Being a newbie ... it sucks

I have to post messages to #Wikipedias. I am doing this with my Wikimedia Foundation profile and I am not happy. I am treated as if I am stupid. I cannot add new topics to discussion pages, I can not even edit the discussion pages I need.

There is a very easy solution for me; I can ask for global sysop rights as I am "staff" however, that is cheating. It is more fun to start yelling because the restrictions on newbies are so ... off-putting.

What is the point of not allowing to enter new topics ... It is stupid!
What is the point of not allowing to edit a discussion page ... It is stupid!

Guess what I would be doing if I did not make a career out of it? I would walk not to return.
Thanks,
      GerardM

I edit #Wikipedia. Ask me How!

Providing help to people who want to edit Wikipedia is the kind of initiative that is beautiful. Any initiative that intends to lower the threshold to entry is commendable.

User:Filceolaire edits Wikipedia and he blogged that he is willing to help. Awesome !!

The reactions he got ? Well you can find it here for instance. It goes the whole spectrum from GREAT!! to you should care about content. I do care about content but single editors do not scale. People who are available to those new to Wikipedia are my kind of hero.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Newbies nor #admins are the problem. #Trust is.

Once trust is lost, it is hard to regain. #Wikipedia has a problem with the stickiness of newbies. That is, we want the good to stay with the project and we want the bad to take a hike. Something similar is true for admins.

As we need both newbies and admins and as there is a lack of trust, trust is what we must build. Building trust is a process, a process takes time and effort when we are to close the chasm that exists between the good newbies and the good admins.

The Wikimedia board published a resolution where they outline a direction that is to bring us openness and collaboration. The board has cause to take this initiative because they have identified the retention of good people as our number one priority. They charge Sue and the WMF staff to make this their number one priority.

To trust WMF staff, you have to know them. As the staff is to reach out to the communities, information should be available on all the staff with a high quality picture. This makes the staff less remote and it builds trust.

When newbies come to us, the good ones are likely to have friends. When these friends are Wikimedians, we typically trust these friends. When an admin  can ask these friends to take our newbie under their wings, they have reason to trust.

When it is easy for newbies to find their Wikimedia friends, their initiation of our procedural vagaries become less intimidating. When a friendly, open environment is considered to be a deliverable, it does not follow that this gives a free reign to the vandals, the trolls. They are and remain the main cause of the existing lack of trust. Their stickiness is why admins have blocking powers, their wrangling is why we have arbitrators. They can trust us to fight them.

The newbies and the admins are not the trolls. They need an environment that makes trust, particular initial trust easy and this is why we need to be open, collaborative and much more social.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Newbies are a social problem and require a social solution

The English #Wikipedia has two closely connected problems. Not enough newbies and too many newbies. The second problem is efficiently dealt with and several studies have confirmed the existence of the first.

The strategy of dealing with new articles, particularly new articles is one of scorched earth. This tactic is developed by dedicated, well meaning people whose objective is to maintain a high level of quality.

The lack of newbies who grow into valued editors in our projects is considered to be the most serious challenge we face. Studies are done, statistics compiled, meetings are convened, policy papers are written, IRC discussions with Sue are held, it must be serious.

Making villains out of the recent changes patrolers is one solution but that does present its own problem. Our conventional solutions offer no solace. Really, it is time for desperate measures as we face desperate times. Wikipedia as we know it could die.

Wikipedia needs to change in order to cope. To find out, we need to analyse the situation.

• a well meaning newbie writes his first contribution
• in order to cope with the flood of new contributions it gets deleted by a well meaning admin

Let us change the game by introducing a social dimension.

• a person comes to Wikipedia, he has friends in Facebook, MySpace, Buzz whatever
• this well meaning newbie writes his first contribution
• a well meaning admin asks his friends to help him improve his act

All real people have friends, and when someone is attracted to Wikipedia, it is likely that some of his friends are already there. Real friends will help out when asked so why not ask them to help out.

