Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

[Kerry Raymond]

 contributors are source-edit people. Our newer people will be a mix of 
source-edit and Visual Editor people. A Visual Editor user cannot write on a 
Project Page or any Talk page with the Visual Editor because the Visual Editor 
has not been enabled for those name spaces (it’s one of those “it was good 
enough for me” issues). You can get around this for an individual Project page 
or Talk page by adding the template

 

{{VEFriendly}} at the top of the page, see it in action on my User Talk page

 

 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kerry_Raymond> 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kerry_Raymond

 

Aside. I notice this template does not appear on the top of 

 

 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Research> 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Research

 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Research> 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Research

 

Is there any reason why not? BTW, who are the “project leaders” in that project?

 

But back to my point, if you have an invitee who appears to be a VE user, you 
probably want to connect them to a VE-Friendly mentor (they don’t have to be an 
active VE user themselves, but ought to have some understanding of how the VE 
User “sees” an article and how to give advice in “VE Speak” not source-editor 
notation). If the first piece of advice the new VE recruit gets is to “change 
to the source editor”, it’s not exactly welcoming. So you probably want to ask 
your mentors about the source-vs-visual editor issue. You probably need each 
project to have a mentor who is OK with VE or else you may be recruiting 
someone you can’t match with a mentor. I think all mentors will be fluent in 
source editor but fewer will be comfortable with VE.

 

Now it may be that others on this list see WikiProjects in a different way to 
me because the WikiProjects they are involved with operate in different ways 
and have a different culture. So hopefully people will chime in with other 
perspectives.

 

Kerry

 

 

From: Bowen Yu [mailto:yuxxx...@umn.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, 21 June 2017 12:00 PM
To: kerry.raym...@gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
<wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

 

Thanks for your thoughts, Kerry and Jonathan!

 

Here is some response for your comments.

 

1. Regarding the targeted projects. Yes, we will definitely focus on content 
projects only for the reasons you mentioned. "Women in Red" is kind of special, 
and I don't think we will include it for now. Sorry for not being clear about 
this.

 

2. Regarding the invitation tactics. We do think there is a spectrum here, by 
either providing templates or giving total freedom to the recruiters. Also, not 
sure if some projects have their own templates of recruiting new members, but 
for now, we will provide general guidance for constructing recruiting the 
message. For instance, as mentioned in the meta-page, we will encourage project 
organizers to write personalized welcome messages, make specific task requests, 
or provide resource to start. Hope this should do the job - getting the right 
tone while still having it under control.

 

3. Yeh, for evaluation like if the invitation is taken, thanks for providing 
all those reasonable possibilities. Listing themselves on the project page 
might be one approach, but as Kerry mentioned, it might not work sometime. 
Rather, we can just see if they make any edit on the project (talk) pages as a 
sign of getting involved, or more loosely, if they keep editing project related 
articles. We will also provide short survey questions for each recommended 
editor to let organizers/project leaders evaluate the recommendation quality. 
We are expecting the project leaders to self-identify themselves when we post a 
recruiting message on the targeted projects to look for volunteer participants 
for our study (we will explicitly mention looking for "project leaders" or 
using similar descriptions).

 

On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 4:11 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com 
<mailto:kerry.raym...@gmail.com> > wrote:

There are pros and cons.

Having a standard invitation makes for better research as the project outcomes 
are more comparable but perhaps worse for recruitment.

Perhaps the WikiProjects involved could write the invitation for the person to 
participate, hopefully they can get the tone right. They might want to 
particularly encourage (or discourage) people with specific skills or 
interests, e.g. "We are particularly interested in expanding our articles on 
Pacific Island 17th century wrestling. We are in desperate need of people who 
can develop templates. Our project prides itself on fully cited articles." But 
then differences in the invitation may lead to differences in the uptake. 
Better recruitmen

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

[Bowen Yu]

Thanks for your thoughts, Kerry and Jonathan!

Here is some response for your comments.

1. Regarding the targeted projects. Yes, we will definitely focus on
content projects only for the reasons you mentioned. "Women in Red" is kind
of special, and I don't think we will include it for now. Sorry for not
being clear about this.

2. Regarding the invitation tactics. We do think there is a spectrum here,
by either providing templates or giving total freedom to the recruiters.
Also, not sure if some projects have their own templates of recruiting new
members, but for now, we will provide general guidance for constructing
recruiting the message. For instance, as mentioned in the meta-page, we
will encourage project organizers to write personalized welcome messages,
make specific task requests, or provide resource to start. Hope this should
do the job - getting the right tone while still having it under control.

