have new pages geared towards a younger audience but as seen by the retention levels they are geared towards the wrong audience. --Moxy🍁01:10, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
A hearty stew to accompany a fireside chat
I now wonder, is this really the biggest issue we have with editor conversion? I was going to write up a short comment on how most volunteer orgs give basic tasks (like, for a political party), little knowledge or reading needed, plenty of reward. We revert, give warnings with links to weird long-winded confusing pages of guidelines, and if they fix that we revert for some MOS violation or something. I saw this on ANI this morning and was dumbfounded, I think we're too intolerant and it's an uphill battle for new editors.
I've usually thought our PAGs and unfit-for-purpose templates are a main issue but rethinking today, not so sure. Consider our outreach real-life stuff (edit marathons, students in education programme thingy, all that fun stuff). Someone gets paired with a more experienced editor 1:1, usually having face-to-face interaction with them, has someone on hand to ask questions to and guide them. Yet, how often do these 'students' convert into regular editors? Every instance I've seen, the editor abandoned, half the time the assignment itself produced no results. I've stumbled across contributions of these editors and saw even them stumbling. Seen some of their DYK submissions and they just give up after a few comments of back-and-forth, abandon their article and wiki altogether. Note again, these are people with a 'mentor' giving them oversight, thus greatly simplifying the whole "figure out the PAGs yourself" thing. My question: why are these people not converting into editors either? It can't be the PAGs/templates. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:06, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't around in the early days of WP, but I think one way to frame the hostility toward new edits very slightly more positively is that Wikipedia is a lot higher quality than it used to be and has more standards, which means that it's a lot more likely that someone's first edits will be damaging, even if they're good faith. There are of course tons of articles that still need a lot of work, but they're the ones people don't care much to edit (including beginners), or otherwise they'd be more developed. {{u|Sdkb}}talk16:11, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
An abundance of history on the subject of unsuccessful attempts to improve the earliest Newbie/Veteran interaction can be found at Category:WikiGuides. ―Buster7☎17:13, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Most people don't like to read a lot before diving into editing, so I agree that the quality of help pages isn't the first bottleneck, though it may be a secondary one. The WMF has considered the editing interface a bottleneck for years, and even though there are some who strongly disagree, I do think at the scale of Wikipedia, it is a key problem. I used to follow a much smaller development community for another Wiki that has a certain corporate niche, and some of their developers felt that enabling copying and pasting from Microsoft Word is what the general corporate user wants to do. The point is not so much that Wikipedia needs to support Word, but that users want to be able to copy and paste from anything into Wikipedia and not worry about the formatting. Wiki text is a strength and a curse: much effort has been invested in parsing and manipulating wiki text, both manually and via tools. But it's not an ideal format to roundtrip with, say, HTML. Of course a lot of development effort has been spent in improving the roundtripping capabilities of Visual Editor, but many long-time editors still resent its existence.
The other issue is that writing well is hard. Copy editing what someone else has written is hard. Citing sources is tedious and people don't like to do it. People might think they're interested in editing Wikipedia, but faced with the reality of a blank page/screen, or trying to integrate changes into an existing, possibly poorly written paragraph, it's easy to be discouraged.
Personally I think more selective recruitment might help. For example, reach out to your specific friends who you think may flourish in Wikipedia's community. Some editors have suggested targeting the senior community, who may have time for new hobbies. If you can find good-faith editors who understand what it means to write an encyclopedia, then frankly the guidance pages aren't that important. Write good, neutral, conflict-of-interest-free content with citations, and the rest can be managed by the community. isaacl (talk) 21:02, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Selective recruitment/efforts to target seniors is a fascinating idea; I feel like the WMF would have to take that on since it'd happen off-wiki, but I'd be interested to hear if that started being pursued more seriously. {{u|Sdkb}}talk00:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Anyone can look at their list of friends and acquaintances and consider who might be a good candidate. This is what I mean about selective recruitment: rather than trying to attract the masses and retain a few, use your personal knowledge of others to find highly promising potential contributors. All the same, writing is hard, and so there will always be challenges in finding new users who will continue to edit over the long term. isaacl (talk) 05:51, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Isaacl, these comments are quite interesting, thanks! Also good shout on WikiGuides, Buster7, looks interesting & I will take a closer look there too. I think it's important to be aware of what the real issues are, so we're not wasting time on stuff that sounds good but is unhelpful, thus being aware of the larger issues in interface or attitudes, but I'm also under no illusions re us getting large changes to the core software, rewriting core community guidelines or changing general attitudes. Ideally want to get something meaningful out of this discussion which we can do and might make a difference. This is actually a broader set of things we can do than it first appears, I think.Interesting point on technical complexity and enjoyment. I don't think it necessarily has to be that way? I agree staring at a blank page is daunting, but we could prefill it with a template (based on topic category), with structure and notes, to help people get started (minor software change, or JavaScript)? Also, whilst yes WP isn't everyone's idea of a fun time, and writing is hard, I'm sure we've got more than 30k (# of active editors) people in this world who would enjoy something on Wikipedia, and can write well. For the less fun stuff, it may be possible to rethink the interface of it in a way that makes it more fun. Outreach to friends seems like a good idea, on that front. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
"Blank page" is a metaphor; the point is most people have trouble starting writing. Yes, I'm sure Wikipedia hasn't reached 100% of its potential editing audience, and we should explore lots of different ways of attracting new writers. But we need to be realistic: ask yourself why do you edit Wikipedia? How enticing is it over the long run over other hobbies, especially considering the community issues that are highlighted on this project's main page? And who amongst those you know do you think would find those reasons equally motivating? In a world of blogs, vlogs, video sharing (which typically involves planning, blocking/choreography, and in some cases script-writing) and other social media, there are lots of competing outlets for creativity. isaacl (talk) 14:42, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
One could say Wikipedia is (in that sense) a low barrier to entry. One can edit the most high visibility of pages on here, and their work will be seen by many. Meanwhile, the vast majority of blogs, YouTube channels, etc, will die with little to no audience - just too many in the market. Whilst you may have to compromise, waste hours debating over peanuts, and deal with the issues outlined here, at least many people see your work on the most accessed source of information in the digital world. I see that as being perhaps the only edge over the outlets you mention, but although just one edge, it is a significant one. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
To be clear, I'm not asking that you answer this question publicly, but just consider: this may have attracted you initially (as it does for many in editathons, for example), but is it why you continue to edit Wikipedia over the long term? While I'm sure this is a motivation for some, particularly those who like to write about breaking news, I suspect that it's not a huge incentive for many others, given that virtually all readers will never know who wrote what, in proportion with the effort of researching topics and finding appropriate citations. My hunch is that many editors have an explainer mindset that draws them to writing expository text. But it's just a gut feel; I don't have any data behind it. isaacl (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I think the main issue is that writing for a Wiki takes dedication. It's a hobby that competes with many others, and only very small percentage of people will want to do it. For example, I teach students, and I think I am one of the best in doing this, and less than 1% converts to editors, probably around 0.1%. They are a good sample - young, reasonably tech savvy and educated, and most find the wiki stuff midly interesting and clearly not worth coming back to. We are not helped by how we treat most newcomers (in an automated way / warnings), but there is nothing we can do since clearly just 'helping newcomers' is not something most people want to do. And this won't change. Now, I think WMF could invest much more funds into more user-friendly tutorials (video! this is how people want to learn these days! Just imagine how much new editors we would get if we had one or several Wiki tutorials Kurzgesagt-like videos trending on YouTube), but I think bottom line is that it is not so much that 'we are scary', because I don't think we are much scarier than most other websites, it is just that the bar of becoming a Wikiepdian is higher. You can be a redditor or such and all you need to do is to write few posts and click few buttons, being a Wikipedian requires learning much more and most people don't want to invest that effort into this, as they get a sense of fullfillment from investing similar effort into other hobbies, be it video games or sports or whataver. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here02:36, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Agree with the above. I also see that certain types of editors do most of the invitations. Pop culture editors are generally more inclined to try recruit like minded people because of the social aspect of Wikipedia. Where editors of academic topics are less inclined to reach out and only engage those they are familiar with. That said Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine did very well with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine#Partners outreach program. A good idea may be have some of our academic projects reach-out to alumni...especially to those like retiree User:Rjensen. Also a big untapped resource of people is those with physical disabilities like my-self... disability friendly help pages would help in this regards..meaning short to the point with examples pages that have some sort of TOC's and plain text that can be seen by screen readers and avoids loading page after page to obtain servile serviceable info.--Moxy🍁17:45, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Moxy invited me here so let me comment. Active academics will get punished for editing for Wikipedia if they use their real name, and they are unlikely to get lured by WMF. I retired from academe years ago so I feel "free." There are lots of well-trained people outside academe (most grad students who start a PhD program in history, for example, get trained in the skills needed on Wikipedia but have dropped out of academe because jobs are SCARCE.) In recent times I have put my energy into bibliographies that will help ex-undergraduate history majors to jump into editing mode--there are now LOTS of online sources open to all, and with JSTOR etc open to Wiki editors on request ==so it's easier to do research online today than it was at a university library before 2000. Rjensen (talk) 17:58, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I think it's because it proves the authors are "wasting" their scarce research time when they should be publishing in approved venues, esp scholarly papers & articles. I've come across no active academic historians who publishes in Wikipedia in their own name. Rjensen (talk) 19:00, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb As an active academic who actually advertises his Wiki participation, I don't think it is true that people get punished. I actually published some papers on this ([3]) and I did a lit review and I couldn't find any documented example of being punished, through fears of this do exist. But overall instead of being punished we are just being told 'publish research for promotion/money', and unspoken 'contributing to Wikipedia is a hobby that does not help with that'. I don't think contributing to Wikipedia has a bad reputaiton, outside of a few 'dinosaurs' who still think like in the early 2000s that Wikipedia is totally unreliable and people should not use it and miss the shift in academia towards a 'let and let live' attitude, mostly (and in fact ASA, APS and few others have issued formal calls for members of their professions to contribute to Wikipedia, good PR, next to no effect because no tangible benefits to invdividuals, of couse). Until promotion/tenure committees start giving official recognition for writing for Wikipedia, 99% of academics will do nothing or very little. People like myself, who have academic careers but devote more time to Wikipedia than 'peer reviewed research' are abnormalities. (But this discussion is veering away from retention into 'why academics don't edit more'...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here05:22, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Quick statistic from my new dataset
Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I am co-researching what teachers who do the 'teaching with Wikipedia' think about this activity and I was looking at our data (220 replies so far, if you are a teacher and would like to contribute the survey is still open for a while (it is here tinyurl.com/yd6dfata?fbclid=IwAR1EzY-WxAaJH9Qo9lD39PfixabJLOf-7A7q5iw43kpdmd9kT2-u1zCNJTA). Anyway, the reason I am posting here is to report on the response to the question 'Have you made any edits to Wikipedia after your last use of it in the classroom?'. The answer is a roughly 50/50 split, much better than for the students, where I think the answer would be ~1% (but we don't have data for that IIRC, just anecdotal I think), but then I noticed it is probably correlated to the 50/50 split on whether instructors made edits before doing this activity, which suggests that many teachers may use this activity with students but don't covert into volunteer editors (update: did a quick correlation, just 0.37 so I guess I was wrong and there is some retention here; second update: for people who did not edit Wikipedia before, 35% responded that they made edits after their class ended, compared to 72% of those who did edit it before). Also 80% of the surveyed instructors intended to continue using it again, 13% are unsure, and only 7% were unhappy with it and are unlikely to use it again (frankly, I expected much higher ration of people running into problems). Mind you, this is just my early conclusion after looking at the results, with my main thought being that this activity is much more successful among instructors than I initially thought,, through the teacher retention is not terrible I guess (37%)? But that of course is not checking how active they are, most are probably not very active. But still... 37% of teachers who did not edit Wikipedia before they tried to teach with it in class have since made at least 1 edit since the class ended. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here06:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Persecutions
Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have been subject banned twice. Not for one week, not for one month. For perpetuity. After years of editing. I will not ask for pardon, because I respect myself. "Retention" - really. If an editor has opinions, s/he has also enemies. So ellastic editors and ignorants are preferred here. Some of the editors are terrorized eeven if they do not understand their psychical problems. I am not allowed to quote here ignorant opinions spread by my opponents as parts of false accusations. I do not understand your legal system - one editor accuses and punishes. Even some totalitarian systems pretended to assign counsellors, I have had no one and some editors preferred to avoid me, I was infected long ago before Covid. I remember nasty comments regarding my English. Now I know names of your aggression - ageism, cultural colonialism, WASP.
Another problem is moving new pages to Draft space. Editors should cooperate, some people posses knowledge, other ones know technicities. There is hardly any cooperation in the Draft space, so the unfinished pages perish and similarly perish their unfortunate authors. Xx236 (talk) 11:03, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
Hello, once again. I've discovered that some of the users on the members page (including John Carter and Winkelvi) have been blocked indefinitely since they joined. In this case, should we remove them from the list or is it unnecessary at this point? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I would object to only removing indefinitely blocked users. What criteria do you plan to use for removing members? isaacl (talk) 05:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
My thinking on this is that WikiProject member lists are a tool for editors interested in a particular area to find others who can help them edit in that area. Inactive users are unlikely to respond so keeping them listed does more harm than good. As for indef'd users, they might still be able to help if they have talk page access or if they get a WP:SO unblock in the future. I'd say leave indef'd users unless they've also been inactive for a while. — Wug·a·po·des23:51, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessary to highlight administrators, as the project doesn't have any special tasks requiring administrative privileges. I suggest considering putting the members into a list that can be used with Wikipedia's mass messaging capability, as described at Wikipedia:Mass message senders § Before making your request (claiming one of the empty list shell pages available). isaacl (talk) 02:29, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Very bad 5 months
Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion
Where are you getting "should have had huge increases"? The recruitment rate for new editors is a function of the number of readers, and other than a slight upwards blip in April (coinciding with the first wave in en-wiki's core markets of the US and UK), the number of individual readers has barely twitched from pre-covid levels. If anything I'd evpext the recruitment and retention rates (as opposed to the readership) to have declined more than it has, given that statistically significant numbers of editors are going to be deceased or seriously ill, and many of the others are going to have their hands full and will have less time to devote to goofing around on a website. ‑ Iridescent14:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Actually as readership went up new editors went down in the same time frame. We had an increases of 10 percent per month in viewership (most at home now) with a 10 percent decrees in registration's over that time - 20% swing...we have had the worst 6 months in years....why?--Moxy🍁14:33, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Can you clarify what landing pages you are thinking of? Most readers arrive to specific Wikipedia articles via search engines. Are you thinking of something that would appear on all article pages such as more prominent links inviting readers to become editors? isaacl (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
I don’t think the intro page is our biggest limiting factor in attracting new editors. I’m not sure what is, to be honest. We can’t make our policy much simpler, the interface (particularly on mobiles) sucks, and on desktop is too cluttered, but even if all these things are fixed I’m not sure retention increases that much. And I’m not sure lots of different intros is actually helpful - it’s confusing, if anything: “which intro do I need? Do I need to read all of them? Oh jeez, so many words altogether, I should’ve just read the big policy pages”.