As Wikipedia has a social problem, any technical attempt to a solution will have only a limited impact when it has no social dimension. When Wikipedia welcomes a newbie and knows its friends, we have a realistic alternative to the well meaning admins; they can kick the contribution to the "Russian incubator" where it can be nurtured in a friendly environment.

I bet my reputation that we need more social skills
Thanks,
      GerardM

On #Wikipedia we have no friends

#Facebook is wildly successful because all your "friends" are there. Wikipedia by contrast has a problem growing its community, it is not where you have friends.

Most of my Facebook friends I know because of a mutual Wikimedia interest. Many of these friends I have met and I would consider helping them when asked. Leigh Thelmadatter came to me for help because I advertised myself as a GLAM ambassador.

She is preparing a GLAM partnership with a Mexican museum and, I have enjoyed many an interesting conversation with her and was happy to help her with several Tropenmuseum pictures of Mexican objects.

Conversations among friends are not limited to the business at hand. We talked about education, Mexico, photography, pain in my back ... The photography part provides an other reason how Leigh adds to her Wikimedia relevance; she has uploaded over 5100 pictures taken by her and her husband of the nooks and crannies of Mexico and this makes it an awesome collection.

As she likes the picture of the San Miguel Concá mission very much and as it clearly demonstrates a different style of church, I nominated it for featured picture.

I wish that we could all be friends, Wikipedia friends. I wish I could help my friends who come new to Wikipedia. It will help when you can find the friends that are already there. When you make a booboo as a newbie, it is friends who can help you best settling in, who can make you feel welcome.

Wikipedia is not Facebook, but we can learn from Facebook how to be nice and have friends.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Dealing with Internet #Trolls - the Cognitive #Therapy Approach

Trolls and #vandals are the bane of polite and effective conversations and collaboration on many projects and mailing lists. They poison the atmosphere and particularly newbies are the victims of what easily can be described as a war of attrition. While trolls and vandals are dysfunctional in many respects, many who are perceived as such did not intent to be disruptive at the start.

A blog post titled "Dealing with Internet Trolls - the Cognitive Therapy Approach" recognises that there will be always someone inadvertently feeding the troll. Consequently the standard wisdom of dealing with trolls is flaky at best and the need for another approach is obvious.

Hugging a troll is a bit much, but learning about cognitive therapy can help in dealing with this subspecies of the Homo sapiens. The recommended book by Dr. David D. Burnsis is a self help book teaching cognitive therapy. Key is how to properly handle criticisms from peers. The super-executive summary for the key part  is: "On the Internet, don't be right - be smart".

Obviously a self help book is intended for those in need of help. However, when dealing with trolls or vandals we are in need of help. The objective for us is not to swat the newbies like flies but to help them become competent and collaborative peers.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The 50 most spoken languages

At #translatewiki.net localisers for all languages are welcome. The 50 most spoken languages however provides a benchmark that indicates to what extend we are reaching the people of the world. Such statistics are used to report to the Wikimedia Foundation about how well we are doing with the localisation of MediaWiki.

Recently the first localisers for the Oriya language have surfaced and in a few days, the score for the Oriya localisation has gone up from 3 to 12. This is a happy occasion because the user experience of the Oriya Wikipedia has already improved as a consequence.

This new activity is the result of the close cooperation that exists between the Indian language projects. One of the newbie localisers was introduced in the vagaries of translatewiki by an experienced localiser and he is clearly finding his feet.
Thanks,
        GerardM

Giving context to a friend in a social network

In #Wikipedia the call to be nice to newbies is an old one. The arguments for and against are pretty much well established and, these positions do not move. With a decline in the number of editors that stay with us, a different approach is sought.

When people make their first edit, they may be new to our community but chances are that they have friends who are well established. These friends are the most likely people willing to help when the first steps by a newbie are a bit wobbly. The trick is to engage these friends and to do that, it helps when a social network enables us to signal them.