3. Yeh, for evaluation like if the invitation is taken, thanks for
providing all those reasonable possibilities. Listing themselves on the
project page might be one approach, but as Kerry mentioned, it might not
work sometime. Rather, we can just see if they make any edit on the project
(talk) pages as a sign of getting involved, or more loosely, if they keep
editing project related articles. We will also provide short survey
questions for each recommended editor to let organizers/project leaders
evaluate the recommendation quality. We are expecting the project leaders
to self-identify themselves when we post a recruiting message on the
targeted projects to look for volunteer participants for our study (we will
explicitly mention looking for "project leaders" or using similar
descriptions).

On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 4:11 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> There are pros and cons.
>
> Having a standard invitation makes for better research as the project
> outcomes are more comparable but perhaps worse for recruitment.
>
> Perhaps the WikiProjects involved could write the invitation for the
> person to participate, hopefully they can get the tone right. They might
> want to particularly encourage (or discourage) people with specific skills
> or interests, e.g. "We are particularly interested in expanding our
> articles on Pacific Island 17th century wrestling. We are in desperate need
> of people who can develop templates. Our project prides itself on fully
> cited articles." But then differences in the invitation may lead to
> differences in the uptake. Better recruitment, but worse research.
>
> And of course what are the variables being measured for the outcome:
> * number of people invited to each WikiProject (presumably easy enough)
> * number of people who take up the invitation - how do we determine this?
> listing themselves on the Project page under Participants (yikes, I am
> active in many projects where I haven't done that), increasing their level
> of editing on articles associated with that project, increased activity on
> the project Talk page? Opinion of project leaders (do we have project
> leaders)? Self-identifying as such when asked by researchers?
> * level of activity wrt to the project at various periods after the
> invitation is accepted (when is it accepted? See above)
>
> Kerry
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org]
> On Behalf Of Jonathan Cardy
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2017 8:02 PM
> To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities <
> wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation
>
> Hi Bowen,
>
> If you are going to promote wikiprojects by recommendation then you need
> to test different styles of recommendation. Taking what may still be the
> two biggest wikiprojects, MILHIST and professional wrestling, what worked
> as an invitation for either might be quite different than what would work
> for Opera or chemistry. Tone of voice is important when you are seeking to
> entice volunteers.
>
> You also need to allow for the effect of different existing recruitment
> programs. These tend to be subtle, but they will vary, and that variation
> could mask your project. The most obvious recruitment is via wikiproject
> tagging of articles, and that isn't necessarily done by people who are
> active in the project concerned.
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan
>
>
> > On 20 Jun 2017, at 07:35, Bowen Yu <yuxxx...@umn.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > We are preparing to conduct a study about WikiProject recommendations.
> > The goals of our study are (1) to understand the effectiveness of
> > different recommendation algorithms on recruiting new members to
> > WikiProjects, and
&

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

[Kerry Raymond]

There are pros and cons.

Having a standard invitation makes for better research as the project outcomes 
are more comparable but perhaps worse for recruitment.

Perhaps the WikiProjects involved could write the invitation for the person to 
participate, hopefully they can get the tone right. They might want to 
particularly encourage (or discourage) people with specific skills or 
interests, e.g. "We are particularly interested in expanding our articles on 
Pacific Island 17th century wrestling. We are in desperate need of people who 
can develop templates. Our project prides itself on fully cited articles." But 
then differences in the invitation may lead to differences in the uptake. 
Better recruitment, but worse research.

And of course what are the variables being measured for the outcome:
* number of people invited to each WikiProject (presumably easy enough)
* number of people who take up the invitation - how do we determine this? 
listing themselves on the Project page under Participants (yikes, I am active 
in many projects where I haven't done that), increasing their level of editing 
on articles associated with that project, increased activity on the project 
Talk page? Opinion of project leaders (do we have project leaders)? 
Self-identifying as such when asked by researchers?
* level of activity wrt to the project at various periods after the invitation 
is accepted (when is it accepted? See above)

Kerry

-Original Message-
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On 
Behalf Of Jonathan Cardy
Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2017 8:02 PM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
<wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

Hi Bowen,

If you are going to promote wikiprojects by recommendation then you need to 
test different styles of recommendation. Taking what may still be the two 
biggest wikiprojects, MILHIST and professional wrestling, what worked as an 
invitation for either might be quite different than what would work for Opera 
or chemistry. Tone of voice is important when you are seeking to entice 
volunteers.

You also need to allow for the effect of different existing recruitment 
programs. These tend to be subtle, but they will vary, and that variation could 
mask your project. The most obvious recruitment is via wikiproject tagging of 
articles, and that isn't necessarily done by people who are active in the 
project concerned.

