Reader conversion

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Fewer than 1% of all readers contribute to the Wikimedia projects. This small group of individuals is predominately male, with advanced graduate degrees, between the ages of 18-30, and single. As such, several groups are under-represented in the community, including: women, subject-matter experts in specific fields, older adults, and those with less formal education.

Wikimedia's mission—which encourages the free sharing in the sum of all knowledge—appears to require that as many individuals as possible contribute what they know to the projects. The goal of this task force is to develop a strategy for converting readers into editors and to identify groups with a high potential to add value to the Wikimedia projects.

Analyses and data

Research:

• w:User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment.
• Wall Street Journal blog, with comments from former contributors regarding why they left

Analysis:

• Participants of Wikimedia projects
• Drivers of participation
• Attracting new participants and retaining existing participants
  • Barriers to increased participation
  • Under-represented groups among contributors
  • Ways that Wikimedia could attract new participants or retain existing participants
• Orientations of users

External research:

• "Wikipedia: A quantitative analysis." Jose Felipe Ortega Soto. 2009. http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/thesis-wkp-quantanalysis Might be helpful for examination of editors' "lifecycles"
• Wikimedia Foundation publishes counter arguments to the Ortega research
• "Readers are not Free-Riders: Reading as a Form of Participation on Wikipedia" Judd Antin and Coye Cheshire - File:Antin-Cheshire-Readers-are-Not-Free-Riders.pdf

Interviews:

• Interviews

Proposals on this topic

• Improving usability (e.g. Sticky notes)
• Volunteer support
• Outreach

Organizing proposals relevant to reader conversion

• Reader conversion/Proposal sorting