Isaacl suggested last year to attract friends to start editing. That’s probably the best solution. But frankly, I don’t think many of my friends would be interested in editing, and I’m not sure I would actually recommend it to many of them. So really, I’m not sure there is anything we can do to increase conversion rates. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the callback... I agree it's challenging to think of who would be interested in devoting significant volunteer time for the relatively esoteric task of anonymous educational writing. Somewhat related to whether or not I'd recommend participating in Wikipedia's editing environment: a couple of years ago, I considered creating an article about someone who's become a significant person in their niche (I see now that last August an article was created), but I didn't proceed as I realized I wouldn't particularly being doing them any favours. For most people, after an initial heady rush, it's just something to worry about exposing private information or spreading inaccuracies. The rough-and-tumble crowdsourced environment may have its strengths from both sides of the coin (writers and subjects), but also has significant drawbacks.
I do think the long-time "reel new editors in by making it easy to fix minor issues" strategy remains important. A more active welcoming initiative that engaged with new editors and tried to help them find (or build) groups of editors with similar interests might help convert fix-a-typo first-time editors into more involved ones. But it takes considerable volunteer time, and in recent years, it understandably seems that most editors place higher priorities on other ways of contributing to Wikipedia. isaacl (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Here is a few of my thoughts on all this...
isaacl Maybe something that could help new people is like a rotating featured "to do" or simple task that they could help with, that comes along with a simple step-by-step hand holding how-to. Which I think definitely already exists, but really streamlined for that one small task.
ProcrastinatingReader I think attracting people you know (not necessarily friends) is probably most effective. That's who you're most likely to have things in common with, who will value your opinions. Not to say you would and this is extreme, but if you say to an acquaintance "hi, do you want to devote significant volunteer time to the esoteric task of anonymous educational writing?", they're going to say no. Because first, I think it's best to let people build up to significant time and start with very small chunks. But also, part of that is since it's your friend, you should know better what they're interested in and what they're good at. Imagine instead you say, "You take some really cool Instagram pictures. Would you want to take photos and share them with hundreds of people who would really appreciate your images? Well the Wikipedia page for the statue that's by your house could use a picture". If it's your acquaintances, you will likely talk to them again, and you can ask how it's went and encourage them to make another edit.
I think a drive to encourage your friends to join would really only work very well if it's a systemic thing. So that the average editor wants their friend to join them, is reminded somehow to ask people, and feels good and prepared about asking that.
Something I think would be effective for retaining anyone would be encouraging them to reflect on why they signed up in the first place. Ie encouraging them to reflect on pro-social effects of their edits. Just as a little example. I use an app to tell me when the bus is coming, because it's never on schedule. If you allow it, the app will track your location to have live information about where exactly the bus is. Instead of depending on the schedule, or on the bus system's tracking, the app can use your phone to know exactly where the bus is, and when. When you allow tracking, a smiley face pops up at the top that tells you how many other people have been made happy (by looking at the times for your bus) because you shared your time. And if you click on the smiley face, it will tell you "congratulations, you've made X users happy by choosing to share", and tells you your rank on how many people on the bus line you've helped that month compared to others. It's simple but it makes me smile, and definitely makes me more likely to continue to share my location, because I know and am reminded that other people are benefitting.
To apply that to Wikipedia- that could be anything from existing editors reaching out to people, saying thank you for xx edit as it makes things more clear/reliable/whatever. Then asking what brought the new person to Wikipedia and sharing something short about why they themselves chose to join (which would have a secondary effect of reminding the existing editor of that too). For example, "I like contributing because I enjoy being part of one of the largest websites and impacting many people", "I personally like being able to share my knowledge with people who could use it", "my favorite part of editing is xxx because yyy". It could also be a bot that tells someone, "30 people have had a better experience in the past month because of your contribution, thank you! Would you like to try x next?". Or it could be something that predicts the # of people who would be impacted, based on the page's usage history. Ex, "Thank you for your edit! Within 1 month, we expect about 12 people will have a better understanding of topic thanks to you"
And I guess I agree that COVID is weird. Maybe people are visiting Wikipedia more because they're "doomscrolling", but they're too stressed out to want to do something like edit for the first time. It may well be the fault is people not being directed well, though.
Anyways I haven't really looked through the backlogs of stuff here, so sorry if I mention things that have already been tried or gone over! IllQuill (talk) 10:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Help with welcoming
Latest comment: 3 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
The page at Wikipedia talk:20th anniversary/Birthday wishes is a great opportunity to recruit and retain editors (see meatball:WelcomeNewcomers), and I could use help leaving welcome messages and templates on talk pages of new editors. In general, I've been going through the page history looking for redlinked talk pages, checking contribution history to figure out their editing experience, and then leaving a welcome template that matches their experience. A lot of signatories are complete newbies, some have had accounts for a long time but never edited, and some are irregular editors. For newbies without many edits, I've been leaving so I've been using {{welcome}} and {{welcome-anon}} to point them at the editing introduction. Sometimes you can tell from the contribution history that they've already started the introduction, in which case {{welcome-retro}} might be more useful than the default welcome. For editors with some experience, I've been using {{welcome-belated}} to be a bit more friendly and acknowledge that we see and appreciate the existing work. You can also leave personalized messages if that's more your style. Another option is to check all talk pages, not just ones that don't exist, as sometimes they maybe never got welcomed. Even if someone already left a welcome template, you can add a "Welcome!" comment indented beneath it. And feel free to clerk the page by fixing formatting or removing inappropriate comments; happily the page has experienced minimal disruption but more eyes are always helpful. — Wug·a·po·des22:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Your efforts to welcome editors and enlarge the circle of Wikipedia users is commendable. Over the years I have used many of the welcomes you describe above. I now use this simple handshake template. At your prompting I will start to greet some of the newbies and see what happens! ―Buster7☎22:22, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
This may have been discussed before but I think this makes a good case study. User talk:HUMANOIDROOTPART. A newbie who speaks Thai, makes a few useful test edits then, having caught the bug attempts his first new article. Normally I would step in and help him as (s)he seems to be useful to have on board- and has produced a good stub though with poor prose. Thai is one step too far. They have edited more than one article- so this is unlikely to be promotional but haven't understood WP:RS . If we are going to welcome /encourage them to continue we don't need the Hounds of Dracula stepping in with that template.
I have no ax to grind, deletions are necessary for many reasons. But I have a few suggestions.
Leave the article alone but tag it with this new article falls far short of Wikipedia's High Standards for references so should be read with caution, the author is invited to examine <this help page>. Thats it no threats, but place in a maintenance category
Auto Add a maintenance tag-Exempt from deletion for 30 days, place in a maintenance category- Articles from new editors that need assistance.
