I agree that the shift to mobile is a big deal; I remain concerned that tech-centric approaches to editor engagement like VE and Flow, while perhaps having a modest positive impact, do little to fix the incivility problem that is so frequently cited as a reason for people to leave. Creating more efficient ways for people to communicate seems unlikely to alter the substance of the messages that are exchanged in a significant way. So I am thinking that culutural change is at least as important as Flow, VE, and Getting Started, and that cultural change should be resourced accordingly. The question I have is what WMF's role should be.
Pine On Sep 13, 2014 4:00 PM, "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote: > It’s always been possible to read or edit from a mobile phone or tablet > using the desktop interface, but I agree that the development of more > mobile friendly tools alters things, but still I would argue having some > “measurements” (if KPI is too biased a term) is useful to judge whether the > effort put into those tools is worth it for the return. Does adding > features alter the way Wikipedia is edited and is it for better or worse? > For example when the new mobile tool was released a little while ago, I saw > a lot of edits tagged “Mobile Edits” that were vandalising Wikipedia. > Fortunately it died down, but obviously if most of the edits coming from > mobile tools were vandalism, we might well ask if it is worth having. > > > > I often check my watchlist on my iPad and “knock off” the easy ones “ok, > ok, ugh vandalism revert, ok, ok, leave that one until I’m on my laptop, > ok, ok, ok” so it may be that people just reorganise their editing around > the device they are using in which case it might change what they do from > hour to hour but not over (say) a week. > > > > I think we have a range of metrics to pick from in terms of quantity of > activity (how many, how large, etc). What we probably need to complement > are some kinds of quality metrics. We could go with some easy ones (how > often an edit summary is left, how long is the edit summary), how often is > the activity a revert or a reverted edit, are the edits to mainspace, talk, > user, user talk, etc. But I think we do want to consider things like the > macroscopic “quality assessment” issues. > > > > Kerry > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: > wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Gerard > Meijssen > *Sent:* Sunday, 14 September 2014 3:23 AM > *To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities > *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] What works for increasing editor > engagement? > > > > Hoi, > > The problem with this approach is that as it is, the functionality for > editing on tablets and phones is not well developed at all. As a > consequence the results will not be that meaningful. > > > > It is only recently that it became possible to edit. So realistically > there are several important factors... The development of enabling > technology, the numbers of readers from a tablet / mobile. > > > > The personal argument of current editors that they prefer their computer > for complex stuff essentially makes the newbies on that other platform > second class citizens. The realisation that currently our technology > favours computer usage is not. The first is an argument that sounds like > "do not bother, it does not matter", the other leaves room for "we need to > work on improving the mobile/tablet experience". > > > > Arguably, calling things a KPI may mean a bias from the start. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > > On 13 September 2014 14:41, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote: > > It would be very interesting to know the size of edits done on mobile vs > desktop (it would be even better if we could distinguish between phones and > tablets because of the different form factors. I appreciate that we have > the problem of definition as a person on a phone can use the desktop > interface and vice versa, so there's a matrix of device and interface > potentially. > > > > when I say "size of edit", I would really prefer to know the size of the > delta, not the difference in the size of the article as reported in the > history. My personal hypothesis is that the smaller the form factor the > smaller the edits. As much as I love my ipad, it is no substitute for my > laptop for serious editing, most edits are harder and slower on the ipad > than my laptop, and it's a pain to,do citations on a mobile device. If my > hypothesis is correct, I am not personally convinced that the loss of a > desktop edit is compensated by the gain of a mobile edit, even it results > in the same total number of edits, I think the extent to which an article > is improved will be lower on mobile (on average). Not sure how we measure > that but KPIs like size of delta and addition of citations would be > something that might be interesting. Or, with enough data, we could use the > automatic assessment tool to look for articles that change assessment (as > measured by the tool) and look at the mobile vs desktop edit counts and > ratios etc. > > Sent from my iPad > > > On 11 Sep 2014, at 8:20 pm, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Hoi, > > The point of research is that it provides us with understanding that > indicates one way or the other the problems we face and, how we are > trending towards success or failure. > > > > Thanks to numbers we know the extend of the growth of our mobile readers > and editors. The trend is uncontroversial; it grows and it offsets the > readers and editors that are declining from computers. Simple research > shows that talk pages are unworkable on mobiles and tablets. > > > > Dear Pine, do you agree that such research exists, do you agree that I > fairly summarize the data that is available ? > > > > When you want more engagement by our public, ask yourself how can we use > our numbers and analyse what might point to things where we could / should > mobilise our community. Numbers that show clearly why it makes sense for us > to ask volunteers to volunteer. I give you one set of numbers we do not > have... The number of negative results from the searches in our Wikipedias > individually. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > > On 11 September 2014 08:00, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello research colleagues, > > When I look at the WMF Report Card, it appears to me that the global > active editor stats and the number of new accounts being registered per > month has been relatively flat since at least 2011. > > Those of you who work in EE research and analytics, I would like to ask if > there is a summary of techniques that you have found that do produce > statistically significant results in improving editor retention. I know > that some of you write tools, design projects, or pull and analyze data > about editors. It looks to me like WMF is investing significant effort in > research and tool creation, but we're not moving the needle to create the > results that we had hoped to achieve. So I'd like to ask what have we > learned from all of our time working on editor engagement about techniques > and programs that do improve the EE stats significant ways, so that we can > hopefully accelerate the implementation of programs and techniques that > have demonstrated success. > > > > I'd also like to ask what barriers you think prevent us from becoming more > effective at improving the number of users who register and the number of > active editors. For example, are users who go through GettingStarted often > being deterred by quickly being confronted by experienced editors in ways > that make the newbies want to leave? If that is a significant problem, how > do you suggest addressing this? > > One of my concerns about investing further in developing Flow, analytics > tools like like WIkimetrics, and further complex editor engagement research > projects, is that the most important challenges related to editor > engagement may be problems that can only be solved through primarily > interpersonal and social means rather than the use of software tools and > mass communications. I like Wikimetrics and I use it, and I think there's > an important place for analytics and tool development in EE work, but I > wonder if WMF should scale up the emphasis on grassroots social and > interpersonal efforts, particularly in the context of the 2015+ Strategic > Plan and Jimmy's speech at the 2014 Wikimania. What do you think,and if > your answer is yes, how do you think WMF can do this while respecting the > autonomy and social processes of the volunteer projects? > > Thanks, > > Pine > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > >
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