Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Editor Retention and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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WikiProject Editor Retention was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 22 April 2013.

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Tom Simonite (October 22, 2013). "The Decline of Wikipedia". MIT Technology Review. In July 2012, some editors started a page called WikiProject Editor Retention with the idea of creating a place to brainstorm ideas about helping newcomers and fostering a friendlier atmosphere. Today the most vibrant parts of that project's discussion page have gripes about "bullying done by administrators," debates over whether "Wikipedia has become a bloody madhouse," and disputes featuring accusations such as "You registered an account today just to have a go at me?"

Previous conversations about newbies, all in one place, so we can harvest ideas for solutions and not re-hash them

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Back on July 1, 2012, Dennis Brown said: "I'm seeing a lot of discussion in a lot of places regarding editor retention, but not a coordinated effort. This is that coordinated effort, a way for us to actually do something beside speak out in random venues."

Involve new editors to cite unsourced articles

I've just made a new proposal to depreciating new unsourced articles and I afraid that this might have a chilling effect to new editors who are looking to join Wikipedia, because this would set the standard for contributing Wikipedia even higher than it is now. How can we make sure that we would stop biting newcomers? Improved mentoring program for new editors? Ban generic/templated warnings asking people to cite sources? I don't know. Feel free to write about your wildest proposals for retaining new editors here, I'm all ears. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy ping: Sdkb, Clovermoss. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh, I've become courtesy ping worthy when it comes to brainstorming. :) You have no idea how excited this makes me. I'll probably have grander thoughts sometime later but the first thing that comes to mind is that we have a serious banner blindness problem when it comes to what people see when they actually click edit. This isn't really something the average wikipedian can control but I do remember seeing an interesting pilot project from someone involved with the WMF that would encourage people to cite sources when they added content. It had prompts that would exist while someone was actually editing. I remember seeing it and thinking it was a gamechanger, it was honestly really nice and something we should have had ages ago. I hope it's still in-the-works and that I can get to see it in action someday. :)

To get a bit more on track though, given that new editors typically edit in draftspace until they're autoconfirmed and these articles rarely get moved to mainspace by experienced AfC reviewers if they're completely unsourced... I'm not sure this will actually raise the bar that much for contributing to Wikipedia. I think something to be more concerned about from that angle is how there tends to be a backlog of thousands of drafts and new editors with potential aren't nessecarily getting quick or personalized feedback. Like many areas, we have the problem of a few volunteers trying to do what they can to make sure that these processes get by. When we're just focusing on getting by, it makes it a lot harder to thrive and go that extra mile, because it's easy for people who are involved in these processes to become burnt out. If we had better editor retention, this would be less of an issue because the overall workload would be more sustainable... so I think this does becomes somewhat of a vicious cycle. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 07:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This this this! Editors on wikipedia loves to assume that new editors would have done WP:Tutorials and read everything on the banners, when in reality nobody cares about them. I think one of the ways we can improve is to simplify these banners, such as {{AfC submission/draft}} and {{AfC submission/declined}}. That banner is so long that I just feel sorry for any new editors who have to face with this banner... Maybe we should make a checklist of requirements that an article have to achieve before it will not be deleted under AfD? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clovermoss Ok, I have an idea. What if we create an operation for teaching newcomers to cite articles, as part of the mentorship program at Wikipedia:Growth Team features? Maybe we could establish a program under WikiProject Editor Retention, in a similar minimalistic style like WP:FEB24, and encourage new editors to practice working on one aspect of editing Wikipedia. This month we might want to work on citing articles, the next month working on typo finding, etc. By doing so, we would merge all editor retention efforts to a single program, and new editor will have comrades to talk to and feel validated by experienced editors. What do you think about this? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this echo the sentiments at What is the main reason more people don't start editing Wikipedia?. People don't edit Wikipedia because it is a significant time investment. The more convenient we make for new editors to join in to our efforts, the better. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you're suggesting a "backlog of the month" idea, with a specific emphasis on welcoming newcomers to try these new things? I can see something like that being worth brainstorming as it can give people a sense of direction and guide people to areas where they can make a measurable difference to said backlogs. I remember when I was brand new, I was super excited to do things but it felt like everything was going into a void. It's part of the reason I like some of the new features that are being designed nowadays that show things like "your impact". But newbie me did come across the Wikipedia:Community portal and find people looking for help at Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss. There is also the Wikipedia:Task center which is a similar concept of "this is stuff you can do", but I wouldn't say it's that very well known.