Provide duplicates of all our deletion tags written in softer less savage language that assumes good faith and invites the user to request help. The current collection of 'Trumpiam' messages does not allow wiki-gnomes suficient flexibility to apply Psychology -or even to express their own personalities
Undertake a total appraisal of the language of tags against a checklist of our aims. A total reappraisal of blocks and the effects of the passive aggressive approach that is appropriate in one small corner of the English speaking world
Realise that understanding the rules of the United Nations, or memorising the Magna Carta is easier than chasing Wikipedia policies and protocols.
For 1 and 2, I suggest trying to find some interested persons at the idea Village Pump to work up a proposal. For rewording of templates, I suggest starting with a single template, writing up a proposal, and then proposing it at the proposals Village Pump. For better or worse, consensus is hard to achieve in English Wikipedia, so while hope for the best, be prepared for other outcomes. isaacl (talk) 14:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
An exemption from deletion of other special process will not get consensus, since we need to consider readers first. For articles that are good faith and perhaps notable but well below our standards, the proper course of action is draftifying. Creating more tags is also unlikely to work, since unless they're added to Twinkle, they will be very sparsely used and fall into disrepair, and even if they are added, they'll make things more confusing for taggers who already have a mountain to sort through. I'd suggest focusing on improving the language of existing templates. {{u|Sdkb}}talk16:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
This is the usual way that a suggestion progresses- It is depressing and part of the reason we cannot retain editors! Sdkb suggests focussing on the language of existing templates. Templates are protected so can I be more specific: mod the source code of the template so it has an additional parameter strength= accepting 0,1,2,3 (or default, gentle, mild, severe) and the internal text field say text becomes text0, text1, text2, text3 these are programmed with a simple switch statement on text switch text0, text1, text2, text3. That still allows the gnomes to Twinkle. He can set the register of the message, but editors can adjust the text the newbie sees, if the gnome is having a bad haircut day and being too agressive. ClemRutter (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I am not sure if I have come exactly to the right place for this topic. Basically, the topic was started at the WP:teahouse but it was suggested that it should be either continued here or WT:TPG or WT:BITE. The previous discussion is here. The link might break once it gets moved to the archive. The initial thread title was "Making talk pages healthier, especially for newcomers". My suggestion was to broaden the discussion to "Making talk pages healthier, especially for newcomers and for people who prefer peace and calm" (or similar title, focusing perhaps more on cultural differences in discussion styles). This goes beyond newbies and WP:NOBITE. It would be about cultural differences in discussion styles, whether it's male/female or editors from Asia/Africa/Europe etc. For example I recently pointed a Nigerian fellow Wikipedian to a discussion that I had been involved in, which I had perceived as aggressive, and that editor had replied: "Yea...this kind of character can especially scare newbies away. Most Nigerians try to avoid this generally and where they can't, you see some of them not being active again" So to me this is about editor retention. Is this the right place to discuss this further, or should I go to another place where I can perhaps continue in an existing discussion thread? Thanks for your guidance. EMsmile (talk) 09:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Just came across this and felt it's a discussion to engage in. One of the statements I have heard often since I joined the movement is "Don't worry it's a wiki, so you cannot break anything". That's actually a good way not to scare newbies. But this can only be theoretical and not practical sometimes. Infact, the reverse could be the case when a newbie makes a mistake and is being called out in an unfriendly tone. Surely, calling out the wrong is not a bad idea but even an important step to take. But the tone should be friendly enough not to reflect otherwise. I think we could adopt tag a mentee approach where experienced and willing Wikimedians can give a hand of assistance to newbies who are willing to take it. Some Wikimedians do this already and that's commendable. Ptinphusmia (talk) 12:23, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
It can be tricky to discuss communication styles without being stereotypical. I suggest isolating patterns of behaviour, regardless of cultural background, and providing guidance on identifying them and adapting. It might be something that can fit within Wikipedia:Encourage the newcomers § Matching the response to the editor, or pointed to from that section.
While I believe this can be useful, and I once suggested collecting some best practices for sample scenarios, I fear it's going to be hard to have a large-scale effect. I didn't proceed with my suggestion as I didn't get any responses suggesting anyone would make use of the info. We already have many essays on conduct (see Wikipedia:Essays in a nutshell/Civility and the "essays on civility" section of Template:Wikipedia essays). They're too numerous to expect anyone to read them all, and any new essays can easily get overlooked. Since the page patrollers are the first persons to interact with many new editors who create pages, perhaps working with them to develop guidance would help with adoption. (For better or worse, though, as a paid editor, you may face some opposition from page patrollers.) As general advice for anyone who is interested in pursuing this approach further, I suggest treading lightly, and perhaps doing some months of page patrolling first. Projects tend to be more welcoming to suggestions made by others who have spent some time working on project tasks, and it would be helpful to have specific examples with diffs, so as to help avoid implications that too much is being made of the concern. isaacl (talk) 18:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
We should unbundle Template:Wikipedia essays back to the way it was. Prior to the merger of all the essays types were in different templates making it much more navigable with targeted essays linked. Now its a giant sea of blue with hundreds of links that are only related because they are essays. Should trim the junk and have focused templates again so we can add them to user pages without adding a sea of unrelated links. --Moxy-12:59, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Guestbooks as an editor retention method
Latest comment: 3 years ago14 comments5 people in discussion
Hi! I've recently discovered guestbooks, and have created my own, as well as spending the past 12 hours or so signing most of the books on this list as part of a personal investigation into the phenomenon. What I have discovered in this process is very interesting. It appears that guestbooks are somewhat of a "lost art". Also, an overwhelming majority of the users on the list appeared to be currently inactive. Even more unsettling was the fact that a significant number of users were found to be blocked.
Having discovered this, I found it to be important that I sign each and every book on the list in an effort to "reach out" to these editors. If they still have email alerts activated, then it might be just the boost they need to get them back into active editing again, or inspire them to do what they need to get unblocked, and become productive editors. I found that most of the user pages indicated these editors would be assets to the project were they to be active again.
I think the guestbook is an overlooked tool that is very similar to welcoming new users in that it is about being friendly and extending encouragement to other users, except it has the advantage of being useful for both new users and current users alike. We should be using it more. Thoughts? Huggums537 (talk) 14:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
When you say "we", are you saying that you think more new users should create guest books? Editors who welcome newcomers could choose to suggest it; perhaps you can discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Welcoming_committee. My personal inclination would be to try to connect new editors to active WikiProjects in which they may be interested, but different things can work for different people. isaacl (talk) 15:56, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Buster7, just quickly glancing at the name of your link without even opening it made me remember real quick that FA is a featured article. Thanks for that. However, there is nothing on the page I linked to that even remotely gives a clue about this, and you have to be an experienced editor to know that FA or GA means featured or good articles. Even the main page where I found the link in the "Identifying editors who have left, or who are at risk of leaving" section doesn't seem to give any clues about this for newer editors who might be interested in editor retention. It's my feeling that editor retention shouldn't just be only focused on old timers trying to make sure the newbies stick around, but welcoming for newbies who might care about old timers hanging around also.