Regards

Jonathan


> On 20 Jun 2017, at 07:35, Bowen Yu <yuxxx...@umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> We are preparing to conduct a study about WikiProject recommendations. 
> The goals of our study are (1) to understand the effectiveness of 
> different recommendation algorithms on recruiting new members to 
> WikiProjects, and
> (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention on engaging and 
> retaining Wikipedia newcomers.
> 
> In this study, we will recommend related editors to the organizers of 
> WikiProjects, and request them to approach and recruit the editors. We 
> will measure the actions and reactions of the organizers and editors 
> for evaluation. More details about our study can be found here on this 
> meta-page 
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:WikiProject_Recommendation>.
> 
> While planning the experimental design, we thought to gather more 
> thoughts and suggestions from the community since this study would 
> involve the efforts of some Wikipedians, so we wanted to open it up. 
> Also, if you know of existing work or study in this area, please let us know. 
> Thanks!
> 
> Sincerely,
> Bowen
> ___
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

[Jonathan Cardy]

Hi Bowen,

If you are going to promote wikiprojects by recommendation then you need to 
test different styles of recommendation. Taking what may still be the two 
biggest wikiprojects, MILHIST and professional wrestling, what worked as an 
invitation for either might be quite different than what would work for Opera 
or chemistry. Tone of voice is important when you are seeking to entice 
volunteers.

You also need to allow for the effect of different existing recruitment 
programs. These tend to be subtle, but they will vary, and that variation could 
mask your project. The most obvious recruitment is via wikiproject tagging of 
articles, and that isn't necessarily done by people who are active in the 
project concerned.

Regards

Jonathan


> On 20 Jun 2017, at 07:35, Bowen Yu  wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> We are preparing to conduct a study about WikiProject recommendations. The
> goals of our study are (1) to understand the effectiveness of different
> recommendation algorithms on recruiting new members to WikiProjects, and
> (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention on engaging and
> retaining Wikipedia newcomers.
> 
> In this study, we will recommend related editors to the organizers of
> WikiProjects, and request them to approach and recruit the editors. We will
> measure the actions and reactions of the organizers and editors for
> evaluation. More details about our study can be found here on this meta-page
> .
> 
> While planning the experimental design, we thought to gather more thoughts
> and suggestions from the community since this study would involve the
> efforts of some Wikipedians, so we wanted to open it up. Also, if you know
> of existing work or study in this area, please let us know. Thanks!
> 
> Sincerely,
> Bowen
> ___
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

[Kerry Raymond]

Looking at the list of WikiProjects you pointed at, they seem to be a mixture 
of what I would call "process" projects (e.g. Articles for Creation, Deletion 
Sorting) vs "content" projects (e.g. Military History, Television) vs a third 
group like "Women in Red" (which is part process, part content).

Generally the "content" projects will tag Talk pages with their WikiProject 
Banner. But "process" projects don't seem to always do this. For example, I 
don't think Women in Red has a project banner generally, although I think they 
do tag articles that arise from specific Edit-a-thons. Some of the process 
projects seem to use hidden categories for their work.

I would suggest only working with content projects initially. Content projects 
are more similar to one another in how they operate compared to process 
projects, and I think it is easier to judge if a user is showing an interest in 
a content project than in the process project because of standard use of 
content project banners on articles. So I think you can probably get a better 
understanding if the referral mechanism is working or not with content 
projects, whereas I think process projects have a lot of variability in them 
that may make it difficult to work out if you are seeing success or not. 

And at the end of the day, as an encyclopedia, we live or die on our content. 
Processes are (or at least should be) supportive of good content development 
but are a second-order effect.

I can certainly see some issues arising from pointing newcomers at process 
projects as they are unlikely to be aware of the processes at that stage. And 
indeed some process project do not accept new editors (think of Articles for 
Creation and new page patrolling). I'd see this as a second project if the 
content project referral mechanism seems to be working.

Anyhow, that my 10cc!

Kerry

Original Message-
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On 
Behalf Of Bowen Yu
Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2017 4:35 PM
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 

Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Research about WikiProject Recommendation

Hi all,

We are preparing to conduct a study about WikiProject recommendations. The 
goals of our study are (1) to understand the effectiveness of different 
recommendation algorithms on recruiting new members to WikiProjects, and
(2) to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention on engaging and 
retaining Wikipedia newcomers.

In this study, we will recommend related editors to the organizers of 
WikiProjects, and request them to approach and recruit the editors. We will 
measure the actions and reactions of the organizers and editors for evaluation. 
More details about our study can be found here on this meta-page 
.

While planning the experimental design, we thought to gather more thoughts and 
suggestions from the community since this study would involve the efforts of 
some Wikipedians, so we wanted to open it up. Also, if you know of existing 
work or study in this area, please let us know. Thanks!

Sincerely,
Bowen
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