As for banner blindness, I think it is worth considering if the editor made templates and whatnot can be simplified and still get the crucial pieces of information that people need to know across, even if it's not quite what I was thinking about last night. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, something else! I created a "newbie central" section on my talk page after my experience teaching newcomers at a Wikipedia Day event. It was a bit different trying to explain these things in person to people, but something that ended up being a focus was different stub templates that might be within that editor's field of interest. I'm a bit curious on what you think about that. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think most editors are quite familiar with banner blindness and how people don't like to read instructions. I think having more volunteer mentors as part of the growth team features initiative would be a good way to help more new editors to ramp up. But... the feedback I've seen is that there aren't many useful questions being asked of mentors, and little follow up. So at present it's not going to be a magic bullet to increase retention dramatically, though I see it as a needed base requirement to support other initiatives.

I think it's worthwhile trying to try to get people to work on specific tasks. Things to think about, though, is how to get people to know about the initiative, and how to attract them to participate. Banner blindness makes it tricky for projects to get attention. Talk page notices would likely work better, but current English Wikipedia culture means that delivering them by default is unlikely to get consensus, and getting a newcomer to signup for a newsletter may be hard. That being said, perhaps we could have a new editors newsletter that gets delivered monthly to those who do signup; it could have a brief tip of the month and pointers to editing ideas. That is something I might be interested in co-ordinating. On the encouraging participation front, I think it would be helpful to have one or more facilitators maintaining a page for each event, to be a hub for those participating, and perhaps maintaining an aggregated tally (I hesitate to have an explicit leaderboard, but there are pros and cons in favour of one).

For better or worse, editing an encyclopedia beyond typo fixing is a time-consuming activity. If I could get two concise points across to newcomers who already understand Wikipedia's mission, they would be the following: adding references to sources for any content you add will improve the likelihood of it being retained in the article, and every page has a corresponding talk page, which you should use to collaborate with other editors. (For those who don't understand Wikipedia's mission, the one key point would be that Wikipedia's content is determined by a consensus of everyone editing its pages, which may not correspond to what you think should be in Wikipedia.) isaacl (talk) 17:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the pilot project you're referencing, Clovermoss, is Reference Check, which is being developed as part of the larger mw:Edit check project. I share the view that that has by far the best potential to help with this issue. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 16:49, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Edit check does indeed seem to be what I was thinking of. Thanks for the links, Sdkb, it's appreciated. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Selling the Talk page

Above, User:Isaacl mentions, "...and every page has a corresponding talk page". Now we all know that every article has a talk page but my experience is that the general public (aka our readers) are unaware that they exist. Another thing I have found in defending WikiPedia in RL is that they, the public and maybe newbies, are also unaware "that Wikipedia's content (the article) is determined by a consensus of everyone editing its pages..." I tell anyone interested that many times the talk pages are more interesting than the article they discuss. Reading the talk pages provides a window into the construction, the etiquette of communicating toward a goal, and through the ebbs and flows of discussion and editing, an ever-changing article is put forth. It's the classroom, the hidden secret that needs to be "sold" to the public and to newbies. It's taken for granted that They Know. But maybe they don't. Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 03:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] This Aljazeera article is a good example] of what I mean. It is a very good descriptive recount of what happens. But there is no explanation that the discussions about the article happen on a page that is, in a way, separate and detached from the article. There is no mention of a "talk page". There is no mention that the editors are unpaid volunteers. When I first read it, it gave me the impression that editors were in a room somewhere negotiating terms on what should go and what should stay. We all know how important the talk pages are but as this article shows they seem to be our secret..... Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 03:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]