This leads into my reply to Isaacl, because while "we" are talking about newbies, I tend to agree with Isaac that "we" should not offer guestbooks to new users as a first option since it is more important to have them getting into other projects they are interested in. I think maybe you missed the point about how the guest book could better be served as a tool for reaching editors who have been non active, and maybe getting them interested in becoming active again. In fact, I have some ideas about focusing more on inactive and/or blocked editors in an effort to reignite their desires to edit or do what it takes to edit productively again. I think these would be worthwhile endeavors that have not been paid much attention to. Huggums537 (talk) 22:35, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Please be assured I understood why you chose to reach out to everyone in their guest books; I was trying to understand what your proposal was regarding "we should be using it more". With blocked editors, I think tact is necessary, and it would be advisable to choose carefully who you approach. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing about any results. isaacl (talk) 22:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Sure. I'll keep the project apprised as I gather more data, and hopefully return some results. This should be more convincing than any arguments I could make by themselves. Huggums537 (talk) 23:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Huggums537:, I'm for pretty much anything that will work for retaining editors, so I'm certainly interested in your results, also. That said, I think there's a reason why this has been dormant for a while. It has a very strong feel of late-90s internet, Geocities, blinking icons, frame pages, and all that. Basically, it just feels incredibly dated. Like, maybe, trying to attract users by placing dancing disco babies or flying toasters (lots and lots of 'em) on my page, to attract viewers. I don't think anybody does guest books anymore; at least, except for online funeral memoriam sites, I can't think of anyplace; and that's not exactly the image I want people to associate with Wikipedia. Maybe you can make this work by rebranding it, get some consensus to call the page something else (I'll support you with a !vote if you come up with a good name), but I really don't think "guestbooks" are going to fly for editor retention. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and you're right, though. I admire your enthusiasm and energy; let me know how it goes. Mathglot (talk) 23:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Haha. I don't think attempting to do a name change of anything that goes back as far as Yahoo Geocities is in the forecast for me, but thanks for the vote of confidence and encouragement though. I appreciate it. Huggums537 (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Blah! So far results are pretty flat. Almost nobody seems to care about these things anymore. Kinda sad really. I think they're rather cool. Huggums537 (talk) 11:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't think the response means nobody cares about guest books any more. It just means when the editors in question decided to stop participating, they no longer check in, watch any pages, or receive and pay attention to email notifications, which seems very normal. isaacl (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Looking at mine the last fifty signatures go back quite a long way, the first hundred came much more quickly. I have to concede that guestbooks are not currently in fashion, though I think that fashion could return quite quickly in the right circumstances. I might add signing my guestbook as an optional uncontentious edit for newbies to do if I ever get back into outreach mode. I think guestbooks started as an Wikipedia:Esperanza initiative and went out of fashion when the "this is not a social network" view triumphed and made this site a less welcoming site, and in my view it isn't a coincidence that the era of exponential growth came to end in the same year that Esperanza was closed. ϢereSpielChequers12:33, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
I just started editing for about a month and I've noticed that the administrators are pretty hard on new users. They get upset when we make a mistake with a Wikipedia policy and they don't accept my drafts. They should be nicer to new users. What do you think?
64.121.103.144 (talk) 13:02, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree, and that applies not only to new new users but really to any users. Let's all spread plenty of WikiLove to each other! :-) EMsmile (talk) 00:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I think you don't do yourself any favor by having a negative conversation about administrators. There are many different kinds: easy-going and hard-ass; some are baby-sitters and some are drill sergeants. Once you get a handle on what you are doing here, you can have very little to do with administrators... unless you want to. See them as your friends and you will experience them differently. ―Buster7☎23:45, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Good point. And always assume good faith. Furthermore, I think the new code of conduct will also help. For me personally, this sentence is very important and reassuring: "Prolific contributions and technical expertise are not a justification for lower standards of behavior." EMsmile (talk) 03:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Making discretionary sanctions alert notices less scary for newbies
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Please rethink the project logo with the two white hands
Latest comment: 3 years ago54 comments14 people in discussion
I really think we ought to change the project logo which currently shows two hands which clearly belong to two white people. Let's be more inclusive to editors with any skin colour. I suggest replacing it with a more schematic image that shows no skin colour at all. Or two different shades of skin colour (but then we have the question of how dark to make the darker skin colour...). Please have a think about it. I mean this one: (edit by EMsmile on 7 May 2021: the logo has since been replaced after I made this comment; the old logo had two white skin coloured hands) EMsmile (talk) 00:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I think it's better but I wouldn't say it's perfect. My preference (like I had suggested above) would be to try a schematic that shows no skin colour at all; that means just the outlines of the two hands. Otherwise you will always struggle to get the right skin tones and variety of skin shades. But I won't press this further, perhaps mine is a minority view. The new image is better than the previous one. It might make people think which is a good start. Thanks for acting on my suggestion so swiftly, I appreciate that. EMsmile (talk) 13:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Here is how it looks without color. Personally, while recognizing your valid concerns, I like the with color version better. It feels more human. Carter (talk) 14:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The colorless version seems ghostly. I think the updated color version is a great improvement. Thanks everyone! VQuakr (talk) 16:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
So now we know what happened to Mickey Mouse's gloves:) Congrats to all for the updated colour version, good change. ϢereSpielChequers16:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I think a plain black-and-white version would work better with more stylized representation of hands with thicker lines. If someone could create a sample, that would be great to consider. isaacl (talk) 17:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Let me take this opportunity to offer one of my hands as a possible replacement. I'm not a professional hand model (yet) but my left hand would be available for a small "handling" fee. . ―Buster7☎18:23, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The new logo looks a little like an ode to unity between races or something, but I agree that having them both be completely white isn't visually compelling. My suggestion would be to make them both light blue; the abstraction is more modern anyways. {{u|Sdkb}}talk18:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I think the design work was good- but could be improved a little.
To me the colours were the wrong way round- dark needed to raise to light. A simple fix. Standard SVG colours have no life- so I copied too from a real photo. Lightening the dark meant the shading could be seen. I have never drawn finger-nails before but they do need a reflection- and with it a change of shape. So there is my offering ClemRutter (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
These are human hands, so it seems to send the message that the lighter-skinned people lift up the darker-skinned people (and would likely be interpreted most unfavorably by people alert to anything pertaining to race). Perhaps go back to dark above? Schazjmd(talk)19:50, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Schazjmd's glossing of it. It was an intentional decision to place it so that the darker hand was reaching out to the lighter one and not the other way around. Similarly, going with a non-human color (like light blue) seems dismissive of the original concern and the broader concerns reflected in the request. None of which means there isn't room for improvement in the design (adding fingernails to the thumbs as ClemRutter did) or that I feel like I own this. I just appreciate and agree with EMsmile's original point and wanted to see if I could help. Carter (talk) 20:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
thank you for this constructive brain storming session! I like the suggestion of stylised hands with non-natural colours - blue, green, whatever. Otherwise we run into the problem of which "ethnicity" is helping which "ethnicity" and the problem that very dark skinned people are routinely omitted from typical depictions of skin colour etc. If folks don't like the green/blue etc idea, perhaps don't use such a stark skin colour contrast where we now have very pale skin and brown skin, but different shades of olivy / brown skin. Like one hand light brown (which would also suit Asians) and one hand darker brown. But maybe it's all just too hard! Not sure. There's got to be people out there how know how it's done in the best, in the most inclusive and culturally-sensitive way. :-) my gut feeling would be that no skin colours at all is our safest bet, maybe. EMsmile (talk) 01:35, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree w/ Schazjmd. The message is easily mis-interpreted. Also, I remembered these just as an addition to the brainstorming. ―Buster7☎04:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Much of the issue seems to arise from the two hands being of "natural" colors that suggest either one or two races, when there are many more than two races in the human race. I suggest both hands be a non-"natural" color—probably neutral, maybe a light to medium gray—that would be represent the universal human. —RCraig09 (talk)05:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Carter Greetings:What exactly is the symbolism of the hands meant to be? Are they pulling, holding, greeting or discussing nail polish. From the example above- the image has to be displayed on a coloured background and will be only 100 pixels which really does limit the design possibilities. It's your project, but to help the debate I have placed the four options on a coloured background. Its the first time I have used the File:F frameless parameter. If anyone is proposing to use colours have they thought through the political symbolism they are introducing?? :-) ClemRutter (talk) 20:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Faites vos choix!