It is really efficient to have social relations deal with the mess people make when they are new. Social control coming from friends is more appreciated then the templated instructions coming from someone who flies by. When someone is known to have social relations, the modus operandi of the people checking new articles can change; in stead of barking to the newbie they yell for a friend.

Wikipedia so far does not consider its role as a social network but it already is. People are invited to IRC for help, people establish wiki relations in social networks, they can be found on mailing lists. These relations while real are informal and cannot yet be leveraged.

When a social network is established for our context we have gained an approach to the newbies that come to us as friends.
Thanks,
       GerardM

The #Russian #Wikipedia treats its newbies right

When you are new to Wikipedia, you are expected to comply with a baffling array of policies and practices starting with your very first article. To top it off, the ease of use of MediaWiki is another stumbling block.

To make things worse, there is the perennial issue of newbies that get bitten by bots and hurried admins. As we want to not only grow our editor community but also want to have more women and minorities suggestions for improvement are welcome.

The Russian Wikipedia has a practice in place that is working really well for them; they have their incubator for new Wikipedians. They have a subspace called the Incubator, this is a place for beginning editors. They usually get spotted and are invited to move with their first article to the Incubator.  They can quietly learn the policies and practices without having to protect their articles from speedy deletion and other annoyances.

A dedicated team of people who are mostly active in Incubator help the newbies. The first generation of users who went through the Incubator have had their articles moved to the main space, and some of these became featured articles...

This proven method of welcoming newbies is paying off; the Russian Wikipedia is the top 5 in traffic and it has an annual growth in traffic of 62%. They are great at welcoming women, they even built templates to fix the localisation where gender is not yet supported in the software.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Welcome to #Wikipedia

We'll have newbies for breakfast and lunch... what is for dinner? Seems to sum up the welcome given to new Wikipedians. Particularly the bigger projects are infamous for the "we know best because we are here longer" mentality.

It certainly proves that we as Wikipedians are not good Christians because otherwise we would have learned that Jezus did not like the practices of the Pharisees and also that what you do for the least of us, you do for Jezus.

So what can we do to welcome our newbies in our ranks. To start off, we can let them be bold and have them introduce themselves. Best practices at translatewiki.net has them identify their language ability and ask for translator rights. This is extremely valuable because it establishes that they understand English. We use the Babel extension for this and it establishes in what language a person can communicate in. It does not require templates so it is particularly beneficial for the small and new communities.

Many Wikipedias have projects dedicated to subjects. It would be nice when people can identify their interests. This allows people with compatible interests to take the newbies under their wings and protect them from the worst abuse.

Finally, we can add value for being a Wikimedian. As the Wikimedia Foundation is a five hundred pound gorilla and unlike with Facebook and Google our users are not the product so it would be a gift when we can like Facebook and Google identify ourselves as Wikimedians.

I would be happy to be identified as a Wikipedian and I would love to learn any argument why a Facebook or a Google would not accept such credentials. By establishing an identity anchored in the Free content world, the merits of our ways will rub off on anyone new to us and this may prove strategic in realising our aims for the next five years.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Your #localisation is needed to improve our #usability

#Commons is the first project with the best usability software our developers have to offer. Research shows that newbies do better with vector, the new skin. If the Wikimedia projects need one thing, it is more newbies sticking with our projects.

The message that localisation is needed to improve usability has been often repeated. It is an message easy to explain; if you do not understand what it says, it is not usable. When you look compare the statistics from last month, you will find that as a percentage things have not improved for most languages.

This is due largely to new messages that explain the opt-out system for the hard core monobook fans. Changing Commons first gives everyone a clear view what all our Wikipedias will look like. It provides you with a real experience why it is important to localise the usability software now.

It is important that you do because preliminary figures show that some 20% of the people who were converted to vector went back to monobook. This is a clear indication that many people are not happy. You can make a positive difference and, this difference starts by localising for your language at translatewiki.net.
Thanks,
      GerardM