Not really my project, I'm just trying to help. The request was made to diversify the preexisting logo and I responded to address the concern raised with an eye to the political implications of what looked like two Caucasian/white hands in the logo. The hands themselves, as I parse them, represent one person offering a helping hand to another. Carter (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
That's it exactly Carter. Just one editor helping another. Of the four examples, I favor the second. ―Buster7☎23:16, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
I prefer Buster's option presented above. Having one hand (no matter what color) 'lifting' another implies that new editors are somehow 'less' than those who have been here. The simple handshake implies a welcome or meeting of equals, and the lack of color indicates we are all the same here and of equal value (no one is 'lifting' someone else up). I always felt the lifting idea was somewhat condescending, actually, but YMMV. Intothatdarkness01:44, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with the points made by Intothat and RCraig09. It would be a mindfield showing any natural colours (unless we are able to show many more hands than just two?) And I agree the aspect about the uplifting could be an issue, although it does indicate one person helping the other person with something. Ah, I didn't realise this would be a can of worms, sorry! :-) I am sure we'll find a good solution eventually. Should we perhaps draw on the expertise of someone at WMF? They might have already thought about it in their symbolism and logos (and it would help to raise the awareness of this WikiProject which would be good). EMsmile (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I think we're at the point where we've come to a rough consensus that it'd be better to avoid any human skin colors; further discussion about that will just make the can of worms messier, so to speak. What we need is some viable alternatives, either in the form of non-skin colors (an easy short-term fix) or well-made SVG logos. If someone wants to make us a completely new logo, we'll gladly take it (I've already linked here from the graphics lab), but I'd offer that it shouldn't really be our highest priority, as our logo isn't something that most new editors ever see. {{u|Sdkb}}talk04:32, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
All the worms have left the can and are fertilizing the fields of Wikipedia. A decision has been made and the logo will look like this going forward-----> . Always oPen to new ideas and logos but for now this discussion has been closed. ―Buster7☎19:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC) You are correct, "smile". I was a bit hasty. ―Buster7☎
Why are you closing this discussion so hastily, User:Buster7? I don't think that a consensus has been reached. The new logo is in some respects better than the old one but I don't think it's ideal yet. Why not leave the discussion open for those people who want to discuss it further? EMsmile (talk) 04:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
I remain opposed to using skin colors in the hands, and am not comfortable with the 'lifting up' imagery in any case. It implies someone has fallen and needs to be helped up or saved. The shaking hands logo (or some variation thereof) carries connotations of equals meeting. Being able to offer assistance shouldn't be seen as placing someone above someone else. Intothatdarkness13:40, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
I take the opposite position. Showing two different human skin tones shows there is diversity (even if not all skin tones are included) where the previous two hands, one skin tone implied a lack of diversity. I think going with unnatural colors is more problematic (if the hands are realistic) than not having the full range of possible human skin tones. It feels dismissive of human diversity ("I don't care if you're white, black, yellow, or purple!"). I also don't see the hand reaching out as "lifting up," but a request for and an offer of aid. Whether that is completely appropriate for editor retention or not, I think, could argued either way. That all said, looking at available SVG handshake images on Commons, I think the image at right could work as an alternative either without modification or with a W incorporated in some way. Carter (talk) 16:07, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
I can relate to the discomfort with the "lifting up" implication, and would be good with the shaking-hands on equal levels instead. Schazjmd(talk)16:32, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
The color question for me goes away to a large degree when the hand-shaking on equal levels logo comes into play (there's no implication of an automatically superior position and you could do variations to account for diversity). And I view editor retention as not always being about needed or offering aid. Sometimes it's encouragement or sharing of knowledge or recognizing the contributions of others. Intothatdarkness17:56, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Those are very good points, Carter and "Into". There's no sense of dominance...of one editor "needing" another. Equal terms working toward a common goal. ―Buster7☎20:47, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
SupportFile:Handshake logo.svg as is, and support it if a W is added on top of it. Please, anyone, scroll up and tell me that the length of this discussion isn't an embarrassment. We need to choose a new logo and move on, and the handshake looks perfectly nice. {{u|Sdkb}}talk20:56, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree, no need to rush this. Anyone who doesn't want to "waste" their time on this could simply not look at the talk page for a week or two, and then come back and see what happened. I also prefer the handshake logo over the uplifting logo. Just with the caveat that due to Covid, the whole handshake thing is going out of fashion and might never come back... but never mind! It's still a good symbol of collaboration. EMsmile (talk) 14:29, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Please, can we not quote words that were not said? Personally, I also don't like telling interested contributors that they can go away for a week. Plus wanting discussion to proceed effectively isn't the same as not wanting to participate. isaacl (talk) 20:11, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Sdkb that a simple handshake is best. The "uplifting" motif is ~loaded with potentially offensive innuendo, and adding the W just adds complexity. —RCraig09 (talk)17:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
I think a link to the concept of retaining English Wikipedia editors would be nice, and so personally I support having some symbol in the logo related to Wikipedia. isaacl (talk) 20:13, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Collaboration and support to all editors Sorry, I didn't mean to say to anyone to "go away". I was just reacting to the impression that I got from two others who seemed to be hinting that this was wasting our time. - I was actually wondering if the handshake symbol is not a bit old fashioned. I guess it's supposed to symbolise collaboration. But is a handshake really a universal thing? Could be that other parts of the world don't do handshakes. Or in some cultures it's only males who shake hands. I am wondering if we don't want to emphasis a bit more the diversity aspect. Like saying "this project is about editor retention and we'd like to welcome all genuinely interested editors, no matter which part of the world they are from - and the more diverse the better." Therefore, I have looked in Wikimedia Commons for an image of "diversity" and found this one. I think it might capture our ideas quite well. The hearts would symbolise wikilove and assuming good faith with other editors. Just something to think about. - If everyone else wants to stick with the handshake or hands symbol, that's fine - just putting out another suggestion here.
It is well done and would fit the space nicely. That logo was developed for the Diversity learning patterns campaign; is using it as is here causing any potential confusion or conflict with that project and its goals? Does it imply anything about (or add anything to) the editor retention effort that needs to be considered? Carter (talk) 13:05, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm devil's advocating here, as I don't mind the 'flower,' but what about it aside from the abstract heart idea represents humans? Not everyone will notice the hearts and may assume it's just a flower. And as it's been used before, branding may be concern as was mentioned. Intothatdarkness13:40, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I can't see how branding could be problematic? It has been used for something else long before (and not anymore now). It's in Wikimedia Commons under an open access licence so we can use and reuse it if we want. The hearts are meant to represent Wikilove and support to each other. The different colours are meant to indicate diversity. I am new to WikiProject Editor Retention so I am not sure if it's been discussed before: but my working hypothesis is that it's the "non typical" Wikipedia editors that are harder to retain than the "typical" ones. With typical I mean males from Europe and the United States. Therefore, members of this WikiProject should be culturally aware and make an extra effort to be inclusive towards a range of editor types. Those two White hands were not good, I think we have consensus there. Even the handshake one in my opinion leans more towards two males and Western culture. I know that handshakes are not "the thing" in all parts of the world. If this new logo is not quite perfect either, we could hunt around more on Wikimedia Commons using search terms such as "collaboration", "support", "inclusivity" or "diversity". I like it though and think it might do the trick for this WikiProject, for now. EMsmile (talk) 08:38, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Gandydancer! - Would it be OK to say we have reached a consensus of sorts and now swap over the logo of this WikiProject to the one with the hearts? If yes, who can make it happen? (if - at some point in the future - someone has a better logo idea this can be revisited) EMsmile (talk) 00:47, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Just to move things along I have now replaced the logo on the project page. Was that too hastily done? If so, please revert and continue discussion here. If you do agree, then let's change it also in the talk page header template (I don't know how to do that). EMsmile (talk) 01:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, looks good. If approval is given there are several templates in need of changing. That will be an easy evenings work.ClemRutter (talk) 09:38, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I showed a preview and the flower was there- so Publish. But is that what we wanted- our flower is a png, on a white background- do we want it on white- or on a transparent background. There is no svg available. Do we use the png as an interim? ClemRutter (talk) 10:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
Worst months since 2006
Latest comment: 3 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
For context, we can pick up from the last thread you started: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Archive 35 § Very bad 5 months. Probably more key is the chart of active editors, which is up in 2021 (an increase in edits typically has to be matched with more active editors, as it's unlikely that the average number of edits per active editor is going to spike). Is anyone interested in driving a welcoming committee to help new editors find areas of interest, thereby encouraging them to become active editors? isaacl (talk) 15:48, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
I'll note that of course the WMF growth team is working on new features (which you've posted about) that try to address this problem. Editors interested in this approach should follow the development and trials of the growth features, and get involved as opportunities become available. I think one-on-one engagement is something that individual editors can do; the tricky part is how to find someone sufficiently knowledgeable enough to use a talk page and willing to engage in conversation. Welcomers could, for example, monitor key pages across many different topic areas, and reach out to new editors. Or they could look for new editors who have already edited talk pages, and try to engage with them. Someone interested in driving a welcoming initiative can hold a brainstorming session to come up with more ideas. isaacl (talk) 16:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
First thing to do is approach potential editors as if they're adults. Let's have pages that work for all types of platforms. It's clear we have gone in the wrong direction and should back pedal a lot. Moxy-00:36, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Sure: where do you envision approaching potential editors? Would you like to lead a brainstorming session on ideas on doing this, possibly in conjunction with any other interested volunteers? isaacl (talk) 00:56, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Guess I will have to......first we should make a welcome template that incorporates topics the editors may be interested in..... this could be figure it out by the category of article they are editing over a random message that leads to non normal pages.Moxy-01:06, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion
User:Ohnoitsjamie "bit" me with a "stop your disruptive editing" + ban warning over moving iCloud leaks of celebrity photos to 2014 celebrity nude photo leaks, here:[4] It should be obvious to anybody spending more than 2 seconds looking at this that my edit wasn't at all disruptive and that I didn't deserve having my talk page blemished with an insulting, condescending and not least threatening message like that. How are you expecting to retain users when even experienced admins display such wanton disregard for policy guidelines, and with no resort for the bitten user but to "consider explaining why you were offended"? These kind of things add up and really creates a toxic environment. I really think mods and admins need to be held to a higher standard than this. NEOGEO6 (talk) 02:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
In general, I feel the course you've taken to open a discussion on the talk page is a good way forward. Having a calm, reasoned discussion is the best way to demonstrate your commitment to collaboration. isaacl (talk) 03:30, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm not posting here seeking personal redress or in an attempt to "demonstrate my commitment to collaboration" (why should I have to? I've done nothing wrong). I'm bringing this up an easily verifiable example of an obviously systemic problem that I think is something this project should attempt to do something about. NEOGEO6 (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I'm suggesting a general approach when someone has contested an editor's motivations. I agree it can be unfair for editor A to have to demonstrate to editor B that there's been a misunderstanding with editor A's intentions. In a volunteer, collaborative environment, for better or worse, the first step is usually for editors A and B to discuss their disagreement and try to resolve it. isaacl (talk) 03:42, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
That's fine, but that's not the issue I'm trying to raise here. The policies are really clear on this topic, see WP:BOLD, WP:AGF, and again, WP:BITE. Even if we generously assume User:Ohnoitsjamie's warning to me was somehow a mistake or a misunderstanding (which I would accept if he apologized to me, but again, this isn't about me seeking personal redress), he is clearly in violation of those policies, despite apparently having been an admin since 2005. What kind of message does this send to users when somebody like that can break these basic guideline policies in any way they want with zero consequences? What effect do you think that has on user retention? WHy would any normal individual want to remain in a hostile and toxic environment like this? Wikipedia as a collective collectively allows this to happen, is accepting of it even. Something needs to change to improve things. How? That's what I want to discuss. I think for example that admins and mods should be called out forcefully on these things when they happen, not by the bitten user but by the community. But I suppose this is a lost cause. NEOGEO6 (talk) 03:52, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Giving constructive feedback is really hard, and accepting negative feedback is also hard. In the non-Wikipedia world, typically organizations have a hierarchy to help deal with problems, and it's still hard. I have on some occasions posted some feedback on an editor's talk page, but generally only if I have some sense that my comments will be given due consideration. The reality is that there is no consensus in the community on how to provide constructive feedback in a way that maximizes the chance for improvement. Unfortunately, without a hierarchy, English Wikipedia remains beholden to trying to use consensus to decide when an issue is significant, and consensus just doesn't scale up to anything beyond a small group. isaacl (talk) 04:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I have in the past spent some time trying to think of ways to encourage feedback to be received positively. One idea I suggested was for editors to pre-emptively designate one or more trusted editors to provide feedback. In the advent of any issues, one of the trusted editors could be contacted and they would determine what to do next (including filtering out any spurious complaints). This of course would likely only be helpful in a very small number of cases (unless it became a community norm, but the chances of that seem virtually zero at present), and so no one voiced any support. Another idea I had was to establish a pool of trusted editors to evaluate issues and provide feedback as needed, but I think there would be too much opposition from those opposed to additional hierarchy. isaacl (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
I think every editor that has been here for a while can remember more than one incident of admin abuse. I can think of four (at the time) well known administrators that I had alarming, contentious engagements with. But they are all gone and I am still here. With a brief cursory viewing of OhNoItsJamie's talk page I see that many other editors have questioned why they were cited for disruptive editing. Common sense tells me that many many more were cited but did not speak up. When my wife and I go ballroom dancing, my feet get stepped on often by other dancers. Now I can stop in mid twirl and go complain to the orchestra leader or the dance hall manager or maybe the bartender. But really... what good will it do. So I just give him a dirty look and move away to enjoy the dancefloor somewhere else. Nothing I do can get the other guy to change his ways. And when it comes to WikiPedia admins and their questionable actions, well. I think "a lost cause" and "waste of precious time" are good advices. Don't be deterred by administrative "gotchas". Your input to the encyclopedia is more important than their bureaucratic nonsense. ―Buster7☎05:20, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
I understand the advice you're giving to me, as an individual, here. But consider that I brought this up here because how I might decide to act after being bitten/stepped on isn't relevant in the larger discussion as to what type of community this creates and what the larger consequences are. Obviously the solution to the problem of low user retention isn't that the users leaving just ought to somehow find the mental fortitude to stay despite the toxicity - the solution is to do something about the toxicity. As for the ballroom analogy, allow me to adjust it to better reflect the situation as I see it: let's say there are several different ballrooms that you frequent (= online collaborative communities with hierarchies), but you notice that at this one ballroom in particular, other dancers, even the top ones who themselves are involved in the organization of it, repeatedly step on yours and other's people's feet without a care in the world, ruining your night. On your way out, when you've decided this ballroom definitely isn't for you, you notice some of the other organizers discussing the issue of falling membership and what to do about it. This is where I am right now. But I don't doubt it's "a lost cause" and "waste of precious time", as you suggest (I don't say this sarcastically or to denigrate you or anybody else participating in this discussion: it seems like a simple statement of fact). NEOGEO6 (talk) 06:55, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
One more thing to note about following up with productive discussion: it's a form of soft feedback to the other editor, which hopefully encourages improvement. isaacl (talk) 14:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
This is in no way a solution to the larger problem. It can't fall onto new users who've been trampled on to provide "soft feedback" in order to reform mods and admins who perpetrate bad behavior/willfully break policy (and in some instances, like with the admin in this particular case, appear to have been active on Wikipedia since its inception). NEOGEO6 (talk) 07:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
No one has claimed it is a silver bullet solution. If there were an easy solution, it would have been implemented already. There are already venues to raise concerns about editor actions, but they are of limited effectiveness, both from the point of view of getting constructive feedback received and of dealing with spurious complaints. Until there is some form of cultural change, I don't know how much can be done to resolve this problem. isaacl (talk) 14:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
One thing I wonder is if Twinkle makes it too easy to be harsher than is intended. Setting aside the issue of appropriateness (and from my perspective, it looks like Ohnoitsjamie's warning wasn't appropriate), the language looks like stock language with no tailoring to the situation at hand. Ultimately, it's up to the user to make sure they're using the right template and language for the situation, but it can be really easy to just drop a caution and not look back. Not sure if there's a solution in this, but it's something to think about. If nothing else WP:TWINKLEABUSE should really be emphasized to editors. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Sorry Neo. You are barking up the wrong tree. The Editor Retention Project is really no more than a bunch of old WikiPedia greybeards/farts sitting on park benches in WiKiPark waiting for someone to stop by and chat. It is our self-appointed duty to provide fellow editors a space for conversations on issues-of-the-day so they can vent and, perhaps, find a kind ear and, perhaps even more importantly, find similar-minded editors to take up the cause presented. Kind of like Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner. We tolerate and promote free speech. I just remembered the Wikipedia:WikiProject Conflict Resolution page (it has been inactive for years). Not what you want to hear I know but search around. Maybe you will create the solution. ―Buster7☎13:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Project logo
Latest comment: 3 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Following on from the April discussion to replace the project logo, I spent some time today trying to track down all instances of the old project logo and then updating them. On the Project Handshake subpage, I used the more diverse version of the old two-hands logo instead of the new flower logo (it just seemed to fit better with the name). Hopefully I found all the instances. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
In a field experiment with 57,084 new accounts on French Wikipedia in early 2020, we did not detect any influence from the welcome message on the percentage of accounts that went on to make their first edit. We also did not find any reliable effect on the estimated number of minutes they contributed to Wikipedia over the next 84 days. Similarly, we did not find any significant differences between the “contact me” welcome message and the standard one.
Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
My name is Gavriila Dmitriev and I was allowed to be active here on WP since roughly one month. I'm saying that on purpose since I am a VPN user and I had to start several tries (in the end it took some years, because it wasn't #1 topic in my life) until a friendly user finally enabled me to give me a one month IPBE to prove myself.
I'm glad that I found a good and fitting mentor for me but sadly he is currently quite busy and I don't want to bother him more than I am already doing.
Since then I traveled several forsaken pages and WikiProjects. I saw a lot of outdated information where noone seemed to care to update or delete it.
While I enjoy working for the community, doing edits and hopefully bringing my first article online, I start developing serious doubts.
On one hand I really need connection to other caring and active people. I'm writing here to have some meaningful connections before I'm disillusioned since I never found or received answers to some of my many questions. While everyone is invited to get in contact with me on the talk page, I'm also on IRC.
You can have a look at the talk page of your mentor to gauge how many questions they are fielding from other editors; some mentors aren't very busy. But in any case, I suggest just being open with them on your concerns and patient in waiting for responses. A few of the people you contacted about being a mentor have responded positively and so you can also follow up with them. I see you've posted responses to the Teahouse; this can be a good place for you to have some informal discussions on matters of interest to you. Good luck. isaacl (talk) 22:14, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank your for your reply @Isaacl and the effort to check the background of my situation. I'm afraid I failed to specify what my message was about. It was not my intention to look for a new mentor as I said I'm happy with my current one. I also don't look for informal discussions on various topics. That issues would be actually easier resolved in the Teahouse as you have mentioned. GavriilaDmitriev (talk • they/them) 03:03, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Sure, I wasn't suggesting to get a new mentor. I think you can ask questions of your mentor and be open with them about your worries of overloading them with questions. They'll be happy to work with you to ensure their workload is manageable. Since you want to make more connections, a good place to start is with the editors with whom you've already connected and who invited you to respond. You can also look for active WikiProjects that interest you and ask them any relevant questions you have. Good luck again. isaacl (talk) 05:47, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi @GavriilaDmitriev—just chiming in to affirm that others are reading your post and seeing you
I second Isaacl's suggestion to post at the Teahouse—that's a very active, established venue (compared to the brand new mentor system), and you're likely to get a lot of responses there. The questions that generate the most discussion have a few traits: they're specific enough that they articulate the trouble you're having, they're concise enough that they can be read quickly, and they're complex enough that they can't just be answered with a link (and show that you've put in the work to try resolving the issue yourself before asking about it).
Another suggestion I have if you'd like to explore the more social side of Wikipedia is to try visiting some of the discussion venues, e.g. the village pump pages, and offer your thoughts on existing threads there. Wade in slowly at first, but as you gain experience, you'll likely feel comfortable contributing in more and more areas. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}}talk04:55, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Feedback on the New User Homepage
Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Is this the correct place to provide feedback on the New User Homepage? If not can someone please direct me to the correct place as there don't appear to be any links for providing feedback on it. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#654501:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
Moved from Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1102 § Making talk pages healthier, especially for newcomers
12:59, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § Potential plan for experimental deployment. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:04, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Does this achieve the goal? Carter (talk) 11:59, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Done Carter (talk) 13:17, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Here is how it looks without color. Personally, while recognizing your valid concerns, I like the with color version better. It feels more human. Carter (talk) 14:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
. ―Buster7 ☎ 18:23, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
just as an addition to the brainstorming. ―Buster7 ☎ 04:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
10:02, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
